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Whew, it’s been another busy week. I’d just about “gotten over” my travels when the Brantleys arrived two weeks ago. They stayed through Saturday, and then I needed ANOTHER half-week to recover. It’s not that we did anything difficult; I was just pooped. No problem, though — I slept!

Last Saturday, I met Liz Holzemer at Borders Bookstore, where she was doing a book signing. Liz just published “Curveball”, a book about her experiences with a brain tumor. I thought it was *excellent* because her experiences mirrored mine so closely. She was young when her tumor was discovered; her husband, a major-league baseball player, traveled a lot; and, like me with me strokes, she’d had brain surgery (although I didn’t have surgery, I definitely had *something* going on up there). However, I wasn’t sure just how *much* she’s like me, because she doesn’t mention being tired in her book. She is, though! =) (I’m not smiling because she’s tired, but because she understands.) She told exactly the same story; it’s a mental tiredness, not physical, and if she gets exhausted, that’s it — there’s no working around it. You can’t work through it; instead, you go to sleep and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

What’s more, I asked her to sign my notebook (as Ben’s “reading” the book and therefore I can’t “find” it) and told her my name was Kathy, and she said “… are you by any chance RocketGir1?” She knew who I was!!! I wrote her a LOOONG, 5-page email through her meningiomamommas website. She didn’t get to read it, but whoever filters her mail told her about me. Cool! (And good memory!)

When the Borders staff announced over the PA system that “There will be a discussion led by author Liz Holzemer upstairs in the cafe,” everybody was silent. Liz had been saying something, but she paused to listen to the announcement. That made me feel so GOOD, because guess what — I couldn’t have continued to talk, either! But in a group of about six people who’d all had brain surgery, it was the “normal” MO. =)

I rented some movies that night, including “Peaceful Warrior”, which was originally recommended to me by my friend Megan. It was just as good as she’d promised! It’s about Dan, a junior in college at Berkeley and a world-renowned gymnast. He suffers from nightmares, and he awakes in a start after one of them. He decides to go for a walk to calm down, and ends up in a gas station buying milk and cookies. It’s there that he meets “Socrates” (Dan’s nickname), a wise old man who has a couple things up his sleeve. When Dan leaves, Socrates suddenly ends up on the roof, and Dan immediately wants to know HOW. It would be very useful information for a gymnast! Dan returns night after night in hopes of finding the answer (which Soc stubbornly keeps secret).

Dan returns often, but sometimes takes a few weeks — or months — off. Soc’s lessons are sometimes a little too harsh for Dan to swallow, so he retreats to schoolwork and training. And then Dan crashes his motorcycle and breaks his femur in seventeen different places. Ouch. It looks like his gymnastics career is OVER. After contemplating suicide one night, he returns to Socrates for help. Help figuring out what to do now, help figuring out what the purpose of his life is … he just needs help in general. Socrates helps him, of course, and after a couple months, Dan announces that he’s ready to do “whatever you want me to do, Socrates.” Socrates says he’d like to see Dan resume his training in gymnastics.

Dan is flabbergasted. “But I’ve been working up enough courage to do something *else*!” he protests. Socrates, however, remains calmly insistent. Dan begins training.

I’ll stop there and leave the ending a surprise. You can see (hopefully) why I liked this movie; Dan’s journey mirrors my own. Granted, I’ve “only” got invisible cognitive deficits, but they make what I used to do — science — very difficult, much like a broken leg does for a gymnast. I thought for a minute that “It’d be nice to have a Socrates around!”, but then realized that I do. Everybody who’s helped me is a “collective Socrates”: the nurses and doctors in the hospital, my therapists, my friends, the lady who hired me at Sylvan, and my family. I’m not “there” yet, but at least I’m getting there. Or trying, at least, but I think the point of the movie is that trying IS getting there. So thank you =)

