A terrific wedding weekend.

Well, from the subject line you could surmise how the weekend and wedding went. It was terrific to say the least.

Charlene and I left DM for Kansas City at around 9:45AM and we made it in time to meet up with Sarah and Heath at 12:30PM. I got to see where they both live and it’s a nice house that they are renting while both of them are still in school. For lunch, we went to Heath’s place of work. He is attending a culinary school in Kansas City and as part of his program, he needs to be working at restaurant. The restaurant is an Irish bar/restaurant that served some pretty amazing food. It was kind of funny hearing Heath talk about the behind the scenes stuff that go on before the food arrives at the table. He seems to really enjoy what he’s doing and I’m happy for him. While at the house, both Charlene and I were able to see some of Sarah’s textile art work and I must say it was more than impressive. She’s definitely an extremely gifted and talented artist.

We were on our merry way after lunch and the drive was not too bad except for the fact that we were caught in a major thunderstorm that lasted a good forty five minutes. I could barely see the road and car in front of me. Thank goodness we made it to Charlene’s hotel safe and sound without getting into any accident. The plan was for me to meet up with Kurt and Janet after I arrived in St. Louis. They had arrived on Thursday and were hanging out at Janet’s friend’s house when I called. I picked them up and we proceeded to a bar to have a couple of drinks and catch up with one another.

Saturday was an extremely lazy morning for me. My goal was to let my body wake me up whatever time it wanted to and believe it or not, I got up at 5:30AM. I forced myself to fall asleep and finally got up at 7:30AM. The morning was spent reading the papers and just chilling. It dawned on me that since I began my second job, this was the first Saturday I had off and it was just nice to sit back and just not do anything. Charlene and I connected on the phone and I got dressed for the wedding before picking her up. We decided to grab a meal prior to the wedding and the weather was gorgeous enough that we could walk all over.

The wedding ceremony started at 2PM and we were the first to be seated. After we sat, I realized that we had actually sat at the groom’s side. That was kind of funny. Anthony just can’t do things the normal way! As I looked over the program, I found out that it was not a wedding Mass, but a wedding ceremony. EJ is not Catholic and Cindy is very Catholic. I guess this was a way to come to a compromise. Oh, the wedding took place at the Newman Center on Washington University’s campus. When Cindy walked in, I was taken aback by how stunning she looked. The dress was amazing and whenever she smiled, the gown looked even more stunning. Cindy has always had a great smile but she was extra smiley this day! There were a couple of instances during the ceremony when the deacon spoke to both Cindy and EJ with the microphone off and I later found out that he did that for Cindy because she was almost in tears a number of times. Speaking of in tears, I was definitely teary eyed when I looked at Cindy and started to think of all the emotional upheavals she’s been through especially when she was at Drake. She deserved EJ who is the right person for her and I know they will have a long and happy marriage. They most certainly complete and complement one another extremely well.

The reception started at 5:15PM so Charlene and I had a couple of hours to blow off. There was no reason to go back to the hotel so we ended up sitting on a bench in Forest Park since the weather was a perfect spring day. It was just nice to sit back and take a magnificent spring day in. The reception was held at Windows at Washington which was this old building with huge windows and each floor was renovated to accommodate a wedding reception/party. The best part about the site – when it got dark, you got to look out the window and absorb the beauty of downtown St. Louis. Talk about a place to have a wedding reception. We were served a number of hors d'oeuvres and there was an open bar. At the ceremony, I saw a number of Drake friends and I knew we would catch up at the reception which we did. Even though eight years had passed, it seemed like yesterday, and it was just great to reminisce our years spent at Drake. It was a sit down dinner and the meal was very good. Charlene and I sat at the table with mostly Drake people and all of us had a blast. When it was time to toast, Patty and Alison (Cindy’s best friends from Drake) intimated to a couple of experiences that only us at Drake were privy to and it cracked us up while three quarter of those in attendance had no idea what was going on.

