Off to the great land of the shadow of the mighty DeLand water-tower
(Fasten seatbelts, everyone.
This is the longest blog yrs trly has ever written — almost all keyed in too.
Primarily because I had nothing else to do this long visit, and otherwise would have gone completely crazy from sheer boredom.)
For those who weren’t reading this here blog three years ago, “the shadow of the mighty DeLand water-tower” is where my wife’s 95-year-old mother (“Big Dorothea,” her name is “Dorothea;” “dar-uh-THEE-uh;” as in “thing” and “dark”) lives in DeLand, FL.
She lives by herself in a tiny two-room apartment in a retirement community in DeLand, not “assisted-living” yet.
My wife’s father died of a stroke about 20 years ago.
Her mother recently turned 95 (last Valentine’s Day), but we were unable to visit for various reasons.
We try to visit on her birthday.
The retirement center is hard by the DeLand water-tower, pictured above.
She lives about 900 miles south of us, a long airplane flight.
We can only stand visiting a day or two, a day flying down, a day or two visiting, and then a day flying back home — three or four days total.
It was a trip from the Great White North to no long underwear. Nor down jackets nor knitted woolen hats — nor gloves.
Linda’s mother (right) and Linda (left). (Photo by BobbaLew.)
I find these visits dreadfully boring. I have to sit quietly with my hands folded.
Linda’s mother growled at me long ago.
But I suppose she’s decided I’m okay, after we’ve stayed together over 43 years.
I now have a $5,000 CD in my name held by her.
(There are other CDs for various children and grandchildren.)
Our marriage was thought to be a mistake. The scuttlebutt then was I had got my wife-to-be pregnant.
But I hadn’t, and here we are 43+ years later.
So I guess I wasn’t so bad after all.
“At least it’s a direct flight,” I said, wedged into a tiny coach-seat on our flight down.
Cattle-car accommodations.
Rochester-to-Orlando, no change of planes.
Rochester airport had wi-fi, but it took over and messed up this machine.
It replaced all my Firefox Internet tabs with some airport setup screen.
Thankfully, I’ve been backing up to an external hard-drive, so I have to retrieve everything when I get home.
(See Day-three — I won’t have to.)
The airplane also had wi-fi, but that too took over this computer.
They also wanted $6.95 for a two-hour session.
Are they kidding?
If it were free, I’d play with the Internet, but even for only $6.95 it’s not worth it.
If I were actually doing work via the Internet, I’d spring the $6.95.
But I’m not, so fah-ged-abow-did!
Back in the sleeve this laptop went, and back into underseat stowage.
At Orlando we had already reserved with Hertz, their cheapest model, a Chevrolet Aveo.
“Made in America?” my wife asked.
“It’s a Chevy,” I said; ”but I doubt it. Mexico or Korea, or maybe Japan.
No way could The General compete “Made-in-America” in this market niche.
I’ve yet to see a Kruze-Kontrol,” I said.
Not that I need it.
“Must be the el-cheapo model,” my wife commented.
“Well it is,” I said. “All I need is four doors.
Heaven forbid I show up to your mother’s in a Hertz fun-collection Corvette.
Or a Mustang, with only two doors and a back seat designed for toddlers.”
“Take time to get familiar with your rental-car,” the Hertz instructions said.
Like how to open the trunk.
Minutes passed, at least four separate unlocks.
Finally pay-dirt. I found a small plastic handle that popped open the trunk.
Then there was getting out of the facility.
I followed exit-signs until I came to a darkened intersection in a shadowy abyss with no exit-sign.
“Welcome to National Car-Rental,” lower level.
Into the steamy bowels of the lower level I drove, and executed a flourishing U-turn smack in the middle of the garage.
“If you look under this beam, you’ll see an exit-sign to your left.”
Now you tell me!
Exiting the airport, I kept having to merge left out of right-most lanes that turned into exit-ramps.
Must have done it at least five times.
And then on the B-line and the Greeneway, more right-most lanes becoming exit-ramps.
I had to cut off one dude to keep going.
And then the map where the Greeneway intersects Interstate-4 was out-of-date.
Used to be the Greeneway ended at Interstate-4, but not any more.
I had to slam on the brakes to make Interstate-4, lest I keep going west on new highway. (My intent was north on Interstate-4.)
Then there was the pizza-journey in DeLand that night at Linda’s mother.
Suddenly, “Left, here; left, LEFT!
“Can’t now,” I said. I had already started turning right.
“Left into that plaza, Bob. The pizza-joint is right in this little plaza.
“Keep quiet, BobbaLew; even though you’re past the plaza-entrance.”
I turned left on a street, and paraded slowly in front of of the plaza.
No pizza-shop.
“Alright, turn right here; right, RIGHT!
Whadja do that for?”
“Easy now, BobbaLew; even though you were already well-past the place you should have turned.”
Over to Woodland Blvd., the main drag through DeLand.
Past Stetson University, and east toward Daytona.
“I see a Papa Johns,” I said.
It least it was a pizza-shop of some description, although not the one we were looking for. —I felt we were wandering around in the wilderness.
Next was getting back out on Woodland Blvd.
Lots of traffic both ways; it was pitch-dark.
Finally an opening.
I headed left, but a median-divider appeared in front of me, yet no indication you could only turn right.
Thank goodness I wasn’t on motorbike.
Over the median we drove, obvious out-of-towners.
“Thanks for telling me,” I yelled.
Where we come from, if you can’t turn left a sign tells ya.
But this is Florida.
You’re on-your-own!
And everywhere, blatting macho Harleys, sans helmets.
DeLand is near Daytona, and Bike-Week was this week.
“She’ll make 100,” I declared as we left for the night.
“Oh, I don’t know,” my wife said. “My aunt started falling apart in her late nineties. Mini-strokes, whatever.”
“Seems pretty spry,” I responded.
“But she’s already had a heart-attack, and gets dragged to the hospital for whatever reason every time we go to Altoona” (“al-TUNE-uh, PA; as in the name “Al”).
Day Two: (Day One of our visit.) The wars begin.
“I think what I’d rather do is eat breakfast out; pancakes,” I said.
“Well here; I’ll getcha some money!”
“Mother, we’ll pay for it ourselves,” my wife declared.
Sputter-pop-fizzle; “you’re my guests!”
“Let’s not start,” my wife said. “There’s no reason you have to pay for everything. We’re gonna be here two whole days. We were hoping we could take you out to eat for your birthday.”
“Well,” sputter-pop-fizzle. “But-but-but......
Well, I hope you’re happy. It’s a miracle,” she said, reprising a previous complaint.
