Yoshi’s, What I am Reading, and Charlie Rose – An hour with Michael Crichton

We went to Yoshi’s last night to hear Don Byron. He had a sextet and he played the saxophone and the clarinet.  It was a great show. I really enjoyed it. Duke is a volunteer driver for Yoshi’s and we get free tickets when he drives musicians to the airport. He Just left to drive Don Byron.

Before we went to the show last night we watched Michael Chrichton on Charlie Rose. It was a very interesting interview – One of the best I have seen. Coincidentally I just picked up Michael Chrichton’s book Travels  from the library.

I usually am reading more than one book at a time. Right now I am two thirds of the way through Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris and I have just started Team of Rivals by Doris Hearns Goodwin which I am reading for my non fiction books club. In addition my light reading is Simple Living by Frank Levering and Wanda Urbanska. I’ve read it before but I like to reread books I have enjoyed.

 

   

 

 

     

 

      http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-2663847011110488414&hl=en
   
A wide-ranging hour-long conversation with author Michael Crichton.  His latest book is "Next".
               

Lessons Learned when my Dad broke his hip.

As I mentioned in my last post my Dad fell and broke his hip on the morning of January 23. That morning Dad called and asked if I could come down to help out. Thank goodness I am retired. I was able to hop on a plane and be in San Diego by early afternoon. I ended up being in Escondido for two and a half weeks. Both my sisters and my brother also dropped everything to come down and help. It was a pretty intense exhausting time but thinking about the experience on my flight home I realized that it was also an intense learning experience. Here are some of the things I learned.

  • I knew next to nothing about options for getting help with living when you need it. I learned that it ranges form hiring in house help, to skilled nursing which is more than Mom and Dad needed, to independent retirement housing to assisted living which is what fit the bill. In their case Assisted living made the most sense. They are renting an apartment and then paying on top of that for the assistance they need.
  • In the two weeks I was in Escondido my sister and I looked at 5 assisted living places. I learned that in the area where my parents live there are lots and lots of assisted living places. The ones we looked at were all OK but the one we chose stood out to us as having better food, staff that seemed to know the residents and a more upbeat feel than the others we looked at. Of course only time will tell whether Mom and Dad like it or not.
  • I learned the difference between a living will, a power of attorney for health care and a do not resuscitate order (a DNR).
  • I learned first hand something that seems obvious. Moving from a 2000+ square foot house of your own to a two room apartment is very hard. Mom and Dad haven’t decided if this is  temporary or not. They may move back into their house when Dad’s hip is healed or they may move somewhere else or they may move to a bigger unit in the place they are now.
  • I learned that when you have trouble getting your words out people assume that your mind is slipping. My Mom is as sharp as ever but the Parkinson’s that she is battling makes it hard for her to say what she is thinking.
  • I learned the importance of perspective and of not trying to do everything and be all things to all people. I didn’t realize how emotionally draining the whole experience was until I flew home and got some perspective.
  • I learned how lucky I am to have a loving supportive family and three wonderful siblings . We all pretty much get along and are there to support each other even if we live in the four corners of the  country (Boston, Memphis, Tacoma, and the Bay Area)
  • I learned that we need to just take things one day at a time and keep our options open. My temperament is to always want to have a plan. But in a situation like this there are too many things changing on a daily basis to be able to see too much into the future. If my sisters hadn’t helped me keep my mind open to the possibilities and if we hadn’t continued to weigh our options based on the information available to us we would have missed out on better solutions that presented themselves over time. The first assisted living place that we thought we liked wasn’t as good as the one that a friend told us about later. The  first doctor  we talked to  about Mom wasn’t as helpful as the second one and  the solutions we worked out as a team were better than anything I would have come up with alone.

All of these  learnings seem painfully obvious but  in the stress of the moment I had to learn them anew. I’m really glad I could help out and that Mom and Dad are doing as well as they are. Who knows what the future holds but for now I’m trying not to worry about it. My brother arrived in Escondido today to help out and it sounds like everything is going pretty well.

Why I Haven’t Posted

You may wonder why this blog has been silent since our return from Mexico. Unfortunately my Dad fell and broke the socket portion of his hip (the acetabulum) a couple of weeks ago. Luckily it was not displaced and he was able to avoid surgery. Right now he is in an acute rehab unit and is doing incredibly well. We expect him to make a full recovery.

