Sugar Baby watermelon growing bigger

Friday involved driving Ray to work, spending some time at the library after visiting the bank, and delivering lunches in 100-degree heat. Then Ray and I ate the sandwiches I had brought and started driving to Durham to see Amelia and Kevin (and their house). Almost immediately I started to sleepy. I was supposed to drive while Ray worked on preparing for the class he is teaching. It is two hours every day and he hasn't taught it before, so he has to prepare the notes and PowerPoints every day. It takes many more hours to prepare than to present the information. But I couldn't stay awake. We stopped and bought big caffeinated drinks. Then we had to stop again to use the rest room, of course. After about an hour and a half, I gave up and asked Ray to drive. Did I sleep? Of course not. We sat in traffic north of Charlotte for over an hour, going 10 miles in that time. They are working on the road, which currently goes from 5 lanes to 2...

cabinets drying in the living room

We got there in time to admire the house and go somewhere to eat. Even inside the restaurant it was hot, or at least not as cool as we would have liked. I was too tired to really appreciate my food, but it was a nice chicken salad, which was what I wanted.

Ray and I slept in the twin beds that were my parents' guest beds for many years--my grandmother bought them, maybe as a gift. My Dad can't quite remember, and now that my Mom is gone, that information is too. Gloria and Tom, Kevin's parents, bought new mattresses and box springs for them. And the air conditioning works well.

testing paint colors in the master bedroom

Amelia was there early in the morning, working on the new kitchen counter. It is a green product called Richlite, made of paper, I believe. It is the same stuff that schools use in their science labs, I'm told. She got it in the 1/2 inch thickness and doubled it in places and added an edge in others to make it look thicker, because she thought it looked better. She's probably right. I guess I could never be a designer, because cost and convenience would probably win over appearance most of the time. At this point, she was working on sanding it to make sure no seams show. Over the time we were there, she finished the sanding and added two coats of a special wax, buffing each coat thoroughly and letting it dry overnight in between. It looks great, imho. Then Kevin and Ray carried the sink over and set it into its spot. It did not sit right, since sinks shouldn't be able to move back and forth. She got a piece of wood and her saw and worked on fixing it. And that's where they were when we left about 3 on Sunday.

I helped, sanding cabinets

In between, we ate in two more restaurants and saw her apartment and cat briefly when she and I threw some dinner together on Saturday night. I brought some green beans and other veggies from our garden, and we got corn at the farmer's market that morning. Cooking for the two of them is pretty impossible, since Amelia is a vegetarian and Kevin is not. He doesn't eat much in the way of veggies or fruits--not even corn on the cob! He is used to fending for himself though and dipped into his stash of frozen chicken nuggets.

Driving home was a lot better in terms of traffic. I managed to drive all but the last hour while Ray worked. We stopped for a relatively nice meal at Macaroni Grille, where we met Becky and Kent as they were returning from a trip north as well. Their relatives (Becky's parents) were without power when they left them and it looks from the news like they may still be.

A big old tree down, on the golf course near their house

carrying the sink