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Jul. 18th, 2009 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckThis is what I wrote while I was visiting my grandmother. I'm cutting it because it's long and because it contains some venting that's probably dull. The entry for Friday ends part way through the day. I'll write about the rest later (or maybe I'll let it slide into oblivion).
Sunday
I'm thankful for having seen an understanding doctor. The trip to my grandmother's and all of the things I needed to manage once there would have been hellish with just OTC painkillers. I'd almost certainly have had to bring my walker* along, and that's even more awkward than using the cane. With vicodin and naproxen, I can walk reasonably.
The painkillers are for my lower back. I did a number on it the Wednesday before the 4th and then aggravated things by being stupid and agreeing to do yoga with Cordelia (she pulled random cards out of a set she had. I should have vetoed the seated twist and thought twice about the cat). The muscles in my lower back locked up in response to the initial pain, making everything worse.
At any rate, we got going later than I'd hoped but more or less when I'd expected. I don't think we forgot anything crucial or irreplaceable. About all I can think of is Cordelia's toothpaste and vitamins.
We stopped at Scott's parents' place on the way up. My MIL pinned up the dress so she'll know how long it needs to be. She also has a shawl she's willing to lend to me if I promise to take good care of it and return it safely. I still plan to look for a shawl because I'd rather have one of my own, but this takes some pressure off so that I can pass by ones that I think are ugly. (Scott joked about pink paisley. If I were desperate, it might not be a joke.)
We met Papa a little north of Frankenmuth in a diner sort of place. He bought us lunch. Cordelia melted down a few minutes after saying goodbye to Scott. She cried for about fifteen minutes, until I asked Papa to find a place to pull over. He found a rest stop, and I got out and hugged her and wiped her eyes. I put my laptop next to her, wedged in, and set it to play kids' music. She was fine after that.
We stopped at Grandma's long enough to drop off the luggage and to pick her up. Then we went on to my uncle's place to met his youngest grandchild and to see my cousin and his wife. My uncle has two largish but friendly dogs. He crated one for the duration of the visit and put the other on a leash. Cordelia was better about the dogs than she has been in the past but not as good as I've heard she can be. (Me or her father being present seems to result in her displaying near panic instead of just wariness and unwillingness to touch a dog.)
Cordelia and I are sharing a double bed. I'm kind of amazed by how much space a six year old can take up on the bed. I spent a lot of the night afraid that one of us would fall off.
Monday
We started the day with grocery shopping. Grandma took Cordelia to a park near the beach while Papa and I went to the store. I forgot to pick up toothpaste for Cordelia, unfortunately, but we got plenty of food that she and I can safely eat. (Papa and Grandma kept giving me semi-panicked looks when discussion turned to menu planning. They're afraid of food landmines.)
The sporadic ability to get online that I'd hoped for appears to be, in practice, inability to get online. I'm not up to walking around to try to find the place with WiFi that Scott found a listing for, and I have no idea where it is. It might well be too far away. I'm not sure how far I can walk while carrying my laptop right now. I did let my airport look around, but all the networks it found are locked. I'm not sure I could bring myself to piggyback anyway.
With no internet, I'm worried about my ability to do![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ficfinishing properly. I'm sure I can crank out words. I'm just less sure that I can use the community's resources or serve as a first reader. I should have thought that part through better. I can still write. I can still work on formatting fic recs for later posting. I won't be able to check that the urls involved are still valid, but it's the writing up that's time consuming.
Tomorrow, I hope to visit the public library to see if they have wireless. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hopeful. According to Grandma, it's only two blocks. I think I can walk that far, even carrying the laptop.
I suppose it's a good thing I brought a lot of books. I'm finding many of them are things that I can't read. I expected that, but it's still rather depressing. I suppose I should look on the bright side-- When I get them home they can be moved from my to-be-read pile to my BookMooch inventory.