It truly was an extremely happy and marvelous reception from the people to the music the DJ played. So many great memories came flooding back and I was definitely caught up in the emotional aspect of it all. Alison tried to get me to dance a number of times throughout the evening and I finally danced at the last song. She most graciously allowed me to dance with her. It’s nice when people humor me. The reception formally ended at 10:45PM but there were a number of us who ended up at a bar to drink some more. I ended up taking a cab back since Charlene had borrowed my car to drive back to the hotel and had it the next day.

On Sunday, Kurt and Janet picked me up from the hotel as we had planned on going to Mass at Stan’s parish in Belleville. It was great to see Stan again since the last time I saw him was at ordination two years ago. He looked good and I kind of chuckled seeing him celebrate the Mass. After Mass, the four of us sat in the rectory and shoot the breeze since so much has taken place in all our lives. Before dinner, Stan had to go to a hospital for an anointing of the sick even though he was technically done for the day. That’s ministry for you. We ended up at the Hill district in St. Louis which is the Italian neighborhood and the restaurant Stan chose was out of this world. It was definitely one of the best Italian restaurants I’ve been to. Everything would have been perfect if not for the fact that we had dinner at the bar and by the time we left, there were a good number of people congregating and smoking. I do not use the word hate a lot, but I definitely hate cigarette smoke with a passion. I’m just so glad that bars, restaurant and almost all public places will be smoke free in Iowa beginning July 1st. Yay! After dinner, the four of us went to this most amazing dessert place called Chocolate Bar (http://www.baileyschocolatebar.com/) I have always dreamt of a place like this in DM and to see my dream a reality and thriving in St. Louis gives me hope that sooner or later, someone will start a dessert place in DM. It’s only a matter of time. I had four truffles for dinner and let me just say that it was heavenly. All of us were in agreement that this was a great way to end the weekend. Even Kurt and Janet who are living in Madison, WI which have some eclectic and wonderful restaurants were impressed with the Chocolate Bar. Stan ended up driving back to my hotel and he may spend a weekend in DM and I told him that it would be great and to give me ample notice so I can take the weekend off from work. Knowing Stan, I’m not sure if this will happen, but if it does, that would be wonderful.

Monday morning, Charlene picked me up from my hotel and I would be doing a bunch of driving since I told two of my former religious education students that I would be meeting up with them. I ended up driving to Dubuque which was a good five hours drive from St. Louis to meet up with Matt at Clarke College. We ate lunch in downtown Dubuque before visiting the motherhouse of Sr. Carola’s community. I know a sister who works there and she was more than surprised to see me there since we dropped by unannounced. The BVMs (Blessed Virgin Mary) has some amazing facility and motherhouse and I was happy that Sr. Mira gave Matt and I a tour. I can’t wait to tell Carola that I visiting her community’s motherhouse and was more than impressed by it. After lunch, I drove to Decorah which is twenty miles south of the Minnesota border to visit Steph. She goes to Luther College which is a private liberal arts college that’s famous for its nursing program. We had lunch in downtown Decorah at this mom and pop restaurant which was very good. After dinner, Steph gave us a tour of her campus and it was definitely one of the more beautiful colleges I’ve visited. The drive back to DM was a little long and uneventful but the weekend was memorable in so many ways.

I’ve had quite a lot on my mind lately so it was just nice to get away from it all, and spend a fantastic weekend with such dear friends. I came back to DM refreshed mentally and emotionally and am ready for my 30th birthday celebration to begin! This weekend will be another amazing weekend with a number of birthday festivities. I’m definitely excited about it. I’ve also been warned that I won’t be driving back to my apartment after my friends are done with me at the bar. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

A nice, fun and relaxing weekend.

So, this week was really nice. On Monday, John and I went to the IMAX movie presentation of the Colorado River. It was really neat because I got to relive m whitewater rafting experience and that was great. We went to the German restaurant for dinner and the food was good as always considering the fact that I’ve not been there in quite some time. I was part of a pilot discussion group led by Kevin which talked about being a healing presence to others. There were eleven of us in the group and most everyone were or are in the healthcare field. We had some really good discussion and Kevin is looking to add healing presence as part of is consulting business. I think it will be a very good addition. The young adults met for dinner on Thursday and I asked them if they would come to my pre-birthday party on Friday, May 2nd if I were to have one and all of them said they would. So, I ended up calling a bar that I’ve been to before that’s non-smoking and reserved a section for a group of us. I’ve actually seen the section before and you can fit anywhere from ten to fifteen people and that’s where we’ll be. The only condition for reserving the section is that the group will have to spend at least $250. With the group that I invited, it won’t be a problem whatsoever. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be working until 10PM that evening, but will head on there right after work. I’ve put in a request to have the next day off because the last thing I want would be to party until 2AM and end up working at 6:30AM. That would just be wrong in my books. I don’t see any problem getting that vacation approved, but you just never know.