He was the care giver for my Mom who is not well so when he fell I flew down to help out  and my siblings are also coming in shifts. None of us live near my parents. We have found an assisted living place that we really like so when he is discharged (hopefully Wednesday) they will both be going there and soon after that I will be going home.

The End of our Mexican Adventure

We got home from Mexico last night. What a wonderful trip. I’m busy unpacking, doing laundry and getting back in the grove of things. While it is still fresh in my mind I am going to finish the journal of the trip.

Day 19 – January 14 – Culiacan to Alamos, Sonora, Mexico – Today 264 miles – Total 4048 miles

Today we drove from Culiacan to Alamos. Lonely Planet Mexico lists Alamos as one of the top five places to visit in northwest Mexico. The town was founded in 1683 when silver was discovered in the nearby mountains. It is a beautiful old town with colonial architecture. According to the Alamos town web site188 structures in the Colonial City of Alamos have been declared National Historic Monuments.

We drove into town and started checking out hotels. La Puerta Roja Inn where we ended up was definitely the nicest place we stayed on this trip, it included a full breakfast and was very reasonably priced.  Our room had high ceiling a beautifully tiled bathroom, pink adobe walls and a fireplace! The fireplace was especially nice because the cold streak that has hit the U.S. also hit Mexico. It was so luxurious to snuggle under the comforter next to the fire and read. We got up the next morning and enjoyed a gourmet breakfast next to another fire on the patio.

After checking in we wandered around the town, checked out the sights, and explored the museum. We also had some fresh hot corn on the cob with butter and cheese from a street vendor in front of the church. Later we had a great dinner at Papillon Restaurant. In the morning before we left we drove up to El Mirador – the lookout an a hill southeast of town.

Apparently something like 250 internationals live in Alamos. We saw some of them and the beautifully restored houses they live in (from the outside).  I loved Alamos. It was one of the highlights of the trip.

Day 20 – January 15 – Alamos to Bahia Kino, Sonora, Mexico – Today 275 miles – Total 4323 miles

Bahia Kino is a fishing village on the Sea of Cortez. The part of town we were in cnsisted of one street with a long line of vacation houses on the beach. I thinkthe only peopel in town were Americans or Canadians. We didn’t see many people because the wind was blowing and boy was it cold! When I say cold I mean in the high 40s and low 50s. The cold is all part of the cold weather that hit the whole continentthis last week.  After checking in to our hotel we bundled up and went for a walk on the beach. We didn’t see another person but did see thousands of shells. Our hotel La Playa RV & Hotel was beautiful, right on the beach. It has rooms with stone floors and balconies that open right on to the beach and they have heaters (Thank God!).

Day 21 – January 16 – Bahia Kino to Phoenix, Arizona, USA – Today 358 miles – total 4681 miles

Back to the U.S. today. It was an uneventful day except for the 2 hour wait to cross the border. When we finally go to the checkpoint they looked at our passports and waved us through. I really felt sorry for the truckers. Their line was enormously long and I can’t imaging how long they had to wait.

Day 22 – January 17 – Phoenix to Union City, California, USA – Today 807 miles – total 5488 miles

We had planned to drive from Phoenix to Barstow today but once we got on the road we decided to just head on home so we got to Union City at 1 am this morning.

It was a wonderful trip. I enjoyed Mexico much more than I thought I would. It is hard to characterize Mexico and why I liked it so much. I think I’ll try to do a summary tomorrow but it will be hard because although I have learned a lot about Mexico on this trip I know now how little I really know or understand. 

Driving through Mexico – part 3

I finally have Internet access again so will bring my posts of our trip up to date. Our grand Mexican adventure continues. We have now driven more than 2000 miles in Mexico and are on our way home.

Geoff made a comment on my last post asking about where the pictures are. The answers is that pictures have been a problem. I am using a borrowed Apple PowerBook G4 on this trip and I am not very proficient using Apples. I have managed to upload my pictures to the PowerBook from my camera but when I try to use Typepad to insert them into a blog entry TypePad just hangs. I assume that it is a problem with how TypePad works with Safari. I think I’ll try to load the picture to Flickr next and if that doesn’t work I’ll just wait until I get home to load them.

Anyway I’ll continue now with my journal of the trip

Day 11 – January 6 – in Manzanillo Mexico

We had lunch at Juanitos. Our list of restaurants says that it is a favorite of locals and tourists since the 70s and they have Internet access. The food was good and we went back later to use their wireless. The charge was $1 for an hour of use. My last posting was from Juanitos.

