great to be home

After spending five days in ice-cold, geriatric land (Wisconsin). My Mom was doing better than I expected, and we managed to celebrate her 93rd birthday several times. She was tickled to have me around, and, of course, I played the requisite piano concerts for the crowd at her facility.

There have been changes there - one of the men, who I've known for over 4 years, died rather suddenly a couple of weeks ago, so there was a gloom, especially at meal-times. This guy was a real live-wire, always pulling good-natured pranks and lending a comic tone to most activities. When I was there in November, it was clear that he was declining somewhat, but I didn't expect him to be gone so soon.

Yesterday, as I sat in the lobby, I watched as his kids and grandkids made repeated trips to a truck outside, carrying his various possessions as they emptied his apartment. Then, later in the afternoon, a U-Haul pulled up, so that a new resident could unload. So it goes.

Long day of travelling today. I woke up at 4:30 (Milwaukee time), in order to be driving by the early side of 5, in order to get to the airport, turn in my rental, check in, and do Security. I made it to the gate with about 15 minutes to sit, before staggering onto the plane. It was still dark and I dozed a bit, before waking up and realizing that we hadn't left yet. There was some sort of mechanical problem, which delayed our takeoff for 45 mintes. Not to worry, though, since I had a 90 minute layover in Minneapolis.

Unfortunately, once we landed in Minneapolis, we got news of additional delays, and, all told, we were 3 hours late leaving for Portland. I spent most of that time walking around, looking at stores, and checking the monitors, as the departure kept getting pushed back, in 15 minute increments. It turned out to be mechanical problems with the plane, which was stuck in Detroit.

Needless to say, it made for a long day of travelling, and I didn't walk into my house until almost 5 pm. I unpacked, then ate a little dinner with Karen and talked to the dog and cats. It is great to be back in a place where you don't shiver with every breath.

Ben has a job interview tomorrow morning with a local Talk Radio station - a real job doing engineering, which he learned thru his volunteer work at KBOO. The down side is that this is a right-wing radio station (Sean Hannity, etc), but, if he gets the job, I anticipate being able to call in and harrass them "Uh oh - it's that Barry from Portland again". This might be fun.

Good night, all.