On Saturday, Ann and I went to Panom and David’s house for dinner. We had set the date quite some time back and all of us were looking forward to the evening. I got to play and hang out with their kids, Aiden and Keegan. Both of us are such adorable kids. Aiden warmed up to me right away, but Keegan was napping when Ann and I arrived. When he got up, he was a little cranky and surprised to see people at the house, but he did end up warming to us. Dinner was fantastic – Panom made this amazing chicken dish that had friend onion and garlic on top of it and it was so tender and juicy. After dinner, I played bowling on the Wii console with Aiden and later read a couple of books with Keegan that Ann had gotten him. His vocabulary was outstanding for a kid his age and he’s just so cute pointing and verbalizing the different things found in the book. It was great to catch up with Panom and David too and I was so happy to hear that they got a babysitter to take care of the kids while they attend my party. It’s just neat for parents to have an evening off and I’m glad to hear that they’ll be able to make it. Ann and I left their home at around 11PM which was pretty late for them, but all in all everyone had a blast that evening. There’s not like spending a fun and relaxing evening with dear friends.

I drove a couple of residents to see the finished art work at Drake’s Street Painting event on Sunday. Street painting was to take place on Saturday, but had to be cancelled because of the threat of rain and an overall cloudy day. The students ended up painting on Sunday and by the time we arrived which was after dinner, a number of them were still painting. Some of the squares had not been worked on yet, but I’m sure it will be done in a couple of days. Believe it or not, Relays is this weekend and Drake’s neighborhood will be buzzing big time.

That’s all the news from me for the week and weekend. Next weekend I’ll be headed to St. Louis with Charlene for Cindy’s wedding and it’s a wedding that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Cindy’s such a wonderful person and she’s been through a lot over the years and the fact that she’s met this great guy and will be getting married makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. While in St. Louis, I’ll be meeting up with Kurt and Janet because they’ll be visiting Janet’s friend who lives in St. Louis. We’ll also go to Mass at Stan’s parish and spend Sunday with him. On my way back to DM on Monday, I’ll be visiting two former religious education students in Dubuque and Decorah, IA. I’ve not driven to the Northeast corner of Iowa and have been told that it’s beautiful. I’m excited about the trip.

Malaysian Dinner.

Well, the highlight for the week/weekend would have to be my Malaysian dinner. Actually, I did go to the musical/play “Spelling Bee” which was pretty funny and cutesy in many ways. There weren’t too many people in attendance since it was a Thursday evening, and I will say that it was a good production. It got a really good review in the papers the day before so it would have been interesting see how many people did make if there that evening after reading the reviews in the papers. I’m glad I went. All the classical and broadways plays are winding down for the season and a number of organizations have already published next season’s performances. As a season subscriber, I get first dibs for next season and it promises to be a very good season. The every popular, “Wicked” will be coming with much fan fare and I believe a lot of people will be extremely excited about it.

Back to the highlight of the weekend. The Malaysian Dinner took place on Saturday and I made sure I cooked the rice on Friday right after I got back to the apartment from work so it would harden. It’s one of the secrets to fried rice! I got all the stuff in different grocery bags and packed them all in my car together with the spices. Thank goodness for me, the weather on Saturday was cool. In fact, it even snowed a little in the morning. That pretty much meant everything could stay in my car with me not needing to put them in the refrigerator at the facility. It was kind of difficult to contain my excitement while I was at the facility because at the back of my mind, I knew I was going to be preparing a meal for ten people who have never had a Malaysian meal before.

