Documenting Rebecca

ESCAPE

2011-07-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, all alone late at night and delirious from lack of sleep, and I'm just happy to be exactly where I am. I feel like the last several years of my life have been one long lesson about how the grass is NOT actually greener over there...wherever there might happen to be...and how I need to appreciate whatever good stuff there might be wherever I am.

And, right now, that is coming very easily to me.

I'm in Las Vegas, where - far away from the Strip - there is pretty landscaping everywhere and the traffic's not bad. The sun's been shining AND we have even been blessed with a minor cool spell...it's in the nineties rather than over a hundred. I can handle the nineties. I'm USED to the nineties.

I ran around all day, doing errands, went out to lunch with my mother and her sister. But the next 3 days are pure vacation. I'm going to drift on a raft in a pretty pool in the afternoons and go out to dinner Friday and Saturday night with my daughter and 3 nephews. Other than that, I'm just going to relax in my aunt's lovely apartment and visit with her and her children, as they drop by. Eat when I feel like it, nap if I feel like it.

I still have to do everything for my mother that I did back in Louisiana, but I am so much laid back here, it doesn't feel nearly so overwhelming.

I'm seriously just reveling in my location.

The last few days before we left were just brutal. I finished by pulling an all nighter. I got done with the house just before daylight and had the car loaded by 7 a.m., by which time I could barely move. I was rearranging suitcases and the wheelchair for literally hours before I had everything fit in. After showering and getting ready, I went to get my mother up and get her ready.

I had booked a room across from the New Orleans airport. Check out was at noon, we checked in at 10 a.m., and I had to pull over and take a 10 minute nap on the way over. They wouldn't give me a late checkout, so I had a two hour nap then ran around town until it was time to get to the airport. I left the car there and will pick it up in about 10 days to drive it back to Carson City. No auto transport company would take it filled with all the stuff we're hauling back here.

In the time before going to the airport, I managed to cross the river and obtain one more crucial document in our quest to get Italian passports. I struck out with another, but there's still a slim ray of hope we can find it elsewhere. And I was amazed I was able to get the one that I did.

I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off, and didn't wake until about a half-hour before landing. It was then, looking out at the clouds, that it finally hit me.

I had gotten away.

I had escaped my least favorite location, and if I have any control whatsoever over where I go in the future, I will not willingly go back there.

And not only that, but my first stop was the best of the last few places I'd lived. I was thrilled to be back. Vegas certainly has its share of drawbacks, but none of them are currently affecting me. I am soooo very grateful to be here.

But I had been so busy finishing everything I needed to do before i left, that I hadn't given a whole lot of thought to where I was going. And looking out at the clouds from the plane's window, I just felt filled with joy and excitement as I thought about where I was going and the fact that I didn't have to return to where I'd come from...except to pick up the car and drive it back.

I have to stop now, because I am literally dozing off as I type. But I am so happy right now. The last time I was this happy was the last time I moved here, right after my mother's stroke when I moved in with my daughter. I went from there to Carson City to stay with my mother and sister, until I moved my mother back to Louisiana...never dreaming I'd be there for so long.

Now we're working our way back in reverse order, from Louisiana to Las Vegas, back to Carson City. One of the things I do have to do while I'm here is personally check out some assisted living places. Because, if we get our wishes, my sister and I will bring our mother back here to get settled into one before taking off to see the world. So, ideally, we'll take one more trip here..and then off we go.

Location, location, location. I can adapt pretty easily to almost anywhere I happen to be, but I am very grateful to be where I am right now. My aunt's son dropped by tonight and he loved living where I just left. So it's all a matter of personal preference.

But I am so happy to be right here, right now.

Really gotta get to bed now, though.

Allllmost outta here

2011-07-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

I've got so much to do in the next 3 days, my head should be spinning around. I don't know if I'll get it all done, almost certainly not to the standard I'd like. And, since I've been here for about 9 months, I should probably be ashamed of my procrastination.

But, you know what? I've been doing what we were willing to pay someone a salary plus room and board for the past 9 months. So if I didn't accomplish everything I would have liked to on top of that, I'm not going to feel bad about it. Plus, I've probably reached the point where I'm ready to just say F*** it! I don't even care any more.

Particularly since most of what I'm not doing that well with doesn't really affect me all that much. Selfish? Maybe. But, again, I. Just. Don't. Care.

Because...soon...I am SO outta here.

For those who haven't been following along, I've been living in the town where I grew up and taking care of my elderly stroke victimised mother. Since my mother isn't actually bedridden, the location has been way more grim than the duties. This is the town I left the day after I graduated from high school and never had much desire to return to. And I can't believe I've been here for 9 freaking months.

It hasn't been actively horrible, since I've mostly stayed holed up in the house and had fairly regular biweekly overnight stays in New Orleans. However, most of the visits to New Orleans did not consist of much more than quick family visits, movies and cheap eats. Still, it was an extremely welcome change of scene. And, fortunately, I have an EXTREMELY high tolerance for staying holed up.

In the same vein, I'll be relocating to Carson City for what will hopefully be no longer than a few months. That place was never even close to the top of the list of places I'd choose to live, but it's got this place beat by miles and I can't tell you how I am looking forward to being there. Plus, my sister is there, and we're both looking forward to having fun together again.

Still, my stay here was supposed to be only for a few months and it turned into almost a year. Seriously, I am appalled when I think about it. Seems like such an awful waste of time.

Sigh.

It wasn't really. My mother got to see her family over an extended period of time, which she thoroughly enjoyed. One of her sisters actually died a few weeks ago, so it was very providential that we were here. We spent many days at the hospital leading up to the final days.

Anyway, best case scenario is we hit a beach destination wedding mid-October, return to Las Vegas to get Mom all settled into an assisted living facility, then my sister and I take off for a couple of months starting in Sicily to search for family documents that will help in our pursuit of Italian passports.

Well, a girl can dream.

Some of what I have to do tomorrow and Monday is chase down local documents before I leave. I did some of that today, which included a 2 hour round trip drive. I really wish I would have tackled this much earlier. It probably would have made my stay here much more interesting, as would have studying Italian. But I have been tired the whole time I've been living here.

Part of that was maybe mild depression, but the other part - the major part, I'm sure - was having a monitor in my room. I'm an extremely light sleeper and my mother tends to talk in her sleep. I'm not a very high energy person to begin with, so living for several months with sleep issues has really drained me.

Well, now, I think that's enough whining.

I'm LEAVING! And that is cause for celebration. I am so grateful to put a period to this phase of my life that, in spite of all I have to do from now until Tuesday, I actually feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And, even though I've got a few months in a relatively unexciting place, it happens to be very exciting compared to here.

Boy, nothing like experiencing worse to make you appreciate the not so bad, huh?

And a handful of days in Las Vegas on the way will be very welcome, too. Which reminds me that I lived there several years while wishing I could live elsewhere. Little did I imagine there would come a time when I would have shot off a few toes to have been able to spend 18 months more in Las Vegas instead of the time I spent here and in Carson City...if I could have chosen which toes.

Anybody seeing a pattern here? Major grass is greener syndrome. And don't think I haven't realized this. I have gone to sleep here at night being grateful for my soft bed and the nice roof over my head. Because, as much as I didn't want to be here, I am well aware that there are much worse situations than my own.

Of course, that doesn't stop me from hoping that I'm working my way back to where I can start from scratch again and actually be in places of my own choosing than those determined by circumstances beyond my control.

But, whatever, I've learned to be grateful for ANY blessings. And getting to leave here is a major one.

Outta here. Soon.

Amazing Customer Service

2011-06-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

If only the world was run this way.

Anyone remember Grand Isle, LA? The formerly sleepy little town at the ends of the earth made famous by the infamous BP?

We have a property there which we rent out to vacationers, one of whom called at 8:30 last night to say that there was virtually no water pressure in the house. No way to shower, wash dishes or clothes. So I called the Jefferson Parish Water District, pressed the right number for emergency services, and got a very nice woman who asked me to hold while she checked for problems.

Now, this office is located on the west bank of New Orleans, a couple of hours away from the property. So, even if they could locate a problem, there wasn't much hope of getting it fixed soon enough to make our campers happy. Or so I thought.

No, the nice woman said, they didn't see anything. So they'd send someone over to check at the property site. Any idea how long, I asked. Not long, she said, there was someone nearby.

Oh, yeah...that was really nice to hear.

Called the campers, gave them an update. Told them to let the workers in if they needed to do so. Called back almost an hour later to see what was up, and was told...

Broken pipe from the road, workers were digging it up to replace it even as we spoke, and water was expected to be restored in about an hour.

9 o'clock on a Friday night and workers were digging up a broken pipe, in the dar, and replacing it within an hour.

How awesome is that?

Jefferson Parish Water District, in Jefferson LA, you ROCK!

Oh, and let me just reflect on a little life lesson here, while I'm at it.

The vacationers who called me about the problem were very nice about it. No attitude, no anger. It was starting to get late, on their first night of vacation and they were having a fairly big problem, but they started out just asking for help.

I was, I have to admit, a bit stressed at getting that kind of a call late on a Friday evening. I had visions of telling these poor people there was nothing we could do for the whole weekend and that they would be better off returning home...with a full refund, of course, of the thousands of dollars we had gleefully received from them.

Still, dealing with such a pleasant person at the Water District helped me to stay calm until we figured out exactly what was going on, and that conversation went smoothly as well. And just finding out that they had someone nearby to at least assess the problem made me feel a lot better. Waiting two hours for someone to reach the property would have driven me to drink in short order.

Finding that the problem could be fixed so quickly was the absolute best outcome anyone could have wished for, so we were all happy. And still...

There was potential here for hugely unpleasant financial consequences for us: refunding a reservation and/or expensive plumbing repairs. We are enormously grateful that neither of these came to pass, but just knowing the potential was there was stressful all by itself.

Our poor guests were certainly aware that their vacation could certainly be cut extremely short, and getting their money back wouldn't really make them as happy as they had been expecting to be.

So the potential for near disaster was very heavy in the air last night.

But everyone was very nice in confronting the problem.

And it made the whole thing soooo very much easier to bear.

It could have been so very different. Even with the good outcome, getting through it all could have been amazingly unpleasant.

But it wasn't.

Because everyone was very nice about it.

This situation reminds me of the times I have remained calm in the face of anger, and seen that anger disappeared. And of the times I have been angry, only to be calmed by a reasonable voice.

Anger, in many situations, doesn't accomplish anything at all except to make us feel bad. Often, it is - at best - premature. At least every bit as often, it is completely unnecessary.

I wish I would have learned this at a younger age.

I could have gotten through so many situations a whole lot easier.

Control

2011-04-01T04:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, my mind was full of bother. I was facing situations that I intensely disliked and worrying about how to cope with them.

The most important one was completely beyond my control, I could do nothing but wait for events to unfold.

The second one was a financial situation with close, daily social consequences. It was the trickiest and I was contemplating a hit and run approach.

The third had to do with a close relative, and family protocol pretty much had my hands tied. He had asked if we had a bed to spare for a short stay while he visited a hospitalized sibling. Not that I could have refused under any circumstances, but we had recently stayed at his home for several nights. That it was a visit I did not enjoy, and felt obligated to make was completely beside the point.

The very next day, the problems start vanishing one by one.

A knock on the door in the morning took care of the tricky financial/social problem and brought a surprised smile to my face.

A phone call in the afternoon brought the best news one could possibly hope for regarding the most important one.

And late that night, it seemed the dreaded relative would not materialize after all.

As though I would not have been more than thrilled to have all of my problems solved within approximately 12 hours, I received a phone call telling me of a several hundred dollar windfall which it had never even occurred to me to expect.

Wow.

What a freaking day.

24 hours later, I'm still marveling and giving thanks for my good fortune.

But there's a slight, niggling burr of unpleasantness marring my wonderful feeling of well being...the dreaded relative.

Although I did not have to suffer having him in our home, I did have to spend a couple of hours in his company yesterday. He treated my mother and me to lunch.

This was not unbearable, the man is not a monster. And yet, I consider him toxic. Tonight, looking on the bright side, I was feeling thankful that we did not live remotely near each other and our phone calls were usually about things that didn't rankle. I decided I would just take control of how much I allowed him into my life and limit my contact with him to the absolute minimum.

For some reason, though, his offensiveness lingers, like a bad aftertaste. I often find him in my head at his most obnoxious, so much crap I come across online reminds me of him. How can I be giving so much space in my head, and in my life, to someone I'd like to forget? Okay, I've figured out how to keep him out of my life. So why can't I figure out how to keep him out of my head?

Mind control. I need it. Badly.

Because it just strikes me as being completely stupid that life is generously handing me armfuls of win and I am sabotaging my own contentment with thoughts of people on the very fringe of my existence.

I am SO doing this wrong.

Not TMI, but almost certainly more than you wanted to know

2011-02-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

More in the realm of naval gazing, I guess.

When an online friend recently noted her intention to leave Twitter and just update on Facebook, I told her I'd miss her because I'm not on Facebook. In discussing why, I mentioned that I'd rather be anonymous online with unrestricted access, than have a profile using my real name with access limited to a few favorite people. Jokingly, I said that I prefer the strangers I meet online to the people I know/knew in real life.

I've been living in my original family home for over 3 months now. I rarely leave the house, and I'm really fine with that. I've mentioned before that I left this town the day after I graduated from high school and rarely returned. There's a very good reason for that. I never liked it here and, though I was actually part of the "popular" crowd, there were very few people that I sincerely liked. Maybe 3.

Now, that's not counting my extended family. My mother has 5 brothers and sisters, so I've got a lot of cousins and we're fairly close considering I usually just saw them just once every year or two since I left home. They're a lot of fun, this group.

But I have practically nothing whatsoever in common with any of them except a shared history.

You know, the difference between liberal and conservative isn't just a matter of politics. It's about values. Theirs is similar to the overwhelmingly vast majority of people who live in the South. Mine...are not. I don't fit in here. Never did. It's why I left, and don't come back often.

Except for now, when I'm pretty much stuck here, though hopefully not for more than another couple of months, tops. There's a slim possibility that I may have to stay here through the end of June. If so, I will very likely have only shreds of sanity left. And not just because I want to travel, but because I'd prefer being almost anywhere else but here.

One of the reasons I'm loathe to chance running into people from my past is that I'm pretty sure I won't recognize them. In most cases, I won't even remember them, which turned out to be the case with the real estate agent we have handling a piece of family property I'm in charge of. This is all kinds of embarrassing.

But, you know, I've met all kinds of people since I left here many years ago. And, not that I even remember all of them, but they've kind of supplanted the people I went to high school with. While the people here have spent the last few decades mostly knowing the same people they've known forever.

Also, I know I've admitted this before, I tend to be just completely oblivious. I knew my friends, and though that circle changed a little bit now and then, it still didn't amount to any large number of people. I knew a few of my brother and sister's best friends but, again, we aren't talking about a lot of people.

I come from a fairly small rural area, where so many people are related to each other. I knew my first cousins, and a small handful of second cousins. So even in this small community, I didn't even know all of my relatives. I have a first cousin who knows just everybody, and everybody's business. I'm not that type of person, my real life world is always tiny.

However, due to the whole "popular crowd" thing and the fact that my father happened to be pretty much the biggest fish in this extremely small pond while I was growing up, a great many people know me - or of me. And I have no fucking clue who they are.

Anyway, no matter where I live, I tend to gravitate to favorite familiar spots. Although I thoroughly enjoy driving back and forth across the country, I hate fighting local traffic. And I avoid crowds whenever possible.

In addition to all of that, I have no problem spending enormous amounts of time in whatever nest I've made for myself and can go for long periods of time before getting cabin fever. My two favorite hobbies, reading and hanging out on my computer, are both solitary activities.

What all of that amounts to is I can live in places like Los Angeles, Las Vegas or New York for years, and personally be familiar with only a handful of places. I am capable of being in a place without actually being a part of it.

Except for two non-consecutive semesters, my college education was in one place. But I made no real friends there during that entire time. I was friendly with my roommates and 1 suite mate during the two semesters I lived in the dorm, but I never saw any of them once I got my own place. I had lots of friends in that city, that I either knew before or met through my sister and her boyfriend, but not one from the school.

Plus, I am perfectly comfortable moving to a place where I don't know a soul, and continuing to live there without knowing anyone at all. Which I've done in all of the places mentioned above. Or, even if I am actually acquainted with someone, still not seeing them much at all.

The first time I lived in Las Vegas, I went over to visit some family friends. And the woman, who was much older than I was, mentioned that my sister used to visit them all the time when she lived there but they rarely saw me. Well, my sister will always prefer to go out, rather than stay in. And if she is looking for company, she's not really particular about whether she has anything in common with someone. We can both talk to anyone, but the difference is that she will almost always actually enjoy it, while I will just do it to be polite.

So, all of this is by way of saying that I don't want anyone from my past to be able to find me online. I left my past behind, and I am not in the least bit interested in resurrecting it in any shape or form. There is maybe one person I might be interested in talking to, and I can probably find her if I try hard enough. And the maybe not so weird thing is that she was not originally from this area, as were so many people when I was growing up.

I am looking forward to meeting some of the people I know from online. I'm looking forward to exploring places on foot and using public transportation, because I'm still not wild about traffic. When I start traveling, I won't really have much of a nest, so I will spend more time going out than staying in, and I find that very exciting. I can't wait to get to know places and people so different from where I grew up.

I can't wait to spend time in places, and with people, I choose - rather than those I got stuck with by an accident of birth. And I'd love to get to know even more people than I am familiar with already. Up until now, I have always been more of an observer, rather than a participant. I'm ready now to start participating a little more. Not here, though. And not with these people.

In order for more people from the rest of the world to find me, though, my profiles have to allow for unlimited access. At the same time, the best way to keep anyone from my past from finding me is to keep my real name off the Internet. And truthfully, privacy fanatic that I am, I don't want it on there anyway.

So, what all of this adds up to is staying anonymous. And I don't know that you can be anonymous on Facebook. It's kind of counter to the main idea of having people find you. Maybe, though, I can sign up with a nom de plume. I mean, what's in a name, after all? And yet...

I've heard soooo very many horrible things about Facebook, I'm just not sure I want to go there.

So maybe all this is moot anyway. Like most naval gazing.

Looking Back

2010-12-31T18:45:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me, for the first time ever, that there might actually be some merit in looking back at a past year to see the big picture. Although I make a conscious effort to maintain perspective, I tend to deal with a less than perfect present by looking toward the future. So tonight, all comfy with a glass of wine, I'll look back at what the past year held for me personally. I can tell you that the ending has been uncomfortable, but maybe that's not the worst place from which to start a New Year. Lots of room to move up from here.

January found me in Las Vegas, living with my daughter. My mother had finished rehab for her stroke on the 5th and I brought her to my sister's house in Carson City, staying several days to help them get settled. The last couple of months of 2009 had been a little strained, with my determination to spend part of every day with my mother halfway across town taking a toll on my energy level.

Is it my fate to finish every year the hard way? I sincerely hope not. Although, in the grand scheme of things, if one is going to have to endure difficult times, is there a "best" time of the year to do so? Anyway...

The next three months were some of the best of the last ten years for me. My daily life was pleasant, and I had the freedom of time to myself without obligations on a regular basis. My worries were few. I was the happiest, the most content, that I'd been in a decade. Then everything came crashing down into a big messy heap.

By April, amidst a great deal of emotional turmoil and fractured relationships, I was moving halfway across town for a couple of months to help a troubled 7 year old get herself back on track. It wasn't too bad of a time, though it held a few extra challenging moments.

Beginning of June brought me to Carson City, where I'd been spending a weekend every month to give my sister a bit of a respite from being sole primary caregiver for my mother. It was a little tough having to ride herd on a nervous invalid and energetic 7 year old for a month or so. But then we all took a nice vacation in July to visit family in Louisiana. We stayed in New Orleans, hung out a bit in the French Quarter, and the vacation was a huge success.

From then until October, I was in Carson City. My sister and I shared responsibility for my mother, we each had our own rooms in a cozy little home, and life was quite pleasant. We took a trip down to Las Vegas for a few days to visit family and had a very nice time.

However, a good bit of June to October was marred by the stress of trying to get compensated by BP for damages due to the oil spill. That came to a pleasantly abrupt end when the federal government took over claims processing and our full reimbursement was deposited, no questions asked, in late September. The mountains of documentation I'd provided seemed to be adequate after all.

There was also a temporary, then more lasting, repairing of one of the aforementioned fractured relationships. And, just recently, there are signs indicating the full circle may finally be on its way to being completed. I'm hoping the New Year will see that take place.

By mid-October, we were on the move again. Moving a wheelchair bound invalid halfway across the country, particularly when taking a quick vacation *all* the way across the country as part of the move, certainly has its full share of stress. Add another elderly relative into the mix and I had my hands overfull.

An ill advised discussion of verboten topics on the first night, when the host was slightly under the influence, only served to completely ruin the relationship between favorite uncle and niece. None of the friendly behavior since has made so much as a smidgen's worth of difference, not even an obviously sincere apology on the part of the uncle when saying goodbye at the airport. It's not so much a matter of forgiveness, there's nothing of any importance to forgive. It's more a matter of finding out that someone really is not at all who you thought they were. And that's just sad.

From mid-October through Thanksgiving was a whirlwind of trying to make an old neglected house a home again. There was a sense of accomplishment, and a growing comfort level, in watching it come alive. It was also nice to visit with extended family a few times, see some people I hadn't seen in decades. Going to New Orleans almost every week to spend a night or two was a nice distraction for a while. Then it got to be just tedious.

By Thanksgiving, there was a certain level of frustration due to my inability to find a live-in caregiver for my mother and to the lack of progress I was making in almost anything whatsoever any more. I was spinning my wheels and I didn't like it.

Turns out I liked December even less.

It's not easy taking care of an invalid when you are really, really sick...for two weeks.

And it really sucks when you get a super strength case of head lice that lasts for a month. You hope it lasts for a month, because that means it's over. And that's not 100% certain yet.

Then when you find out that the check you were expecting on the 28th is not coming, you think that's SO not good. Until you find out that this non-trivial source of income may be on hiatus for a few months. Then you *know* what "not good" really is.

So, yeah, December blows.

And yet...

Previous lack of progress doesn't necessarily result in future lack of progress. I mean, I can start doing all the stuff I need to do whenever - I just need to settle down and do it. The beginning of a New Year might not be such a bad time to get started. You know how you get all gung ho at the beginning of the year about stuff, and then it just kind of peters out? Well, I really just need that brief gung ho period. So this may work out okay.

As far as finding a live in caregiver here for my mother, well, maybe that's just not meant to be. Maybe we need to look at other options again. I'm certainly not opposed to taking her away from here. I don't think she'd necessarily be unhappier somewhere else. And all of the improvements I've made here won't go to waste because, if she goes somewhere else, we'll put this place up for sale. The improvements weren't that costly and the property is way more salable with them.

The lice thing is hopefully over and we'll think no more about it. Or so I pray.

The non-trivial revenue stream has done this before and come back from it - though in slightly weakened form, so there's at least a little hope there yet.

So all in all, a little choppy with some brief shining moments. Could be worse. There was a lot of moving around, and some travel. I'd hoped to do some traveling and, if none of it was to destinations of my choosing, it was better than nothing.

Looking over what I've written, I was trying to see if there was anything to be learned. And then I remembered the big epiphany I had this year, but it doesn't seem to be clearly stated up there in my ramblings.

Options.

Think completely outside the box when looking for options. Look far and wide for them. Look in places you would never consider and check everything inside out before deciding that something is impossible.

My mother had a stroke in Louisiana. She spent a month there in various medical facilities before we hit a wall trying to figure out what would be best for her. In the end, I flew out and brought her to Las Vegas. The people in Louisiana found this a little extreme, though they were very helpful in expediting the move. Fortunately for us, moving people back and forth across the country does not seem extraordinary in the least, because it worked out beautifully.

Our family 1st grader had a great deal of difficulty adjusting to her new school in Louisiana, to the point of almost failing when previously she'd always been a very good student. Once more, we whisked her back across the country to her original school and she finished 1st grade just fine.

Sometimes going somewhere new helps, sometimes going back to something old helps.

We're trying the something old now for my mother, with no luck so far. It may be time for something new again. Or someplace new in a familiar location. Combinations are okay. Almost anything is okay. Just keep an open mind. And open your mind to new ideas no matter how ridiculous they may seem at first.

It's so amazing to me, when I remember how much garbage you had to get through in online searches to reach anything remotely useful, what a freaking treasure chest the Internet is today. And still, we get so used to having global access to so much that we already know is out there that we forget just how much we don't know anything about. And *that* is where the options start getting interesting. When you venture into completely unknown territory.

2010 was a little rough for me. But I'm really excited about 2011. I may not be venturing where no man has gone before, but I am determined to go where I have never gone before and do things I haven't done before. I'm literally bubbling with excitement over the fact that there are options I haven't even discovered yet.

So 2010 is done, I'm over it. Next.

Travel, Tech & World Peace

2010-12-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

A recent blog post by Arbitrista, entitled "Why Learn French", ignited enough of a spark to get me back here after over a month away. It was a reaction to an article asking why American students were being required to learn languages like French & Italian as opposed to those that might be more useful in today's world, like Chinese or Arabic. I think Arbitrista makes a great case in his post, which is nicely summed up by his closing sentence:

"It's not that Americans won't be learning French in school that bothers me. It's that they won't be learning anything."

I am a HUGE history fan, and I love learning new languages. As it so happens, French and Italian are the ones I'm trying to learn now. But as important as I think those subjects are, I'm willing to sacrifice time spent on both of them. For one thing, English is now pretty much acknowledged as the international language of choice. If you are going to travel the world, for instance, and only have one language at your disposal, then English is the most practical one to have these days.

What I think is one of the most important things that should be taught in American schools is awareness of the rest of the world as it is today.

One of the biggest contributors to American ignorance and bigotry is the distorted pictures people have in their heads of the rest of the world. Certainly, a lot of it is learned in the home. But it's obvious that younger generations are much more open minded than their elders, the polls reflect it. A lot of us grow up constantly hearing all sorts of racist and bigoted opinions and still manage to recognize them as wrong.

Still, this needs to be done in every grade, starting with the very youngest. It's long overdue, and it would make a world of difference in this country.

As a country, we are way too insular, and not only do we have a distorted picture of the rest of the world, many people still have this image of the United States as being the very best at everything. Not that we were ever perfect. Even at the height of our superpower status after WWII, we were covering up our abuse of Japanese Americans. Next came the fight against segregation. There's always been something. Hell, do they even present the beginnings of this country as war against Native Americans yet?

Still, there was a time when we were legitimately head and shoulders above most other countries in many ways. That is no longer the case. Our educational and health care systems are but two of the enormous factors bringing us down. Great strides in technology are being made in many other places besides Silicon Valley. But with the technology available to us today, there is no reason for our relative geographic isolation to keep us from knowing what people in other parts of the world are really like.

I mean, don't we all have contacts in other countries due to our interactions online?

I saw an ad about a grade school class who went on a "field trip" to China via Skype, or something like it. They visited other children the same age and conversed via translators. We need more of that. That is how we bridge the gulf of cultural differences.

Advances in travel have made the world a much smaller place. Advances in technology, specifically the Internet, has the potential to make the world a much better place. Considering how much garbage there is on the damn thing, that's pretty amazing.

On the bright side...Me, next

2010-11-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

My duties here are taking much longer than I'd thought, or hoped, they would. Which means I am living in my hometown much longer than I'd planned, or hoped, to. One of the things slowing me down is all of the appliances are breaking down, one after another. First the hot water heater, then the washer AND dryer. Now the dishwasher, and it looks like the fridge is next.

Of course, they're all too old or broken to be repaired. So they're being replaced, one by one...after causing a good bit of inconvenience.

On the bright side, I'm going out of town for the day to take my mother to lunch and a movie. She really wanted to go back to New Orleans, but I'm so tired of packing for one night and making the drive back and forth. I have stuff to do here and I really want to get it done as soon as possible. So we're going to the closest town large enough to have a movie theater. Still an hour away, but it's a pretty day for a drive.

Other good things include getting a lot done, even if it is taking a while. I have 3 digital To Do lists, of varying lengths, and I'm not deleting items once they're done. Seeing all the items crossed off is evidence of what I've accomplished, and I need to see it when I'm feeling like nothing is happening fast enough.

Also good is that I'm delegating almost everything except the personal care of my mother, including our meals. I used to do most, if not all, of the heavy lifting when necessary - both literally and metaphorically. This time, I'm letting others do the actual physical work while I organize and supervise. Much easier. Much better. Still work, and a little stress, but also way faster and more effective.

Once I find the right people to take over my mother's personal care, and have the house ready for them to move in, my work here will be done. There are other things that could be started at that time, but I have decided to save them for when I come to visit.

I'm looking at, hopefully, not more than another few weeks here. I don't know exactly where I'll be going after that. But I'll be more than ready to go. And I feel like I will be able to go without any feelings of guilt whatsoever. Because, for once, both of my daughters seem to be doing just fine on their own and I will have done as much as humanly possible to set my mother up comfortably.

So, at that point, it will be my turn.

New Year's Resolution

2010-10-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's a little early, but we've recently entered the time of year that moves at warp speed.

I actually have two New Year's approaches. The first comes in September, around my birthday, soon after Labor Day and the traditional start of a school year. That's when I feel like the time is right to ponder my future and decide what kind of changes I want to make in my life and/or goals I'd like to pursue.

