New Orleans, day 1

They say that plenty of being on your feet can help stave off many illnesses, including Alzheimer’s*. If this is so, I won’t be succumbing today, at least. (*means that my fellow AD spouses know to take this kind of advice with a larger than average grain of salt. Still, I’ll take the other health benefits, regardless.)

My feet were a little complainy today, by late afternoon, since I did not give them a break except for one round-trip streetcar ride.

There is quite a different character to the touristy parts of New Orleans at 7:30 am, compared to 3:00 pm. I will say that I liked the early hour better, except in that later, when the streets are mobbed with humans, I feel fairly certain that I will not stand out as the weakest zebra in the pack to a bag snatcher. Not that I saw anyone wearing a t-shirt labeled “bag snatcher,” but it’s the sort of thing people warn you about, so I went prepared. This is the first time I’ve toted a slim under-the-clothes pouch to stash my reserve cash, i.d., and credit card just in case. No point having a hassle getting home.

Then I went and did the dumbest. Hit one of those brain potholes and left my phone in the room when I headed out for my second-to-last stroll of the day. Not so bad, except that I didn’t know I did that, so had to take my French Market blackened catfish po-boy to go, so I could come back and check. Phew. Not bad, blackened catfish po-boys. There. I’ve had my Cajun food.

I will say this about Tulane University--if you want a large school and/or are interested in an area of study they happen to offer, it would be hard not to want to go there after a visit to the campus. Of course, I want to go to every college, nevermind my agedness.

Train 2

It is a rule of this trip that I may feel however I feel. Not that a rule outlawing that would change anything, but I mean I won’t try to talk myself out of a mood. Unless I feel like it.

Rob, the car attendant, made tea in the coffee machine. I guess he figured he had a 90% Brit population, and it might go over. I did not avail myself until after dinner, then I got a little, thinking it would be coffee. It was still tea. Maybe more accurately, teacoffee, since it was brewed in a coffee percolator, and is not completely free of coffeeness.

Meanwhile, I smuggled the unused half of my bottle of Woodbridge merlot out of the Crescent dining car. I don’t know if they have a problem with open carry in Louisiana, or on Amtrak, but I smuggled it nonetheless. Even though I really want white, so as to limit headache triggers, but they were out of white in the dining car.

Oh yes, as for moods which aren’t to be disallowed: I’m tired and I didn’t like my dinner of overly microwaved vegetables all that much. The sun is setting over MizSIPee. It will be dark when we get to NOLA in an hour and a half. I hope there will be plenty of United taxis, so I don’t have to call one. I did not sleep so super well. Not terrible, but not super well.

Not that I was thinking I could when I left home yesterday afternoon, but Jeff’s days on a train are over for sure. In the mix of not-disallowed feelings is the one where I’m very glad I’m not trying to manage him on the train right now.

Train 1

It’s a good thing I bought a chocolate-dipped shortbread cookie at Au Bon Pain when I was at Union Station, because by the time Elaine (who is a therapist from New York, heading to Birmingham to visit her father) and I finished our dining car dinner, neither of us had room for dessert. I will want it though, before I go to bed. I know myself.

I am in roomette #1, car 1910, on the Amtrak Crescent, destination New Orleans. To be traveling alone is, in and of itself, such a novelty that I’ve almost forgotten I’m in a perimenopausal fog, with a brain full of potholes. Yes, wow...just me. What does that feel like? I’m going to have to stop and think about it.

That, in fact, is half my purpose--what does it feel like to be alone? So far, I’m too distracted by Viewliner Car built-in toilets, fold-down sinks, and Words with Friends on the iPhone to even be sure. But I may have a clue by four days from now, when I fly home on Southwest.

Across from me, in roomette #2, is a couple from the UK. I would estimate that the majority of this car is filled with couples from the UK, in fact. They are going to New Orleans to board a cruise ship bound for Jamaica and other ports. I am going to New Orleans because that’s where this train stops, and also I’ve never seen it before.