Cordelia cried again today, twice. The first time was after talking to Scott on the phone at bedtime. The second time was after bedtime. She'd kept coming downstairs on various pretexts, and I took a relatively firm stand that she needed to go to bed and that I wasn't going to put in a different CD. When I checked on her about ten minutes later, expecting to talk about how we might make bedtime work better during this trip, I found her crying quietly. I ended up holding her until she slept. She may need that for the rest of the visit.
She did have a good time today. She went to the beach with Papa and Grandma (while I stayed in and rested my back). It was a trifle chilly as Lake Huron never truly gets warm and the wind was rather strong, but she seems to have had a blast.
I'm more than a little appalled to see my father taking medication with vodka (mixed with cranberry juice which helps not at all). I didn't ask what he was taking because I really don't want to know. I can't think of any meds, even OTC ones, that benefit from a hefty dose of vodka. I'm also not sure what to say-- He's an adult. It's his body. It's just.... Isn't it a stupid thing to do?
Grandma's hearing isn't what it used to be. I sometimes have to repeat things because I forget to turn up my volume. She's also fretting because she has to take a test on Friday to determine whether or not she can continue to drive. I think she expects to lose her license but that she's still hoping she won't.
Yesterday, I wrote 130 words on chapter 19 of Rheotaxis. I also spent some time pulling together the fragments of chapter 18. That's a mess. It desperately needs a dialog between me and someone else who knows the story because I know it's broken and that pieces are missing, but I can't see it properly. It might only need a better bit of bridging and some description. It might need major surgery.
Tuesday
The bed is a problem. I'm sharing with Cordelia, and the bed is hard. When I lie on my side, my legs hurt. When I lie on my back, my hips hurt. I think I'm too used to my bed at home with its thick pad of foam. I keep waking up to change position, and that's not very restful. Three nights to go.
Cordelia now has a unicorn hobbyhorse. She saw it and wanted it, and an indulgent grandfather bought it for her. She's named it Ella. I'm biting my tongue so I don't mention my views on unicorns. She's a bit too young to hear them.
I managed a walk of several blocks this morning. Our intention was to go to the library (which turned out to be closed until noon) and the book store. At the book store, we got four books for Cordelia in the hope that reading more to her in the evenings will help her fall asleep.
During the afternoon, I spent about ten minutes on the beach after spending a couple of hours in the coffee shop. I didn't like walking on sand. It made my back complain loudly. My father, however, had dropped some heavy hints about what a pity it was that I was missing out on the beach. He seems convinced that, if I just go to the beach, I'll enjoy it as much as he does.
I kind of would like to put on my bathing suit and wade for about ten minutes. I'm just fairly certain that he won't let me get away with that little if I admit to owning a suit. If my back were fully better, I'd risk it, but I'm still hobbling.
I didn't manage any writing at all last night. I was too upset about Cordelia being upset, and my evening medications hit me unusually hard. I'm hoping to be able to stop taking the prescription pain meds soon, and that that will give me more time to be awake in the evenings.
Wednesday
Today was mostly cold up until the evening. It's now hot enough that I've turned off all the lights and have the shade up. Cordelia's supposedly trying to fall asleep, but I'd rather have her distracted than shut out whatever slight breeze we might get. (Sadly, the wind all seems to be coming from the other side of the building. There are times when being in the lea of something isn't good.
I'm stuck in here with Cordelia until she finally sleeps. She's telling me to leave but to leave my laptop with her. Last night and the night before, she wanted me here while she was falling asleep. I don't know if it's that we're snapping at each other or if it's that she's finally starting to become comfortable here.
I think my father's drinking a lot. It's hard for me to measure, though, because I'm not constantly watching and because my idea of 'a lot' is probably distorted. I suppose I could pull the vodka bottle out of the freezer and see how much is gone. I know he bought it Monday. How much is a lot, really? By my standards, a drink a day is a lot. By other people's standards, a drink or two in a day while on vacation isn't that much.
My father is reading R.A. Salvatore books. This jarred me a bit. For some reason, my mental Venn diagrams contained no intersection between 'books my father reads' and 'books by R.A. Salvatore.' Now that I consider it, the only reason my father wouldn't read them would be if knowledge of D&D were required. He's never done any role playing games. Pulp fantasy, on the other hand, is quite definitely his territory.
