Gary Mullarkey

 Monday, June 30, 2025

I made Friendship cookies today for Gary Mullarkey's memorial.  It was great finding cream of tartar in my newly organized spice drawer.  

The recipe made a huge batch that can be shared at the July 4th pot luck.

              

Gary's daughter Michelle and her husband Todd, her two daughters Rylie and Caitlyn and Gary's grandson Adam, who had faithfully taken him to mass, attended the memorial in the library of B Tower together with a nice representation of residents and two caregivers.

The comments by family and residents were touching, especially Adam's, that I was Gary's favorite reader at mass: loud and clear.  Jackie Haessley and I gave shawls to Michelle and Adam and pocket squares to Kaitlyn and Rylie.

There were peanut butter cookies besides my friendship cookies, plus cranberry juice.

Bike Race

 Friday, June 27, 2025

Janice did not come with lunch today because she was in Seattle meeting her Australian pen pal.

I took the opportunity to go with SRS to the Kinship Cafe for lunch.  The seat cushions that I ordered with my UHC plan arrived yesterday and Enrichment Director Betsy Rollbottom put them in the bus.  I could not believe how comfortable the ride to Kinship was, even over bumpy roads.  I might be taking more trips on the bus if the cushions provide a better ride.

 I've eaten at Kinship before, and looked foreword to their chicken breast sandwich, which I ordered.  We put tables together so that our large group could sit together.  But the orders were slow in coming.  Someone would call out our names, which most of us couldn't hear.  Finally, Fr. Gene Pocernich brought two orders and said one was mine.  My sandwich was not a chicken breast, but something rather mushy.  But Gene said he was really enjoying his sandwich; naturally, it was solid, and a chicken breast.

Some of the group wanted a Kopps' custard, and stayed behind for the second group to leave.  Betsy took me and others not wanting custard back to SRS.

Peter and I left for Jay and Laura's bike race party at 5:15 p.m. and had to find a round-about way to get to the neighbor's driveway to avoid blocked streets.  

I did not give Peter very good directions; he figured it out better by going through Estebrook Park on Capitol and ending up on Hampton.  We got there eventually and had ideal parking in the driveway across Laura's alley.

The table was set near the road with plenty of appetizers where we sat, also Annika and her four friends.

We helped ourselves to pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad and cole slaw on the porch.

We cheered as the bikers passed us.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMOKbVie3arbOLj2b5mDb2WLmg5mjQYezbZ6YMY

Festa

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Peter and I took the Uber to Festa on a clear, cool, comfortable day.  Claude joined us in time for the 1:00 p.m. mass, Father Tim as the celebrant.  His theme centered around his summer painting job at Allen Bradley: scraping, priming and painting.

After mass, we joined the procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the grounds to the lakefront.

We did not find any entertainment that was in session, but I was in search of an Italian sausage sandwich.  As we thought about it, we were not really hungry, and it was mid-afternoon.  The beer garden at Estabrook Park seemed like a great alternative.

Claude drove Peter and me to SRS and we met at the beer garden.

We had beers with brats for the guys, a hot dog for me.  A man asked if I waltzed.  When I told him the I did, he asked Peter if it was OK; his name was Mike.  We had a nice slow waltz, but I would not have been able to last much longer, with the pain in my hip.

When we got back to SRS, I ordered a cable for Peter's shaver.