Coconut Grove, Florida

I ate lunch here at Scotty's Landing. Jay and I ate here when we visited before. It was cool so close to the water and fun to look out and see all the boats. Crowded tho. REALLY crowded! I was hot from riding the bike all around so I kind of cooled out while I waited. I could have ordered conch soup, or a conch sandwich, or conch appetizers, or conch fritters; but, I don't know, I didn't.

I rode Rhonwyn's bike to this Starbucks in downtown Coconut Grove. People were lined up practically out the door to get their coffee, including me. It was cool in there, so I sat awhile and read my book, one of Lawrence Block's burglar books that I borrowed from Ken and Melodie for this trip.

Rhonwyn's bike is the silver low-rider there with the high back rest. It's really easy to ride without that high cross bar. It's been a long time since I've ridden a bike so I was kind of wobbly. There are bike racks all over the place so it was really convenient to go into the town part of Coconut Grove that way. Also, there are bike trails along the roads, and one across the hwy from Park Ave., Rhonwyn and Steve's street, clear into Coconut Grove main street so it's easy to do. I just got off the phone with Bryan and we're meeting at Starbucks tomorrow morning. I should go pick him up, but I'm still leary about driving around here too much if I don't know the roads. I need to get a map of Miami.

unreal incident in Taos, NM

I don't have any pictures for this post... unless I can get my medical records downloaded. Probably not. It has been a few days since I passed out in the parking lot of the hospital in Taos with Janelle standing over me screaming HELP! HELP! so, hopefully, I can remember, what little I remember, and write about it here.

It had been really cold in Walden, 35 or 40 below, on Wednesday, February 2nd, when I was supposed to go to Taos to pick up Jojo and Sol to drive them to Albuquerque, ready to leave for Amanda's brother's wedding in Palm Springs, CA on Friday. I was worried about the effect the cold would have on my car, which I had plugged in overnight, so I waited until about 10 AM to leave for Taos. It was still 20 below but I left anyway. I had several cups of espresso while I waited, and with one thing and another, no breakfast. In Dillon I stopped at Starbucks and got my usual 5 shot Americano then got back in my car and continued driving. I was worried that if I stopped someplace for a break it would be too cold for my car to start, so I kept on driving. By the time I reached Taos, I still had a quarter tank left and I had filled up in Walden. that little car gets really good gas mileage!

I planned to spend the night at Janelle's, and she had a pizza ready and James and the Giant Peach to watch for the evening entertainment. We were in the middle of the movie when my palms started to itch. I switched chairs because I thought maybe (Tho I have never been) I was allergic to something in that chair. Then I started to feel a little woozy, my eyesight started to get fuzzy around the edges with sort of sparkle things and I couldn't figure out what was going on. When I began to notice my heart beat, it seemed louder... or harder... I put my hand on it and I thought I could feel it beating through my shirt! That didn't seem right!

I sat there for a few minutes, distracted from James and his giant peach, wondering if I was having a heart attack! I went over the rest of myself, seeing if my arms were numb or if there was a problem with my throat, all the things I could remember from what I had heard went on in heart attacks, but I wasn't able to think. Not only was my eyesight getting fuzzier by the minute my thought processes were getting foggy too. It wasn't going away, which I couldn't imagine that it wouldn't. I kept thinking it was a temporary thing, that it was happening for some obscure reason that I would never know but I'd be OK in a minute. I went to ask Janelle for an aspirin and I found I couldn't walk right, so I stopped in the middle of the room and told her I needed to go to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack. That really freaked the boys out, but something was wrong with me and it wasn't going away.

Janelle and I got in her car and went the 3 or 4 blocks she lived from the hospital. By the time we got there, it must have been 7:30 PM, I couldn't see and my legs felt numb. Janelle said I was talking but nothing I said made sense. She parked in the lot beside the ER and came around to open my door but I couldn't move my legs to get out. She pulled my legs out one at a time, but when I stood up, I passed out and fell down in the snow, totally unconscious. Janelle ran into the ER asking for help. The woman at the desk said I didn't need help. I'd been in there before and she wasn't going to do any more for me. Janelle told her I hadn't been there, I had just gotten to town and was lying on the ground out in the parking lot, unconscious. The woman said, "well, doesn't she have a coat?"

Another patient in the ER asked if Janelle needed help and came out with her to try to get me in to the hospital. Then an employee finally came out with a wheel chair and they got me into the hospital. It sounds like I was throwing up almost non stop by then. I remember coming to at one point in the ER admitting room and apologizing and telling them, "This is embarrassing."

After that, I only remember snatches of things. Having all my clothes yanked off me crazily, it seemed like by a lot of people. (It was like in that movie "Galaxy Quest", with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, where those little cute alien babies go to the crippled alien baby like they're going to help it and then start tearing madly away at it. Like that.") They were all around the gurney I was on. I was never in pain, but during the time they were working on me and was going in and out of consciousness, I remember thinking, "I REALLY don't feel good". I began to believe I was dying then. Maybe I was. It was really a bad feeling. I thought how upset my family would be if I died. I knew it would be horrible for them and I thought that was what was happening to me. I've researched potassium deficiency, and it can be life threatening, and from all I've read, I was about as bad off as you can get and still be alive.

I don't know what all those people working on me did, but they managed to keep me alive. When I finally started to be more aware and clearer thinking, it must have been about 10 or 10:30 PM, a nurse told me I was on a potassium IV and a saline water IV. She said my potassium was down below 2, as if that meant something to me, and I had no blood pressure when I came in. Later, a nurse told me my pressure was 60 over nothing, which is SOME blood pressure, but not much. Janelle had stayed with me through all this, bless her heart, and I have to say, if I WAS dying, she saved my life. Finally, about 11 PM she was able to leave. The boys were at home with Bea but Bea would get upset if she woke up and her mom wasn't home.

