Crash and Burn

My arrival in Edmonton, wounded and battered from my encounter with a vehicle, after a much delayed flight and long waits in airports, was quiet and peaceful and unremarkable. My mother waited for my arrival at 1 AM and we quickly went to sleep (I watched the last few episodes of Downton Abbey and fell asleep at 5 AM east coast time). My mother sleeps late, so I was up before she was, we had breakfast and coffee and visited my father at the hospital. He had been moved to the Geriatric Unit, where he was to be rehabbed for several weeks. He was relieved to have quiet and comfortable roommates so he was able to sleep and relax and adjust. He looked great, was in good spirits and had made remarkable progress since his admission.

I decided that my purpose was to care for my mother, who seemed lost and confused much of the time. I wanted her to see her doctor for an evaluation for the assisted living home and for her driver's license. With my broken wrist, I found an excuse to see her doctor and to get her an appointment to have her rash looked at. I was proud to have things move forward. Today we visited with OT and PT and both my parents lied convincingly about his pre fracture lifestyle. He has been unsteady on his feet for years, and does not use his walker in the home and has fallen many times before, but with clear eyed innocence told the therapists that he was walking without difficulty and managing well prior to his fall. When I tried to correct him, my mother interjected with a similar story. Her aim is to get him home as soon as possible, and I am not sure what his game is. I tried to interject with some veracity, but was drowned out and did not want to be disrespectful.

Later, we learned that my father is 'colonized' with MRSA and will be in isolation for now. I imagine he contracted it from his neighbour on the medicine floor, who had an open wound and required his visitors to gown and glove. It looks as if the whole unit is on lockdown, with no more dining hall eating and restriction of movement for my father. It is all so depressing, especially since only yesterday his doctor was effusively delighted with his prognosis. My father may well die of this super resistant staph infection, and my mother and I have been intimately exposed.

I brought my mother home, washed all clothes and sheets and towels we had used in the prior two days, returned to give my father some encouragement and reassurance, and came home to the roof leaking in two places and the realization that I never did get an answer about my wrist, which I believe is broken or perhaps just bruised but intolerably painful and swollen and blue. I cannot afford medical care here and hope that does not mean I am causing more damage without having appropriate care.

My visit started so positively and with much hope, and has descended rapidly to despair and fear. Tomorrow may bring more drama. I am taking my mother to her doctor for a list of concerns, including her rash, now MRSA, a paper to be signed for assisted living which she will refuse to comply with, and her driving evaluation which I hope she does not pass. It is all so much more complicated than I feared and more and more serious.

This is good!

It was too late upon our arrival to do more than blow up the queen size bed which just fit into Maya's room filled with boxes. The cats wandered around their new domain, marking each corner and cubby. The kind size bed covers almost the entire floor of my bedroom, but it feels luxurious and wonderful to close the shutters and hear just a little of the city noises outside. People are wandering around all night a few feet away from me, but it was not the city revelers that kept me awake; the cats are prowling all night and investigating constantly, and I will have to adjust to them. There is nowhere to hide in the apartment.

We all slept in, and the girls made pancakes for breakfast. The apartment has a complete kitchen, which was one of the attractions, but everything is in miniature; the fridge, the dishwasher, the washer/dryer (another plus) and the stove are all three quarter size, but entirely functional. The children were thrilled to sit on bar stools at the breakfast counter. Eric and I started unpacking boxes while Maya practiced violin with her 'mute' to muffle the sound. We are not sure our neighbours above and below want to hear three hours of violin a day at all hours.

Our adventure began in full sunshine (but cold) midday. There was a plaque near the front of the house informing us that several houses on the block were part of the 'Underground Railroad' and are historical landmarks. We walked up our street to 8th avenue, and ran into a protest of postal workers and locals and lots of police. The movement was for maintaining Saturday postal delivery. We passed a very imposing neoclassical post office on the left and in no time were in front of Pennsylvania Station. How convenient for us! I had read that Madison Square Gardens/Penn station was considered one of the uglier buildings in the city and was going to be torn down and destroyed. We headed toward 7th avenue and ran into Macy's, where we stood in line for a view of their garden show, a pavilion on Broadway full of exotic and tropical flowers with an Indian theme. It was gorgeous and lush and Eric and I liked that it did not cost a penny. Eric has charged me with finding free activities in New York, so that is one of my projects.

We had a bite at 'Pret a Manger', which I remembered eating at in London with Tara years ago; we found the food tasty and better than most English food and entirely affordable. Our next stop was 'Sabon', a soap store where Maya, Belina, Marius and I all had our hands washed, scrubbed, exfoliated and hydrated with luscious smelling lotions and cremes. ToysRUs was next, we stopped for a while at TKTS to see if there was a musical we HAD to see, but went on to the MnM store for a 'mood analysis. Maya was orange and quirky, I was creme and creative and Marius was pink and calm. At Rockefeller center, we admired the chocolates at 'Maison de Chocolat' and the skaters at the ice rink. The Lego store had the same sculptures it had last year. At St Patrick's cathedral almost every corner was under construction, but we found a place to sit and contemplate. We stopped in at the Lindt store for samples, and watched a street show with four young black men 'doing something positive' by dancing and gyrating acrobatically for pennies.