Cordelia spent most of the day playing with some kids who live across the street. They had a 'lemonade' stand. (I put 'lemonade' in quotes because Papa suspects it was Crystal Lite. None of us actually drank it. We bought it, brought it back here, and dumped it.) Judging by the number of quarters Cordelia brought back, they didn't do too badly. I think she made a little over two dollars, and she was one of about half a dozen kids.
My aunt and her husband stopped by this afternoon. By bad luck, my uncle and his wife stopped by at the same time. Everyone was civilized, but there's some bad feeling between my uncle and his brother-in-law. I don't know the present state of that, but I'd be surprised if it had changed much.
I almost wish that I hadn't gotten to check my e-mail and all of that yesterday. I spent a lot of today wishing that I could bury myself in reading people's journal entries. I also know that Scott responded to my e-mail, and not seeing his message while still knowing (from him telling me on the phone) that it exists is driving me crazy.
Still no writing happening. It might later tonight, after the munchkin is safely asleep.
Thursday
Today, I went with Papa and Cordelia to the beach. I took some photos, none of them great, and spent the rest of the time watching the towels and other paraphernalia. We took another little girl, a five year old neighbor of my grandmother's, along, too, and she and Cordelia enjoyed the waves.
Waves aren't a certainty with Lake Huron, at least not really noticeable waves. These had at least a foot of difference between wave and trough, enough to let the kids jump up and be carried inward.
While Papa and the girls were swimming, I cast longing looks at the coffee shop with internet, but I didn't have my laptop with me. I hadn't even brought a book (foolish of me, I know).
Grandma keeps commenting that I eat hardly anything and that my weight must be due to medications. I'm never sure what to say to that. I'm not sure there is a good answer to it.
This evening, after I got Cordelia to sleep, Papa told me that, although he doesn't know of any serious health problems he has, he doesn't really expect to live another decade. He'll be surprised to manage half that. He put it in the context of being very grateful to get to know Cordelia now while he's healthy.
To be honest, I think it's not so much that he expects to die as that he can't get his mind to deal with the idea of getting older than he is now. He's sixty-three, and he's seen older relatives gradually lose function in multiple ways. I suspect that realizing that Grandma has trouble seeing and hearing and may lose her driver's license tomorrow (which will leave her unable to do her grocery shopping without assistance, among other things). Also, Grandma has had him looking over the papers for the trust that she and Grandpa set up to keep their money safe. He and my uncle are the trustees, I believe, but Papa hadn't previously had a chance to look the paperwork over. There's a lot less money than there was when the trust was established, due to Grandma's investments losing value, but it's not nothing.
Friday
I'm sitting at my in-laws' place right now. It's about two thirds of the way home from Grandma's. Papa dropped us off here and took off again. He's going to be fighting weekend vacation traffic as he drives back to Grandma's, and the roads will only get busier as it gets later. He dropped us off about 2:30, and we had already seen heavy traffic heading north.
I woke up this morning and felt like singing an hallelujah. I'll be in my own bed tonight. I'll be sharing it with Scott rather than Cordelia. I'll have my pillows and blankets the way I like them. I won't have to wonder who I'm going to run into if I get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. (The upstairs bathroom at Grandma's has two doors. I never feel completely secure in it.) I won't worry that Cordelia's going to roll out of bed or that I'm going to push her out. Most of all, though, I'll be lying on a mattress that doesn't cause me pain. I do not understand the appeal of hard mattresses.
I'm also looking forward to having internet again (and wishing that Scott's parents had wireless so I could go online now).
For now, I'm enjoying a little solitude. Cordelia's downstairs, playing, and Scott's parents are out playing golf. Everything's quiet.
With luck, Scott will be out of work soon and able to come get us. I think he'll stop at home to shower first, but I still hope to see him soon. He'll be getting off work any minute now....
