Now Playing -
"Man of Constant Sorrow," from Oh, Brother....
Now Eating -
CPK.
Now Feeling -
Achy.
Now Tweeting
- Melanie
~^ Warning: The following will be very image-heavy and potentially blurry. What can I say? Walgreen�s ain�t Kodak. I may scan and re-post the photos at a later date. Maybe. ^~I�m back. Feeling, of course, as though I never left.
All in all, I guess we had a good trip. Flying Jet Blue was good. Watching HGTV on the way down was good; as was the little mapquest.com speed/altitude/distance monitor on the TV. (�Look, honey! Our plane�s as big as the state of New Jersey!�) The landing was exceptionally good. The fact that there�s a CPK in the airport is good. A gulf-front studio with a king-size bed is good.
(�Why does this bed look smaller than the one on our honeymoon?� �Well, this one has an enormous headboard, and the other one was a big bed in a little room.�) The Fiestaware in the kitchenette and in the Mexican restaurant was good.
The cotton candy ice cream was good, even though it wasn�t the peppermint I was hoping for. The walk on the beach was good.
The enormous amount of food we ate was good.
Other things were�not good. Having a screaming headache that turned me into an incredible shrew for the first two days of our trip was not good. Wasting at least five hours waiting for my SIL to get her shit together was not good. The flat tire we discovered on our car Monday morning was not good. Flying for the first time since September 11th and not seeing the Twin Towers as part of the skyline was disconcerting, and sad and not good. The removed yet somehow frantic look in my mother-in-law�s eyes was not good.
The fact that she can still smile her beautiful smile for the camera was very, very good.
That she is in a facility manned by people who seem to truly care about their patients is very good indeed. That she can still recognize us, and still remember my singing to her in the hospital is�wonderful. And sad. Very, very sad.
She�s really in the best place for her to be right now. Her room is small, but very nice, and the cat that�s adopted her is a big black and white mush by the name of Sam. The staff is very friendly, and they had lovely things to say about her. The fenced property that the cottages stand on is smaller than we�d pictured, but there are paths to walk on and birdhouses and covered porches and a gazebo to sit in. We met some of the other residents Barbara has mentioned, including Robert�
the young man on the left. (That was taken on Western Day.) He�s very sweet. And Richard, who�s in his mid-sixties and was diagnosed with Alzheimer�s when he was just 55. There are shadowboxes outside each bedroom, where families can put pictures and mementos. He and his wife were such a beautiful couple. And now he�s been reduced to a monosyllabic shell of a man.
This is a horrible, horrible disease, and we�ve only just begun our journey into it. You sit next to this person, and listen to them talk, and you can just sense the synapses misfiring. And you do your best to follow along, and to not say the wrong thing, and to hold on to the little moments of clarity because you don�t know if she�ll remember your name the next time you see her. And you look at your husband, who has known this woman all his life, through the good and the bad, and you watch him watching someone he loves just fade away. No-one should have to go through that.
That said, on with the levity! Tra-la!
On Sanibel and Captiva
Me doing my best Edith Ann in an enormous Adirondack chair outside a Captiva gallery.
These are from the �Ding� Darling Wildlife Refuge. I think this is a heron.
Anyone? Anyone? I�m pretty sure it�s not an egret. Sing it with me now, will you? �Egrets�I�ve had a few�.�
The American Domestic Husband, genus huzbandius domesticanus, as he slowly approaches the wary tourist safely ensconced within her vehicle.
Sure he
looks friendly, but get between him and a pint of H�agen-Dazs, and watch out!
At The In-Laws
This incredibly cute child...
is my niece. She bears a small flower, presented, with much pomp, to her aunt. Her aunt is greatly pleased by this offering as it coordinates quite nicely with her bracelet.
My BIL used to work for the MTA, and got special permission to modify a logo of theirs to put on his boat.
Notice that the little commuter is also holding a fishing pole.
Sunset over the canal.
Gorgeous, no?
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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
~^
^~