“Only one day? When Carol comes, she stays for two weeks. Thank goodness for Carol! (Linda’s brother’s first wife, one of at least four; the one he should have never left. [‘He sure messed up his life — I don’t know what I did wrong!’]) —You think you could visit more than one day when you’re retired.”
Ahem, our dog is in jail. And she doesn’t like it. She whimpered at us as we left. “Don’t leave me in this zoo, you guys....... You’re my family.” (Whimper.)
The day ground slowly by; first an IHOP, and then my keying in this monster in our guest-room while Linda visited her mother.
I’m glad I brought this laptop. Keying in this blog at home would have taken days, and it gave me a way to kill time.
I managed to key in a whole day’s worth, and then waddled over to the apartment.
But I was sleepy after about 45 minutes. (Utterly bored.)
I got up to go back to our guest-room for a nap; dinner would be after that, and Linda would join me back to our guest-room.
It was approaching five o’clock.
Behind all this is the fact my wife has cancer, supposedly not a death-sentence, or so we are told.
In other words, it’s treatable — manageable.
A while ago we met some lady at Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, NY (“WILL-mott;” as in “Mott’s applesauce”) who had been jerking around with breast-cancer 17 years.
Actually my wife has two cancers.
The first is Non-Hodgkins B-cell lymphoma.
It appeared about three years ago as a large hard tumor in her abdomen.
CHOP-chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin [doxorubicin], Oncovin [vincristine], and prednisone) poofed it, but you’re not actually cured.
Lymphoma keeps coming back.
Senator Fred Thompson has it.
Second is breast-cancer, although there was never a primary site.
It never initiated in her breasts.
It just metastasized into her bones, etc.
We beat that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive, and Femara inhibits the formation of estrogen.
No more breast-cancer in her bones, and small skin-tumors disappeared.
Linda seemed to be deteriorating; “I have to feel well enough to even eat out.”
She has to take pain-medicine (Tylenol) every four hours.
The infamous risque fountain. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
On the way to Linda’s mother’s apartment late that afternoon, I passed the infamous fountain (pictured above) that caused so much trouble.
The one with the bare-naked mermaid gayly cavorting with 89 bazilyun dancing dolphins.
The mermaid was having a bad-hair day.
The women at the retirement-center are appalled.
Their dirty old husbands might get aroused by that bare-breasted mermaid.
“One of these days I’m gonna put a brassiere on that mermaid!” they say.
The fountain was almost off. Water was not gushing vertically out of the pool (see picture).
“Harold, leave that fountain alone! Quit staring at it! How come we never get past without you stopping?”
“Tell ya what,” I said, as we started for our supper restaurant.
(This was after a noisy verbal donnybrook about who would pay.)
“How about if I just use streets I know where I’m goin’?” I asked — which means no input from shotgun riders, leading me into confusion.
Silence. Linda’s mother was no longer shouting belated instructions at me. All I had to do was get to Amelia, which runs parallel to Woodland Blvd., the one with all the restaurants.
Minnesota gets me to Amelia, almost 3/4-mile from the retirement-center.
Coming back Minnesota I turn right at Kansas St., the mighty DeLand water-tower.
Without distraction I can get around DeLand fairly easily.
“I just know the way the center-bus goes to the supermarket; Wisconsin, Boston.....” Linda’s mother said. —All over creation.
I detected a harumph from the shotgun seat — suffer in silence.
Day three; visit with Jerry, Linda’s only brother, otherwise discerned as a complete and utter failure.
I don’t consider him that.
To me he’s a breath of fresh air; a diversion from sheer boredom.
He’s 69, and not retired yet.
Plus a techno-geek.
I set my smart-phone alarm to 6 a.m., so we could eat breakfast with him.
It was a slam-dunk! (First time ever.)
I also deleted three default alarms, all off, that came with my smart-phone.
I’m getting so I can drive that thing, despite only running on seven cylinders — traumatic brain-injury, my stroke in long-ago 1993.
Guess I better not turn it off. It might have to be on for the alarm to work.
I’ll just plug the little dear in so the battery doesn’t run dry.
(It worked.)
But I’m frustrated with how long 3G satellite-Internet downloads take; I’m used to the blazing speed of cable-Internet connections, and I’m told my Droid can’t do 4G.
After breakfast with Jerry at nearby “Gram’s Kitchen” with the grizzled biker-crowd, wherein Linda’s survival was discussed, among other sundries (like Jerry’s moving to DeLand).....
In honor of Bike-Week, their menu suggested a “Biker Special” for breakfast, which included a nine-ounce N.Y. strip-steak, home-fries, bacon, etc. I renamed it the cholesterol-special.
......we returned to Linda’s mother’s apartment to -a) try getting the Internet wi-fi on thIs computer from my Droid as a hot-spot -b) prepare for Jerry’s departure for work, and -c) video-record Linda’s mother on Linda’s camera (which can video-record) talking about “non-controversial topics” (if there are any at all).
Verizon (my cellphone service) apparently wants a fee; so even though we made my Droid a hot-spot, I couldn’t join.
Jerry’s phone, on-the-other-hand, is already paying the fee.
So could I connect this computer to his phone?
I did.
Jerry suggested “tethering” was a waste, that if a computer will wi-fi, wi-fying to a hot-spot made more sense.
Even to tether, Verizon would probably want a fee. (But maybe not.)
The idea is to see if switching to satellite-Internet makes more sense than cable Internet. —I’ve noticed that -a) satellite-Internet often doesn’t receive in a building, and -b) cable-Internet is often bog-slow if others on our cable are playing Internet video-games (producing interrupted YouTube videos).
I was able to reconstruct all my historied FireFox Internet tabs via his phone (see above). I have ten; thus reversing the damage Rochester airport’s wi-fi had done.
We then set about recording Linda’s mother jabbering about “the old times,” times when Jerry and Linda were “so cute,” i.e. before they grew up becoming complete failures.
“Who was my third-grade teacher?” Linda asked.
“Why that was Mrs. Stowell,” Jerry said. “She accused me of cheating on a test.”
“And remember the time we sold sand door-to-door in the abandoned paper-cups we found at the old cheese-factory?” Linda asked.
“I was so embarrassed,” Linda’s mother said.
“And we were the first family with TV, which made us very popular,” Linda’s mother added. “The only other family that had TV at first was the Wrights at the other end of town.”
“I was 10,” Linda said.
“Ya mean they weren’t coming to see us?”Jerry said.
“I remember all them Risely kids coming up to watch Sky King.” (Anyone remember Sky King? First he flew a Twin-Beech, then a twin-engine Cessna 310, then an Aero-Commander.)
