February 12th, 2006
News from North Carolina
New Skin
Today I had my first professional facial done at the beauty salon. It was wonderful. My skin feels so smooth – almost like I was 18 years old again. One part of it was a glycolic peel, which stung a whole lot, but it really made my skin glow with youthful radiance. Another part was the ‘extraction’ – that means letting a total stranger look at your face under a huge magnifying lens and pop your zits for you. Weird!
Valentine’s Day
Because I bowl on Tuesdays, this evening Clinton and I celebrated Valentine’s Day early by going out to a restaurant we had never tried before, “Kanki”, a Japanese steakhouse and sushi restaurant. We ate steak at their hibachi grill and watched tropical fish swim around in a huge aquarium. I tried to get the hostess to take a picture of us in front of the big Buddha statue, but my stupid camera went kaput. Here’s a picture of the Valentine’s Day card I got from Clinton. He ordered them special from the Internet, because he knows how much I love the characters from Law & Order SVU.
Home-buying
Today we found a beautiful 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment at “Parkside at Woodlake” in Durham near where we work, for a very good price. It has a pool, a lake, forests, nature trails, putting green with golf carts, beach volleyball, fitness facility, DVD library, police security, etc Best of all, they offer short-term (6-month) lease options, they welcome dogs, and they have washer/dryer hookups right off the kitchen. We will most likely move in early March. We will be much more comfortable there while we continue on with the (long) home-buying process. The new projected home purchase/closing date is August/September-ish 2006.
Firefly Gadroon
My current reading material is a mystery novel called Firefly Gadroon by Jonathan Gash. The story is set in England and our hero is a slimy antiques dealer named Lovejoy. One minute he’s creating fake “heirlooms” to sell to unsuspecting old ladies and the next minute he’s driving a speedboat to save his friend’s body – the guy had just been murdered by some real bad people - and his donkey (yes donkey!) from washing away in high tide. It’s very exciting. Apparently there’s a whole series of these Lovejoy mysteries.
Have a good week, and Happy Valentine’s Day!