A post in which I do some driving and go out to dinner

I spent a good amount of time going up and down highway 85 today. I went to work. Then I had the house appraised , so I drove home and then back to work afterwards. After work, I drove home, and then drove back to Pelham again to take Amanda and Justin to dinner.

The visit and appraisal were good excuses to clean up last night, and I had done a quick run-through to straighten up a bit more this morning, but I never finished dusting the living room. Still, the place does look better, and that makes me feel better.

I really enjoyed the visit tonight. Justin showed me the new (and last, sadly) Depression Glass book from Gene Florence, and we looked up a few of my pieces. The prices on all collectibles are down right now because of the economy, and this is particularly the case with Depression Glass since there aren’t a lot of new collectors entering the marketplace at the moment. In general, I stick with Florence’s advice on what to buy. He says buy things because you love them, not because of their worth.

We had a lovely dinner at Sushi-Masa (as usual) although they forgot to order one of the appetizers we were going to get. Not that we didn’t have plenty of food – I always over-order there. It’s nice to layer new memories onto Masa. I sat there thinking for a minute about all the times I have spent there. I’ve been eating there for years. I thought about when Gail and I used to eat there when we first started eating sushi, and later on Michael and I eating there every Valentine’s Day. I remembered the year that they turned off all the lights and brought out ice cream with a candle on it for Michael's birthday. Of course now I take Anna there, and I thought about the night she wanted to order a second monk fish liver because she was so taken with it. I felt old. They were good memories, but I’ve been feeling very Yoda-esque recently.

After supper we went for ice cream, which was nice. It’s good for me to get out of my routine and go do stuff during the week. It made for a nice change.

Headed home after ice cream we made a run through the Goodwill, which was surprisingly still open. Also surprisingly we left without buying any dishes, despite their having a big stock of some retro plates that Justin really liked.

We visited for a bit when we got home and then they had to go. I had a really good time though, and it was great to see them.