#28 - Aria returns - June 29, 2012

Today, my week is almost over.  I got up early this morning to find the front door locked.  It appears I was the first one up.  I left the house and went to work, cleaned up my email box to the 20s.  I had received an email back from one of the moms in church and knew I had to pick up Aria around noon.

I left the office at 10:40 to go to the house and meet with the seller.  She's a very nice woman, short, maybe 50, very athletic.  We walked through the house, she showed me the moving they were doing.  The Lego area is already clear.  She is leaving the paint that matches, the work tables, and we talked about the furniture she wants to leave.  So I bought her bedroom set for Christian and Libby to use: 2 nightstands, a dresser, an armoire, a hope chest, and a queen bed.  Very nice, and quite large enough for 2 kids to split it.

I also bought a round kitchen table she had, with tablecloth and chairs, as well as an automatic pool vacuum. I offered to help in the evenings, she wasn't clear if she would want that or not.  We'll keep in touch.  I explained the oil tank thing having to be removed from contract and offered to pay her right now.  She said no, later would be fine.  She did want the furniture paid for, so she could pay someone to help her move out.  So I wrote her a check and left.  She's reasonable in person.  Less so on the phone.

Then I went to Whaley lake to pick up Aria.  She had had a great week.  We got in Gortja and she talked for half an hour straight.  It was excellent.  I love it when my kids are happy.  We stopped at a pizza place for lunch, then I took her to the office so I could finish my workday.

We left just after 4, stopped by the storage unit to drop off everything we could - Tim's bike, camping gear, a box of food.  Then we went to the train station to see our train pulling out as we pulled in.  A quick check of the schedule, however showed that an odd train was coming.  Trains are usually every hour, but another train was coming in 20 minutes.  So we finished parking, walked down the hill, paid for parking, bought our tickets, and waited for 10 minutes.  There was plenty of room on the train filled with Yankee fans. Must be a Yankee game tonight.

Hundreds and hundreds of people in blue shirts.  I've never seen anything like it.  And they all got off at 125th St, and the train was empty.  When we got to Grand Central, we talked about dinner.  Aria was okay with a pretzel and ice cream, so we set off to find both.  The pretzel was easy, but the cart was a charcoal grill cart.  Aria said the pretzel tasted like ash, so she tossed it.  We continued on our search for a MrSoftee by walking uptown on Madison Avenue.  In a few blocks we found a frozen yogurt cart.  He only sold vanilla and plain, but you can get fruit topping on it for free.  Aria got blueberries, I got blueberries and strawberries.

I have pictures of this, but I don't have an easy way to get them on this computer right now.  They'll show up when I get back home.

We were thirsty, and asked several places for a drinking fountain.  No luck.  We wandered into Trump Tower, though, and there was a bathroom.  So we took a break, filled our water bottles in the sink, and went on our way.  We found the subway stop at 60th and Park Ave, and had an uneventful rest of the ride to Aki's place.  We ate some dinner, watched Gravity Falls (a new cartoon about some kids in the a cabin in Oregon), and set up for sleeping.

A very nice day.  Sleep for everyone, swimming tomorrow!