Insane trip report
Jul. 19th, 2018 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nosrednayduj(Is that the trip or the report that's insane? why not both?)
Well, that was 9 days of my life I'd rather have done something different with....
It wasn't all bad. There were some very touching family moments, and a generally good visit with family. Other people seem to think it was worth all the trouble, so I will accede to their opinion. It wasn't supposed to be all about me anyway. But I can still whine :-)
Flights were uneventful in the flying, but some stress in the airports, including a couple of delays. I spent a lot of time trying to anticipate what random thing my parents were going to do and then preventing it. Which led me to be forgetful and stupid myself. I left the boarding passes at security before the first flight. At lunch on the return I dropped a 4-oz container of salad dressing on my knee. Of course I had checked my luggage, so I had to just fly smelling like salad! I apologized to my seatmate. The airport wheelchair thing worked out pretty well. One attendant refused my tip, but the rest happily took it. Sometimes we managed to push the chair ourselves, which was pretty convenient, it meant we could stop at the restroom or to get food on our own schedule.
My mother is really slow at pretty much everything, so when she said she wanted a shower in the morning before we departed, I said she would have to start it by 8am or we would be late to the flight. So she wakes up at 6! And gets my stepfather up to start the shower process. Now we have two hours to kill... Everything seemed to be like that; conspiring to go wrong no matter what I tried to do to avert it.
Unfortunately, both my mother and her sister were not feeling well the day of the wedding, so both of them had to miss it -- and their attendants (me and my stepfather and stepsister) as well. We did all get to have leftover wedding dinner the next day, and it was pretty good. I sort of felt -- all that flying for naught -- we didn't even get to go to the party! We got to have our own invalids-only party, and a lot of nice visiting was had with my aunt.
My aunt is not doing all that well; her short term memory is completely shot, and so we had the same conversation over and over. My poor stepsister had the brunt of it, as she elder-sat for longer than I did.
It would have been fine had the venue been a "normal" venue, a handicapped accessible building and all that -- but it was instead a lovely ranch out in the wilds of Montana (dirt road access and a 45 minute drive from my cousin's house and the motel we were staying at) and the actual ceremony was to be held outdoors up on a grassy knoll with a stunning view. The barn had an accessible bathroom so it wasn't too rustic, but gravel paths were going to be one problem, and sitting unprotected from the sun was going to be another.
My stepfather and I had gone out there for the rehearsal dinner (leaving the old ladies behind in care of my stepsister) to scope out the place. We didn't think either of them would make the climb up the grassy knoll, and had discussed whether it would be possible to drive them up -- in theory yes: they'd driven a truck up there the day before to set up the rented chairs for the ceremony. In practice -- well we didn't get to test that out, but it might have worked out or it might have been a headache to negotiate around the rest of the expected 150 guests!
The one shining glory of the trip was the presentation of the heirloom cedar chest and the little pieces of heirloom chotchkas within. We did that the day we arrived, and the bride was pleased by all the things, which was really nice. I had feared she'd poo-poo all the stuff as old-fashioned and "omg what do I have to put up with from these elderly ladies", but she really seemed touched. I had only met her once before, some years ago, so I really had no idea what to expect. My mother wrote up a history of her mother's side of the family (sixteen siblings! Can you imagine?) based on a family tree that one of her Swedish cousins had made in the 80's, a copy of which was also included in the presentation. (I have a copy too, which I snagged last time I was at my mom's. I found me on it. It's a huge piece of paper, like 3x4 feet.)
So, it's done with. And I did have some nice visiting with my cousins, who I don't see all that often.
Next up: My stepfather's 90th birthday celebration in just over two weeks. OMG, more airplanes!!!
Well, that was 9 days of my life I'd rather have done something different with....