Dinner was to be served at 7PM and I told the people that I’ll be there at 4PM to get some prep work done and familiarize myself with the kitchen. The house was a classic West Des Moines suburban home and it was a nice sized kitchen and I got to spread my stuff out. I had no idea that the person who bid and won the dinner, Mary Frances was half Italian – her mother came from Italy when she was 21 years old. Anyone who knows anything about Italians is that they mother is the matriarch and they almost always are amazing cooks. I definitely had my work cut out for me. I got the soup going first while I cut up and chopped the rest of the stuff. The beef followed, then it was the chicken before the fish, vegetable and finally fried rice. I ended up getting three packets of Chinese herbs from the Asian grocery store and that was the base for my chicken soup. The beef dish was the classic beef curry with coconut milk. I decided on making my ginger chicken with rice wine instead of chicken curry. For the fish, I mixed the Asam Pedas and Kuah Kari Ikan together and it gave it a nice taste. The only thing I added was tomatoes. Instead of going all fancy and choosing an exotic fish, I went with a tried and true fish that most Americans have grown accustomed to – tilapia. I cooked baby bak choy as the vegetable dish.

As everything was cooking it really did not seem like a lot of food until everything was plated in different serving plates and bowls. It was then that it dawned on me that there was quite a lot of food. Once the friend rice was cooked, I knew there was going to be more than enough food for everyone. I was invited to sit at the table after I was done cooking but I graciously turned down the offer. While they were eating, I busied myself washing and cleaning up all the different pots and pans I used to cook. Overall, the meal was extremely well received and everyone ate everything. The reason why I knew this is because there was very little leftover for every dish. I believe people loved the fish and beef the most. Someone commented that the beef curry tasted so different than the Thai or Indian curry that most people are used to. They liked the sweet and tangy flavor of the fish. I knew I did well when Mary Frances’s mother gave me the thumbs up and personally complimented me with a job well done. She really liked the bak choy and said she’s seen it at the Farmer’s market numerous times and tried asking the vendors how to prepare it and they had difficulty explaining it to her. In fact she asked me how I prepared it and when I told her how I did it, she was shocked by the simplicity of it all. I did tell her that I used oyster sauce and garlic and the combination could have been what she really liked. Anyhow, she definitely had a smile on her face when she ate the vegetables. Once the leftovers were brought into the kitchen, I got to taste all the dishes. I felt the beef was just a tad too tough for me and the chicken slightly dry. I’m not a fan of chicken breast meat so I don’t do a good job cooking it, but it could have been better. The fish and the vegetable was flavorful and I would not have done anything different. The rice turned out fine although I had friend it a little too long. I do tend to be critical of myself and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s how one learns. Overall, I personally the dinner went fine although it could have been a little better. The way I look at it, as long as the people I prepared the meal for thought it was fine, I was OK. For dessert, I explained to them that we’re just not big into desserts and for the most part desserts tend to be fresh fruits. The best I could do when it came to fruits was to go to the grocery store and buy a can each of longan, lychee and rambutan stuffed with pineapple. I put the cans in the fridge the night before so when it was served, it was cold. I mentioned to the group that eating those fruits brought back memories from childhood because I remember eating those fruits from a can when I was young. They were tickled silly.

I probably left the house at around 9:30PM and by the time I got home, I was pretty darn tired. I was amazed how tired I was just from cooking and called it a night at 10:45PM which is so unlike me especially for a weekend. I’m just glad everything turned out A OK and that the people were happy with their meal. It does not surprise me that there was some stress in preparing the meal for people I’m not familiar with compared to friends and family. The fact that I pulled it off was commendable in and of itself. One Malaysian dinner down, another Malaysian dinner to go and I’ve still not heard back from them what Saturday evening works. The person who bought the second meal is someone I’m very familiar with. Heck, I even house sat for them before and they are a hoot. That dinner would be less stressful and I definitely know my way around their kitchen.

That was my weekend.

Never a dull moment at Westminster House.