It is 8:17, and I’m ready for Rob, the car attendant, to convert my roomette into nighttime format. Because I’m probably not going to check the lounge car to see if all the UKers are partying it up tonight. I’ll just sit here, and maybe knit a hat (which destiny will insist be too large for a human head,) and eat shortbread, and start reading a Kindle book (which will not be on my Kindle, but rather on my iPhone,) and watch the night lights of Virginia roll by. There...there was a MacDonalds.

limericks, maybe?

Tetralogy is a new word for me. But trilogy wasn’t going to work since the book I’ve just finished making is the fourth, not the third.

Still, as cool a word as tetralogy is, it might be more accurate to group book 4 with books 2 and 3, as a trilogy which was preceded by book 1. Book 1 is longer and more complex, but in no capacity less stupid. So, it depends on how you like to categorize, and I like to categorize in a way that lets me use the word tetralogy.

By not going the lazy route and snagging a legit publisher, I get to do my own patchy editing and build my own book covers. This way I can say I’m a bookmaker, and confuse people.

I don’t know what I’ll do next. For now at least, definitely not fiction for middle grade readers. I should have stopped writing fiction for middle grade readers 2½ years ago, after wrapping up the packaging for what was then the trilogy. But once I started #4, I unleashed an inescapable sense of obligation to some fictional people who had only just started to exist. They like their stories to resolve. So, in a carefully blended recipe involving one part implausible and two parts trite, I resolved it.

Well, I will have to do something next. The world can live without more bad fiction from me, but years have proven, repeatedly enough, that I have an essential rda of writing project. Furthermore, there are no more iterations of Portal for PS3, and Epic Mickey 2 won’t be released until the end of 2012. I cannot stand Half Life 2, as one is constantly beset by monsters, or security thugs firing guns, so there—I’m out of options. Bored babysitters go insane, and that won’t do anyone any good. So...something. Just not middle grade fiction.

Pentalogy is just not quite such a fun word.

Paging Uncle Charley (again.)

For a while there I really had myself going. I was actually thinking that Jeff could be happier living in the nicest of places, equipped for his needs, where he could socialize with others like him. I, meanwhile, would devote major portions of my days to hanging out with him so that he would continue to feel the continuity of my presence, but I would go home and have nights, plus portions of each day, to call “normal.”

There is such a haven near Annapolis, that might actually offer what I’d require for Jeff. I’m on the verge of visiting, but now just for informational purposes. I didn’t even freak about the annual cost at first...not sure why. But sitting down today with the square-in-the-face reality that the cost (which we’ll call x + .15x) exceeds my household budget (aka x) by 15% has really put the notion on a ledge called extraordinary and improbable. Not to mention irresponsible. I’m not complaining really. I have what I need. I just don’t have what Mitt Romney needs.

In some ways it’s better to wrassle these alligators, realize you’re bound to lose, and take it from there. Toying with the thought, as if it were realistic, threw me into a state of such non-equanimity that I could neither sleep nor not-sleep without psychosomatic pain and a sense of impending crisis. Shaking hands with it and recognizing it as not-an-option gives me the liberty to face what I’ve got to deal with and make the best of it...which is something I was doing pretty well up until opening the door a crack for that other thought.

Anyway, I think I will still visit. Maybe seeing it in person will reassure me that it wasn’t a good thought from the get-go. Now I’m back to needing Uncle Charley. Suitable applicants may inquire.

and today...

...Jeff asked me if I thought he'd be any good at accounting.

drinking to that...

Tonight Jeff was feeling a little celebratory. This was later, after he threw the Princeton Review LSAT book on the floor. I asked him if he also wanted to stomp on it, and he almost did.

These events were precipitated by Jeff's frustration that he could make no sense of the book. I knew this, and I suppose I was trying to, sort of, force the issue to a closing point by buying that book. As of today, it seems to have worked, relatively painlessly (except from the pov of the almost-stomped book.)

I tried to help, which was part of the plan. We sat down and tried a practice test. If a veterinarian must transport animals, using 4 cages, each of which has an upper and lower berth, and there will be 3 male animal (none of which can share a cage with another male,) and upper berths #1 and #2 will be occupied by females, then which of the following statements (A through E) cannot be true?

