May 27, 2000

One year ago: I discuss season finales of various television shows (and could I have been more wrong about Felicity?), time confusion, laundry issues and the state of my geekiness.

This is the continuation of my Memorial Day weekend activities, so if you missed yesterday's entry, you might want to read that one first. Or not. It's up to you really. Anyway, on Saturday, Brenda wanted to go over to this historic home and check it out. She's getting married in November, and her photographer mentioned this place as a good place to take wedding pictures, because it has indoor and outdoor locations, so no matter what the weather, you can take pictures. Brenda had never heard of this place, and they were having a tree peony festival, so we went to check it out. It was Brenda, her friend Holly from work, and me. The place was about twenty minutes away, and not too far from the place where Brenda is having the reception, so it would work out great.

We found the place just fine. Walking along the path to the main house, we saw the hut pictured above. I'm sure there is a better name for it than "hut", but that works for me. It was pretty interesting looking with the fountain out front and all. We checked out the main house, and the grounds, which were beautiful. The picture to the right of this paragraph is the view from the front of the house, over the Genesee Valley. Doesn't that look like a calendar or something? I'm no great photographer, but even I couldn't make that view look bad. There were also beautiful gardens, with lots of stone walkways and marble archways, and fountains and such.

After leaving there, we showed Holly where the reception is going to be, and then headed back to Caledonia. We stopped at one of the antique/crafts stores in town. I swear to God, every time I go home, there's a new antique store. I'm glad that the local economy is picking up, and I know that if there are multiple stores, people will come to town and just browse the various stores, but this is getting ridiculous. Anyway, we checked out the wares (which looked to me to be pretty much the same as last time I was there) but didn't buy anything. I'm not so much into that country-look stuff, but if you are, take a trip to Caledonia. They have it coming out of their ears.

Brenda dropped me off at my mom's house and we decided to take Bailey for a little walk. She had knee surgery about a month ago, and is just starting to be able to go for walks again, although she has a limp. We walked over to the school. I took a picture of the front doors of what used to be the only school building, but is now the elementary school. It's so Art Deco! I really dig it. You can click on that picture to get a pop-up window with the full size picture, so that you can see more of the architectural detail. Check out the light fixtures on either side of the door! I had to lie on my back to get that picture. I hope people didn't think I was crazy or something. Ah, what do I care? It was such a beautiful day. I do have to admit that I retouched the photo a little bit to make the brick look a little less washed out. The sky was not quite THAT blue, but it was pretty blue.

I went home and hung out for a while. My brother and sister-in-law stopped by, so I chatted with them a bit. Later on (much later on), I ended up going to Denny's with Brenda, Gretchen and our friend Becky. Gretchen had been up for a really long time and was really tired, so when the waitress came to take our order, she asked for "hot chocolate with fur" instead of whipped cream. The waitress just kind of stood there and Brenda said, "The funny thing about it is, we're totally sober", which we were. We got a lot of mileage out of the fur thing. I still don't know where she came up with that one.