Lucy Okays My Place

It's the longest of long weekends: Apple shuts down from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day, so I have a week and a half off. Whoopee!

I spent yesterday running errands, including ordering some venetian blinds for my home through CostCo. I even had the new experience of heading down towards my old apartment to do some shopping. Once, that would have been a short trip; today, it was a 20-minute drive each way. However, I do so much more up here where I live now, it's definitely a worthwhile trade-off.

For instance, when Debbi joined me yesterday evening, we headed into downtown Mountain View to Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, which had been recommended to me as another good east coast pizza place. It's more upscale than the place we went Wednesday, with nicer decor, although that doesn't really matter to me. The pizza was quite good, although not, I felt, quite as good as the other place; Amici's pizza is a little cheesier, which as you know I'm not into. Still, I'm pleased to find another good pizza place close by, and I'll definitely go back.

Today Lucy came by to see my new house. I haven't yet had my housewarming party (I'm thinking of piggybacking it with my birthday next month), so a number of my friends haven't yet been over, what with how busy I've been lately and all. Moreover, Lucy and I have had conflicting schedules for much of the last month (out of town on alternating weekends, that sort of thing). But today she came by, I think after doing some Christmas shopping.

I'm not sure whether it's a point of pride or a point of insecurity that I love getting positive feedback and reinforcement from people about my house purchase. Some of both, probably. But I was pleased that Lucy really likes my house. She says it's better than any townhouse she saw when they were looking (briefly) at living in Mountain View. Of course, they bought their place at the height of the real estate crunch in the Bay Area, and they had perhaps more stringent requirements for their abode than I did. I suspect there's just more on the market now. (On the other hand, it's also more expensive now than it was 18 months ago!).

I know I made a good purchase in this place, but it's nice to feel validated by others, too. Nice to have friends with differing outlooks say nice things about it.

Anyway, Lucy hung around for a couple hours and she and I and Debbi chatted about various things. Lucy also used her digital camera to snap the two photos on this page (click on them for a larger rendition). Newton was being totally cute curled up in my lap; he has no shame. And I have a really goofy smile in the photo with Debbi. Sheesh!