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No longer on the river and, again, an empty nester. Back to living on Fleming Island and making some more friends!

Friday, September 6, 2013

Thunder abounding

I guess I made too much of a fuss about the lovely weather and comfy water temperatures lately, or something. Today I went to the pool about 11:30, starting out by myself. After a few of my laps around the pool, I sat out a bit to look through a catalog I had brought along for Nancy W., one of my newer friends. She is looking for decorator stuff for her potential new home, and I love to be a helper with such things. More fun with someone else's money!

After a little while, I saw Pat in the cabana, ordering her lunch. Oh good, someone to have lunch with!! Not much later I saw Nancy coming down the path with two ladies in tow. It seemed Pat was meeting these ladies after having completed the home inspection on the home Nancy is purchasing. The two ladies were the owner and her sister, who live just across the drive-way from each other. 

Nancy asked me to join them for lunch, and I accepted the invitation. It was nice to meet my neighbors, strangely only now after the one lady has lived there almost 14 years already. How can that happen? We live on the same property!!! Her area has their own pool and cabana which keeps 'them' over there. Evidently not Club attendees either or I would have seen them in there. Oh well...

While we were dining, I got a phone call from Judy C., asking me to join Michael and her for dinner tonight. Sure! We went to The Pasta Market, one of our regular haunts of late. They greet us by name, which goes a long way. Anyway, at one point, Nancy stood up and I noticed she had stains on her khaki slacks. I thought it was ketchup but it turned out to be blood. It seems the seller of the home has a cat, and the cat jumped on Nancy's leg, and dug its claws in, drawing blood. Nancy is allergic to cats and was not crazy about being clawed, but conducted herself admirably in front of the others.

Later she called me to discuss some of the initial findings of the inspection, asking me my 'professional' opinion. I explained to her that the report is going to be quite involved and detailed, as the inspector has to earn his fee. That, plus covering his tracks in case something comes up later, after the closing. Both the buyer and the seller get a copy of the report, and now it's up to the parties involved to settle the matter of the repairs. They share the same Realtor so the negotiations will volley with her in the midst of all this. Regardless of what is worked out, much of these repairs will need to be taken care of by the seller as any buyer will likely require an inspection.

While we ate and visited, Bob came over to the pool for a quick swim. He no sooner got situated than did we hear the first roll of thunder. Nuts! Nancy M., our newer neighbor and pool friend, walked over from her home, only to be greeted by thunder, and by me. She was so disappointed to hear she could not swim.

The thunder intensity increased and before long the lifeguard came around and urged folks to dissipate before the storm got here. We all said 'good-bye' to each other and headed out. I told Nancy M. I was keeping my suit on, in case it let up, but after a couple hours, I gave in and put my lounge-wear on. Nuts!
                                              
Justin came in about an hour and a half early for a Friday, having had the day called on account of the storm. The rain was not torrential but the electrical portion was dangerous. Justin reported seeing an electrical transformer get struck near the intersection of Blanding and Kingsley, NOT a good place to have non-working traffic lights. He did not indicate any outage, but did see the sparks and arcing as he waited at the light. Good call to quit early, I would say!

Justin chose not to join us for dinner but agreed to eat my leftovers when I got home. He was working on getting his room somewhat in order instead. None of the friends I asked for dinner and a movie night were able to make it so no raspberry pie for me. No worries, he can make it another time, and I get to play outside longer tomorrow!! Hopefully with no thunder storms breaking up the fun...