CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY: ON THE ROAD AGAIN

All right. All right. All right. This may be overused by Matthew McConaughy, but it’s the way I feel right now. Sure, I had a very rough Tuesday night at the hospital sleep clinic – sleep apnea mask here I come! And sure, it’s hella uncomfortable wearing these doodads all over my chest and sides for the Holter whatever for the next 24 hours. And of course it’s not wonderful adding a cardiologist to the list of specialists I have to see (rapid heart rate). But these things are not going to bring me down today.

Not today after the week I have had. It’s August 27, the day after Women’s Equality Day, and I’ve completed a Response to a Defendant’s Motion for Post-Conviction Relief. Yes, I’ve used my legal skills in Florida, learning some Florida law along the way. My background was clean enough that the Monroe County State Attorney is giving me a chance to volunteer at their Plantation Key office. I can do this work at their office or at home. Either place, I am using my brain for something other than crossword puzzles, TV news and iPhone games. Hooray, I say, Hooray!

I’m going to try to bring you up to date – today is October 14, two and one half months since I wrote the first two paragraphs. August and September were the months of dental work – from Key Largo to Kansas City, Missouri and back to Key Largo. The Admiral set up two days of dental work for me – 3 crowns – with his Dr. K in KC. This was on the heels of a painful root canal with Dr. Grossman in Key Largo – is there any other kind of root canal? Dr. K was able to complete one crown. She decided one tooth needed only a new filling and she couldn’t get near the third tooth, because it would not get numb. She said she used enough anesthesia to put a moose to sleep, but still I shot out of her chair every time she got near the tooth. So after two days in “the chair”, two nights of watching the Admiral eat barbecued ribs, and a quick tour of the Truman presidential library and museum, we flew back to Key Largo and I landed in Dr Grossman’s chair for my second root canal. I was wrong – there is another kind of root canal besides the painful type. There is the pure torture root canal – the one that makes you cry uncontrollably. Whew – that was baaad. When we finished, and the staff picked my limp body up off their chair, I knew I had to get another crown.

At this point, the second week in September, we were headed to Salinas to house sit for our neighbors, so I had to find a dentist in California who does crowns in one sitting. Enter Jeannette Kern, DDS, who has the same tools for crowns as Dr K and who served on the Monterey County Rape Crisis Center Board with me. Not that I will ever feel even slightly comfortable in a dentist’s torture chamber, er, office, but Dr Kern convinced me that she’s the dentist in my future. She gave me another crown, and unfortunately found another cavity. But she’s thorough and she explains what she’s doing as she goes along. Sure, her drills make the same piercing, ear-splitting sounds as other dentists’, but she acknowledges my fears and somehow makes me feel safe. I’m not saying I’ll enjoy going to her office, but I feel like I’m doing the best thing for my teeth and gums to sign up with her.

One good food memory in KC. When we arrived in the evening, we drove straight from the airport to Gates barbecue. Mmmmmm – good. I knew this would be my only chance to chew normally and I took full advantage of Gates barbecued beef sandwich and fresh fries. Gates does not disappoint. And it made the entire trip worthwhile. Thank you, Mr. Gates. You’re smokin’ great!

How did the plane ride go with PRL (partial right leg)? The Admiral obtained first class tickets, so we had more room than most. Delta supplied wheel chairs and we whizzed around Atlanta International. The airport at Kansas City is so small and non-busy that I received very good service from a special TSA representative and from the Delta reps. The flights were not super long, so I was able to keep my prosthesis on during the entire journey from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta to KC and back without any discomfort. So even though I am still not walking normally without the “rollator”, I can fly, I can fly!

Let me say something about this walking objective. The “rollator”, a 4 wheeled walker by Drive, an American manufacturer, is a game changer. I can walk at my normally fast pace. I am no longer laboring with a two wheeled walker, which made it very difficult to walk at a snail’s pace. So the rollator has been a great boon to my getting around – perhaps too good. I’m thinking the old-fashioned walker would have frustrated me so much that I would have chucked it and started to walk on my own. But when I got the rollator and started moving as fast as I wanted to again, I think that walking on my own became less important. But dammit, that is still my objective – and the Admiral is getting very impatient (not any more than I am).

We went to California on September 12 and stayed until September 24. Our neighbors, Brenda and Royal, were heading to Hawaii for 6 days, so we agreed to house sit for them. The best part of house sitting is reuniting with our dog, Zorro. The first morning after our arrival Zorro was at my bedside at 6:30 a.m. lobbying for his morning walk. He has a perfect memory of me and of our routines. My new leg did not faze him. He just urged me to put it on and get the leash and go for our walk together. He is great on a leash. As I maneuvered the rollator down the sloped driveway, Zorro did not pull on the leash at all. He adapted to my slow pace, and we had a great time – he got to sniff everything he wanted and I got to go at a safe speed. We stopped at the “doggy diner”, a box of treats affixed to a neighbor’s tree, and we visited with Gracie and her mom, Shelly. We also visited Shelby, who rents our house. My walks with Zorro were wonderful. I had hoped to do our two mile walk in the park, but alas, the rollator is not great on the park path. As soon as I can walk, skip, jog, run without the rollator, Zorro and I are going to renew our park walks. Brenda went with us into the park for about a quarter mile – it was good to be back. But what a thrill it will be when I’m actually free of the rollator and able to hike up to Olassen’s Meadow and down the cliff to the water tank – a 2 to 3 mile route. Thinking of my walks with Zorro is the biggest incentive to walk independently again.

