“One home sold, agreement reached on another”
The week was mostly spent getting ready to exit our home in McKinney. Diana worked feverishly for many hours over many days to get everything ready. The final packing and most of the loading was completed on Friday, with just our bed, couch and a few essentials remaining for Saturday load.
We signed the final closing papers on Friday afternoon.
I was able to work in a final trip to the dentist and haircut at the Boardroom earlier in the week.
We had an exciting event on Thursday evening. Finn brought Holly over to meet us for dinner. We found her very interesting, intelligent and calm, and are very happy he has someone for company when we move away. I picked up dinner from Zin Zen as we were without most of our kitchen supplies.
As we were finishing up the final clean of the house, Diana noticed drips from the clothes washer water hoses. They were not shut off and/or draining properly. A quick trip to Home Depot for caps with washers, and the problem was solved.
Diana said a final “Goodbye pool” and “Be good Stanley”, and we were off.
As we checked into the Canvas hotel in south downtown Dallas, Diana got a call from Jennifer in New Orleans, telling us that the sellers had accepted our counter offer around what to pay for in repairs. Woo hoo – we have a place to go when we finish vacation.
We were exhausted on arrival at the Canvas and nixed our plan of going out for a final Oakcliff dinner, opting for the hotel restaurant instead.
Will and the family gave us a gift card to the fancy new Miami restaurant that has opened in Dallas – Komodo. We made a brunch reservation and I was a bit nervous – they kept sending me new rules about dress code, how long you could keep the table and so on. The experience was good – they seemed to have an “old folks section.” The music was quieter and it was out of the way of all the hustle and excitement. This was totally fine with us.
Here are some of the things we sampled – all very good.
Lobster dynamite:
Money bags with gold leaf:
Dynamite crab cake benedict:
We checked into the DFW airport hotel after brunch and prepared for our Triangle Trip early the next morning. Another busy week.
I relaxed with a couple of interesting sports documentaries this week. Johnny Football was a really good film about Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M Heisman winner, who unfortunately came of the rails in the NFL.
The second was about the British cyclist Mark Cavendish, at one time the world’s best sprinter, and again tells the story of a rollercoaster of a career. I particularly enjoyed this one.
I got sucked into the time sink vortex of the New York Times Spelling Bee this week. The goal is to find as many words as possible from seven letters. They have to include the center letter, and you struggle away throughout the day to get to “genius” level.
My first book this week was “The Celebrants” by Steven Rowley. I enjoyed this read, just not quite as much as the reviewers I read did. Creative premise, well executed, humorous at times, but just not jumping off the page for me.
Here’s the Goodreads online review:
“A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.
It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.
But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.
A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.”
My next book is a classic that I’ve started a few times and never finished. I had to finish by Saturday morning this time, so that I could drop it back at the McKinney library before departing. “The Great Gatsby” was a very entertaining and quickly paced story. Again, not the wonderful classic in my mind that so many folks make it out to be. Many top ten lists I see from readers, have this at number one. Fitzgerald has a few interesting plot twists and some fascinating characters – I’ll give all those reviewers that. It just seems a bit light weight, lacking in the depth of a true classic.
Here’s a new to me song that I enjoyed this week. The Barr Bothers are a folk quartet from Montreal:
Something from the wonderful guitarist, Julian Lage:
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion for all!