The correct answer was F: How does this apply to real life? This is stupid. I'm going celebrate. (Why?, I ask.) Because I don't have to take the LSAT.


And then somewhere, either just before or after the last paragraph happened, the Princeton Review LSAT book got thrown on the floor.

I picked it up. I haven't thrown it in the recycling bin yet. Later, maybe, we'll line the upper and lower berths of cages 1 through 4 with its pages.

It's still law...

Saturday: This is an experiment. Jeff sat down and said, “There’s one more thing we have to talk about. Law school.”

”Ok,” I said. “Go for it.”

”Oh,” he replied, with a note of surprise. “I thought there was going to be a big argument. Ok, so let’s do it.”

”Well, it’s not ‘us,’” I cautioned. “I’m not doing it.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Now I’m wondering if there will be more questions for me to answer, or whether the subject has been satisfied now that I’m officially not standing in the way.

Sunday: This morning Jeff asked if we could “stroll over to the law school.”

”Which law school?” I asked. “Maryland,” he said, meaning University of Maryland which is in Baltimore.

"It’s not exactly strolling distance,” I said. “Maybe you need to do a little research into this.” (I said this fully realizing that Jeff doesn't have the cognitive wherewithal to research the dog's eye color.) So I’m not sure when it will come up again and what to say that is neither discouraging nor pointlessly encouraging. Possibly, if we obtain written information, with forms and whatnot, he can spend time riffling through them for months to come. It’s a thought.

Monday: Substitute new thought. In my internet delvings into how best to deflect or manage this recurring theme, I realized the obvious: There is no road to law school on which you will not encounter the gatekeeper called LSAT. This is easy for Jeff to understand. That is, it is easy for him to understand that the LSAT is a requirement. Understanding the LSAT prep book I will buy for him today at Barnes & Noble, when we make our midday outing, is probably not going to be so easy. Still, it seems a next step is necessary since this notion has lodged itself fiercely in his cranium in a way that things like the route to the bathroom cannot.

It is almost a certainty that whatever questions you might have about my “strategy”(?) in this matter are ones I’ve already asked myself. Should I not nip this in the bud? How? I have already attempted to make the point (as a follow up to “go for it,”) that people who go to law school must be able to accomplish this without their spouse’s involvement. He says “of course,” then, when we’re in the car on the way to lunch and I’m enumerating the errands I have planned, he says “and then, law school.” As if that’s one of my errands or something I’m supposed to do. So today, I bought him The Princeton Review LSAT Prep Guide. Was this $24.37 paid toward something I should have already said “no” to, or have I bought myself a functional distraction?

Just “no” will not work. That means I am the roadblock. The truth (i.e. “your brain has been so damaged that you cannot possibly comprehend law, let alone write a coherent note, let alone find a classroom,”) is depressing. I don’t want to depress. This has to play in a way that I am not the enemy, nor am I the wielder of the harshest truths.

I have some hope that the LSAT book is a good idea. I can hand it to him whenever the subject comes up. He will not be able to read a page of it. But I don’t think that even his damaged brain can construe that as my fault.

Street Art

I distinctly recall noticing the pipe cleaner in the middle of the road a day or so ago. Roughly in front of our next-door neighbors’ house, it was an odd bit of flotsam to see lying in the street--fluffy and white, with an inch at each of its ends bent at a jaunty 90º angle. Not that I measured. But, I did note it as we walked the dog by, and I’m equally certain that Jeff did not as he was drifting off toward the Dunkers’ house and I was about to re-trajectorize him. (That’s not a word. Don’t look it up.)

Fast forward to this afternoon. I’ve set my iPhone timer for 33 minutes, and I’m trying to take a short nap on the couch while hiding my face and chest under a throw pillow to keep Chessie the cat from settling in that exact location. I hear Jeff ask Becca something about where is Mom, because he thinks I might want this. (whatever this is. I don’t find out until my timer goes off some fraction of 33 minutes later.)

