Home from the (more) South: a week's catchup

The non-update on the PET scan: no news at this time-Doctor has not called with information. Chick will be calling tomorrow to request report.

The week in

(its mostly boring)

review:

Tuesday morning through Friday night: the conference

It was @ 5.5 hours drive down to Hollywood (Florida) to the conference. I was missing home before I pulled out of the driveway. With my gps gizmo (call him Nigel with his British accent), I found the hotel fairly swiftly once I had headed that far South. Fortunately the conference was held at the convention site at the same hotel where I was staying so I didn't get too lost going back and forth as would be my wont.

The prices were ridiculous, charges for things (like parking my car at the hotel -- cost @$25/day!!!) were stout. I was glad I had some cheese doodles left from the snack break I took when I regassed up at Ft. Pierce as this gave me both Tuesday and Wednesday nights' meals.

Eating.

I ate once at the hotel, on Wednesday. I had a breakfast buffet and it was $32. That plus the cheese snack was my Wednesday meal.

Thursday there was a small continental 'breakfast' offered for early risers for the conference. After the meetings I headed off for an 'all you can eat Chinese buffet' about a mile from the hotel that I had spotted coming in -- I made myself fill up since that would be the day's meal -- and with a tip it was only about $8.50.

Friday I left after the ethics program and did a run a Burger King drive-through on the way out of town, and that was Friday's meal.

Sessions.

The sessions were good. I've gone to this conference many times over the last 22 years, and have practiced the subject matter at least that long, so things weren't really 'new' to me. My attention would have wandered many times except there wasn't really anything to wander to. I got a few things to think about, not always when and about what I'd expected, but that's still a good thing. The ethics program was presented interestingly to keep one's attention and make one go "hmmmm", but the rock music included was too loud for me and thus blurred the words past my comprehension. But the follow up 'test' questions definitely were thought-provoking.

I decided not to stay for the "prom" and gave my former colleague my ticket for his wife, who is also Chick's and my friend. I used to go to those each year and enjoyed the heck out of them. But I was also younger, far thinner, was more in the middle of things and knowing so many more of the folks involved. The conference has grown from the "hundreds" of those days to the "thousands" of now, and I'm not a very good crowd or group person.

I was surprised to see as many people that I knew or kinda knew; I wasn't really looking for anyone other than the former colleague and his wife. One of the folks there that I had known in one of my Tennessee incarnations, knowing I was coming, had actually brought me the copy of an old teaching tool I had created 'back in that day' as a tribute to my then-influence. That was touching.

The Environs and the Ocean.

The one 'crazy' thing I did was take a lot of pictures out from my room. I think I had the lowest room floor of anyone else who went to our conference -- me hitting "6" in the elevator, everyone else hitting nothing lower than 25 and going up to the penthouse suite of 36 -- but I still liked the view. There was a wonderful small balcony and it pointed me right out at the ocean just a few feet away from the lounge chairs and umbrellas just down a few steps from the pools which were directly outside below me.

I snapped so many shots over the several days -- especially if I got something "ish" that I liked, I also clicked through the same shot with several of the automatic "filters" or settings my little camera could offer. I just wanted to see what difference those made. Some did, some killed the shot, a lot just looked like "so what".

The first night was just nice -- it had been a little overcast as I drove down, doggedly zipping along with the top down even in the 'once' of a few moments of rain. But the ocean wasn't acting up too much. Over the next few days, as storms were heading towards us and then "there", the surf got more excited and frothy. Ooo. Had to snap those (why???). It was just something a bit fun to do. I knew if I shot "enough" I might get a few nice ones or dramatic ones to share, and not have to bore anyone with the bulk of the rest.

The best shots I got were actually before I left, when I was packing my suitcase, when I glanced over and wondered "what?" until I realized that Pearl had decided I needed to take the true comfort of home with me and had packed herself, quite nicely, too!

Traveling HOME.

The very best part of the trip was getting pointed North towards home. The area from (probably well South of) Hollywood up North past Palm Beach reminded me a bit of the LA area, all freeway and failing to really distinguish from the interstate that there were separate communities. I was glad when the massive numbers of well-packed lanes eventually burped out into a more rural drive of 2-3 lanes of I-95 pointing North.

Then, around ... now I can't think of where it was, but not too long after that, the interstate traffic came to a complete stop. And we sat there for just about an hour. Only after a long time did a state trooper car come driving against traffic on the right shoulder of our lanes, later a fire department car did the same coming down the left shoulder. At some point a flat bed tow truck went sliding North on the shoulder, and then another trooper flashing lights followed a bit later.

