Christmas Celebration and Freedom Hotel

Today I got up early, having gone to bed at a decent time last night and not being quite accustomed to the firmness of the beds.  I had a great breakfast by myself at the Freedom Hotel restaurant. This is a nice hotel reminiscent of British India from what I've seen in movies... lots of dark wood, wide staircases, stone floors and open balconies. The restaurant is open, by that I mean it is not enclosed with doors and windows. It is on the bottom floor of a large building and sitting there I look out on a central court with plants and orchids everywhere and onto the busy street.  I was the first customer this morning and watched the wait crew dusting, sweeping and setting up the tables. Unlike restaurants at home, our usual table of eight people gets meals one at a time as they are cooked and depending on how many cooks are working, things can go pretty slow.  I avoided all that, being here so early, and my meal was quite delicious; a large plate of fruit, a pancake with syrup, two scrambled eggs and  a coffee with fresh milk. The coffee is a bit different - very strong. The fresh milk (as opposed to the other choice of sweet milk) makes almost no change in color when you add it to the coffee and it comes in clear glass cups so you can see it not changing. I liked it. The fruit plate consisted of two small bananas, a wedge of mango, a wedge of pineapple, half an apple and a lychee. The lychee is sitting in it's own little shell which has hairy spines on it and looks for all the world like someone's eyeball.

We leave today for Battambang. I am back in the room now and I can hear hordes of children next door in Trish and Mike's room. Last night they came and visited all of us in our rooms and looked at all our stuff and watched my videos of their performances. Trish's room was full when I stuck my head in there and she was getting a massage from one of the house parents. They are such normal, happy kids and love to joke and laugh especially with Mike. Yesterday they went crazy over a bag of beef jerky that he shared with them and it was precious to watch them enjoy his attention. It is confirmation of how well they are loved and treated by their house parents.

The Christmas Celebration is probably the biggest event of the year for Asia’s Hope children and I could tell they must have had lots of practice time and much effort put into costumes and props.  We went to an auditorium close to the hotel. Someone had decorated ahead and it was very festive.  My little friend from the previous day’s fun evidently had been watching for me and grabbed my hand the minute I was in the door and guided me up to a seat she had saved – in the front where I could get good pictures, and right under the air conditioner, a good seat.  Each of the houses from Prek Eng and Battambang presented a song or dance and there was also a sermon from Mike and several scripture readings, so the program was pretty long but honestly, I never noticed. It was all very interesting to watch, and several times I was brought to tears by their moving presentations. It was the worship songs that they sang in English that did me in because I knew what they were saying. Words that I write don’t do justice to what it was like so the videos are going to have to make it into this blog.  We’ll see how that goes.

At the end of the program we helped Trish and Mike distribute the gifts they had brought to all the children and staff. They also had a gift for each of us foreigners – someone had actually chosen clothing that was a pretty good fit for each of us.

After lunch we went back to Angkor Wat for the “Olympics”. Hunsaders started that last year and previous to that the children had never done relays or competitive games for fun. This year they remembered what they had learned but it was still a major project to get them to stand in lines and take their turns when they were so excited. There was also a lot of relaxing, snacking and walking around in the beautiful grounds of the park. I got to try Grass Jelly Drink and that's where the kids got to experience beef jerky.

At the very end of the day, one of the house parents, Ravi, took us to Ta Prohm Temple which was on the grounds with Angkor Wat but out of the way. There were very few others there which made it almost like a private tour. The place was awesome with huge trees growing out of the ruins. I guess a movie (Tomb Raiders with Angela Jolie) was filmed there – I haven’t seen it yet. 

I am so obviously a tourist with my uncommon coloring and grey hair that the little vendor children  pick me out and work on me most everywhere I run into them. I avoided buying hats (this girl must have put it on my head at least 10 times to convince me how beautiful I looked with it on) buy I caved in and bought a bamboo flute from one little girl who couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5. Then I bought bracelets from another one way back in the temple ruins who looked too young to count but handled those dollar bills like a pro.  They teach them young here…

Bus to Seim Reap

Entry #2

In this part of the world privacy is not obtained through having lots of empty space around oneself. It has to be created in one’s head, or if you are fortunate enough to have a small room or house it can be there. I’m not actually sure privacy is an issue to Cambodians – I’ll have to ask. We, Anne and I , have a room to ourselves every night so far and are not suffering at all.