You’ve probably guessed correctly. “This” is the white pipe cleaner, only slightly more squished by traffic, and now lying on the bit of kitchen counter where I routinely fix my muesli in the morning. Becca says “He thought you might want that.” “Thanks,” I say. Then I deposit it in the trash can while wondering, aloud, what other objects Jeff might like to pick up off the street and place on our food preparation surfaces. “A dead squirrel for instance?”

Jeff is pretty easy to amuse these days, and my dead squirrel joke got him chuckling for a good three and a half minutes or so. Later I found about 2½ inches of stick which undoubtedly came in from Jeff’s stick-breaking adventures in the yard and attempted to establish a new home-base on the kitchen floor near the stairs. I said no.

This week it's law.

I want to know what will happen when. I admit it. I stink at Buddhism. Nevertheless here we go, as always—practicing the ineluctable art of not-knowing-ism.

Jeff is getting worse at seeing things, worse at eating things, worse at even knowing which way is up or where to place himself. Strangely, this has been accompanied (for at least the past couple weeks,) by an increased restlessness and determination that he should be doing something.

Maybe different areas of the brain have re-flashes of activity over the course of a decline, like a changing pattern of flickering lights as the power is drained from the system.

Now he thinks he should go to law school. Management of this kind of thinking remains the same. DON'T shoot the idea like a clay pigeon...just listen, understand, and respond non-commitally. Of course there is always me and the urge for truthfulness. I resist it. There is little point in saying "You can't read, drive, or find your way out of the bathroom. Just how are you going to go to law school?"

I had to shove that little urge under the couch cushion and sit on it this morning. It might actually be more sensible to just say "Ok, cool idea. Go to law school." Then bop the ball back into his court every time the thought resurfaces. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Sometimes Jeff can put his shoes and socks on. I bet most lawyers can do that too. It's a perfect fit.

having words with friends.

Words with Friends is a Scrabble™ knock-off, in case you haven’t encountered this manner of trounce-or-be-trounced interactivity, available to ipod/pad and smartphone users.

Flashback to school days...I’m wrapping up 6th grade. Oak Hill Elementary—such a colorful exemplification of all that was wrong with 70s notion of education. A place where I could crawl around under “study carrels,” or swing on stall doors in the girls bathroom when I was meant to be self-pacing myself through a series of math cards. Let’s say 4th grade math concepts were more or less covered by the blue set, and 5th grade by the orange set. As I was too busy practicing math-avoidance to complete more than 30% of the blues, they’d just promote me to orange when I moved ahead a grade. I scored well on standardized tests after all...why insist I actually learn the concepts?

I tend to fare pretty well, on average, in Scrabble type games. I win a lot. You (anyone, actually) would beat me at whack-a-mole. I’d invariably lose a math-off. If the devil went down to Georgia I would NOT step up to the plate with my fiddle, and you’re going to get a book seriously published before I do. But I might beat you at Scrabble or Words with Friends. But I might not.

Junior High was a rude awakening. Unlike Elementary School where you mingled with the same-age kids who just happened to live in your neighborhood, Junior High drew from a larger region and they started grouping us by whatever the prevailing measures of academic aptitude were. Suddenly, I ceased to be smart (relatively speaking) without exerting effort. I was in the midst of academically-competitive kids, and the realization took me down a peg or two.

I know a hot game of Words with Friends when I’m in it. There are better-than-average players, against whom word placement becomes a thrust, or a parry or a “take that!” But it’s okay, because I’ve been softened up like an old punching bag. My expectations of victory have had practice being put in their place. The apple, you see, truly does not fall far from the tree. Daughter Becca has bested me two out of three so far. I can deal. But if you challenge me to whack-a-mole I’m going to say no.

talk is yasui, as long as we keep it light.

I’m balancing on a tricky tightrope between providing a useful service towards Gabe’s academic success and being an annoying mother.

”Chokoretto no hou ga cohi yori suki desu ka?” I articulate carefully in his direction.

He frowns and, preceded by a sigh of sufficient length to allow what I said to sink in, replies, ”Hai, I like hot chocolate more than coffee.”