But the traffic was s.t.o.p.p.e.d. People got out of their cars, stretched, craned their necks trying to see far down the road to spot was was going on (in vain). Conversations were struck up, people played musical chairs.

What finally got the traffic moving again was when a lady got out of her car and with two young daughters pulled by each hand (together with a fist full of toilet paper), and they headed into the center, the median full of palms and palmettos and tried to find a place out of view of hundreds of people to go to the bathroom. They really had to wander around until they found something almost tall enough to squat behind and go out of eyesight of everyone. And as soon as that happened, engines in the cars ahead started cranking, doors started slamming as people jumped back in their cars, and we begin to move.

The young man who had been left sitting at the wheel of the potty-seeking girls beeped his horn once and then stared straight ahead. We all had swiveled our eyes to see where they were and what would they do. They popped up and began trotting back through the underbrush, but traffic was already moving at a bit of a clip. The man continued to sit in the left lane, staring ahead, and not even considering pulling off on the left shoulder until he could reclaim his family. All traffic in the left lane continued to be stopped from his car back. I was glad I was in the right lane.

I hated that I had lost an hour, but I had prayed in little bursts that whatever had happened to stop us had not resulted from anyone's being hurt on the road ahead of us. When I got up to where the flashing light trooper was sitting, together with a couple of fire trucks, I could see the flat bed tow truck trying to maneuver in the center median amongst palms and palmettos towards where a small silver car was 'resting' completely smashed in and with a shattered windshield. I saw no people around it or looking like they were victims, no ambulance, not EMT... I hoped no one was hurt, but it would have been hard to avoid from what I saw.

Eventually and finally, top down almost the entire way, the little blue car finally chugged into Jax and headed for the neighborhood and home. I had missed seeing Snowy that night, especially with the delay, but I had talked to her several times on the phone, as I had done each day (I talked to Chick MANY times as I needed that connection with my family). Snowy didn't even realize I had gone out of town. We didn't want to worry her with that if it wasn't necessary.

There is nothing finer than being home and hugging my child and the next day getting to hug my Mom.

Saturday

TIRED!!!!!! Did sofa duty but forgot to tell Chick so she still got up 'early'. Snowy and I headed to the beauty parlor as is our custom. Snowy marveled, as she does every week, over the number of cars on the road on a Saturday. We were both pleased to go "right home" thereafter.

The worst thing that happened was after Snowy had gone for her nap, she woke up "early" and, sitting on the side of her bed, bent over to slip her shoes on and adjust them, and slid right off the bed and fell on the floor. She caught herself with one hand (which HURT) and she still managed to go BUMP on her hip and felt she had hit her legs and head, although I'm not sure how that would have happened. She called out and, since I was 'on duty', I went flying in. My heart FROZE when I saw her crumpled on the floor and yelled for Chick.

We immediately set about reassuring her and then gently began checking her out for any broken bones. We were SO fortunate that nothing broke, not even her wrist which was instantly sore from taking the brunt of the impact. She cried and called herself "stupid" and was genuinely shook up. I cuddled her in may arms and stroked her hair while Chick told her over and over how smart she had been to save herself by breaking her fall. We finally scooped her up and carried her out to the den to her chair, and snuggled her up in her heated blanket and began applying cold packs to her wrist and hand and her leg.

Today she doesn't remember, but the only thing she noticed and asked about was a sore right hip. And there are no bruises. This really scared me, probably Chick, too, as the broken hip at this age is a true road to a downward spiral. Oh, my God, thank you for sparing us at this time.

Sunday

Sofa duty again. (I am looking forward to at last tonight stretching out in my bed with all the kitties.)

Two excellent things for Sunday -- we watched the recorded Alabama game from the night before in which they beat Tennessee in Knoxville (I am an alum of both schools, but of course pull for Alabama because that allegiance was born and bred into me all my growing up life). And since I had peeked over into the game's progress many times the night before, I knew the score and that we had won, so we could watch in a much more relaxed frame of mind.

And the second excellent thing was we went to the Air Show at NAS-Jax this afternoon (and we don't have to go again :-)). Snowy and Chick had seen commercials for the show while I was gone and had decided that would be a good Sunday thing to do -- the weather would have gone from gray and overcast and warm to clear blue skies and a cooler temperature.

It was surprisingly (to me) a slow, crowded drive to NAS, with traffic already bumper to bumper halfway across the I-295 bridge over the wide, wide St. Johns River and then on up through the exit and then all the way up the road and through the closest open gate of the base. Snowy, because TIME, WAITING, and ALZHEIMER'S do not play well with each other in her mind, began to get very agitated and annoyed when traffic slowed to less than a crawl on the bridge. As time passed, she began hitting on herself, and then putting her hands together in 'prayer", and then clinching her jaw, and fussing about she wanted to turn around and go home. It was not a mood she (or we) could pry her out of.