The children were tired and it was getting cold, so we walked along the edge of Central Park and admired the horses and their decorations. Our destination was 'Grom's' on Broadway for the best gelato in town. We scrambled down Broadway and then Eighth to our almost too warm apartment, where the cats had escaped from their exile in the bathroom. There are  heated pipes too hot to touch in the bedroom and the living room, which heat the space along with the radiators, all of which are turned off.  I have opened the windows in the bedroom and the open living space to encourage fresh air, but am not sure open windows are wise.

I was entranced by our first day in our new home. I slept a little better the second night, but actually liked hearing the street noise outside my window. It was Monday and Eric took the Path train to NJIT, while Maya worked on schoolwork and Belina made English scones. I found a Dean and Deluca up Eighth Avenue and decided to look for clotted cream. It was lightly drizzling when I left the house, and the drizzle turned to snow.I dropped off Maya's schoolwork at the magnificent post office up the street and enjoyed some espresso before briskly walking amongst the crowds to my destination 20 streets away. I was disappointed that Dean and Deluca was a coffee shop and not a store and did not have clotted cream, so I headed back on the wet streets.

Eric had warned Maya and I - more than once -  to watch carefully when crossing the street. I ran across the intersection at 34th or 35th street, and a car turned left behind me and touched me slightly. I slipped as if on a banana peel and found myself upended on my back, feet in the air like an overturned turtle. It all happened so quickly, that I did not see that the car sped away. I thought I could not moved, and accepted the aid of passersby, who pulled me to my feet and asked if I was ok. I could walk, so I gingerly walked on, stunned by the experience. I was relieved that I was not paralyzed or run over, that I was alive. It took some time to pull myself together before I walked in the house where the children were playing quietly. I called Eric to pick up a splint for my swollen wrist and looked up urgent care facilities. By the time Eric arrived, it did not appear that I had enough time to wait for medical care, since I had a flight to Edmonton that evening and my Amtrak train was at 4.

Eric went out with the children to frolic in the rain, and I pulled myself together, painfully and left the apartment. I met a visitor to a neighbour upstairs who was friendly and sweet. It was agonizing to walk the few blocks to Penn station, but I got to Newark intact and onto my delayed flight (snow was on and off) and off to Edmonton. Being in first class the first leg helped, but in Minneapolis, I asked for a cart and since I did not look as needy as the elderly man I was with, I was dropped off nowhere near my gate and had to hobble for a time before I hailed another cart. I arrived at my parent's house after 1 in the morning, and my mother greeted me with irritation after waiting longer than expected for my arrival.

After spending the day taking care of my mother and visiting my father at the hospital, talking to doctors and nurses and physical therapists, and learning that my father is doing better than expected and experiencing my mother as appreciative and needy and feeling useful and important, along with taking lots and lots of Ibuprofen, I am relieved that I did not delay my flight and that I am here to do what I do well; which is to take care of people.

I wanted an Xray of my wrist, but the ER people told me it would be too expensive. I visited my parents' family doctor, who sent me for an Xray at the hospital. When asked for $675 up front, I chose to go to a nearby Radiography enterprise and paid $45 for an Xray to be read by tomorrow. I will figure out what to do when I get the results, and meanwhile enjoy the effects of NSAIDS. I will certainly watch very carefully when crossing the streets in my New York City home.

Arrival

Finally. We chose a lovely and tiny apartment and signed the lease March 15, Eric moved the furniture (about a seventh of the total number of pieces we have in our three storage units) last weekend, and Maya and I arrived late this evening to piles of boxes and packing materials covering almost every inch of what seemed to be a lovely apartment when we saw it a few weeks ago.

I had looked for apartments in January when in Baltimore for a working week in January. I found lovely places but did not really know what I wanted, and in retrospect saw a duplex in the East Village which was perfect for us, but did not realize it until much later. Maya, Eric and I looked again for a weekend in late February and saw this lovely light and airy place in Chelsea,  after a couple more days of searching, Maya and I decided this was the place, and without looking again, insisted that we sign the lease. To see it for the first time since our initial exposure was surprising; it was both smaller and bigger than I remembered, but mostly it is awfully small, and we will have to learn to live with less of everything.

Belina and Marius have joined us for our adventure. It is their school break and their parents, Daphne and Julien, will join them Monday. Eric bought a blowup queen size bed which covers the entire floor in Maya's bedroom, but all three children are able to sleep there. Our kingsize monstrosity fits in the other bedroom, which is not usual for New York apartments. It covers almost every inch of the floor, with just enough space to walk around the sides of the bed.

We have delivered our cats to the apartment. They have been left alone in our big house in Baltimore for six weeks, with an automatic feeder and litter box, and have become feral again. There is no room for them here, but we will all adjust.

This is our great Manhattan adventure.