Good morning! Come on in and grab a coffee or a tea, I have lots to tell you.
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Tag: Journal
US-Canada Trip 2022 After Thoughts
As of Sunday evening, I was home again, in my own bed, enjoying a quiet night rest. No more sharing a bed with Mom, no more listening to her snoring, and no more having to listen to her loud YouTube playing all night long. The trip has ended at last.
Continue reading “US-Canada Trip 2022 After Thoughts”US-Canada Trip 2022 Day 11
For reference, day 11 is referring to September 30 2022.
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#WeekendCoffeeShare – Last Day of Vacation
Good morning! My my my, is it October already?
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US-Canada Trip 2022 Day 10
For reference, day 10 is referring to September 29, 2022.
2 more days until home…
I felt a bit better, not coughing as much, though my voice still sounded pretty bad. The tough part has been getting through the night because that’s when the stuffy nose comes and I begin to feel like I’m choking. I think it might be caused by the dust in the motels which exacerbated the problem.
We stopped by the New Jersey State House in the morning. It was sorta a drop-by since we were heading toward Trenton to avoid bridge tolls. In the west, we call this the Capitol Building. I’ve never heard of it referred to as “State House” before. I learned that when I couldn’t find “New Jersey Capitol” on Google Maps.
This is definitely by far the oldest Capitol building I’ve ever been to. It was originally built in the late 18th Century before it was burned, rebuilt, renovated, and added several more wings over the years to accommodate the growing state.
It was also the one with the tightest security measures. It was like going through the TSA checkpoint at an airport. I must empty my pockets, place everything in a bucket, and walk through the scanner. We were also not allowed to tour the building ourselves. We needed to call and schedule a tour. Thankfully, the people at the Capitol building were willing to do an impromptu tour.
I learned a lot about the state of New Jersey on this tour like how it’s blueberries and peaches are well-known. I find it so fascinated to learn fun facts like these. The tour ended after 20 minutes and our guide led us to the door.
The outside of the complex is just as interesting as the inside like this tree that was dedicated to George Washington who famously crossed the Delaware River nearby and this fountain, which makes a great photo opp.
After the State House, we headed to Chambersburg, PA, where we will spend the next 2 nights and we’re planning to tour Gettysburg the next day,
US-Canada Trip 2022 Day 9
For reference, day 9 is referring to September 28, 2022.
It’s day 2 in Philadelphia and I would say it felt more relaxed than normal. There wasn’t much rushing from place to place. I think the expectation has been lowered ever since we got sick, to not try to see the entire city but to focus on one place at a time. If there’s time, we’ll see more.
Mom seemed convinced she contracted COVID from the guy sitting next to her on the plane. He wore a mask and his wife next to him seemed to be on medication that made her sleepy and confused. She was listening to the symptoms of COVID all night long.
We stayed in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia the night after staying in the worst motel imaginable. The downtown hotel felt like heaven compare to the other motel. The first thing I did was take 2 showers to rid the smell of cigarettes from my body and hair. I washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed until I could no longer smell that dreadful scent.
We spent the morning visiting the National Constitution Center, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Once again, mom didn’t like it because of the so-called “skewed perspective.” I wanted to read every placard on display in that museum but each time I found something interesting, I’d get pulled away by mom.
The exhibits I enjoyed the most were the Civil War and Women’s suffrage exhibits. I find Civil War to be one of the most fascinating time in US history and I briefly listened to a podcast on women’s suffrage last month, so I was excited to learn more. Mom was uninterested to go to both exhibits but thankfully, she let me go alone while she waited outside.
I don’t know why I keep getting the feeling of being undermined. For example, I got hungry and wanted to make myself a bowl of noodle soup. Mom wanted me to wait until she got back but I figured I’m a grown-up and I can make it myself. I overheated the water and made a tiny mess in the microwave.
“I told you to wait for me.” She clicked her tongue. I hate it when she does that because that’s when I know I done something she thinks is wrong which has been often on this trip.
Anyway, it’s back to Jersey tonight because we couldn’t book an extra night in downtown Philly. We’re heading back to Trenton, NJ to see New Jersey State House before crossing over to Pennsylvania and head for Gettysburg where we’ll stay for the next 2 nights.