We are in Seim Reip, the place where Angkor Wat is located. It’s a tourist attraction – a famous 1,000 year old temple which is supposed to be the largest religious building/compound in the world. It is big, with a moat and lots of walls, steps, platforms all made of large cut stone. It all looks very old and darkened with mold and age. I don’t think it’s used for worship at all although there are  Buddha’s all over the place and probably a lot of other idols and things that I don’t even recognize.

It took us six hours to get here from Phmon Penh which was a little more than 200 miles.  We had a nice chartered bus (air  conditioned) for roughly 40 kids, house parents and helpers and our party of six.  This was not however, your common bus ride.  In the states we have gas stations with restrooms and food service any time we want it. Here they stop every hour and a half near a field or ditch with bushes. That’s it. Watch out for ants and people with cameras.  For lunch we stopped at a nice shady ditch and spread out a Cambodian feast. I started out with things I recognized, the rice and ginger chicken, and then grew bolder and tried the salty eggs and fish spread.  I did not  try the fermented fish and egg dish but it was obviously a favorite of some of the local people.  Cucumber and oranges were good too. 

I met lots of children on the bus ride and as the six hours unfolded different ones would come and sit near me and we would try to talk. They are full of shy smiles and readily take your hand or come for a hug.  They know some English but I was always getting into words and subjects that they didn’t know how to talk about.  The bus driver put on some Cambodian videos for them to watch. I would have turned one of them off if I’d had a choice – it was definite nightmare material for small children and of course they were all fixated on it.  They also chose to show a Cambodian Charlie Chaplin of all things and some very strange music videos where men and women smiled at each other through the whole song and basically did nothing else.  They seem to love slapstick.

Out the window in the city the biggest impression that stuck with me is that they need someone to come over and start some plastic recycling business.  If they could figure out what to do with all the plastic trash they would have an endless resource. Trash is everywhere. Even very nice houses with clean space around them would be right next to a place with trash a foot deep. No garbage pickup I’m guessing. And all the animals are very skinny and hungry looking and are never on a leash or looking like they belong to anyone but themselves. Cities are quite crowded . The country was better with room around the houses for gardens in some cases. The cows had a little more meat on their bones and there was less trash.  All the houses are up high on stilts because the areas where people live are regularly  flooded.  The houses in the country were mostly made of wood, no windows and sometimes no doors, and definitely well ventilated .

Leaving on a jet plane (several actually)

Entry 1:

I am in a large jet going 625 miles an hour at 40,000 feet altitude. So far we have been sitting in planes for most of the past 24 hours as follows – 2 1/2 hours from Tampa to JFK in New York City, 15 + hours from JFK across the pole to Seoul, South KoreaI, and now our final leg of about 6 hours from Seoul to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

 The nicest surprise has been how comfortable it is to fly Korean Air. The economy class cabin is more spacious than U.S. airliners and every passenger has an amazing little screen and a remote. With this I can access cameras that look in all directions outside the plane, I can track our progress on a map and see all the flight details, I can watch a wide selection of movies (I’ve seen four so far!) and play any number of the usual games. I am well entertained. I haven’t touched my Kindle yet.

The biggest challenge so far has been trying to sleep sitting upright. Others have been doing it , but  the task of keeping my head in place and my arms and legs comfortable requires so much attention that I haven’t been able to drift off like I’d like to. I took a sleep aid pill at the midway point of the long flight and did get a little groggy and it was still in effect at the beginning of this flight. I caught myself dreaming once – I was watching my horse look over a fence when he decided to jump it right in front of me. I snapped awake and made a little surprise noise but no one noticed. That was the only time I know I was sleeping, kind of.

I watched “Memoirs of a Geisha” and the nobleness of the geisha tradition reminds me of the bearing of our flight attendants (the women). They are quiet, speaking only when necessary, very proper and polite, quite beautiful, slim, strong and capable. Their uniforms are pristine and dressy. They must have a dress code that applies to everything including makeup and hair because they are all very similar.  I was told that they all begin their training in local flights and only the best ascend to international travel.  The jet we had on the long flight was the biggest with three levels, business class on the upper level, economy and first class on the middle level and a staff lounge on the bottom. It was an awesome, big plane. 

