We arrived home on July 29 from Canada and then spent a quiet 4th of July. It rained a lot so going to the Pavilion to see the Red White and Blue Houston Symphony Orchestra performance lost its luster. We watched the DC entertainment and fireworks on TV.
We are having some cabinet work done in our master closet and laundry room so I needed to get that settled and then before we left again I had to empty everything! There is stuff all over the place!
We headed out on Thursday 7/10 giving ourselves two days to get to Cincinnati. I have to say all the roads were in great condition with very little construction going on. We made it to east of Memphis before stopping for the night. I think I fell asleep at 8 pm! The next day we finished up and checked into the Red Roof in Lawrenceburg IN. Other than downtown and north of the city of Cincinnati, there are no motels. We stayed in Northerm KY for the funeral in May because we flew in and Cincinnati’s airport is in KY! We have little choice and found this Red Roof the most acceptable. Of course we had Skyline for dinner and I was asleep by 9!
Saturday I met with alumni of my high school for a bi-monthly luncheon held at LaRosa’s, another place we always hit when we visit here. While I did that, Ted had lunch at White Castle and he checked off one more cheap eats that are staple in Cincinnati. He also took a vagrant in and bought him lunch when he told Ted he was hungry and had no money.
We went to Mass at 3:00 where we ran into Barb and Kevin. We will see the Rogers clan on Tuesday. From there we went to Whiskey’s in Lawrenceburg to help niece Sherry and her husband John celebrate their anniversary. We intended to go to the winery for music afterwards but there was a terrible rainstorm so we just stayed, from 4:30 to 9:30, almost to closing. We had a very nice visit.
Sunday we checked on the Titanic Immersion experience. We have been to an exhibit quite some time ago but were disappointed to learn this was mostly photographs with few artifacts, people complained of it being very hot. So instead we took a ride through the cornfields of Indiana to Brookville Lake. We walked out on the dam and drove over the causeway. Ted’s maternal grandma was from Cedar Grove IN so we drove there to see what he remembered of his visits there as a child.
I made plans for us to visit with one of my very best friends! You know the kind, you can tell them anything and they will never judge, only help. And you can pick up right where you left off. Karen sat next to me in training at Procter & Gamble in 1963. We have been through engagements, showers, weddings, births, houses, jobs, you name it! They suggested a restaurant in Bellevue KY that had a great menu, very good food but their happy hour was $1 off beer! That was it but you have to realize that the old saying was “if the Ohio River was 🍺 it would never get past Cincinnati!” So no moscato for me! We ate outside overlooking the river. As the sun was setting our table umbrella became useless so we moved inside to AC!
Tuesday we learned of another relative’s death. My aunt who had me as her flower girl and my kids were very close to passed away at age 93. That evening we learned my late father’s widow passed sway at 91 and we are going to a funeral for Kara’s friend’s mother that we knew this Thursday. That makes an even dozen so far this year and I am sorry I bought that purple dress for funerals!
Kara asked us to go to Jungle Jim’s to buy LaRosa’s pizza sauce and pasta sauce. We bought about 18 jars so that should hold them for awhile. This place is the amusement park of supermarkets. She also wanted a bag of one flavor of dum dum suckers for CeCe. “They are right by Elvis.” What?
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The seats are from Crosley Field, where the Reds home field when I was a kid and spent 25 cents to sit in the bleachers.
We joined Ted’s brother and two sisters with their spouses that evening for dinner with all of us feeling Dan’s absence. He was such a story teller and he is acutely missed.
Ted went to Fairfield gun club Wednesday to shoot but there was some mechanical issues and the event was cancelled. In the meantime I was at the motel and the electric went off. The bathroom is black as night so there was not much I could do but hope my phone and I-Pad didn’t run out since the TV obviously wasn’t working. Ted came home just as the electric came back on. Anna called from home. She was picking out the Silestone that will be the counter in the laundry room and wanted me to pick between two.
I was finally able to shower and get ready to meet my BFF since kindergarten to senior in high school. She had been at the lunch on Saturday but had not seen Ted yet. We were together the night we met Ted in 1960! We picked her up and had a nice dinner and visit. She just sold her condo and is moving to her daughter’s lower level apartment. And time marches on!
Thursday was our last day here and we took advantage of the lull to head to the laundromat. We had lunch at LaRosa’s afterwards then started packing to limit how much luggage we needed to take into the Lodge at Geneva on the Lake, OH. We will leave for there tomorrow after breakfast. It is our 13th every other year family reunion.