January 1st, to me, is like a reset button. Starting a fresh calender year means a I can make a completely fresh start. No matter what my life has been like, I am allowed to re-invent it however I so choose.

Of course, anyone can do this at anytime.

Still, a new calendar year seems to have so much power attached to it.

That's most likely all in my head, but what's in our heads can be extremely powerful. So I just go with it.

Anyway, as I said, time is flying by extra fast these days and there's quite a lot I feel like I want to get done before the New Year. And that's causing some conflict with my desire to travel. Because, although I can do quite a lot while I'm traveling, most of what I have in mind can be done more effectively if I focus on just getting it done. Plus, it's mostly such mundane stuff that I don't want to dilute my travel experiences with it.

And I'm so anal, I don't think I can enjoy my travels knowing that it's all sitting somewhere waiting for me to take care of it.

Still, I doubt I will get it all finished before the New Year. But I think I will be satisfied if I get it organized enough to work on when I come to visit here. Because I know I will have to come back here, where I don't like coming back to, to visit my mother. And I don't feel any need whatsoever to explore any part of my location while I'm here. Yes, it's changed somewhat since I was growing up, but I don't care. I still don't like being here.

In a way, having something real to accomplish while I'm here will actually make it easier to come back. I mean, it will certainly be nice spending time with my mother between travels, and even seeing some of the rest of my family can be fun. But if I'm going to come for several days at a time, knowing that there is something I can do only here just somehow makes it more palatable. Not to mention, it gives me an excuse to get out of any gathering I don't feel like participating in.

In any case, this year, my goals are very simple. In fact, they're pretty much the same goals as last year, and that's made me realize that just continuing to chip away at things will finally get you where you want to be.

Organization. Just recently, I was feeling a little disheartened when I thought of all the files I wanted to scan into my computer. Because they'd just been unloaded from the car we'd had driven from Nevada and they are in several boxes all over the back room. Then a light went on in my head and I thought, "Wait, maybe a lot of them can be thrown away by now! In fact, maybe a lot can even be deleted from my computer now, too." So maybe that won't be as bad as I thought.

But I want to get all of my, and my mother's, finances whipped into shape before I take off for extended periods of time, as well. I bought a copy of Quicken right after her stroke a little over a year ago and still haven't even installed it on my computer. Everything will be so much easier to keep track of and take care of once I've got it all organized, so that's a must.

Simplification. Simplification and organization go hand in hand. Each makes the other easier. But, in addition to this, I'm still working on achieving the minimalist life I've been talking about for the last few years.

The ultimate goal has always been to only keep what I carry. And that has helped me to be utterly ruthless every time I've changed locations. But, this last time, I decided to keep a few things in case I ended up getting a place of my own sooner than I thought. So I paid my sister to use a corner of her storage unit for a few months. I figured, by then, things would be a little clearer.

Still, I could probably stand to get rid of at least a little more of what I've got. And it will probably always be a constant battle with myself not to hang on to things I don't need. But even with travel accessories, there are just so many neat things! So, it's a problem I've got to be vigilant about. I have to say, though, comparing what I had three years ago to what I've pared down to makes me feel like I've really come a long way. And everything I owned three years ago fit into one very small room. Now, everything I own would fit into the trunk of a large car. Yes!!!

I guess the goal is now to make it all fit into the trunk of a compact. :)

Actually, once I scan or replace 3 boxes of books, this will be the case. So I'm not too far off at the moment.

Travel. I've been back and forth across the country a few times in the last 14 months. Unfortunately, all of the trips have been more in the nature of fulfilling obligations rather than for pleasure. However...I managed to visit at least one place I'd never seen before, both last year and this year. So that definitely counts as moving toward my goal.

I've been working toward a specific vision in all three of those areas for the last few years, and I'm finally close enough that 2011 should be the year I move from "working toward" to "maintaining". And that will be nice. However, I can't help thinking that it shouldn't have taken so long. Part of the reason was circumstances far beyond my control. But a lot of it was also my own procrastination.

I'm not going to dwell on any of that, though. Time is getting short and I have so much to do, not just with the stuff I've been talking about, but other responsibilities which are the reason I am where I am. It may turn out that I don't get to the travel I was anticipating this year, after all. I'm still not sure about that yet.

But, either way, I am determined to stomp on that reset button in early 2011.

Seems like it's always something. Yet, it could be so much worse.

2010-10-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a very challenging few weeks.

1st, moving out of a home is always tough. That took a while.

Wasn't able to get an auto carrier to pick up our car in Carson City. The husband of a cousin offered to drive it to Louisiana for us. He was planning to visit his family here anyway. So he picked it up yesterday evening...and ran out of gas an hour out. Cops stopped to check and found the registration was suspended.

Trying to think ahead, I'd notified the insurance company to switch address of the car to Louisiana on October 15th - the day car was promised to be delivered. Completely forgot I'd done that, and Nevada considered out of state insurance as no insurance...so they suspended the registration.

Fortunately, mom's motorized wheelchair is in the back seat. So they took pity on all of us and didn't give him a ticket. I'd provided him with proof of insurance, a AAA card, cash and a note authorizing him to drive the car. Never even occurred to me that the registration could possibly be suspended.

My own journey had no complications whatsoever. Still, traveling with an elderly disabled person is something I find stressful even when all goes as well as you could possibly hope for. Add another elderly semi-disabled person and I am constantly on edge. Did that for a week.

Trying to get a quite large house habitable after decades of neglect can be difficult. That's what I'm dealing with now. No internet except for my phone, for days. The washer flooded the laundry room this morning as I was washing a batch needed to pack for an overnight trip to New Orleans. All I'm getting to see of New Orleans is the cheap hotel across from the airport.

There are some good things. Small town life = a special on washer/dryer that comes with an offer to deliver the same afternoon. Wow. Other things are falling into place. Got to see my daughter and the 7 year old. My mom and brother got to visit, and he was happy to see her looking so good and enjoying herself.

So nothing, you know, really horrible. Just a lot of somethings spaced a little too close together for a little too long for comfort. My comfort. But, really, I think I just need to learn to chill.

How does one learn that, anyway? Is it even possible to learn that if you are not one of the fortunate people who are just born that way?

I suspect one may form the habit with practice. Fewer responsibilities will certainly help.

So that's my goal. Work my way down this To Do list - which, after successfully moving and finally taking care of having the car transported, actually seems somewhat manageable - and then CHILL!

One way to get through the list with a minimum of freaking out is to keep repeating my mantra: 24 hours at a time.

Because, even though the To Do list is now a lot shorter and made up mostly of things I've got pretty much sorted, it's still got one huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge task on it.

Finding someone to take care of my mother.

Two people, actually. Because we'll need one to live in and one to come in as relief. Fortunately, one of my cousins has a lead on two people who might fill this need satisfactorily for us. Just in case, though, my sister suggested we call the local churches to ask if they know of anyone who might be interested. That's how we found the two great women who took care of her in Carson City. Church pastors tend to know who might be hurting financially and they are usually good judges of character. So we'll look at those options before putting an ad in the paper.

My younger daughter plans to come to Louisiana the middle of next month, bringing the 2 year old. I'm hoping to be done with all of my obligations by then, and able to enjoy a nice visit with everyone before taking off on my own.

For a nice long while.

Counting down...

A Taste of Travel Scrambles my Brain

2010-10-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

As I write this, my view is from a lovely mountain in South Carolina.

The home I'm staying in is the most authentic reproduction of an old Tuscan house as I have ever come across, despite years of living in communities where faux Italian architecture was the norm. The view itself could easily be one of the Italian countryside.

The nearest town is very nice, as well. Clean and interesting, full of shops and restaurants that are unique and not branches of large chains. Having spent 3 days in Las Vegas eating at nothing but chain restaurants - where I did have a great time, I should note - this varied offering was well received.

We ate at a fabulous place in town last night and, once again, I completely forgot to take any photos. But we all had steak and fries, so it really wasn't that interesting looking anyway. Even the dessert wouldn't have made an extraordinary photo. Maybe the appetizer, but I thought it looked kind of small. Still, it was all delicious and we had fun, plus I found a new type of wine I like, so it was a success on all the important levels.

As the plane was approaching the airport where we arrived, I happened to look out my window to see a particular plot of land spread widely out around a house and surrounded by hedges. All around it, for what looked like miles, was more greenery and wide open spaces lightly dotted with buildings. At first glance, my first thought was that it looked very much like Ireland, or England. And in that first moment, my heart quickened slightly with excitement, interest and curiosity.

Almost instantly, I remembered I was still in my homeland country. And while I was still mildly interested in visiting a location unfamiliar to me, there was no longer any excitement and not very much interest or curiosity. I'm sorry, but the only places in this country exotic enough - meaning different enough from my everyday life in a way I would find exciting - are a few major metropolitan areas. Maybe a couple of beaches.

Still, I find it extremely strange in myself that almost the exact same landscape could cause such different reactions within me simply because of their location. I mean, it's the same exact landscape!

So I can look upon the view pictured above and appreciate its loveliness, feel grateful that I am allowed to be productive in such a beautiful and peaceful environment. If I were actually in Italy, however, I would still feel all of that plus have a little bubble of excitement that there is a whole different culture in my surroundings.

On a whole different topic, this trip has very much been a mixed bag of experiences. None of it has been uncommon, nothing different than has often been experienced by many people, all the time. And, yet, it has had a profound effect on me and how I intend to live my life from now on. Or, rather, let me amend that to how I intend to *try* and live my life from now on.

It's a bit of a jumble, but basically boils down to two things.

The first is that I am planning to start an entirely new blog once I begin my life of all travel, all the time. I am hoping that will be no later than around 6 weeks from now. I am determined that it will be no longer than 6 months from now. It will naturally revolve around the places I will be visiting. But it will also, obviously, contain a great deal of reflection on what it's like to live more or less like a nomad. In the past, I have gotten tired of traveling after 2 or 3 weeks and wanted to come home. The plan now will be to just find a place to stay for a more longish period of time, until I feel like hitting the road again.

Although I do, of course, plan to come home for visits during the time I am away. The difference will be that those visits will also be very much like traveling, because it will not be my home I will be returning to.

But my point is that the next blog will be all about travel. It will be truthful, but with as little negativity and controversy as I can honestly make it. There will almost certainly be complaints and unfavorable comparisons, but I will try very hard not to rant. I want to observe and remember, to record experiences in order to help me remember them later. But I also hope that some of what I write will be useful to other travelers.

It occurred to me that I might need to keep this blog as a place to discuss those parts of my life that are not related to travel. I've been seeing a few people I follow online recently begin a second blog devoted to a particular subject, yet still go back to the original blog for everything else. But this trip has shown me that, as I tweeted earlier, when I have a life full of offline activities, I barely have time to keep up with anything online. Much less an extra blog of my own.

Second, part of this trip has held some intense moments of negativity and controversy. And they made me a little sick to my stomach. It's been noted in the past, by myself and others, that many of us seem to blog more about negative parts of our lives because those are the things we have to work through in our heads. But I've found that I don't want them in my head. I don't want them in any part of my life.

The relatives I am visiting are my social and political opposites. The one I am actually related to tried to establish a policy of no discussion of sensitive subjects but the spouse just couldn't stick to it. And so our first night here was spent thrashing out a slew of issues to no avail. We are so very far apart that there was no chance of meeting anywhere near halfway. But we did finish the night by agreeing to speak no more of any of it and to just enjoy all being together.

I determined to bite my tongue and not engage no matter what the provocation and have, so far, been pleasantly surprised to find that it has not been necessary to do so. Admittedly, there has been very little contact today, and we leave tomorrow. But we had two very enjoyable days together.

My conclusion is that far more often than I thought possible, one can simply ignore negativity or refuse to give it a place. Maybe I am much more capable of simply not engaging than I ever believed I could be. Turn the cheek, walk away, when there is no productive result possible from engagement.

In which case, do I truly need this blog once I start the travel specific one? If I try to banish all negativity and controversy from my life, can't everything else relate - one way or another - to the life I will be leading? After all, it is not necessary to discuss those things over which I am outraged. I can simply do my part, in my life, to mitigate them. I don't believe that I was ever a successful advocate, anyway, for those causes. I will leave the public activism, then, to others who are better suited to it. And who have dedicated space to it, the way I will dedicate mine to travel.

We all have our passions. And while mine are hot in relation to injustices I perceive, I take no pleasure in them and do not seem to have accomplished anything in sharing them. So nothing is really lost by allowing those who are more successful in their accomplishments to lead. I will, instead, try to be an individual global ambassador. If I can manage to always act with courtesy and respect, no matter what the circumstances, then maybe that will have an impact of which I can be proud.

I can live with that.

Anyway, I find that writing and talking about negative things just extends their lifespan. I will just deal with whatever comes along in private and save my online presence for the other stuff. I want to be Pollyanna now. Internationally.

I wasn't ignoring you. I was just losing my mind.

2010-09-26T03:21:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how this could even be true, and I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly stupid it makes me feel. It's one thing to have "moments" of not thinking clearly and doing something foolish. But to go for almost an entire year not doing anything about something you keep noticing every now and then just doesn't seem right...well, there's really no excuse.

Although, it has been a tough year.

I started this blog a few weeks after my mother had a stroke, after all. Just a few days before I drove cross country. And that was only the first of 3 moves in 12 months, with a good bit of travel in between. There's been a lot of upheaval in the last year, and I have had tons of stuff on my mind.

It's not over yet, either. I'm marking time until November 1st, hoping it will be the first day of a life with much less stress and more freedom than I've enjoyed in years.

One can only hope.

In any case, none of that is really an excuse. I'm just wondering if all that stress has killed a great number of brain cells. And they don't regenerate, do they? Sigh.

Anyway.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that it's necessary for me to tell you that I have not, until a few minutes ago, seen any e-mail sent to me at this blog's e-mail address.

If you have e-mailed me, I apologize profusely for not getting back to you.

You see, I have a handful of e-mail addresses set up for various purposes. A few are for me, a few are for others. And I have them all forwarded to my main, personal e-mail address. They are all gmail accounts, so I can then arrange to reply to all of the e-mails from the address to which they were sent. I love gmail.

I've been doing this for years, and I love the convenience.

As any of you who are gmail users are aware, this is a two step process. You set up forwarding from one address to the other, and the 2nd address has to consent to being forwarded to. Then you set that 2nd address to send mail from the 1st address and that one has to give its consent.

It doesn't take long, gmail sends you a link and you click on it. And, as I said, I've done this many times.

For some reason, with the e-mail address for this blog, I skipped a step.

I set up my personal address to send mail as the blog address. And I had the blog address consent to that. But I neglected to set up the blog address to forward its e-mail to my personal one.

So they've been sitting, forlorn, in the blog e-mail account, all of this time.

A few times, I did wonder whatever happened to an e-mail I was expecting. But they were so few and far apart, that it just didn't ring any bells, and there was always something else to do before checking into it. Until, finally, tonight, I went over there to look.

And I still can't believe what I found.

But even more than being horrified that I could be capable of being so utterly stupid, I am mortified by the bad manners represented by an entire year of unanswered e-mails. Although, I have to admit, when you reach that magnitude of rudeness, there's something almost funny about it. Kind of like black humor.

Still, there are at least some people that I owe personal apologies/explanations to:

B*, that's why I never showed up at the 2nd blog you set up. That's where the invite went to.

Quinn, it's been almost a year, but I did see that subtitle at the time. I was so honored, I either blogged or tweeted about it in a general non-name dropping kind of way. I'm still a little awestruck when I think about it.

Mike and Sally, this is why I may not have responded to any of your replies to my comments on your blogs. The same is true for you, Tina, and thank you for the recipe.

Joe Don, I'm so sorry, I don't know you and I don't have a LinkedIn account.

To people who's blogs require a confirmation of my request to follow the comments of various posts: if you replied back to any of my comments, I'm so sorry I didn't get to see that.

Fortunately, that wasn't a problem with Blogger blogs. Those comment feeds went straight to my personal address, and it was one of the reasons it didn't occur to me that there was a problem with my blog's official e-mail address. I was having all kinds of interactions with blogs and bloggers, and receiving a ton of comments to my main e-mail, which kind of obscured the fact there was a problem.

Time to simplify my life.

Maybe in another month or so, I can start working on that. My goal will be: 2011 - Year of perfecting the minimalist life. Wish me luck, please. After this appalling discovery, I'm afraid I'll need all of that commodity I can get my hands on. Sheesh.

On the Move

2010-09-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

I am about to move for the 4th time in barely twelve months. Even for me, this has been an unusually footloose year.

September 2009 saw me moving from the Florida Panhandle to Las Vegas

April 2010, I moved from one Las Vegas address to another.

In June, I moved from Las Vegas to Carson City to stay with my mother and sister until certain situations resolved themselves.

Next month, October, will find me moving my mother to Louisiana, where I will likely stay with her at least a couple of weeks to get her all settled.

After that? Who knows.

Fortunately, I've finally gotten rid of all my furniture. Otherwise, these last moves would have been the end of me.

During the past year, I've also done a little traveling. A couple of trips to back to Louisiana, a couple to Las Vegas. On the way to bringing my mother to Louisiana next month, we will stop a couple more days in Vegas so she can see some of her grandkids - and one of her great-grandkids - for what will probably be the last time in a while.

Then we will detour to South Carolina for my mother to see her baby brother. He's been dying to get us over there to see the new home he's just built in the mountains, and this may be her last major trip. I was hoping to get to Washington D.C. on that trip, but it would've just been too much commotion, I think, for my mother to handle.

Although my mother has had a stroke, she is now quite strong and healthy. She does take various medications, but they are keeping her in proper frame. Sometimes her mind is still so sharp that we are amazed. But more and more often, she's obviously not thinking clearly. At her age, it's to be expected, I guess. But she has an aunt only a year older than she is who is still living alone and driving during daylight hours. Her older brother, too, still seems much sharper mentally than she is. I guess everyone ages differently.

In any case, my mother isn't capable of living alone. This is why we brought her up here to live with my sister. I was living with my daughter, and my brother is married. My sister likes to get out and about on weekends, as my mother does, so it seemed a good idea. And I think we all agree in the family that it was the right one at the time.

Now, though, my mother has decided to go back to Louisiana. And we're all in agreement that it's right for her at this time. She has a big house down there, with all her furniture and things. A huge bedroom with two large closets. She's never been able to adjust to the smaller urban rental homes we've been staying in the last several years, even though they have been spacious by any standard other than comparison to her own rural house.

Also, her brother and sisters are all down there.

The last trip I took to the bayou, I reluctantly brought her with me. I had an agenda, and I thought she would keep me from accomplishing as much as I wanted to. And I was right. Between caring for her, and having some part of her family drop by every day, I got very little done.

At the time, I said it was probably a mistake to have brought her, but she'd enjoyed it so much that I couldn't regret it. Turns out, it made her realize how much happier she would be living close to her brothers and sisters again.

Before I got here, she would have sitters in the morning until my sister came home for lunch. Then she would stay alone until my sister came home from work. So she doesn't need constant care. But she needs someone to help dress her, to cook for her and to put her to bed. She needs a live in.

My brother is living in Florida, my sister will remain in Carson City and I'm not sure where I'll end up. But I can promise you it will not be a Louisiana bayou. Not for very long, at any rate. I left there the day after I graduated from high school and I seriously do not believe I will ever live there again.

So we have to hire someone.

I asked a cousin from the area to keep her ears open, because we'll need 1 full time person and one relief person for the weekends. I thought it would take a good six weeks to come up with some good possibilities, which is about how long until we get there. But my cousin knew of 2 right off the bat, so we may have that problem nice and sorted as soon as we arrive.

I love when things fall into place. It makes them feel right.

I was hoping to get to Europe in October. Maybe even September. Instead, September will be spent packing up someone else's house, which will not be fun. The reason I gave away all of my stuff is because I hated having to pack it up to move all the time. And October will be spent taking my mother here and there, then getting her settled back into the old family home.

We get to Louisiana October 15. A couple of weeks getting everything settled takes me to the end of October. As I mentioned in my last blog post, my sister told me she'd like to go to Europe for Thanksgiving, so we'll just have to wait and see what transpires.

I have to say that this move to Louisiana just came out of the blue. This was not something any of us had considered a possibility for the longest time, certainly not since my mother's stroke last year. But I have to admit that knowing how much happier she'll be, living so close to all her brothers and sisters, makes it a lot easier for my sister and I to resume our normal lives once more without feeling guilty.

Also, my daughter and the 7 year old are living just an hour and half away. So they'll probably be getting down to see her every few weeks. And I'll be going to visit them, at which time I'll naturally go down to see my mother, as well.

So I've got a busy month ahead of me, but then it's another new beginning, and I'm excited about learning what the future holds for me after that. I'm wishing hard for at least a quick trip to Europe, but I'm hoping by spring - April or May - to be able to spend some real quality time over there.

Still, right now, that's a little too far out to be planning. At this point, I'm wondering where I'll be spending the winter. The most likely spot is New Orleans, followed closely by Las Vegas. But, in light of recent developments, I'm not ruling out any surprises. My personal favorite would be Panama.

Will try to remember to post here as events unfold.

One for the Books

2010-09-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

I really wanted this space to be a record of sorts for me to refer back to. But I am so horrible at keeping it up, I don't see how it can possibly succeed at that purpose. I want it to succeed even more so if I end up getting to travel as I hope to do soon, so I should start - again - at least trying to make an effort.

I've got a few photos in my camera that need to be transferred to my computer, but I really have to get into the habit of taking pictures. It's one I've never really acquired, but I love my new camera and the photos I take with it are actually halfway decent. Usually.

Anyway, we were mildly amused by the situation we found ourselves in today, it was the kind of thing that makes people think we're just a little weird when we tell them about it. So I figured it had a place here.

My sister's iPhone 3G died yesterday. It had a cracked screen and had apparently been dropped one too many times. So off she went to pick up a new iPhone 4. She doesn't have a Mac, doesn't buy digital music and never used the iTunes account she had set up on her laptop. So we needed to download the latest version in order to activate her new phone.

Complications ensued, as they often do when you're trying to operate within time constraints. (I SO identify with the Lewis Carroll quote, "The faster I go, the behinder I get.") And these were the kind of complications that you have no clue what the problem is, even after it's resolved itself.

So, here we were, trying to get to the buffet/movie we planned on making and the program had finally downloaded but was taking forever to install. So my sister said, let's just take it all with us, maybe it'll be done by the time we get there.

No such luck.

We park the car, get my mother into her wheelchair and we really have to get to the buffet, or risk ruining our afternoon plans. So my sister says, "Put it in the trunk, maybe it'll keep working."

Now, I'm just loving this. Because I love all things mobile/portable. And we've got the huge laptop, with the mobile broadband card hooked up to one port, along with the new iPhone tethered to another. And we're placing it in the trunk of our freaking car, to continue working while we're out at a buffet.

As much as I loved it, I couldn't help laughing as I placed it all in the trunk. It just looked so incongruous.

And I have to say that the thought of closing the trunk lid on our tech to let it work its little heart out while go about our business is still making me smile.

Now why, you may ask, didn't we just wait to finish with all of that until we got home from the movie? Well, the phone had been dead since last night. And by the time my sister got her hands on the new phone around noon, she was already twitchy to see what calls she'd missed.

I am SO not one of those people with their phone constantly at their ear, but I recently went without my phone working for a day while I waited for my new charger - which was actually a pleasant surprise, because it was supposed to be 2 days. And though my daughters had the landline number here, and anyone else important knew to call my sister if they couldn't get me, I felt very strange not having access to my phone. I would most certainly have done the same thing in this circumstance.

She ran back after eating, and it was all done, so she got to check her calls before the movie started. WIN!

Speaking of tech, I've been slowly but steadily making my way down a wish list of travel tech. I hope to post soon, with photos, about what I've acquired and what's left on my list. Plus, new travel booked and another move coming up.

Gonna be crazy busy for the next several weeks, but I will try to update about all of that, as well. Hoping that it will all culminate in my dream trip to Europe late October, but my sister would like to go at Thanksgiving.

So some things are moving right along, and others are still unclear for the time being. Will try to be here with the latest developments as they happen. Another habit I need to develop.

The Travel Day from Hell

2010-07-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

I just had to get this down for posterity. I cannot believe it even happened, so I will certainly never believe I remembered it correctly. The strangest part is that I barely got upset. I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before, and probably did not have enough energy to get upset. So I just pretty much went with the flow. I'd like to live the rest of my life like that. If it got me through a day like yesterday, my normal days will all be almost a cakewalk.

Here's how it went.

My phone started beeping at 6:20 a.m. to tell me its battery was dying. Although I'd set the alarm for 6:30, I went ahead and shut off the phone, because I knew I had a wake up call coming in at that time...except it didn't come in. My mother finally asked what time it was, and a look at the clock showed 6:45. I called the front desk to tell them I hadn't gotten a call, but I only pointed out that I had a plane to catch and their lapse could have had really bad consequences.

Went down to lobby to get luggage cart because, unusually for us, we had quite a lot of bags. I did have a thought that the time was probably right for a lot of people checking out to catch planes - we were directly across from the airport - and there might not be a cart to be had. And I was right. So, right back up to get my mother in her wheelchair along with a couple of our carry on bags and her walker. Then two more trips for the rest of the bags.

Get to the airport about 2 hours early so we'd have time to get breakfast, and find out the plane was delayed for 3 hours, which later turned into 4 hours. Already exhausted by this time, suggest we go back to hotel room until checkout because we hadn't actually checked out, but my mom didn't want to face the shuttle bus again. It's hard for her to get up and down the steps with one bum leg. Sit in airport for 6 hours.

Finally land at first stop. Landed at C gate, NOLA gate agent had written down gate of next flight, also C gate. Stewardess on first flight announces that next flight to Reno is leaving from a B gate. Right before we deplane, I confirm this with her. I try to double check on a flight monitor in the airport, but the flight isn't posted. Then I push my mother literally across the Las Vegas airport...only to find that the flight was leaving from a C gate after all. Pushed my mother *back* across the Las Vegas airport.

Realized I left my prescription reading glasses on the plane. Go to original gate and ask about them. Gate agent comes back with two pairs of reading glasses...neither of them are mine. Will need to get new ones.

Finally get to Reno airport. Park mom by front door with walker and carry on bags, go to get luggage. Small scare when bags aren't on luggage carousel, but happy when customer service agent finds them lined up near office. Pile them on a cart, swing by for the rest by my mother's wheelchair and take it to car. Put all in trunk, jump in to drive back and get Mom...and...car won't start. Dead battery. Call sister to update with latest disaster, she says there's a guy she's seen running around the airport parking garage who will jump batteries. Find a customer service phone in airport, arrange for jump, then wheel Mom out to car. Guy comes and jumps battery, car starts and I drive us to hotel to meet sister.

Yes, the day could have gone worse. One of the planes could've crashed, for one thing. Bags could've gotten lost. Probably any number of things that I can't even conceive of right now. Still, I am amazed at how challenging yesterday was. And I am completely bemused at my lack of temper.

I admit to having a mild feeling of irritation toward the first Southwest employee who assumed that a 30 minute layover in Las Vegas was doable for a person in a wheelchair. Our 2nd flight would have been boarding even as our 1st one was landing, and we had to wait for our wheelchair to be brought up from the luggage compartment.

I also had several uncharitable thoughts about the stewardess who misdirected us about the departure gate for our connecting flight. But, I kid you not, I resigned myself to the extra exercise in hope that it would help rid me of some unwanted weight.

We had the help of some truly amazing Southwest Airline employees, and were offered help a few times by complete strangers. Having traveled with my mother enough times now, I've pretty much got things pat, but it was a very uplifting experience to have people say, "Can I help you? Tell me how I can help." In fact, throughout that very long 18 hour day, we encountered more nice helpful people than I can ever remember meeting at one time. Maybe that's why it was so easy to remain calm, even in spite of the few who irritated me. Actually, even they were very nice, too. Just misguided.

Stressing out would not have changed a single thing yesterday, except maybe making the day feel longer and more difficult than it already was. Certainly wouldn't have helped. The day was long, a little uncomfortable - mostly because I was so tired to begin with. But, except for the loss of my reading glasses, the only consequence involved was time.

We ran a little behind, then found out we were actually way ahead of time and did an awful lot of waiting around. But we weren't late for anything in particular. We got to the hotel, had dinner and went to bed. We probably would have done almost the exact same thing even without all the delays. I maybe would have had a much shorter fuse if we'd had anything scheduled. Or maybe I'd just have changed our plans.

But I can tell you that, during one of the absolutely most challenging days of my life, choosing to stay calm made the day significantly more bearable. I was still very tired and a little uncomfortable, but I wasn't jumping out of my skin with anger, frustration and anxiety. It's crossed my mind that this is a very valuable lesson to remember right now.

I already knew, from personal experience, that unexpected difficulties often pop up during travel. And considering the kind of prolonged travel I'll be attempting to enjoy in the not too distant future, it's probably reasonable to assume that I'll be encountering even more of them than ever before. But now I know better how to deal with them: Take a deep breath, let go of all the disappointment/anger/frustration/anxiety and go with the flow.

Moving forward...while looking back

2010-07-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

Applied for a passport and bought a new camera.

Passport photos were Worst. Pictures. Ever...with the exception of my driver's license photo. And that's even given the fact that we expect those photos to be bad.

I see big, attractive people all the time. I know I've said this before, but it definitely bears repeating. Some people can carry extra weight. Some people can carry a LOT of extra weight. But I'm not one of them. My driver's license photo looks like Jabba the Hut and the passport photos today are only marginally better.