“I also remember how I used to go out back in Mama’s store, grab all the returned pop-bottles, bring ‘em back out front, and hand ‘em in for deposit,” Jerry said.
“All we got on that TV at first was snow,” Linda’s mother said.
At least this effort to video-record was fairly successful.
Linda suggested the day before she was going to do this and was met with stony silence.
“She won’t live forever,” Linda had said.
But she may outlive her daughter.
“You kids sure have a lot of fun with them gizmos, ”Linda’s mother said, as we each fiddled our separate techno-toys.
“Comp-yoooo-ters! she said; “I sure am glad you understand ‘em. Not me; I’m just dumb!”
I was handed an ancient InstaMatic film-camera with a supposedly non-functioning flash to take a snapshot of her two children with her.
“It won’t work in here,” I said. ”We have to go outside.
In here faces will be shadowed.”
“Just shoot, even in utter darkness. Don’t open them curtains! They’re drawn to take out the window-light. Anyway, that there window-light hurts my eyes.”
“It won’t work in here. We have to go outside,” I said, a little louder.
“It won’t work in here. We have to go outside,” I said, bellowing.
“Well, I guess we gotta go outside; he won’t take it in here!” Linda’s mother complained.
Okay, just go though the motions, that way Linda’s mother can wail what a complete and utter failure she is with a camera.
They all sat back down, and I aimed.
I pushed the button.
NOTHING!
“How do you even work this thing?” I asked.
“Ya gotta switch on the ‘on’ switch,” Jerry said.
“On” switch on, aim again, and FLASH!
“Well I’ll be, ”Linda’s mother bellowed. “How did that happen? I thought that was defective.”
Jerry left for work.
”Now ya gotta shoot the rest of the roll so I can take it out and develop it, if anyone does film any more,” Linda’s mother said.
“Wal*Mart,” Jerry said. “They still do film for those not doing digital photography.”
“We can drop it off, ”Linda said. “It doesn’t have to be Jerry.—He’s trying to go to work.”
Next was payback time: robbing Peter to pay Paul. Linda’s mother taking us out to eat at a smorgasbord.
(42+ smackaroos to treat us for dinner, but can’t afford a taxi to take her to the dentist she loves.)
We then set out for the new Holiday House for their smorgasbord.
No longer the original Holiday House we patronized so many times when down here in the past.
The original Holiday House still stands, but was taken over by son-in-law Cook, owner of the property; although the original Holiday House had previously been owned by the Cook family.
A long discussion ensued about who owned what, although I detect a cat-fight among the Cooks.
“So where are we goin’,” I asked; “the original Holiday House or the new Holiday House?”
I had seen both out along Woodland Blvd.; first the original Holiday House, then the new Holiday House farther out, which had previously been China Buffet.
Discussion made it sound like we were going to the original Holiday House, that Cook’s was our smorgasbord destination.
I had to do I grandstand; confusion was reigning.
Wait a minute, I shouted. “Where are we goin’? Original or new?”
“Why Holiday House, of course; the new one!”
Wasn’t crystal-clear to me.
Sorry I had to do a grandstand.
Cook’s wasn’t even open yet; “Open in five weeks.”
In the new Holiday House I chose the deep-fried tilapia; ”All I can eat is fish.”
I was then handed a slab of fish about six times larger than what I usually eat, and we never deep-fry it.
It covered my entire plate.
I had to get a second plate for vegetables.
I decided I could do dessert, and negotiated with the server.
”I can probably eat half that chocolate-cake wedge, and I don’t even know if I can eat that.”
Three layers, with a massive sugar-hit of chocolate icing.
I ate everything — my mother survived The Depression.
But as the “Kid from Brooklyn” shouts, “I walked outta that place stuffed!”
Our total bill was $42.18, which Linda’s mother would pay.
Now the tip.
I was figuring it on my Smart-Phone calculator. “Which will it be, 15% or 20%?”
20% was eight-something; we ratcheted back to 15%, $6.30.
”Oh that doesn’t sound right,” so maybe $7.50.
But $6.30 is what flew, despite our server being “wonderful.”
Amazingly, Linda’s mother paid by credit-card; I was expecting a $50 or $100 bill.
Heaven-forbid that retirement-center have wi-fi, except that secret mysterious router of “Thelma,” which I haven’t tried yet.
Just about every one I’ve seen at that retirement-center is slowly pushing a walker, or scooting rapidly about in a power-chair.
“Outta the way, Dora. Comin’ through!”
I bet Thelma is the only one of hundreds of residents at that retirement-center that’s computer-savvy.
But “I ain’t usin’ no walker! Start usin’ one a’ them things and ya become dependent on it.”
Which is why I think she’ll make 100, unless something weird happens, like a stroke or a heart-attack.
Which is also why I try to avoid bifocals — the last of my high-school class that doesn’t use ‘em.
I need magnification if the print is tiny; but I have the display-rez on this computer at the smallest text-size: 1920 by 1200. —I can read it.
To bed, finally.
Linda helped her mother get her mail — something about getting it after 5 p.m., “so Tony can sort it, if he has time.”
She gets her mail in a retirement-center box, and it might be a day-or-two late if Tony is swamped.
After that she walked back to her mother’s apartment, to help eat a lemon pie Jerry had made.
The next day was another day.
Day four; back home.
“I sure hope we can make it,” I said. “That’s 2-3 hours in a cramped cattle-car seat at 30,000+ feet.
Ya can’t bail — there’s no escaping.”
And Linda’s mother is 900+ miles from where we live.
I worry about my wife even being able to do this.
But we’ve made it so far. (Although it may be the last trip for Linda — sitting that long is asking for trouble.)
I tried the mysterious “Thelma.”
She wants a password. (ANNNNNT!)
—Thunder-and-lightning last night.
The next time we experience thunder-and-lightning will be in May, or maybe even June at home.
We heard thunder outside rumbling toward our guest-room, so I looked outside the door, and saw lightning-flashes illuminating the night sky.
In Florida I guess thunderstorms are fairly frequent.
It started raining.
It was still raining lightly this morning as we left the guest-room, I guess the rain predicted by our server at Holiday House.
—Breakfast at Big Dorothea’s.
“Whatcha want, Bob?” Linda’s mother bubbled.
“I got corn-flakes, puffed-wheat, lotsa bran and prunes. Coffee, toast, orange-juice...... I gotta have my hot cuppa coffee; tee-hee!”
“Scrambled eggs, I guess,” I said quietly.
“Real eggs?” my wife asked. —We only eat Egg-Beaters® at home.
“I doubt if two eggs worth of cholesterol over eons is gonna kill me,” I commented.
“Want a banana, Bob?”