If it were up to me, I’d Skype him several times a week over the upcoming semester just to drill him on Japanese. Not because me tutoring Gabe is something that is particularly compatible with either of our temperaments, but because a) I DO want him to have a successful semester and recover from academic probation status, and b) it is mentally invigorating for me to review Japanese. Unless he proposed it though as the coolest notion he’s had all week, I think this will not come to pass. Instead, I will have to take a very Buddhist approach to the non-existent control I have over how his Spring shapes up, and allow it to be his process (with, I hope, significant helpful input from the faculty mentor he’s selected, and with whom he’s supposed to be consulting weekly.)

Because if academics do not pan out as a means of extending his maturing season I will almost certainly have to obtain a car for him to drive to the full-time job he will certainly have to find, and I’m not ready for that. The car thing. Scary. Also he’s messy, and I’m not in the mood to generalissimo anyone into maintaining adequate house-mate habits. Even though I guess it’s my job, seeing as how I birthed him and all. If this happens I will consider adoption offers, if anyone needs an almost-20 year old. Let’s root for Plan A.

Jeff, meanwhile, would like a car. This comes up every so often. This morning, as is typical, he wandered into the kitchen and said ”You know what I want? I want a used car.” Last time it was a truck. He also wanted to know how much a used Subaru would cost ($14K, I supposed,) and posited that it was worth it to him at that cost if we could swing it. I never know what to say in response to these exchanges. The impulse to get real is great. I would tell him that he is visually impaired (essentially true, and easier to swallow than cognitively impaired,) and remind him that he has no license and is uninsurable. I try not to do that though, truthful impulse notwithstanding. Today I just put it off, as usual, with ”Ok, let’s think about that one.” That has sufficed for several hours now, with no revisiting of the question.

Last night when I went to bed, Jeff was snoozing at some level considerably deeper than REMs, and I had the brand new and very strange experience of not recognizing his face. I scrutinized for quite a few minutes then came back and stared some more, wondering what kind of game was being played here...was my software glitching or was there something truly missing? You have undoubtedly seen a wax figure of a person which—no matter how morphically close it comes—does not really convey a knowable version of that person. It was like that. I pretty much had to accept the strangeness of the situation and go to bed anyway. By morning he resumed the familiar appearance of his AD-addled self.

Next up on the vocabulary list: takai and yasui, Japanese for expensive and cheap.

no, I don't go out in my bathrobe.

It’s no mystery to me, really, why the trips I’ve taken with Jeff in the past couple of years have gone well. It’s that I have no third parties to think about. Free from the daily obligations of home, and minus the split attention dynamic created when anyone else requires my consideration, traveling turns out to be as relaxing as it ought to be.

This morning, on the other hand, didn’t go quite according to plan. Jeff has acquired a new tendency to let Freddi the dog out the front door. Freddi is not a well trained dog. I have to take responsibility for this problem, since all the training that happened 11 or 12 years ago was pretty much up to me. Anyway, she is not such a good dog that she won’t take advantage of a situation. Jeff tends to lose sight of just which side of the door he’s on these days, and he’s apt, lately, to let a fellow critter in or out if it seems to want to go either way. So, when I heard the tell-tale open/close door sound, with too much space in between, I hurried to see Freddi standing by the lamp-post giving me that look. The look that says “ha. I know I’m naughty, but heck...it’s fun.” But I couldn’t do anything because I was still in my fluffy pink bathrobe.

By the time I’d tossed on my clothes from two days ago Jeff had taken off down the street which was bad on two counts: Jeff doesn’t know how to get back from down the street, and he was effectively chasing the dog toward busy Evergreen Road. All I really had to do was wave Freddi’s leash at her and she turned herself in, but I had by then exuded enough of my roiling sense of frustration that Jeff felt grumpy for the rest of the morning, including the hour and a half we spent in the oral surgeon’s waiting room while Gabe got his bone graft.

Freddi and I had a talk a little later, and she knew exactly what I was telling her even though she wasn’t willing to make any promises about improved behavior in the face of temptation.

But in the midst of naughty dogs, impaired spouses, and recuperating young adults, I was having one of those sandwich spread squeezed moments (which other people have in much greater abundance than I,) but still, it reminded me of why—even with a rather mentally crippled travel partner—I like trips.