The fact is, I very rarely photograph well. Add extra weight, an official photo op doomed before it starts and, well, let's just say that I will be springing for new documents when the last of my weight comes off. Because I can't imagine carrying such an ugly thing for 10 years.

Strangely enough, although I do tend to photograph really badly, my passport photos have usually come out okay. Probably why I was so disappointed today. Here are my 2nd and 3rd passport photos. The first is when I was about 22, and the other about 31, so of course being younger helped. But even then, I hardly ever kept photos of myself, so it's really not just age.

One of my daughters got to this one with an ink pen during her drawing on walls age, long after it was taken. In spite of the round face, I weighed about 103 pounds in the photo below, the most I weighed until my first pregnancy.

Then, yeah, that's eighties hair...and shoulder pads. After 2 kids, about 108 pounds, which is where I'd like to get back to. 20 pounds left to go.

Believe me, no one will see the ones I took today unless absolutely necessary, and I will destroy them as soon as I can replace them with something halfway decent. It's not just vanity, I've never felt like I had anything much to be vain about, and it's never bothered me. It's just that these latest ones just really look like the worst possible me. And that's after I actually went so far as to buy a couple of new cosmetics! Sheesh.

Truthfully, looking at even decent photos of myself make me a little uncomfortable. There is something about my eyes and nose that seem so freaking feline, it actually creeps me out a little bit. Like I was a cat in another life, or something. And while I think cats are such amazing creatures, I'm definitely a dog person. I've never owned a cat in my life, I just find dogs more comfortable. Cats, on the other hand, don't leave me alone when I'm around them. Hmmm...maybe I was, like, a Cat Goddess.

I like the sound of that. I would use it as an online name, CatGoddess, but it's probably already taken. Plus, I might have to explain it sometimes, and what could I say that didn't sound like a raving lunatic?

Anyway, back to this life. The good news is, I had everything required for my passport application AND I got a new camera at the photo store.

The camera is still a point and shoot, because even entry level cameras have manual settings that can be played with if I'm inclined to learn anything more. No point in buying better camera than I can take advantage of.

It's a Canon Exilim EX-S7, and I mainly bought it because it weighs less than 4 ounces. I'd have preferred a pretty color, or even silver, not only for aesthetics but because black gets lost in my purse. However, they only had one, so black it was.

Ordinarily, I'd have researched and bought online. But both the sales clerk and I had a hard time believing that the battery was in the camera because it was so light. I knew it would be better than what I had, if only due to 2 years improvement in technology. So I bought first and researched when I got home.

The main complaint I had about my old camera was that the viewfinder was impossible to see in bright light. All my pictures of the beach last summer were shot blind, literally. This one has a gorgeous sharp viewfinder. And it's lighter. Weight is everything to me when I travel.

Still, I got a cool surprise when I started checking out the details. It's got a dedicated video record button. I can't tell you how many times I missed a shot because I hadn't put my camera back to still shots after recording video.

So I'm happy with my purchase. I try not to let myself dwell on the fact that I paid full list price plus sales tax. Because a) that would serve no productive purpose and b) it was still only about $150 total, so I wouldn't have saved an incredible amount regardless, even if I'd been so lucky as to find someplace with free shipping.

Anyway, I'm determined to keep moving forward, assuming I'm leaving the country and going places where I will want to take lots of better quality photos than I have in the past. There are a lot of things I need to get done before I can go, but applying for my passport - even with the ugliest pictures in Christendom - and buying a camera make me feel like it's right around the corner.

And it kinda is, because I know the time will fly by. I'm leaving in a week to take my mother and 7yo back to Louisiana and will be gone for about 10 days. That brings me smack up to the end of July. I've got a load of stuff to do just for that trip, then another bunch of stuff when I get back. I'll be a lot more productive once 7yo isn't here, so I think I can get it all done.

One of the (unbelievably many) questions on the passport application was the estimated date of travel. Since I really have no actual information to base that on, I chose my late father's birthday toward the end of August. He traveled extensively, introduced me to the joys of foreign places, so it seemed like a good omen. It also kinda fits with the most likely time schedule we're anticipating, and works perfectly with the 4 to 6 week processing time for the passport. I find things tend to fall in place that way, while stress tends to come from trying to force events to fit the schedule I want. Sometimes it's just sooooo much easier to just go with the flow.

A couple of jarring things related to the passport application:

They wanted to know the birthplace of my former spouse? Didn't have a clue. I put down the town he grew up in, but that was the home of his mother's 2nd husband, whom she'd married when my ex was a year old.

I still carry around my original marriage certificate and divorce decree. They are 2 of the many documents I want to scan into digital copies so I don't have to carry them around any more. But both of those events took place so many years ago that I didn't know the exact dates off the top of my head. If I wouldn't have happened to have those docs, I'd have just estimated the dates. I wonder if anyone actually checks that stuff. Doesn't seem worth the manpower.

They asked the birthplace of each of my parents, as well, which I also didn't know. But at least I was able to leave them blank. My ex-spouse's birthplace was required. I kinda think it should've been the other way around.

A productive day, all the way around. Gonna need a lot of those over the next several weeks. Feel like I will have earned every day of vacation I can squeeze out when I'm done.

It's All Relative

2010-07-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

I guess this is kind of related to my favorite mantra of "it's all a matter of perspective".

For several months, I was noting that my future was so up in the air that I literally had no idea where I'd be after the beginning of June. Then, as time drew near, things started to kind of take shape. I thought I'd spend a few weeks in June with my mother and sister, then head down to my hometown to clear the crap out of the old family home.

It's not that I wanted to do this. One, I hate that kind of chore, and I hate it even more because it's not my freaking crap. Plus, the place is six or seven thousand square feet, so this is not a simple job. Two, I hate going down there in general, so I wasn't looking forward to this. At all.

However, it needs to be done. There are some income producing opportunities in the air and the place will have to be made ready for them at some point. I'm the only one who has the time right now and I don't want this chore messing up any plans I make for later.

There was one point, a few weeks ago, when my brother and his son were going to take over the chore. I was, naturally, delighted. But they got caught up in something else and, at this point, that chore has one thing going for it that I am in desperate need of...solitude.

I have been pretty much in charge of my 87 year old stroke victimised mother *and* super active 7 year old for most of the last several weeks here in Carson City, and it has definitely taken its toll on me. Time for the kid to go back to her mom, which they are both very much looking forward to, and for me to turn my mom back over to my sister and the part time sitter.

My sister definitely deserves a break, as well, and she'll be getting it over the two long weekends she's got coming up. I'll be taking care of our mom for the first one, and the sitter will take her for the second one. During which time, I will have about 5 days of hard manual labor.

As I said, it's all relative. I am willingly trading the time and work for some peace and quiet and time to myself. Bonus points for accomplishing something necessary in the process.

Then I come back. BUT...

My sister and I plan on applying for new passports next week. They take about 6 weeks to process, so that would have them arriving sometime around the middle of August, which is...perfect.

Around the beginning of the year, I thought that I might be making it over to Europe in September/Octoberish. Then, more recently, I thought it might be July/Augustish. Well, it's obviously not gonna be July. But August/September is still possible. If I get there, though, I'm going to try and stay through a good part of October, as well.

I'm looking forward to leaving out of Las Vegas because it's a nice long flight. I can take my time eating and settling down, reading a little, and still have time to sleep long enough to get me through a full day on the other end.

You know, I've done a good bit of traveling over the last 12 months. And I love to travel. However, all of the traveling I've been doing has been dictated by circumstances and the places I've been going have not been of my choosing. With the exception of San Antonio, and I'm glad I got see it.

Now here I am again, going somewhere I really hoped never to have to go back to. Even more weird, my first time back to Europe in decades, and I have to spend what will probably be several days somewhere I have never been tempted to go: Sicily.

While I was reflecting on that, I finally got around to looking it up online, and now I'm convinced that the universe did me a favor by making it necessary to go there. That place is seriously beautiful and interesting. I didn't know that it has almost as much Arab influences as Italian ones. Not to mention that it's got gorgeous beaches, and I will be there during warm weather.

I hear that the people are very nice and friendly, and the food is supposed to be good, as well. I didn't find any of that to be true about Sardinia, which is another beautiful Italian island. So now I'm much more stoked about that, and it will be nice to see somewhere new.

And, actually, I knew I was going to have to go back home again anyway. I mentioned in a previous blog that we are eligible for Italian citizenship, which is why I need to go to Sicily, to dig up records of my great-grandfather. But we also need birth and marriage records of his descendants and all of that is in Louisiana. Some of it is so old, there may not be any official government records, which means I'll have to see what I can dig up from the local churches. I'm going to need to squeeze that in between massive purging. Sigh.

I have no idea what's going to happen after October. Where I'll be, what I'll be doing. I'm pretty sure I'll have the most responsibility for my mother during Nov/Dec, and we'll probably spend at least a little time in both New Orleans and Vegas. I guess the rest of the time will be back here, unless I get my own place in Las Vegas.

I'm not sure I want to do that quite yet, though. Because I'm hoping January and February will find me lazing under the sun on some deserted Panamanian beaches. In fact, there is a better than even chance that, except for the few months a year that I take responsibility for my mother, I will be roaming the globe with no fixed address for maybe 12 to 18 months.

Yes, I know I'm a little old to be backpacking around the world, but I've decided it's something I'd like to do for a year or so. And, if things line up the way it's looking like they might, I'm going to give it a shot.

We're going to have to figure something out about my mom, though. My sister and I want to travel together and we won't be able to very much if we're all taking turns having responsibility for her. She's not going to want to do the whole assisted living thing, so it'll probably come down to getting her a place with a live-in.

There are just so many things to take care of. Sigh.

Again, though, it's all relative. I will do almost anything that needs to be done right now, because I've got my eye on the rewards that are looking possible in the not too distant future, and they are more than worth it.

What a Day

2010-07-01T16:58:00.001-07:00

Dropped off 7yo at day camp. 1/2 day camp, really.

Sister wasn't sure sitter was coming for our mother, so had to go straight home to check instead of going to the grocery store as planned.

Sitter there, went to the store. Surprised that the few bags I'd brought were enough for the groceries, also surprised total wasn't higher. Got home and realized cashier had not rung up about a third of my groceries - mainly the produce. Had to go back for all of it. Fortunately no one had put it back on shelves. Bag man had put it in a basket. SO not happy.

However, I did have time to unpack them before going to pick up 7yo. I was a little stressed over that because there were a LOT of groceries. I really hate grocery shopping when I have to get a lot of stuff. And that has been my lot for the past 6 years.

Washer/dryer have been disconnected for over a week now. Took laundry to a fluff and fold last week before going camping. Today repairman came and hooked them up. I could have done it myself, but the adjoining sink needed to be hooked back up because, for some unknown reason, the washer drains into the sink.

Today's repairman said he didn't know anything about the sink, he just came to hook up the appliances. But he'd forgotten the clamps for the dryer hose and had to go back for them. He'd previously lost the work order which had our phone number, so he couldn't call to arrange for a time to come today. We were promised he'd come today because we are going camping again tomorrow. Hooked it all up and left.

I put a load of laundry in the washer and, when it started draining to go to the rinse cycle, water started gushing out of the big pipe that connects to the sink. Made some calls, original repairman comes back and says the sink needs to be hooked up. He can't do it because he broke his wrist yesterday while riding his ATV. Goes and tells the other repairman to come back and do it.

Finally, it's all done. Now I have 2 batches of towels and 3 batches of clothes to do before we leave, around 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.

Got a check from Orkin refunding the total I'd paid for the year's treatment of one of our properties. It was mailed to the address I was specifically told to send it. Rep said go ahead and deposit it, then mail a new check to the office closer to our location, rather than the main office where it had been sent. Okay, no problem. Until I look at the check.

The account was still in my father's name...and he's been dead for over 25 years. So we can't deposit the check.

Called back and was referred to the main office. Just send the check back, I'm told, we'll just credit your original payment to your account. And we'll let the local office know that is how we're handling it.

Yes.

Now that is a sensible solution, much simpler for me. I wasn't sure if the company's system would allow them to do that, so I hadn't even asked if it was possible. But presumably the main office know what its doing. Although, I think they may have been the one to send the refund...and we still don't know why that happened.

Also, I had to write a letter to go along with the check. Explaining the situation, asking for the account name to be changed, giving new contact info. Just one more chore in the day.

Still, that worked out fine. So has the washer and dryer repair. Plus, I got 3 checks in the mail totaling over $500 - although 2 of the checks, for about $100, were just refunds of my own money. I'll take it anyway.

All in all, I am much better off now than I was 24 hours ago. But I feel like I've been through a wringer. And it occurred to me that none of the stressful stuff was my personal business. The house with the water leak is the home my sister and mother are renting. The Orkin thing is for a property my family owns, but I'm in charge of all our family properties.

Only the good stuff, the checks, had to do with me personally. I was thinking that, if I lived alone - which I will hopefully be doing in the not too distant future, I wouldn't have had all this stuff to deal with. Except...

I would still be in charge of my family properties. And when I was living in my own place with 7yo for a couple of months, there were all kinds of things wrong with the apartment I rented that needed to be taken care of. So, I guess there's always something.

Still, I would not have SO much laundry to do or SO many groceries to buy. That, in itself, would make my life so much more content. I would not have spent hours bouncing off and on my desk chair to answer to the repairman, 7yo and my mother. THAT, in itself, is what really made me crazy today.

Oh yeah, and my mom rolled over her emergency button with her electric wheelchair.

And it's not over yet. I still have a few chores to do, although I'm not making dinner. It's everyone fend for yourself...except, of course, I'll have to fix something for 7yo and my sister will do the same for our mother.

For the next little bit, though, I'm relaxing with a little wine.

What a freaking day.

Change of Plans

2010-06-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

It's possible that I will be going to Europe a bit earlier than September/October, which I thought was the most likely possibility. In fact, I may be going as soon as next month.

However, instead of the leisurely tour through England, France and Italy I had envisioned, re-visiting much beloved places I hadn't seen in far too long, I will be going quickly to a place I've never been. One I hadn't really ever occurred to me to visit. Sicily.

You see, I'm not the only one in my family with an acute case of wanderlust. Many in my family have wished we could experience living and working in Europe. But those pesky work permits can be very hard to come by. However...

The advances of the European Union, together with one country's quirky immigration law, have opened a door to us - for a somewhat limited time.

A few years ago, it came to our attention that it was possible for the family to acquire Italian citizenship. Of course a ton of documentation is required, foremost, my great-great grandfather's birth certificate.

It didn't take a really long time to find a trace of him, and a few different possible years in which he could have been born. I even had, so I thought, the city of his birth. Palermo. Little did I know that Palermo is a region, as well as a city. Since we had names of no other places, and Palermo was the biggest pool of potential hits, we decided to try there first.

We paid just a little over $100 for a very nice man to search a span of a few years for our ancestor but, alas, no luck. He had also given us a link to a nifty site that would let me see where the last name of our ancestor might pop up, and we came up with about 5 other possible locations.

Since these were small rural areas, though, there was a better chance that records from the 1800's would be found in parish churches rather than official government offices. The nice man gently discouraged me from paying for searches. He said that the best bet would be to go and ask in person.

Yes, well.

Nothing much I'd like better than to go to Italy, in person. But that wasn't in the cards, due to several varying circumstances...until now. Or, at least, fairly soon.

You know, I've never been a timid traveler. But there's something about going around asking innocent questions about a long dead person in mafioso country that sounds like the premise for a scary movie. Seriously, I've been having some genuine qualms.

My sister wants to come, which makes me feel marginally better. Marginally. We're still 2 small women who don't speak the language, going into tiny villages in somewhat remote areas...

Whatever. It's well worth the risk.

I really hope we will be successful. I would SO love to have an Italian passport.

The thing is, though we can apply for as many family members as we have documentation for, the process has to start with my mother. For us to acquire citizenship, she has to have it first. Then it passes down to the rest of us. There is no limit on generations through the male line, so my uncles' kids, particularly the male ones, don't have as much pressure.

We have a direct line through my mother's father, grandfather and great-grandfather. But if my mother doesn't get citizenship granted while she is still alive, then we will never be eligible. And my mother is an 87 year old stroke victim. Which is why I said that our window is somewhat limited.

My mother, of course, could care less. She has no interest in, or need for, Italian citizenship or passport. But her kids and grandkids are all but drooling. We really, really would like this. Out of the 8 grandkids, my sister's twins - the 2 youngest of that generation, actually have an even better shot. Her second husband's father was 1st or 2nd generation Italian-American. Strangely enough, they're probably the least interested in all of this.

It's not what I had planned on doing during this month of staying with my sister and mother. I had hoped and planned to scan a lot of files, get rid of a lot of excess baggage. None of which I've actually been doing in the week I've been here so far, but I thought of maybe starting next week.

Now, though, I'm looking for the best software program for learning Italian. Fast.

No Fixed Address

2010-05-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I rented a mailbox from a UPS store around the corner from where I am now. I get very little mail, bills are mostly done online these days. Although, I do get one check from a company that doesn't offer direct deposit, and I've just given them the third change of address in a 12 month period. So it would almost be worth it just for that.

But the main reason I've taken the mailbox is that I've been having to provide proof of my address lately. Three separate companies, with three different types of financial services, have insisted upon seeing something official with my name and address on it. Two would not validate accounts for me until I provide it, and the third is my brokerage company, who will not send me a check of my own money to a new address without proof. I know all of this is for my own protection, but my regular banks let me change my address online. Of course, one of them also insists on sending out paper statements even though they're available online. Ridiculous. Yet another reason for the mailbox, though.

And I went with the UPS Store option, rather than the U.S. Post Office, because I can just call the UPS Store once or twice a month and have them send me anything that's in the box. I can also have packages delivered there, if necessary, to be forwarded to me later. It's a good service, all around, for someone like me. I may just keep it regardless of whether I end up with my own place again.

Anyway, the snag is that DMV will not allow you to use that type of address on your driver's license. So, it's not my fault that my license will not have a correct address on it. Still, I'm going to apply for a duplicate before I move out of here and will at least provide them with a different mailing address at that time. They do allow that, thank goodness.

Sooo, in less than two weeks, I will be moving out of this apartment and I'm only sure of where I'll be for about 3 weeks afterward. I literally have no freaking clue where I'll be after that. It will very likely be there for a while longer or New Orleans, probably some combination of both through the middle of August. If I get very lucky, the summer will also include a trip to the East coast, a D.C./NYC combo. If so, chances are I'll have 7 year old with me, which is fine. There's a lot in both places I'd like to show her.

After the summer, though, nothing is certain. But it's kind of looking like I'll be spending a good chunk of September and/or October out of the country. Possibly Europe, possibly an almost 3rd world beach in Central America. Again, if I get very lucky, it could be both. I will probably be a very unhappy camper if I get neither.

Technically, though, I will be homeless. A true vagabond. I think that may be my true calling.

What is going to be really interesting about all this is what I'm going to end up with in terms of possessions. All the recent upheaval happened so fast that I barely realized how successful I've been at purging. It's amazing at how comfortable 7 year old and I have been with a blow-up bed, 2 table chairs, a desk chair and a couple of tray tables.

I do have some wire shelves holding a large all in one printer and office supplies. I'll be bringing those up to my sister. I'm down to only 2 boxes of books, which boggles my mind after a couple of decades of moving several towers of book boxes around the country. And I've got a few small boxes of old files and photos.

I'm planning on spending the few weeks after I leave here scanning both the books, to put on my Kindle, and the files/photos. I'll give away the books and destroy the files, but it's going to be tough for me to destroy some of the photos. I'll probably just give my family any that include them. It won't be hard for me to destroy any that don't include them, if I've got digital copies.

But, seriously, I am looking at being extremely footloose for at least a relatively short period of time. And, as much as I've moved around most of my life, this is a completely different situation from any I've encountered before. Even what I've been doing for the last couple of months, kind of camping out in an apartment temporarily due to circumstances, is not unfamiliar. But what's coming up next, possibly as soon as mid-August, could be more along the lines of setting off to see the world with a couple of suitcases and a big purse.

And I would prefer not to ask anyone, even though my mother and sister have enough room not to be terribly inconvenienced, to store even such meager belongings that I can't drag along with me. I'll offer my sister any books she might like, but I won't ask her to keep even two small boxes. I want them on my Kindle anyway, so I have to get around to scanning them.

I have one large hanging bag, from a nice set of luggage, in which I will put anything that - for whatever reason - I won't take with me and can't bear to part with. And that will be my storage unit, if I need one. I feel like something that size/weight is not too very big of an imposition to leave somewhere.

The files are a different story. For some reason, I have become the repository of my family's history. I have no idea why, and it doesn't make sense, because I move around the most. I've got some very old documents and artifacts that I'm not sure what to do with. They can't possibly be important any longer, although some are interesting. To us anyway, because it's our family.

As I said, I'll scan the docs and take photos of the artifacts. But I'll be abdicating responsibility for the originals. My brother and sister can decide what is to be done with them.

I'm kinda starting to feel like a snake shedding its skin.

Anyway, I've still got to decide how I want to handle file backup. Up until now, I've carried a flash drive with me with my backed up files, in case my laptop hard drive wasn't available for any reason. Broken, stolen, virus, whatever. Then I've left a duplicate flash drive on my desk at home, in case anything happened to me and my computer while traveling, plane crash or whatever. But now I won't have a desk at home on which to leave things.

It's not really feasible to leave a drive with anyone else, either, because the files keep changing and the backups need to be updated. I'm thinking that online file storage is pretty much the only way to go with this. It's not an option I've ever pursued, because it was never necessary for me. Plus, I'm still not completely convinced of their trustworthiness and security. Now, though, I don't really see a better option.

I've always been a little paranoid about my flash drives, as well. What if I lose one? There is some very sensitive information on there that I wouldn't want to get into the wrong hands. The drive I carried with me was password protected, but I was never completely at ease hauling it around with me. They're so small now, it just seems like they're so easy to lose. In fact, I think I have lost one. A tiny one, but still full of stuff. So easy to misplace because it was so tiny and not often used.

I'm hoping it got thrown out by mistake. It was one of the non-password protected drives I left behind on my desk when I traveled.

Now, though, I'm not quite as afraid. I back up onto the tiny micro SD card that goes in my phone. Not only is it backup, but I have access to my files when I don't have my computer with me. And, of course, I'm almost never without my phone. I need a bigger card, though, an 8 gig. The one I have is only a 4.

Because I'm anal, I'm thinking about having a 2nd backup, just because my wireless USB stick has a card slot in it. I pretty much always have that with me, too, because it's my only source of internet these days. But I can't decide if I'd just be asking for trouble making a 2nd copy of my most important files. I mean, I'll still have them all on my laptop. And I'll still have to do an online backup because, if my laptop and I are destroyed together, chances are my phone and USB stick will be too. Yes, I know it's morbid, but I'm trying be forward thinking here. Probably getting a little obsessive because so much of my future is so uncertain. And I'm anal.

I've actually been having this situation at the back of my mind for quite some time now. As I started losing weight - down 20 lbs now - I started working on my wardrobe. It was fairly easy to purge, because almost everything I owned was pretty worn. I refused to buy anything new until I lost the weight I had gained 4 years ago when I quit smoking. I never dreamed it would take this long but, as it happens, it's worked out okay.

Everything I've been buying has had to meet certain criteria. One, it had to travel well, not only being non-wrinkly but also being quick to wash and dry. That resulted in mostly comparatively thinner fabrics, but that's fine, because I'd rather layer anyway. Two, of course it had to be comfortable. I like the mix I ended up with. There's not a whole lot of variety, mostly it's just a lot of the same in different colors. But they're all easy wear and care, yet look good enough to satisfy my sense of style. I may still need to get a travel steamer, but there's time for that yet.

Shedding weight, purging almost every possession except what I can carry. It looks, and feels, like I'm unexpectedly going through a real metamorphosis at the moment. Who'd have thunk it?

You know, I've joked for years about how I aspired to a lifestyle so minimalist that all I owned was what I could carry. But now that I'm practically a hair away from achieving that very thing, I have to say it kind of snuck up on me. Maybe it's because the purging was spread out between three separate moves over the last year and a half.

Although I was particularly ruthless for this last move. First, because I knew it was going to be an incredibly short 2 months that I knew would just fly by. I didn't want to bring any more than was absolutely crucial. But the main reason was, as I mentioned before, I knew I would inching up to this point soon. And I wanted to be able to move light and fast.

For years now, I've felt that I wouldn't actually be able to travel and move around freely until I rid myself of any debris cluttering up my life. If I had any remnants of previous blogs, I know I'd find reference to those goals - both the travel and the decluttering.

And I was right...but it's taken way too long. I've always been a freaking procrastinator, damn it.

Leaving Las Vegas

2010-05-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

I've lived in Las Vegas for 5 out of the last 6 years. For a vast majority of that time, I've wished that I could be living elsewhere. And I can't figure out why. Particularly since I got to move to a place I expected to enjoy a lot more, then found out that I didn't.

In about 6 weeks, I'll be leaving Las Vegas once more, and I'm pretty wide open as far as choosing where I want to go next. I've started trying to figure out what I want, and checking out a few places. Strangely enough, I like what I'm seeing even less than where I am.

You see, Las Vegas actually isn't such a bad place to live. Well, for me, anyway. Unemployment here is probably one of the worst in the country, so I don't advise anyone move here without a secure job waiting for them. And the education ranking is now near the bottom, I hear, so anyone needing school will probably do better elsewhere. Anyone who has, or might be prone to develop, a gambling problem should stay far away, of course.

The thing is, people tend to think of Las Vegas as the Strip. But the city has grown so much that the Strip is now a tiny part of it, rather than its center. In fact, I've only been there a handful of times in the last several years. Where I've lived in Las Vegas could literally be in any number of cities in the South/Southwest.

I like the climate okay, I like the palm trees. I like that there is usually something to do if I feel like it. I like that there is a decent airport with nonstop flights to all of the places I might want to visit. And those are pretty much my criteria for choosing a place to live.

Ideally, I'd like to not own a car. This makes things a lot trickier, because there are only a few places in this country with excellent public transportation and I don't want to live in any of them. I love New York and Washington, D.C., and can't wait to revisit them both. I've lived in NYC, could still spend weeks at a time there, but not longer than that. That's kind of how I feel about the French Quarter, too, where I could probably get by without my own car.

The apartment complex I'm located in now in Las Vegas is pretty well situated in that regard, and that's one of the things I like about this town. I'm at the corner of a fairly major intersection, but it doesn't feel like it. There is the convenience of a supermarket across one street and a movie theater, with my favorite restaurant next door, across the other street. The boulevards are nicely landscaped, so there is always a pleasant aspect about coming home. The next, really major, intersection has a ton of other stores and restaurants. It is easily walked to, but there are also frequent buses available to use in case of inclement weather.

Seriously, I have no clue why I keep trying to leave here. Probably I've just spent way too much time here. I don't usually like being in one place more than a year or so. Most of our moves have been back and forth between Florida and Nevada, and I have a feeling Florida will likely be next again.

I haven't been to Ft. Lauderdale in a really long time, and I have a bit of a hankering to try there again. But I'm not sure I could, or would want to, live there without a car. Also, there are no non-stop flights to Europe from Ft. Lauderdale. Too close to Miami.

So I'm thinking of Orlando. I used to fly in and out of there when one of my daughters lived in a nearby city. The flight landed early morning and everything always seemed so fresh and clean and pretty. Quiet, too, not hectic even in the airport. Because of Disney World, there are non-stop flights to and from an enormous amount of places, certainly all of the ones I would be visiting most frequently. I've been there many times, but have never lived there. That's a plus, because I'd like something new this time around.

Another good thing is that it's looking like I may actually be there in early August. So I can take a good look around then and see what's what. Due to the timing of all kinds of things, I probably won't be making a permanent move before October/November, anyway.

The dilemma is this: with an elderly mother and two daughters who could conceivably benefit from having me around, how do I justify moving to a place that is nowhere near any of them? Saying that I've already served my time seems a little lame, even though I've spent the last two years doing exactly that. Mentioning that I'll probably visit them all at least 4 times a year doesn't really make it better.

My daughters are grown ups now, and they both realize that I'm entitled to a life of my own. But I get this feeling that the rest of my family may think that the only reason good enough for me not to go and live with my mother and sister is if one of my daughters needs me to help out.

Even though my sister wanted my mother to come and live with her, and my mother wanted to go live with her, the stroke has made everything much more difficult. There's more work, more stress and my sister very much deserves the break she gets on the long weekend she has from work every month. I've been zipping up there to relieve her, but that will be a lot more involved and expensive doing so from across the country than from a quick hour's flight away.

Fortunately, my mother is continuing to improve. The sitters, who were once there the entire time my sister was at work, are now there only until lunch. Soon, the plan is for them to be there only through breakfast. My sister leaves the house at 6 a.m., and my mother is not usually up by then. Since she can't get out of bed by herself yet, someone needs to be in the house to help her get up in the mornings.

We're also extremely lucky that the two women we have as sitters for my mother are truly the best we ever could have asked for. Since their hours have been basically cut in half now, they will very likely appreciate the opportunity to make up for that by taking my place on those long weekends. One of them is even able to spend the nights, no problem.

Still, there's no denying that both my mother's and sister's lives would be immeasurably easier if I were to live with them. And, truth be told, it wouldn't be such a hardship. We do have fun together. I could still travel from there. I could actually travel more without having a place of my own to worry about maintaining.