I don't know how many and what kinds of tests I was given. I just know I am absolutely black and blue from all the stints and needles that were stuck in me. Plus all the different machines that looked me over from head to foot. I was still not altogether there so I don't remember everything, but I know now that my heart, head, lungs and blood vessels and arteries are all in perfect condition.

The final diagnosis was hipokalemia, potassium deficiency. As the doctor released me at 2 PM the next day, he said he would tell me what my mother would, eat right and stay healthy. After all that... that was it, no prescription or nothin'. Just eat right.

Puerto Vallarta

Here is my post about Puerto Vallarta.  I don’t know what happened with that last one.  It wasn’t Vallarta.  It was Mazatlan.  Except for the last picture of me standing on a malacon (malecon? malicon?)  That was taken on the malacon in La Paz.  I just did spell check and it doesn’t know how to spell malacon either.  Does anyone have a dictionary?

I just talked to Jay on the phone.  He was surprised.  He wanted to know where I was.  He thinks he’s so funny.  But I needed to ask where we stayed with the Robles in 1966 or 67.  He said it was probably near Barceria just north of here.  We must have stayed with them for 2 or 3 weeks.  We stayed in their boat house on the beach where they stored their dugout canoes.  That was where the scorpions dropped out of the palm leaf roof down onto where we slept.  Luckily nothing got us.  I might try to go there tomorrow if I can.

The top picture is a side street right off the beach where, possibly, I drank out of a spigot back when.  I really remember that because I knew I shouldn’t because it could make me really sick but I was so thirsty.  So I took pictures of several side streets to show Jay to see if he remembers.  He remembers an amazing amount of stuff from back then.  It was really great talking to him awhile ago, to have him remind me of the sequence of things, how we got here (he rode on the running board of a truck to get here!  It’s a wonder he didn’t fall off and get hurt.),  where we went first, where we came here from, (Tepic), so much. 

The next picture is the church and the last the malacon along the bay.

Our ship is docked across the street from Wal mart and a mall that has a Starbucks in it.  I bought a liter of water at Wal mart this morning.  It was only one dollar as opposed to nine dollars here on the boat.  And then went next door to the mall for the first real espresso I’ve had since I left Fort Collins, Colorado on the second.  Tomorrow we leave for Cabo in the afternoon.

Puerto Vallerta

Mazatlan is still here, as hectic as ever. I got an email from Jay reminding me of the places we visited and the beaches and hotels we stayed at when we last visited this town almost fifty years ago. All our old haunts were still there. Not that we ever had ‘haunts’ exactly, but the cathedral and zocalo were still in the same place, and Maxine and I didn’t have any trouble getting a taxi driver to take us to the old Mercado. He told us it was 110 years old, so it obviously was the same one we visited in 1966. It is the greatest market place, a huge space full of the essentials for a Mexican family and then some. Lots of raw meat on display, which is always an eyebrow raiser no matter how many times I see it. The first time we were down here so long ago I saw what I thought must be dog, skinned and turning on a spit, but have since figured it must have been goat. No doubt, a miscommunication. Probably, JAY didn’t misunderstand. I just love this place. It’s so MEXICAN. We should have probably have spent more time down there around that old Mercado where there was so much crowding bustle and jammed traffic (no lights! What’s up with that!) but it kind of overwhelmed us, I think. Anyway, we went back to the ship.

I jumped in the pool then showered and was just in time for the afternoon tea. I had a cucumber sandwich and a fruit tart. Two days ago they served scones and clotted cream. I still don’t know what clotted cream is but it was really good, kind of like whipped cream, but heavier.

I’m going to the computer workshop at 5:30, as soon as we set sail, disconnect from the dock, throw off the ropes, push off; whatever it’s called. Set sail sounds most cool but, of course, we don’t HAVE sails. This young kid from South Africa teaches these computer workshops every day and they’ve been MOST helpful. He’s all about Windows 7, which, of course, is what I have on my laptop and I am not at all familiar with. At 5:30 it’s just for people with questions, but I want to know about the program he mentioned called Windows Live Writer. It’s supposed to be for doing all the work for your blog without being ACTUALLY ON your blog then down loading later, which would be really great for me right now since I don’t have an internet connection most of the time. Everything is all ready to go including pictures.

I was going to try to take a video of this string quartet that plays every evening, which we listen to every evening, but discovered my camera doesn’t have hardly any sound. Maxine took a video but I don’t know how it turned out. Last night they played several songs from, I believe operas, that were really familiar, and soooo good. I wish I could have gotten at least one of them on my camera, but it would have been a waste of time. I would have tried to remember what they were called but it was Italian or something, and there was no way I could have remembered the name. But anyway, too bad you can’t hear them.

Mazatlan

Here I am in Mazatlan and finally being able to work on my blog. Of course, I don't have anything to say since I already wrote emails. I'll write more in Puerto Vallerta tomorrow because I'll be there two days. There should be an internet cafe close to the dock, I hope.

winter trip to warmer climes

My sister, Maxine, has invited me to join her family on a cruise to the Sea of Cortez, so we will be leaving tomorrow for San Diego to board the cruise ship amsterdam there.

winter trip to warmer climes

It's snowy and cold here in North Park but my sister Maxine has invited me to join her and her husband and daughter on a cruise to the Sea of Cortez, so I'm leaving tomorrow for San Diego and the cruise ship, Amsterdam. I will have more to say later, I expect.