A Visit to Louisville

Saturday 2/20 I flew Frontier Airlines from Denver to Indianapolis, and then rented a car from Enterprise to drive to Louisville to see my mother. I stopped by the retirement home; Mater had been expecting me for some time, seemed a little dazed by my arrival. She did not look or sound very good. I chatted with her for a little while, then drove to her house, which is being remodeled.

The remodeling seems to be almost finished; unfortunately, in order to make room to do the work a lot of things got piled up. Stuff needs to be put back where it belongs for her to be able to go home. The bed that I was planning on sleeping on was piled about a foot deep.

I kind of panicked looking at all the stuff, and started frantically going through it to sort it into four piles; trash, recycle, donate and keep. The biggest pile was recycle, due to 40 years accumulation of magazines and clippings. The smallest pile was things that we might want to keep. I eventually shoveled down to the bed. I talked to my sister Diane, and we agreed to try to move Mater back to the house this week, after we get stuff moved.

I did not sleep very well; my back was out of sorts already, and the bed was bad.

Sunday morning I go up at dawn, had a bite to eat, and headed to church. The neighborhood church where I attended third to eighth grade has been closed, and is for sale. I decided to go to St. Margaret Mary, where I attended first and second grade. The church was new, concrete and glass, and semicircular, as many modern churches are. The church I was remember was very traditional and basic, one rectangular hall with the altar at one end. The priest seemed nice, the deacon's sermon asked us not just to give up something for lent, but to do something positive for lent.

I stopped by to dump off some recycle, and then headed to the retirement home. I greeted mater and told her to get dressed up, we were going to Captain's Quarters, a nice riverside restaurant which mater visited with pater, a restaurant she has been going to for at least 40 years. She acted a little confused, like this was a big deal, but did get dressed, and we headed out. She enjoyed the drive, of course knew the road, through a well landscaped neighborhood. We got a window seat, and the sun came out. It was really very pleasant, and the food was good. She perked up gradually, and enjoyed it, kept saying that she was surprised to be there. It ended up being an unexpectedly warm day.

After lunch, I took her back to her room to rest, and went back to the house to get some more done. I came back to her room around dinnertime, and we chatted a while. I explained that we had a bunch of financial stuff to do on Monday, and I would pick her up midmorning.