We’ve had three good meals so far. They were good in that they were all recognizable foods, not too much and not too little, and served hot. The only thing I miss is having breakfast. Everything has been a dinner meal which makes me feel like I’ve had three days worth of dinner and I don’t know if it’s been morning on any of those three days… something has been missing.  But since there are several other reasons why it’s hard to tell what time of day it is, I can’t really blame it all on the meals.  We are kind of like babies  - they feed us and then they turn off the lights and encourage us to go to sleep. But I’m probably not going to sleep for a while now since I’ve taken some Excedrin to ward off the beginnings of a headache. I am clear as a bell and alert as I ever am.

 It will be about 22:30 hours when we arrive in Phnom Penh and I haven’t heard what will happen when we get there, but I can imagine it taking a while to gather all our baggage (11 huge checked bags and 2 carryons for six of us) and get to where we’ll be for the night.  So the journey has been good so far and I have enjoyed it. That being said, it has also been a very long sit.

Countdown to travel

Haven't said much about this but I've been counting down the days all week and now after today there are only two left. If all goes well I will be on my way to Cambodia for two weeks. It doesn't seem real to me yet. I've been trying to finish packing the suitcase but I get so distracted. And I also hate decisions about what should go in the suitcase and am heavy into avoidance for that reason... Even though it's supposed to be up to 90 degrees in the daytime, about the same as our summer, it just doesn't seem right to be packing all my comfortable old T-shirts to go on such a special trip. I don't want to be burdened down with luggage either, thanks to recent travel experiences, so I'm wanting to be a minimalist in any way possible.

I'm going to be riding lots of buses, and hugging lots of kids. I will probably feel kind of lost and not know what to do with myself, but I am expecting many good things to happen. I'd better get back to packing now.

Inventory

My job the last two days has to be one of the most aggravating, frustrating, disliked jobs that I do. No, it has nothing to do with Christmas or shopping - those would be good guesses. It's Mary Kay inventory time. Every year I review and spend a couple days wallowing in the facts of my inability as a businesswoman. I was not meant to sell make-up, or skin care products as I prefer to call them, and yet I continue to do so.

I like to think I gave it a pretty good shot for the first two years and I did get some valuable experience. I learned a lot about taking care of myself and wearing cosmetics and I learned quite a bit about being bold and pursuing people. I'm really not in regret about having those experiences but they certainly came at a cost. What I regret is that I didn't learn how to make money doing it. So here I am, seven years later, writing off several thousands of dollars worth of unsalable inventory, just to get it out of my life. It's not marketed anywhere so no one is ever going to ask for it and I can't possible use it all myself, so I'm going to make a donation to the crisis pregnancy center. Those girls could probably use a little free glamour.

At present I think of myself as a personal use consultant, which means I buy enough to get my own products at 50% of cost and provide a few regular customers with their needs. I have a few regular customers, as I said, but they are becoming fewer. I just went through my online data bank and deleted about two thirds of my contacts because they have 1) never bought anything or 2) they've died.  The remaining dozen or so are faithful Mary Kay users. I don't call them, or bother them to buy - they just call or e-mail me, which is good because I don't have time for much more than that. I'm out trying to earn money. It was a relief the minute I stopped looking at everyone I met as a potential customer, although I accidentally get about one new customer a year. I don't know how it happens.

I've gotten everything counted and the shelves are neat and organized again. I've got a donation box and a box of things I can give as gifts. I'm sitting here at the end of a long day with blue eyelids and raspberry ice lips and it's going to be a while before I want to think about Mary Kay again (unless, of course, somebody wants to buy something...).

Me being blessed

Mmm... I love not waking up until it gets light. I love having breakfast with Dennis. I love cleaning up the kitchen at my own house. I love finding things that have been lost for a while. I love fixing things that have been broken for a while. I love stopping when I feel like it and sitting down for a moment of peace. I love being able to change my mind about what I'm going to do next. I love being able to choose some music to listen to while I work. I love thinking about and planning for the trip to Cambodia - it's coming up fast! I love throwing away junk mail and getting rid of "stuff" we haven't used for a long time. I love wiping away dust. I love hanging clean clothes on the line outside to dry. I love pretty much every simple, little thing about being home. I am so grateful God has provided this time of freedom/recovery (I don't even know what to call it really). I can actually imagine that I will be able to go back to work January 10th refreshed and ready for whatever comes next. I just have to thank Him.

