The un-update

Another six months have passed and I really don't have much to report.  Same old, same old.  My mom moved this past week.  We still have the cabin where they lived, but it's going on the market, and now she's in the Chicago burbs.  A real city with neighbors, doctors, curbside trash pick-up, everything.  And significantly warmer than the North Woods, even in the winter.

My husband and I went on vacation in October as usual, but we were delayed several days by the typhoon, since we were connecting through Tokyo.

Our itinerary:
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia,
car to Siem Reap, Cambodia,
plane to Luang Prabang, Laos,
plane to Danang, Vietnam
car to Hoi An, Vietnam
car to Hue,  Vietnam (via Danang)
plane to Hanoi,
car to Halong Bay,
boat around Halong Bay,
car back to Hanoi,
then a plane to Tokyo for a day, then back home.

It was a great trip. 

Our favorite culinary discovery was Vietnamese coffee (which I think is strong coffee mixed with sweetened condensed milk, but what you don't know can't hurt you!).  We also got hooked on pho, which we did not eat with any regularity before this trip. 

My weird sight-seeing highlight was seeing Ho Chi Minh's body in Hanoi.  That marks the third embalmed dictator I've seen -- Lenin and Mao were first. 

In terms of cities, we liked Siem Reap and Luang Prabang the most.  But I also loved chilling on a boat for a while in Halong Bay, where we got to meet our favorite new friends of the trip. 

Weather was good but soooooooo humid.  Highs were only in the low 90s for the first week or two, but the humidity was about 8,355,619%.  I carried a little day pack with me most days (real camera, guide book, phone charger, etc.) and I usually felt like my back was entirely drenched within 15 minutes of leaving the hotel, often within about 3 minutes. 

Most active city for us was Siem Reap.  I only went running once there (see below re injuries), but we found a bicycle tour company that hooked us up with bikes, helmets, and a guide (who also took great pictures).  And we were pretty much addicted.  We rode for a vast majority of the day for at least three straight days.  And then, going down a really big hill or mountain, in a tight switchback near the top, I took a header.  I have no idea what happened.  I was trying to shift and since my thumb wasn't strong enough, I had reached my right hand across to shift.  I was also trying to turn very sharply, and to brake very hard.  I flipped over the top of the handlebars and came down hard on my right shoulder.  Big bruise on my right quad too, and a scrape on my chin, but overall, I was pretty much fine.  It looked really bad, but I was barely moving at the time, so I didn't slide or anything.  So embarrassing though.  A bunch of men were sitting under a tarp near where it happened, and I heard them all yell as I was falling, and they ran over.  My husband was behind me, so he also saw the whole thing unfold.

Honorable mention for injuries:  twisted ankle in Siem Reap while walking on a totally unremarkable surface, and a thumb bruise when I stuck it into a moving fan in Siem Reap (I totally now appreciate how we have such big guards on most fans in the US, that's almost impossible to do, or at least it takes effort).  In this case, I had hung a workout shirt over it to dry, and went to pull it off, and my thumb went into the spinning fan blades.  But it didn't even draw blood.  So really escaped intact! 

I also managed to run almost everywhere else I think.  HCMC, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Hoi An (a run to the beach!), Hue, and Halong Bay.  We also biked in Luanag Prabang and Hoi An, but it wasn't the same as Siem Reap.  I intended to run in Hanoi, but we spent so much time lolly-gagging in other cities that we didn't have as long in Hanoi as I'd have liked.  There was an awesome little lake right by our hotel that I could have run around, and a much bigger lake not too far away, but I had a huge list of sight-seeing priorities (tops being Ho Chi Minh's body and "the Hanoi Hilton" (Maison Centrale, the prison where McCain was held as a POW).  So no running in Hanoi.  If we have a chance, we'd gladly go back there, so maybe next time. 

I almost overpacked by one dress (worn once mid-trip), as well as a long sleeved shirt and a light jacket, but I wore the long sleeves and jacket in Tokyo, so it was a win in the end.  I seriously overpacked hair products (conditioner (since not all hotels have it) and hair spray).  I wore my hair in a pony for about 2/3 of the days.  It was just too hot to have it on my neck.  Ugh!  I also overpacked jewelry, too many pairs of earrings and I didn't wear most of them.  BUT I underpacked blue earrings, which I wanted to wear on several days.  I also would have liked a bit more in terms of biking and running clothes, and more socks.  But overall, even with my new tiny tiny rollerboard, I got 3 weeks into it and my backpack, and didn't have to worry about checking luggage. 

