Saturday, April 21, 2018

Three Beautiful Things 04/20/18: Fast Cars at Sam's, Remodel Decisions, Return of the Deke

1.  Breakfast at Sam's this morning was a lot of fun. Our server loves telling us about her vacations (soon she's going to Palm Springs), her casino trips (whether to Worley, Spokane, or Las Vegas), and her love of vehicles -- her love encompasses vehicles ranging from golf carts to fast cars. I don't know much about cars, but this morning she was fired up because (I think she said) she's going to purchase a car of her dreams, an orange (or is it rust?) Dodge Barracuda. She had a picture of a Dodge Barracuda on her pocket computer and was downright giddy as she showed it to each of us around the table. Later, when some other customers arrived, she showed the car to them, too, and, to be honest, our server is such a wonderful woman, so good at her work, so unpretentious, and so fun to talk with and joke around with, that everyone is really happy for her that she's had a good turn of fortune in her life and can take these vacations, golf trips, casino outings, and buy fast cars. And, she loves working at Sam's.

2. After Shawn left the other day, I went out back and looked again at the back of the house and I doubted that there was room to mount an awning in the way we had planned. I texted him and asked him to drop by, at his convenience, to see if agreed with me. Shawn called this morning to see if we were up and about so he could check on this. He was also troubled by the fact that he'd estimated a cost for bathroom tile that was was under what he found out the actual cost was. He wanted to talk face to face about this discrepancy with us and with Christy (we are both having bathroom remodels done at the same time).

What it all came down to was that we want to do as much business locally as possible and tile at the Furniture Exchange costs more than it would at Lowe's or Home Depot. The Deke, Christy, and I hardly had to think about it when we told Shawn we'd pay the higher price and buy the tile here in Kellogg from the Furniture Exchange. Shawn hung around for a while and shot the breeze over a cup of coffee after we made this decision and after we decided that mounting an awning on the back of the house wouldn't work. Shawn has been consistently conscientious with us in every aspect of the work he's done on our house and I was, one again, very appreciative of his conscientiousness today.

3.  Having been gone for a month meant that the Deke hadn't been to the Inland Lounge for quite a while, so we went up right as it opened at three o'clock so we could shoot the breeze with Cas and Tracy. Not long after we arrived, Ed came in and enjoyed a beer or two and ordered Nancy some food from Wah Hing and all three of us saw other people we knew -- Ed and Jim (Sr.) Miller, Mike Grebil, Mr. and Mrs. Glen Higbee, Clarence, Betty, and Brian Moore, and the Inland Lounge scene grew into a very enjoyable crowd of mostly people our age and older enjoying one another before either going across the street for a burger at the Elks or up the street to dance at the Kellogg Senior Center.

When the Deke and I arrived home, I fried three strips of bacon and then put frozen green beans in the skillet and let them cook together. I roasted a sheet of sliced onions and baby carrots. I then prepared the two of us each a small flatiron steak. Steak. Green beans with bacon. Roasted carrots and onions. Our dinner crowned a nearly perfect day.

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