The trip I'm not on

It's probably true that at any given moment I can think of places I'm glad I'm not. But sometimes that feeling looms larger on my emotional landscape than others, this being one of those moments.  I am so glad I'm not working up in Chicago with my employer. I was at the airport Tuesday night helping her and her friend and one of her nurses get ready to get on a plane and left them in fairly good shape - wheel chair all dismantled and wrapped and ready to stow.

This morning I woke up to find missed calls, voice mails and texts on my phone. Seems when they got to Chicago and put the chair back together it didn't work properly so Tanisha went someplace to complain and try to get help with that while the other two went down to get the baggage. When they reunited at the transport van with all their beaucoup bags and paraphenalia they all thought they had all their luggage. But no, the one most necessary overweight suitcase full of medical supplies for taking care of a quadriplegic in a motel room was MISSING. Big problem. They didn't discover it until later at the motel and it wasn't pretty.

 At some point around 2 am Tanisha called the paramedics thinking they would certainly want to go hunt for her suitcase (I guess the thinking is that they would be avoiding a medical emergency and not have to come later???). Cathy, her LPN who wasn't really crazy about the idea of going on this trip in the first place, was ready to take her suitcase and start walking home to Florida. Midway Airport baggage service doesn't answer the phone after 10, nor does Airtran so there were no real people they could talk to so calling me was the next best thing, I guess. (Yeah, I know it doesn't really follow. I don't get it either.) So my first free morning was spent on the phone leaving messages for "unavailable" attendants in every location I could think of and waiting to see if they ever listen to them. Tanisha finally called me around 8:30, sounding absolutely catatonic. I don't think she slept at all. And from the look on Joy's face when she skyped me later, she didn't get any sleep either. The phone conversation with Tanisha had so many long silences that I didn't know what to do with, but didn't dare hang up on, that I actually felt sorry for her. To make her feel better I told her I would go down to the Sarasota airport and see if I could find someone with some influence to help find her bag. About half way there I got a call from Midway saying they had the bag and just needed to clear up some needed paperwork and get it delivered. Sigh of relief.

I know there's no reason for me to feel guilty, since I had nothing to do with all this trouble, but I know the others are wishing I were there instead of them, and as I said, I am so glad I'm not. Tanisha is not keen on seeing how little she can survive with. However, I know she's probably going to be okay because the last thing she said on the phone to me was "Could you please mail my nightshirts that didn't get packed, and while you're out getting them would you also give the cats their pills and comb them."  Yes, send the paramedics back to the station. She's not on her deathbed yet. I'm just sayin'...

I am saying that sometimes my own faith is so wrapped up in having answers, and of course those answers don't always come. I want God to show he loves me in some way that I recognize. There are things that I've asked for myself that haven't materialized but somehow those are not the things that really bother me.  I can always imagine how not getting what I've asked for might actually be for my good. It's actually harder when I see my children going through emotional or physical pain - kind of like in the movies when the bad guys go after someone that the hero loves instead of the hero himself. See how it can subtley creep into one's mind how God is the bad guy?

 I know that by definition faith has to occur in a void of evidence.  I need enough evidence of the really big, most important thing God has done that none of the other non-answered things matter.  If I could grasp the importance of being with God for eternity, I would be grateful and not sorrow over the disappointments and pain of life here and now... maybe I wouldn't, I don't know. I think I understand that it's the job of the Holy Spirit to help me when I feel this near the edge of faith. I need him to present himself as an unlimited supply of emotional strength. He needs to reassure me that there is a whole lot more going on than what I see. He needs to remind me that the things that are good in my life are not just my own doing or coincidence, and that the things that are not good will have a purpose and will pass with time. He has to remind me that God has already done the best, most loving thing for me and is watching and hoping that I will believe it and hang on. For sure, time is passing so quickly that it will soon be the day of questions being put to rest. And until then I will continue to ask him for what seems right - he says to do that - for my children, my friends, the world. I'm just saying that sometimes it is harder than others...

