15 Work Days Left for Dominica; House closing scheduled in 10 days.

I was awoken this morning by my father yelling that there was someone on the phone who needed me whom he was unable to comprehend.  I had thought that my work this morning was scheduled to commence at eleven but it was actually at ten and I needed to get up and get to work.  You can see how I confused the time as the correct time was 10 on 10/11 but I thought that it was 11 on 10/11 which is exacerbated by the fact that one of the scheduled had it as 10 on 11/11.

I ended up only needing to work for about an hour right at that point.  That meant that dad and Dominica hadn’t quite left for Geneseo to get lunch yet and I was able to go along with them to the Omega Grill.  So we went to Geneseo at lunch time and after we ate went to Lakeville to the Benjamin Moore paint store so that Dominica could get paint chips so that she can do some decision making for the new house.

The plan is that dad and my aunt Sharon are going to be painting the upper floor of the new house in Peekskill over the first week that we own the house while Dominica and I are still living in Newark.  Dominica’s plan is to have aunt Sharon go over the colours with her to help her make a decision on the scheme.

We spent the afternoon just relaxing at dad’s house.  It was around two when we got back from our trip to Geneseo and we went down to the Richardson’s at five for the family baby shower.

The Ralstons went to the baby shower along with my Upstate New York family: dad, Sharon & Leo, Sara, Jeremy & Rachael and Jim & Shirley.  We had snacks and then Dominica opened presents while I took pictures.  I will be doing that a lot from now on, I expect.  Looking on and taking pictures.  It’s part of being the dad.  (With this round of pictures, we now have over 3,000 posted on Flickr – and I have hundreds of old pics yet to post from my archives and the bulk of our wedding pictures have not yet been digitized!)

We got a lot of really great stuff that we really need quite soon.  Now it really feels like there is a pending baby coming any day!  We have really shifted into “baby coming soon!” mode at this point.

We had dinner and hung out with the family and the Ralstons until pretty late – a little after ten.  We have been staying up way later than we should all weekend.  We drove back to dad’s house and dad and Dominica went to bed.

I drove up to Tim Horton’s on Jefferson Road near Marketplace and met Andy for coffee at eleven thirty.  We ended up hanging out there until about four in the morning.  It was about five when I finally got to bed!

On my drive this evening I finished reading “Getting Stoned with Savages” and started reading “Lost on Planet China” both by J. Maarten Troost.

My early morning support was canceled for this morning so I got to sleep in and relax for a little bit.  My boss decided that I was completely overworked this week and that I needed yesterday and today off from the extra hours but we couldn’t find someone to cover for me yesterday.

This morning I loaded up the iPod with tons of awesome 80s music to keep Min and I awake as we drive up to her parents’ house in Frankfort.  Hopefully traffic won’t be bad tonight.  It is not a holiday weekend so we are hopeful that it won’t be bad at all.

Dominica went into the office today thinking that she and the rest of the office were surprising her coworker on her last day before maturnity leave with a baby shower just to discover that they had all conspired against her to throw her a surprise baby shower as well!  So they had a double baby shower today and we received our very first baby presents.  They also have two cakes!

For lunch some of the guys went to Financier Patisserie down on Stone.  We sat out in the cafe and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.  The humidity that has been killing us has lifted for the most part and it is pretty nice outside.  I sure hope that it is nice for the weekend of camping.  It does not seem very likely.

The current weather projections for the weekend in Watkins Glen are that it will be quite hot tomorrow – a high of ninety-one degrees and pretty much straight sun.  Sunday we are looking at thunderstorms and hot with a high of eighty-five.  Then not so bad on Monday although we will be pretty tired of the weather by Monday, I’m sure.  As it is, last weekend was the first time – ever – that I have managed to go camping without it raining.  I love rain but not when I am in a tent and the humidity and heat and through the roof and everything that you are sleeping on is damp and you keep tracking mud and water into the tent no matter what you do.  Just imagine what a problem it is going to be having Oreo sleeping with us when his feet get all muddy.

Water is also going to cause problems with our electricals.  We are going to have to be very careful having the CPAP plugged in all night long.  I really hope that we manage to avoid the rain!  My track record does not indicate that we will.

I left Wall Street at six in the evening.  I’m posting as I walk out to be sure that this goes up before Monday.  I don’t know how much access that I will have over the weekend.  The plan is that I will be online all weekend but we have no idea before we get there.