I could almost convince myself that I was just staying there, instead of actually living there. Wouldn't need my own car. A lot cheaper than living on my own. But, remember my criteria? Good climate/palm trees - it was still snowing up there as of today. A lot to do, in case I feel like it - not so much, at least not the kind of things I like. Non-stop flights - not to many places I'm interested in going. Some decent places to eat, though, and my favorite is just a few blocks away.

So, here's the deal. I'm going up there with 7 year old, as soon as she's out of school, for at least two weeks. Summer is kind of up in the air. I may end up spending a big part of it up there, or in the French Quarter. Plans are in place for early August in Orlando, and back up to my sister's beginning of the second week so she can take a cruise. I'm hoping to spend a big chunk of September/October in Europe, a big dream of mine come true...if it happens.

Which brings me to November. Way too far away for me to be worrying about. Who knows what can freaking happen between now and then. It doesn't get clearer until it gets much closer. Still, I can't help wondering. Where will I end up, after leaving Las Vegas...again?

4 Weeks - 11 lbs. Diet successes & failures

2010-05-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

11.4 pounds, to be exact. And, believe me, I'm counting every ounce. I consider the amount of weight loss a success, but not the way I went about it.

I've splurged some days, eaten too much or the wrong thing. Basically, it was due to lack of planning. I've got to have the right food ready and available, and there has to be at least a little variety. I'm probably better than most about eating the same thing over and over, but even I have limits.

There were times that I haven't eaten all that I'm allowed to on the diet during the day, and that usually ended with me being hungry at night, especially when I stayed up late. The nutritionist also told me I should eat at least a little carbs each day, otherwise the weight will come back much faster when I resume eating them. I had actually noticed this with my sister over the years, because no carb was her favorite diet.

I haven't focused on getting used to small portion sizes. Turns out that 1/2 cup of pasta will do fine...particularly if I've had all the fruit and vegetables I'm allowed to eat.

On the plus side, I'm happy to have shed over 10 pounds. And even on days I've splurged, I've managed to limit the damage. I still did the best I could for the rest of that day.

My goals for the next 4 weeks are:

Follow the diet as faithfully as I can. That will take preparation. Grocery shopping, food prep and cooking will have to be planned carefully. A salad will almost always need to be ready and waiting. And menus will have to be planned in advance. One, because I'll need to figure how to get all my servings allotted so I can eat as much as is allowed. And, two, so that I've got enough variety and won't go out to eat because I'm sick of what's on hand and don't feel like making something else.

Focus on getting my portion sizes consistent so that I can get used to what they look like. Putting too much on my plate has been a problem in the past and should be one of the easiest things to fix.

Exercise. Yeah, still looking for the right thing, something I can stick with. I'm getting a tiny bit walking 7 year old to the play area in our complex, but I really want something I can actually enjoy.

12 more pounds. Yep, almost exactly what I lost this month. But losing it by following a consistent diet, and developing the habit of eating more or less the right portions of the right things. It's the only way that it will stay off, even when I'm allowed an extra few hundred calories a day, and I know that.

Life Changing Choices

2010-04-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Once again, I am reminded of the fact that life is basically a series of choices. While there are so many things we have absolutely no control over, we usually have total control over how we choose to deal with them. At the same time, though, one choice will often lead to the necessity of making other choices. And on and on and on...

Many times, the choices we make are regarding such small matters that we barely realize we are making them. Sometimes small choices lead to larger, more important, issues we didn't foresee. Other times, we are reacting to large, unexpected events and things move so fast that we don't see how all the decisions we made brought us to a certain point until we look back.

Right now, I've got a few major changes in my life. One is a result of choices I made in the past, another is a result of my reacting to something that was completely beyond my control. But they are both having major impact on my daily life. The third is slightly less immediate, but the most all encompassing.

First, the diet. I chose to smoke for decades. I chose to quit a few years ago. When I quit smoking, I was not eating very healthily, nor was I getting any exercise whatsoever. All of those things were completely within my control. They were choices I was making on a daily basis: whether to smoke, what to eat, exercise or not.

Because of my choices, I gained a lot of weight. I've tried various diets and exercise in the last few years and never had any lasting success. So I chose to seek help, take pills and get vitamin shots. But every day, I am choosing what to eat, trying to develop a habit of good portion control. In spite of a couple of minor splurges, I am finding success with this method.

I planned to begin exercising in the form of martial arts classes, but that is not happening. I don't know if it will. I do want to become a lot more fit, even if I end up losing all of the weight I want to lose. So the motivation is there...just not, apparently, to the point where I choose to take action.

Still, every day, all day long, I am making conscious and deliberate decisions about what I eat. It's taking a lot more effort than the way I have ever approached food in the past. It is a very significant change in my daily life. But is one that I have complete control over. How successful I am is completely up to me.

The second life changing event I am currently dealing with happened very fast and unexpectedly. And it was all about reacting to a situation that was not only completely beyond my control, but actually had very little to do with me...until I thrust myself into it.

7 year old was not doing at all well in her new school near New Orleans. When she moved there in late November, she was an excellent student. By the beginning of April, her new teachers were talking about holding her back. She had been placed in a remedial reading class, and was not doing well in math or science.

Now, this is a child that was thrilled to learn how to read, because she loves books and stories. And when she spent a couple of months with me last summer, she enjoyed solving problems in the math workbook I'd bought for her to keep in practice. She actually likes math.

She is also very mature for her age, as an only child tends to be. For all kinds of reasons, I did not think it was in her best interests to be kept back.

Some people may think that it was moving in the middle of the school year that was the problem and, in a way, that it is true. But not because the move itself was traumatic. She liked where she was and, as is the way in our family, she'd been moved around plenty in the past. She's outgoing, makes friends and adapts very easily. But there was a major difference between the school she left and the new one she started.

We aren't sure if it was because she'd only had half-day kindergarten here, while they'd had a full day. Maybe those students started first grade already ahead of where she did and she was just not able to catch up. Maybe they just had such a different method of teaching that it just didn't click with her. We really have no idea. But, whatever the reason, it obviously wasn't working for her.

There were options, a few of them that we could think of. The best one, we all felt, was for her to return to the school where she started the school year. Everything would be familiar and she could just concentrate on the work she had to do in order to progress to 2nd grade. I offered to care for her during that time. It was only a matter of 7 weeks.

Problem was, I wasn't living in the right school zone.

In less than a week, I'd moved into an apartment in the same complex 7 year old had lived while she was here, gotten a new driver's license, registered her for school and picked her up at the airport. Suddenly, I had become sole caregiver - including legal temporary guardian - of a young child.

It was all my choice, I'd come up with the idea and volunteered. But it has been many, many years since I've been in this situation. And this child is in no way similar to the two I raised. She's got way more energy, for one thing, and that demands a physical outlet.

When she lived here before, her apartment was ideally located to meet her friends and play safely for hours without having to go near a parking lot, much less a road. Our apartment now is located right next to the back gate of the complex. This means that I need to go with her to the area where she and her friends play.

Fortunately, there is a nice little pavilion, where I can read or take my computer. And it's probably good for me to get out in the fresh air for at least an hour a day. It's also good exercise, since I walk while she takes her scooter.

It's just not something I feel like doing every day.

But, if I don't, she's bouncing off the walls a little bit. Luckily, we've got a bit of space for her to do that. Although I was able to find an apartment manager nice enough to rent me a place for just a couple of months, there were no short term furnished places available in the area I needed to live. So we ended up in an unfurnished apartment.

I could have rented furniture, but it just didn't seem worth the trouble. I bought an airbed, picked up a couple of chairs and a tray table to eat on, and the minimum in the way of kitchen ware. Of course, I have my computer/wire shelves/desk chair setup. But the whole living area is empty, so she can - literally - turn cartwheels if she likes. And she often does.

Due to various circumstances over the years, we've often found ourselves in these types of situations. Kind of camping out, while waiting for our furniture to arrive. Never for quite this long, a several week period. But time flies, and we're pretty comfortable.

And 7 year old is bringing home A grades again. So it's definitely worth it.

Now, although both of those situations are having a huge impact on my daily life, they are both relatively short term.

The diet program is not expected to go on much longer than a couple of months more. The school year ends June 3rd, although I had planned to take 7 year old for a couple of months again this summer. So I may have her through the 1st week in August. The question is where?

I've made some tentative plans. My lease here is up June 9. I thought we'd drive up to Carson City and spend a couple of weeks with my sister and my mother. That way, my sister could take a break during the one long weekend she gets once a month from her work, and my mother could spend some quality time with 7 year old.

Then, I thought, we could drive to New Orleans so 7 year old could be reunited with her mother and her dog for a bit before I took her back to the beach where we spent last summer. The thing is, 7 year old is not nearly used to taking the long road trips my daughters were by the time they were her age. And she's got all that energy. So, I don't know...

Now, when 7 year old moves back to New Orleans, she will be living near the French Quarter and will be in a completely different school district. Hopefully, she will not have the problems she did in her former Louisiana school. But it's going to be some more big changes, and her mother will have to deal with work/child care arrangements.

There had been some talk, instigated by me, of my possibly moving nearby to handle the bulk of after school care. The novelty of living in, or close to, the Quarter was intriguing. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't think I wanted to do it for a whole year. Now I'm leaning toward looking for a studio apartment for a month or so, just to help with the settling in process.

I'm also not looking forward very much to going up to Carson City right after school finishes, even just for a couple of weeks. I may still have to, especially since I've already mentioned the possibility. But fate does have a way of stepping in, so I'm just going to wait and see what transpires between now and then.

Still, what it all amounts to is...I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want, go wherever I please.

I feel like I will have fulfilled any and all child/elderly care obligations. I did, after all, have my mother for a full year before her stroke. Plus, I've gone up every month since she's been with my sister to give my sister a break for a long weekend. And I can continue to do that, although it will be much more expensive than doing it from here.

One of my options is actually moving in with them. And I may just do that...later. If I do, it will be because of a sense of obligation, to not burden my sister with the whole of my mother's care. On the other hand, I can make a case for being in New Orleans, and everyone in the family will accept that.

But the truth is that, right now, neither of those things is something I would look forward to.

In any case, I want at least a little bit of time to myself. I will have gone from taking care of my mother, to taking care of toddler, to taking care of 7 year old. I don't think anyone will begrudge me at least a couple of months to myself. Right now, those months look like September and October. My birthday is in September, so that will be a nice present to myself.

After that, who knows? I literally don't have a freaking clue as to where I'll be or what I'll be doing. This is the first time in my life that I have ever been in this position. It's very exhilarating. But, in a way, having almost unlimited options is a very real dilemma. I mean, where do you start?

Basically, I've decided that it's too early to make any decisions. I'm going to wait and see how developments unfold, what else life has in store for me, and just make short term decisions over the next few months. I know that, whatever happens, I do have full control over the choices I will make. First, though, I have to see what - if anything - happens to affect my options. Stuff that I might not have any control over. Because, as I'm seeing right now, things can change very quickly.

Sensitive Body Chemistry Complications 138.9

2010-04-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

Something in the diet program I'm on is not agreeing with me in a very major way.

When we discussed diet pills, I told the doctor that my whole family has a history of sensitive body chemistry, so he put me on the mildest one they've got. In addition to the diet pills, I was given a multivitamin and a diuretic. All of them are to be taken in the morning, diet pill an hour before breakfast and the diuretic plus vitamin with breakfast.

I started Wednesday morning and had no problem, although I did mention in my blog post that night that I had started having muscle cramps and spasms. By 3 p.m. the next day, they were getting pretty painful. By 10 p.m., they were excruciating. They weren't non-stop, but they were frequent enough to make me feel just awful. When my left fingers became almost uncontrollable from the spasms, around 3:45, I called the doctor's office.

I suspected it was the diuretic because, supposedly, the most common cause of muscle spasms is dehydration. The doctor's office said to eat a banana for potassium and not to take the diuretic the next day.

Later, though, when it would all seem to go away for awhile then start up again, I began to suspect it was the diet pill because it was time released. Especially when I only took the diet pill on Friday and it was every bit as bad as the day before. Let me tell you, when I reached behind my back to remove my bra last night, the pain was so intense that it almost brought me to tears. I was frantic looking for relief. I took 2 Motrin - the dosage is only 1 - and wet a bath towel with hot water to put over the various muscles. It probably didn't last more than 10 minutes or so, but they were 10 of the most painful minutes of my life.

Again, I called the doctor's office. They still thought it was the diuretic that was still in my system, but said not to take anything for 3 days - not even the fat burner pills I'd taken for days before anything else and not had a problem with.

Today, Saturday, I went in for noon for my vitamin shot and I hadn't had any spasms or cramps by then. Since that time, I've had a few problems, but nothing unbearable. They've been shorter and way less frequent. So maybe they're right and all of the diuretic just needed to work its way out of my system. I guess we'll find out, one way or another.

Right after the 1st cramp today, I ate a banana. When a series of tough spasms started around 3 p.m., I had a tiny baked potato, even though I'm not supposed to have any starches after lunch. I've forgotten to take my vitamin the last couple of days, and I wonder if that could have made enough difference. I did notice that it had 100% of the daily requirement for several vitamins and minerals, but I can't remember whether it had potassium, so I'll have to check.

So here I am, trying to stay on a diet with no help. I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Although, so far, I haven't been that hungry. I'm exhausted from the pain, and so many of my muscles are sore from the clenching, even when they are at rest.

I go in again on Tuesday for my next shot. I've changed my schedule from 3 shots a week to 2 a week, same amount of vitamins, just more at one time. That's because of some recent non-diet upheaval that is worth it's own post, which I'll get to soon.

So, when I started the program, I weighed 144.9. I started dieting on April 4th with a super strict 3 day diet and fat burner pills. April 7th, I began the 1200 calorie diet, along with the medications...which I took for 2 days. Now, 7 days later, I weigh 138.9. A 6 pound loss in 7 days.

Believe it or not, I can already feel and see a little bit of difference in the fit of my clothes. Which makes it a little hard to decide if the pain is worth it. I know I won't be able to tolerate it for very long, though, so I hope they can figure this shit out quickly.

I feel like I worked hard for those 6 measly pounds, and I'm going to be really pissed if it turns out that I didn't lose anything - or, worse, gained anything - because I had to take a total of 4 days off from the meds. Because I take the pills in the morning, it will be too late to take them on the day I see the doctor after being off of them for 3 days.

Anyway, this has been 3 very challenging days for all kinds of reasons, so really not the best time to be trying to diet. Certainly without the assistance of meds. Sheesh.

Pills Day 1

2010-04-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

10:30 a.m.
I think the vitamin shots make me sleepy. I was really tired last night and went to bed early. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night and stayed awake for 2 or 3 hours, I think. Woke up at 8:30, went back to sleep and woke for good at 9:30, still tired.

Took fat burner pill, multi-vitamin and diet pill when I woke up. Instructions for the new pills are to take all of them in the morning, the diet pill an hour before eating and the multi-vitamin plus diuretic with breakfast. (Oops, took the vitamin too early.) The fat burner is 30 to 60 minutes before eating each meal, so I can take the morning dose with the diet pill and the other two an hour later at breakfast. Moved the bottles with the multi-vitamin and diuretic downstairs to the kitchen so I can keep it straight.

An hour after taking the diet and fat burner pills, I'm still tired and have a bit of dry mouth, but I'm not really hungry. That'll make it easy to stick to a very small breakfast. But I was hoping that the vitamin shots and diet pills would give me energy. Right now I feel like eating and going back to bed.

11:00 a.m.

Only half an hour, yet I was congratulating myself on eating slowly.

Eating slowly gives your stomach time to tell your brain that it's full, so fast eaters will usually eat more than slow eaters. I've always been the fastest eater of anyone I've ever met. Sometimes it even results in an upset stomach. So, besides small portions, I also have to get used to eating more slowly.

I had a cup of cereal with a 1/2 cup of skim milk and followed it with a cup of cantaloupe. I did eat the cereal slowly but, since I wasn't really hungry and melon goes down pretty easily, I went through that fairly quickly.

As I was eating, I was puzzling over a couple of diet related things. One, is that I'm allowed 2 dairy products, which equals 2 cups of skim milk or plain yogurt. But I only need half a cup of milk with the 1 cup of cereal I'm allowed, and I probably won't even have cereal every morning. Same thing with the yogurt. Half a cup is more than enough to eat with strawberries, which is the only thing I eat it with, and I certainly won't have that every day either. I'm pretty sure I won't be using the dairy quota of my diet.

The second thing is that I'm not supposed to eat anything after 6 p,m., and I just finished breakfast at 10:30 a.m., so it's going to be interesting trying to fit everything in today. Hopefully my sleep schedule will straighten out so that I can keep a more normal schedule.

So, here's the key thing about diet pills. When you aren't hungry, it doesn't matter so much what your food tastes like, you're basically just fueling up.

1:10 p.m. WATER

Just read one of the papers I was given, this one on the topic of water. It explains "How 8 Glasses A Day Keep Fat Away", and it makes a lot of sense. I have no problem with that, I've been a big water drinker for years now. But toward the end of the document, it says that an overweight person needs one additional glass for every 25 pounds of excess weight. So, for 40 pounds, that would be what? A little less than 2 more glasses a day. Say 10 8oz glasses a day. Okay.

But then it goes on to say that, "To utilize water most efficiently during weight loss," 1 quart (which is 4 glasses) should be consumed over a 30 minute period each morning, noon and evening. So now we're up to 12 glasses, and they're all concentrated within a total of 1.5 hours in the day. I can easily drink 8 glasses a day, but they're usually spread out through the entire day and night.

So, I went down and filled up my liter bottle, which is 1.8 ounces more than a quart, at about 1:05 p.m., right before I started writing this section. By 1:22 p.m., I'd finished drinking it all. I'm wondering, will I still want to drink more water in addition to the 12 glasses I'm drinking during those 3 concentrated periods? I'm guessing yes, but we'll see.

2:45 p.m.

Pills kicking in big time, getting that close to jittery feeling again and super alert. But still physically sluggish. I didn't give in to a nap, but haven't really done anything but surf around the 'net. So close to 3 o'clock, I should really eat something now if I have to eat 3 meals by 6.

3:30 Lunch over, a couple of hours late

Okay, that was a little bit of a struggle, and not at all enjoyable. Due to a lack of planning, I didn't have my cup of carrots or a small potato cooked. I forgot about the potato until I was almost done, but I could've thrown one in the microwave. However, by that time, I had seen how much 1.25 cups of strawberries and .5 cup of plain yogurt equaled. There was just no way I was going to be able to eat a potato, as well. And I can't have it with dinner because the rule is no carbs after lunch, only meat and green vegetables.

Since the chicken was actually in a plain soup, I threw the baby carrots in the bowl when I warmed it up in the microwave. Then I added the spinach when I took the bowl out, not really cooked spinach, only wilted. I just don't like raw carrots at all, and I don't like raw spinach without some kind of dressing. I know that diets go much better when there is some planning beforehand, I'm just going to have to get a little better organized.

Re dairy: I haven't had anywhere near 2 cups a day of dairy products in years, and it hasn't seemed to hurt me. I know that women, in particular, are supposed to keep a certain level of calcium as they get older to guard against osteoporosis. But I've also heard that humans are the only mammals that continue ingesting milk after infancy. So, I'm not sweating the dairy portion of this diet unless I see some very persuasive evidence in favor of necessity.

Another problem is that I'm cooking with no salt whatsoever. I've never been a heavy salt user, but this diet only allows for 1/2 tsp of Morton Light salt daily. I was able to get by with no salt for the 3 day diet, but I'm seriously thinking that even 1/4 tsp on each of the 2 pieces of meat I'm allowed might actually make a difference. So I'll probably end up picking up some.

So there is no way that today will be a complete success. I won't have gotten all of my food groups in, and the mealtime hours were all a little off. BUT...

This is actually adding up to be a reasonable amount of food. It's possible that the maintenance diet will not be as difficult as I had imagined.

Whoops! Just realized I forgot, for the first time in 5 days, to take my fat burner pill before lunch. You see what I mean by getting organized? I'm a very organized person by nature, so this will not be hard, I just have to figure out the best way. I think alarms on my phone will be the most efficient method of dealing with this. But I can imagine that getting kind of annoying. Still, here goes, next fat burner pill at 5 p.m. in order to eat at 5:30 and be done by 6.

Oh, forgot to have my quart of water with lunch, too. Man, I SO need to make a freaking schedule. I really hope I don't need to do this for more than a few months, it will drive me crazy. But now I also realize that the fat burner needs to be taken with a glass of water at least 30 minutes before eating. I can drink my full quart within those 30 minutes, but that leaves none left to drink after eating. The alternative is to drink the full glass with the fat burner pills in addition to the quart I drink with meals.

Okay, so here's the schedule:

8:00 a.m. Fat burner and diet pill with a full glass of water
9:00 a.m. Breakfast, with a quart of water
12:30 p.m. Fat burner and diet pill with a full glass of water
1:00 p.m. Lunch, with a quart of water
5:00 p.m. Fat burner and diet pill with a full glass of water
5:30 p.m. Dinner, with a quart of water

By my calculations, this will equal 15 glasses, without any extra I might want between meals. Good Lord, I'm going to be floating away by bedtime. Hope this enormous amount of water is doing a fabulous job of cleansing everything inside. Geez.

6:30 p.m.

Dinner was a chicken thigh and a cup of zucchini that was al dente enough to almost be considered raw. I'm allowed a cup of raw vegetables or a half cup of cooked. But zucchini is a free food on this diet, and I am actually allowed to have up to 3 cups a day. So that particular measurement wasn't at all important. The 6 ounces of blackberries I had may have been over the 3/4 cup I was allowed, but I'm not going to worry about it. And I finished my quart of water, too, so I am DONE for the night.

Still tired. Plus, I've started getting muscle cramps and spasms. A Motrin tablet seems to have helped that, but it was very strange and I hope it doesn't recur. That's the thing about subjecting your body chemistry to so many new things at once, you never know what's related to, or caused by, anything else.

Conclusions:

My meals could have been a lot tastier, a LOT tastier, with very little more effort. As it turns out, I didn't care. But it does augur well for the future, that I won't feel constrained by a healthy maintenance level diet. I'm more optimistic about portion control now, too. Once you fit all the different food groups into a day, you really don't need so much of any particular one. Still, I can't imagine sticking to a 1/2 cup of cooked pasta for a meal. Seriously, that seems like nothing at all.

I was off schedule a bit and trying to fit 3 meals into a condensed period of time, so I wasn't ever really ready to eat when it was time. But I ordinarily live on a later schedule than most people, usually not getting up until just before nine. Now, I'll have to get up at 8 just to have enough time to take the diet pill an hour before breakfast. But it should be easier to at least have the meals spread out with at least a few hours in between.

All this water is keeping me very full. But I doubt I'll drink more than the 8 or so glasses I'm used to once this diet is over, so I can't count on that to help later, I don't think.

All of these pills are a real pain. I never did like taking pills, although I'll take Motrin at night if I need help getting to sleep. At least I won't be tempted to continue using them as diet aids once I'm done with this diet.

One way or another, I need more energy. Maybe more sleep will do the trick, maybe less B6 mixed in with the B12 in the shots would work. But I'm never exactly brimming with energy to begin with, and today was worse than usual. If it continues, finding a solution will be a top priority.

So that's it for Day 1 with the pills and the new 1200 calorie diet. Not wholly successful, but mostly encouraging. Second shot tomorrow morning.

Diet Clinic 141.5

2010-04-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, blood work didn't hold any scary surprises. Also, my thyroid is working fine, which was a concern because my mother has needed meds for an underactive thyroid for decades. I really didn't want to have that working against me. So that was all good news.

I got the vitamin shot, a combo of B6 and B12, and I definitely felt a physical reaction to it. It was very mild, and nothing bothersome, but I didn't really expect to feel anything from vitamins and it kind of surprised me.

The scale showed another almost 1.5 lb loss, again probably all water. But, again, it's so nice to see those numbers going down every time. I don't have a scale at home and don't plan to buy one. I have to go into that office 3 times a week, and I suspect that they'll weigh me every time. That's more than often enough for me. I thought you were only supposed to weigh yourself once a week, anyway.

The doctor went over the regimen with me. It includes not only the vitamin shots and diet pills, but a multivitamin and a diuretic, as well. I mentioned that my family has a history of sensitive body chemistry and he prescribed the lowest dosage of diet pill for me. I asked if I could try just a few, but they only prescribed a minimum of 30. That's gotta be a purely profit driven decision and I didn't appreciate it greatly.

I'll give them a shot for a couple of weeks, unless they make me absolutely miserable and don't seem to improve over the course of 14 days. If I end up hating them, I'll just switch to shots and fat burner pills only at the end of a month. My daughter might welcome the leftovers if it comes to that.

It turns out that the doctor/diet pills combo is actually $225. The vitamin shots plus fat burner pills - hopefully combined with diet and exercise, will only be $210. Not enough of a difference to make me switch, I'd only do that if I really hate the diet pills.

The doctor said that the average weight loss to expect was 8 to 10 pounds a month. The nurse had said 3 to 5 pounds a week, which could possibly add up to 20 pounds a month. I expect that was for people who have to lose over 100 pounds, otherwise it sounds like a little more than might be healthy to lose in a month. If I actually end up doing as much kickboxing as I plan to, though, I damn well better beat the average.

Anyway, tonight I finished the 3 day high protein no carb diet successfully with a weight loss of about 3 pounds. That's about what one would usually expect at the start of a diet. Every time I tried to shed a few pounds, those first few just dropped right off. But the last few years, that didn't happen. No free pounds, I had to fight for every one of them. And, according to my starting weight, every last one of them came right back.

The only variables left are how I'll react to the meds over the next couple of weeks and what the numbers will be when I go in for shots 3 times a week. Although I'm sure I'll be sharing how my kickboxing is going. Oh yeah, and how the 1200 calorie diet is going, too.

Diet Clinic 142.9

2010-04-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of the 3 day diet we kickstarted my program with saw me back at the clinic for my nutrition class. I was handed a sheaf of papers with information about the 1200 calorie diet I'm supposed to follow for the next 4 months. While I am very motivated, and have come through just fine on the 3 day diet, I'm not so sure about my ability to keep strictly to 1200 calories a day for 4 months.

Basically, it's 3.5 oz of meat twice a day, 3 servings of vegetables - which is about a cup raw or 1/2 cup cooked, 3 fruit, 2 starches, 2 fats - which equals about 2 teaspoons of olive oil, and 2 dairy - skim milk or plain yogurt. If I have a tablespoon of peanut butter, I lose one serving of meat. One egg, same thing.

Fortunately, there are some "free" foods that you can have plenty more of to fill up on. Unfortunately, there are only a few of them I like. And, of course, any starchy vegetable counts as a starch rather than a vegetable.

To maintain my goal weight of, say 107, my diet should average around 1600 calories a day. That still won't be a cakewalk but, if I get into the habit of exercising even moderately, it should be much more easily managed than 1200 calories a day.

When my daughter did her program, the diet pills kept her hunger level so low that she only ever ate very little. With no dieting at all, she didn't form any different eating habits. So, naturally, she put back on some of the weight she'd paid to lose. But since most of the weight she was trying to lose was due to a one-time event, her pregnancy, instead of her regular diet, she didn't gain back anywhere near what she had lost.

My situation is similar. I was already 10 to 15 pounds heavier than I would have liked when I quit smoking. I was getting no exercise whatsoever and my metabolism was slowing down more and more every year. Not a good combination. But there's no question that I gained a good 25 pounds within a just a matter of months because I quit smoking. Again, a one time event, not my regular diet.

I believe that these are probably the best circumstances for using one of these quick weight loss programs. If I don't add exercise to my routine after losing my desired weight, those extra 10 to 15 pounds may creep back onto me again. But I don't think those last 25 pounds will.

But I'm not interested in just getting back to my old middle aged spread. I played tennis for years, 3 to 5 times a week, and I felt great when I was that active. I don't want to just lose weight, I want to get strong and fit.

Martial arts appeals to me for a variety of reasons. One, it's exercise with a purpose other than just exercising. Two, if I get to travel the way I want to, I'll often be traveling alone to a great many different places and the least bit of self-defense will make me feel more comfortable. Last, I think I will greatly enjoy the calm that often results from such fierce internal focus. Win, all the way around.

Still, I will try very hard with this diet to get used to small portions. I think my biggest problem was always just putting too much on my plate. Regular serving sizes just look so freaking small!

I already eat fairly healthy. So if I can accustom myself to those tiny servings over the next couple of months, I think I'll be okay in the long run.

In the meantime, when I got on the scale a day and a half into the 3 day diet, I weighed 142.9, a loss of a pound and a half. Not a whole lot, and probably all water, but just seeing a lower number was encouraging enough to keep my motivation strong.

Next up, doctor's visit and blood test results.

Diet Clinic 144.4

2010-04-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

In case anyone was wondering about diet clinics, I thought I'd share my experience as it unfolds. One of the first things I found out is that there is definitely some differences between programs. So if you are considering signing up with one, you will want to shop around.

The only one I checked out is 5 minutes from my house and I was satisfied enough with it that I didn't look any further. But my daughter had gone to a diet clinic about a year ago to lose the weight she'd gained from pregnancy and her program was very different. She lost all the weight she'd wanted to in two months and her program was $150 a month, including Vitamin B shots and diet pills. She didn't follow any diet at all, she just wasn't very hungry due to the diet pills. She was actually supposed to go for four months, because they like to wean you off the last month with half doses of everything. But, since she'd lost all the weight she wanted to, she didn't want to spend any more money. She still looks great, but she has gained some of the weight back.