Kindle love

Well, I was in Sam's Club last week and walked past the tech section and there was Kindle, smaller, thinner but also cheaper.  There's something about the ache you get when you lose something you really liked - it just doesn't go away easily except you replace it and pretend you never lost it. I bought it. I'm wanting to get an iPad at some point (and they had them too, but they are expensive no matter where you get them) but just to have a way to easily purchase and read books when I'm traveling, the Kindle made a whole lot more sense. I like the e-ink look instead of the backlit computer look too.  So after a bit of a fuss getting my old library transferred over to the device, which is named Shirley's 2nd Kindle, I am all set up again. I don't remember if I named it like that or it just knew...
 So I was talking on the phone with Mom tonight and asking if she'd read anything good lately and she gave me three book titles.  I bought Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes, and Peace Like a River, and decided to get a free trial book by James Patterson instead of the one she read. But within 10 minutes of our call I had the books to read. This makes reading so much more possible now that I don't have to go to a bookstore OR the library. I love it. Kindle should pay me to publish this.

"Tanisha, I’m not going to travel to Chicago again this month. Even if I started to feel better it wouldn’t be smart to immediately do something again that I know is likely to undo any recovery.  I’ve put aside my own concerns for the last two trips, and am not sorry that I went, but now I need to be at home.  I know you were hoping I would go and I am sorry."

This is all I told her in an e-mail last Friday - when I knew I wouldn't see her again for two days and she would have time to digest it. She evidently got busy planning another way to do it.  One night early in the week Cortney kept me up till midnight asking questions about how much she should ask to go and what the conditions were like. Sounds like Scottie talked her into it (after giving her enough to buy winter clothes and upgrading the hotel to one near a shopping mall...) Gail is also going along to help and they are leaving on the 13th.  So that's that. I not only do not have to do that trip again, but I will get a week off at home! It will be so good.

Tanisha hasn't talked to me about her plans except to have me working on the supplies needed to go, checking meds, etc... She's been pleasant as possible considering that she hasn't felt good. I know the stress is making all her physical problems worse.  Today I'm going to work knowing that I'm getting a cold for the first time in three years, that I can remember. Dennis has had it for a week now and I thought I would escape but I guess not.  More later about my busy week...

Decisions

Tonight I've been thinking, sitting by the fire outside, wondering how to set boundaries and yet be kind. I'm in agonizing decision mode complete with upset stomach, headache and tears. I've just gotten home from a week long working trip to Chicago, had one day off and have already been asked to go back again next week.  I would like for there to be other answers to Tanisha's need to be with her mom other than my going with her - other people who could also supply her need for physical care. I don't want to go again and I have to tell her that somehow, even though I know she might not be able to find anyone else to take her. If this job were simply that - a job - it might be easier, but there are too many aspects to our relationship that are un-job-like. I have a lot of compassion for her dillemma. If my mom were almost certainly dying soon I would want to go and be with her. But it is not a simple decision for Tanisha who has to be taken care of herself, even as she tries to take care of someone else.

I've been gone from home so much - it seems that way to me. There was the two week trip in August after which I told Tanisha I didn't want to travel with her anymore. Following that there was the week long trip to Atlanta which I did because it had been scheduled a year ahead and she hadn't had time to find anyone else to go - but again, it was to be the last one for me. Then somehow I found myself saying yes to her wanting to see her Mom again because she was doing so poorly with her cancer treatment - another week away, this time over Thanksgiving. And at some time there will probably be a funeral to attend. My body is tired of working so much and I'm missing my own life to a certain extent.

Logistically, my trip to Cambodia is coming up and I need some energy for that. If I'm up in Chicago where the timing of things is totally out of anyone's control, what if there is a long wait? It doesn't make sense to keep coming back and going again since it is the travel that is the hardest part. In the next 25 days I don't want to have to be worrying about Chicago over and over and having no time to prepare for Cambodia.

I'm looking for answers but somewhat afraid that the answer will be difficult to implement no matter what decision I make.

