Kathi Slater is a long-time friend, the mother of three girls who went through middle and high school at the same time as our children.  Her oldest daughter, Emily (who is now an MD) was one of our son’s best friends in high school.  Kathi ended up working at Metropolitan Bakery with Linda and is still there.  We have been trying to find a mutually agreeable time for her to come see our new house and today was finally the day.

Kathi arrived around 10:30 AM.  As with all first time guests we gave her a tour of the house and then, being another gorgeous summer day, we walked the property.  After the tours we settled in at the table on the deck under the shade of the umbrella and had a nice long chat.  Linda made her wonderful chickpea salad and served it sandwich style for lunch with sourdough pretzel nibblers, fresh grapes, and sweet cherries.  She left to return home around 2 PM.

I worked at my desk on website usernames and passwords until 5:30 PM.  For dinner Linda made sautéed green beans and a dish with whole grain macaroni, cannellini beans, kale, other ingredients, and spices.  Both dishes had a hint of garlic and red pepper flakes; just enough to elevate the dish but not so much as to dominate or overwhelm the primary flavors.

We finished eating a little after 6 PM and I had to leave for the 6:30 PM meeting of our ham radio club.  The meeting was well attended with several of our newest club members there.  After a short business meeting we had a brief introduction by Mike (W8XH) to ham radio projects that can be done with the Arduino (and similar) micro-controllers.  Mike and Steve (N8AR) then led a discussion on the subject of antennas; specifically simple ones that can be built fairly easily.

I got home rafter 9 PM and had a piece of watermelon.  We stayed up a little later than usual and decided to turn in without watching an episode any of the TV programs we are currently following.