Culmination!

What a day! 

By the time Saturday arrived, Tom and I were pretty worn out.  We had measured and marked and cleaned and sorted and catered my mother's needs at the same time.  The first 24 hours of our mission in moving my mother to assisted living were at a torrid tempo.  By the time brother Don arrived on Thursday, we had the first stage well in hand and I set the guys to cleaning furniture while I worked with Mom sorting clothing and more stashes of "treasures".  Then Don went crazy and started emptying every cupboard and closet he could find.  While it overwhelmed Mom and me at the time, it was of great help in the long run.

One highlight for me was going through Mom's old cedar chest with her.  We found bundles of letters my father wrote to her before they were married and then a few years later when he was in the Army, in 1945.  By now, she was saying , "Oh, throw those away" to just about everything, but of course I didn't obey.  I have several boxes of saved stuff to sort through at a later time and compile into a treasure trove of family history to be shared.

When sisters Laurie and Ilene arrived on Friday I was out shopping for some needs for the new assisted living apartment, and I left a note with a few jobs for them to work on, knowing that for the first hour they would just be "milling about", taking it all in and looking for their own treasures.  We each had labeled boxes in which we had placed items we wanted or thought others might deem worth saving.

Mom was quite fearful of the move, but as she saw it all come together, and her needs were met in the process, by the time Saturday arrived, she was ready.  Ilene took her over to the apartment, which is in easy walking distance from the house for the rest of us, and she observed as her new living space came together.  Brother Hank, and Grandsons Ben and Andy and Grand son-in-law Troy did the heavy lifting into their pick up trucks, as Don and Tom directed at the house and Ilene and Laurie directed placement at the apartment, using the layout map I had made.  I floated back and forth. Great grand daughters Mia and Jordan made the bed, picked a bouquet of lilacs for the apartment, and just had fun looking for treasures of their own.

Mom sat in her chair in her new living room, amazed.  "My whole family is here!", she exclaimed!

By noon all that was left to do was hang pictures on the wall.  Ilene and her husband Mike accompanied Mom to the dining area for her first lunch as a resident of Pheasant Pointe.  Tom and I were leaving at 1:00 to make the 3.5 hour drive back to Seattle.  When we went to the dining room to say good bye, a smiling mother introduced us to her new friend, a gentleman she had gone to grade school with! She had already asked if she could sit with him at every meal!

By 5:30 we were at the train station, on our way to the Sounders match at Qwest Field.  I called sister Laurie to have her give Mom a message they we had made the trip safe and sound.  She said Mom was at dinner with her new friend and had dismissed any other family members from being with her.

"I can do it on my own now," she told them.

Needless to say, we are grinning, and jubilant!

What a shift to the end of this day that had begun for me at 5:00AM, after a third night of little sleep.

We gathered with other Sounders fans in Occidental Park, and participated in the March to the Match.

We were lost in the thick of the supporter group, singing and chanting.  Something involving flares was going on up ahead, but we had no idea what.

Here's the aftermath.  It was big, whatever it was.

Portland, our most hated rival in our history of professional soccer, is in their first season in Major League Soccer. This was the opening match of the Cascadia Cup series, to see who really are the Kings of Cascadia, Seattle, Portland or also new to MLS, Vancouver BC.  500 Portland fans made the trip, and I'll give them their due - they looked and sounded good, but that banner is premature.

Tom was stationed in the Hawks Nest, ready for the unfurling, which was to come immediately after the National Anthem.

On the other end, the Emerald City Supporters, a huge fan group, welcomed the team.

 I barely had time to record the rockets red glare before our small supporter group, the North End Faithful, had unfurled that huge banner we had been helping with.  It came off without a hitch, despite the fact that the rain, which most of us had not expected after a nice day, but which had begun lightly during the march to the match, was now intensifying into a full blown torrent. 

Fortunately there was no wind, because as big as our tifo banner was, ECS just kept coming and coming until all half acre of fabric was displayed.

The crowd went wild!  Son Jake had been spending all of his free time for two weeks prior to this match as a project leader on this display.  Wow! It was epic!

Even Portland had a traveling show.  But we still hate them, of course.

The match was exciting, but wet, and ended in a 1-1 tie, which was disappointing to all, but OK considering the field conditions by the second half.

Tom helped gather the yards of soggy fabric up to get it to the project leaders car.  It weighed a hundred pounds before it was soaking wet.

Here it is, Sunday morning.  I slept a little better.  It's still raining.  Our wet clothes and shoes are drying. We'll check in with Jake today, and see how he managed a half acre of water laden mess, and share our stories of the big move.

What a day!