US-Canada Trip 2022 Day 8
For reference, day 8 is referring to September 27, 2022.
I have so many thoughts at the moment. I don’t know whether that’s due to sleep deprivation or the fact that I am now sick, too, caught whatever Mom got from sharing a bed and probably not covering her mouth when she coughed around me. I feel like shit. My nose is stuffy, my voice is hoarse and at times, gone, and I’m coughing like there’s no tomorrow.
I’ve also been getting next to no sleep with mom blasting YouTube all night long while unconsciously snatching the covers, leaving me with nothing, and snoring so loud and I mean loud. I think my sleep at night has been more like catnaps – waking up every so often like someone’s anticipating the alarm to ring.
This morning, I woke up in the worst motel room imaginable, my hair and body reek of cigarette smoke and marijuana. I felt a bit better, not coughing as much. Mom was quite the opposite. She looked like she’s going to cough out a lung. That’s the last time I will ever share a bed.
At 9:30 AM, we arrived in the heart of Philadelphia, PA – the city of Brotherly Love. The traffic felt absolutely chaotic. The moment we got off the Ben Franklin bridge, we saw people walking in the middle of the road, among cars!
Aren’t they afraid of being hit? It is a highway after all.
After parking the car in the lot next to the hotel, we made our way around the city – first to Chinatown and then to Independence Hall.
I have never been to Independence Hall nor seen the Liberty Bell in person, only in movies. So I was excited to expand my knowledge of U.S. History.
Or so I thought…
Mom rushed me from one display to the next without ever allowing me to read the text. I told her to hold on and wait for me a few times but her answer was always, “there’s nothing to see here.” She said Independence Hall has changed drastically since her last visit which was 24 years ago. She said the history placards have been rewritten by the recent presidents to make the history of the Founding Fathers skew toward the institution of slavery.
To be honest, from the texts I managed to read, I did not see any skewing and biases toward African American. Sure, history is always told from one perspective and that perspective isn’t always right but that’s just what history is, isn’t it?
US-Canada Trip 2022 Day 7
I’m writing this post on my phone as opposed to my laptop. I’m not sure how it’ll look, so bear with me.
I traveled to 3 states yesterday. That must be some kind of record or maybe that’s just me because I’m from Western U.S. and the states are huge compared to the east. Anyway, we crossed into the US early in the morning after we were grilled by the custom officer.
He asked why, of all the cities in the whole world, we chose to visit Toronto and Ottawa. I don’t remember being grilled like this when I returned to the US after visiting Canada 5 years ago or is that just typical manner of the people on the east coast? Mom said he was just doing his job but really?
It certainly left a sour taste in my mouth.
We drove through New York and Pennsylvania before getting to our destination – Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey. It surprised me by how green it was. Perhaps, it’s because I’m from out west where there’s little to no rain.
I loved the greenery and seeing the autumn colors starting to peek through. It was one of my purposes of the trip.
I’ve always wanted to see the place where George Washington crossed the Delaware river as depicted by the famous painting but it turned out, the painting had exaggerated the event as often history does. It was certainly a good history lesson and I learned quite a bit from this little history tour.
Which brings me back to why I’m writing this post on my phone. I stayed at the worst motel in the history of worst motel last night in Bordentown, New Jersey. I requested for a non-smoking room and the moment I entered the room, the smell of pot and smoke hit me like a punch in the face. I told front desk and all he did was spritzed air freshener in the room.
After he left, I discovered not only could I not get wifi in the room but my cell signal was gone too. It was like being sucked into a black hole. Normally, I wouldn’t mind a night without internet but I happened to need to modify the itinerary which involved modifying a few hotel reservations and I can’t do that when I don’t have internet.
After complaining to the guy and showing him the room was a black hole, he switched me to another room. Still, the smell of pot and smoke hit me when I opened the door. I’ve stayed at plenty of bad motels before but this is by far the worst.
Well, I’ll reporting from Philadelphia for the next 2 days. Hopefully, my living accomodations improves.