During the afternoon we wandered around downtown Manzanillo. According to the Lonely Planet Mexico Guide Book, the Manzanillo port is the largest in Mexico. We saw several ships being loaded and unloaded and walked along the shops beyond the port on the waterfront town square.

Day 12 – January 7 – from Manzanillo to Puerto Vallarta and back- about 347 miles total 2894 miles

Today we drove to the Puerto Vallarta airport and back to drop of Vicky’s friend. Manzanillo has an airport but all the planes were full when Duke booked the flight for Vicky’s friend to fly back to school. We had lunch near the airport but other than that didn’t spend any time in the town. From the car Puerto Vallarta is as different from Manzanillo as night and day. They are both in beautiful settings and to me Puerto Vallarta is more dramatic but it is also 100% more touristy and Americanized. In Puerto Vallarta we saw KFC, Burger King, Dominos, Hooters and Chucky Cheese none of which are in Manzanillo. There were also several high rise hotels unlike Manzanillo. Basically Manzanillo is smaller, sleepier, and much more to my liking.

Day 13 – January 8 – in Manzanillo Mexico

Another lazy relaxing day. We went back to Tacos Sonrisa to eat lunch and then drove around the luxury houses and hotels on the point. But other than that we just walked on the beach, read and relaxed. This place really is paradise.

Day 14 – January 9 – in Manzanillo Mexico

This is our last day here. We went for a swim in the ocean and then had a lazy lunch at the Oasis restaurant on the beach. For dinner we went back to Margaritas which is built right over the beach and had another wonderful dinner.

Day 15 – January 10 – Manzanillo to Ocotlan, Jalisco, Mexico – today 290 miles, total 3184 miles

Today we drove back to Ocotlan where Duke’s girls stayed before we arrived. They left a bunch of stuff there. As I said before it is a beautiful drive. There were lots of fruit stands selling mainly watermelon, coconuts and bags of salt. We bought some cocos helados – cold coconuts – The guy chopped the top off the coconuts with a machete and put a straw in so we could drink the juice. When the juice was finished he opened the coconut and used a special rounded knife to take the edible coconut out and put it in a baggie. We took it with us and ate it in the car. Yum! One of the girls’ relatives uses the phrase taking coconuts to Colima to describe taking something to where there is already lots of it.

It was cloudy when we drove to Manzanillo but on the way back we had a great view of two volcanoes west of the road, Volcan de Fuego and Volcan Nevado de Colima. Volcan de Fuego is Mexico’s most active volcano. it was cool to see the steam coming from the top of it.

I think I mentioned the canyons that we drove through on the way down. I copied some of the statistics from the billboards beside the bridges and deep cuts of the new road. Apparently the road shortened the trip from Guadalajara to Colima from 2 hours and 52 minutes to 1 hour and 23 minutes. One of the viaducts was 80 meters high on one end. An amazing road.

Day 16 – January 11 – Ocotlan to Guadalajara and back, today about 80 miles, total 3264 miles

Today we went shopping at the enormous outside market in Tonala in a suburb of Guadaljara, bought some souvenirs and then drove into the center of Guadalajara to see the museums and cathedral. It is an impressive city. But the smog and horrible traffic definitely take away from the enjoyment.

Day 17 – January 12 Ocotlan to Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico – Today 105 miles – total 3369 miles

We dropped Duke’s girls at the Guadalajaro, airport for their trip home and then drove to Tequila which is just north west of Guadalajara. The tour of the Jose Cuervo Tequila distillery was excellent. We got to see the agave being put into the ovens and then taste some before it was crushed and distilled. The building is old and beautiful and the whole place is fascinating. I loved the town of Tequila. After dinner we sat in the town square in front of the church and people watched. There was a stand with a bubble machine selling toys and blowing bubbles and we watched as the girls for a quincenara assembled to go in for the mass.

Day 18 – January 13 Tequila to Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico – Today 415 miles – total 3784 miles

A long drive today but good roads. We are staying at the same Microtel in Culiacan that we stayed at on the way down. We also ate at the same Italian restaurant as we did on New Year’s Eve. The restaurant is in a shopping mall. On the way down the mall was closed. But tonight it was very busy. We sat and people watched after dinner just as we have in some of the town squares in other towns. I guess this mall is the modern Mexican town square. The mall which included our restaurant had a casino with slot machines, a sports book and a big Keno hall. The mall also had a Honda dealer and a big movie multiplex. What a contrast from last night. But there were still lots of couples and families strolling by.

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