Time

it's time, give me a minute of your time, it's timeless, it's timely, forgotten in time, timed-out, half time, double time, just in time...  Sitting up there in Chicago waiting for time to pass, I knew that I would probably be sitting at home again soon wondering about the reality of things past.and here I am, doing just that. What on earth is time? We know how to measure it in different ways, but what is it really? I think it is a hard thing to answer, but even harder is thinking about time being created, and what it was like before it was created.  Sometimes when I can't find answers to my questions about God I think about him being in a timeless world where everything happens at once and it helps me know that I don't know very much about God at all. As weird as time is, it's actually a simpler way of living than anything else I can imagine and that's why I think God put us in time. It's sort of his gift to us when things are hard - we can know they won't last forever. And the good things we don't want to end? Well, if things were always good, we'd say good compared to what? Maybe this variety of good times and bad times and in betweens is what makes us change and grow, especially if we believe that there is purpose to be found in this strange collection of seconds, minutes, hours, days, years.

I never intended to eat six of my Lindor dark chocolate truffles, but a wrapper count shows that it happened. I finished the bag which is sooo easy to do. When I get done with a hard thing, like the trip to Chicago, I tend to max out on relief items. I am just so relieved to be sleeping in my own bed, driving my own car, finding something in my refrigerator (other than all the vegetables that rot/dry up while I'm gone), making more of my own decisions, petting my cat... Even cleaning and doing laundry seem somewhat precious to me. And today, since I am planning my second Thanksgiving this one with Julie, I baked pumpkin pies and put my tablecloth with pretty autumn leaves on the table.

We got home last night around 6:30 and I gave all the passengers waiting at the gate one last show as I stripped the packing and duct tape off Tanisha's electric chair and put it back together again. I even got a couple volunteers who thought it was so interesting what I was doing that they had to join me.  I was relieved that I got the parts all joined again and that it worked when I put Tanisha in it.  She makes such a big deal about it costing $30,000 and how careful we should all be when we touch it.  I was relieved when she and all her stuff were in the van with Michelle and leaving the airport - without me.  I was glad Dennis came to pick me up and take me home. And I was glad I got to sleep till 7 this morning before Tanisha called and asked me to come to work at 9:30.

Will the time ever come when we have more help? Will the time ever come when I will feel free to leave Scottie's employment? Will I instead be going back to Chicago again if her mom dies and there is a funeral to attend? I know I can count on time making changes in my life even if I don't know what the changes will be. And when I think of God being a constant, because he says he doesn't change it makes some sense to me, because he doesn't live in time like I do. It's just a thought...

Travel days

Travel days are the worst.  Coming home travel days are the worst of the worst.  Tomorrow we are traveling home and although I have been kind of packing all day I still am fighting to keep panic away.  You would think that a departure time of 2:30 would not be a problem, and it wouldn't be for most people, which we are not.  We are not most people. The biggest drawback is that we use almost everything we have brought on a daily basis, which means we can't pack it until we are done using it in the morning. Tanisha's morning routine takes 3 hours when we rush. Packing will take another hour. Loading up and the trip to the airport is another hour long process at least. And we should have three hours minimum at the airport to check in, wrap the wheelchair and get boarded. That's sounding like about 6 in the morning, groan...  Going this direction we don't have extra help through the airport security or getting the chair ready.  But by 7 pm tomorrow, if all goes well, I could be home and I have to say that gives me hope.

On sleeping...

I really have no idea what's going on when I'm sleeping. The things I think are happening are really going on when I'm kind of awake and able to be aware of them. This is a frequent source of argument between me and my employer. Four out of five days of the week she'll greet me with "I haven't slept a wink since 2 am" or something similar. Doesn't she know that I've been listening to loud snoring on the monitor for over an hour? Was it the cat? I don't think so. Here in the motel room she calls the shots on what noise is allowed when she's trying to sleep and she is sure that she hears my phone vibrating with email notifications - because she hears them when she is awake. And why is it that I must tape, clothes pin and block every stray beam of light from the windows, doors and electronics when she can fall asleep with all the lights on as I'm getting her ready for bed? Some nights when I'm turning off the lights she says "you can put a towel on the floor to keep light from coming under the door" ( because I sleep by the door). I now tell her " no thank you, I'll just close my eyes. It's easier." And I'm thinking that she'd better close hers too.

