February 27, 2016

Old Friendships are Precious

February 27, 2016

Saturday morning, Dave left early for his second job and Ron went with him to spend the day.  Dave's niece was going to spend the day with someone else and so I had made arrangements to go see a long time friend.  She lives out in the country about a 40 minute drive from our son's home.  I had made the trip once before but, wouldn't you know it, one of the main roads I had used was closed for the weekend.  Thankfully I had seen signs Friday warning about it, but I had to have our son print me out a new map so I could get there.

It was a beautiful day for a drive in the country.  Wildflowers are starting to bloom, but no bluebonnets on my routes yet.

I am going to jump ahead for a minute in this story.  In a text to our youngest son, I mentioned going to see a friend.  He asked if it was someone he knew.  I told him I doubted it since the lady was from the church in Houston where we belonged early in our marriage.  I began to figure how long that had been.  I had known her for about 47 years.  I have seen her rarely since we moved back to Brownsville from Houston about 42 years ago.

When we can get together, we pick up where we left off and don't run out of things to talk about.  She has been a spiritual inspiration to me since those early years and I really enjoyed the four and a half hours we were able to spend together on Saturday.

The birds love her backyard and she keeps food and water available for them.  We talked away the morning and then had a great salad selection for lunch.  She had made potato salad, chicken salad, and a fresh fruit salad of strawberries and fresh pineapple.  Then we moved out to the porch where I could watch and photograph the birds.

It was time to go back to San Antonio and I tried to do some shopping but was not successful in my hunt for some things to wear to work.  When Ron and Dave finished, they picked up Dave's niece and after a bit we all went to downtown San Antonio to go to the Riverwalk.  We walked a ways down the river to Casa Rio to have supper.  Normally we eat outside by the water, but there was such a long waiting line, we agreed to eat inside.

Just after we were seated, a mariachi group came in and gathered around the table next to us for a nearly 30 minute concert.  It was a distraction, but the funny thing was, my Cochlear sound processor cuts down loud noises and I kept thinking they were not as loud as usual.

Well, they were, I just didn't hear them at full volume.  And if it got bad, all I had to do was disconnect the sound processor and I had total silence.  There were 6 instrumentalist and a singer - 4 feet away from us.

After supper we walked along the river again toward the already closed mall.  I think the guys must have done the planning for this outing.