So, on Friday when I made it to the house, I was informed that I was to take some of the residents to a car racing show at the state fair grounds. I was not really looking forward to the car show but I reminded myself that it was not about me but the residents. The minivan can accommodate a total of seven people including me. All in all, only four people wanted to go to the car show. I inquired if one particular resident would be interested in going because I knew it’s something that he would not normally turn down. It was then that I was informed that the resident was asked to leave Westminster House on Thursday because he was smoking a joint. A resident living at the facility who is on probation actually informed staff that she had to leave because if she were caught being around someone who is doing drugs, she would be in violation of her parole. Needless to say, some of the staff went into panic mode and confronted the resident who was smoking the joint. Evidently, he had asked someone to drop off the joint and he decided to smoke in not in the facility but outside. He acknowledged smoking it and was asked to leave immediately. That’s the reason why he was not joining the others at the car show. See, there really is never a dull moment at Westminster House. After dinner was served, everyone got into the van and off we went to the fairgrounds. Lo and behold no one and I mean no one was there for the car show – there were no cars to be seen. The residents were disappointed and started to get a little antsy. I called the team leader and asked her what I should do. She told me that I could take them to the movies which they were all in agreement. Whoever says God does not exist, has not lived my life! So, instead of going to the car show which I was not looking forward to, I got to watch a movie which I love to do. Three of us watched the movie, “Leatherhead” and it was a pretty humorous and cutesy football movie set in the 1920s. Whenever I go out on activities with the residents, it makes for a short evening since I spend at least an hour and a half with them.

The weather on Saturday was gorgeous – definitely spring weather so most of the residents were out and about. I think at the most we had eight people eat lunch instead of eleven. I feel good whenever I know that the residents are out in the community because the last thing I want for them is to remain in the facility especially when the weather is downright amazing. It was a pretty quiet and non-eventful day at work. I did end up working a half hour later because the regularly scheduled person did not come in and the person who took the shift came in a little later. That was not a problem at all for me. Fr. Tim and I went to the symphony because John had an event at his church that evening. Tim and I had planned on eating at this one restaurant where I had a buy one get one free coupon, but the wait was close to forty five minutes and we would not be able to make the pre-symphony talk if we had put our names down. We ended up walking to a Cajun restaurant just a couple of doors down and managed to snag the last non-smoking table. I’ve not been to this restaurant in years and had myself a very good seafood jambalaya. All in all dinner turned out really well and we were right on time for the pre-symphony talk. The symphony performance itself was very good and the NASA images that accompanied the Holt’s piece after the intermission was impressive to say the least. I kind of wished the images were digital so they would have been really sharp, but that’s just a minor complain on my part. Seeing those images while the orchestra was playing definitely added a different dimension to the performance. All in attendance definitely enjoyed the evening.

On Sunday, I went to a Lutheran church downtown. Kathy Olah is Lutheran and was a pastor’s kid while growing up. She’s been trying to get me to go to this church where she and Joel belong to hear this lady pastor who is a dynamic preacher. I finally did not have anything going on at St. Kate’s so decided that Sunday would be the most opportune time for me to make it there. It is fascinating the similarities between the ELCA branch of the Lutheran church and the Catholic celebration of Mass. Like Joel said, it’s the little nuances here and there but overall it’s extremely similar. They had a little more singing but we all know Catholics don’t sing! I’m glad I went, although Rachel the pastor ended up not celebrating the service which means I’ll be headed back there again just so I can hear her preach.

It was a quiet day at the house with most of the residents out and about with friends and family and that made for a very low key day. Dinner was spaghetti and meat sauce which turned out pretty darn good in my opinion. One of the former residents true to her word made it back to play Scrabble with a couple of us. She’s doing really well and you can tell just from speaking to her. Evidently she’ll be returning at least once a week for an Illness and Management Recovery class offered by Westminster House. I was so happy to hear that she signed up for it because it tell me that she’s doing what she feels she needs to do to not allow herself to deteriorate. Stories like this really show me why I do what I do with the residents. No matter how small of an impact I’m making, I know I’m making an inroad in their lives and there’s no greater feeling than that.

Ah, this Saturday I’ll be cooking my $1,000 Malaysian dinner and I’m really looking forward to it. Conceptually, I know what I’ll be preparing so now it’s more a matter of executing it. At the end of the day, I just want it to be a fun evening for all involved. I’m sure I’ll be writing about it next week.