Light on sleep, Heavy on the consumption, Rose, Good news

Troy and Jess flew in Thursday morning for their brief Naples visit, they were scheduled to fly back Saturday night. They were here for a work function for Jess. I worked Thursday but left the office early to go pick up Troy at their hotel.

This was the first time Troy had been in Florida in a very, very long time. We were trying to figure out the last time he came to visit and estimated it was damn close to 12 years ago, wow. I took him back to my place to see it, he liked it. Obviously it is a huge change compared to where I lived before.

I was playing volleyball Thursday night so Troy and I made plans for him to drop me off in my truck and he could grab dinner while I played. Play for me went well but I once again volunteered to play doubles all night. Playing doubles subjects my body to additional demands that just are not that easy to deal with nowadays. I played with Andrew, a great player whom I get along with well. Unfortunately he is moving out of the area this week. He also is literally half my age. Despite this he and I managed to win most of our games, including the games when it was us two against teams of three. I was beat up by the time Troy arrived to pick me up.

We went back to my place and promptly fired up a private livestream for the fantasy football league Troy runs. We run a funny tournament that loosely follows the format of the NCAA basketball tournament and had to go over all of the “teams” involved.

After we finished we made plans to meet up with Jess at a bar that was several miles from my house. She had a long day of entertaining people so she was already tired. This was combined with both of them getting up around 3AM to make their flight. We didn’t stay that long before I suggested I drive them back to their hotel so they could get some sleep.

I took Friday off and wound up spending most of the day getting things done around the house. Troy was invited to a couple events with Jess and spent most of the day with her which was fine. When Dawn was at my place she pointed out several oversights in my guest accommodations. Two of them got addressed when I installed a 24 inch towel bar in the guest bathroom as well as a full length mirror on the back of the guest bedroom door.

Friday evening I picked up Troy. I took him to Mercato, one of the “happening” places in Naples. We drank and had dinner at The Pub. It started out mildly crowded and then became packed and very loud once the DJ fired up. It made for some interesting people watching. Jess came out later and met us there. We wound up going somewhere else eventually and stayed until last call. After dropping them off I found myself driving home in the wee hours of the morning.

I had to get Troy and Jess to the airport later Saturday afternoon. I made the suggestion that I pick them up from the hotel and then we could go to the Miromar outlets which is on the way to the airport. Jess likes Lululemon who recently opened an outlet there so I thought she might like to see it. We also decided to grab lunch there. As we were waiting for our food Troy and Jess got a text that their flight was delayed a couple hours. Evidently there were some bad storms covering much of the northeast. Within a half hour a second text came in saying their flight was canceled, oh shit.

This set off a mad scramble of Jess and Troy trying to find alternatives which were slim because a ton of people were in the same boat. They wound up booking a flight for Sunday evening. I told them it was no big deal, they were welcome to stay at my place. Jess felt bad about it but I assured her it was no big deal. I had already freed up my weekend so it was not a big inconvenience to me.

I took them down to Tin City where we had dinner at Riverwalk, a nice establishment on the river that I had been to before with Christine. They both seemed to enjoy the chill experience. We then walked over to the Cabana, the outdoor bar that I frequent regularly on EUC rides. We had more alcohol and people watched for a while.

When we finally got back to my place we found ourselves out on the lanai, drinking left over plum wine from Dawn’s visit. We just hung out there and talked, using that space as I originally hoped it would be utilized for, a great hang location. Before I knew it it was once again early morning and I had a 6:30 alarm set to play pickleball on Sunday. This alarm became my arch enemy when I realized the clock change cut an additional hour from my potential sleep. I had to peel myself out of bed, I was exhausted.

I had a good pickleball session and met Troy and Jess back at the house shortly after they returned from a Dunkin Donuts run. We had no hard plans for the day. Early in the afternoon I took them to Seed to Table, a place they were told about at their hotel. Seed to Table is a grocery store/restaurant/entertainment center that is run by Alfie Oaks who is a Trump cultist, normally grounds for me to avoid an establishment. However the place is unique so I didn’t mind taking Troy and Jess there to bear witness.

They got a good taste immediately as I had to circle the parking lot for 10 minutes just to find a place to park. The place was jam packed, Troy had never seen anything like it. We walked the floor and wound up having lunch upstairs, overlooking the sea of humanity. We all enjoyed our meals. I think it was the first meal I had during their visit that did not include alcohol. I drank a LOT over these 4 days.

I also got a random text from a person that identified themselves as Rose. Normally I would just block this as it was an obvious scam attempt but since Troy and Jess were there it provided some entertainment. Rose told me she was looking for a friend and sent me a picture of herself, a beautiful asian woman.

She asked me about myself. I sent her a fake picture and a fake name, playing her game as all three of us laughed at the interaction. The goal was to figure out the end game of her contact. She was very interested in moving the conversation to Telegram which I played dumb about for a long time before agreeing to message her there. She then revealed her goal, to get me to provide her with information about any cryptocurrency holdings I had. I did a good job wasting as much of her time as I could before I told her I knew she was trying to scam me. Once I revealed that “Rose” became very belligerent, calling me an asshole among other things before I blocked her. It was mildly entertaining, if nothing else. It makes you wonder how many people actually fall for this shit.

Troy and Jess were getting a case of deja vu when they got a text that their flight was delayed an hour in the afternoon. Luckily that delay was the only bad news. I dropped them off at the airport around 7:30 last night. They did not get back to their place in Lancaster until after 3AM, ouch.

It was a welcomed visit for me. Having my friends in my own environment is not something that happens all that often in my world. To have it happen on two consecutive weekends is a solar eclipse sort of thing in terms of rarity. This week has no visitors on the schedule, instead it is the start of my vein procedures to collapse the defective varicose veins in my right leg. I am not looking forward to the procedure but I am looking forward to the end result. One of the drawbacks is it could be a crimp on my normal level of physical activities I jam into a typical week.

Finally, I received some good news on my income taxes. I had scenarios of me having to write a fat check to the IRS because of potential capital gains on my home sale. Instead I am getting a refund which is a huge relief. That potential tax liability has been floating in the back of my mind for the last year or so. The sky has now cleared.