Last Weekend

I guess I never did put down last weekend. In case anyone cares...

I usually go to my friend Sharon's 3 hours north on a Saturday, either when I go myself or when Tim and I go. I decided to go Friday night in order to spend more time up there. And we had a lunch planned with Tim's parents on Sunday to celebrate his dad's birthday. So I had to be back home before noon on Sunday.

I packed up everything for the weekend Thursday night, and left for work. In the morning when I got off, I left in a heavy snowfall to drive to Frankenmuth. I was going to visit the grandparents and hopefully see my aunt, too. I got to the house, and I could see Aunt Mary washing dishes by the kitchen sink. Next thing I see is her stealthily leaving the house, coatless, with an armload of bread, crackers, cake mixes and who knows what all. What the heck was she up to? Getting rid of pounds and pounds of food that was God knew how old and probably stale/buggy beyond any possible use. She loaded it into her car, and explained as we went into the house that she's been getting rid of the packrat-esque stores of food in Grandma and Grandpa's house little by little before he gets up in the mornings, so as not to attract his notice. And risk some serious depression-era ire at the unpardonable sin of throwing away perfectly good food.

There has got to be an apt military-type acronym, or 'operation' name for that. I couldn't think of one just then, and I managed to stop laughing in time as I stood with her in the kitchen with an identical innocent smile on my face as Grandpa shuffled out of the bedroom in his PJ's, having just gotten out of bed.

I'm taking notes. Stealth, unfortunately, is going to probably play a very large role in our future dealings with aging parents.

Anyway, we had a nice visit, and was happy to hear things were going well. Aunt Mary fixed Grandpa's breakfast, and we talked a while. I put the containers of casserole I had brought in the fridge. Hopefully they would last Grandpa (and cousin Jeremiah) for a few days. I told her I was heading to mom's and that we'd be back in town that morning to visit Grandma in the nursing home. Letting her know, without coming right out and saying it that she was free to bring Grandpa in the afternoon without running into her there.

Here's a stroke of divine intervention: Grandma got into the good nursing home in Frankenmuth, the Lutheran Home. She was supposed to go to the not-so-good one, the one that gets cited for violations all the time. An opening fortunately came up, and she's in the same home Grandma Kueffner was all these years. Believe me, it was strange walking those halls again. Less than 4 months later, we have another grandparent in residence there.

As soon as I got to my mom's we turned around and headed out again. We had planned to eat breakfast out, and went to a local dive in downtown Saginaw. Smoky, seats made of cheap vinyl and fake woodgrain booths, hard-faced waitresses with pot bellies that refilled your coffee every 3 minutes, and a greasy-looking kitchen...the perfect kitschy hangout for locals who want an enormous, cheap breakfast. Mom and I split an omelet that was hanging over the sides of the plate.

We found Grandma at the home doing well, but as unemotional and quiet as ever. Oh yes: mom and Grandma are speaking again. And according to mom, have 'made up'. Well...OK. I guess we should be grateful, because this is what all of us kids have been hoping for for pretty much all of our lives. I'm still a bit skeptical how 5 or 6 decades of bad blood can be erased in a matter of days, though. Still, it seems to be going well. They've even said 'I love you' to each other, and Grandma wants to see mom.

Mom and her sister Mary have yet to encounter each other through all this. Let's pray for just a civil meeting, another miracle may be asking a bit much.

Mom drove us back to her house, and I took a nap so I could be on the road again by 4pm. It was painful, but I did it. I sleepily shoved some food in my mouth while mom bustled around me, like one of those waitresses on meth and/or speed, simultaneously offering more food and cleaning up lest one crumb have time to fall to the floor. I hit the road and just enjoyed blissful silence for the first hour or so.

I got to Grayling by 6pm, speeded along by the hardest music I could find on the radio spanning all the decades from the 70's onward. Yes, I had CD's with me, but I still like scanning the stations. I met Sharon in town for pizza, and then we had a beer at her house. I actually made it until 1030 that night, until I was nauseated with fatigue and fell into bed.

We didn't do much, just hung out, went shopping in Gaylord, walked the dogs, and had dinner over at Dave and Joanne's. It was just good to sit at their kitchen table, watching birds at the feeder just outside the window and talk for hours.

Sunday I managed to make it home after a smooth drive. I had time to change clothes, and we were on our way to Royal Oak, to Kimm and Jim's house. Once we got there and mom and dad arrived, Jim called our restaurant to make sure they were open. Good thing he did, because even though we had verified the hours, all he got was an answering machine. Hmm. Which suggested they weren't open yet, so we switched restaurants.

Texas Roadhouse in Madison Heights was the scene of moderate-level pandemonium that day. Took forever to get seated, and then nearly an hour to get our food. Country music was blaring from a speaker over our heads, and the place was a bit of a mess. No one appeared to be taking charge of the dining room. Once we got our food it was very good, but everyone but Tim and I had to get going to make it to the Redwings game in time. We helped out by cramming Jim and the parents into our car to take them to the game, while Kimm rushed to drop Jenna off at her mother's and then drove directly to Joe Louis Arena.

So it was that Tim and I found ourselves in downtown Detroit, enjoying blessed silence. We tried to notice if anything looked nicer than usual, since the Super Bowl had just been the week before. It's probably the most cleaned up Detroit is ever likely to get. The only thing we noticed was the giant Super Bowl decal on the side of the Renaissance Building.

Tim had the brilliant idea of driving just a bit down Michigan Avenue, past the old Tiger Stadium, and checking out the restaurant he wants to go for a belated Valentine's Day dinner. 'Slows' specializes in barbecue and pulled pork and all the yummy side dishes that go with it. We walked in and sat down at the hammered copper bar and admired the trays of food being carried by, including some damn fine-looking baked macaroni and cheese.

We tried a couple of the draft beers (I can speak very highly of the Edmund Fitzgerald porter, and Tim had a Hennepin, redolent of flowery, citrusy hops). I struck up a conversation with a lady next to me, who turned out to be a Peruvian immigrant who lived in Corktown, the nearby Irish neighborhood. She said the area was experiencing a revival, and she loved living where she did, in a beautiful old house with teak fireplaces and stained glass windows. There are plenty of buildings that bring to mind bombed-out areas of the Middle East, but if a restaurant like Slows is doing as well as it is reported to be doing there, maybe there is hope. We'll be back there to try out the food on March 5th.

The day ended with a visit to a *new* Trader Joe's store on the way home. And me finally unpacking.