Most of our hotels have a short hall as you enter the room with a bathroom door and a closet opening onto it. That's where I usually sleep, on a rollaway. And that name describes the only thing it does well - rolls away. It is not an aid to sleeping. The frame is most often made of metal and comes folded in half with a mattress and sheets inside. After you open it and remove the torn sheets from the metal hooks, you will never get it to go back with mere human effort. And the springs, if you want to call them that, are little more than a noisy, wire hammock that will only support a medium weight child,. The mattress might be ok, and I usually drag it off and put it on the floor. I've often marvelled about the floor part, because the floor in a motel is a lethal, dirty place. Anything of Scottie's that touches the floor gets thrown away (preferably) or washed.  Yesterday a few pills fell out of an envelope onto the floor and she said she was tempted to pick one of them up (the one that cost $5 a pill) so I scooped it up according to the 3 second rule and put it back in the bottle. This hardly. ever. happens. So, what does she think about me sleeping on the floor, in the hallway, with all the germs? I don't know.

Another noise issue is the room air conditioner. We give ac units a real workout, switching them from high heat to high cooling multiple times during the course of a night. I'm used to having to put pillows around them to direct the breeze away from her bed because she doesn't like to feel moving air, or so I thought. This motel has a fairly quiet unit that doesn't blow toward her bed at all and now she's having me put pillows to hold back the curtains so she can feel the air. And she's really pretty sure the unit isn't working because the condenser isn't loud enough and doesn't cool the air enough. Two nights now she has told me to keep the ac on when we go to sleep.  It blows right over me on the hall floor and don't I know it's working! Brrr... She is usually freezing and wears a stocking cap to bed. I can't figure it out.

Only one day left in Chicago and one day traveling home. We are beginning to get on each other's nerves, which happens regularly at the end of our trips. I'm used to it but it's not fun. She gets more critical and controlling, and has to dictate my every move. It helps me somewhat to write about it even if no one ever reads it. That's why I just have to say...

Day 5 writings

I just have to say that there are worse things than being alone. In fact on this particular trip I spend a good bit of time looking forward to being alone. We have been in the hotel four nights and three days now and about half of our trip is over - yesterday was the top of the hump. There has been no talk of me going with Tanisha to see her mom so I have afternoons to myself at the hotel. Every morning starts with a hectic rush to get ready before the transport van arrives.  This morning I ate my fake scrambled eggs standing up looking out the window. There is very little eating time in the morning but I do go to the breakfast bar and load up on food for later.  Tanisha eats sometime after I get her up in the chair. As we work our way through the various elements of morning care the room gets messier and finally arrives at tornado look-alike status.  I think this is part of the reason she doesn't have me come along - who would clean up the mess while we were gone, and how awful would it be to come back tired at the end of the day and have to deal with it? So by now I know all the housekeepers, desk girls and janitors at the Hampton, plus a few waitresses at Cracker Barrel where I hang out for supper. I feel a little sorry for Tanisha when she comes back and tells me about her day and how she had to fend for herself, but no, she was the one who wanted to do this, right? She spends a lot of time watching her mom sleep.

Her mom is staying in the hospital to get intravenous feedings. She has lost her appetite completely and lost a lot of weight so daughter Taylor insisted that the doctors do something about it, even though they didn't think this was the best idea.  Mary is so weak she doesn't get out of bed very much.  She is actually about the right weight for her height now but Taylor and Tanisha are both thinking about malnutrition. Tanisha heard that more cancer patients die from that than from the cancer itself so she has been sending her mom nutrition bars and vitamins and other things sick people don't like to eat. It's sad that Tanisha wants so badly to do something to help but there's not a lot she can do. 

Thanksgiving came and went yesterday. After I cleaned the room I took a nap, sort of.  Then I finished reading my book "Fuse of Armagedon", which I should have been reading on my Kindle, had I not lost it on the airplane. ( I have to say that it's very frustrating trying to figure out how to get people to look for something from afar off.  It's probably still on the floor under the seat, but I'll never find it and that is sad.) I made myself dress up around 4 pm and went over to Cracker Barrel for dinner. There was a line but I didn't have to wait too long to be seated. The waitress said they had been full since they opened at 11 am so I'm thinking this was a good year for them. They must have had a LOT of food stored up somewhere to not run short of anything. The meal was pretty good, except there were no cranberries which is one of my favorites for Thanksgiving. I will make up for that when I get home. There was sweet potato casserole, cornbread dressing, green beans, biscuits, turkey and gravy and pumpkin pie, all in acceptable quantities so I did well without getting overstuffed. I was aware of being alone when most everyone else was with family but that is how I am fairly frequently so I'm used to it. The rest of the evening I spent on the phone, facebooking and looking for something decent on tv.

