End of November Notes

This has been a very busy, often crazy month. Lynette has been in Kentucky since early October, helping her sister Amy in looking after their mother, who is very sick and has been in the hospital most of the time. Lynette and Amy, and Amy's daughter Leigh Ann, take turns spending the night with their mother, either in the hospital or at her house on the few days when she is at home. It is a grueling routine that has nearly exhausted all of them. Claire went back a few weeks ago to help out, which they all appreciated.

I travelled to Kentucky in the middle of the month to spend a week with Lynette...we had a few nice times together, and I was able to run a few errands and help them out a little. It was very cold there - in the mid-twenties at night.

Emily was in Kentucky for a few days, too, and our visits overlapped, so I got to spend some time with her, which was very nice. She and her friend Abigail will be visiting us in California in mid-December. Lynette is coming home next week, which I am looking forward to very much.

Jackie and Martin are in London, on their annual visit, seeing Martin's family and friends and doing some touring. I hope they are having a good time.

Jayne and Bernie went to see their son Kirk and his family in Tucson for Thanksgiving.

I came home from Kentucky a week ago today, and then flew to Reno the next day to spend some time with my brother Alan and his family. They live nearby, in rural Walker, California, and like to spend a few days in Reno each year. Their daughter Sally is a student at the University of Nevada at Reno; she took us on a tour of the campus, which is quite impressive. Their other daughter, Molly, is taking college classes online from their home in Walker. I enjoyed my time with all of them, including Al and Priscilla and Al's daughter Romi, who came to Reno with her husband John for a couple of days while we were there. Romi is expecting her first child in February.

My brother Mike and his wife Kim, and their sons David and Aaron, spent the holiday with Kim's parents at Avila Beach, at a time share her parents have there. Mike said they had a very nice time.

Last night Joe and Marsha Grieco called and invited me to go to dinner with them, which I did. We went to El Portal, a very nice Mexican restaurant in Pasadena. It was nice to spend time with them, as always. They told me that their friend Brian Doyle Murray reported that his father-in-law came across this blog and read about the lunch I had with them a few weeks ago; I was delighted to see that I have a real reader out there. Brian's wife Tina is a lovely, charming lady, and I hope her dad checks in here now and then.

I am half-way through John Updike's latest, the Widows of Eastwick. It is fun to read, as Updike usually is. I just finished a book about William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the time they spent together in the English Lake District before Wordsworth got married to Mary Hutchinson. Coleridge was very unhappy in his marriage, had a crush on Wordsworth's sister-in-law-to-be, Sara Hutchinson, and spent as much time as he could away from his family and with the Wordsworths and Hutchinsons. William's sister Dorothy kept a very comprehensive journal during this time, and it was the source of much of the material in the book. I found it very interesting.

I am excited about Lynette coming home, and Emily's visit, and Jackie and Jayne's return from their holiday trips.