Miscellany

Just a short note to explain my absence. I'm technically on vacation, although I've spent about fifteen hours the last two days working on our community finances. Just finished four monthly reports, an annual report, reconciled the computer books with bank statements, tracked down errors and missing information, and showed Fr. Jerome, the new treasurer, how to do a few things. Since I was gone most of the time, another friar paid the bills, and I'm grateful for that.

After tidying up a few loose financial ends, I'm off to my parents, who are 85 years old and live forty minutes south of Tucson. My sister's in town from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a week, so it'll be great to see her. Tonight I'll be driving my dad to Scottsdale to the Mayo Clinic, where he'll undergo some tests to see why he's having so much trouble walking all of a sudden. My sister, Barbara, will stay with my mom, who's on oxygen 24/7 and very frail.

Sunday I have the Masses and preaching at the parish here in Tucson (St. Thomas More - the Newman Center for the U of Arizona), then on Monday I'll take my dad and my sister to Phoenix, drop my sis off at the airport, and take my dad back to the Mayo Clinic for some more tests on Monday.

On Tuesday I'll be flying back to Colorado Springs, where undoubtedly my co-director, Sherry, will have a list of great ideas she's thought up in my absence.

If you think of it, please say a prayer for the health of my parents. Thank you!

Happy Feast of St. Dominic, too!