Taking Mama on the Road

My mom's been here visiting since the 19th of December. Hooray! As she said, we've seen one another a fair amount in the last year, but it's always been around events, so this visit has been good. Lots of free time. I've had work to do, of course, but she's been reading, and doing puzzles, and we've played alot of games.

I've wanted her to meet some of my friends and colleagues, and I've wanted her to have a sense of the scope of what I do and where I go, so on Thursday we took a road trip.

We drove to Marquette in search of a pea coat for her (don't even get me started, that was a challenge, but we found a coat that she adores in store number seven!) and to do some visiting.

Thursday night, we had dinner with my friend Gwen, her husband Jim, and Jim's brother Larry, who is 60, has Down's Syndrome, and some dementia. Larry has lived with Gwen and Jim for the last eighteen years. For dinner, we ate lamb raised on a local farm and slaughtered here in the UP. Yummm.

Also, Thursday was, for those who are liturgically minded, the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Gwen and Jim are local priests in the Church of the Holy Innocents in Little Lake; they invited us to their Feast Day Eucharist. It was a beautiful service, in a lovely little church in the middle of the woods. Seven of us worshipped with the mixture of joy and solemnity that befits this particular feast day. In place of a homily, Jim read us some Christina Rosetti poetry on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. You can find the two of them here.

Friday, we had coffee with Jim (my bishop) and a few colleagues at the office, lunch with my friend Marion, finally found the aforementioned coat, and then traveled, in light to moderate snow, to Iron Mountain. My friend and colleague Charlie is the rector of Holy Trinity in Iron Mountain, missioner to the church in Menominee, and all-around fab guy. Holy Trinity has Ministry Support Teams, in addition to a rector, and Charlie's wife Linda is one of the local priests. Dinner was a fabulous pork loin, roasted, and served with homemade cranberry chutney - to die for. It was a great evening.

We tooled on home through more snow, having logged about 300 miles in just about thirty hours.