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@blue_dolphin - thank you so much!  I still am a bit of a mess dealing with the loss of my mom and especially how unhappy her last couple of years were – mostly due to dementia.  But, thanks to friends and family, this service was not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be.  I got so much love and support from everyone.  I had friends from HS (I’m 62) show up.  Folks at church arranged flowers, blew the leaves off the sidewalks and driveway to make it look nice, and cooked.  And Jessica’s singing and eulogy truly blew me away.  I was awash, but in a good way.  Someone else at church recorded the service and put it on FB so I can watch the whole thing any time I like and share it with friends and family who couldn’t come. 

Tuesday, I finally got the spaghetti and meatballs I’ve been craving.  We went to The Grapevine (a favorite local Greek/Italian place) for dinner and for once I ordered Italian (I think I’ve always ordered Greek before).  Mr. Kim and Jessica started with fried mushrooms:

Very odiferous.  They said they were great.  Mr. Kim got his usual baked spaghetti:

This was the “Chef Michael’s Favorite” with meat sauce, meatballs, hot Italian sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms and topped with mozzarella cheese.

As I said, I got the spaghetti and meatballs:

Way too much sauce, but it was delicious. 

Jessica got the gyro sandwich:

And then, the bread:

I’ve never been able to figure out what the herb/spice is that Greek restaurants use that flavor their rolls so distinctively.  But these rolls are addictive, as are most of the breads I’ve eaten at most every Greek/Lebanese/middle eastern/Turkish restaurant my entire life. 

We love this place and the family so much.  We’ve been going to this family’s restaurants in Richmond since we moved back in the late 1990s.  They are not Greek, but Lebanese (I guess they call it Greek to appeal to more folks).  We’ve ordered lots of food from them during the last two years.  I’m so glad that they are still weathering the COVID storm and serving good food and hiring good people.