“Bananas that ripe go on our mulch-pile,” I thought to myself.
The coffee was instant; coffee-flavored dishwater.
And it wasn’t “carmelo-lotto, chocolate lotto,” Kid-From-Brooklyn again.
Not that I patronize Starbucks. All that I want is a cuppa coffee, not some fancy-dan overpriced cappuccino.
At home I make it myself; gourmet coffee custom-ground at the store, then brewed through drip-filter with boiled Brita-filtered water.
I hafta let it cool. No creme, no sugar, and no whipped-creme topping with chocolate mini-chips.
But decaf.
I drink it black.
— Finally, 11 a.m.; departure-time.
But not without a tearful remonstration that we find a church.
“At least she held off to the end,” Linda said.
Then back to Orlando airport.
We managed to find Hertz rental-return without drama, reversing a long-ago return to Avis that led us into the ozone.
PANIC-ATTACK! Linda’s driver-license was missing or misplaced.
TSA went ballistic. Thugs were brought in. 67-year-old Linda with cancer was a possible Al Qaeda terrorist, intent to bomb our flight home into oblivion.
An RTS retiree picture ID was brought out, along with her Medicare-card and her credit-card. (She’d lost her Social-Security card long ago.)
“Not good enough,” they said. “You’ll hafta sign a form certifying your identity, plus answer a few questions your husband can’t answer.”
I backed away. “I don’t hear nothin’,” I shouted.
After about 15 minutes of various formalities, with no questions, Linda was allowed to accompany me home.
“All I wanna do is go home,” she said. “I distinctly remember putting back my license at Security in Rochester.”
Our seats on the flight home were an upgrade, the safety-seats over the wing where you have to be able to lift 40 pounds and get people out of the plane “in the unlikely event of an emergency.”
A flight-attendant asked if we could handle the responsibility.
“Don’t worry, Bubba,” I thought. “I drove city-bus, and am therefore very ornery. I’ll get our butts outta this plane if I hafta.”
These seats have more footroom — I was considering upgrading to Business Class to make our flight back home more bearable. $90 each.
Linda said no.
But the safety-seats are more bearable than coach-seats. Space has be designed in to allow passengers to escape.
Those two safety-seats were the only two available side-by-side, and we selected them in error. They were $40 extra.
That was at an AirTran airport kiosk.
For $40 extra I cancelled the kiosk seat-assignment.
“See attendant for boarding-passes!”
A nice bilingual clerk took over to fiddle our seat-assignments.
He needed photo-ID.
I took out my driver’s-license, and Linda went to take out hers.
Linda’s was missing.
“Don’t worry, ma’am; you’ll find it,” but after 5-10 frantic minutes she didn’t.
“So what picture-ID do you have?”
89 bazilyun cards were unholstered, including an RTS retiree picture-pass that gets her a free bus-ride.
Also her Medicare card and her (our) credit-card.
Her Social-Security card, acceptable ID to the TSA, went missing long ago. —And she doesn’t carry her birth-certificate.
Finally, the clerk said it was all okay — ”We’re gonna get you home, ma’am” — and assigned our seats.
“Tell ya what,” he said. “I’ve assigned you those safety-seats no extra charge, so you can sit together.”
By now, Linda was completely frazzled; like I might be a steadying influence.
“More blog-material,” I said.
When we got back to Rochester, we asked if the errant driver-license had been picked up.
It had.
But it was no longer in the terminal, and might have already been mailed home — “Your address is on it.”
So, home at last, and Linda seemed to do okay.
Back to “the frozen tundra,” as Garrison Keillor says.
Except it was 40 degrees.
Hardly any snow was on the ground when we returned, and none to brush off our car. (One time it was drifted in.)
In fact, I skipped the long-underwear on return.
We did not get the dog — Linda suggested she was too bushed to handle an excited dog.
The dog’s reservation was until Friday anyway; our flight got in about 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Reflections
—Clock bells:
It appears Linda’s mother’s retirement-center has installed a clock-bell system much like what we had in college in the ‘60s.
It isn’t actually bells. It’s a giant P.A. horn that broadcasts a center-wide ringing of the hour.
Bong-bong-bong-bong. Bong-bong-bong-bong. Bong-bong-bong-bong. Bong-bong-bong-bong. —BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG.” “
Our college had a bell-tower.
It’s a symbol of the college.
It only has one actual bell in it, and it’s rather puny: “Dink!”
The only time I heard it ring was when President Kennedy was assassinated.
Otherwise, the bell-tower had a giant P.A. horn.
The center’s clock-bells sound just like our college.
—Is Bike-Week worth doing?
Well, I guess so, if you’re into the macho Harley gig, sans helmets.
Or into the cholesterol-laden pig-out menu.
“Here, see this? SMASH! This is your brain after falling off your Harley.”
—”I’m not used to being considered an asset,” I said on the plane. “Your mother growled at me long ago, but now I seem to be an asset.
What I’m accustomed to is being considered a liability, a drain on everyone, an utterly reprehensible scumbag.
But now I have a $5,000 CD in my name.
And this despite my being a silent old grump.
Someone your mother avoids, because I’m so speechless and bored.
What I’m accustomed to is being a drag on all-and-sundry; even you.”
—What about Linda’s mother?
She’s right at the border for assisted-living.
Her eyes are useless (macular degeneration), and she’s hard-of-hearing.
But she will probably hold out as long as she can. —Until she dies or burns out her apartment.
“I can’t eat in that Dining-Hall. I don’t like what they serve.”
—Can we do this again?
Depends on our health.
-Which in my case is slightly tenuous.
I seem okay, but am getting older.
-Linda is currently more marginal than me, I guess.
Some days up, some days down; we never know.
Such long flights, etc., are extremely fatiguing, even though the flight is only two-and-a-half hours.
Involved is a surfeit of challenges, all of which I can usually handle on-my-own; but they fag out Linda.
Linda is currently sick, not the person she was three months ago.
She has to take pain-medication on a rigid schedule.
Where she’ll be in a year is debatable.
• “Linda” is my wife of 43+ years.
• “The General” is General Motors.
• “Bob” is me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”
•
Altoona is the location of Horseshoe Curve (the “Mighty Curve,” pictured at left), by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. The railroad was looped around a valley to climb without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. I am a railfan, and have been since age-two (we’re both 67). The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. Up-close-and personal. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away. —Every time we visit Horseshoe Curve seems Linda’s mother ends up in the hospital.
• “IHOP” = International House of Pancakes.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and am fairly well recovered.
• “Tethering” is hard-wiring a connection from your Smart-Phone to receive satellite-Internet on your computer. (Your Smart-Phone is receiving satellite-Internet.)