Anyway, those are my basic trip notes.  I should post with pics at some point. 

Since vacation, I've been hammered at work.  My favorite co-worker of all time quit in mid-Sept, so I was balancing her caseload with my own for a few weeks before vacation, and theoretically balancing them during vacation (not!).  But a couple weeks ago, I got to transition about 50% of her cases that I took to someone else, and I got to cherry-pick the ones I kept, so pretty much only the easy ones.  But I've been travelling a lot since I've been home.  I barely know which end is up.  Philly, Baltimore (and then a weekend in DC for fun with a law school friend), and I'm currently at an airport in Indy.  I think all I have left this year now is two more Philly trips and one Baton Rouge or New Orleans trip, plus of course personal trips to San Antonio for the marathon and "home" for Christmas.  Hard to believe 2020 is on the horizon! 

No, no, no

I am kind of over this grief thing.  It's been 14 months, I've proved that I can survive and get through life without my step-dad.  My whole family has proven it.  The world is still spinning.  We've cried, we've laughed, and we've cried a lot more.  But we've gotten up each morning, worked out, worked, and gone to bed.  We are managing. 


Since we've proven that we can do it, can we please just go back to normal?


I hate that this is the new reality.  I just want it to be back to the old way.  When I didn't have to worry about my mom.  When I could just call him and ask a question.  When I'd be home and they'd be cooking in the kitchen together.  When we could sit for hours talking about the world over bottles of wine after dinner.  When I'd get a random email from him.  When he was my after-church buddy while we're waiting for my mom to talk to every damn person there and we just want to leave and get donuts.  When I didn't have this weird hole.  When I didn't identify myself as some partial-orphan. 


I'm over it.  Rewind. 

Tunnel Run

Since my step-dad died on Good Friday, we've actually made two separate trips to Pittsburgh to see my mother-in-law and others in my husband's family. 

In terms of my mother-in-law, she's pretty much the same.  She often seems to think she's somewhere between the ages of 14 and about 25.  She wonders where her parents are, she talks about the principal a lot, etc.  But she still at least recognizes us, although she forgets names a bit more.  It's confusing to talk to her because she'll say something like her sister just left after visiting her (highly possible), but then she'll also talk about her mother having given her the car keys that morning (highly impossible).  She seems to be less frightened, which is good, and she sometimes realizes she's not making sense and just says "I don't know what I'm saying."  But she still sometimes thinks she's in a stranger's house and wants to know when her parents will be there to take her home.

She's significantly more lucid in the mornings, so we try to time our trips to Pittsburgh to allow for at least a couple morning visits. 

Besides spending time with her, we usually stay with my husband's middle older brother and his wife.  And then there's usually a few random activities that fill our time.  My brother-in-law lives in a suburb pretty far outside the city, but if I drive (the rental car with those big @ss keys) a couple miles, I can park along a trail that runs pretty much forever.  At least 50 miles I think.  You know, in case you want to do an out-and-back 100 miler before work one morning.

It's a beautiful trail:

And the fun part I remembered to photograph this time, there's a tunnel: 

It's also about 20 degrees cooler than Dallas in the mornings, so there's that...

Time at Home

Since my step-dad died a few months ago, we've all been trying to spend a lot more time with my mom.  Still no concrete plans for the future, it's hard to think about it right now since this is such a beautiful time of the year up there.  But winter is coming, and that will not be any fun for her alone, so hopefully we'll come up with a plan soon.  I'm lobbying for a mom-share plan, where she spends a couple months with us, then goes home for a month, then a couple months with one of my brothers, home for a month, a couple months with another brother, etc. 

I went up for a week (Wednesday to Wednesday, bookended by two Philly trips).  It was hard to be there.  It feels more real there -- I keep waiting for him to come home.  But it was so nice to have the time with my mom. 

How I enjoyed spending free time:

And a few pics from my runs up there: 

It's so beautiful there, and the weather is like a dream.  My running schedule called for a cut-down week while I was there, but it was impossible.  I couldn't do a 12 mile long run in 47 degrees and know that I had to do 18 the following weekend back in Dallas in 85 degrees at 5:30 a.m.  I had a pretty high mileage week up there, but it was glorious.  An 18 mile long run that I even started in long sleeves (not necessary, but just because I could...). 

The runs were necessary because there was lots of home cooking, and a full schedule of other things to do -- plus work!  I don't have any free days to take for vacation since we're taking a long "real" vacation starting in a month and a half.  But fortunately, I can work remotely from home and my mom refills my water bottle, so I can be super-efficient!