Notably unremarkable

It's probably premature to declare a maternal visit a success before confirmation of her safe return to St Louis (especially with these storms), but I'm going to anyway. Both computers are fully operational, I'm not quite so exhausted that I can't function, and even monshu is all smiles.

It helped mightily that for once there was no agenda. Well, that's not entirely true: as usual, Mom did want to get me something for my birthday. But we chose one store within a reasonable distance which I could navigate us to unassisted and went directly there and back. It took about three hours total, we never got lost, and now I'm one down jacket lighter and two pairs of a pants and dress shirt heavier. We got back in plenty of time for the GWO to put on his little Italian chef hat and serve up prosciutto e melone, frittata di spaghetti, and panna cotta con fichi al balsamico.

Most of the two days together was spent simply sitting on the back porch and chatting while she tried to finish up some socks for Grandkid #2. She did spend a little time playing games on her phablet, but not until some crazy hour of the morning. Saturday evening, I parked her in front of the tv after the block party and she fell asleep to Witches of Eastwick within in hour. However crazy her sleep schedule is back at home (she apologised for not calling me ahead of time since she was "waking up at 10 [pm], when it was too late to call") it was perfectly reasonable while she was with us.

The most concerning thing about this visit was the way she huffed and puffed whenever we were on the hoof for more than a hundred feet. To be fair, it's the dog days in Chicago; we've finally had a week of real heat and humidity. On the other hand, this is basically what every summer is like in St Louis all summer long. Of course, having just gotten back my numbers from my doc, I'm in no position to be criticising anyone else's state of health.

Today in serendipity

I slept badly and woke up in the wee hours with a stomachache. It subsided later, but I still used it as an excuse to come in a bit later so I was able to see off Mom. It was bright and overcast at Loyola but became darker and darker the further north we traveled until it became obvious we were heading into a thunderstorm. Drops began to spatter the window as we neared my stop. I hit the ground running to the accompaniment of a tremendous KRACK-A-THOOM! and reached the shelter of the arcade just as the big drops began falling.

The rain had stopped by lunchtime. I was walking to a cafeteria on campus and the route I was taking reminded me of fall two years ago when I regularly went up with my student assistant to one of the branch libraries to work on materials being sent off-site. I hadn't heard from him in about a year and I idly wondered what had become of him. Not half an hour later I was standing at the railing tossing breadcrumbs to the sparrows when I heard someone say my name: the same student assistant, now working for a start-up while he finishes his degree.