Day 89: Lights, Cameras; Firstie’s Coming Home!

The pendant lights were installed today, and so were the outside sconces. Also installed were the cameras and the new television. Oh man oh man. When the dimmers are put on this will look SO great but it looks pretty darned good now:

On the left: Standing at the end of the island, taking the photo to the television over the fireplace. On the right: The platform is completely lit. Those pendants are bright!

We’ll start moving into the kitchen tomorrow. It’s still not going to be 100%; the range won’t have fuel and the big sinks won’t be connected. But we’ll have coffee and refrigeration, and a television for watching football on Thursday.

Firstborn is just now out of his last class, and will be catching an 8ish plane out of Tampa. Mr. FB and I are so excited to see him! Maybe if I go to JFK now, and sit at the gate and stare really hard, he’ll come home sooner.

Friend of the Week: Michael B. of salmon fame, who sent me some amazing birthday gifts: Lookity:

Yep, Graeter’s Ice Cream, all the way from Ohio! How wonderful is this? It’s one of those things I miss all the time, and one of the first things I do when I go back to visit.

When I lived in California, a family moved there who’d also come from Cincinnati. The Wife/Mom/Biggest girl in the family and I were born about 3 weeks apart. We picked the day dead-center in the middle of those two dates and ordered Graeter’s Ice Cream, and ate it ALL. Expensive, caloric, worth it. It didn’t occur to us not to do it.

For Cincinnatians, Graeter’s is just part of life. The shops were old fashioned ice cream parlors that served egg creams, phosphates, sundaes (everyone loved the Turtle Sundaes), shakes and malts plain old ice creams and sherbets.  My favorites back then were Coconut, and the Peppermint Stick ice cream they always had for the holidays.  But those chip flavors are something to sing about — not really chips, chunks.  When we moved back to Columbus, our friends Clay and Maury had a few years earlier started their Graeter’s stores, and we were in heaven again. And when they came to your house to visit,t hey always brought some. Pure bliss.

For anyone who’s never had it, I feel a little sad for you. And for anyone who tries to take this particular shipment out of my hands before I’m finished with it, you’ve been warned. >:-)