This was my third day using my arrival as my actual first day. It was fairly intense with almost 12 hours by the time we did all the work and then I took my host and his family to dinner as a thank-you for all the running around, plus they are enjoyable company. That also gave me the opportunity to see more of the lovely countryside during this too brief visit. I saw my first pheasants in natural setting as one scurried across the narrow country lane and another swooped low past the car. Dinner was at a charming lakeside (loch-side) restaurant that was a bit of a drive through more rolling hills.

Work-wise, it was jammed-packed with interesting information and the confirmation that some of what I thought was true appears very much not to be. The unfortunate aspect of writing non-fiction is that when you discover a source to have been in error, you pretty much have only two choices – perpetuate the error or change what you have. This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this and I doubt it will be the last.

This morning we will be off to Belfast for another lengthy day and what I hope to be verification of a couple of areas that I have a special interest in. On a personal note, the time difference and my hubby’s schedule means that we haven’t spoken since I left, although with connectivity, the emails are zipping back-and-forth and I did leave him a voice mail. Hopefully, we’ll connect before too long.

No photo today because I’m not totally sure if emailing them to myself is in our plan or not and will check with Hubby. Let me back up to the hotel. We’re in a room that is a little larger than a cruise ship, but not much. On the other hand, it does have internet, a small elevator, and plenty of hot water even on the fourth floor. The location is great being a one minute walk to the Metro and the light rail line just across the street from that. So, about dinner last night – very different from what we usually do. Totally Novelle Cuisine in a place that could have been anywhere in New York. Hubby loved it. The presentation was great, service perfect, and since we had eaten heavily at lunch, I had plenty. The menu was quite limited with the concept of focusing on what they did. In fact, this morning when I asked for recommendations about a place for tonight and mentioned where we’d been, the desk clerk asked me how we liked it and was glad to get a personal review.

So, this morning after breakfast at a nearby café (we slept late), we set off to find the Picasso Museum. It is in the Marais district and far enough from the Metro that no signs point to it. We missed the cross street initially, but did backtrack and find it. Then as it turns out, they control the number of people who enter at any given time, so there was a one hour wait in line. That wouldn’t have been quite so bad, but it was chilly and a light rain for almost the entire wait. Anyway, the irony is that the Picasso Museum in housed in an old house that was no doubt built in the 1700 or 1800s. There were four floors of exhibits and one section contained some of Picasso’s personal collection that included Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, etc. The other thing that was interesting was a collection of photographs from a photographer who was a tenant in Picasso’s studio. He subsequently did a series of photos of Picasso working on certain pieces.

We had a late lunch at a lovely little café and even though it had stopped raining, Hubby was in the mood for onion soup. We then came back and the Cluny Museum – Museum of the Middle Ages – is close to the hotel. We had been there on the previous trip, but I was too tired to climb to the third floor to see the Lady and the Unicorn exhibit. We made it this afternoon and I will do a special post about it when we complete the trip.

I think I have things about as under control as they can be for this trip. How much connectivity I will have while gone remains to be seen. For hubby, today has been one of his rare “down” days because instead of working on his project list, I urged him to take today for celebrating the return of NFL Sunday Football. Yes, he has enjoyed preseason in the sense of it was football, but that isn’t quite the same. Today, it was football talk from 11:00 a.m. through to the first game, followed by the second game, followed by the Sunday Night Football game. No, we don’t have whatever that is that shows every single game, but he has enough choice with the various channels that we get.

The only mar to the day is that the Saints were playing the Falcons as they do twice each season. That’s the time when one of us has to be disappointed, but that really can’t be helped. It would just be nice if it wasn’t on the very first day. And yes, for those who want precision, I believe there was an NFL regular season game on Thursday; today, however, is the first regular Sunday, the traditional day of NFL play.

I still don’t have the faintest idea of what a “nickel back” is supposed to do, but I grasp all the fundamentals and can appreciate the complexities of trying to meld offensive, defense, and special teams into a cohesive program. And for hubby, it will always be the sport that he enjoys the most. Well, assuming that no one actually manages to have genuine quidditch (meaning with flying brooms) in the near future.

I’m not sure how the past few days slipped by me without posting, but these things do happen occasionally. As I have discussed at previous times, I am a member of the Homestead Center for the Arts (http://www.homesteadcenterforthearts.com/index.html) and within that organization is a special committee called Music Experience (MuSe). We had our most recent event last week with Baroque and received wonderful feedback. While we also have the well-loved Community Concert Series in HCA that runs December-March, the intent of MuSe was to combine music and food and so we mostly hold the events at the White Lion Café that has a large courtyard. The “In the Garden” series has been Jazz and Blues, next up will be Blue Grass and we’re working through other genres.

That brings me to the question of did I like tango? I do, although my experience is limited and I know there are different types of tango and wouldn’t for the life of me be able to identify or recognize them. Setting aside,  “The Last Tango in Paris” since this is a more or less PG-13 blog, who can forget Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman”, and have you seen, “Shall We Dance”? A little-known Robert Duvall movie was “Assassination Tango” and that, too, used tango as a metaphor for life’s complexities. Okay, what other movies out there have famous tango scenes?

If the schedule holds, it will be a very big week coming up. The cabinets will be installed, the remaining trim work done, and the associated plumbing and electrical completed. Well, the electrical is a bit trickier because in addition to the associated task of wiring for the island and adding one can light, we need to have a breaker repaired or replaced and I want to move four light fixtures. The movement of light fixtures doesn’t have to be immediate though, so that and the breaker might have to slide a week. The granite guy will come to do the template once the cabinets are in and it won’t take him long after that to have the counters ready for install.

Paint Samples for the remodel

We have ordered the appliances and the new entertainment center, but those will be discussed in a future post. Now I’ll talk about paint. We are going to have a change in that we will have a basic color in the front room and the back wall of the kitchen, but also an accent wall in the front room and then change the terra cotta in the kitchen to Eucalyptus Green. It’s a little difficult to tell from the samples here, but the lightest color (right) will be the basic on most of the area, the slightly darker tone (left) will be the accent, and the lighter green (top) is the one we will be using for the kitchen. We will continue with white in the loft, and the powder room downstairs is up for grabs. Essentially any of the three colors will work for it and it might well come down to how much paint we have left after the main rooms are done as the deciding factor. Okay,  I will keep everyone posted as to how we proceed.