And then, on Thursday, Ben accompanied me to “real therapy” with Melissa and Mark. This entry is getting really long, and they didn’t say much anyway — Ben and I did — so I’m going to skip that visit and move on to Friday, when I went to tea with Kim, my friend from the Women’s Wilderness Institute. It was SO nice to talk with her; she’s had some medical problems, too, and is sort of in the same place as me: “Do I want to get a job? A part-time job? Or just volunteer?” She gave me some great suggestions; there’s the Earthworks group, which teaches teachers how to teach and needs scientist volunteers, and Intercambrio de Comunidades, an organization that uses volunteers to teach ESL to adults in the community. Even better, it’s one-on-one; you don’t have to stand up in front of a classroom of adults and teach. Thank you, Kim!

Continuing my “events long gone by” recap, here’s Jason’s wedding!

Their ceremony was done sans officiant in the Avery courtyard. They did a mighty good job! They wrote the entire thing themselves. :)

Mandy serenaded Jason as he entered.

And here’s the bride!

Their Official Getaway Vehicle (TM) was a Diahatsu. Mad props for that, Jason!

An adorable kid at the reception …

And, of course, one of me and Ben:

Well, that’s it, ladies and gents! Jason and Guki, I wish you the best!

OK, here come a lot of pictures …

I got to Orangeburg at dinnertime on Wednesday after leaving at seven am on Monday. My trip was a little truncated, but I still had plenty of time to hang out with this guy:

Jake and Kate were a little less enthralled.

He liked to rock:

Jessica was able to stop him from leaving the room by enticing him with a Reader’s Digest.

He liked to play on the sofa …

… and the stairs (much to Grandma’s chagrin).

He really, really enjoyed being upside down!

By the end of our BBQ meal, he was pretty tired.

Also, my friend Erin came over to visit! It was super to see her.

Mom helped me make a quilt out of our fabric from the batik factory on Andros. Here it is, not quite finished yet.

This is going to be short, since I’m typing [the first part of this] on my iPhone.

My flight on Tuesday was good, with two exceptions. When I got to the ticket agent to check in, she tool my boarding pass and said, “Can I please have your ticket?” It seems that when they rebooked me, they changed me from an eticket to an old-fashioned paper ticket.

“I’m sorry, but the folks at Customer Service didn’t give me a paper ticket,” I said.

She checked something on her computer, then turned back to me and said, “Well, sorry, but I really need the ticket.”

“How about this,” I proposed. “If everybody else gets on the plane and there’s still a seat, you let me take it.”

“Oh, I know you’re supposed to be on this flight,” she said. “You show up in the computer. I’m just supposed to collect the paper ticket as well.” What the … If I’m in the computer as being on the flight, AND I’ve got a boarding pass, WHY DON’T YOU JUST LET ME ON THE PLANE?!?!

She did, eventually. But goodness gracious. An ounce of common sense would go a long way with these people.

I got to Charleston but my luggage didn’t. I went to the ticket agent, who begrudgingly took my information and then … did NOTHING with it. My cell phone was dying and my charger was in my suitcase, so I left my in-laws’ number for them to call; he, apparently, wrote the number down and then forgot about it. I discovered this upon calling NWA in the morning to see what was up; after talking to about six different people, I got the luggage people (who also happen to be ticket agents!) at Columbia. Yes, they had my bag, but nobody had filed a claim. They couldn’t deliver it without a claim. They put me on hold and seemingly forgot about me. I hung up, completely frustrated with (1) the people I was talking to, who were invariably rude, and (2) NWA’s complete incompetence. Why do you need a claim to deliver the luggage? Why can’t you simply take down my address and bring it over?

In the end, Mom called back and convinced them to release my bag to Jessica, who was in Columbia for work. Of course, they didn’t want to *give* it to her when she arrived, but she eventually won out. I got my bag back. I am never, ever flying Northwest again. EVER.

After that, my visit to Orangeburg was fabulous. I’ve got pictures galore that I’ll post later.

Hhmmprh.

