Greetings from the Double R Diner

My excitement for Saturday was getting a Massachusetts driver's license, though at the moment I only have a temporary one since they mail the Real IDs. We were hoping to change the car registration too, but they only do that on weekdays, so we'll have to go back for that. It was a gorgeous day, nearly 50 degrees and sunny, so we also managed a walk in between trying to figure out which boxes meant to be in the bedroom ended up in the living room, the basement, or the garage. 

We watched the first couple of episodes of the new season of The Night Agent, which is a little convoluted and they may just have fridged my favorite character. Now we're watching Connor Storrie on SNL (loved seeing the Olympic hockey players, that was a nice shift in the conversation). I'm sure you're sick of my snow and home pics, so here are a few of Double R Diner a.k.a. Twede's Cafe in Twin Peaks a.k.a. North Bend (and yes, I meant to post this on February 24th but I was a little distracted):

Greetings from a Nor'easter

There were various places we had thought about going on Sunday, but when we woke up, we realized the one thing we had forgotten yesterday in all our pre-blizzard shopping: a snow shovel, which we really needed so we could get the two feet of snow on our deck cleared before two more feet fell and potentially put too much weight on the wood. We also realized that, although we have a private garage for the first time in our adult lives, we should get an ice scraper for the car, and listening to the dire warnings on the radio about potential power outages, we also picked up a couple of books and card games at B&N in case our Kindles can't be recharged in a timely manner. Hopefully we have enough candles! 

The US men's hockey team were picking up their medals before we got home, which I wouldn't care about at all but I'm happy the Jewish player from New Jersey scored the winning goal. I shoveled the entire deck myself (I needed the exercise), then cut up the box the cat tree came in to make a cardboard cat house while watching the closing ceremonies live. I also did all the laundry just in case we have power or water issues from the storm -- at present we have flakes falling but not much accumulation, that's supposed to be tomorrow along with wind and colder temperatures. We watched Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere which is educational but feels long and grim; I wish it had been 45 minutes of a happier movie.

Greetings from New Hampshire

Worcester is supposed to get two feet or so of snow on Sunday, so we spent most of Saturday elsewhere while we could! We drove to Adam and Haley's new house in Fitchburg in the morning, getting a tour from them and Pepper before driving them to Parker's Maple Barn in New Hampshire, where Hildy and Tom took us all out to brunch. We walked to the shop on the property (crafts, kids' books, jewelry, regional kitsch, sasquatch, locally made magic wands, and lots and lots of maple syrup) and admired the historic farm equipment in the snow.

We drove to the outdoor-and-clothing store Evans on the Common on the way back to Fitchburg, where we briefly visited Hildy and Tom's house, then took Adam and Haley home to Pepper. We then stopped at Walgreens, Target, Shaw's, and the gas station on the way home to pick up everything from nail repair to bottled water to a stove pot to matches and batteries in anticipation of blizzard conditions and potential power issues; at least we have a gas stove here. Now we're belatedly watching the figure skating gala at the Olympics.

Greetings from Holden

Our car arrived from Seattle at 6 a.m., so we had an early morning, but now the RAV4 lives here too! We took it later in the morning to try The Bagel Inn in Holden (pretty good sesame bagels, not quite New York level but similar to Blazing Bagels) and to stop at Shaw's for some groceries because of the great and terrible snow forecast. That arrived in the afternoon, and we ended up getting over three inches, which was lovely to watch falling. 

We did some computer work while watching the men's halfpipe and the US hockey victory, with cats who decided to snuggle us, probably to keep warm. I also built them a new little stand for upstairs and we're trying to move the litterbox down the basement. Since the evening Olympic coverage reran what was earlier, we watched Blue Moon, which made up nonsense about Lorenz Hart being a lot less gay than he really was, but had fabulous music and performances. 

Greetings for the Year of the Horse

My hands were recovered enough to build a new cat tree while Paul was working and the cats were hiding under the covers because two men were in the house installing a radon mitigation system, which required some hammering, some drilling, and some jackhammering into the concrete in the garage, all of which made for very unhappy kittens. 

We watched Alysa Liu win the gold medal while they were finishing, at which point the cats appeared to test the cat tree. We ordered King Chef to celebrate the lunar new year and ate some excellent vegan sesame chicken, orange chicken, and kung pao. Then we watched this week's shippy Starfleet Academy, I went on chat, and we saw The Pitt.

Greetings from the Snow

Another quick post because two of my fingers are very sore -- one from the Effie Attack yesterday when her claw went deep into my hand, the other from putting together eight pieces of furniture that required Allen wrenches at unnatural angles. Now you know what took up most of my day, though I did get on chat with my high school friends in the morning and watch most of an episode of Rings of Power with Kristen and Laurie in the afternoon. It was my Paul's father's birthday, so we talked to him and my brother-in-law David, too. 

We took a quick walk to see the snow covering the neighborhood while a bit more was considering falling, though it was above freezing so we just got a bit of rain. At our new little kitchen table, we ate Pokemon SpaghettiOs with Pokemon Hershey kisses for dinner like grownups. The cats are very happy about having furniture, though what's in the living room currently will move onto the deck when our actual living room furniture arrives. Now we are finally, belatedly watching the women's short program at the Olympics.

Greetings from Boston

Quick post after a full day of traveling, which was very stressful for Katniss and Effie and therefore stressful for me, starting with a 4:15 a.m. wakeup to get out of the hotel by 5 and to the airport so the cats could be taken out of their carriers in a security room. They were then stuck in their carriers for several hours, and while we expected Katniss (who boycotted her breakfast and thus did not get her Gabapentin) to complain, Effie meowed in aggravation for a full hour of the flight. 

We arrived in Boston half an hour early, picked up a rental car, and nearly had a crisis when the suitcase with Effie's carrier sitting on top of it fell over; fortunately she seems fine (at least, she's eating everything in sight and not being nearly as nervous a cat as last night). After driving to Worcester, we had The Halal Guys deliver hummus and falafel for dinner and had cats whining for extra treats. Now we're catching up on Olympics pairs skating and women's ski jumping and slalom.

Greetings from Redmond

The packers from the moving company came on Thursday to pack the things we couldn't -- photos and mirrors, TVs and glass candlesticks, dishes and mugs, and an unholy number of collectibles. I spent the day packing linens, sweatshirts, shoes, and sorting everything in the bathroom (pack myself because it's new/unbreakable, have the movers pack it because it's not sealed well enough, toss it, ask my neighbor if she wants it). We watched yesterday's Twilight eposode of The Masked Singer on the computer.

We had no TV from early on, so we missed pretty much the whole day at the Olympics (what a shock, a French judge rigged the scores so French ice dancers could win, this has never happened before except in 2002). We're watching Starfleet Academy on a tablet now. But our neighbors with the baby got us pizza, so our day was not nearly as difficult as that of our cats, who spent most of it hiding under our bed (they even ate lunch there, though I'm glad they ate) and are now climbing the upside-down couch: