I don’t know why, but Panera continues to offer us freebees. They gave us two months of free coffee. That comes in handy for Men’s club, as our clubhouse is still closed and we are meeting at Panera. This week, Panera added a dollar off any order. This reduced the price of a bagel and coffee to less than a buck. Danita and I spent the mornings of our anniversary week at Panera. Thanks, guys!

That wasn’t fancy enough for our anniversary day. We noticed the new breakfast restaurant JAM has tasty-looking muffins, so we got carry out “super muffins” for breakfast. They were tasty and large — and at $5.50 a muffin, the price was in the stratisphere. But it was fun and different. After dinner, we went to our favorite bakery and got super deserts. They were about the same price as the muffins, but the deserts are worth it. Danita’s Napolean was so large we needed a dinner plate to hold it. I got a personal chocolate fudge cake. Both were delicious. Neither of us could eat the whole desert in one night.

Speaking of the closed clubhouse, the clubhouse flood was caused by the fire suppression pipes freezing. The builder that built our clubhouse also built our house. I hired an inspector to see whether the fire supression pipes are correctly insulated. The inspection is scheuled for Monday. Fingers crossed. If it’s not done correctly, the fix is labor intensive.

That’s it for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

We had National Pi day Tuesday (Pi is 3.14). Danita was up to the challenge of celebrating one of the geekiest days of the year. We had bacon and chedar quiche and a blueberry-lemon desert — complete with a blueberry 𝜋.

Mark, Jiajia, and Mira visited. Of course with Danita cooking, we ate like kings. We took Mira to the Howard County nature center. Mira had a blast, looking at books, seeing small animals, and in general the atmosphere. We also took her to the nicest playground we know of. It’s a short ride from our house, and practically brand new. Mira spent an hour just getting comfortable with the place. She finally got into banging notes on a xylaphone that looks like leaves on a tree. Just then it started raining. The playground emptied out in nothing flat. We even found a new restaurant that offers excellent food at reasonable prices. It’s called JAM. They took over the old Expectations restaurant which we didn’t like, in spite of it’s popularity.

Unfortunately, I only got one good pic.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Afer a fabulous trip, our lives are returning to normal. We’ve attended two concerts. The first was the symphony orchastra. We invited Mom to the second, as it was offered at UMBC, just down the road from Charlestown, where Mom lives. The music was — unconventional. Besides that the chores are in normal swing. The taxes are filed. Many of our doctor visits are done.

My dentist recommended an expensive treatment as a preventative measure. It didn’t sound right to me. I looked up the procedure on the web. I couldn’t find any suggestion that the treatment is approprate as a preventative measure. I got a second opinion from a second dentist. They agreed with me. This wasn’t the first time my dentist has recommended treatments that weren’t required. I now have a new dentist. As a bonus, the new dentist is closer to home.

Just before we left on our trip, our neighborhood clubhouse suffered fromwater damage caused by a frozen fire suppresion pipe. They are just now beginning repairs. It’s put a real crimp on neighborhood activities. However, we were able to enjoy a food truck dinner with our neighbors. Men’s club is meeting at Panera. One resident called a home inspector to see if the insulation was adequate for the fire suppression pipes in his house. Not surprisingly, he found that the insulation was not properly done.Several other residents decided to have inspections done. I plan to have our houe checked out in the comming weeks. Fortunately, the season is slowly turning to warmer weather. No matter how severe winter might be next year, we have plenty of time to get this addressed.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.