Sunday
I'm thankful for having seen an understanding doctor. The trip to my grandmother's and all of the things I needed to manage once there would have been hellish with just OTC painkillers. I'd almost certainly have had to bring my walker* along, and that's even more awkward than using the cane. With vicodin and naproxen, I can walk reasonably.
The painkillers are for my lower back. I did a number on it the Wednesday before the 4th and then aggravated things by being stupid and agreeing to do yoga with Cordelia (she pulled random cards out of a set she had. I should have vetoed the seated twist and thought twice about the cat). The muscles in my lower back locked up in response to the initial pain, making everything worse.
At any rate, we got going later than I'd hoped but more or less when I'd expected. I don't think we forgot anything crucial or irreplaceable. About all I can think of is Cordelia's toothpaste and vitamins.
We stopped at Scott's parents' place on the way up. My MIL pinned up the dress so she'll know how long it needs to be. She also has a shawl she's willing to lend to me if I promise to take good care of it and return it safely. I still plan to look for a shawl because I'd rather have one of my own, but this takes some pressure off so that I can pass by ones that I think are ugly. (Scott joked about pink paisley. If I were desperate, it might not be a joke.)
We met Papa a little north of Frankenmuth in a diner sort of place. He bought us lunch. Cordelia melted down a few minutes after saying goodbye to Scott. She cried for about fifteen minutes, until I asked Papa to find a place to pull over. He found a rest stop, and I got out and hugged her and wiped her eyes. I put my laptop next to her, wedged in, and set it to play kids' music. She was fine after that.
We stopped at Grandma's long enough to drop off the luggage and to pick her up. Then we went on to my uncle's place to met his youngest grandchild and to see my cousin and his wife. My uncle has two largish but friendly dogs. He crated one for the duration of the visit and put the other on a leash. Cordelia was better about the dogs than she has been in the past but not as good as I've heard she can be. (Me or her father being present seems to result in her displaying near panic instead of just wariness and unwillingness to touch a dog.)
Cordelia and I are sharing a double bed. I'm kind of amazed by how much space a six year old can take up on the bed. I spent a lot of the night afraid that one of us would fall off.
Monday
We started the day with grocery shopping. Grandma took Cordelia to a park near the beach while Papa and I went to the store. I forgot to pick up toothpaste for Cordelia, unfortunately, but we got plenty of food that she and I can safely eat. (Papa and Grandma kept giving me semi-panicked looks when discussion turned to menu planning. They're afraid of food landmines.)
The sporadic ability to get online that I'd hoped for appears to be, in practice, inability to get online. I'm not up to walking around to try to find the place with WiFi that Scott found a listing for, and I have no idea where it is. It might well be too far away. I'm not sure how far I can walk while carrying my laptop right now. I did let my airport look around, but all the networks it found are locked. I'm not sure I could bring myself to piggyback anyway.
With no internet, I'm worried about my ability to do
ficfinishing properly. I'm sure I can crank out words. I'm just less sure that I can use the community's resources or serve as a first reader. I should have thought that part through better. I can still write. I can still work on formatting fic recs for later posting. I won't be able to check that the urls involved are still valid, but it's the writing up that's time consuming.Tomorrow, I hope to visit the public library to see if they have wireless. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hopeful. According to Grandma, it's only two blocks. I think I can walk that far, even carrying the laptop.
I suppose it's a good thing I brought a lot of books. I'm finding many of them are things that I can't read. I expected that, but it's still rather depressing. I suppose I should look on the bright side-- When I get them home they can be moved from my to-be-read pile to my BookMooch inventory.
Cordelia cried again today, twice. The first time was after talking to Scott on the phone at bedtime. The second time was after bedtime. She'd kept coming downstairs on various pretexts, and I took a relatively firm stand that she needed to go to bed and that I wasn't going to put in a different CD. When I checked on her about ten minutes later, expecting to talk about how we might make bedtime work better during this trip, I found her crying quietly. I ended up holding her until she slept. She may need that for the rest of the visit.
She did have a good time today. She went to the beach with Papa and Grandma (while I stayed in and rested my back). It was a trifle chilly as Lake Huron never truly gets warm and the wind was rather strong, but she seems to have had a blast.