• The Internet-browser “FireFox” will history multiple Internet sites (as tabs).
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS; “Transit”) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. —As a Transit retiree both my wife and I get photo-passes that entitle us to free bus-rides.
• “TSA “ is Transportation Security Administration,” the federal bureaucracy that administers airline passenger safety at airports.
This is the longest blog yrs trly has ever written — almost all keyed in too.
Primarily because I had nothing else to do this long visit, and otherwise would have gone completely crazy from sheer boredom.)
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| The DeLand water-tower. |
She lives by herself in a tiny two-room apartment in a retirement community in DeLand, not “assisted-living” yet.
My wife’s father died of a stroke about 20 years ago.
Her mother recently turned 95 (last Valentine’s Day), but we were unable to visit for various reasons.
We try to visit on her birthday.
The retirement center is hard by the DeLand water-tower, pictured above.
She lives about 900 miles south of us, a long airplane flight.
We can only stand visiting a day or two, a day flying down, a day or two visiting, and then a day flying back home — three or four days total.
It was a trip from the Great White North to no long underwear. Nor down jackets nor knitted woolen hats — nor gloves.
Linda’s mother (right) and Linda (left). (Photo by BobbaLew.)
I find these visits dreadfully boring. I have to sit quietly with my hands folded.
Linda’s mother growled at me long ago.
But I suppose she’s decided I’m okay, after we’ve stayed together over 43 years.
I now have a $5,000 CD in my name held by her.
(There are other CDs for various children and grandchildren.)
Our marriage was thought to be a mistake. The scuttlebutt then was I had got my wife-to-be pregnant.
But I hadn’t, and here we are 43+ years later.
So I guess I wasn’t so bad after all.
“At least it’s a direct flight,” I said, wedged into a tiny coach-seat on our flight down.
Cattle-car accommodations.
Rochester-to-Orlando, no change of planes.
Rochester airport had wi-fi, but it took over and messed up this machine.
It replaced all my Firefox Internet tabs with some airport setup screen.
Thankfully, I’ve been backing up to an external hard-drive, so I have to retrieve everything when I get home.
(See Day-three — I won’t have to.)
The airplane also had wi-fi, but that too took over this computer.
They also wanted $6.95 for a two-hour session.
Are they kidding?
If it were free, I’d play with the Internet, but even for only $6.95 it’s not worth it.
If I were actually doing work via the Internet, I’d spring the $6.95.
But I’m not, so fah-ged-abow-did!
Back in the sleeve this laptop went, and back into underseat stowage.
At Orlando we had already reserved with Hertz, their cheapest model, a Chevrolet Aveo.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| Our rental car, strident yellow. |
“It’s a Chevy,” I said; ”but I doubt it. Mexico or Korea, or maybe Japan.
No way could The General compete “Made-in-America” in this market niche.
I’ve yet to see a Kruze-Kontrol,” I said.
Not that I need it.
“Must be the el-cheapo model,” my wife commented.
“Well it is,” I said. “All I need is four doors.
Heaven forbid I show up to your mother’s in a Hertz fun-collection Corvette.
Or a Mustang, with only two doors and a back seat designed for toddlers.”
“Take time to get familiar with your rental-car,” the Hertz instructions said.
Like how to open the trunk.
Minutes passed, at least four separate unlocks.
Finally pay-dirt. I found a small plastic handle that popped open the trunk.
Then there was getting out of the facility.
I followed exit-signs until I came to a darkened intersection in a shadowy abyss with no exit-sign.
“Welcome to National Car-Rental,” lower level.
Into the steamy bowels of the lower level I drove, and executed a flourishing U-turn smack in the middle of the garage.
“If you look under this beam, you’ll see an exit-sign to your left.”
Now you tell me!
Exiting the airport, I kept having to merge left out of right-most lanes that turned into exit-ramps.
Must have done it at least five times.
And then on the B-line and the Greeneway, more right-most lanes becoming exit-ramps.
I had to cut off one dude to keep going.
And then the map where the Greeneway intersects Interstate-4 was out-of-date.
Used to be the Greeneway ended at Interstate-4, but not any more.
I had to slam on the brakes to make Interstate-4, lest I keep going west on new highway. (My intent was north on Interstate-4.)
Then there was the pizza-journey in DeLand that night at Linda’s mother.
Suddenly, “Left, here; left, LEFT!
“Can’t now,” I said. I had already started turning right.
“Left into that plaza, Bob. The pizza-joint is right in this little plaza.
“Keep quiet, BobbaLew; even though you’re past the plaza-entrance.”
I turned left on a street, and paraded slowly in front of of the plaza.
No pizza-shop.
“Alright, turn right here; right, RIGHT!
Whadja do that for?”
“Easy now, BobbaLew; even though you were already well-past the place you should have turned.”
Over to Woodland Blvd., the main drag through DeLand.
Past Stetson University, and east toward Daytona.
“I see a Papa Johns,” I said.
It least it was a pizza-shop of some description, although not the one we were looking for. —I felt we were wandering around in the wilderness.
Next was getting back out on Woodland Blvd.
Lots of traffic both ways; it was pitch-dark.
Finally an opening.
I headed left, but a median-divider appeared in front of me, yet no indication you could only turn right.
Thank goodness I wasn’t on motorbike.
Over the median we drove, obvious out-of-towners.
“Thanks for telling me,” I yelled.
Where we come from, if you can’t turn left a sign tells ya.
But this is Florida.
You’re on-your-own!
And everywhere, blatting macho Harleys, sans helmets.
DeLand is near Daytona, and Bike-Week was this week.
“She’ll make 100,” I declared as we left for the night.
“Oh, I don’t know,” my wife said. “My aunt started falling apart in her late nineties. Mini-strokes, whatever.”
“Seems pretty spry,” I responded.
“But she’s already had a heart-attack, and gets dragged to the hospital for whatever reason every time we go to Altoona” (“al-TUNE-uh, PA; as in the name “Al”).
Day Two: (Day One of our visit.) The wars begin.
“I think what I’d rather do is eat breakfast out; pancakes,” I said.
“Well here; I’ll getcha some money!”
“Mother, we’ll pay for it ourselves,” my wife declared.
Sputter-pop-fizzle; “you’re my guests!”
“Let’s not start,” my wife said. “There’s no reason you have to pay for everything. We’re gonna be here two whole days. We were hoping we could take you out to eat for your birthday.”
“Well,” sputter-pop-fizzle. “But-but-but......
Well, I hope you’re happy. It’s a miracle,” she said, reprising a previous complaint.
