The New Place - Impromptu Dinner Party

As mentioned before, the outlets in the main room of the house are all only two prong, even though they have grounded wires running to them. Even though we only got into the house last Thursday, we had the cable and internet guy coming from Cogeco on Saturday morning and we needed the one outlet behind the TV to be grounded for the cable box and the router. While Tim is handy, replacing an outlet was a bit out of his comfort zone, so he called in his friend Mike from Bowen's Appliance Repair Service.

The nice part about having your friends (or family) help you out is that you get tutorials along the way. Mike showed Tim how to repair the wiring and connect it to the outlet, and Tim provided Mike with all the beer that he could drink. And then a rye and coke . . . and another rye and coke. :)

In the meantime I invited Mike to stay for dinner, as well as Angel, who was there helping us unpack again. (Because she is the most wonderful friend in the whole entire world.) I made scallops with slivered asparagus and a lemony wine sauce with butter poached Yukon gold potatoes and Angel made dulce de leche brownies. The scallops were really good but I burned the sauce a little bit when the lighting blew. Luckily Mike was still there, because we couldn't figure out why the lights had blown. Turns out Tim put compact fluorescent bulbs into a dimmer fixture, which is a huge no-no. The potatoes were wonderful as always, and Angel's brownies were fantastic. A little too rich for my taste, but delicious if you really love fudgy, gooey, dense brownies. I found them a lot better the next day once they had firmed up and sat for a bit.

Mike and Tim playing with the record player.

Tim, oh-so-proud of his old country record collection.

After dinner Mike's fiancee Jess stopped by to pick him up - no drinking and driving from the Crescent St house! We sat around listening to records, having a bit of a singalong and some great conversations. Tim and Mike attempted to tune the guitars and then Jess actually tuned them. It was a great night. Really good start to breaking in the social life at the new house. I'm so glad we have lots of friends to stop by and just hang out!