Still winter in Rochester

But we are getting a break - there is a bit of slush in places but we have had no significant accumulation from this big storm. Good - because I am NOT shoveling snow again this year!

I am starting to find more things to do here. I have a lot of energy to get out of the house. I went to Happy Hour on Friday, and the Opera on Saturday - there's a world-class music school here, the Eastman School of Music. They put on Bellini's 'Capuleti e i Montecci', his Romeo & Juliette story. Beautifully staged, wonderfully sung. But I left at intermission. All the repetitive declaiming - She sings: O Romeo! My father will kill you! while Romeo sings: Oh Guiletta! I love you! Come with me! while her father sings: O Tybaldo! marry Guiletta and be my son! while Tybalt sings: Today I will marry Guiletta! Hah! death to Romeo! over and over and over. So when I am bored out of my mind and about to lapse into helpless giggles over the tedious earnestness of it all, it's time to leave.

I had a dinner guest on Sunday – my first non-family member. I met Bo in Munich, he’s Cita’s husband, I met her though the Ladies International Association. She was on the trip to France in the fall.

Well, the company that Bo works for in Munich has an office here in Rochester, and he was here for work, for the first time, this past week and next. We hooked up on the phone Sunday, after I was at a morning Yoga class. I said I’m drive downtown, where he was staying, to meet for dinner or he could come to my place and I’d make dinner here. He said yes, he’d come to my place. Yikes!!! it was about 1:15 p.m. I scrambled into the shower and zoomed to Wegmans to gather ingredients. I didn’t even stop to make a list. I was concentrating so fiercely on what I needed to get that I didn’t really see if there were other people in the store. I hope I wasn’t frowning! I was in & out in 30 minutes, back home by 3 to get dinner together by 5, when Bo was due. Well, as Rachel Ray says, I took a little help from the store. I made a great salad and chicken pot pie. Bought a chocolate cake. Thank goodness I had vacuumed the house the day before, and it was pretty well picked up.

Bo arrived and we had a great evening. It was so good to see him and absolutely wonderful to have a visceral reminder that yes, I did live in Munich. I had lost the sense of that recently. I am finding my center again as it’s been tossed about by all the change in my life. Not to mention proximity and almost daily contact with parents. Into my email box recently dropped this wonderful quote: “If you think you are spiritual and enlightened … go spend a week with your parents!” by Ram Dass. Ah yes. And I am getting much better and more patient with Dad. He’s mentally declining too, in part due to the Vicodin he’s taking for joint pain. Mom, she’s not even coherent anymore so it’s very easy for me to sit with her.

With the parents situation right now, I need to keep my schedule open, so no JOB. I will start looking for clients and smaller projects that I can do from home, so that I can keep driving Dad around as necessary, and helping Andrea with Mom. Oh, yes, here’s the latest plan: We're bringing Mom to Greg & Andrea's house on April 30th. It's just too much money for the care she gets - no meds, just feeding, changing, cleaning. Andrea would rather be getting paid for that than writing a $9K check each month to the nursing home. I will help out, of course. I'll relieve Andrea so she can do her life stuff, and I'll get Gavin out of the house for fun.

And I'll keep building my new life.