Another weekend done...

So this past weekend was kind of a whirlwind, some good parts and some bad parts. It started on Friday with a little bit of a family issue. My grandma (Oma) went into the hospital. Unfortunately we didn’t really know what was going on though because a neighbor of hers called my mom and only knew that she was taken to the hospital. (We later found out that it was a minor heart attack because one of her arteries was blocked – she’s doing ok now though, just needs some rest) Unfortunately this also left my grandfather (Opa) at the house by himself, he’s still fairly healthy but can’t move around all that well and does need some help with things. So this provided a problem because they live out in California near Yosemite in a pretty remote area. My mom sprang into action though and worked some things out and she and her brother flew out there Saturday to try and figure out the situation. We all know that it is time for Oma and Opa to move into some sort of assisted living situation. They should still have their freedom and their own place, but they need to be close to care and not 30 minutes from town up in the mountains with very few neighbors. Unfortunately they are both stubborn. Opa is starting to open up to the idea, but Oma does not want to give up her house where she has a great view and can feed the deer and raccoons and cats, etc… She has also realized that this could be her time finally to do what she wants; she has been married to Opa for 60+ years and has always done what he wants. So she kind of likes the idea of having him live in a home where she can visit him for a few hours every now and then and have her own place at home. Strange, I can almost see where she’s coming from, but it’s still incredibly sad. So I’m hoping my mom and Uncle can somehow find a solution to this problem that will work out for everyone.

And now for the good parts of the weekend. Friday night I went out in Naperville with my friend Maren who was in town from LA. Maren is awesome and we spent the night dancing away. There are a few good stories from this night that I will share in a different post. Saturday I had to sleep in for a while, staying out until 2am in Naperville and then having to drive 40 minutes to get home will have that effect. So after sleeping in and then watching the Olympics for a while I realized that I had a ton of stuff that I needed to get done around the house, cleaning, brushing the animals, running to Lowe’s to find a way to block the gaps in the fence to keep Ginger in the yard, hanging pictures, etc… So that’s how I spent the entire afternoon. I then headed out to Ravinia, which is a large beautiful open air theater, to see the Joffrey Ballet with my friend Chrissy. It was a great performance. One of the pieces they did was a little too modern for my taste, but the rest were beautiful. Sunday was the typical work at the bike shop day, although I ended up working at the new shop out in Barrington. Interesting thing about Barrington is that you get really nice people or really rude people. One of those really rude people was a guy who was very disappointed that we had mostly Trek bikes (dude it’s getting close to the end of the season!) because he didn’t think Treks were that good. Ummmm ok……did you miss the part were they made Lance’s bikes that won 7 Tours??? Plus I should add that they were looking at a $400 sport Hybrid for his wife and Trek is pretty much the leader in that area. He also came back later insisting that I sold him the wrong tube even though everyone in the shop tried to confirm for him that it was the right one, he eventually just ended up saying that we weren’t listening to him and he was very disappointed in the service and stormed out of the shop. Awesome. I finished off the night by picking up some food from Whole Foods and cooking a fantastic dinner. I invited my sister and her friend Paddy over to share and then we sat out on my back patio for a while with a few beers. Not a bad way to end the weekend.