I’m still in the Memphis Airport. I walked in through security after taking the hotel’s shuttle, walked up to the “Departures” board, and saw:

Flight 4965 Columbia CANCELLED

Good grief! For what it’s worth — and that’s not much — I’m not the only one who’s fed up with Northwest. Our van this morning was FULL of Northwest rejects put up at the Marriott overnight. Apparently, if Northwest has a mechanical problem on one of their regional jets, they ground ALL of them. Also, they’re having a major pilot shortage. I think this airline really DOES suck.

So I went back to Customer Service and explained my plight. I shamelessly told them about my strokes, and they quickly told me to fly to another city. The only city even close to Columbia is Charlestown, so I called home and discovered that Dad’s working in Charlestown today! He can pick me up! =) So I got a new boarding pass, and I’m waiting to see if we actually take off …

… even in Australia.

I hate flying. Or, rather, I hate NOT flying … I spent 8 hours sitting in the Memphis airport today. Let me outline my travels for you.

Everything looked fine when we left the house at seven o’clock this morning. My flights were on time. Ben even remarked that I was lucky because my whole trip would take only seven hours. I’m flying to Columbia, SC to visit Jessica, her son Caden, and my in-laws. Aside from being tired (because it was seven o’clock in the morning), I was doing great. Ben walked me to my gate and I was off!

My flight to Memphis, where I was to connect to Columbia, was very smooth. A little turbulence on the way down, but that’s it. And then we arrived in Memphis.

I quickly discovered that my 2:15 flight to Columbia was canceled. “Maintenance”, they said; I don’t believe them. I don’t think they had enough people on the flight for it to be profitable. They rebooked me and everyone else on the first flight on the evening flight; if they had enough empty seats to do THAT, I think the first flight must’ve been vacant. But that’s a separate issue.

So the next flight is at 7:25, which means about 5 1/2 hours sitting around in the airport. Geez louise. Airports are noisy, crowded, and not at all fun for a stroke survivor. But, I figured I could do it and, two helpings of BBQ later, was feeling pretty good about catching my flight. I walked from Terminal A, where Corky’s is, to Gate B26, where my flight was … and it wasn’t there. The sign said “Omaha” instead. I was redirected to B21, where a bunch of waylaid Columbia passengers sat, and learned that our flight was delayed! Until 8:41! When I asked the gate agent when the flight to Columbia was leaving, she said “9:05.”

I sat down, pondering this new information. About two minutes later, I decided to visit customer service; you never can tell whether it’s actually going to leave when it says it will or whether they’ll delay it a half hour at a time for the next millennium, and I was exhausted. Customer service was back in Terminal A, so it was a long walk before I finally got to the customer service desk. I pulled out the stroke card, and it worked. I got a free stay at the Marriott, meal vouchers, and a ticket for tomorrow’s 2:15 flight to Columbia. Woo-hoo!

“Just go down to baggage claim and at the end, you’ll find a courtesy phone; call the number for the Marriott and they’ll pick you up,” the lady instructed me. OK, I thought, no problem. I did just that, then waited for the shuttle bus outside. Good grief, was it noisy! However, I noticed another “Hotel” shuttle-bus waiting area down at the end of the road-where-you-wait-for-busses; good, I thought to myself. It was indeed a little quieter down there.

Here’s where the day gets totally sucky.

The bus came, picked up people where I’d been standing earlier, then drove by me and … nothing. It didn’t stop. What the heck?!?! I went back inside and called the people at the hotel again. They assured me that the bus was indeed coming for me; I should go back outside. OK. I waited at the shuttle stop in the middle, figuring the driver might’ve neglected me because the people at the middle stop the last time didn’t have reservations (I heard them talking about it) and I was at the very end. But when he finally came around *again*, I saw him and waved him down frantically, and he didn’t stop!! I was furious! So I went back in to the phone and called the Marriott for a THIRD time. “It’s coming!” they assured me. I just gave up.