It wasn't all bad. There were some very touching family moments, and a generally good visit with family. Other people seem to think it was worth all the trouble, so I will accede to their opinion. It wasn't supposed to be all about me anyway. But I can still whine :-)
Flights were uneventful in the flying, but some stress in the airports, including a couple of delays. I spent a lot of time trying to anticipate what random thing my parents were going to do and then preventing it. Which led me to be forgetful and stupid myself. I left the boarding passes at security before the first flight. At lunch on the return I dropped a 4-oz container of salad dressing on my knee. Of course I had checked my luggage, so I had to just fly smelling like salad! I apologized to my seatmate. The airport wheelchair thing worked out pretty well. One attendant refused my tip, but the rest happily took it. Sometimes we managed to push the chair ourselves, which was pretty convenient, it meant we could stop at the restroom or to get food on our own schedule.
My mother is really slow at pretty much everything, so when she said she wanted a shower in the morning before we departed, I said she would have to start it by 8am or we would be late to the flight. So she wakes up at 6! And gets my stepfather up to start the shower process. Now we have two hours to kill... Everything seemed to be like that; conspiring to go wrong no matter what I tried to do to avert it.
Unfortunately, both my mother and her sister were not feeling well the day of the wedding, so both of them had to miss it -- and their attendants (me and my stepfather and stepsister) as well. We did all get to have leftover wedding dinner the next day, and it was pretty good. I sort of felt -- all that flying for naught -- we didn't even get to go to the party! We got to have our own invalids-only party, and a lot of nice visiting was had with my aunt.
My aunt is not doing all that well; her short term memory is completely shot, and so we had the same conversation over and over. My poor stepsister had the brunt of it, as she elder-sat for longer than I did.
It would have been fine had the venue been a "normal" venue, a handicapped accessible building and all that -- but it was instead a lovely ranch out in the wilds of Montana (dirt road access and a 45 minute drive from my cousin's house and the motel we were staying at) and the actual ceremony was to be held outdoors up on a grassy knoll with a stunning view. The barn had an accessible bathroom so it wasn't too rustic, but gravel paths were going to be one problem, and sitting unprotected from the sun was going to be another.
My stepfather and I had gone out there for the rehearsal dinner (leaving the old ladies behind in care of my stepsister) to scope out the place. We didn't think either of them would make the climb up the grassy knoll, and had discussed whether it would be possible to drive them up -- in theory yes: they'd driven a truck up there the day before to set up the rented chairs for the ceremony. In practice -- well we didn't get to test that out, but it might have worked out or it might have been a headache to negotiate around the rest of the expected 150 guests!
The one shining glory of the trip was the presentation of the heirloom cedar chest and the little pieces of heirloom chotchkas within. We did that the day we arrived, and the bride was pleased by all the things, which was really nice. I had feared she'd poo-poo all the stuff as old-fashioned and "omg what do I have to put up with from these elderly ladies", but she really seemed touched. I had only met her once before, some years ago, so I really had no idea what to expect. My mother wrote up a history of her mother's side of the family (sixteen siblings! Can you imagine?) based on a family tree that one of her Swedish cousins had made in the 80's, a copy of which was also included in the presentation. (I have a copy too, which I snagged last time I was at my mom's. I found me on it. It's a huge piece of paper, like 3x4 feet.)
So, it's done with. And I did have some nice visiting with my cousins, who I don't see all that often.
Next up: My stepfather's 90th birthday celebration in just over two weeks. OMG, more airplanes!!!
memory stuff
Date: 2018-07-21 10:03 pm (UTC)When I first started taking him to VA appointments, I made one for 7:30 AM, on the theory that there would be more parking space. It was true, but he got up before 5 AM to be sure he'd be ready on time. Didn't do that again.
Now his whole time sense is off, but then he could still at least figure out it was daytime by sunlight shining in.
Your new relative sounds like a good addition to the family.
Re: memory stuff
Date: 2018-07-21 10:23 pm (UTC)Good luck and best wishes in your elder-care journey...
Re: memory stuff
Date: 2018-07-22 01:03 am (UTC)