And the big, huge, unbelievable news of the day is… Eric closed on his house today. Yes, the house in Livonia is actually Eric’s now. (Now if I can just close on my own house, maybe we can get somewhere.)
It was weird staying at the Wellesley Inn Rochester South again. I have stayed there once or twice since I moved out of Rocehster but it always feels strange to me. But to make things even stranger, Tom Masseth (Andy, Phil and my old boss) was there. Tom left the company within a month of when Andy and I left in February of 2000. I haven’t seen Tom since then and never expected to see him again. It was really weird that he was standing behind the counter visiting at the moment that I was walking past. We both did a pretty major double take. Esther was working the desk and LeRoy was managing. DeLane was even running the housekeeping staff. Not one thing has changed since I left there three and a half years ago. It was quite eerie. Tom, I gather, is working part time at Rochester North now but is seldom at Rochester South and was just visiting when I happened to walk by. Tom working for Royal Ahold (they own Tops Friendly Markets) in sales and has been there pretty much since 2000.
John and I got up at a decent hour this morning and immediately hit the road to drive out to Syracuse to pick up my car from Roger Burdick Mazda out there. The drive was nice, John is renting a 2003 Ford Ranger Crew Cab, and picking up the car was painless. I got my entire rear brake system replaced under warranty – which is extra cool because I only have about 10,000 miles left on my warranty so my brakes will probably last me a really long time.
Dominica started her real estate class today. She had to be there bright and early this morning because they started at 7:30am to give them a chance to get paperwork done before the real classwork begins at 8:00. Dominica didn’t think much of her instructor today. He wasted a lot of time and didn’t cover the necessary material. Min was lucky enough to manage to meet John and I for lunch, though, to give her a break from the day. She accidentally left her cell phone at Phil and Kate’s last night so Phil called me while I was on my way back from Syracuse and told me that it was there. I knew that Min didn’t know her way around Rochester very well and didn’t have any other means of communicatins so I figured that she was in a bit of a panick. So I drove straight from ‘Cuse to Phil and Kate’s (Happy Anniversary BTW – For those of you who don’t know, Min and I first met at Phil and Kate’s wedding two years ago today!!) and picked up the phone and drove back to the Wellesley Inn with it. I checked the parking lot for Dominica’s car (her class is at 103 White Spruce which is the same parking lot as the Wellesley) and found it and so I ran into the Wellesley and left the phone with Esther at the front desk and than ran over to leave a not on Min’s car to let her know that the phone could be picked up at the front desk. But, as luck would have it, in the two minutes that I was away, Min had gotten out of her class, gotten in her car and headed off for Phil’s house. So I called Phil to warn him and I took off to try to cut her off. I managed to catch up to her right at the corner of West Henrietta and Crittenden and flagged her down. So, she managed to get lunch with me after that.
After lunch, John and I went to the UofR Strong Hospital to work with Eric for the rest of the day. After work, we all met with UofR’s Director of Facilities and went out to dinner at Bazil’s across from the Wellesley (Bazils used to be called Fresnos and is the first bar that John and I ever went out drinking at back in the terrible winter of 1998/1999.) Dinner was good and Min was glad to be able to get away from Real Estate for a little while. After dinner, she drove north to Greece to spend the night at Josh and Joanna’s. Eric and I called it an early night too, Eric headed home and I headed to the hotel around 9:00. I watched some “Whose Line Is It Anyway” and “Three’s Company” and then went to bed. John got in around midnight. I have been enjoying “Three’s Company” a lot more recently ever since I watched Joyce Dewitt’s special on how horrible and nasty and unprofessional Suzanne Somers was. Which migh explain why I always disliked her so much. I always thought that I didn’t like her because she was dumb and ugly but it turns out that (or supposedly at least) that she was a really nasty person and that always did seem to come through, at least a little bit. But now, it seems like I can see “Three’s Company” in a different way and appreciate it from a different perspective.