Easing Back In

The prologue to the weekend was getting take-out from Frankie Johnnie & Luigi Too!, one of our favorite restaurants in town, which is closing for the next two years while they rebuild their building and rethink their business model. It was one of the first restaurants I went to when I moved here, and we’d gone regularly enough that several of the staff recognized us, notably the bartender. We’d patronized them regularly through the pandemic, and we’re gonna miss them. I hope they are able to execute their plan and come back in 2023.

Front door of Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too!

I took Friday off to have a 4-day weekend. I decided to skip running and instead went to Byxbee Park for a nice walk in the morning. The weather was great, and it was pretty quiet. I love walking there. I did a few chores and then watched a couple episodes of The Expanse, as I slowly catch up on the latest season.

Saturday I did go for a run in the morning, and then made us pancakes and sausages for breakfast. We had a pretty quiet day, although we did do a grocery store run. I also did some work in the yard, mainly fixing a sprinkler leak. There’s some more sprinkler repair we need which might be behind my abilities – or at least beyond my interest in learning. We’ll see.

The main event for the weekend was on Sunday: We drove down to our friends Chad & Camille’s house, where we spent the afternoon and evening with them and other friends Mo and Chris. All of us are safely vaccinated, while C&C’s kids are not yet, but will be soon. But the science says they should be safe since all the rest of us have been vaxxed for a while. So we hung out, used their pool (it was well over 80°F in the afternoon), petted their dogs, and had drinks and dinner. The kids came out for dinner and a post-dinner card game. We stayed until nearly 11 pm, so it was a good time. Hopefully the first of many.

Finally on Monday we had a couple of neighbors over for a barbecue, again in very warm weather. But it was a fine time for all of us.

Debbi and I are both being pretty cautious by some standards – we’re not ready to go to downtown Mountain View and eat at a restaurant, even outside, because it’s so busy down there, even though non-diners are still wearing masks. And I don’t know whether we’ll fly anywhere this year, though maybe things will be looking good by the end of the summer. I have several (vaxxed) friends who have flown in the last few weeks, and no whammies so far. But getting together with friends, we can do.

I know things are pretty rough in much of the rest of the world, but hopefully we’re nearing the end here, and hopefully things will turn around elsewhere soon.

Panoramic view from Byxbee Park
View from Byxbee Park (click for larger image)