There are pics this week.
The last retirement balloon’s last hurrah
Before I get into our news, I have to announce the demise of Danita’s last balloon. Danita got a bouquet of balloons at her UMBC retirement party. The last balloon was dragging on the floor. Danita cut the ribbon last Saturday to let it have one last day or so on the ceiling. The balloon managed to drift over to our ceiling fan, where it got pushed into a continuous circle. I thought that was cool. We decided to leave the ceiling fan on continuously and see how long the balloon would travel in circles. It fell to the floor last night, which is an impressively long last hurrah. RIP, celebratory balloon!
Sctatch Kitchen Dinner
It was another week of family activities.Tuesday afternoon Danita took Bud to the doctor to have some minor surgery done on his hand. He was unable to straighten one of his fingers. The doctors removed some material from one of his knuckle joints. The surgery must have gone pretty well, because Bud joined us for Ed’s birthday party that evening. It was a Schmaus family dinner at Gertrudes Restaurant, located at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Gertrudes has a fixed price dinner on Tuesdays. Unlike most fixed price dinners, they have a dozen choices. Their food is always excellent. I’m sure that if we lived closer to the BMA, we would be eating there regularly.
Morning walk ended at the Dothan Walmart, with a few things to cheer Rick up …
Back at home, we moved our dinner out night to Wednesday. Danita wanted to do something a little special and suggested we go to Bare Bones. Bare Bones is a favorite of ours because of their great ribs and many other good dishes. But their unique feature is their onion loaf, which is a big pile of onion rings formed into a loaf. We usually order the half loaf, which is far more onion rings than we need, but it’s very good and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, they stopped serving their half loaf. A full loaf was way too much to contemplate ordering. So our special night turned into a bit of a disappointment. But the rest of the dinner was still good.
… and a new sun hat
Danita wanted to have a nice dinner Wednesday because of the other big family activity. Dani and Gayle flew down to visit Mom Wednesday. Thursday, Dani Mom and I all converged in Atlanta. We drove to Dothan Alabama Thursday afternoon. That let us drive down to visit Rick in Graceville, Florida Friday morning. Then it was drive back to Atlanta Friday afternoon. Dani and Mom went back to West Palm Beach while I went back to Maryland.
Dani, Rick, Mom
Amazingly, all the transportation worked out perfectly. I arrived in Atlanta first, picked up a rental car, and went to the cell phone lot. 45 minutes after Dani and Mom’s plane landed, I hadn’t heard from them. I decided they might be having some undefined cell phone problem and decided to take a swing by the terminal to see if they were on the sidewalk waiting for me. Just as I got to door 6, they called me and announced they were at door 5. I was able to pull over and pick them up immediately. It turns out Mom decided to walk through the Atlanta airport instead of taking their passenger train. Way to go, Mom!
Rick’s dog won’t be able to travel to the nursing home
Our hotel in Dothan was a winner, with nice rooms, friendly staff, and a good breakfast. But the dinner was unexpectedly good. We found a restaurant just up the road called Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. The food was amazing. We weren’t able to eat it all.
We had more or less 4 hours of driving each way. But we had no serious misadventures and encountered no heavy traffic. We went through an incredible cold front coming back to Atlanta. The outdoor temperature went from 102 to 73. Unsurprisingly, it was accompanied by a very heavy rainfall. But there was no lightening. The rain was brief enough that we didn’t have an opportunity to take an exit off the interstate to wait out the rest of the storm. Our only misadventure was that somebody keyed the rental car. Car inspection was not on the agenda for the somewhat harried agent that checked me in, so I decided to focus on getting through airport security. We’ll see if I get a phone call from Dollar Rent-a-Car.
Another pic near Walmart
Rick is not doing well. A couple of days before we went down, he was taken to the hospital. We weren’t sure where we would meet him. As it turns out, they took him back to his apartment. His stay there will be brief. He is moving to a nursing home Sunday. He elected to move to a nursing home near Rick, Jr.
Today I’m back in Maryland. I assume Dani and Mom are back in West Palm beach. (There were some flight delays due to weather.)
Tonight is Circle. Our Marriage Encounter Circle has morphed into a monthly dinner club. The Bertches are having serious health issues. Mike is not doing well, Rose has her own health issues, and taking care of Mike is becoming quite an issue for her. They weren’t up to traveling to circle last month or this month. So we’re taking everything needed for dinner, down to the paper plates, and meeting at the Bertches.
Dani and Mom having dinner at the Atlanta airport
That’s a lot of news for one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.