My program is different, and costs more. But it also includes Vitamin B shots and, if I'm going to make that trip 3 times a week, I want somewhere close.

My first visit, the free consultation where the program was explained to me, was last Wednesday, March 31. I went in the next day to get blood drawn and an EKG. The charge was $110. My daughter said she had only gotten an EKG, which was included in her program price, but the blood work may have been added because of my age. I haven't had blood tests done in a few years, so I'm hoping not to get any unpleasant surprises when I see the doctor tomorrow.

I was weighed on the big digital scale and was pretty surprised to see the numbers stop at 144.4. When asked how much weight I wanted to lose, I said 35 to 40 pounds. I'm just a hair over 5'1" tall and have bones the size of a 10 year old. Until I got pregnant for the first time at 25 years old, I'd never weighed more than 110, usually closer to 105. So it's not like I'm going for an anorexic look, just one that fits my size and bone structure.

The biggest difference between my program and my daughter's is that mine very definitely includes a diet. It starts with a 3 day high protein no carb regimen, which I was told to start on Sunday so that I could attend a 1 on 1 diet class Monday with the nutritionist to learn what I could eat after the 3 days were over. Then Tuesday would be my first visit with the doctor. The program includes 1 visit a month with the doctor, who will supervise the diet pill portion of the program, Vitamin B shots - 6 & 12 - administered 3 times a week, the diet class with the nutritionist and access to her for questions, and diet pills for a cost of $205 a month. If I wanted to skip the diet pills, which would remove the necessity of a doctor's supervision, and just get the vitamin shots, it would be $150 a month.

They also offer various types of supplements available for purchase. I bought the fat burner pills, a bottle of 90 to be taken 30 to 60 minutes before meals, for $60. I find they actually have a bit of a mild appetite suppressant effect and, after looking up the ingredients, I realized why. They are made of 2.5 mg Bioperine, 100 mcg chromium polynicotinate and 500 mg garcinia cambogia fruit.

I tried over the counter diet pills once, trying to lose weight after my first baby, and they very much disagreed with me. I've also experienced the dreaded crash you get with amphetamines and that's not something I will voluntarily experience again. Plus, the people in my family seem to have particularly sensitive body chemistry. I just recently heard from a cousin that a doctor said the reason they were having such a problem adjusting her mother's medication is that her "engine doesn't run like everyone else's". So I'm wondering if the vitamin shots, diet and fat burner pills won't be enough to do the trick on their own. I'll find out tomorrow when I get the first of the diet pills.

Costwise, adding the fat burner pills is actually $5 more than the doctor/diet pills. But since I'm planning to use them regardless, the difference would be between $265 a month for the program plus the fat burner pills or $210 for the program without doctor/diet pills but with the fat burner pills. If I don't react well to the diet pills, I'm definitely going with the latter.

Another supplement I tried was a wild berry flavored protein drink...no carbs. I was hoping it would help with the sweet cravings that make me crazy. So I bought a box of 7 for $15 and am allowed to have 2 a day even while on the strict 3 day diet that I'm kickstarting the program with. Unfortunately, I didn't look at the label until after fixing my second drink. It's got aspartame in it. That shit's poison, as far as I'm concerned, so I'm not using anymore. When I was there yesterday, I found that they also have a supplement that can be made into a shake or a pudding. It probably has aspartame, too. If by any great good luck it doesn't, though, I'll definitely pick up some of that.

So, the 3 day diet I had to start with? 2 eggs a day, unlimited amount of meat and green vegetables - except no pork, peas and green peppers. 2 oranges a day are allowed to prevent carb withdrawal headaches and/or nausea. Don't overeat and drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. Nothing after 6 p.m., although I just read the other day that that's a diet myth.

I'm very motivated and, in fact, plan to start kickboxing classes nearby at least 2 to 4 times a week. The question will be, between the diet and the exercise - plus fat burner pills if necessary, do I really need to pay for the diet clinic's program? We'll just have to see how it goes.

Next post is about my second visit.

More New Orleans Food & Fun

2010-04-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am amazed that we only managed to eat in a couple of non-chain restaurants while we were in New Orleans. But we were actually in the city for only 2 full days and were on the go the whole time. Luckily, even the chain restaurants have pretty good food in that city.

I was actually a little disappointed in the two places we managed to find time for. One was the first dinner we had in town, where the crawfish etouffee wasn't so great and the other was actually the highlight of our trip, Sunday brunch in the Quarter. It was a fabulous experience, but I wasn't really impressed by the food. It was good, don't get me wrong. Just not nearly to the level I was expecting. Looking back, I'd have to say that the quality of the food we got everywhere in town was very hit and miss. I can't tell you how very surprised by that I am.

Although I shouldn't maybe have been surprised that oyster po boys at the airport would upset my stomach. They tasted great, though.

Anyway, here's a little more of our New Orleans experience. I had a great time, but I'm still undecided about actually living there again - the excitement of living almost in the Quarter notwithstanding.

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove around the French Quarter on St. Patrick's day and it was a little wild. But when we went back another couple of times, it didn't seem all that much different. So it seems that the Quarter is back to being a little wild most of the time.

There were always at least a few people walking around in costume. This is at the French Market, just down from Jackson Square on the river.

We met my brother for lunch at Copeland's. This is a chain owned by the guy who started Popeye's Fried Chicken, and he has other chains. There was a location in Baton Rouge near where my grandmother was in an assisted living place that we used to go to all the time. It had a crawfish fettucini dish that was out of this freaking world and I used to stuff myself on it. TGIFriday's now has a similar dish, a Cajun chicken and shrimp fettuccini, I think, that is an excellent substitute. Better, in fact, than the one I got at Copeland's on this trip...which wasn't even fettuccini.

I didn't find it had much flavor. But the dessert more than made up for it. I loved every last bite of it.

Yes, I did share it with others.

We walked around the Quarter some more on the Friday when we returned to New Orleans, and this time I got my beignet fix at the uber fabulous Cafe du Monde. This is one of my all time favorite spots in the whole wide world and probably always will be.

I had hoped to actually get here more than once but, sadly, it didn't work out that way. And I am filled with chagrin to admit that I didn't get a picture of the beignets in all their powdered sugar covered glory. But I'm still not completely trained to photograph my food before digging in, and I had waited waaaay to long to get a bite of them. I took a picture of the menu on the napkin dispenser while we were waiting to order, but my brain went dead as soon as we were served.

Trust me, this is an institution in New Orleans and is not to be missed if you visit. The location and the flavor are well worth it.

Our flight left at 6:20 Sunday evening so we had a plenty of time to check out of the hotel and head down to the Quarter one last time to have brunch. We went to Muriel's on Jackson Square, a former bordello situated next door to St. Louis Cathedral. Once more, my lack of photographic experience is obvious, I didn't get a photo of the front of the restaurant. But it 's not that fancy, the inside - and the food - is way more interesting. There is a lovely indoor courtyard.

And it was a jazz brunch, which is not uncommon in New Orleans. I'm not wild about musicians roaming around restaurants while I eat, but these guys perfectly hit the nice background music mode.

Our table had a nice view of Jackson Square...for me, at least. My mother and sister were facing the wrong direction. There is a great restaurant across the street that is more fully facing Jackson Square. It's not fine dining, but I have it on excellent authority that the food is superb. It's Stanley's.

We all had different appetizers. My mother had the Crab Imperial, which she said was perfect.

My Shrimp Soup was good, closer to a stew than a bisque, lots of tasty flavor.

But my sister's appetizer won by a mile. Crawfish and goat cheese crepes.

My mother had some kind of meat dish, I don't recall. My sister and I were in all seafood all the time mode the whole time we were there, and we had the Seafood au Gratin. It seemed small, at first, for an entree. Though I have to say that it was far more filling than it looked. But I didn't find it had a whole lot of flavor. It certainly wasn't bad, but I was disappointed. It was served with a potato croquette.
However, my second favorite all time dessert was on the menu, creme brulee, so I was more than happy when my meal was done. Particularly since it was a very generous sized serving. In case you might be interested, my all time favorite is Grand Marnier souffle. But that is extremely hard to find. I'm thrilled to have creme brulee when I can get it.

My mother had one, as well. But my sister surprised an involuntary laugh out of our waiter when she gave him her order. You see, she decided to drink her dessert, and the waiter heartily approved of her choice. She got a chocolate martini.

It really was a great trip, and we had a wonderful time. Although I'm still not sure I actually want to commit to living there again, I do look forward to more visits, even an extended stay. But what made this trip most special is the fact that my mother is almost 87 years old and a recent stroke victim. It's only realistic to acknowledge that she won't be around, in a condition to do these kinds of things, for a real long time into the future. And she enjoyed herself greatly on this trip with her 2 daughters, and with her oldest great-granddaughter tagging along for most of it. I know that this will be one of our most special memories of her after she's gone, and I'm so very glad everything went so beautifully.

We had incredible parking karma while we were there, too, scoring the same super primo handicapped spot across the street from Cafe du Monde THREE days in a row - which is a serious miracle, simply unbelievable. And someone backing out of a free street spot across from the restaurant just as we pulled up while running late for our brunch reservation. We walked in exactly on the minute. Seriously, it was a little creepy...in a good way, of course.

Then, of course, our flight home was delayed. But, at that point, it didn't even matter anymore. Visiting family, getting to spend so much time in a really interesting city, perfect parking and good food...you really can't ask for better than that from a quick 5 day trip. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

New Orleans Fun

2010-03-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

Really loving being back in New Orleans, particularly rediscovering the French Quarter. The first glimpse reminded me how much I absolutely adore the look and feel of the neighborhood but, since our first foray happened to be on St. Patrick's Day, I was also reminded of how I really don't like driving down there in the crowds and traffic. And I would never be able to live in such a noisy place. Still, Pat O'Briens on St. Paddy's Day is pretty special.

Also, I was just astounded at how little was different after all these years. I mean, naturally, no one is going to be tearing down these historic buildings and replacing them with modern skyscrapers. And, of course, Galatoire's, Pat O'Briens and Cafe du Monde are still going to be there. But Johnny White's is, as the sign says, a hole in the wall.

Decades ago, while I was in college. We went down to the Quarter every Sunday evening to play cards. If we got hungry, we'd order po boys from Johnny White's. Really great po boys, so I guess that's why it's still there. There was also a club called Deja Vu my friends stumbled upon during the height of the disco area that's still there. That really surprised me, because it seemed so suited to that type of music. I wonder what could they possibly been doing all this time.

New Orleans is, obviously, known for its great food. But, as with the above mentioned Johnny White's, you don't have to go to fancy or expensive restaurants to find it. There is a Piccadilly Cafeteria on Clearview Highway in Metairie, just off of I10, that has quite decent crawfish etouffee with 2 side dishes for about $9. Can't beat it. Another good branch of the chain is on Jefferson Highway, I think almost across the street from Oschner's. We went to the Clearview location this afternoon and I had a side of carrot souffle, which is also pretty good. Fast, plentiful and inexpensive. A tourist's dream.

Lots to see down in the Quarter on an early Friday evening, even on a quick stroll down Royal Street. Bourbon St. is known for its bars, Royal for its antique stores and boutiques. Today, we saw a bit of both. Fleur de lis are always thick on the ground in 'Nawlins, but it's been amped up big time since the Saints won the Super Bowl. Personally, I wouldn't be caught dead in these boots, but I have to admit they're eyecatching.

Jackson Square, pictured above, is the heart of the Quarter, although not it's geographical center. Behind it sits St. Louis Cathedral. Both my sister and I were married there, but neither of marriages lasted. I don't hold that against it, though. It's still a really nice church.

Musicians around Jackson Square are not an uncommon sight. But today we saw them every few blocks. Lots of singing around the Quarter these days. Today, though, we got an extra special treat.

Back in November 2008, I was one of the people spreading the link to a You Tube video from Playing for Change, where they had people from all over the world singing to Stand By Me. It's still one of my all time favorites, and if you take a look at it here:

you'll see Grandpa Elliott around the 1:10 mark. He's fabulous. And he was performing on a Royal Street corner this afternoon as we passed by. New Orleans is fabulous too.

Trivializing Great Truths...or, um, cliches

2010-03-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

Between my family and my near constant online presence, I come into contact with a lot of stuff that has no relevance for me or for any member of my larger family, to whom I often pass stuff on - my brother, sister and our combined 8 kids. Usually, I let this stuff just roll by me, but I just realized that some of it takes up residence in my brain without me realizing it.

Today, two of those things merged together to form a new truth. Unfortunately, instead of being about something important, something which will take me further down the path of enlightenment, my epiphany had to do with...my wardrobe.

I've turned into a person who thinks deep thoughts about shallow things.

Time to start getting out more.

For anyone interested in the intricacies of my thought processes, here's how it went. There is a piece of advice regarding Dress for Success that goes something to the effect of, "Don't dress for the position you have, dress for the position you want to have, so that people get used to seeing you as someone in a position of power." It so happens that no one in my family has pursued a traditional path through the corporate world, so we didn't need this one. I guess the part of me that pursued a degree in psychology, though, found it interesting enough to allow it to linger in the back recesses of my brain.

Next, like many people, I found it hard to avoid at least some bits and pieces of The Secret when it was making a big splash a few years back. Because I didn't look into it too closely, however, my understanding of it may have gotten it a bit garbled. I think at least part of it goes something like, "Assume your dreams will come true and live like they already have, then they soon will."

Do you see the similarity between those two ideas? I actually never thought about it, so they must have just wandered close enough to bump into each other in my brain. And since I have been focusing a great deal on wardrobe the past couple of weeks, it finally all went BAM!

Like a great crash of triviality in my subconscious.

See, I'm leaving on a trip in less than a week and, naturally, I've given some thought to what to bring. I've also been shopping end of season sales online, and finding great coupon codes to use on those sites, which have resulted in some phenomenal bargains - some of which I will be using on my trip, some of which will not be used for several months.

Now, you have to understand that I have not done this kind of shopping in several years. But I am in the happy place of having lost enough weight to warrant new clothes. On the other hand, I have not lost nearly the amount I want to, so I am not investing a great deal in a new wardrobe. It's mostly very inexpensive stuff from clearance sales, but there has been quite a bit of it. So, clothes has been occupying *much* more of my time than it has in several years.

Not that my shoe size would change much, but since I was seeing all of these great bargains, I figured I may as well take advantage of them.

Today, I got two new pairs of boots. Really pretty boots, that are also comfortable. Soft, suede-lined boots. As I usually do when I find something I like, I got them in more than one color. I've only had them for a couple of hours, and I probably won't wear them for at least six months, but I am already in love with these boots. And I am in awe that each pair was less than $27. They look, and feel, so much more expensive than that. I worry a little that they may fall apart quickly once I begin wearing them, but seriously, how long can it take to get $27 worth of wear out of something? I gotta figure I'll at least get my money's worth.

If I live long enough to wear them.

I cannot believe that morbid thought just popped into my head while I was thinking lovingly about my new boots. It actually rattled me a little. But there I was, picturing my sweet new possessions tucked safely away in my closet, waiting for boot wearing weather to return to these parts...and BAM! Talk about thoughts crashing. The thought suddenly jumps into my mind that, if I should die before fall, someone may find it so sad that I had these brand new boots waiting to be worn.

I sure as hell would.

Anyway.

Shaking off the morbidness, I realized that once all of my new loot is finished being delivered (probably by Tuesday), I will have a wardrobe that will be very nicely suited to packing lightly for a trip to Europe in the fall. Subconsciously, I had bought all the clothes I need - not for where I am, but for where I want to be.

The Secret of Dressing for Success...while traveling lightly.

Check this space in six months to see if my dreams really did come true. Or if I died. Except, I don't know how you'll be able to tell if I died. Okay, I'll make a deal with you. If I decide to stop blogging, I'll tell you. That way, if I dont, and if you don't hear from me in a long, long time, that means I died. Probably. I can promise you this, though. If I'm still blogging, or tweeting, in the fall and I'm actually going to Europe, You. Will. Hear. About. It. With photos. No matter how bad they are.

All of a sudden, possibilities

2010-03-03T01:25:00.000-08:00

You know, I started this particular blog to document stuff before I forgot it. But it's not working out that way, obviously, as it's been a month since my last post. Most of what I talk about, think about and dream about these days is travel. And I'm doing a good bit of it. Yet I don't write about it.

Part of the reason, a huge part, is Twitter. I'm managing to get pretty much everything I want to say into 140 characters. And the reason I can do that is the other reason I'm not blogging about my trips. The travel I'm doing is just not very interesting, much less exciting. I still enjoy it, I've rediscovered the joys of just going to the airport and the whole journey experience, which is nice. But what I do once I get to where I'm going is just no big deal. This is mainly because I'm visiting family, rather than a destination.

I look forward to being able to see some different stuff, probably not totally unfamiliar, but things I haven't seen in a very long while. And that will be starting to happen soon, so I'm getting excited about it.

First up is a trip to New Orleans toward the end of this month. The plans got rearranged due to circumstances way beyond my control, so I won't have the gobs of time to myself I was expecting. And I also won't be spending a weekend in the French Quarter. But I am still determined to wring loads of fun out of the trip. We will certainly be spending some time down in the Quarter, just not staying down there. There will also be some great meals at wonderful restaurants, with enjoyable company. Lots of potential for fun, and no reason why we can't have a thoroughly memorable trip.

That's really the only definite trip left on my agenda at the moment. However, recent developments are paving the way for more. Toddler boy is going on a wait list for day care. And when he gets in, my services will no longer be required in this particular location.

It's almost certain that I will rotate between Vegas, Carson City and New Orleans. Those are the places where I am most needed. But I will no longer be needed full time anywhere. So, not only will I be able to bounce around between the three, I will hopefully be able to start going to those places I long to revisit.

I was only supposed to be here through August, anyway, but now it looks like it could easily be sooner than that. This is particularly great because the 7 year old will be spending her two months of summer vacation with me again. I'm hoping that will turn into a tradition with us...at least until she reaches the age of making her own plans for the summer. Her mom gets a nice break, I get the thrill of showing her stuff and sharing her excitement, and she gets all kinds of new experiences. Win/win/win.

The original plan was to split her time between Florida and Las Vegas. But, now, I'm hoping to take her to Washington D.C. and maybe even New York. She has a cousin she's been missing in D.C., so that will be really nice for her. But, also, there is just so very much to see there that I know she will enjoy. Particularly if I can swing a White House tour. I've even got a free roundtrip ticket she can use at some point during the summer, which will come in handy.

And, once we're on the East Coast, New York is just a train ride away.

So even though I only have one trip left on the calendar...except, I just remembered another one in April. But that's just another weekend in Carson City, and I don't expect it to be any more exciting than any of my previous trips up there. I do enjoy going, don't get me wrong, it's just that it's a very quiet and ordinary few days.

But I have big hopes for the summer. I love visiting Washington D.C., so even if I just manage to squeeze that in, I'll be thrilled. If I actually get to make it to New York, as well, I will be walking on air. Those are two of my favorite tourist destinations in this country, and it's been waaaaayyyy too long since I've been to either one of them. Added to another little trip to New Orleans, plus some beach time to finish up...well, it could turn out to be one very busy summer. And that would suit me just fine.

What's really weird, though, is that all these little pieces have just recently started coming together. The day care, the free tickets, the other circumstances that have just rolled in out of the blue - Only now can I see the potential they have to fall into place in a way that I would absolutely love. But now that I'm aware of the possibilities, I'm going to do my utmost to make sure they fall into place the way I want them to. A little luck, a little effort and - hopefully - the thing is done.

We'll see.

Expectations

2010-01-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

Obviously, no one knows what the future will hold, and most of us have been made painfully aware that life is capable of throwing some hard and fast curve balls. That still does not keep us from having reasonable expectations of what might take place in the next several months of our lives.

I decided to put some things down in black and white because I think it will be amusing how far off I am at the end of the year. You've heard that old joke, right? Wanna see the gods laugh, just make some plans.

In my family, our plans have always changed like the wind, so I was cured long ago of thinking I had anything remotely like full control of my schedules. So these are just some very broad, projections. A kind of combination of plans and hopeful thinking. And still, I wouldn't be at all surprised to be pretty far off. Since I'm all about wanting to travel, that's pretty much the only topic I'll spout off about.

I've already taken my first trip of the year. And since it was moving my mother to my sister's home, that trip will be often repeated. My sister gets at least one 3 day weekend a month and she likes to take advantage of them by traveling. I will usually go up to stay with my mother on those weekends, to visit with her, and to give my sister a well-deserved break. This isn't as good an arrangement as we might hope, because it means I won't often get to go out with my sister joining us and she's a lot of fun.

In any case, suffice it to say, I will probably be making the Las Vegas - Reno trip almost every month. I have no problem with that, I only hope to have the opportunity to go elsewhere, as well. In any case, my next trip is next month, and I've already got the car and flight booked.

And then there's New Orleans. I've recently mentioned in this space my regret for not having taken advantage of my proximity to the city in the previous year to spend more time there, particularly since I flew and drove in and out of it so many times. Well, looks like I'll get to make up for it a little in a couple of weeks.

As I tweeted lately, I'd like to spend Super Bowl weekend in the French Quarter. I want to watch the Super Bowl among a lot of people who are as mind boggled as I am that the Saints will be playing, after seeing them bring up the rear of the league for literally decades. Few of us expect them to actually win, but that's okay.

Last year, they made it as far as they did last weekend, then got their asses kicked. This year, they won that match and progressed to the big one...where they will probably get their asses kicked again. I would like to think that they will once more make to the Super Bowl in 2013 and win that one...in the New Orleans Superdome, where it will be played that year. That may be asking a bit much but, hey, we all have our little dreams.

My point is that this is historic for some of us natives of Louisiana. We grew up watching this team be created only to lose and lose and lose for decades. I'd like to be in the French Quarter on Super Bowl Sunday with others who share this experience, and it looks like it's gonna happen. So I'm looking forward to that.

Also, I have not been to the Quarter in years and years. And when I did go, it was usually just for a matter of hours, because I lived in the city. So I'm really looking forward to a couple of days being completely immersed in it. Having said that, I've flown in and out of New Orleans so many freaking times in my life, it's hard to be more than mildly excited. I'm still craving places that are a bit more unfamiliar.

So February holds a trip to New Orleans and a trip to Reno. Both of those are just for a weekend.

March looks like another quick trip to New Orleans, maybe a 4 day weekend, to bring my mother to visit her family in Louisiana. It will be a little different than the carefree trips on my own in February, but shouldn't be very difficult.

Now I feel like I'm not only going to be way off base, but that I'm actually tempting fate by saying stuff like that. I know only too well what kind of unexpected crap happens while traveling. Still, these are, as I said, reasonable expectations.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be back in the Florida panhandle at some point. There are some things that need to be taken care of there, and I have a feeling I'm gonna get stuck with it. If so, it'll probably be around March, maybe even during the same trip I take with my Mom.

My sister wants to go to a festival in April, and she's got a conference in May, so two more trips to Reno. But those are two great months to travel, almost anywhere, so I'm kinda hoping to check out something new in at least one of those months. Seems like it would almost have to be somewhere not too very far away, another weekend trip but maybe to somewhere I've never been before?

I'm thinking I'd like to do something a little different during the summer, too. I want to go to New York, but that's not the best time, and I'm thinking I may be able to tack it on to the front or back of a European trip. Another thought was taking the 7yo, maybe even the toddler. to some parks. Yellowstone, Yosemite. Maybe even the Grand Canyon. I could go for that. I've been to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, so I'd probably start with Yellowstone, in case we didn't make it to all the stops. At least, I'd get to see something new.

I hope September will find me in Europe. There are actually some things that make this a realistic expectation, not too far fetched, although it seems more likely that it would be October or November. And I would be fine with that. But September is my favorite month, my birthday month, although I no longer celebrate it. I'm starting to kind of want to celebrate it, though. I'm starting to want to pamper myself and treat myself. My kids are on their own now, but they have been for a few years, and this is an unexpected development.

I've suddenly realized I can do what I want, when I want and the way I want...subject to circumstances, of course. One of my most recent lessons is that even when I have no one to please by myself, I sometimes have to compromise and do something I'm not wild about in order to achieve two different things that I want. Isn't it amazing how we never stop learning stuff about life?

One nice result is that I got to see the Alamo and the lovely San Antonio Riverwalk, just because I felt like it. Unfortunately, another result is that I'm seeing a lot of movies I don't consider worth the time. Gonna have to start using my time more wisely.

Strangely enough, I've been having a hankering to go to Los Angeles for a few days. I lived there, on and off, for several years. But it was a long, long time ago, and I've never really had any urge to go back, so I don't know where that's coming from. But it's right there, so there's no reason not to go over and take another look. I have no earthly idea what I'll do there, maybe just go back and revisit where I used to live and hang out and see what's changed. Regardless, I may go, just because I can and I feel like it. I'm a real big believer in following those types of feelings...if I can.

I'll tell you this, I'm starting to feel like I'm transforming in some way. I've always enjoyed traveling, but I loved so many of the places I visited that I was always torn between going back to them and going somewhere new. And that's still the same, because it's been so long since I've seen most of the places I've been to in the past, I definitely want to revisit them. But I'm so much more open now to visiting places that I was never even all that interested in before. Now, it's like I want to go everyfreakingwhere.

It's not even like traveling anymore. I'm starting to feel like the only way I'll get to see everything that I want, and spend as much time as I want in those places, is to be some kind of nomad. Just going, and going, and going, only to stop every few months to visit family. And, to tell you the truth, it sounds a little uncomfortable. In spite of my love for travel, I am very much a homebody, a nester. I love being back home from travels and just relaxing in my own space.

I actually once experienced being on the go for too long. It was right after my father died, when I was in my twenties. My mother was having a rough time dealing with it and I was the only one available to go away with her. We had started out with my brother and his family in Sardinia, then Greece. Then we took a couple of his in-laws with us to Paris. They went on home from there, and we went to the south of France. By then, I was already tired of eating restaurant food for so long. But we went on to London, then Dublin. That's when I had to call it quits, and it was certainly less than a month, maybe a little over 3 weeks.

I think I could go much longer now, though, mainly because it's not necessary to eat 3 meals a day in restaurants anymore. But also because it's so much easier to find longer term furnished vacation rentals to spend weeks at a time that are more comfortable than staying in hotels all the time. Thank you craigslist et al. So I'm pretty sure I could do it if I could get communications straightened out. I would need at least a little phone, and a lot of internet, access wherever I am. So we'll see. Will the end of the year find me roaming the globe? It's probably the most optimal time of my life to do it, actually, which hadn't occurred to me before. So, yeah, I guess we'll see.

If that does turn out to be the case, I hope I freaking learn how to take better photos.

Chaos...Hope it's over soon.

2010-01-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

I don't need a lot of physical space. I can be perfectly comfortable spending time in a small room...if it's my small room. If it 's got a decor I can live with, and I've got everything I need in it, I'm good. Whether it's where I'm living, or I'm just passing through, I really don't mind tiny spaces.

What I do need is time to myself. I don't necessarily need to be alone during that time, although I really enjoy wallowing in that whenever I get the chance. But I need time that no one else has a claim on.

For the last three months, my time has been divided between caring for a toddler and caring for my elderly mother. There were very few days, I could count them on one hand, when I did not have to be with one or the other. And there were many, many days when I went from one to the other. This has been a fairly difficult time for me.

I hate to complain about it much, because there was nothing really awful happening. The toddler is really easy to care for, endlessly amusing and I love him dearly. The times with my mother were filled with activities we enjoyed and were grateful she was even able to participate in once more. But I had very little time to myself during these months and I felt myself being stretched thinner and thinner, until I finally snapped a bit.

I've written lately about how I stress out unnecessarily because I dwell too much on what might go wrong. Well, this time, I got tipped over the edge because all kinds of things went wrong. None of them were things I was anticipating, and a lot of things went unbelievably right. But the last several days have been turbulent beyond belief.

First, I picked up my mother Saturday morning to finalize her discharge from rehab and fly her to my sister. The social worker at the rehab facility had been screwing up during the entire last week, making everything much more difficult than it needed to be and everything culminated in my mother being discharged without either a wheelchair or a walker, which was a snafu of epic proportions. So I started off furious about that.

But, the trip went perfectly and we had a lovely weekend. Still, I stewed and stressed over how I was going to have to handle the equipment situation on Monday. I did not want to deal with the social worker any more, because she had messed up every single factor she had any involvement with. So I left a message for the director of the facility at 8:15 Monday morning. She did not get back to me until 4:30 that afternoon. By 2:30, I was so incensed, its a wonder I didn't have a stroke of my own. I faxed a complaint to the State Health Dept.'s Bureau of Quality & Complianced, copied the rehab facility and it's corporate headquarters.

Because of one part of the situation, we needed a new physician for my mother immediately. Against all freaking odds of getting a new patient appointment less than 2 weeks away, we scored one for Tuesday morning. The doctor ordered blood work, which was completed Wednesday morning by 8:30...which had been our appointment time. Yes, we were finished before our appointment time even arrived. After that, we called to ask for a repairman to look at our phone line. He came that afternoon. Unfortunately, he couldn't fix the problem. We called the company who was supposed to finally deliver the walker. He wanted to come that afternoon, but we weren't going to be home. He came the next morning. Unfortunately, once more because of the incompetent social worker, they brought the wrong walker.