“Only one day? When Carol comes, she stays for two weeks. Thank goodness for Carol! (Linda’s brother’s first wife, one of at least four; the one he should have never left. [‘He sure messed up his life — I don’t know what I did wrong!’]) —You think you could visit more than one day when you’re retired.”
Ahem, our dog is in jail. And she doesn’t like it. She whimpered at us as we left. “Don’t leave me in this zoo, you guys....... You’re my family.” (Whimper.)
The day ground slowly by; first an IHOP, and then my keying in this monster in our guest-room while Linda visited her mother.
I’m glad I brought this laptop. Keying in this blog at home would have taken days, and it gave me a way to kill time.
I managed to key in a whole day’s worth, and then waddled over to the apartment.
But I was sleepy after about 45 minutes. (Utterly bored.)
I got up to go back to our guest-room for a nap; dinner would be after that, and Linda would join me back to our guest-room.
It was approaching five o’clock.
Behind all this is the fact my wife has cancer, supposedly not a death-sentence, or so we are told.
In other words, it’s treatable — manageable.
A while ago we met some lady at Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, NY (“WILL-mott;” as in “Mott’s applesauce”) who had been jerking around with breast-cancer 17 years.
Actually my wife has two cancers.
The first is Non-Hodgkins B-cell lymphoma.
It appeared about three years ago as a large hard tumor in her abdomen.
CHOP-chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin [doxorubicin], Oncovin [vincristine], and prednisone) poofed it, but you’re not actually cured.
Lymphoma keeps coming back.
Senator Fred Thompson has it.
Second is breast-cancer, although there was never a primary site.
It never initiated in her breasts.
It just metastasized into her bones, etc.
We beat that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive, and Femara inhibits the formation of estrogen.
No more breast-cancer in her bones, and small skin-tumors disappeared.
Linda seemed to be deteriorating; “I have to feel well enough to even eat out.”
She has to take pain-medicine (Tylenol) every four hours.
The infamous risque fountain. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
On the way to Linda’s mother’s apartment late that afternoon, I passed the infamous fountain (pictured above) that caused so much trouble.
The one with the bare-naked mermaid gayly cavorting with 89 bazilyun dancing dolphins.
The mermaid was having a bad-hair day.
The women at the retirement-center are appalled.
Their dirty old husbands might get aroused by that bare-breasted mermaid.
“One of these days I’m gonna put a brassiere on that mermaid!” they say.
The fountain was almost off. Water was not gushing vertically out of the pool (see picture).
“Harold, leave that fountain alone! Quit staring at it! How come we never get past without you stopping?”
“Tell ya what,” I said, as we started for our supper restaurant.
(This was after a noisy verbal donnybrook about who would pay.)
“How about if I just use streets I know where I’m goin’?” I asked — which means no input from shotgun riders, leading me into confusion.
Silence. Linda’s mother was no longer shouting belated instructions at me. All I had to do was get to Amelia, which runs parallel to Woodland Blvd., the one with all the restaurants.
Minnesota gets me to Amelia, almost 3/4-mile from the retirement-center.
Coming back Minnesota I turn right at Kansas St., the mighty DeLand water-tower.
Without distraction I can get around DeLand fairly easily.
“I just know the way the center-bus goes to the supermarket; Wisconsin, Boston.....” Linda’s mother said. —All over creation.
I detected a harumph from the shotgun seat — suffer in silence.
Day three; visit with Jerry, Linda’s only brother, otherwise discerned as a complete and utter failure.
I don’t consider him that.
To me he’s a breath of fresh air; a diversion from sheer boredom.
He’s 69, and not retired yet.
Plus a techno-geek.
I set my smart-phone alarm to 6 a.m., so we could eat breakfast with him.
It was a slam-dunk! (First time ever.)
I also deleted three default alarms, all off, that came with my smart-phone.
I’m getting so I can drive that thing, despite only running on seven cylinders — traumatic brain-injury, my stroke in long-ago 1993.
Guess I better not turn it off. It might have to be on for the alarm to work.
I’ll just plug the little dear in so the battery doesn’t run dry.
(It worked.)
But I’m frustrated with how long 3G satellite-Internet downloads take; I’m used to the blazing speed of cable-Internet connections, and I’m told my Droid can’t do 4G.
After breakfast with Jerry at nearby “Gram’s Kitchen” with the grizzled biker-crowd, wherein Linda’s survival was discussed, among other sundries (like Jerry’s moving to DeLand).....
In honor of Bike-Week, their menu suggested a “Biker Special” for breakfast, which included a nine-ounce N.Y. strip-steak, home-fries, bacon, etc. I renamed it the cholesterol-special.
......we returned to Linda’s mother’s apartment to -a) try getting the Internet wi-fi on thIs computer from my Droid as a hot-spot -b) prepare for Jerry’s departure for work, and -c) video-record Linda’s mother on Linda’s camera (which can video-record) talking about “non-controversial topics” (if there are any at all).
Verizon (my cellphone service) apparently wants a fee; so even though we made my Droid a hot-spot, I couldn’t join.
Jerry’s phone, on-the-other-hand, is already paying the fee.
So could I connect this computer to his phone?
I did.
Jerry suggested “tethering” was a waste, that if a computer will wi-fi, wi-fying to a hot-spot made more sense.
Even to tether, Verizon would probably want a fee. (But maybe not.)
The idea is to see if switching to satellite-Internet makes more sense than cable Internet. —I’ve noticed that -a) satellite-Internet often doesn’t receive in a building, and -b) cable-Internet is often bog-slow if others on our cable are playing Internet video-games (producing interrupted YouTube videos).
I was able to reconstruct all my historied FireFox Internet tabs via his phone (see above). I have ten; thus reversing the damage Rochester airport’s wi-fi had done.
We then set about recording Linda’s mother jabbering about “the old times,” times when Jerry and Linda were “so cute,” i.e. before they grew up becoming complete failures.
“Who was my third-grade teacher?” Linda asked.
“Why that was Mrs. Stowell,” Jerry said. “She accused me of cheating on a test.”
“And remember the time we sold sand door-to-door in the abandoned paper-cups we found at the old cheese-factory?” Linda asked.
“I was so embarrassed,” Linda’s mother said.
“And we were the first family with TV, which made us very popular,” Linda’s mother added. “The only other family that had TV at first was the Wrights at the other end of town.”
“I was 10,” Linda said.
“Ya mean they weren’t coming to see us?”Jerry said.
“I remember all them Risely kids coming up to watch Sky King.” (Anyone remember Sky King? First he flew a Twin-Beech, then a twin-engine Cessna 310, then an Aero-Commander.)
“I also remember how I used to go out back in Mama’s store, grab all the returned pop-bottles, bring ‘em back out front, and hand ‘em in for deposit,” Jerry said.