Fort Knox? It’s not in Johnstown Betty.

Yesterday I had this dogged notion that Jeff and I would manage to remain at Disney Hollywood Studios (the movie-themed theme park) until they turned on the multi-wattage dancing lights holiday extravaganza that is the seasonal highlight of the “Streets of America” section.

To that end, I took us back to the good old Animal Kingdom Lodge for a mid-day nap. It’s what you do with small children to recharge their cooperative spirits, but the results were guaranteed to be dubious at best with Jeff.
Still, I will say this about our subsequent evening in the park: We managed. We poked around a bit (best defined as freezing in place every so often to let the throngs filter around us,) then had a very satisfactory early dinner at a facsimile of The Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, where they chop the Cobb salad so finely it resembles tabbouleh. Not once though, did I encounter any reference to Fort Knox.
Fort Knox? Yes, I was wondering about that myself. In the inimitable way of an Alzheimer brain, Jeff awoke from his nap with the idea of Fort Knox somehow teetering on the edge of his frontal lobe.
”Yeah, Fort Knox,” he said as he got up, without further explanation. We went outside to our rented vehicle (a Nissan Cube, which I turned out to like very much.) “What did that sign say about Fort Knox?” asked Jeff, pointing out the window.
”I didn’t see it,” I said. “I just saw something about 'cast members only.'”
But Jeff saw it again a mile or so down the road, on a grassy, hazy highway median. “Right there,” he said, “It says something about Fort Knox.”
”It does?” I replied. “I’m just missing it.”
He saw it again as we entered the vast and sprawling parking lot. Small billboards line the lanes where the trams pick up and discharge human cargo. I saw an ad for the television show “PanAm.” Jeff saw something about Fort Knox.
As usual, I clued in the turnstile-manning cast member that Jeff would struggle with the insert ticket and fingerprint entry procedure, and she managed his ticket herself then invited us through the wheelchair gate. Jeff squinted at her name badge. “This is Betty,” I said, “from Johnstown, Pennsylvania.”
Jeff said “Oh yeah, near Fort Knox.” Betty forced an uncomfortable smile, already realizing that not both our decks were full.
”Thanks Betty,” I said.
For reasons that are unclear, that was the end of Fort Knox for the day. And the delicious but highly overpriced Viogniers at the Brown Derby made it better, fortunately, not worse.

Standing on our own four feet...for now.

Tomorrow’s goal: Visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios park in such a way as to maximize our chances that Jeff will still be semi-functioning at 6:00pm. This is because at 6 they turn the lights on for some sort of epic holiday kilowatt spectacular. Thing is, I’m here in the season, which will probably never happen again. Hence, I want to see it, despite my confidence that I can continue to live happily without it.

To this end, I have booked a very early dinner (3:55pm, to be precise,) at the Disney version of the Hollywood Brown Derby, on the theory that dinner will be enjoyable regardless, and surely we can find a bench to sit quietly on for an hour (give or take) afterward.

It will not work to use the plan with which I approached both today and yesterday. That is, enter the park at rope-drop, do the one “thrilling” thing I’ve selected as appropriate, and try to just relax, walk, and look at things after that. I know this will not work because, despite my efforts to keep the pace relaxed and allow for snacks and sitting, Jeff turns into a lurching zombie by mid-afternoon, and must be returned to our hotel where he basically does not recover except in that I can lead him around and point to food I place in front of him.

So...that plan: out. Possibly we will go early, walk around a bit, come back and attempt a nap. Naps don’t work with neurodegenerated people quite the same way they work with toddlers, is the problem. The most effective strategy would be to impose a sudden and drastic version of Daylight Savings Time on Florida, advancing the clock approximately 5 hours. That probably won’t get enough votes from everyone else currently occupying the state though.