We'd think we were catching an incredible break, and sometimes we were, but then things would fall through at the last minute. Up and down, up and down...I've been on an emotional roller coaster and I feel like I've been through the wringer. We got a lot done, but my poor mother still does not have a walker or the motorized wheelchair that she needs to get around on her own. Today, I found out that the rehab facility has misplaced their paperwork for it, and they had submitted an order for the wrong walker. Incompetence squared.

Wednesday morning, I received a call from the Bureau of Quality and Compliance. They were AT the rehab facility. The woman I spoke with said they were going there anyway - have others been complaining? Anyway, she said she saw the fax I'd sent, so she just grabbed it to bring with her. She'd be looking at my mother's chart in detail, but she wanted to touch base with me first. Had our situation been resolved? No, it had not. And it still has not been, close to a week since discharge.

Why does that stupid ass social worker even still have her job?

Anyway, there was much to be done, which is why I arranged to stay for several days. My poor sister just could not afford to take the time off from work that it would have taken her to deal with all this stuff. And we managed to accomplish everything that was within our power, even though some important things were beyond our control. Plus, there were other issues with medication and transportation. And there's so much still left up in the air. If only I could've stayed just one more day. But I couldn't.

Actually, I'm not sure how much we really accomplished. But, still, the steps that needed to be taken were many, and were very time consuming, and I stayed on top of them while I was there. I did all I could, and it was a lot. There is even more I will be dealing with from afar because it can be done by phone, and I am happy to do so. My sister will finish up with the on the spot stuff.

My flight left at 8:25 tonight, but the airport is 45 minutes away from the house. So I had them drop me off right after my sister got off work. About 2.5 hours early. Which brings me full circle to the point at the beginning of the post.

I relished being on my own in unfamiliar surroundings. They were far from any place I particularly wanted to be, and I certainly wasn't alone. But no one else had any claim on my time or attention and I just wandered or stopped whenever I wanted. I enjoyed a very good leisurely dinner, with a nice carafe of wine. Everything about the flight went smoothly, and the drive home was short and uneventful. Loving family greeted me at home and, by then, I was ready to enjoy my time with them. Lots of laughs.

My immediate future holds some obligations that I won't enjoy. But it also holds great gobs of time to myself. A little of it will be all alone, which I'm very much looking forward to. Most of it will be spent among a great many strangers, which won't bother me in the least. I am looking forward seeing some movies, eating out in both new and familiar places, maybe even doing a little shopping - which I usually loathe.

I go back north in February for a weekend. Then, looks like I may be bringing my mother to Louisiana in March to see her family. At that time, hoping to spend some time with my older daughter and 7 yo in New Orleans. My sister and a friend of hers may come along, so it's possible we'll stay in the French Quarter for at least a couple of days. That's as far as I'm looking at this point, but if I make a trip a month, that seems good to me. I'm hoping they won't all be Las Vegas/New Orleans or Vegas/Reno, but it's traveling, and I like to travel. And I like all of those places. I'm just hoping to break out into at least a little something new this year.

But, most of all, I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with myself. I've missed that so much, and I need it. Finally, for at least the next little while, I'm going to get it.

Self-imposed stress

2010-01-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

I've blogged about this before, but today's manifestation was so ludicrous that I just have to publicly confess. I've been dreading today. So, actually, I've been stressing unnecessarily for about a week.

My mother is being discharged from rehab on Saturday and I will be flying her up to my sister's home, where she will be living from now on. I have the greatest admiration for my sister, because she actually wants my mother there with her and is looking forward to having her along at all the activities they both so enjoy. They are both very social, and sociable, and I sincerely hope they will have a very good time together.

Since my sister works full time, and has used up a great deal of her sick/family leave due to my mother's stroke and her own son's bout of pneumonia down here, I am trying to take care of as many of my mother's medical issues as possible. I don't want my sister to have to take more time off from work in order to bring my mother to doctor appointments, because she'll have more than enough to do as it is.

So, I brought my mother to an appointment last week and two today - one this morning and one this afternoon. The one this morning lasted a couple of hours and the one this afternoon lasted a grand total of 5 hours. The one this afternoon also involved shifting her in and out of her wheelchair 3 times. And, of course, it all involved transferring her between the car and the wheelchair several times today.

Let me just say that we are very fortunate that she almost always gets in and out her wheelchair without any difficulty whatsoever. A little bit of shifting, and the thing is done. And just this one skill is like a miracle for us. It means we can take her pretty much anywhere without needing assistance, or buying a special handicapped vehicle. It's not real different from before she had her stroke.

It's just a little different. I do have to help her in and out the wheelchair, so the sweet young women at the various doctor's offices would come and get me whenever she needed to be transferred. It wouldn't take long, maybe a couple of minutes.

And while she was with the doctors...I read...on my Kindle.

I just popped the thing in and out of my handbag, and basically spent the entire day reading in pretty waiting rooms.

So why do I feel like I've been through a freaking wringer?

Everything went smoothly, no complications. One of the doctors didn't quite finish, so we have to go back for about an hour at 8 a.m. tomorrow, but that is not so horrible. We also have another doctor to see at 10:45, but we're done after that.

Just the thought of these two appointments today had me twitchy. Part of it may be the fact that we have very little wiggle room, timewise. It's all gotta get done by Friday.

And, actually, that's not even true. If absolutely necessary, I could take her to appointments Monday through Thursday while I'm up there next week helping her get acclimated.

So WHY????

Why have I been dreading today for the past week? Well, that might have been fear of not getting it all done. Though, as I said, I really had an extra several days to play with - but that would have been just a little bit more complicated.

And why was I so on edge all day, even though everything was going swimmingly?

I wish I knew.

Objectively, there was nothing really stress worthy. Nothing. In and out of car, wheelchair, read for hours at a time in pleasant surroundings. It was a flipping breeze!!!!

But I have been wrapped way too tight all day long, for no good reason. I still am, too. The only thing keeping me together is the realization that this will all be over with a week from tomorrow. I will be back that evening, all of my filial responsibilities completed, including the flight on Saturday. Maybe once every 4 to 6 weeks, I'll go up for a few days so my sister can take off for a long weekend. No problem.

I'm also kind of planning to take my mother back to Louisiana in March to visit her family, but I should be all rested up by then and I'll probably be able to turn her over to my brother for a while. I'm pretty sure he will stress a bit like I do. Fortunately, I believe my sister really doesn't sweat this stuff.

I think, too, it'll be a little easier not having to drive back and forth to see my mother the way I have been while she's been in rehab. Being able to just have a normal routine with just a few alterations related to my mother's mobility issues will not be so exhausting. Plus, she and my mother enjoy a lot of the same things and have more in common.

But the main thing is, I don't think my sister manufactures a great deal of unnecessary stress for herself.

And I wish I didn't either...or that I knew how to stop. Grrrr.

My Year in Photos

2009-12-29T13:05:00.000-08:00

2009

January: Although I was living in Florida, I spent the holidays in Las Vegas, to be with my family. January saw me taking my first trip of the year from Las Vegas to New Orleans. Our ultimate destination was a 4.5 hour drive away.

January 2010 will be different. I'm now living in Las Vegas again, and will have spent the holidays with one daughter while the other one has been living in New Orleans since before Thanksgiving. Hoping to be able to visit her in the not too distant future.

Las Vegas Airport

February: Back in Florida, I was fascinated by the always changing sea. But it was a tough month for me, as I fought against obstacles in trying to complete a project that was of enormous importance to my family. It would not be completed until August, with literally only 1 hour before a deadline that was, for all intents and purposes, final.

Being hamstrung by the lack of productivity from others, I sometimes saw the many different faces of the tides as a metaphor for what I was experiencing. I named this photo Blah but, as you can see, it was actually a little choppy. That's how I felt for most of February.

March: I opened a Twitter account. I still can't decide if the good I get from it is worth the time suck that it is for me. I'm doing fine without Facebook, and I may even be able to do away with having a blog. But I think I need some kind of online presence, and Twitter can maybe function as the bare minimum.
April: This little baby has been a dream come true for me. Internet access from almost anyfreakingwhere. I know it's been possible for years now, using a cell phone. But it wasn't worth it to me to fool with the wires and not have access to my phone while I was online. I was even a little late coming to the party with this particular technology, but it hadn't quite gotten to where I wanted it.

Truthfully, I was even disappointed with it when I got it because it still wasn't the superfast, always available signal I was hoping to get. But it's serving me well. Still, I've recently come to the conclusion that what I really want is a built in SIM on a netbook. Hopefully in 2010.

ATT USB Mercury Data Card

May: Went to Las Vegas to visit my girls, then up to see my sister in Carson City. She introduced us to some nice hangouts, and one of my favorites was Firkin & Fox. They're a small chain, but I'd never heard of them. But I'm a sucker for outdoor dining, and I really liked this place. Lake Tahoe is not too far away, and it's simply gorgeous. But I don't think Carson City will ever be one of my choices. I only got a quick glimpse of Reno, and it does have some lovely areas, but nothing tempted me too much there either. I think I'd like spending some time by the lake, but not in any of the towns I've seen so far.

Yes, I view every place I visit as a potential place to live...at least for a while.

Firkin & Fox

June: Another trip, another return into New Orleans. I don't think it's anything too wonderful as an airport, but I gotta admit, the food choices are different. It wasn't until my older daughter moved there several weeks ago that I realized how many times I'd driven through, or flown into, the city during the year I lived in Florida, and never stopped to visit any old familiar places.

I did drive through the University section once, which is where we used to live, to take my mother to a doctor's appointment, and everything looked pretty much the same as I remembered it. And nothing's different near the airport, either. But it' probably been a good decade since I've been down to the Quarter, and I think I'd like to go back and explore it a bit more in depth. So, naturally, I'm kicking myself for not doing it while I had the time and opportunity. It would've been so much cheaper. Soon, I hope.

July: The 6 year old came to visit us in Florida over the summer. Kinda like a family version of camp. I found she had changed, grown up a bit, in just the several weeks she was with us. I looked at photos from right before she came to us and those from right before she went home and there's a definite difference. Also, between the one below and the one way below from this Christmas seems like a huge difference. Who would have thought that there were such major changes between being 6 and turning 7?

I've lived with this child at a couple of different points in her life, and spent much of the summer with her. We are very close and I really miss her. Probably because we can't Skype the way we did when I was in Florida and she was here. She's waiting on Internet repairs to get broadband. Sigh.

August: The photo below is of Hurricane Claudette closing in on the beach near where I lived in Florida. It was a weak hurricane and it didn't hit us directly, so it was more fascinating than frightening at the time. Looking back, though, it seems like a huge, hovering omen.

Within days of this shot, we were on our way out of Florida. The plan was that I'd drop off my mother at my brother's house near Baton Rouge, where she'd stay for several weeks and have cataract surgery. But before we could leave, we'd have to spend 24 hours at a local hospital because it looked like my mother might be having a stroke. Turned out to be a false alarm but, by the time we reached my brother's home, she'd had a real one and its effects began rolling out slowly. So slowly that it was days before she was correctly diagnosed.

So my road trip was postponed, as I spent more than 2 weeks in the hospital with her. She seemed to always be in fairly good condition, considering. The stroke was pronounced a mild one and her prognosis was very good. She'd walk and talk again. But when she got aspiration pneumonia and began weakening rapidly, I had to wonder if I'd be going to a funeral before moving back to Nevada. But she's a fighter, and she came back strong.

At the time, we all said that we'd be thrilled if she could just get to the point where she could go out to eat and see a movie. Because that was her favorite thing to do and it would greatly add to the quality of her life. We reached that point a few weeks ago. Now our hope is that she'll be able to manage alone while my sister's at work, because she'll be moving up there in less than 2 weeks, and she really doesn't want to have a stranger babysitting her. We'll find out soon.

September: My birthday month, and I got to do one of my favorite things. ROAD TRIP!!! And all alone! I hadn't done that since my early twenties. The highlight was stopping in San Antonio. I'd driven straight through it several times, in a hurry to get back across the country in one direction or the other. But, all of a sudden, I wanted to see the Alamo. And I was more impressed by it than I expected to be. Even more unexpected was the beauty of the architecture downtown, and the gorgeous Riverwalk below. As I mentioned before, I just love outdoor dining areas. Big bonus points for outdoor dining on water. (Jackpot when it's a beach)

October: Two pieces of technology that have changed my life. No more carrying pound of books around. Ordering new reading material in the middle of the night? Didn't take long for me to make that dream come true. I waited too long to buy it, and the same is true of the phone. When AT&T came out with the second version of its TILT, the phone had everything I wanted. I think that was maybe 2007. I have no idea why I didn't jump on both of these. But I'm thrilled down to my toes to have'em now.

November: Looks pretty good for an 86 year old woman who's had a stroke, don't you think? I flew her over here on October 25. It was a nightmare, because she could not move on her own at all. Almost exactly a month later, on Thanksgiving Day, she left the rehab center for the 1st time, to spend the day with my sister's family. She got in and out of the car with very little assistance. Since then, I've taken her out all by myself several times - to eat out, or to eat out and see a movie and soon to doctor's appointments. If anyone ever tells you that rehab can seem to work miracles, you can believe them.

We went to a movie the day after Christmas and, while my sister was getting the snacks, I brought my mother into the theater. There was no special handicapped row, we'd have to sit in the 1st row. I asked my mother if she'd been practicing climbing up and down the step in the therapy room and she said yes, so I gave her the choice of craning her neck or trying to climb the wide shallow steps in the theater. She chose to climb and, while the going was slow, it was not very difficult. That was a major milestone, and probably the best gift of the whole holiday season for our family.

December: This month has been a lot about the special kids in our family. I'm living with the toddler and the almost 7 year old is halfway across the country. The two of them have made me realize just how easy I had it, raising two calm children, even though I was a single parent from the time my youngest was a year old. These two are waaaaaaayyyyyy more energetic, and are soooooooo much more cranky than either of my two EVER were. But I love'em anyway. They're both very entertaining, which helps.

2009 had some very difficult challenges for me, and for many in my family. But I know of others who have had it much, much worse. Also, our family seems to have come through just fine and we are extremely grateful for that. Net positive, I'll take it.

I am looking forward very much to 2010. There are signs that it may be the year I finally get to do some things I've been working toward for over 5 years, and that my daughters may be finally getting to achieve goals of their own that have been a long time in the making.

I'm not naive enough to believe that it will be all smooth sailing, life always has its ups and downs. But if we end the next year no worse off than this one, with everyone healthy enough and provided for well enough, then I will be more than satisfied. For all of us, and all of you, I wish 2010 be filled with peace and joy.

Happy New Year.

If You Have a Dream...

2009-12-16T19:39:00.000-08:00

Fabulous advice from a guy who's an inspiration for following a dream.

"If you have a dream, decide today to make it a reality. Get a pencil and paper and make a list of what has to happen to bring your dream to life. Get detailed. Make it a huge long list. Then simply start knocking off each item on the list and you’ll get there."

Lee Winter

sailingforSOS.com

Silver Linings

2009-12-09T23:08:00.001-08:00

Update: This post accidentally published itself before I was finished with it so, sorry for the duplicates in your feed reader.

I'm sure that my mother would have preferred not having a stroke, and I would definitely have preferred a different way but, as it turns out, participating in my mother's recovery has caused me to lose a great deal of unwanted weight. In fact, it's been tailor made for me.

When she first had the stroke, I was at my heaviest and needed to burn up a lot of calories to make a noticeable difference. Since she was pretty much dead weight on her right side, I was expending a lot of energy helping her to move around. Now that I've lost quite a lot of weight, I don't need to be quite so active...and I'm not. Because my mother is doing so much for herself now, I'm not needing to do nearly as much.

But I've still got a good 15 pounds left, at least, that I'd like to drop. And I do still have to do a lot of bending, lifting and supporting. So I'm hoping several more will be gone by the time she leaves in a month.

On the same topic, I hate the floors in the house we're renting. They are like dirt magnets and I have to deep clean them almost every day by going over them at least 2 or 3 times. And that is a very sweaty workout. So, more burning of calories.

And this one seems like it should be filed under the Mysterious Ways category. My mother went into the hospital today for a fairly routine outpatient procedure but, due to a snafu on the doctor's office's part, she couldn't have it done today. So we rescheduled for next week and then went upstairs to see my nephew, who was supposed to have been discharged yesterday but was waiting on bureaucracy. This was a very good thing, because she had been very worried about him since hearing he had pneumonia, and it helped a lot for her to see him looking so good.

So, major problems to minor inconveniences, it seems like we've been fortunate in our difficulties. There area worse things.

Traveling Ever More Lightly

2009-12-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

When I flew to Lousiana to bring my mother back to Las Vegas around the middle of October, I'd just gotten my new HTC Touchpro 2 and thought I'd try making the 4-day trip without my laptop. I still had the 6.5 pound Dell and I just didn't feel like lugging it around anymore if I didn't absolutely have to. I could check my e-mail, rss reader, twitter and textsfromlastnight.com from my phone, as well as any maps I might need. I figured those were about the only things I couldn't go 4 days without. And I was right.

Only, the day after I got back, my right middle finger felt like it was broken for over a week. I couldn't figure out why until I picked up the stylus for my phone. Um, yeah, waaay too much time online with a tiny screen.

Still, it was so wonderful to travel superlight, with just a tiny carry-on and my purse. It felt like freedom.

Both of those items were extremely cheap and bought years ago. I believe the duffle bag is actually decades old.

But the phone as a main computing solution was just not going to cut it, even for short trips, unless I wanted to totally kill my hand. So I was more determined than ever to get a netbook. I had...or, at least, thought I had...the luxury of time and was waiting for some models to become available when I suddenly found myself without a laptop.

My older daughter decided to move to New Orleans and actually moved to New Orleans all within just a few days. (Yep, I'd trained her well. *Wiping tear from corner of eye*) And I gave her my laptop.

I'd actually bought the pink laptop to give to 6 year old for Christmas last year, but she didn't seem quite careful enough to be responsible for it. And, to tell the truth, she still doesn't. She's been using computers since she was 3, but she's a very rough little girl. However, I finally realized that she will probably always be very rough and it so happened they were without a laptop, so I gave it to them.

Which meant that I was dependent upon the ancient desktop in my daughter's bedroom. My younger daughter, with whom I live, who goes to work at 6 a.m. and has to be in bed by 9 p.m., leaving me with my phone until I went to sleep hours later.

But, first...I finally gave in and got a Kindle. It may be several months - at the very least - before I board a transatlantic flight, but the lure of an international Kindle was too much for me to resist. I should have given it a post of its own so I could go into raptures over how much I love this device and verbally kick myself for not getting one sooner but, suffice it to say that it has become my constant companion and went a big way toward easing the pain of losing my laptop.

For a while, my phone and Kindle were all I needed to supplement the time I spent on the desktop dinosaur. But I never stopped trying to figure out what I was going to do about a permanent computing solution. It was going to have to be some combo of netbook and larger laptop, but I didn't want to commit to any of the combinations I was finding available.

Until...

I found an ad for a cheap refurbished netbook that I thought I could live with until I made up my mind about what I would do permanently. What made it most attractive is that I could get it bundled with a very slim, inexpensive external DVD drive, which I desperately needed if I was going to be buying netbooks and notebooks with no optical drives. Well, that and the fact that it was red!

Side question: When we will finally be rid of disks? Both my phone and the DVD drive came with disks. Of course, it may be that they are both also available online as downloads. I know that the Quicken program I bought is and, to this day, I can't remember why I didn't download it instead of buying the stupid disk. I am kind of afraid, though, that I'll get stuck when I change computers and not be able to re-download stuff that I've paid for.

Anyway, I am now in the happy position of being able to fit all of my tech in a smallish handbag and I find that both thrilling and amazing. What's really weird is that this purse seems to have been made with my tech needs in mind. Look at this:

There is a small outside zippered pocket which is perfect for keys, lipstick, etc. - small stuff I need to access often and quickly. I'd love to put my phone in there, but I don't want it getting scratched up by my keys.

Then there is the main zippered compartment in the middle where my wallet, phone, glasses, etc. belong. It's big enough to put a small brush, my camera and other things if I need to.

What is so cool, though, is that there are two open pockets on either side of the main zippered compartment. They are perfectly sized for items that are about the size of half a sheet of paper. This is where I put my itinerary and rental car info when I travel, to access quickly whenever I need to. But NOW, my Kindle goes in one pocket and my netbook in the other! And there's still plenty of room for my travel docs with the Kindle.

And, just for good measure, there is another small zippered compartment inside one of the open pockets. This is for small items I don't use very often, but are very important, and I want to keep them securely out of the way so they don't accidentally fall out when I'm taking stuff out of the larger areas. These are mainly my aircard and flash drives, but I will often put my camera there instead of the larger compartment.

So this is what I'm traveling with these days.

My (RED) netbook. It's an Eee PC 900HD, which I will post about later. My Kindle, phone, aircard and flash drive.

Seriously, I could travel the world with no more than this, for a very long time. And it all fits in my purse!!!

My goal is now to assemble a wardrobe that will fit into the duffle bag. I've already got several pieces that are lightweight and non-wrinkle, and I will soon begin a quest for more - plus some slightly heavier warmer pieces. But my tech is in place and I have the perfect container for it.

So, when I finally do get to the point where I'm ready to book that transatlantic flight, I will be freaking ready!

Well...almost, anyway. I will have to figure out what I want to do about international Internet access while traveling. But there's time yet for that. In the meantime, I will probably have at least 2 domestic round trips. And they will be a breeze compared to how I've always traveled, which was not nearly light enough even though I've rarely checked bags in the last several years.

Finally, I've almost got it all exactly as I want it.

Paris, Las Vegas Style

2009-11-25T18:22:00.000-08:00

So I went to the Paris Hotel on the Strip, hoping to find a remotely French experience. And maybe if I'd tried one of the crepes at the Creperie, I would have. But, basically, the inside of that hotel is worse than Epcot.

The fake sky ceiling is even less effective than at Caeser's or the Venetian because the ceilings are lower at the Paris. The pathways seem narrower, too, so it's nothing at all like being on a boulevard...no matter what the sign says.

The names of most everything are in French, although there was a Shooz.

There were more than enough places to eat, and included a variety, not just French. Le Provencal had pizza, among other offerings.

Napoleon's was a very nice looking lounge.

I ate at the Le Cafe, which was the 24 hour coffee shop every major Vegas hotel sports. The menu wasn't as extensive as I expected, but it did have a nice variety, including a small section of Asian offerings.

I was tempted by the French styled hamburger, which was topped by Bleu Cheese, but decided to go with the calamari. I hadn't had it in a while and a fellow blogger recently mentioned the dish. Well, as I wrote in a comment to that post, all the calamari I'd ever had was in Italian restaurants and they were firm and tasty. These must have been imported from the U.K., because they were as tender and bland as Mike says they are in England.

The creme brulee had a little more flavor, although some of it was from the slightly burnt caramelized sugar it was topped with. Still, that at least satisfied the craving.

For coffee shop fare, though, it really couldn't be faulted. In fact, I thought it was admirable that these things were even on the menu. And it's not like they were actually bad. Oh, btw, the calamari was an appetizer. In case anyone was thinking it was a little chintzy for an entree. And for anyone wondering about Las Vegas Strip hotel prices, the calamari was about $11 and the creme brulee about $6, I think. The whole bill came to $18 and change, after tax and before tip. I just had ice water, so there was no drink on the tab.

The decor continued even into the bathrooms.

I have to say that I did like their light treatments. Particularly since the ceilings felt low, it was nice they didn't try to hang chandeliers everywhere. But the lovely medallions around the fixtures added some style.

All in all, I'd have to say that the overwhelming feeling I had inside the Paris Hotel was one of claustrophobia. It was dark and close and totally lacking in any resemblance to the charm of the actual city it was trying to replicate. Plus, the food wasn't that good. So...my verdict is FAIL!

Big surprise, there, huh?

On the way home, I had to pass in front of Hard Rock, which I hadn't seen in a mighty long time because nothing ever takes me that way these days.

I took this picture when stopped at the light. I don't know why the sign says cafe instead of hotel. I think there may be another one a little ways down, and maybe that one says hotel. Were they afraid that people might not realize there was a Hard Rock Cafe in the Hard Rock Hotel?

Anyway, I used to be a frequent visitor there, but it's been under different management for a while now. I'm curious to see if there are any noticeable differences, so it may be my next stop.

Well there's another episode of exploring my current hometown. Let me know if there is anything you'd particularly like to see or hear about and I'll do my best to oblige. Always with the caveat, of course, that I take pretty awful pictures and I always have. So that's not likely to change any time soon.

Oh yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. I had a pumpkin walnut muffin for breakfast as my personal nod to the occasion, and I'm thinking of maybe throwing together a quick pumpkin soup now that I'm getting a little hungry. Hope everyone had a nice day and that you've all got a great deal to be thankful for.

Giving Thanks...Antisocially

2009-11-24T20:56:00.000-08:00

I have an enormous amount of things to give thanks for this year, much of it for blessings received by members of my family.

My mother had a stroke and she's recovering much better than I thought was possible. My older daughter has moved halfway across the country and, while I will miss her and the 6 year old immensely, I am so grateful that she was able to do so because I believe it will be an excellent change for her. My younger daughter seems to be doing quite well working toward personal and professional goals and the 18 month old is a joy.

Even our extended families are fine. All of my mother's 5 siblings and their families, my 2 siblings and their families - everyone seems to be doing okay. And I am very, very thankful for all of that.

Also, I very much enjoy spending time with my family, they're a very fun group.

But I plan to eat my Thanksgiving dinner alone. In a restaurant.

After Halloween, Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday. I've written about it before, here. But, basically, to me, it involved a lot of food - most of which I never liked much although I do now, a lot of mess and confusion, and too many people crowded around a table.

I began to dislike it more as a grown up because my mother made a huge mess cooking the meal and never cleaned up as she went along, didn't have containers ready for leftovers or room for them in the fridge. The meal, to me, was never anywhere near worth the aftermath. Which is why we - my little nuclear family, of which I was the boss - started eating out on holidays.

And the plan this year was for me, my older daughter and the 6 year old to have dinner out together. But, of course, they are in New Orleans now and I'm not going there for a holiday dinner. Particularly as they are staying with my ex-husband for the time being.

My younger daughter is going to her significant other's family for the holiday, and my mother is going to spend the afternoon - thanks to her much coveted 4 hour pass from the rehab facility - with my sister and her family. At my sister's ex-husband's home. Yes, sometimes we keep people in the family on an unofficial basis.

I am more than welcome to celebrate the holiday at either of those venues.

I just don't want to.

There will be a lot of big males watching football for hours in each location. A lot of food before, during and after THE meal...which means, of course, a lot of mess to clean up. While I enjoy the company of all of the males, I'm not following football this year and I really don't want to deal with any of the mess. And all of the big males, much as I like them, will be squeezed into homes meant for fewer - or smaller - people. It makes me claustrophobic just to think about it.

My daughters understand, but my mother and sister and all of the males will think I'm crazy. Well, most of them think I'm a little odd, anyway, so I'm not going to let that bother me.

I think this is going to be my first stand in "start as you mean to go on".

I'm not going to keep doing things because they fit other people's expectations of how things should be done.

For a long time now, I've been doing stuff like this for my mother's sake, because I felt I owed it to her for all she's done for me for so many years. But what I've been doing for the last year and a half, particularly the last few months, and I what I will continue to do as long as she needs me to do so, I feel has brought us on equal footing.

For something of real importance, I will always be willing to make her happy. But spending several hours in a manner I do not enjoy, for a tradition I do not believe in, is just not important enough. I spend several hours a day with her. Every day. Spending it in a different location is not going to make a difference to anyone.

I will stop in and visit for a bit. Say hi, maybe have a few sips of wine and some laughs. And then leave. After which I will spend the rest of the day however I damn well please.

One of the things I had been giving thanks for on pretty much a daily basis is the freedom I now have. When my mother moved to rehab here several weeks ago, that changed overnight. For the next few days, while my sister is in town, I will be spending very little time at the rehab facility. So I get a long holiday weekend to do with as I please. No commitments from late tomorrow morning to Sunday afternoon.

I happen to be a person who needs a lot of alone time. And, between babysitting and elder care, I haven't been getting nearly enough of it. Now's my chance, and I'm going to take it. Spending more time with my family on a particular day, when I've been spending more than enough time with them every freaking day, just makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I'm looking forward to some relaxing and recharging time, some exploring time and maybe even some productive time. But even if I just veg out completely over the next four days, it's my choice. It might even be exactly what I need to get through the next several weeks, until I get another break at Christmas, when I may actually head out to New Orleans...if I so choose.

Living at the Speed of Light

2009-11-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

This time of year always flies by, for almost everyone. Always. This year, for me, it is dragging along at half-speed. And yet, so much is going on that you'd think it would be flying by even faster. But, no, it's crawling by.

Thanksgiving is next week. My sister will be coming in on Tuesday for a bit of a holiday and to spend time with our mother. It will be such a break for me. I mean, I'll still stop in every day for an hour or two and visit. But, for about 4 days in a row, I'll won't be spending entire days at the rehab center with my mother. Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday will be particularly relaxing because I don't have baby duty on those days either.

So, looking forward to that shortly.

In the meantime, however, rapidly developing events will have my older daughter moving to the New Orleans area and taking the 6 year old with her. Saturday night.

Although it has been wonderful having my whole family together here, and I will certainly miss them, I am finding this an exciting development. And there is Skype, after all.

While I have been enjoying Las Vegas this time around more than I have ever done before, I know that this is a fairly temporary situation, probably about a year, tops. And one of the places I've kind of been hoping to go back to and explore is New Orleans.