“All we got on that TV at first was snow,” Linda’s mother said.
At least this effort to video-record was fairly successful.
Linda suggested the day before she was going to do this and was met with stony silence.
“She won’t live forever,” Linda had said.
But she may outlive her daughter.
“You kids sure have a lot of fun with them gizmos, ”Linda’s mother said, as we each fiddled our separate techno-toys.
“Comp-yoooo-ters! she said; “I sure am glad you understand ‘em. Not me; I’m just dumb!”
I was handed an ancient InstaMatic film-camera with a supposedly non-functioning flash to take a snapshot of her two children with her.
“It won’t work in here,” I said. ”We have to go outside.
In here faces will be shadowed.”
“Just shoot, even in utter darkness. Don’t open them curtains! They’re drawn to take out the window-light. Anyway, that there window-light hurts my eyes.”
“It won’t work in here. We have to go outside,” I said, a little louder.
“It won’t work in here. We have to go outside,” I said, bellowing.
“Well, I guess we gotta go outside; he won’t take it in here!” Linda’s mother complained.
Okay, just go though the motions, that way Linda’s mother can wail what a complete and utter failure she is with a camera.
They all sat back down, and I aimed.
I pushed the button.
NOTHING!
“How do you even work this thing?” I asked.
“Ya gotta switch on the ‘on’ switch,” Jerry said.
“On” switch on, aim again, and FLASH!
“Well I’ll be, ”Linda’s mother bellowed. “How did that happen? I thought that was defective.”
Jerry left for work.
”Now ya gotta shoot the rest of the roll so I can take it out and develop it, if anyone does film any more,” Linda’s mother said.
“Wal*Mart,” Jerry said. “They still do film for those not doing digital photography.”
“We can drop it off, ”Linda said. “It doesn’t have to be Jerry.—He’s trying to go to work.”
Next was payback time: robbing Peter to pay Paul. Linda’s mother taking us out to eat at a smorgasbord.
(42+ smackaroos to treat us for dinner, but can’t afford a taxi to take her to the dentist she loves.)
We then set out for the new Holiday House for their smorgasbord.
No longer the original Holiday House we patronized so many times when down here in the past.
The original Holiday House still stands, but was taken over by son-in-law Cook, owner of the property; although the original Holiday House had previously been owned by the Cook family.
A long discussion ensued about who owned what, although I detect a cat-fight among the Cooks.
“So where are we goin’,” I asked; “the original Holiday House or the new Holiday House?”
I had seen both out along Woodland Blvd.; first the original Holiday House, then the new Holiday House farther out, which had previously been China Buffet.
Discussion made it sound like we were going to the original Holiday House, that Cook’s was our smorgasbord destination.
I had to do I grandstand; confusion was reigning.
Wait a minute, I shouted. “Where are we goin’? Original or new?”
“Why Holiday House, of course; the new one!”
Wasn’t crystal-clear to me.
Sorry I had to do a grandstand.
Cook’s wasn’t even open yet; “Open in five weeks.”
In the new Holiday House I chose the deep-fried tilapia; ”All I can eat is fish.”
I was then handed a slab of fish about six times larger than what I usually eat, and we never deep-fry it.
It covered my entire plate.
I had to get a second plate for vegetables.
I decided I could do dessert, and negotiated with the server.
”I can probably eat half that chocolate-cake wedge, and I don’t even know if I can eat that.”
Three layers, with a massive sugar-hit of chocolate icing.
I ate everything — my mother survived The Depression.
But as the “Kid from Brooklyn” shouts, “I walked outta that place stuffed!”
Our total bill was $42.18, which Linda’s mother would pay.
Now the tip.
I was figuring it on my Smart-Phone calculator. “Which will it be, 15% or 20%?”
20% was eight-something; we ratcheted back to 15%, $6.30.
”Oh that doesn’t sound right,” so maybe $7.50.
But $6.30 is what flew, despite our server being “wonderful.”
Amazingly, Linda’s mother paid by credit-card; I was expecting a $50 or $100 bill.
Heaven-forbid that retirement-center have wi-fi, except that secret mysterious router of “Thelma,” which I haven’t tried yet.
Just about every one I’ve seen at that retirement-center is slowly pushing a walker, or scooting rapidly about in a power-chair.
“Outta the way, Dora. Comin’ through!”
I bet Thelma is the only one of hundreds of residents at that retirement-center that’s computer-savvy.
But “I ain’t usin’ no walker! Start usin’ one a’ them things and ya become dependent on it.”
Which is why I think she’ll make 100, unless something weird happens, like a stroke or a heart-attack.
Which is also why I try to avoid bifocals — the last of my high-school class that doesn’t use ‘em.
I need magnification if the print is tiny; but I have the display-rez on this computer at the smallest text-size: 1920 by 1200. —I can read it.
To bed, finally.
Linda helped her mother get her mail — something about getting it after 5 p.m., “so Tony can sort it, if he has time.”
She gets her mail in a retirement-center box, and it might be a day-or-two late if Tony is swamped.
After that she walked back to her mother’s apartment, to help eat a lemon pie Jerry had made.
The next day was another day.
Day four; back home.
“I sure hope we can make it,” I said. “That’s 2-3 hours in a cramped cattle-car seat at 30,000+ feet.
Ya can’t bail — there’s no escaping.”
And Linda’s mother is 900+ miles from where we live.
I worry about my wife even being able to do this.
But we’ve made it so far. (Although it may be the last trip for Linda — sitting that long is asking for trouble.)
I tried the mysterious “Thelma.”
She wants a password. (ANNNNNT!)
—Thunder-and-lightning last night.
The next time we experience thunder-and-lightning will be in May, or maybe even June at home.
We heard thunder outside rumbling toward our guest-room, so I looked outside the door, and saw lightning-flashes illuminating the night sky.
In Florida I guess thunderstorms are fairly frequent.
It started raining.
It was still raining lightly this morning as we left the guest-room, I guess the rain predicted by our server at Holiday House.
—Breakfast at Big Dorothea’s.
“Whatcha want, Bob?” Linda’s mother bubbled.
“I got corn-flakes, puffed-wheat, lotsa bran and prunes. Coffee, toast, orange-juice...... I gotta have my hot cuppa coffee; tee-hee!”
“Scrambled eggs, I guess,” I said quietly.
“Real eggs?” my wife asked. —We only eat Egg-Beaters® at home.
“I doubt if two eggs worth of cholesterol over eons is gonna kill me,” I commented.
“Want a banana, Bob?”
“Bananas that ripe go on our mulch-pile,” I thought to myself.