Which means, I guess, that it’s Plan A. Mid-day rest. Effectiveness: iffy. Something funny happened just before I obtained our boarding passes at BWI airport on Sunday. A member of the luggage lugging crew asked me, in a thick Central American accent which took me two tries to comprehend, whether I wanted a wheelchair. I guess that’s not actually funny, but it was novel because it’s the first time I’m aware of that someone perceived Jeff as wheelchair-worthy. For tomorrow’s agenda, that might just work. Too bad he’d never go for it.

(Interestingly, I'm having all kinds of people notice his condition and strive to help this trip. From airline attendants, to people manning the ticket turnstiles at Disney Parks. You stick your pass into a slot, THEN place your finger on a print-reading device, then retrieve your ticket from the other side. They pick up on Jeff right away and say "I'll take care of it," then just move him through without the rigmarole. Also, a lady held the tram door open this afternoon when it was obvious I couldn't help Jeff step and hold it myself. Nice people.)

But it is pretty...

Here’s the thing I failed to take into account when I decided to bring Jeff to Disney World with me, and stay in the Animal Kingdom Lodge: The AKL is really dark. Dim, I mean. It’s an ambience thing, and I love the theme here, but it sure poses a challenge for Jeff.

Apart from a general tendency for his brain battery (and energy level) to run out of juice quickly, vision has been the striking winner in the race for most challenging deficit of the trip. Much of the wooden floor of the main lobby is polished to a high gleam. And while the lighting is low, it appears in abundant forms...Christmas tree lights, an impressive assortment of lamps, and highlighted African art in every nook. What this means is that Jeff cannot perceive the floor as a normal floor at all. It sparkles with so much reflected light (without the benefit of overall lighting,) that he steps onto that floor as if he’s either going to fall in a hole or trip over a tangled string of holiday twinkle-lights.

The stairwells, meanwhile, are carpeted in giraffe-spots WITHOUT that helpful strip of bright yellow paint we use to coat the front edge of the wooden treads at the Nags Head beach cottage. Hence, we traverse the hallways with me giving verbal directions such as: “The surface we’re on is completely flat. I will tell you when we get to steps.” And then I do. “One, two, three, four,” I say as we climb a flight. Then, at the landing: “Now it’s flat...u-turn!...Now more steps, one, two, three four...”

But I just thought of something. Even if we’d stayed at the brightly-lit Contemporary Resort we’d have had a problem. I know because we explored it today as part of my tour of holiday decorations. In the Contemp, the carpeting is a patchwork of primary colors, in blocks and patterns of assorted complexity. Jeff thought he was about to fall over objects strewn about the floor until I said “No, it’s flat. Just walk normally.”

Other visually-based problems are old friends. I’m used to him walking into doors if I don’t steer him through, or not knowing what on his plate is a finger food. (I try to make it all one or the other--forkable or not.) But difficulties perceiving the floor below him is a new gift, highlighted by the Disney interior design team.

It's a Small World.

Here I am at Disney World, perfectly happy with the fact that—at 7:15pm—what I’m going to do next is watch Once Upon a Time on tv, and sneak upstairs to the Kilimanjaro Lounge and bring down a “zebra dome” for a mini dessert.

I’ll tell you what, airplanes and suchlike conveyances are tiring. The funny thing that happened this time and the last time we flew (which was in April) was that Jeff doesn’t know how to disembark. Even with me leading the way. He’s completely perplexed by the idea of ‘pick up your roll-aboard and follow Emily down the aisle.’

Another interesting, perplexing aspect to traveling that is new this trip has to do with those same suitcases and unloading them from the rear hatch of the car. We stop, we get out, we walk to the back of the car, I open the rear gate, I pull out both suitcases. Jeff says “ooookay,” and immediately swings the one I hand him back into the trunk of the car. “No,” I say. “We’re getting out now.”

Nevertheless, I think that—living in the moment as he must—he is having a pleasant time. And I am having a delightful change of scenery.

I was struggling a little bit with the indulgence inherent in this trip, and the idea of a place such as Disney World in general. Especially after a Facebook friend posted a link to an excellent series of photographs with the theme “Where Children Sleep.” Beautiful photos, beautiful children, often appalling living conditions. It’s very hard to look at the series and not come away remorseful about your plenty and almost sick about the excess so often depicted in stories about the luxurious lives of the 1st World very-rich. But then again, you can’t get mad at the 1st World very-rich for the fact that they hire an interior designer to decorate their home to maximum holiday excess while they’re away on Thanksgiving vacay without noting that it’s all a matter of degree and relativity. Here I am in a lovely resort. I am having fun.

