Monday, December 11, 2006

Birthday weekend

After luxuriously sleeping in until 9:45 Fri morning, I had my shower and got busy with the necessary tasks before leaving for the beach: paying bills, making the bed, sprucing up the bathroom, emptying the trash, changing the kitty litter, folding and putting away laundry, and making a few phone calls. I had a brief lunch and left for the beach at 1:20.

When I arrived at 3:45 Joe was home; he'd worked thru lunch so he could come home early. When I walked in the door my eyes immediately zoomed over to the large vase of gorgeous, lip stick pink roses on the counter, obviously, for my birthday. The color of these roses is so unusual, they really do look like the same color as medium pink waxy lip stick!

We hopped in the car and discussed real estate as we drove past the houses on our list, but it soon got dark so we went back to the house for a while, then changed clothes and went to dinner at Fish On.

I had a fabulous Stoli sangria martini that tasted like liquid apple pie. Then I had a salad of mixed field greens in champagne vinaigrette with goat cheese, and Joe had scallop and lobster dumplings. For dinner I had the cajun penne, which had several huge shrimp, lumps of crab meat, and andouille sausage in a zesty cajun cream sauce. Dee-lish! Joe had a steak with truffle and herb french fries. Unfortunately we had no room for their fantastic desserts. In fact, I even took home 1/2 of my entree to enjoy the next day. Over dinner we talked about the realization of the fact that we are actually going to be living together at the beach soon, which I considered my birthday present.

After dinner we stopped by the video store and picked up 'Strangers With Candy', and then took a drive through historic Lewes to see all the Christmas lights and decorations. It really was beautiful. Those 100 and 200 year old houses dressed up in lights, garlands, and bows really made me hope that we get to live in downtown/historic Lewes. Quite lovely. Then we went home and watched the DVD and then went to bed.

Sat after breakfast we stopped at the most fabulous dollar store ever and picked up some Christmas tins and baskets. Since we were sure that we will still have our VA house at Christmas, I decided I will bake goodies for my neighbors again this year, so the tins and baskets will be nice to deliver the goodies in.

At 1:00 we left for Dover, which is about 45 minutes from Lewes. Our friends George & Steve (former Washingtonians) invited us to their tree trimming party. We met many nice folks and really enjoyed helping decorate their trees. They had a 6-foot artificial tree in the living room window, which can be seen from the street, and a cut tree in their family room that must be 10 or 12 feet tall. Fortunately their family room has a vaulted ceiling!

We left George & Steve's just after 5:00 and stopped at a store for a little Christmas shopping; picked up 2 gifts there. Once home we had about 45 minutes to relax, take the dog out for a walk, change clothes, and leave for an art show/sale.

I had never been to an art show/sale before, but I imagined it to be like the art gallery openings that Charlotte was always inviting the girls to on the show 'Sex and the City'. People dressed in smart evening wear, nibbling on petit fors and drinking champagne as they viewed the latest up-and-coming artist's collection. This calls for something more stylish than khakis and a pull-over, I decided! So I convinced Joe to wear black slacks and a silvery/grey shirt with embroidery on it. I wore black slacks, a pink and grey on white paisley shirt and a black leather sport jacket. We didn't know the artist nor had we been invited, per se, to this event. But the artist is a client of the same personal trainer that Joe goes to, so the trainer invited some of his other clients too. In reality, it was a private showing and sale of the artists work. The people weren't dressed as smartly as the New Yorkers at Charlotte's gallery, but they weren't wearing khakis either.

The artist is Richard Clifton, and he does wildlife paintings. In fact, one of his painting is or will be on a US postage stamp, for which we understand he will be highly compensated. Although the wildlife paintings aren't really our style, we still appreciated the skill and terrific use of color in his work. Oh, and did I mention the free food and drink? We only stayed a little over an hour, since we didn't know anyone there besides Rick and Nick. But it was kind of fun to be at the art show/sale in nice clothes.

We got a message from our VA realtor that the people interested in our house were willing to accept our suggestion of a pushed-back occupancy date of Jan 15. However, at the time they still had not submitted an application, and they asked our agent if we might accept $100. less per month. Our realtor told us that she was showing the house to 2 more parties on Sun, and when I called into the home answering machine there were 2 messages from agents showing the house on Sat, so we decided to wait until Mon to make a decision.

Since we technically did not have a signed tenant yet, we cancelled the Sun morning appointment with our DE realtor and instead went out to breakfast. We went to a restaurant called the Rookery at a golf club, since we'd heard from Rick that they have a very nice and reasonably priced breakfast buffet. Indeed, it was all you care to eat for $6.50. The blueberry pancakes were especially tasty!

Sun was very sunny and warm, probably close to 60 degrees. We went for a walk on the Rehoboth boardwalk, then walked up and down some of the streets. It felt good to get some exercise. Then we drove into Lewes to drop off Joe's recycling, and then parked and walked up and down a bunch of streets in Lewes. We stopped in a cafe for a drink, then walked to Block House Pond, which has a paved pedestrian path around it, then walked up and down a few more streets before returning to the car. I guestimate that we walked a good 5 or 6 miles. But the weather was so pleasant and we had plenty to talk about, so the time went by quickly.

We had an early dinner at Bona pizza, then went back to the house so I could pack my things. I left at 6:20 and got home at 8:50.

Today while I was at work I got a call from our VA realtor. We had 2 applications for our house! The first is from the couple we'd known about and had been expecting their application. The second, which is the one we accepted, was for full price, with a Feb 15 occupancy date, and the potential for a 2 year lease. So our house is officially rented, and we have until mid-Feb to buy a house in DE and move. I'm excited!!!

Drag Queen name of the day: Patty Melt

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