Did you know that you can rent a car with a left accelerator pedal from Enterprise? You can. And we did. We used it during our stay in California. And I drove it. I had practiced driving in Key Largo with a rental car outfitted with both a left and right accelerator pedal. Unfortunately, our California car did not have a right accelerator pedal. But the Admiral was a trooper and learned quickly how to drive with the left accelerator pedal. I used this car a lot, driving to Sondra’s house on the peninsula, driving to lunch with friends from the DA office, driving to Tonie’s for a haircut, driving all around town doing errands, driving to the dentist – each time I put the rollator in the trunk and removed it when I reached my destination. The rollator is rather light; otherwise, this would have been impossible. I’m not saying it was easy to wrangle the rollator in and out of the car trunk, but it was worth it to be out on the road again. It’s another big step toward freedom – driving.

Driving was definitely a high point of our trip to California. And flying was rather a low point. We left from Miami International, where English comes in at a distant second to Spanish in the language department. Okay – I speak Spanish, but I can’t change my appearance enough to look like a Latina. And the Admiral noticed a not so subtle difference in treatment between the Latinos and people like us. We faced resistance from the moment we hit the Delta terminal curbside and asked for a wheelchair. This was no problem in Fort Lauderdale and Kansas City, none whatsoever. But in Miami, it was as though we had asked for a Ben Hur chariot pulled by four white stallions. It was not going to happen. We were told to “go inside”. Once we made clear that Delta had promised curbside assistance, another baggage clerk showed up and, surprise!, a wheelchair showed up. Not that the Spanish-speaking women with the wheelchair ever acknowledged my presence. But still, we had made progress. I was taken to the Delta gate and dumped into a chair, because the wheelchair assistant had to leave. For the next twenty minutes I saw Delta aides – three of them – wheel passengers to the same gate in wheelchairs and stay with them until boarding. The aides were all Spanish-speaking (one was the aide who “helped” me) and the passengers were all Spanish-speaking. Interesting, huh? After these three Latinas were taken down the ramp to the plane, one of the aides “remembered” me and wheeled me down the ramp. It’s not that I wanted or expected special treatment; it’s that I did not expect such disparate treatment. I felt much the same way in the summer of 1966 when I rode the bus to work on Capitol Hill, the only white person on a bus crowded with African Americans, and I became invisible, untouchable and undesirable. But that was 1966, this is 2015.  Not a problem. Fifty years later, discrimination appears to be alive and well at Miami International. Needless to say, the Admiral did not like this differential treatment and he has lodged a complaint with Delta.

The entire time we were in California the Admiral kept watching for the development of tropical storms off the coast of Africa. Somehow we dodged a bullet, as he did not have to fly back to Key Largo to protect Slow Motion from hurricane winds and wild surf. California remained in drought mode during our stay, and the lack of humidity was amazing. My Salinas friends complained of the heat – it was in the 80’s one day – we had left nonstop days in the mid-nineties in Key Largo, with 90 percent humidity – I was in weather heaven. I even bought some long pants and wore them most of the time.

Great visits! Louisa came to visit us while Royal and Brenda were still home. She looks so elegant and she is so happy with FX TV productions. I am so happy for her. Finally, a job that uses her talents and a boss who is not verbally abusive. Louisa, you deserve this after toiling in Verizon’s fields. I hope you become president someday soon and use your abilities to the fullest. Alan and Barbara and the four grands – Olivia, 11; Abigail 10; Michayla, 9; and Benjamin, 7 – also visited us in Harper Canyon We had berries galore, a few M and M’s and a lot of good conversation. Olivia loves to read, so she settled in on the couch with her huge book and read. Michayla has turned into a pixie, a la Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Abigail is beautiful and athletic; and Ben is a Lego wizard. Alan and Fran – and Barbara – can be so proud of these young geniuses.

I reunited with Tammy and had a great massage. Tonie gave me a great haircut. Chris, Carol, Chuck and Ed – and special guest, Terry – brought me up to speed on changes in the DA’s office. My book club members were scintillating as usual – we reviewed The Husband’s Secret. And Sondra and Barbara were my Sunday brunch buddies, full of opinions and encouraging as hell. They helped me find my “traveling pants” at Chico’s. All in all, it was a great return to California. My neighbor Brenda gave me Sisters in the Law, a book about Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s enlightening and maddening at the same time. The writer did not have the benefit of living through the sixties and seventies with the Women’s Liberation Movement. So she makes some false assumptions and plain wrong statements about the relationship between the reproductive freedom cases and the rest of the sex discrimination cases which women’s rights lawyers brought into federal court. Still, it’s nice to read Nancy Stearns’ name and Ann Freedman’s name in the book – I have good memories of both and their commitment to equality for women.

Naturally the Admiral was sure that my new book would sink the boat. It hasn’t, but I have kept it in our room at Marina del Mar, just in case. I’ll send it to Janie when I’ve finished it. Speaking of Janie, the next chapter of this Blog will focus on our long, long auto road trip to and from Rehoboth Beach, where my Bethlehem Babes and I had a glorious reunion. Until then, enjoy your own travels and don’t forget your toothbrush