Although I've flown and driven in and out of the city many times in the last several years, I haven't actually spent any time there outside of the airport area. I was most conveniently situated to do so over the past year, but I wasn't in any frame of mind to enjoy that type of outing during that time. Now that I am, I'm all the way across the country.

Still, there are plans to bring my mother back to Louisiana in the Spring to visit her family. I'm hoping to take that opportunity to spend a little time checking out New Orleans while I'm there. I've spent virtually no time there since Katrina and I'm very curious to see how it's coming along. If possible, I may even take a quick trip at Christmas.

In any case, what I'm finding most exciting is that this is the beginning of our family exodus. When I left for Florida last year, I'd hoped that the girls would follow, one by one. Well, it didn't happen and here I am again. That's okay, since I'm enjoying Las Vegas again. Except for a few years the last time I lived here, I'd always enjoyed this city, even when - especially when - it was a much smaller place. So it was very sad for me to have hated living here for a few years. I'm glad I've found pleasure in being here again, because it's always been one of my favorite places. It's so much different to be a resident here, than a visitor.

Still, a year or so should do me here. And I probably won't be ready to go back to Florida. So maybe New Orleans could be an option.

My younger daughter has been trying to convince her significant other to move out of the city, and he's been opposed to beach locations because the sun has not been kind to him. But New Orleans might be tempting enough to do the trick.

So it's possible that the three of us could end up in the same city again in the not too distant future, and New Orleans would be a very interesting city to revisit. We've lived there a few times before, but not since early 2003, so I guess we're about due for another look.

And it's a few hours flying time closer to where I'd like to travel. So there's that.

HOWEVER

I'm still doing my best to appreciate where I am and what I'm doing and staying fully focused in the present. And I will continue to do so.

But this is a very welcome development.

Turning Comments into Blog Posts

2009-11-11T22:58:00.000-08:00

For the second time tonight, I've realized that a comment on someone else's blog was really meant to be a full post on my own. This one is in honor of my father on Veteran's Day.

I didn't know until I was in high school that my middle aged father had been a paratrooper - a paratrooper?!? - in WWII. Or that he, too, had fought in the Battle of the Bulge - which even I had already heard of - and had a Purple Heart.

After growing up with one image of my father, as - duh - my father, a quick telling of a story he did not like thinking of even 30 years later (indeed which continued to haunt him in nightmares for the rest of his life), changed him in my eyes forever.

He and several other paratroopers had been spotted being dropped down behind enemy lines and were discovered by the Germans, who then proceeded to line them all up against trees and shoot them with machine guns. Only the sounds of approaching allied troops kept the Germans from adding more shots to make sure everyone was killed...especially when it was obvious that they pretty much were.

I believe one other man, besides my father, may have survived that shooting. The fact that they were at the end of the lineup, together with the natural gravity of a machine gun to drop slightly at the end of a spray, meant that my father was wounded in his leg instead of some more fatal spot. But he had fainted and probably looked dead enough to get by.

And get by he did. Someone even included his life story in a book. (Including even a little bit about me, but not nearly so interesting.)

When he found out that he had inoperable cancer 30 years later, and was given six months to live, he said that he'd always felt - since that night - that he'd been living on borrowed time. And after experimental medications bought him an extra 18 months, he repeated the sentiment.

And he'd made the most of it, with very few regrets. Which is probably about the best you could say for anyone.

Unexpected Insights

2009-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

Strange how articulating something in the comments of someone's blog turns out to be more than you imagined. The quote below has just surprised me in such a situation, but it's a sentiment I wanted to record here for future reference.

In a way, one of the silver linings of my mother's stroke is the newly developed closeness and patience I have found in our relationship. I fear that the closer she gets back to normal, the more our relationship will revert to what it was.

But, first of all, she will not get completely back to normal. And second, no matter what, these past weeks have made up for a good deal of the conflict we've had in the past.

Saved from a fate worse than death

2009-11-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

It's pretty certain that my mother will not recover fully from her stroke. We will be more than satisfied, though, if she recovers enough to enjoy a high quality of life. And that does seem doable at this point.

It seems that she will be able to walk well enough to go from her wheelchair to other places of rest. This will make an enormous difference to her, in planes and bathrooms, as well as other places. Believe me, this is a HUGE help.

It looks like she may not regain much, if any, movement in her right arm. Well, there are amputees who manage without an arm, so this is not actually critical.

What would really be of a great deal of help to her is if she can gain even a little more control of her right hand and fingers. This would allow her to remove lids and caps from things, by holding them in her weak hand while removing the tops with her good one.

So she is making very satisfactory progress to this point, physically, and we are thrilled. A very recent development, however, is how much her thinking has returned to normal. She wants to start getting out and around and she's much more interested and aware of what's going on in the world now.

There is a small bus that takes residents of the facility to various places and she has expressed interest in going on outings. She really wants to get out of there and start seeing something besides medical facilities and, given her nature, I'm not surprised. Indeed, I am very encouraged.

We are told that the doctor may even give his permission for us to take her off the premises ourselves, so we are hoping she will be able to travel easier by Thanksgiving, when my sister will be in town. That way, she can go and have dinner with all of them. It's a little to crowded and chaotic for my tastes, so I will just drop by for a bit and say hi.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before, I'm pretty sure I must have because I usually do, but my mother and my sister are very much alike. They both like to go, go, go all the time. And they like going a lot of the same places, to a lot of the same events.

So, when my mother expressed an interest in seeing Donny & Marie, I told her my sister would take her.

*Saved from a fate worse than death.*

Delayed Gratification, NOT Putting My Life on Hold

2009-11-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

One thing I am trying very hard to do, and it's been an overarching theme in my life lately, is to enjoy where I am at any given time. Instead of constantly obsessing over where I'd really like to be - which, for the past few years, has been Europe.

The problem, for me, is that I am so familiar with the places I've been living the last decade and I'm now yearning to experience some very different environments...but can't quite yet. Or rather, I could, but am choosing to fulfill a couple of obligations first.

And it's kind of hard not to think that, given the train of events, that fate is taking a hand.

For the last several years, and particularly the last year in Florida, I've been mostly responsible for my mother. When my younger daughter informed me, several months ago, that she could really use my help, it was time to make other arrangements. This was not really a problem, because my sister wanted my mother to go live with her and my mother wanted to go live with my sister.

Problem solved.

Except, just as I was delivering her to my brother for one last month long visit, my mother had a stroke.

I mean, literally, it's been determined that she had the stroke at some point during the 5 hour drive from Florida to Louisiana.

Soooo...that, naturally, postponed my departure.

Still, there was a definite deadline at which time I needed to be at my daughter's house, and I finally began my cross country road trip. About 3 weeks later than planned.

After spending an entire year alone with my mother, except when traveling and the odd visit from my brother with or without some of his family, and 3 weeks staying with her in the hospital - including all by myself during the worst part of when she had pneumonia, I felt no guilt upon turning that responsibility over to my siblings.

I sincerely felt, and still do, that I had done all that could have been expected of me. No one disagreed, or denied the fact that my daughter's need was of a higher priority while my siblings could take over with my mother.

Here's the thing that I haven't probed too deeply into, though.

While I love my family dearly, and enjoy being close to them, I would have loved taking a quick trip to Europe in between mom and daughter. Loved it more than I can even tell you here. I mean, it would have sustained me for a great long time - and I had the time. Two weeks, with time to spare on either end. It would have been more than enough. Until my mother had her stroke.

Okay, that was a little delay, BUT there was actually a second chance. A space of about 10 days in October when my daughter didn't actually need me here. Not quite as good as 2 weeks, but I would have been more than happy with it. More than happy. Particularly since October is one of my favorite months to be in Europe.

But I got the bright idea to move my mother to a rehab facility here in Las Vegas. And all of those available days would be perfect for me to spend with her while she adjusted to her new place.

It was a great idea, and it's working out well for everyone. My brother and his wife no longer have the burden of commuting half an hour each way to spend every day with her because they are her only relatives in the area. Here, we have gobs of people to drop in, and I can stay all day long 4 days a week. Plus, my Mom gets to see most of her grandkids over an extended period of time, which she won't be able to do so much once she moves up to my sister's house. Which should be no later than the 1st week in January.

I'm a little tired but, hey, it's just for a couple more months.

Of course, I'm not interested in going to Europe in January. Or February. Maybe late March.

In the meantime, all the activities I had planned for the 4 free days I had every week have been pretty much on hold.

When I first came back to Las Vegas this time, I was truly amazed at how much more pleasant it was than the last time I lived here - which wasn't all that long ago. But, really, my daughter only needed me for a few hours a day a few days a week. The rest of the time, I could start reclaiming the life I'd pretty much put on hold for the last few years while I was responsible for my mother.

And, by the way, I don't really mean to sound like all that time with my mother was torture. We do have a difficult relationship sometimes but, for the most part, we are fine together. We just don't enjoy very much of the same things, so we didn't really have a whole lot of fun together. And that was every bit as hard on her as it was on me. More so, actually, because she likes to be out and about a LOT more than I do. And there just wasn't much in the small Florida town where we were that I felt was worth getting out for.

That was probably a huge misconception on my part. Probably, if I'd have taken the time to look, there would have been many more things we could have done. But at the time, for the last several months of the year we were there in fact, I was involved in an extremely stressful project that left me little energy or desire to do much of anything. In hindsight, I probably would have been better off looking for things to distract me on a regular basis. We both would have had more fun. Nothing to do about that now, though, except learn from it.

Still, first my mother and now my daughter. Instead of Europe.

I wasn't chafing, though, because I planned to look for diversions all over town in my spare time. And Las Vegas is full of diversions. Even if you don't like to gamble.

However, spending most of almost every day by my mother's side in a rehab facility is making it a little tough to find time for pleasurable diversions. But now that she's had over a week to acclimate to her new surroundings, and there are various people popping in and out to see her, I think I'm going to start taking a little time for myself.

I think I have to.

I do feel like I'm putting my life on hold for a bit, delaying something I want very badly because someone I love needs me. And I don't resent - or regret - it at all. Europe's not going anywhere and I've waited this long, another few months are no big deal.

Also, as I've (half) jokingly tweeted recently, it's not why I'm doing any of this, but I hope it's worth some good karma toward getting what I want later.

But I do need some quality time for myself now. Time to enjoy the activities that I was looking forward to exploring.

I'm hoping it won't be too much longer, late March?, until I can finally do what I want most. But I don't want to spend all that time just looking forward to some future event. As I've been saying, I want to enjoy my present, not live in the past or the future. One's done, and can't be changed. The other is, by by it's very nature, always uncertain. Now is the only thing we can be absolutely sure of and I want to wring every drop of joy from it that I can.

If I do that, then I'm not really putting my life on hold, I'm actually making the most of it.

Adjusting

2009-10-31T09:27:00.000-07:00

It's so strange to think that it's only been a week since I brought my mother to Las Vegas. Time usually flies by so fast, particularly at this time of year. But it feels so much more like 2 or even 3 times longer than that. Seriously, I am so amazed that it's been only 7 days.

Part of that, I guess, is because I spend most of every day at rehab with her and the days there feel very long. She's usually done with both physical and occupational therapy by the time I get there. They wake her up and start at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. and are usually done by breakfast. I'm usually there when they're doing speech therapy, and I stay in her room while she goes to lunch.

She sleeps a lot, because the work she is doing is very strenuous for her, so it wears her out. I have my computer set up on the hospital tray table in her room and, between that and my new Kindle, I'm pretty much occupied. But the day still goes by very, very slowly.

The last couple of days got to be a little overwhelming because I had charge of the 6 year old and the toddler, after spending hours on end at the rehab facility. But the kids played very well together all evening and yesterday morning, so it could have been so much harder. Still, it wasn't a good time for me and I was feeling very frazzled.

I was running on fumes, because I hadn't been sleeping.

Still trying to release the last remnants of stress, I guess. But I went a couple days in a row on just 3 hours of sleep each, and I think it could have been avoided. Sometimes I can kind of cheat insomnia a little just by taking an aspirin, plus my daughter actually has prescription meds she'd be happy to share with me if necessary. I don't know why I put myself through the strain of coping without help, it's just stupid.

However, it all seems to be settling down. Almost all the news on the Mom front is good, and the few setbacks are very minor and temporary. So I feel like I can relax a little bit now. Everything is starting to feel much more under control. Amazing what some decent sleep can do.

One fabulous indirect result of the last couple of weeks is that I lost a significant amount of weight. Between the stress - mostly unwarranted though it was - and bringing little tiny lunches to eat at rehab the past week, I've lost enough to look just normally overweight, not big enough to compare myself to various stages of pregnancy.

You see, I've got tiny bones and, no matter how big or small I am, my arms and legs never really get that big. I've got the hands of an eight year old. So all of my extra weight is concentrated around my torso. That's always made it easy for me cover it up because I like big loose tops over leggings.

But once it reached past a certain point, the pregnancy look kicked in. And stayed.

I don't know how much I lost, or how much I weigh now, because we don't have a scale. But I'm only a sliver over 5'1" and I know I'd gotten a little over 140 pounds, waaaayyyy too much. For me, anyway, because of my build. My sister is just a hair taller than me, but her bones are bigger and her build is different, and she can easily carry about 15 pounds more than me and still look great. While I just look pregnant.

I'm still overweight, but the protruding stomach is gone. My stomach has shrunk and gets full on very little these days. The rehab lets me use the small microwave in their dining room and my lunch has been a couple of days of Lean Cuisine plus a carton of low fat yogurt, one of those tuna fish and crackers packs and one day of leftover fried rice. One day I shared a bit of my Mom's breakfast and one day I picked up a breakfast sandwich plus hash browns at McD's.

All I know is that I was eating so much less than usual, while calories were being burned by stress and walking around the rehab facility - sometimes while pushing a wheelchair with about 140 pounds of Mom in it. And the pounds seem to have melted off. Now, I'm consciously trying to continue that, to get to the holidays with most of the extra weight gone. Then, hopefully, begin martial arts classes in January.

I'm still tired, not quite caught up yet on sleep. But I am starting to relax a bit. I went out to my favorite restaurant last night - more leftovers for lunch today - then out to a movie. Had a glass of wine.

The movie, Couples Retreat, was barely mediocre. But there were just enough amusing moments and more than enough gorgeous French Polynesian scenery to help the loosening up process. Still, I wouldn't recommend anyone buy a full price ticket to see it. In fact, imo, it's barely worth a matinee priced ticket.

As I tweeted last night, I believe Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau wrote that script to get an all expense paid trip to Tahiti, or wherever it was filmed...plus their various fees, writing for the two of them plus producing for Vince Vaughn. It looks like they've made their production budget back in 3 weeks, though, so great work if you can get it.

In any case, I had a much needed break, and I'm hoping things will continue to improve from here as they have every indication of doing. As long as no other trauma or drama pops up over the next couple of months, I think I can get through this okay. Knock wood.

Will I Ever Learn?

2009-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

There is stress due to external factors, often beyond your control, and there is stress that you manufacture out of thin air because of stuff you imagine MIGHT happen. Possibilities that may be anything from inconvenient to utterly impossible to deal with. I've been up close and personal with both kinds and I'm telling you that there is no reason whatsoever for the second kind.

Seriously, I do not have any idea what it will take for this lesson to sink in. If shit happens, then you deal with it. You can anticipate developments and try to create solutions to them, but just worrying whether they will happen? A total waste of time.

I am exhausted from the stress of the last 4 days, and you know what? NOTHING HAPPENED!!! Not one single thing happened over the last 4 days to knock our course of action off track.

And, you know what else? It wouldn't have been that big of a deal if something had gone wrong, because I had an incredible 4 day cushion to deal with any problems. Yet, here I am, a major wreck.

Here's the deal.

Wednesday morning, I flew from Las Vegas to New Orleans. Rented a car, drove about an hour to Baton Rouge.

My flight was supposed to land at 3:55 p.m. and I was afraid that, by the time I got a shuttle to the rental car place and got out of there, I'd get stuck right in the middle of rush hour traffic. Even though the airport is right on the edge of town in the direction I was heading in. Also, it was very cloudy and it seemed to be worse in the direction I was heading. So, lots of possibilities for icky stuff, including accidents because of wet roads.

The reality was, I had a smooth non-stop flight, got a car and was well outside of town by 5:01 p.m., and it didn't start raining until I was all cozy in bed that night. No problems whatsoever.

Now, the purpose of my trip was to pick up my mother and bring her to Las Vegas, which I have done many times in the past. Except this is the first time I've tried it since she had her stroke. She can move the fingers on her right hand but can't lift her arm. She can drag her right leg and pivot, but she can't walk.

She can't walk.

Suddenly, everything is a thousand times more complicated. Getting her from the car to a wheelchair requires assistance. As does getting her from the wheelchair to the airplane seat. As does...taking her to the bathroom.

There are no words to describe the dread I had about taking on the responsibility of this trip all by myself. Last night I found myself wishing I could just fast forward to this evening - right about now - when it was all over. Without even realizing it, I had spontaneously fallen into a fervent prayer. It was a really, really simple one. "Please help me get through tomorrow."

And, again, NOTHING HAPPENED. Yep, my prayer was answered.

There were guys to help her out of the car and into the wheelchair, and to help with the luggage, a wonderful woman to help in the bathroom and another wonderful guy on the plane. Landing in Las Vegas, there a couple of wonderful women at the plane and a great guy to help with the luggage.

The flight was non-stop, we took off in beautiful weather and landed in an even more gorgeous climate and environment. No problems on either of my flights or during the trip. NOT ONE.

A literally flawless trip, I could not have designed it to be more perfect.

But I have been wound waaayyyy too tight for over 4 days now. For no reason.

My mother had a stroke. Then she got aspirational pneumonia, again while I was alone with her. It was very touch and go for a little while. There's a good reason for stress, if you're looking for a prime example.

So I know the difference between a major stress inducer and a non-existent one. Why, then, does the stress feel the same?

I must be one hell of a fine stress manufacturer. I can create it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. The question is why?

I have no answer.

My mother's stroke left her paralyzed on her right side and unable to speak intelligibly. Except when she's tired, she can now speak so that I am able to understand her without even having to strain. She can lift and drag her right foot, move the fingers on her right hand.

All of that is after a little over 3 weeks of therapy. Medicare and her supplemental insurance will pay for another almost 80 days, as long as she continues to improve. That she has come this far in such a short time gives me great hope as to what she can accomplish over such a long period. All of that, imo, is cause for joy.

She had a stroke, got pneumonia and has survived with the possibility of regaining enough function to enjoy a very reasonable quality of life. She is here in Las Vegas where 6 of her 8 grandchildren, 2 of her 3 great-grandchildren and one of her sisters can visit with her all the time. Even now, in the shape she's in now, she can laugh and talk and enjoy her family. Even if she never got any better than she is now, there is still so much she can enjoy. Every little bit of function she gains increases that exponentially.

I don't even remember what I was worried about. I'm not even sure if it was anything specific or just a general dread of what seemed would have to be an incredible ordeal. Whatever it was, it didn't materialize. Just the stress that I brought upon myself. For no reason. And which I am having a really hard time getting rid of, even now when I am here in my familiar bed, able to get the peaceful rest I was fantasizing about last night.

I've always been kind of fond of the phrase, "hope for the best, prepare for the worst". But preparing is not the same thing as going batshit crazy because some unnamed something might happen.

This is one lesson I'd really like to nail sometime in the very near future. I'm tired of wasting precious time turning myself into one huge exposed nerve ending because of some vague possibility that probably won't happen in the first place and, even if it does, probably won't be as bad as I expected. In my personal experience, it rarely is.

Which reminds me, I've been thinking the next couple of months will be pretty tough, too, because I plan to be at the rehab facility every day while she's there. All day long 4 days a week and from around 3 p.m. on the other 3. My mom doesn't like to spend a whole time alone under any circumstances, but in a strange environment where she doesn't know anyone it's even worse for her.

But it's a 25 minute drive from here to there, although a fairly easy one. And then I will be spending many hours in a medical facility, which I usually try to avoid like the plague. But I'll bring my computer, and she's in therapy 3 hours a day. It's a lovely facility, too, with great views of the mountains and nice patios to enjoy the glorious weather we're currently having.

It could all be soooooo very much worse. I hope I can learn to keep that in mind.

Too Much Food!

2009-10-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Went for Mexican at the Suncoast Wednesday night . They were having a special for a meal, including dessert, and margaritas for $8. My daughters thought this would be a fine thing to try, and so we did.

Last time we were at that particular restaurant, the food was decidedly sub-par. So it was a very pleasant surprise to find that, this time, it was actually quite good.

The restaurant itself is very nice, with huge booths and pretty windows, though of course my photos will not do it justice.

All around, even though we brought the 6 year old and the toddler, it was a very nice evening out.

However...

Added to pigging out on Japanese food at the movie on Tuesday night, and taking Baby D for ice cream and a carousel ride at the Outlet Mall last night, not to mention the half dozen Dunkin Donuts I rewarded myself with after moving furniture on Saturday night, it is SO time to get back to eating LIGHTLY!

The problem was eating so much! At home, we have a very different portion control, and it works just fine.

Last night, for instance, my daughter tried out a recipe for Italian Chicken Rolls from the Jenny Craig website. It was very good, filling enough, and most of our dinners are like that. We don't stuff ourselves at home...usually.

Oh, and I have to say that the outlet mall was a huge surprise to me. It's located very near the house I owned here about 10 years ago, so I was very familiar with it. Except the parking lot has exploded with chain restaurants since I move away. It's located on Las Vegas Blvd., a little south of the Strip hotels, but I always came in from the side entrance located on the street closest to my home.

Now, the entire length of the property facing Las Vegas Blvd. is lined with buildings. Let me tell you, I would have very much appreciated having those places nearby, not that it would have done my waistline or wallet much good. I was actually probably much better off that they weren't there when I lived in the neighborhood, but still...

Yeah, and I sold that house about 5 years before the housing boom peaked, too. My timing has always sucked, particularly with real estate. On the other hand, I always hated all the upkeep that home ownership entailed, so I am very pleased to be more footloose these days.

Which is good, because enjoying where I am and what I'm doing - living in the moment - is a current goal of mine these days.

Oink Oink

2009-10-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

I went to see The Informant last night. I felt like seeing something different and I like seeing movies that have been out a few weeks because they're less crowded. This one seemed to fit both those requirements.

Ugh, soooo boring. Matt Damon was excellent, as usual, totally making you forget about him as an actor and drawing you into the character instead. In fact, the acting overall was excellent, so kudos to the director there.

And the story was an interesting enough one, plus based on a true story, which I think always adds a little extra punch. But there was no tension, no change in tempo. The whole thing was just flat. Although I think the director is always ultimately responsible, the problems here seemed to be in the screenplay and editing. In any case, it was a total waste of the cost of the ticket.

Fortunately, there was something wonderful to balance it out.

Since there was no time to eat before the movie due to other obligations (I think fate was trying to save me from myself and make me choose a different movie), I ordered take-out from the Japanese restaurant next door to the movie.

Now, let me just say that I've been trying to get back to this restaurant since I've moved back to Vegas. I love the food, and there are a couple of items on their menu I think are particularly divine. I really wanted to go there and relax with an excellent meal then go next door to a movie, but it just wasn't going to happen.

So I decided to take the meal into the movie with me. Um, yeahhh...sushi, rolls and rice...in the movies. With chopsticks.

Of course, they don't like you to bring your own food to the movies with you. So I promised the ticket taker that I would still get my candy and drink...and I did.

I had the "special" rice, a temperature hot Japanese lasagna roll, a spicy hot yellowtail roll and 2 pieces of yellowtail sushi. In the movies. With chopsticks.

A large bottle of water and peanut M&Ms from the concession.

And popcorn.

I could've done without the popcorn.

But it smelled so good.

I can't go into the movies without getting popcorn any more. But it was waaayyyy too much.

I was so freaking stuffed even though I ate barely half the popcorn or the rice.

I do feel bad about throwing so much popcorn away, because it was good popcorn.

But I brought the rice home.

The thing is, I didn't start hating the movie until I was done eating. I think it was about two thirds of the way through the movie - it took me a while to get through all of that food, even though I didn't finish it all.

Oh yeah, I even have half the M&Ms in my purse, which - now I come to think of it - is better than having eaten all of it last night. I still ate waaayyyy too much, but it could've been worse. And I have to say that I enjoyed the novel experience of eating a meal in the movies, in some strange perverted way, not that I'd want to make a habit of it.

So, not a completely successful evening, but a memorable one nonetheless.

TITANIC

2009-10-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

I went to the Titanic exhibit at The Luxor the other day and really enjoyed it. It wasn't a total knock your socks off exhibition, but there were some very interesting things.

I liked the way it was set up in places, as though you were walking around the boat. The first hallway was the Third Class section, all very basic with plain white paint and the pipes exposed at the ceiling. However, according to a sign, the cabins were a big step up from other ships because there were bunk beds instead of straw mats. The most fascinating thing, to me, was that there were 2 bathrooms for the entire Third Class passenger contingent - about 700 people.

Once the First Class section was reached, there was beautiful wood panels on the walls and floors with brass hardware and fine decor. Since I am endlessly interested in architecture and decor, particularly from the distant past, I was thrilled to see the replica of a fully furnished 1st class cabin. It was very nice, of course, tasteful and elegant. But from the descriptions I'd read, I think I was expecting more opulence.

Not that I would have preferred more opulence, I would have found the stateroom very comfortable. But I think, for the full effect, you would have had to see the entire suite - there were double dressing rooms and lavish bathrooms.

In any case, what I thought was the masterpiece of the exhibit was the replica of the Grand Staircase, all in mahogany with the stained glass dome above it. Absolutely gorgeous.

I never saw the movie, and didn't know a great deal about the details before I went to the exhibit. And while there was a lot to see, and much information, the end result was actually to make me want to research the whole event even more...which I plan to do eventually.

It was surprising how much of a real emotional tug you can get from seeing some of the artifacts in person. There were personal histories, accompanied by photos, of some of the passengers. But, while these were sad, the personal effects were the most stirring.

The strangest thing of all though, was that they gave you a replica of a boarding pass for a real passenger at the start of the exhibit. Then, at the end, there is a list of all the passengers separated into Crew, Third, Second and First classes, then divided into survivors and non-survivors and you can look to see whether the person on your boarding pass survived or not. Is it just me, or is this not at least a little morbid?

My passenger did not survive, but then she was a Third Class passenger and the odds were against her. I noticed that about a quarter of the crew survived, a bit more of the Third Class, around half of the Second Class and a majority of the First Class. Because of the placement of the lifeboats, or some class distinctions? Maybe I'll find that out when I start digging a little deeper.

There was a fairly large segment of the actual boat which I found very compelling. It was called the Big Piece. It's the largest fragment to be recovered thus far, I think. But some of the portholes were intact, although the glass was shattered, and it just seemed surreal that it could be there in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel.

The Luxor is actually one of my favorite places in Las Vegas. I brought my younger daughter to spend the night there when we moved here right before her 16th birthday and she didn't know anyone her own age yet to celebrate with. The uniqueness of the pyramid, including the slanted elevator shafts, plus the Egyptian themed decor - an age she found intriguing - went a good way toward making the night acceptable even though she was celebrating her 16th birthday with her mother.

We happened to be visiting Las Vegas soon after the hotel opened and there was a fabulous Egyptian exhibit. Very, very detailed with wonderful artifacts and a gift shop full of unusual things. My daughter was much younger at the time, and she loved that exhibit. The few things we got at the gift shop, she kept for years afterward.

I think that the current exhibits, the Titanic and Bodies, are in the space where the Egyptian exhibit used to be, and that's a shame, because that was really more suited to the location than these newer ones. And there are so many freaking hotels in that chain, you'd think they could've found somewhere else to put them.

Oh well, there is an Egyptian exhibit coming to the Natural History museum next year, I think. Not that it will be extraordinary, but it will be a start, anyway...until I can get back to some major cities.

Moving toward a more minimalist lifestyle

2009-10-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

Or...some of my stuff didn't survive the move.

When we moved out of our house here 15 months ago, we expected to be storing our furniture for 1 to 3 months. And very little of it was mine. I had purged big time back in 2000 and then got rid of literally all my furniture when I moved in with my mother. Although I knew I had many more moves in my future, and looked forward to them, I never wanted to go through this again:

Fortunately, I had my own truck. The other one is a 26 footer and it got packed right to the very edge. And even it wouldn't have been big enough if my daughter hadn't agreed to take the big sectional sofa.

It's not as pretty as the red sofa and love seat she had, but it's much more comfortable. Of course, the switch has made a mockery of my successful effort at hauling 4 red dining chairs in the back seat of the car on my last cross country trip here, but whatever.

And out of all that, this was my stuff:

Of course, I had a couple boxes of books and 3 huge suitcases of clothes that I brought with me from Florida, but this is what was left behind in storage.

Now, my furniture consists mainly of collapsible shelves - 4 very pretty mission style walnut ones that are stackable
and a shiny silver metal set.

The wooden ones are for my books and the metal ones for my office/computing paraphernalia.

I also had a pretty little silver folding tray table I used as a desk for my laptop and a tan padded top folding table I kept covered with a lace tablecloth that I used for all manner of things. These were the two things I was most looking forward to getting back so that I could begin working more efficiently in my new location. And they were among the handful of things that didn't survive the move.

In spite of the fact that I had very little in the way of belongings, there was so much stuff in the house we moved from that a 24 foot moving van was not big enough to hold it all. In fact, a 10 x 20 foot storage unit was not big enough to hold it all. We ended up storing stuff in the garage of the house my daughter and nephew were renting. And that's where we had the problem.