Still, her interest picked up when we showed her we were going through the "Birmingham" gate, and the pace picked up a bit as we followed signs over miles that pointed towards handicap parking. From time to time we could glimpse some of the planes that were already performing their acts. Eventually we were herded into a lot for handicap folks. We were intrigued to find that the interestingly 'haired' dog we saw in a car with a bumper sticker shout-out to the blind and guide dogs turned out to be a 'seeing eye pony', a tiny Appaloosa-spotted itty bitty thing. That was a new one for us.

As I loaded Snowy in her chair and began pushing, Chick had to fly ahead to try to locate a bathroom -- being pregnant has really made this a constant necessity for her, and it keeps the pressure on. I quickly discovered that there really wasn't much handicap access at the base, at least along the sidewalks that I wanted to try to stay on, and that meant a good bit of backtracking and finally having to give up and get out onto the road. We trudged and trudged (or I did, and Snowy was probably wondering what we were doing) as we walked more miles toward the flightline.

Chick finally gave us a shout as she popped back out behind us away. We waited while she caught up and then told us sadly that she had had to pull the 'pregnant' card to finally get a security guard to allow her to pop into a building to use the bathroom. She felt less guilty later when we finally got up to the event and she saw the extremely long lines waiting to use the dreaded porta-potties.

When we were finally almost 'there', one of the police who were managing traffic and crowd control 'directed' me to go back and get the car and drive it up there so Snowy wouldn't have to have the long trek back to the car when we were ready to leave. I thought my hips and legs would die from the trudge all the way back to the car -- that's when I knew the fibromyalgia (better than the MS) was in play -- but I finally made it and slowly motored to the handicap parking right next to the entrance of the show. We were glad, later, to have the car handy. (My hips are still aching as I sit here).

"What do you have in your purse, purse things?" the 'security' guard asked me as we came through "security". "Yep." "Go ahead."

LARGE crowds seem to go to air shows, large crowds of people whom we are not like. I know there were nice and wonderful people there, but the masses in which we found ourselves were not like us. It's okay. I kept heading towards the flightline with a homing instinct and eventually found a netted off area marked for "handicap" and their helpers. I was interested to see what folks classified themselves as handicapped.

We finally began to be able to enjoy the show. It was pretty amazing and I could not imagine having the skill, talent, and abilities of the pilots who put it out there in the sky to entertain the 40-50,000 people who were there on this second, final day of the show. We swiveled our heads all around watching the stunts and the tricks and the shows of force and grace. Snowy had a more difficult time in knowing to look off in the sky to the sides, but I just kept pointing and she was able to follow a good bit of it all.

I ended up sitting on the ground next to her, constantly shifting my aching legs and joints trying to find any position that was comfortable. Chick couldn't get on the ground and preferred to stand up, so she melted back into the standing part of the crowd and shot some of the most amazing pictures of the event, the crowds, and the action. This was almost the most important part of going because she will be able to put together a photo book for Snowy to have to look at over and over again when she doesn't remember going, but she'll be able to see pictures of herself 'there' and the fantastic airplane shots and she will enjoy it probably more than the actual event and being there.

Somehow my instinct for getting us close to the flightline had actually put us directly in front of the lined up Blue Angels planes and the activity that goes on right before they are to take to the skies. When they had done the preflight "performance" with their crew and then rolled out to the runway, Chick signaled from her fringe spot that we might want to start heading out.

The Blue Angels perform over a far more huge canvas of sky than any of the previous flights, and Snowy was immediately not enjoying so much because she couldn't figure out to look so high in the sky straight up. By the time we had created a path out headed back to the (thankfully closer!!!!!) car, we were able to get more perspective on their spectacular show. Even driving out of the base we were treated to about a 360* view. And at that point Snowy started enjoying the Blue Angels, and pointing, smiling, calling out "Look!" as they flew almost at our eye level in circuits around our heads.

Once we popped off the base, we immediately began looking for somewhere to get something to drink for hydration and then headed for the house (HOME!!!). As soon as we could get in the house, Snowy was calling for her nightie and her going to bed ritual and was soon flying planes in her sleep (she does have her pilot's license, after all, and she knew what she had been looking at all afternoon).

Chick is downloading the many amazing shots she took and I'm downloading my endless ocean snaps. Maybe tomorrow I can post a few and let the pictures speak instead of my thousands of words of yak.

Back to the office tomorrow: oh, joy :-)