Friends and Family

Monday, July 6

• My sisters and I left Eagan (remember?) early in the morning to get Cathy to the airport for her flight back to Portland. Then Sandy gave me a ride back to Dickinson! She's en route to our dad's to spend the rest of the week with him and Beverly, so I hitched a ride so that I can get some work done at home this week while Susan and the girls head to East Grand Forks to spend some time with our friends there.
• Sandy and I had a tasty dinner at Extreme Pita in Fargo. For supper I grilled Omaha steaks and served them with French fries, buttered corn, pickles, celery sticks, and cold beer. After a late-night walk around the neighborhood to burn off some of those calories, we watched some TV while enjoying dessert: vanilla wafers dipped in a "chocolate bliss" cheese ball and some chilled Riesling.

Tuesday, July 7

• For breakfast I served Sandy scrambled eggs (with onions, ham, and cheese), blueberry muffins, grapefruit halves, and coffee. Then she was off to Dad's farm via Williston, where she hoped to visit our aunts who live there.
• It was my friend Chris' birthday, so I took him out for supper at Applebee's. Afterward we met other friends for drinks at Maverick's Saloon, a place I had never been before. It's a very small bar--the length and width of a double-wide mobile home, perhaps. Not even kidding!

Wednesday, July 8

• Once a month I have dinner with my friend Kelly, formerly my colleage at the university and currently an independent business owner (counseling, life coaching, and holistic therapy). Today we ate at Badlands Brew, a quaint coffee shop that serves delicious panini and soups in a funky setting (a building that used to be a church--in fact, most of the seating consists of two-person pews at the tables, and the windows are stained glass). Kelly shared several items of good news regarding her personal life and her business, so it was an especially pleasant meal!