Memorial Day weekend.

Boy, talk about quite a lot to write about over the past week and weekend.

Well, we found out who our new priest will be come October, 1st. It’s a guy who is currently in Austin, TX. He met with his bishop and asked to be transferred to this diocese so he could be closer to his family who live in Omaha and Illinois. As soon as I found out, I Googled him and it seems that he’s pretty abreast with technology stuff so it was not difficult to find stuff about him. Let’s just say that things are going to be interesting because I feel that it will be a pretty big change from the former priests we’ve had starting with John. People do not like change, so we’ll just have to see if people stay or move on to a different parish.

What’s even more shocking is come July 1st, we’ll have an administrator (priest) from the diocese who will be with us during the interim session and this guy rubbed a lot of people the wrong way when he celebrated Mass a couple of months ago. Let’s just say he’s more than a little conservative for the parish. Prior to his arrival, there will already need to be certain changes that must be made with regards to how Mass will be celebrated. I do know from a couple of people that the will no longer be parishioners of St. Kate’s as soon as they found out this guy will be the interim priest.

Unlike a number of people, I told Anna and a couple of other people that I’m not taking a reactionary approach to the news. As recently as a couple of years back, I would have basically said, “To heck with things” and moved on to a different parish. I guess I’ve matured now and am taking a wait and see approach to things. I’m not going to lose sight of why I am a member of St. Kate’s – it’s for the students and in all of these changes, we cannot lose sight of the fact we are here for the students and their voices need to be heard. I will say that things will be more than interesting these coming months. Some people will go, others will stay and see how things go and there may just be one or two people who will become new members of St. Kate’s. It’ll be an interesting ride and I’ll be in the thick of things for sure.

I took the afternoon off from work on Thursday so I could hang out and play with Ann’s granddaughter, Finley who was in town for the week and weekend. Joyce (Ann’s daughter) brought Finley with her since she had a week off and Thursday was the only day that worked out for my schedule. Finley is such a doll and it took her no more than five minutes to warm up to me. Once she did, she chatted and played with me and told me a bunch of stories. There were a couple of instances where she would rest her little four year old head on my arm and she even gave me a couple of hugs that made my heart melt. There is something about kids and their innocence that is so darn amazing. Needless to say, I had a blast that afternoon. It has been some time since I’ve seen Ann too so that was nice. Later that evening, Anna’s jazz choir had their concert. After countless hours of preparing, they did fine. Some of the students did better than others, but overall, it was a good concert. At the end, Anna breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing that that was pretty much the last major event on her books before the school year ends.

Friday and Saturday night I worked at the restaurant and both nights were not too busy. I’m sure a lot of it had to do with Memorial Day weekend. Most of the regulars were not there which tells me that a good number of people left town. For brunch on Sunday, it was pretty much dead and we had a lot of food leftover. Needless to say I took most of the food home with me.

Monday was Memorial Day so we had the day off. Anna and I ran a couple of errands and prepared for the Memorial grilling at Anna’s place. I invited a couple of people like John, Kathy and Joel, Martha and Kevin. Some people were not able to make it, but it turned out to be a very nice evening. We had more than enough food and wine to go around and everyone had a blast conversing with one another. Talk about a great way to celebrate Memorial Day. It was a very nice day and the only thing that could have topped it off would have been warm weather instead of a steady drizzle. We made the best of it and all of us had a good old time.

That’s the news from me. I can’t believe that in less than two weeks, Anna and I will be going on our first road trip/vacation together. That should be fun.