The coffee was instant; coffee-flavored dishwater.
And it wasn’t “carmelo-lotto, chocolate lotto,” Kid-From-Brooklyn again.
Not that I patronize Starbucks. All that I want is a cuppa coffee, not some fancy-dan overpriced cappuccino.
At home I make it myself; gourmet coffee custom-ground at the store, then brewed through drip-filter with boiled Brita-filtered water.
I hafta let it cool. No creme, no sugar, and no whipped-creme topping with chocolate mini-chips.
But decaf.
I drink it black.
— Finally, 11 a.m.; departure-time.
But not without a tearful remonstration that we find a church.
“At least she held off to the end,” Linda said.
Then back to Orlando airport.
We managed to find Hertz rental-return without drama, reversing a long-ago return to Avis that led us into the ozone.
PANIC-ATTACK! Linda’s driver-license was missing or misplaced.
TSA went ballistic. Thugs were brought in. 67-year-old Linda with cancer was a possible Al Qaeda terrorist, intent to bomb our flight home into oblivion.
An RTS retiree picture ID was brought out, along with her Medicare-card and her credit-card. (She’d lost her Social-Security card long ago.)
“Not good enough,” they said. “You’ll hafta sign a form certifying your identity, plus answer a few questions your husband can’t answer.”
I backed away. “I don’t hear nothin’,” I shouted.
After about 15 minutes of various formalities, with no questions, Linda was allowed to accompany me home.
“All I wanna do is go home,” she said. “I distinctly remember putting back my license at Security in Rochester.”
Our seats on the flight home were an upgrade, the safety-seats over the wing where you have to be able to lift 40 pounds and get people out of the plane “in the unlikely event of an emergency.”
A flight-attendant asked if we could handle the responsibility.
“Don’t worry, Bubba,” I thought. “I drove city-bus, and am therefore very ornery. I’ll get our butts outta this plane if I hafta.”
These seats have more footroom — I was considering upgrading to Business Class to make our flight back home more bearable. $90 each.
Linda said no.
But the safety-seats are more bearable than coach-seats. Space has be designed in to allow passengers to escape.
Those two safety-seats were the only two available side-by-side, and we selected them in error. They were $40 extra.
That was at an AirTran airport kiosk.
For $40 extra I cancelled the kiosk seat-assignment.
“See attendant for boarding-passes!”
A nice bilingual clerk took over to fiddle our seat-assignments.
He needed photo-ID.
I took out my driver’s-license, and Linda went to take out hers.
Linda’s was missing.
“Don’t worry, ma’am; you’ll find it,” but after 5-10 frantic minutes she didn’t.
“So what picture-ID do you have?”
89 bazilyun cards were unholstered, including an RTS retiree picture-pass that gets her a free bus-ride.
Also her Medicare card and her (our) credit-card.
Her Social-Security card, acceptable ID to the TSA, went missing long ago. —And she doesn’t carry her birth-certificate.
Finally, the clerk said it was all okay — ”We’re gonna get you home, ma’am” — and assigned our seats.
“Tell ya what,” he said. “I’ve assigned you those safety-seats no extra charge, so you can sit together.”
By now, Linda was completely frazzled; like I might be a steadying influence.
“More blog-material,” I said.
When we got back to Rochester, we asked if the errant driver-license had been picked up.
It had.
But it was no longer in the terminal, and might have already been mailed home — “Your address is on it.”
So, home at last, and Linda seemed to do okay.
Back to “the frozen tundra,” as Garrison Keillor says.
Except it was 40 degrees.
Hardly any snow was on the ground when we returned, and none to brush off our car. (One time it was drifted in.)
In fact, I skipped the long-underwear on return.
We did not get the dog — Linda suggested she was too bushed to handle an excited dog.
The dog’s reservation was until Friday anyway; our flight got in about 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Reflections
—Clock bells:
It appears Linda’s mother’s retirement-center has installed a clock-bell system much like what we had in college in the ‘60s.
It isn’t actually bells. It’s a giant P.A. horn that broadcasts a center-wide ringing of the hour.
Bong-bong-bong-bong. Bong-bong-bong-bong. Bong-bong-bong-bong. Bong-bong-bong-bong. —BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG; BONG.” “
Our college had a bell-tower.
It’s a symbol of the college.
It only has one actual bell in it, and it’s rather puny: “Dink!”
The only time I heard it ring was when President Kennedy was assassinated.
Otherwise, the bell-tower had a giant P.A. horn.
The center’s clock-bells sound just like our college.
—Is Bike-Week worth doing?
Well, I guess so, if you’re into the macho Harley gig, sans helmets.
Or into the cholesterol-laden pig-out menu.
“Here, see this? SMASH! This is your brain after falling off your Harley.”
—”I’m not used to being considered an asset,” I said on the plane. “Your mother growled at me long ago, but now I seem to be an asset.
What I’m accustomed to is being considered a liability, a drain on everyone, an utterly reprehensible scumbag.
But now I have a $5,000 CD in my name.
And this despite my being a silent old grump.
Someone your mother avoids, because I’m so speechless and bored.
What I’m accustomed to is being a drag on all-and-sundry; even you.”
—What about Linda’s mother?
She’s right at the border for assisted-living.
Her eyes are useless (macular degeneration), and she’s hard-of-hearing.
But she will probably hold out as long as she can. —Until she dies or burns out her apartment.
“I can’t eat in that Dining-Hall. I don’t like what they serve.”
—Can we do this again?
Depends on our health.
-Which in my case is slightly tenuous.
I seem okay, but am getting older.
-Linda is currently more marginal than me, I guess.
Some days up, some days down; we never know.
Such long flights, etc., are extremely fatiguing, even though the flight is only two-and-a-half hours.
Involved is a surfeit of challenges, all of which I can usually handle on-my-own; but they fag out Linda.
Linda is currently sick, not the person she was three months ago.
She has to take pain-medication on a rigid schedule.
Where she’ll be in a year is debatable.
• “Linda” is my wife of 43+ years.
• “The General” is General Motors.
• “Bob” is me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”
•
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• “IHOP” = International House of Pancakes.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and am fairly well recovered.
• “Tethering” is hard-wiring a connection from your Smart-Phone to receive satellite-Internet on your computer. (Your Smart-Phone is receiving satellite-Internet.)
• The Internet-browser “FireFox” will history multiple Internet sites (as tabs).
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS; “Transit”) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. —As a Transit retiree both my wife and I get photo-passes that entitle us to free bus-rides.
• “TSA “ is Transportation Security Administration,” the federal bureaucracy that administers airline passenger safety at airports.
posted by BobbaLew at 2:40 PM
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