Long Weekend

I had a 3-day weekend, but not because of the holiday. Yup, I have to work Memorial Day. Stinks, but I do get to take the holiday whenever I want. We call it a ‘floating’ holiday. They do come in handy sometimes.

I swear, I will update the garden blog later today, but I have to find time to edit the pictures. I keep thinking that by the time I get around to that the veggies in the pictures will be grown, harvested, and eaten! I hope to get to it tonight. But, we RAN this weekend. No extra time to do much of anything that didn’t absolutely NEED doing.

Friday, I had off. We had one of those wonderful early morning phonecalls that you know is bad news and, yup, Matt’s uncle died Thursday night of a massive heart attack. This is the same uncle that fell down the stairs a year and a half ago, and since he’d recovered from that he’d taken to treating himself like crap, ignoring the diabetes, gaining all the weight back, and drinking hard liquor practically by the case. So it wasn’t exactly unexpected, but still. He also leaves a mess with 5 ex wives, children by those wives, and no will. One of the sons has already pretty much cleaned the house out. Stay tuned.

I liked him. He was a bit raw, don’t get me wrong, but he was what you saw and was unapologetic about it. You have to admire that. He was well-traveled and appreciated the finer things in life, good food and wine, etc, and went out the way he wanted to: after a great meal and good drink.

I filled the car up with gas, drove by the dentist and paid the $1 that my insurance wouldn’t pay from my last checkup and cleaning. The office manager at the dentist and I had a good laugh over that: $1.

I took my dad to breakfast, where he talked motors, lawn mowers, and carburetors. Oh, and my new cousin. It seems that my uncle who died in 1981 had a daughter that has been trying to find his family for years, and finally she did. She’s 29, lives in the New Orleans area, and dad has been corresponding with her, sending her pictures of her dad, etc. She also sent pictures of herself and her family. It is very interesting to look at her pictures. It’s like looking at me, but it isn’t me. There is a TV show Matt and I like called Dead Like Me where these ‘ghosts’ go around helping people through passing into the next (whatever it is we go to when we die). The main character keeps going back to see her family, but when she’s within sight of her family they use a different actress to play the character (to represent that the family doesn’t recognize her as their dead daughter). She looks similar to the main actress, but not quite. That’s how it is to look at my ‘new’ cousin: very similar, but not quite. It is really strange.

Anyway, we did that. I hung out with mom and dad for a bit and talked, then went to get my hair cut. MUCH needed haircut, it’s been about 3 months. Turned out nice, too. The salon is in the outlet shops here in town, so I also went to Dress Barn to see if I could find a nice top to go with my black pants or skirt for the funeral/memorial. I did, but I didn’t want to pay $35 for it. I’ll manage with something else.

We went to our favorite Asian/sushi restaurant for dinner to check out how it is after its new management took over. Very nice! We were really pleased. Then, grocery shopping.

Saturday, we met Barbara from Virginia for breakfast, she was up to go to her son’s wedding (which was going to be big, fat, and Greek). It was a really nice visit. Then, we went to a winery to meet some total strangers to drink wine with.

Let me explain. Matt and I decided we needed more socialization. We were becoming like Max. He doesn’t know he’s a dog, he thinks he’s a person, and he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t quite act like we do. He hasn’t been socialized with other dogs to know how to act with dogs, either, so he’s sort of in his own in-between world. Well, Matt and I need to be a bit more socialized with people, because we don’t know we’re people and we don’t understand why we don’t quite act like other people. We don’t think we’re dogs, though, don’t worry! So, we joined up with a local fun-times group through Meetup.com. They go on hikes, they go on bike rides, they go to wineries, they go to brewfests, they have get-togethers at people’s houses, sporting events, etc. You go to what you want to and don’t go to the rest.

This was our first Meetup. We had a great time! It is a new winery called Serpent Ridge, south of Westminster, MD. They only have 5 wines right now, all dry. I don’t particularly like dry wines, but these were really good! We got one bottle and will probably keep an eye on them as they grow. Very nice. And the group was nice, too! I think there were maybe 14 people there (the group itself has over 300 people), most of them we liked. A few were much more interested in subtly explaining to us how much money they had. The rest were wonderful. Our next Meetup will be kayaking and picnicking sometime in July and we’re really looking forward to that. New Meetups are posted all the time, so we might go to some of those, too.

After that, we went home and cooked up the crab legs we’d gotten. I think that it has been almost a year since we’d had a crab leg feast. It was lovely. Later, margaritas enjoyed while we burned up some hemlock branches and watched the stars come out.

Sunday was a work day. Garden and garage. Both will be explained more fully in the other blog. Also, I made Rustic Rhubarb Tarts and they were wonderful. I really couldn’t taste the vanilla in the compote, but they were still good. Also, the pressure tank for the well died, so we had to run and get another one, which Matt will install sometime today.