I'm more than a little appalled to see my father taking medication with vodka (mixed with cranberry juice which helps not at all). I didn't ask what he was taking because I really don't want to know. I can't think of any meds, even OTC ones, that benefit from a hefty dose of vodka. I'm also not sure what to say-- He's an adult. It's his body. It's just.... Isn't it a stupid thing to do?
Grandma's hearing isn't what it used to be. I sometimes have to repeat things because I forget to turn up my volume. She's also fretting because she has to take a test on Friday to determine whether or not she can continue to drive. I think she expects to lose her license but that she's still hoping she won't.
Yesterday, I wrote 130 words on chapter 19 of Rheotaxis. I also spent some time pulling together the fragments of chapter 18. That's a mess. It desperately needs a dialog between me and someone else who knows the story because I know it's broken and that pieces are missing, but I can't see it properly. It might only need a better bit of bridging and some description. It might need major surgery.
Tuesday
The bed is a problem. I'm sharing with Cordelia, and the bed is hard. When I lie on my side, my legs hurt. When I lie on my back, my hips hurt. I think I'm too used to my bed at home with its thick pad of foam. I keep waking up to change position, and that's not very restful. Three nights to go.
Cordelia now has a unicorn hobbyhorse. She saw it and wanted it, and an indulgent grandfather bought it for her. She's named it Ella. I'm biting my tongue so I don't mention my views on unicorns. She's a bit too young to hear them.
I managed a walk of several blocks this morning. Our intention was to go to the library (which turned out to be closed until noon) and the book store. At the book store, we got four books for Cordelia in the hope that reading more to her in the evenings will help her fall asleep.
During the afternoon, I spent about ten minutes on the beach after spending a couple of hours in the coffee shop. I didn't like walking on sand. It made my back complain loudly. My father, however, had dropped some heavy hints about what a pity it was that I was missing out on the beach. He seems convinced that, if I just go to the beach, I'll enjoy it as much as he does.
I kind of would like to put on my bathing suit and wade for about ten minutes. I'm just fairly certain that he won't let me get away with that little if I admit to owning a suit. If my back were fully better, I'd risk it, but I'm still hobbling.
I didn't manage any writing at all last night. I was too upset about Cordelia being upset, and my evening medications hit me unusually hard. I'm hoping to be able to stop taking the prescription pain meds soon, and that that will give me more time to be awake in the evenings.
Wednesday
Today was mostly cold up until the evening. It's now hot enough that I've turned off all the lights and have the shade up. Cordelia's supposedly trying to fall asleep, but I'd rather have her distracted than shut out whatever slight breeze we might get. (Sadly, the wind all seems to be coming from the other side of the building. There are times when being in the lea of something isn't good.
I'm stuck in here with Cordelia until she finally sleeps. She's telling me to leave but to leave my laptop with her. Last night and the night before, she wanted me here while she was falling asleep. I don't know if it's that we're snapping at each other or if it's that she's finally starting to become comfortable here.
I think my father's drinking a lot. It's hard for me to measure, though, because I'm not constantly watching and because my idea of 'a lot' is probably distorted. I suppose I could pull the vodka bottle out of the freezer and see how much is gone. I know he bought it Monday. How much is a lot, really? By my standards, a drink a day is a lot. By other people's standards, a drink or two in a day while on vacation isn't that much.
My father is reading R.A. Salvatore books. This jarred me a bit. For some reason, my mental Venn diagrams contained no intersection between 'books my father reads' and 'books by R.A. Salvatore.' Now that I consider it, the only reason my father wouldn't read them would be if knowledge of D&D were required. He's never done any role playing games. Pulp fantasy, on the other hand, is quite definitely his territory.
Cordelia spent most of the day playing with some kids who live across the street. They had a 'lemonade' stand. (I put 'lemonade' in quotes because Papa suspects it was Crystal Lite. None of us actually drank it. We bought it, brought it back here, and dumped it.) Judging by the number of quarters Cordelia brought back, they didn't do too badly. I think she made a little over two dollars, and she was one of about half a dozen kids.
