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Catching up on the week that was.
Jun. 14th, 2021 09:57 amSince my last post, I've gone to NC and back again, talked more than I have in over a year, and in general, had a grand time. My mother turned 90 last Wednesday, and her (older!) sister and my little sister had a shindig. LilSis made the plans and most of the party food - High Tea (minus the cakelets, but we had birthday cake) for the birthday meal, but mostly we just sat in the living room of the house in Boone (it rained every afternoon) and chatted. We went for little walks every morning (Mum *is* 90, and a 2 mile mosey on flat ground is about her limit. She's actually quite mobile, and has no trouble moving around the house/apartment/apartment building, but her stamina is low) on various Greenways around Boone (AC doesn't walk much at all, so she stayed home - she's in much worse health than Mum). We had a (delicious) brunch at a pretty little cafe in Blowing Rock (down a rock path) one day, and had a couple of meals of the 'clear out the refrigerator' variety - sandwiches one day, a breakfast buffet another. AC asked me for my pancake recipe - erm, LilSis handed me a packet of Bisquick biscuit mix, I added milk as the recipe says, and then added water until the batter "looked right". helpful, eh? (I made pancakes for breakfast every school morning for 15 years. I got pretty good at them.)
After the festivities in the mountains, J and I went back to Mum's place in High Point, and spent a few more days taking little walks and chatting with Mum and her friends. We masked whenever we were in the public areas of the apartment building, but were not required to in the private areas. The residents are now being allowed to congregate, although the main dining room is closed (due to construction, not COVID restrictions). Mum has many friends at Pennybyrn, and it was nice to meet at least some of them. One day, J and I went off without Mum (she needed to rest after the week of family togetherness), and we went to the Botanical and Bog Gardens in Greensboro. Very nice city parks.
On the way home, the odometer in my car rolled over 200,000 miles. Whee! I don't know if it will actually make it to the moon, as there are rumbles in the household that we will be needing a third car in the fall, and rather than buying a used car for the kid, we'll replace my 14 year old car with a new one, and have the kid drive a single-owner used car that we *know* the accident and maintenance history of. This is turning out to be more difficult than expected, as apparently I have some weird desires in vehicles (large cargo not visible from outside or impinging upon the passenger area, twice weekly round trips of 100 miles, regular trips of 200-600 miles one way). To my dismay (as a child of a Big Three employee who grew up in the Detroit Metro area), the current front-runners are Toyota and Honda. foo. (if nothing else, I can't get Z-plan on them.)
After the festivities in the mountains, J and I went back to Mum's place in High Point, and spent a few more days taking little walks and chatting with Mum and her friends. We masked whenever we were in the public areas of the apartment building, but were not required to in the private areas. The residents are now being allowed to congregate, although the main dining room is closed (due to construction, not COVID restrictions). Mum has many friends at Pennybyrn, and it was nice to meet at least some of them. One day, J and I went off without Mum (she needed to rest after the week of family togetherness), and we went to the Botanical and Bog Gardens in Greensboro. Very nice city parks.
On the way home, the odometer in my car rolled over 200,000 miles. Whee! I don't know if it will actually make it to the moon, as there are rumbles in the household that we will be needing a third car in the fall, and rather than buying a used car for the kid, we'll replace my 14 year old car with a new one, and have the kid drive a single-owner used car that we *know* the accident and maintenance history of. This is turning out to be more difficult than expected, as apparently I have some weird desires in vehicles (large cargo not visible from outside or impinging upon the passenger area, twice weekly round trips of 100 miles, regular trips of 200-600 miles one way). To my dismay (as a child of a Big Three employee who grew up in the Detroit Metro area), the current front-runners are Toyota and Honda. foo. (if nothing else, I can't get Z-plan on them.)