The transport guy brought Tanisha home around 10. She was tired and out of sorts (I know what that means, but what on earth is a sort?) and spent the next several hours dictating my every move and breath. She says my name a lot - "Get me a washcloth Shirley" "My hip needs to be higher on the right Shirley", "Shirley, put the fan on low cool " as if there's someone else around who might jump to do it first. It always sounds odd to me. And there were lots of little things to argue about which she loves to do when she thinks I'm not obeying her exactly. As much as I do like her at times, I'm always relieved at night when she is finally covered up and snoring away. Which brings me back full circle - when it comes to night duty with Tanisha, there are worse things than being alone.

this rainy day

It has been rainy and cold in Chicago today. That's why I've stayed in the motel, well, that and having no place else to go. Now that I've decided to write I'm sure Tanisha will come back any minute but I just have to say a few things about how crazy it is to travel with this disabled lady. She calls me and others like me "able-bodieds" like we were from another planet and should be punished for being here.  Yesterday my punishment was flying up here to Chicago with Tanisha, her hoyer lift, her manual wheelchair, two Roho cushions, her $30,000 electric wheelchair, the battery charger for said chair, 4 suitcases, 3 carryons, a bag of lunch, 3 eggcrate mattresses, a set of bed risers, and numerous pieces of bedding. As we passed laboriously through security (challenge number one), one of the workers asked which airline we were flying on and did they know we were coming with this much stuff. Of course they knew we were coming. Tanisha had been making calls all the week before to let them know.  As we got to the gate over an hour early and started our wheelchair wrapping project we actually collected an audience.  Michelle and I piled all of our loose "stuff" into the electric chair that Tanisha had just vacated and wrapped it with the eggcrate mattresses and a whole roll of duct tape. It was a work of art, complete with warning signs lest anyone should turn it on it's side, bump it, or mar it in any forseeable way (challenge number two).  It was a relief when the baggage guys came up and took it away. They always say they're going to be extra careful but when you have to put something weighing 420 lbs. in the hold of a jet it always results in some damage.

The next challenge was at the end of the jetway where we got Tanisha into that skinny little chair with no arms and three or four people disappeared with her into the plane to get her seated. I'm glad I don't have to be there to witness that - there's never enough room for me to do anything to help. I stayed out in the jetway and broke the hoyer and manual wheelchair down into pieces I thought the baggage guys could handle and off they went. They also took two of our larger carryon suitcases just to make it easier for us. Airtran charges for anything you ask to be checked - $20 per case. But if they decide to take it themselves you don't pay anything.  And this is very good for us because we always have more than we are really allowed to carry on. So after the equipment and extra bags disappeared we actually looked like we were following the rules. Tanisha had been lifted into an aisle seat. In Airtran planes one's knees always touch the seat in front so after stowing our remaining bags in the overhead bins I did my circus act and bounded over Tanisha's legs and settled in for several hours of avoiding her wiggles and stretches. In Chicago everything had to be reversed and put back together again. I was amazed that I remembered how it all went. Our journey started at 7:30 in Sarasota and ended about 9:30 in Chicago. By 10:30 we were in the transit van headed to the hotel. I still had to unpack, set up the room and get Tanisha to bed. My phone clock said 3:20 am when I laid down to sleep but it might not have adjusted for the new time zone yet. I am getting better, quicker and more experienced each time we do this - I can tell.

For instance, experience has taught me to avoid the roll away beds that they bring us. I just take the mattress off and lay it on the floor. It's better for my back and much quieter. She slept until almost eight and I felt pretty rested too by that time. We needed it. I spent the day after Tanisha left cleaning up the room and reading. Looking out the window at the rain and just relaxing was a good break from yesterday's madness.

 In the midst of looking out for all of Tanisha's stuff I managed to leave my new Kindle in the airplane. This is really sad for me - I hadn't even gotten over the thrill of having one yet and now it's gone.  I've called the lost and found but I'm counting it as loss and not expecting to see it again. All for today.