#WeekendCoffeeShare – Birthday in Canada
Good morning! I am on the road to Ottawa today from Toronto and since it’s my birthday, Starbucks is giving me a free drink. So take yours and join me on the road.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you I have a feeling this would be a special birthday because I’m in Canada. Hopefully, mom will not ruin this day like she had ruined day 3 of the trip aka Thursday, September 22.
Today is day 5 of the trip and we are already a mess. My gums has been swollen since arriving in Buffalo, New York, probably from being dehydrated from the lack of drinking fountain in Canada. I can barely talk at times because of the pain and I’ve been irritated by the way mom makes me shout sometimes just so she could hear me even though shouting exacerbates the pain in my mouth.
Mom was having on and off fever yesterday, which she thinks might be an infection somewhere and not COVID. She was having pain in her legs before we left on our trip, which caused her to barely able to walk. Having walked almost 30 miles since Tuesday, she’s almost constantly complaining about the pain in her legs and guess who had to put up with it?
I swear, if we were a married couple, I would be the husband, putting up with all the complaints and temper tantrum and never getting what I want while needing to do everything else like keeping an eye on Google Maps while paying attention to the road signs because it seems like, when in Canada, one is unable to read road signs and drive at the same time. I hate being the navigator because sometimes, I have trouble reading the GPS and sometimes, the GPS has trouble pinging my location. That’s when the one-sided shouting matches begin because mom wanted everything to be perfect.
Unfortunately, I’m far from it.
Last night, she actually called me selfish for wanting to finish the trip. 4 days in and she’s wanting to go home. Well, we can’t because our plane tickets are non-refundable and to modify our plane fares cost more than the original plane tickets alone. She also suggested we could go hole up in Richmond or Philadelphia. Who’s the selfish one now?
I knew this would happen, why did I even agree or be excited to go on this trip in the first place?
Anyway, here are some of the memorable photos I shot on the trip so far. I have posted an entry for Day 1-3 of the trip so far, you can read each one by clicking on the links.
#weekendcoffeeshare is hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. I appreciate you stopping by and hope to chat again same time next week.
#SundayStills: #Closeup on Garden Raspberries
I cannot believe the day has at last arrived!
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#WeekendCoffeeShare – 4 Days ’til Road Trip 2022
Good morning! Come on in, sit, and enjoy a drink. I discovered something good this week.
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Friday Thoughts
#WeekendCoffeeShare – An Exceptional Long Week
Good morning! Come on in, sit, and enjoy a drink.
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Losing a Friend
#WeekendCoffeeShare – September 2022 Garden Update and Anger Management
Good morning! Come on in from the heat and cool down with a drink.
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Hello September!
#WeekendCoffeeShare – Something Good this Week
Avoidance
I thought I would be okay now that the nightmares have subsided. I thought I would be okay to drive to my doctor appointment on Friday (two days from now).
Maybe not because I find myself stressing out just to step into the garage. I can’t even go into the garage to retrieve some insect powder for the garage. For some reason, every time I put the thought of “go to the garage” in my head, my brain would automatically override the thought with another like “walk 1000 steps” or “watch TV”.
I have already reschedule the appointment for next Thursday and part of me want so much to reschedule Friday’s appointment. You can’t, a voice says firmly. Friday’s appointment is a dietitian/counseling appointment and I need to talk to somebody who understands what I’m going through. Maybe then I can have the strength to get back on the road.
Curiously, I googled “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms” and one of the symptom that came up was “avoidance” and it includes:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967
- Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
- Avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event
I remember when I went grocery shopping with mom on Sunday. It took all my strength to hurl myself into the garage and into my mom’s car. The house key was in my pocket and when we returned, I entered the house through the front door instead of the garage.
My mom didn’t understand this. She doesn’t understand I can’t stand to look at my car – the missing fender, the hole in the door, all of it. She doesn’t understand about PTSD.
I have been in accidents before, none was my fault, but I couldn’t recall having such a strong reaction as this time. I was able to step into the garage. I was able to get in the car and get back on the road. Why is it so hard this time?
