Sheep Guarding Llama

It is Sunday and from what I can estimate today is going to be my final day alone at home. The family has been on the road all day today, they left Florida late last night and are driving all day today.

Today is my day to actually relax after working a lot yesterday. Yesterday was exhausting and stressful. So I decided to do very little today. I sat down and finally settled in to watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which I watched for a while when it first aired but I stopped watching probably around 1994 which was early in the DS9 run. I didn’t have television when I went to college so I missed a lot of things during that era. I keep hearing from people that it was a better show than what I remember it being and worth watching again. I tried watching it with Dominica a while ago but she was not really interested in watching it then so we pushed it off. So I am watching it on my own now.

I made it through more than half of the first season of DS9 today. While I watched it I put in a ton of work cleaning the living room. This was a lot of work because it has been being used as storage so it took a lot of work to get it cleaned up. I also, finally, set up our stereo in the living room. We have been avoiding doing that because we kept thinking that we were going to only do that in the basement but we have not made any progress at all in regards to getting our theatre set up down there so I resorted to at least having the stereo in the living room. Partially this was to clean up the living room some because the receiver that we will have, the Marantz, and the Totem speakers have been sitting around since we moved in to Peekskill and that doesn’t look very good while not providing us any usage.

I spent much of the day in the living room but it was looking pretty good by the end of the day. While going through boxes cleaning I came across some of the girls’ BluRays that Dominica has been looking for like Finding Nemo, Cinderella and Peter Pan.

This evening I decided to watch some movies. I watched Hot Tub Time Machine which I have not watched in a few years and have only ever seen once. Then I watched Super Troopers which I have surprisingly never seen.

While I was watching the movies I did a load of laundry and then it was time to get off to sleep.

I had to be up early this morning so that I could work.  I got up at about a quarter till seven and went straight down to the basement and got back to work starting just before seven.  It ended up being a hellacious morning.  (Note, Chrome doesn’t know the word hellacious.)  Work was terrible.  Everything went wrong so I was scrambling all morning to get things working.  It was much worse because I had a firm deadline at noon because I needed to go pick up the Toccos at the airport in Brooklyn.

I was watching Facebook all morning and saw that Dominica, Francesca and the kids all got to Disney World super early this morning and were ready for rope drop.  They managed to keep the trip a surprise and it took Liesl a little while to figure out that they were in Disney World.  Their plan is to be there all day, from opening until closing, and then drive north to find a hotel outside of the Orlando tourist area.

So my entire morning was nearly five and quarter hours of continuous work, going as fast as possible trying to get everything done and fixed before I had to leave.  That wasn’t possible and I had to turn things over to someone to handle while I was gone.  I didn’t have time to take a shower or anything.  Not a fun morning.

I left just after noon and hit some traffic getting down to JFK in Brooklyn but that was okay because I had left time for that and managed to get to the airport and pull up to the passenger pickup zone just as Dominica’s parents had come outside.  So none of us had to do any waiting.

I drove the Toccos back to our house and they were right into their car and off home.  They were exhausted from all of the travel and ready to get home and get naps in.  I went right back down to the basement and picked up where I had left off, more or less, and worked for another few hours.

The kids got to ride the brand new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride that just opened in Fantasyland, except Luciana as she is too small.  Everyone was really excited about that.  You don’t really get to do new rides very often.  Luciana got to ride the Barnstormer and really loved that.  She had been too small for that the last time that we were in Florida back in November.

Once worked finally wrapped up I was pretty worn out and took some time to relax.  It was mid-afternoon already.  I watched a couple movies and called it a night.

Today is Friday.   Work was very normal today.  I am still home alone without the family.  So I got in around nine and left the office slightly early, around five thirty, but only so that I could get home and switch to working from there as I had to work all evening.  So I ran home between five thirty and six thirty and immediately got back online down in the basement with my laptop and got to work.  I ended up working all evening and was not done until after eleven which was pretty late since I need to start working tomorrow morning at seven in the morning.  So a short night for me.  I got done with work and it was straight to bed.

Cool, drizzly morning.  I got in just after nine this morning and worked a good, solid day not going home until after seven which got me home close to eight thirty.  A longish day but there is no one at home.

Today was one of my more quiet days.  Went down to the basement again and spent the evening on the computer down there.

I had to be up quite early this morning so that I could get on the road and get the Spark into the dealership. It desperately needed an oil change and it was time to get the New York State inspection so that we can register it in New York now that that is its home. Thankfully registration in NY is actually a cost savings for us because of the vastly lower insurance costs outside of Texas.

Last night I finished reading “Eleven on Top” and today I started reading “Twelve Sharp”, the twelfth Stephanie Plum novel. Ten and Eleven were better than several of the preceding novels. Some of the boring tropes have been dropped and the writing quality is improving.

I needed to have the car worked on while I waited, that meant that I needed to be there first thing in the morning. The shop opens at eight but they allow the cars in at seven thirty so I had to be there by then. I actually did really well this morning at was at the dealership in Mt. Kisco by ten after seven! A bit earlier than I had intended but it was good that I was so early because I was only the first car of the day by a few minutes. Five to ten minutes tops before another car was there and by the time that the doors opened there were four cars in the queue.

I got the car in and had a minimum of an hour and a half to kill. So I took my backpack and set off for a .9 mile walk, slightly uphill, to The Bedford Diner, which is the only dinner in the area, up in Bedford Hills. It was a nice walk and good exercise.

The dinner was very nice. I got Eggs Benedict but with smoked salmon instead of back bacon which was delicious. I had some coffee and hung out there for a while. I had thought ahead to bring my Kindle with me and was able to sit and relax and read a bit of “A House Like a Lots” while I was there.

I walked back to the dealership but the car was not ready yet. So I sat on the bench out of Route 117 and enjoyed the nice weather while catching up on emails and postings.

The car was completed around ten thirty. A long morning but desperately needed. The oil is now changed (this has to be done at a dealer because no one stocks or can get the oil filter for my odd car) and I have a New York State Inspection completed. The windshield washer fluid is working again now too, turns out that that was only a fuse. Had the other dealership that I used in the winter not been so lazy, they could have just replaced that months ago. The car has a semi-recall for an air conditioner thing but the dealership did not have the parts so I am to call them on Monday or Tuesday to see if they have come in and then take the car in for service.

It was just after eleven when I finally got into the office.

I got to head home at a good time tonight. Sadly, there is no one at home to get home to, though. Another lonely night for me. The car is driving great, very happy that it got its oil changed.

For the first time since the family left, I decided to not just camp out in the bedroom and went down to the basement instead. Five days of being alone now. The house gets so dark and quiet at night, really catches me by surprise.