Back from visiting Mom

I made it back from visiting Mom who lives near Pittsburgh. It was a good trip and almost everything went well. The trip there on the train seemed to go much faster than its true 11 hour duration. I had some really good books to read. I read Band of Brothers, Gates of Fire, Red Harvest and Brave Companions. The first two I read from the beginning. The last two I had started a long time ago but never seemed to have the time to finish. Now I have. I'm still reading Gates of Fire and it is very good. I don't think it will take long to finish.

I did miss a chance of a lifetime - both the Vince Lombardi trophy (won by the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII) and the Stanley Cup (won by the Penguins) were on display together in downtown Pittsburgh (pronounced by some as "dun tun Pixburgh") the day after I got there. But Mom had too many jobs lined up for me to take time off to go back into the city. It was satisfying to get so many things done for her, though, and by staying close to home, I got to see most of my relatives still living in that area. I've lost track of most of the people I went to high school with and the ones I have kept track of have moved away.

Mom is 84 and can't do as much as she used to. I was able to get things out of the attic, move big bundles of clothes, replace a plastic dryer vent with a metal one, find a replacement water filter when the old one was discontinued, move porch furniture into storage, fix a leaking water valve, change the battery on her garage door opener (which didn't fix a problem), buy a large sheet of plastic and cover a work area that hasn't been touched by the workman for two years and whose own plastic sheet had ripped and allowed water to wash into the work area, checked the fluids in her car, got a needle that had dropped down into the works of her sewing machine and then took the sewing machine to a repairman when the machine still didn't work right and took her to the eye surgeon who gave her the good news that the bleeding has finally stopped in her eye and that now another eye surgeon can finish the cataract operation that has been on hold for almost a year.

There are other things I've forgotten but the best part was just being with her and talking over things we remember from our life together and what the future may hold. Even though we have relatives living in the area, they have lives of their own and Mom gets lonely. Yes, the answer is for her to move near us but it's too big for her to handle now. I'm afraid she won't be ready to move until something forces her. There are a couple of stories that can be told about the trip. I hope to write them down here in the coming days.