Meanwhile, mom isn’t making this easy. Not only does she keeps talking about it, she’s saying it’s my fault that I got into an accident which prevented us from taking a trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming last weekend and possibly any trip in the future because of the deficit I’ve spent on getting the car fixed.
She also wants me to call the auto body shop and ask them to give me a quote to add blind spot detection to my mirrors. I don’t see why I need it. It was never a problem and I don’t want it to be another crutch for me to rely on. To be honest, I hate all the gadgets cars have these days and I’m glad my car doesn’t have features like lane departure and blind spot detection because it makes us more distracted and reliant on these feature instead of focusing on the road and drive.
I emailed the person who did the quote for my repairs but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet and I doubt he will. His business card is in my car and given my current dilemma, I don’t know how I can retrieve it.
#WeekendCoffeeShare – My Brain won’t shut up about it.
This will take a while…
Please note that this is quite a long post. I won’t be offended if you skip this one.
Physically, I’m fine but mentally, I feel like I’m once again at a breaking point. It will certainly be a while until I’m truly comfortable driving again…
Yesterday was supposed to be a day of fun, a day which I head into the forest once again to seek solitude, a little time to myself, and to enjoy nature but it looked like someone had another agenda for me.
This week has been a series of unfortunate events with the biggest one of them all on Thursday.
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Monday Thoughts
For some reason, I’m feeling anxious about this Monday.
It’s my final counseling session with my therapist and as I ponder on what to discuss, all I can think was yesterday, Sunday. So much about yesterday peeved me. The only parts that didn’t peeve me were the solo walk along the forest trail and all the wonderful photos I took on my walk.
It was actually mom’s idea to go to the forest yesterday. “I need to go breathe in some fresh air.”
She didn’t want to drive her car though and she didn’t want me to drive, so she dragged her sister and brother-in-law (BIL) along, assigning him the role of the driver for the trip. As usual, I was the navigator, which is the most annoying task ever since mom was doing the navigating from the backseat while telling her BIL to ignore everything I said.
The forest was wonderful – so cool (temperature-wise) and lush with greenery. I had a suspicion that it rained the night because the ground was wet and there were water droplets on the plants. I hurriedly abandoned the adults while I hunted for a location to practice long-exposure photography.
After taking all the long exposure photographs I had wanted, I began wandering down the forest trail while paying attention at my surrounding to find interesting photo compositions. After a while, I caught up with them as they were returning to the parking lot.
The next activity on mom’s agenda was food and her BIL suggested the only restaurant he knew – Burger King – and that was what mom wanted as well. In fact, it’s just about the only restaurant mom will eat at these days. Unfortunately, there was no Burger King nearby, which was odd considering all the other chain restaurants were nearby. I tried to search for the next best thing but they don’t like any other fast food restaurant. So I suggested Texas-style barbecue.
Her BIL agreed. However, when we arrived at the restaurant, she refused to order anything, and in the oddest fashion, she asked for a coffee. Um, coffee in a barbecue joint on a Sunday afternoon? The guy looked at her and then replied apologetically, “Sorry, we don’t have coffee.”
As the food arrived, after taking a bite of the beef brisket I ordered, she said, “The meat is overcooked. It’s terrible.”
Then she started reflecting on the barbecue joint we once gone to just outside of Austin, Texas. “The line was out the door and round the corner,” mom said and as she said, my anger level ticked up ever so slightly.
Why can’t she keep her opinion to herself? I thought and before I could stop myself, I said, “I ordered the brisket for me. If you don’t like it, order whatever you want for yourself.”
“I don’t want anything.” She pouted. The only reason you don’t want anything is because this isn’t Burger King, I thought.
As we got up to leave, while mom and her BIL went to dispose the trays, my aunt whispered to me, “Just do what she says,” which was the other thing that peeved me about yesterday’s outing.
Um, excuse me, I wanted to say, I’m not a yes-woman or a robot or a dog. I am entitled to my own emotions and opinions, but that’s when mom returned, ushering us to leave.
Wow, it looks like I have quite a bit to discuss with my therapist.
#WeekendCoffeeShare – Too Long of a Work Week
This is Another Story 