Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Today I got the Rolling Stone ready to roll down to the Bay Area for a week of work, medical appointments (all routine), and probably a show -- 3Below Theatre's production of Nine: The Musical. I'd go next Thursday when some of the other BASFA members are going, but with a 4 AM alarm on working days, Friday is really the only night I can manage it because I can sleep in a few hours before driving home on Saturday.

It got really windy today and looked like it was going to rain, but there is neither rain nor (more importantly) snow in the weather forecast today, tomorrow, or indeed into next weekend. I have no more trips west planned this year as of now, but things could always change, and in particular there's the matter of when my sisters' friends are able to plan a memorial celebration for her.

On Saturday morning after breakfast at the Crowne Plaza hotel, Lisa and I went over to the nursing home, where we collected Kelli, who signed herself out of the facility for the day. The nurses gave us her medications, which we labeled for when we were to dispense them to her, and issued us three additional oxygen containers besides the one she was using at the time. We packed everything into the minivan and set off, with a brief initial stop at Walgreen's to pick up some items she wanted both for this trip and in general.

I made our travel time estimate by taking the Google Maps estimated door-to-door travel time and doubling it. That worked out just about right for accommodating rest stops, which are necessary on trips like this both for me and for Kelli. Around 1 PM we pulled in to the Ponderosa Community Center in Brownsville.

( Remembering Della Louise Reynolds Tranquilli )

After several hours, and after everyone had their say of remembering Mom, the event broke up. They gave me the fold-up photo stand of Mom's memorial shrine. We packed up what we could (a plate of leftovers for Kelli to have later) and headed back for Sacramento, albeit relatively slowly with more rest stops. Kelli was happy to be out on the biggest excursion from the nursing home in five years, but it's quite wearing on all of us. Lisa was also a great help, even though she could only help one handed as she is nursing a sprained wrist from a fall she took a few days ago. Lisa was worried that she was a burden, but I assured her that she was very helpful, especially in situations where Kelli needed help using a multi-user restroom.

I'll have more to say later about one side trip we took to Challenge to have a look at my grandparents' house. It's not pretty.

Just before 8 PM we got back to Sacramento Post-Acute and Kelli checked herself back in. We returned the empty oxygen bottles (we'd only started the final bottle about 20 minutes before getting back; in fact, needing to change that bottle was why we made the final stop) put her leftovers (which we'd been keeping in our electric ice chest) in the home's refrigerator, sorted out her stuff from ours, helped her get settled back into her room, explained when I would next be able to visit, gave her a big hug, and went back to the hotel.

This is one of those cases where I was very grateful that the hotel is not only close to the nursing home, but also has several fast-food restaurants within walking distance. Lisa and I got some take-out from Panda Express and collapsed back into the hotel room. It was a good day and a fitting remembrance event for my mother, but even good stress is still stress, and we had no difficulty getting to sleep last night.

Aside from leaving an hour later than I planned on account of oversleeping (and that was because I was up much too late working on a project for the Tonopah bid), today's trip was routine. Good weather (still about 15-20 feet of snow at the Donner Summit rest area), easy driving most of the way. There was an accident on westbound I-80 coming down the hill but there was warning on the changeable signs, and I was able to bail off and drive old US-40 around the problem. I'm surprised how few people did the same thing. The old road is much slower than the freeway, but when the freeway is dead stopped due to an accident, the old road is a better bet. You can't always do this because old US-40 is no longer continuous, but in this particular case it was, and I was happy enough to drive from Gold Run to Colfax via the old road.

Because I was running late, I only got to visit my sister for a few minutes, but I promised her that I'd stay longer on my return next Sunday.

I had one time-constrained errand in the Bay Area, but managed to make it with time to spare, which suits me just fine.

I always wonder if I'm forgetting something on these trips. It was something of a relief to figure out what I missed this time: my wrist brace that I've been wearing when working on the computer. I might go buy another one from Walgreen's if my wrist starts hurting again.

To my relief, the place I typically lay up for the night is unchanged. The way things change around here, every time I'm gone for a few months or even weeks, I come back and figure there's a better-than-even chance that the entire area has been leveled for the next major expansion of one of the big tech companies.