When that house was foreclosed on, we depended on all the kids we left here to get our stuff out of the garage along with their own stuff that was being moved from the house. They managed to move it all but one car load. The table didn't make it and neither did the detachable legs to my folding tray table desk.

Since they were among the most portable items I possessed, I probably would've hung on to them for a good long time. As it is, I'm taking it as a sign to rethink my requirements, just as I've recently begun doing in regard to the technology I'll be hauling around. And, in fact, the two situations actually have some overlap.

Since I've ordered a Kindle, I'm giving my bookshelves to my daughter. I'm also giving her my books. I will gradually either replace them with copies on my Kindle or, for those not available in that format, I will scan them into compatible files. In the meantime, while I'm living with her, I still have access to all of them.

I also hope to spend some time scanning all of the remaining documents I've got in the few file holders I'm still carting around. I dispensed with filing cabinets years ago. First I tried huge notebooks as a file storage system, but they were too heavy and bulky. Now I've got 3 accordion type file holders for archived stuff

and an assortment of pretty colored file holders for more or less current documents.

The red report cover is what I use as a quick reference file, for my most immediate documents. The magenta is stuff that needs to be filed and the green is all the various stages of current stuff that needs to be dealt with. The one with the big button closure is what I travel with, along with the red. The blue is current and needing to be filed stuff that relates to everyone who is not me, which is my mother and my two daughters.

My favorite is the purple. It is pristine, because I have not gotten to it yet. That is for my Travel documents. Here is where I will be putting together my research on the places I intend to visit, receipts and confirmations once I get that far and the folder I will take with me when I go - which will contain only the most absolutely necessary paper.

This photo doesn't do it justice, but it shows the two pockets inside front and back covers as well as the plastic insert page which also has pockets front and back. I refuse to take any more paper along with me than will fit into this folder, and that includes all of my travel docs as well as anything I'll need to deal with while I'm away from home - which hopefully will not be very much.

I'm very much looking forward to filling up the other two purple doc holders with planned itineraries, maps and info on lodging, transportation and sightseeing. For some things, it's just easier to have pages to spread out in front of you and this is one of them. I LOVE putting all of this together, it's part of the fun of the trip...anticipation.

In the meantime, though, I need to figure out what is the absolute minimum I can make do with in the way of furniture. I need a small desk for my laptop and a desk chair. Although my metal shelves survived the move, I'm thinking of giving them to my daughter, as well. She could certainly use them in her garage.

When I bought them, they were the only ones I could find of the right dimensions. They're 14" deep, which I needed to hold my all in one printer, and short enough to fit under my utility table. But I have neither the printer nor the table any longer, and I will be replacing my printer/scanner/copier with a couple of items from the planonstore.com.

First is the Planon Printstik

Since it's only 1" x 2" x 11" and weighs only 1.5 pounds, I will be able to take this with me when I travel, if I so choose. I rarely print anything these days so, even though it doesn't do color, it's really all I need. Especially paired with a Docupen RC 850.

Because this has tiny little guiding rollers on it, and it can cover the entire width of a normal printed page, it should easily fulfill all my scanning needs. And it does do color, so I can even use it on photos.

There's not a lot of urgency for either of those purchases, because I have access to all of my daughter's desktop tech. But when I begin traveling more extensively, hopefully by the end of March, I can carry a full office around with me for "just in case", without causing too much of an extra burden.

For now, though, I think I can make do with a much smaller shelving unit. And I'd prefer getting a folding one. They're just so much easier to move around, even though my current one is very easily assembled. I'm thinking of going with this one from the containerstore.com.

It will hold all of my silver desk accessories.

So, now I begin what I've come to think of as my year of living minimally. More weeding and purging until I am down to the absolute necessities. It's possible that I will be getting a place of my own in several months, and I don't want to take any unnecessary crap with me.

As it happens, I spent several hours a few months ago amusing myself with trying to see if it was possible to furnish a one bedroom apartment with stuff that could fit into a mid-sized SUV or min-van. My premise is that it's possible to rent one of those vehicles one way, which would allow me to move myself - easier and more cheaply - wherever I wanted. This is what I came up with.

Now, as you can see, the little silver folding shelves are nowhere to be found. There's bronze and black. But, like in the photo, the silver shelves could be used in a bathroom, for which there is no provision in the apartment furnishings above. They're only about forty bucks. And they match my silver desk accessories.

On the other hand, the room I'm occupying now is done with a lot of gold, so the folding desk and one or two of the shelving units would go quite nicely. Maybe the black. The silver desk accessories would look good on black. And the gold in my room is very light, like a champagne. So maybe it would look okay. Once again, decisions, decisions, decisions.

I wonder if my daughter would like a whole bunch of silver desk accessories.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

2009-10-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

As soon as Windows 7 is available on October 22, I'm going to get a new laptop. I've been wanting a featherweight laptop and this will be the perfect time to get one. The question is, which one. Because, of course, my ideal version does not exist. So I've begun examining my requirements to see if they haven't changed in all this time I've been waiting.

For instance, I was holding out for a Tablet convertible. I had a Toshiba one for about 3 years that I just loved. I mostly used the Tablet configuration for reading e-books, very rarely for other things. The thing about that computer, though, was that it didn't have a built in optical drive. And even though I didn't need one often, I'd put stuff off forever just because I didn't feel like hooking up the external drive.

Then came the netbooks. Under 3 lbs. and under $300. Still able to do everything I need, and make travel a breeze. Oh yeah, I want one. But, of course, not as my only computer. The screen was just a little too small. And I might need an external optical drive for program loading. I'd have to see about that. But still, what a great development. And yet...

To me, the form factor was just crying out for a tablet version. I mean, it's so small and light, it would be perfect. And surely someone was going to come out with one eventually. So I waited. And sure enough, voila!

The Asus T91 will be available with Windows 7 when the new os is released. At about $550, it's 2.12 lbs with a webcam, 32GB Solid State Drive and 1 GB RAM. The CPU is the same as is found in most netbooks, an Intel Atom Z520, at 1.3GHz.

So, a little more expensive than the other netbooks, but I thought the tablet would be worth it. And it would mainly be for travel, after all, so a little less RAM and a little weaker processer wouldn't be such a big deal.

Now, here's the thing. I don't need a big screen. I lived with the 10" display on my Tablet PC for 3 years as my only computer. I value light weight over almost anything else, as long as the computer isn't unbearably slow.

I had been lusting after a $2,000 Toshiba featherweight laptop for years. It's one of the few sub 3 lb. full powered laptops with a built in optical drive. It's got a 12" transreflective display that is good indoors and out. I could easily use this as my only computer. But when I first discovered it, I hadn't been traveling all that much and couldn't justify getting it when it wasn't a Tablet PC. Seriously, I was a Tablet PC convert. I'd take my laptop to bed and read it like a book. It was a little heavy, but still manageable. I hated the thought of paying two grand for a new laptop and not be able to do that.
So then I had the bright idea of getting the Asus Tablet netbook now, and using it always for travel. Then, later, get the Toshiba featherweight to use as my main computer at home. If I wanted to take a Tablet to bed, or anywhere else, I could just use my little netbook.

There's not a big difference weight-wise. The netbook is 2.1 lbs. and the Toshiba is 2.4 lbs., but the netbook is about half the size of the Toshiba. One is the size of a sheet of paper, about 8.5" x 11", and the other is about 6.5" x 8.5". So I would still be more likely to pull out a netbook in a restaurant or in the car instead of a full sized laptop, no matter how light.

So, here I am, waiting for the Asus T91 with Windows 7 to be available for order, when an announcement catches my eye about a new Toshiba that will be available at the same time. It weighs more than the Asus, about 3.5 lbs. to the Asus' 2.1 lbs., and it doesn't have a convertible tablet screen OR a built in optical drive. But it's a full-sized, full-powered fairly lightweight computer that costs about $50 less than the Asus. Okay, that's a negligible amount. But it comes in RED!

So how do I justify getting this when it's not as light as either of the computers I was looking at, plus doesn't have a tablet screen or an optical drive and is not so tiny as to be a breeze to whip out just anywhere?

Well, here's where I start questioning my requirements.

If I mostly use the Tablet configuration for reading, then I just don't need it anymore. Because I just pre-ordered the new international Kindle that became available at a decent price. I'd been dithering about that purchase for months, as well, but the international capability put paid to all of that. I figure most of my other concerns, regarding proprietary format and licensing vs owning, will get worked out at some point. So, that's where I'll be doing a vast majority of my book reading. Which means I can probably get by without a Tablet PC.

One way or another, either for the netbook or for something else, I'll probably need to get an external optical drive. However, I certainly won't need to travel with one, even though I'm sure very lightweight portable ones must abound and that's what I'll end up getting. And I have even less of a need for an optical drive these days than I did when I had my Tablet PC, which was already rare enough.

It's got an 11.5" display, which is fine with me. It's way cheaper than the other Toshiba. Do I need to pay over two grand to have a built in optical drive? NO.

Yes, it weighs more than either of the laptops I was looking at. BUT...I believe I can make do with just this one, instead of getting two. And it's light enough to travel with, even though not quite as light as the others. If I need to whip something out in the car or in a restaurant, I'll just use the phone that's being delivered on Friday. The HTC TouchPro 2 can do pretty much anything I need to do on the run.

I still can't shake that nagging feeling that I need that Tablet netbook, though. That I need a tiny little featherweight tablet to throw in my bag and take off with. But I can't see getting two laptops without optical drives...or can I? Even though I rarely need one, it just doesn't seem to make sense to get two laptops and neither has an easy way to just pop in a DVD or CD. For instance, I have a brand new piece of software - first I've bought in years, actually, because everything is free these days - that I've been waiting to install until I get whatever new computer I end up with.

So, yes, I feel like if I get the Asus netbook, I need another laptop with a bigger screen and a built in optical drive. And I really don't want to pay $2,000 for it, but I want it to be fairly light, as well. Under 5 pounds. Just in case I sometimes need to take it with me. And that would mean I can't have the red one. Sigh.

But wait. If I really rarely need the optical drive, wouldn't it be more worth getting an external one if I actually needed it on TWO laptops, rather than just one? And though, rationally, I can't think why I would really need a tablet convertible, that Asus is really calling my name. Even more than the red one, but I love that red one.

I've been making myself crazy like this for days now, ever since I saw the announcement for the new Toshiba. And here's the other thing. I'm not sure that this new Toshiba has that indoor/outdoor transreflective display that was kind of a big selling point for me.

I know, I know, it seems like that there's no reason to get the red one except that it looks so hot. But it's actually a better deal. It's a real, full powered computer with almost a 12" screen for less money than the netbook, which is a little on the weak side with an 8" screen. I've heard of problems watching youtube videos and the like, although I have a hard time seeing how that could be possible because you can watch youtube videos on phones.

I. Just. Don't. Know. What. To. Do.

Oh yeah, and how much does it suck that my next trip is on the 20th and none of these come out until the 22nd?

Mickey D at the Louvre

2009-10-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

It's been decades since I've been to France, but one of my most treasured travel memories took place near the Louvre. There was a sidewalk cart, similar to the hot dog carts one could see in New York, that sold crepes.

You could order all kinds of customization, strawberries and whatnot. I took mine with butter and sugar and ate it on a nearby bench. The beautiful Tuileries Gardens were spread out nearby and it was a pretty day. It is also one of my favorite culinary memories.

I just found out that McDonald's is opening a location in the food court of the underground mall adjoining the museum. And I don't really mind that. Mainly because I don't recall the fast food court, or even the mall. It's possible that neither existed when I last visited. It's underground, it's not even part of the actual Louvre. So I've go no problem with that whatsoever.

I just hope that there's a crepe cart somewhere nearby when I go back again.

Holidays

2009-10-04T18:23:00.001-07:00

A useful post about entertaining tips over at Antique Mommy unexpectedly set off within me a train of thought which led to a wellspring of sensitive holiday/family issues.

Whenever my sister, brother and I - along with our 8 kids - would get together at my mother's house for the holidays, we'd naturally have a huge delicious holiday meal. My mother is an excellent cook and we'd have a great time visiting before and during the meal. But the disaster in the kitchen afterward totally ruined whatever pleasure I'd taken in the whole event. Because it took longer to clean up than the dining and pre-dining combined.

First, because my mother is a messy cook and doesn't clean as she goes. Second, because her refrigerator was always full and there was no place to put leftovers. And, third, because she didn't want to put her good dishes and silverware in the dishwasher.

Oh yeah, there was also a huge hunt for containers to put the leftovers in. Grrrrr.

I recently spent several years living with my sister and my mother. My sister has 4 boys and I have 2 daughters. We love getting together and have a great time. But I absolutely hated dealing with the chaos when they'd all come over. Because my sister is much the same as my mom. They just don't care about the mess and don't seem to mind playing around in the refrigerator forever trying to make everything fit. If the dishwasher is full, they just throw everything in the sink. *Shudder*

I used to spend a lot of time seething inwardly with resentment at having to deal with so much mess because, seriously, it all seemed so freaking unnecessary!

One of the tips in Antique Mommy's post is to make sure the dishwasher is empty before you have a bunch of people over. YES!

I had to figure that out on my own, because the women in my family don't have a clue. But, finally, I realized that a few simple steps make a HUGE difference when having a lot of people over.

Clean as you go.

Make sure that:
The dishwasher is empty
The fridge has as much free space as possible
Storage containers and lids are available and clean

And, actually, all of those things aren't just for entertaining large numbers of guests. Right now, the household I'm a part of is so much smaller. And I've spent the last year with just my mother and I as the main occupants. Yet, still, all of those steps make our lives so very much easier.

My two favorite Thanksgiving dinners were the two years in a row we ate OUT! The first one was just me and my two young daughters. They were introduced to pumpkin soup in small, hallowed out pumpkin bowls and were thrilled during the whole dinner. The following year, I invited my mother to stay with us and wouldn't let her cook. We went out again. She'd never spent a holiday not cooking. She thoroughly enjoyed herself, as well. We've started having Christmas dinners out sometimes, too.

Now that I've got my little system, though, we can have enjoyable family gatherings at home. Sometimes.

Whenever we get the whole group together, or even just my small group and my sister's big one, it's all out the window. I can't take on all of them, and they all make enormous messes.

I do make sure the dishwasher is empty and that we've got containers for leftovers. Since I'm usually the first one done eating, I will try to wipe the counters and transfer leftovers to the containers. Bring whatever order I can to the kitchen, maybe wash a pot or two.

But when everyone's done eating and the confusion starts in the kitchen, I'm outta there. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it, either. I'll do what I can, but they're all adults. If they're going to make a mess, then they can clean up after themselves.

I think I'd still rather eat out.

I love my family. I love getting together with them, we have so much fun and laughter. But holidays - and I mean all holidays, birthdays, etc. - are associated in my mind with pressure. Either trying to find just the right gift or big freaking messes that need to be cleaned up. Sometimes both.

So, take Christmas, for instance. My mother gives me money, I give my kids money and my kids and I get my mother a gift. We go to church, and then we go out to eat. Perfect.

Birthdays, same thing.

If finances are tight for any reason, then we can do it at home...in small groups. With my easy cleanup system. Or I will be gritting my teeth again. And that's not how I like to celebrate.

Fun Day

2009-10-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I took the 6 year old to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. Fortunately, even though she'd seen Night at the Museum, she still didn't realize the magnificence of that New York landmark. Because I think the Las Vegas museum would have fit in one of the rooms of the New York one. Still, we had a very nice time. She even thanked me for bringing her, as we walked out the door, and said she really enjoyed it.

One thing I have to give that kid is that she really takes pleasure in what she's doing at any given time, and it doesn't have to be anything all that special. Finding joy in everyday life, you'd think it would be easy and obvious, but some of us have to work at getting past all the distractions in our head. Stopping to smell the roses doesn't come naturally to all of us, but the effort is SO worth the reward.

Afterward, I took her to lunch at a McDonalds with a playground for a quick lunch, then let her play for almost an hour while I read.

Later, I took one of my daughters to see Julie and Julia, which we both enjoyed very much. I did get somewhat distracted by the Parisian scenery. I kept telling my daughter, "We gotta go there." I'd brought my two girls to London when they were very little and we've traveled all over this country together, plus a couple of trips to the Bahamas and Mexico. But I love Europe best, and I really don't know why I never made it over there with them. Will definitely need to remedy that.

So the day's activities made me long to see New York and Paris again, and I hope I get to do so many times in the future, both alone and with my family. But I really enjoyed what I was doing while I was doing it. That's actually very real and important progress for me.

There's still some upheaval going on in my family on various fronts, and my thoughts have been very occupied with matters of logistics, medical issues and much more. But, yesterday, I reveled in the company of my loved ones and derived a great deal of pleasure from the activities we shared.

It was a fun day.

Out and About

2009-09-30T02:01:00.000-07:00

Went to a movie and, for such a mundane activity, the whole excursion was fraught with meaning for me. It was the first time in what seems like forever that I didn't have anyone waiting for me to come home at a certain time, needed the car I was using or an obligation to go home to. And. It. Felt. Mahvelous, darling.

It's a little misleading to frame it that way, because there have certainly been many opportunities to do what I did this evening. The difference is, this time, I chose to go out instead of stay in.

One thing I've been loving in this new lifestyle I've moved into is waking up on Saturdays and Sundays to an empty house. A house all to myself for hours and hours. Where I can do whatever I please without anyone to bother me. I LOVE those times to myself and the fact that I don't have access to a car bothers me not at all. Because all I want to do is laze in bed, then get up and hang out with my computer before, during and after leisurely meals. Suits me right down to the ground.

One Thanksgiving, a few years ago, a combination of circumstances allowed me to have a house to myself for something like five days. I went to the library and got about a dozen books and just read them all one right after the other. No regard for the clock or mealtimes. Ate when I felt like, slept when I couldn't keep my eyes open. Heaven.

So when it turned out that I could have our house to myself this evening, nothing could have surprised me more than the strong urge I had to go out. Grabbed a car, got something to eat and went to see a movie that neither my sister nor my mother would have wanted to see*. And since they were my only two moviegoing companions in the past, I probably wouldn't have seen it either.

PLUS! The movie was at 10:20 p.m., and there was no way anyone I know would have been up for that. I probably wouldn't have been up for that. So what is up with all of this?

It feels like I've been hibernating for the last several years. Various circumstances, at different times, have had me living with others when my natural inclination would have been to live alone. I've had obligations to fulfill which also necessitated courses of action that wouldn't have been my first choices. But, here's the kicker.

All of that is still true.

I'm still not living alone. I still have obligations and responsibilities that require me to be places and do things that are different than if I were completely on my own. But it's kind of like comparing a full time job to a part time one. I've got an enormous amount of free time now, and much more time to myself - those two are not always exactly the same, although I've never appreciated the difference before.

It's like being born into a new life. One that I'm a much more active participant in. Given my independent nature, I never would have guessed that going out alone to a meal and a movie would ever be a big deal. But, tonight, it felt like one. And I relished every minute of it.

*Inglourious Basterds. Loved it!

The Newest Epiphany

2009-09-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

I've always thought I could be a good writer. At the same time, I thought I lacked the imagination to write fiction and couldn't think of any non-fiction to work with. In the last few years, I've actually felt flooded with stuff that I'd like to write about, but I just couldn't make myself get past the beginnings. I thought this meant I was not supposed to be a writer. I believed that real writers, even though they labored over their craft - and I knew, from the thousands of pages I've read about the subject, that it could be a tortuous labor - were compelled to write until they got the stories out of their head.

I want to write. I think I have interesting things to write about if I can only find a way to write about them that doesn't leech all the intrestingness out. And I think I am capable of writing interestingly and entertainingly. But I know that I am also capable of going off on wordy tangents. So there was a little bit of fear of failure going on, as well. Which is perfectly ridiculous because, I can just throw out anything that turns out to be boring, can't I? It's not like I'll be laughed at by the entire world.

Anyway, it's been on my mind a great deal lately, particularly the past year or so. I kind of gave it a real shot, too, while I was living in Florida. But just in a few long spurts, and then it would die out. It kind of crossed my mind that I could give it another shot now that I'm here but, oh yeah, I had decided I wasn't meant to do that. Then just now, a whole new perspective.

Lovely, dear, adorable Stephen Fry.

http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/09/05/emerging-into-the-light/

"If any of you out there have ever been put off writing it might well be because you found it so insanely hard and therefore, like me, gave up and abandoned your masterworks early, regretfully assuming that you weren’t cut from the right cloth, that it must come more easily to true, natural-born writers. Perhaps you can start again now, in the knowledge that since the whole experience was so grindingly horrible you might be the real thing after all."

I felt like that was pushed at me just now when I read it...which felt really creepy. I mean, I read a book once called something like "Just Open a Vein", that was about how hard writing is. And yet, it still seemed like it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. I'm going to reconsider that now.

Of course, none of this addresses the fact that I am also a lazy procrastinator.

Chasing the Dream

2009-09-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

I want to go to Europe.

I want to LIVE in Europe but, failing that - or until it happens, I'll settle for some quality visits.

I'm loving my new situation, trying to enjoy every moment - even the little ones - and appreciate all the wonderful aspects of my life. And there are some big ones right now. There are always some, but I haven't always noticed them, much less appreciated them. I am deliberately trying to change that tendency, and I'm kinda succeeding so far.

However, I have been wanting to go back to Europe since 2003, and there has always been something in my way. Over five years and, because of one thing or another, it hasn't worked out.

I'd love to go during the fall, but that's not gonna happen this year. There's a chance I'll be able to go in the Spring and, if so, I'll jump all over it. We'll see. In the meantime, I love reading blogs by people who live there. I read a handful of bloggers who live in England, one from France and 2 from Italy. The newest one I've discovered is a young woman who has just moved to Rome, A Life in Translation.

Her newest post, http://www.alifeintranslation.com/2009/09/tourism-in-roma-not-your-typical-experience/, mentioned getting an unexpected tour of the hills surrounding the city because she didn't get off at the correct bus stop. That struck such a chord with me, because the exact same thing happened to my sister and me.

There are only a handful of vague recollections of that long ago trip, but several of the most vivid memories are from our time in Italy. And that bus trip is at the top of the list.

We had gone to the main post office in the city because it was possible to make International phone calls from there, which you paid for after you were done. Going back to our pensione, I said it looked like the stop after the one where we'd boarded the bus was actually closer to where we were staying. So we didn't get off. And the bus didn't stop where I thought it would.

So we stayed on the bus. And stayed. We thought he'd circle back eventually to where we'd gotten on originally and we could get off. In the meantime, we had a great view of the surrounding area of the city. Because we'd left the city completely.

And he didn't circle back.

When there was just a couple of people left on the bus, plus my sister and I, he pulled into this narrow dead-end lane and stopped. The other two people got off, and we waited for him to turn around and go back. Instead, he just turned in his seat and looked at us. We were all the way at the back of the bus.

I don't remember much about what happened after that. I'm sure he didn't have a lot of English, if any. But we were made to understand that we had to get off and another bus would be there soon to go back to Rome and we could get on that one to return. That's how the streetcars in New Orleans work, and we were very familiar with them, so it didn't seem so strange to us. I don't remember being scared, or even very nervous. I don't know if that was because I was so incredibly naive or if I've just blocked the whole thing out. Anyway, we got back okay.

I do remember feeling very deceived by so many people not having any English, after we'd be assured everyone spoke it in Europe. Huh. Our landlady at the pensione had none at all, and we knew zip in Italian. Fortunately, I had a little French and she had a lot, so we were able to get by. Barely.

She made us give her our passports because she said gypsies would steal them from us. That seemed a little weird, but whatever. We handed them over.

The bus driver and conductor at the Venice airport didn't speak any English at all, either. After several attempts to make them understand we wanted to go to the train station, because our building was very near it, my sister made the bell pulling motion and said "choo choo". I was mortified, putting my head down in my hands. Until I realized that they were all excited because it was finally understood. It was kind of ridiculous, too, because train in English doesn't sound that different from el treno.

Everyone in Amsterdam told us they didn't speak English, too, but they really did. They may not have been fluent but, hell, we had no Dutch whatsoever. And it's not like I'm an ugly American wanting everything to be the same as over here. I love what's different over there. I was so disappointed, the first time I went to London, to see KFC signs. It's just I'd been told we didn't have to worry about a language barrier and it turned out to be a pretty big deal.

But we managed, and some of the managing was very memorable. So, anyway...

I remember the room we had at the pensione in Florence. It was big, painted yellow, and overlooked a pretty courtyard. There was a marketplace there, too, with excellent leather goods we'd been told about. And, of course, the shops on the Ponte Vecchio.

I know the pensione's probably not there anymore. Most of them have been converted to B&Bs or their buildings are now 2 or 3 star hotels. I don't know about the marketplace, but I heard the Ponte Vecchio's not at all the same, it's more tourist trap crap.

But David's still there, as well as the sculptures Michaelangelo did for the Medici tombs. I'd go in for a day just to see those. Especially since you can get tickets in advance now for the Academy, to see the statue of David.

I remember the two guys we ran into in Venice, one who didn't say much and one who talked almost non-stop. The talker offered to show us around and, as long as we stayed in the populated areas, it didn't sound like a bad idea. He was very informative, and spoke English very well, so it turned out to be great. The only thing was, he kept referring to all of the tourists who crowd the city most of the year as "sheep and goats". Since we were tourists ourselves, it was a little disconcerting.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I went to Italy on my honeymoon. In fact, it was our first stop. Since I'd been there before, and I was totally jetlagged, I just kind of half-sleepwalked off the plane and followed the crowd toward customs. But my new husband was very freaked out by the military presence all over the airport, particularly the ones carrying machine guns. It was a time of random terrorism, much like now. I wonder if they're there again. I don't plan to be flying in or out of Rome any time soon, so I won't be able to see for myself.

It's been decades since I've been to Italy, but I was there a handful of times and actually have more memories than I'd realized. They started coming back as I was writing all of this. It's strange, because I seem to have more memories from there than I do of France and England, and I'll probably spend more time in those countries than Italy when I finally get to go back to Europe.

And, as much as I'm thrilled to be where I am at the moment, I'm all about preparing to go back to the places where I was so enthralled. I'm beginning to research and to plan. I will be making as many preparations as possible whenever I am able. I want to get fitter so that I can do a lot of walking. I want to pack easy-care clothes, so I don't have to fool much with them while I'm traveling. I want to bring the absolute least weight in electronics that I can get away with, so I'm looking at smart phones and netbooks.

My big goal is to get back to Europe and, for the first time in a very long while, it's starting to feel like a much closer possibility.

The Excitement of Possibilities

2009-09-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's because I have a birthday in the Fall, or all those years starting a new school year in the Fall, but this has always seemed a time more fraught with the possibility of exciting new experiences than even the New Year's season has. And it is even more pronounced in those locations which actually have a real Fall season, weather wise. I'm so happy to be in such a location now.

My New Year's resolutions have almost always gone the way of most: rarely implemented and quickly forgotton. Only once, when driving home after spending the holidays away, did it occur to me that the first few months of the year would be an excellent time to try losing weight and getting fit. But that was only because doing those things is easier when you can keep a routine, and there were no major holidays or travel plans to disrupt a routine during those months.

In fact, I had been contemplating the coming months with a little bit of gloom, thinking I had nothing to look forward to and trying to come up with something productive to do. It worked, too.

Hmmm...I'm actually in the same kind of situation now. Thanksgiving is only one day, after all. And it's not like I'll be going to a slew of holiday parties in December. But, this time, I want something more exciting than going to the gym. I had already planned to visit a couple of nearby martial arts places nearby on Monday, but now I'm realizing...oh yeah, travel.

Okay, I was thinking I'd have a whole three months to focus on fitness. Then I remembered the 10 days in October I'd be away to fly down to New Orleans to pick up my mother and then fly with her to Reno to stay with my sister, plus the week or so I'll stay with them to help the two of them get settled in their new home.

And then there's the several days in November I'd be away to fly back to Louisiana to load up a moving van and drive it back to here AND Reno. I'm not sure if that will turn out to be fun, or just a chore. Probably won't know until I'm actually doing it.

Oh yeah, I also forgot about the weekend in December that my sister will be out of town and I'll be going up to stay with my mother. Lots of travel in the next couple of months. But I'm hoping to like my martial arts classes enough that I won't find it hard to return to them after each of these trips.

In any case, none of those trips are what I'm excited about, which is a shame. I feel like travel of any kind, for any reason, should be at least a little bit of an adventure. And, if it's not, then it's my own fault. Yet, still, I kind of consider those first two trips more like loose ends from my "old life" that just need to be tied up.

What I'm finding most exciting right now is the unknown, what'll be happening here in my new life, over the next several months. And I can't begin to tell you how ironic that is, because I recently spent 4 years in this town straining at the bit to be elsewhere.

Right now, though, the possibilities seem endless. I don't feel like I'm constrained by circumstances, finances, obligations or anything at all. Even though I can't practically envision how I could possibly be able do the things I want, I feel, nevertheless, that they will somehow be possible.

Also, I am remembering how life has a way of surprising us with unexpected events. While, in the past, that awareness has often made me cringe with the feeling of waiting for another shoe to drop, now I am eager to see what's in store.

I don't know why, all of a sudden, there should be all of this optimism, because it's not like that comes naturally to me. It must just be the season. But, whatever the cause, I'm so glad to feel this excitement again. It's so familiar, I've felt it so many years around this time. But it's been awhile, I think, so I'm really glad to have it back again.