My aunt and her husband stopped by this afternoon. By bad luck, my uncle and his wife stopped by at the same time. Everyone was civilized, but there's some bad feeling between my uncle and his brother-in-law. I don't know the present state of that, but I'd be surprised if it had changed much.
I almost wish that I hadn't gotten to check my e-mail and all of that yesterday. I spent a lot of today wishing that I could bury myself in reading people's journal entries. I also know that Scott responded to my e-mail, and not seeing his message while still knowing (from him telling me on the phone) that it exists is driving me crazy.
Still no writing happening. It might later tonight, after the munchkin is safely asleep.
Thursday
Today, I went with Papa and Cordelia to the beach. I took some photos, none of them great, and spent the rest of the time watching the towels and other paraphernalia. We took another little girl, a five year old neighbor of my grandmother's, along, too, and she and Cordelia enjoyed the waves.
Waves aren't a certainty with Lake Huron, at least not really noticeable waves. These had at least a foot of difference between wave and trough, enough to let the kids jump up and be carried inward.
While Papa and the girls were swimming, I cast longing looks at the coffee shop with internet, but I didn't have my laptop with me. I hadn't even brought a book (foolish of me, I know).
Grandma keeps commenting that I eat hardly anything and that my weight must be due to medications. I'm never sure what to say to that. I'm not sure there is a good answer to it.
This evening, after I got Cordelia to sleep, Papa told me that, although he doesn't know of any serious health problems he has, he doesn't really expect to live another decade. He'll be surprised to manage half that. He put it in the context of being very grateful to get to know Cordelia now while he's healthy.
To be honest, I think it's not so much that he expects to die as that he can't get his mind to deal with the idea of getting older than he is now. He's sixty-three, and he's seen older relatives gradually lose function in multiple ways. I suspect that realizing that Grandma has trouble seeing and hearing and may lose her driver's license tomorrow (which will leave her unable to do her grocery shopping without assistance, among other things). Also, Grandma has had him looking over the papers for the trust that she and Grandpa set up to keep their money safe. He and my uncle are the trustees, I believe, but Papa hadn't previously had a chance to look the paperwork over. There's a lot less money than there was when the trust was established, due to Grandma's investments losing value, but it's not nothing.
Friday
I'm sitting at my in-laws' place right now. It's about two thirds of the way home from Grandma's. Papa dropped us off here and took off again. He's going to be fighting weekend vacation traffic as he drives back to Grandma's, and the roads will only get busier as it gets later. He dropped us off about 2:30, and we had already seen heavy traffic heading north.
I woke up this morning and felt like singing an hallelujah. I'll be in my own bed tonight. I'll be sharing it with Scott rather than Cordelia. I'll have my pillows and blankets the way I like them. I won't have to wonder who I'm going to run into if I get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. (The upstairs bathroom at Grandma's has two doors. I never feel completely secure in it.) I won't worry that Cordelia's going to roll out of bed or that I'm going to push her out. Most of all, though, I'll be lying on a mattress that doesn't cause me pain. I do not understand the appeal of hard mattresses.
I'm also looking forward to having internet again (and wishing that Scott's parents had wireless so I could go online now).
For now, I'm enjoying a little solitude. Cordelia's downstairs, playing, and Scott's parents are out playing golf. Everything's quiet.
With luck, Scott will be out of work soon and able to come get us. I think he'll stop at home to shower first, but I still hope to see him soon. He'll be getting off work any minute now....
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Date: 2009-07-20 03:25 pm (UTC)(I too don't understand the appeal of hard mattresses.)
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Date: 2009-07-20 04:40 pm (UTC)I've had a lot of medical professionals tell me that firmer is better for one's health. I don't understand that. If it hurts too much to sleep, how can that be better?
Would you be free some afternoon in the next couple of weeks for searching the resale shops for shawls? I have a couple of borrowed options, so I'm not desperate, but I'd prefer to find one of my own in case I want to wear the dress again later.