A Wonderful Weekend
Fri., November 17, 09:18 PM
It was indeed a wonderful weekend, and I'd better write something about it before another weekend starts. We got back last Sunday, and I am still catching up to where I was before we left. Perhaps I should also mention that my emotions are still very close to the surface. I'm not even going to try to describe the whole thing in one entry; I'm sure there will be several entries related to this.
The train trip on Thursday was uneventful, if you don't count that Husband got out of the car and decided to try to walk into the station rather than use the wheelchair. He tends to fight using the chair, but generally was pretty good all weekend. In any case, Amtrak employees are very helpful, both getting us on in New Haven and taking us off in Boston. And Son picked us up and brought us to our hotel.
The hotel room was very comfortable, and the housekeeping and room service people were most accommodating. The banquet staff was amazing, but I'll talk about that later. I wish I could say nice things about the reservations staff. (Should you ever need to stay at this hotel -- whose name I am not disclosing here -- I suggest you use priceline or hotels.com, even if the hotel is offering online reservations. (Those didn't work.) The telephone staff was worse; the first clerk we spoke to did not know what adjoining rooms are (though the hotel does have them), and she was pretty sure they didn't have any handicapped accessible rooms.
We were in a handicapped accessible room, close to the elevators and equipped with special bathroom facilities, like grab bars and a fold-down seat in the shower. Husband was just happy to have a bed near a bathroom and a TV -- with free HBO -- so he was happy as a pig in...you know. The only difficulty I discovered was that I couldn't leave him alone. He didn't hear the phone or someone at the door (well, he listens to the TV at high volume); he just went on talking to me as if I weren't on the phone.
[He still believes he doesn't have a hearing problem, which led to this ridiculous exchange this morning: I told him "the cat is throwing up, so don't feed him." Husband's response, "state or federal?" "What?!!" Husband: "you said the taxes were going up, didn't you?"]
On Thursday afternoon we met with the personal care attendant Son had engaged for Friday and Saturday evenings. Husband: "the what?" Me: "personal care attendant." "What?" "A nurse!" "Oh, okay." She was a lovely, personable lady, and she took care of him both evenings, freeing me of most of the stress of watching over him. She helped him get his food, escorted him to the men's room, and so forth. As a VA nurse, she could discuss his military service (which ended more than fifty years ago) and tell him what the VA is doing for veterans now. It was quite interesting.
We did room service for Thursday night, but I figured I could do better for breakfast. I went out and brought back coffee, milk for Husband, and some muffins. He was pleased.
Tentative plans had Husband going out with Son on Friday, and I thought I would walk around and explore. But the best laid plans, as you know, don't always work, and I stayed in with him. I considered taking Husband downstairs to the hotel's "cafe for all-day dining," but there was no wheelchair ramp, and I decided against it. We snacked because the rehearsal was to be Friday night, and Husband was focused on the "spaghetti dinner."
As it turned out, he did pretty well over the whole weekend. The wedding aisle was short, so that Husband could navigate it with his cane in one hand and holding onto Son with the other. The nurse was waiting to help him into a chair as Son continued to the "stage." When he didn't have to move around, Husband just sat watching people and smiling at the girls.
M.D. and I had hairdresser's appointments on Saturday morning, so I parked Husband with our son-in-law so that Housekeeping could get to the room. My appointment was for a blowout (more new vocabulary), which looked all right and lasted through the evening. That was my intention, but I'll tell you: I think I got a better style using rollers and mousse. After I was done, I watched another stylist working on M.D.; again, she produced a pretty updo that lasted, but I was not impressed with her methods. I always thought that new technology should make things work better...but I guess that's just naivete.
The wedding itself was lovely -- a beautiful ceremony followed by a sumptuous banquet and lots of dancing. More about those later.