Well, I guess it’s best to try to live life experientially, and be where you are, absorb what there is to absorb, and try not to get hung up on the fact that you can’t—at that moment—right all wrongs. Or probably ever. You can just try to fulfill the role in life you bumbled into, and hope you make a tiny difference toward the better.

People at home

I would say people are crawling out of the woodwork this weekend, but I don’t like the expression. Especially given the fascination Otis the cat has with a particular corner of the kitchen, under the cabinetry. I’m hopeful nothing is crawling out there, or at least that Otis has the situation under control.

In a remarkable and rare confluence of humans, all four offspring have been (more or less) in residence for the long Thanksgiving weekend. This will revert to normal tomorrow when Rachel and Olivia return, respectively, to teaching and scholarship, and Gabe is likewise shipped by Amtrak to North Carolina after we grab a dinner bite at Union Station in D.C.

More remarkably, all woke up in time for a casual brunch we had this morning with their much younger Clement cousins. Becca hauled the ol’ Lego bin out of the basement, as is the custom, and the little Clem cousins adhered to their tradition of wanting to take our JarJar Binks Lego dude and several Lego pizzas home with them. Mindful of the fact that these same children have enough Legos at their home to sink the Titanic, I demurred. We will hunt down JarJar Binks and pizzas on Amazon for Christmas tokens, but retain what’s left of our supply for future Legomaniacs. While Olivia suspects that JarJar Binks might be shanghaied in someone’s pocket someday, we haven’t taken to pat-downs at the front door yet.

Now, Jeff has been nestled all snug in his bed, and I’m eating spaghetti. The girls, you see, have all decamped with gentlemen friends. If I were Mrs. Bennet, this would probably please me very much. Luckily there’s no entail here, so I get to keep the house, regardless. Don’t worry, ownership of this house does not convey any special title of upper-crustiness, unless it’s something like Earl of Esoteric HVAC Systems. No rich people will marry me for that title, I’m fairly certain.

I lost my albatross

I guess a person can only live under a cloud of bereavement for so long. Not speaking for others of course, but I would never choose such a cloud. Still, I had one which started forming about when ’03 segued to ’04 and the person I loved began to morph from partner to guy-in-need-of-care.

You can’t help it is the thing. When you’ve spent 20 years in life-meld with an other who buttressed, buffered and ballasted you it’s not going to feel good when those features of his personality fade into oblivion. So, while I always got-r-done, it is also true that I continuously carried a small but potent albatross of grief in my left jacket pocket.

What happened is, sometime this year, as Summer turned to Fall, (can’t pin it to a day,) the albatross disappeared from my pocket. I’m not worried about the albatross. I think he will reappear in a slightly different guise somewhere down the road when PCA proves that it is, in fact, terminal. But for now I’m not going looking for him. Somehow, finally, a self of me emerged (or re-emerged,) and it’s one that is happy enough unpartnered.

Another interesting feature that was revealed as the skin of bereavement sloughed off is that I don’t mind being a caregiver as main occupation. Not because I think it’s cool or anything...it’s decidedly not-cool, but heck, I don’t care. Life can be fun. You just have to gear your activities appropriately.

There’s movie called Death Becomes Her in which the character played by Bruce Willis finally throws off the burden of being doormat to a domineering spouse and declares that “life begins at 50.” Luckily I have no nasty people to dispense with, but I’m pretty sure my 50s are looking like a nice change from my 40s.

and today...

...it's William J. O'Neil, (founder of Investors' Business Daily and author of many of Jeff's favorite books,) who keeps "sending us this stuff. (what's the angle?)"

Do these books need to disappear? I don't know. So far, distraction works.
Jeff: "Why does he keep sending this stuff?"
Me: (shrug.) "I know, let's walk the dog."