So I went back inside and got in the security line, ready to go to customer service and complain lividly. “This ticket’s for tomorrow?” the TSA agent asked me. “I’m sorry, but you can’t go inside with this ticket. You need to go to one of the agents at the ticket counter.” GRR. So I went over to the ticket counter and waited in a looong line moving verrry slowly. Finally, I lost it. I called Ben, almost in tears, and he suggested taking a taxi to the hotel. Why didn’t I think of that?

So I got in the taxi line. A minute later, I was in a taxi … with a very talkative driver. This guy would NOT shut up. Have you ever talked to me when I’m tired? Know how I’m kind of slow? Well, picture that plus an accent as thick as molasses, and that was my taxi ride.

“I’ve heard that Northwest is having some violence problems,” Mohammed (that was his name) said. “I’ve had some passengers say they wouldn’t fly them again if they were given FREE tickets!” Well, I thought. I certainly wouldn’t!!!

So right now, I’m “relaxing” in my room, thinking sweet thoughts of (1) sleep, (2) more sleep, and (3) what I’m going to wear tomorrow! (I spilled mocha frappuccino on my shirt and bbq sauce on my pants), and (4) ringing the necks of those turkeys at Northwest!

I finally picked a good one! “Freedom Writers” was *excellent*.

It’s about a woman, Ms. G, who spends her first year teaching at an inner-city LA school right after the Rodney King trial. Initially, the kids are really bad — what’d you expect? Most of them are in gangs, there’s lots of violence, and most of them are expected to drop out. Ms. G, however, really gets to know the kids, and her understanding leads to peace in the classroom. I’d say the turning point is when she plays the “Line Game” with her students, in which “If the question applies to you, step forward onto the line.” When she asked how many knew somebody who was killed in gang violence, all the students stepped forward. Wow … how do you teach in an environment like that?

The movie made me realize how much energy teaching really requires. I think I could’ve been that good two years ago; now, though, I think I’d be terrified to speak in front of a group of gang-related teenagers. It’s sad, isn’t it? Ironically, it doesn’t feel that way to me. In therapy today, Melissa asked me if I’d applied for a job at BVSD teaching math and science; I said no, I hadn’t, because I decided it required too much energy. “Whew,” she replied. I then read her the riot act for not telling me about this earlier.

“Why did you let me decide for myself?” I asked. “I would’ve at least liked to know your opinion!” I understand her hesitation; we went through something similar last year, when I decided to go back to school to get my teaching credential. She told me to take one class at a time, and I practically broke out in tears. “It’ll take me YEARS to graduate at that rate!” I blubbered. “These classes are supposed to be easy compared to Caltech’s!” But she was totally right. I value her opinion; she’s usually right on the money.

My tutoring job at Sylvan is excellent, energy-wise, but I have two complaints: (1) I haven’t gotten any work in the last two weeks, and (2) the middle schoolers who are left there for four hours a day drive me NUTS. (*I* certainly couldn’t concentrate that long!) So Melissa and I brainstormed about other jobs I could get, mostly retail: a bookstore, the Apple Store (which I judged too noisy, but it can’t hurt to try!), REI, etc. She said that something like that, where I have to talk on occasion, sometimes to groups of people, would be excellent therapy.

Tonight, my parents called and I ran the idea by them. This is going to sound really stuck-up and snotty, but most of these positions (the Apple Store excepted) sound pretty wimpy. I’ve never in my life worked retail. I’ve been science all the way. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” my dad asked.

“Honestly, I’d like to be home with a baby.”

“These positions sound fantastic, then!” he exclaimed. “Getting better — with the right therapy — should be your priority.” So? I’m putting teaching on hold and trying something new. I may post fliers at CU advertising my ultimate tutoring skills in calculus, but honestly, I think I’d enjoy working at REI. Or Border’s books. Or the Apple Store. At the very least, I’ll get out of the house when Ben’s gone and keep my mood from disappearing into the toilet.