A busy, active weekend

Saturday didn't start out too well. I was sitting in the living room pretty early in the morning, when suddenly, in an instant, I went from feeling no pain at all to possibly the most intense headache I have ever had--the whole front of my head felt like it was about to explode. Over the next three hours, I took tylenol, morphine, ativan, and the haldol gel, but only gradually did it subside, and until then I was pretty miserable. That, plus the iffy weather, kind of ruled out the trip to Topsfield, and we decided we would go on Sunday instead. I had wanted to reserve Sunday for watching the Giants (the first time they've been on TV in several weeks), but decided we could tape the game and as long as I didn't know the outcome I could watch it when we got back.

So instead we made a shorter excursion, to Lexington (which is the next town to the north) to the National Heritage Museum (http://www.nationalheritagemuseum.org/), which I'd been to several times but Marty had never been. It's a lovely museum that always has interesting exhibits, and this time they had several about clocks, as well as one on the history of Masons in the U.S. (the museum was started by Masons), and we spent several pleasant hours going through it. We decided it would be good to keep an eye on when the exhibits change as it certainly would be worth going again, especially since it it nearby and free.

We had hoped to get out of the house on Sunday by nine thirty, but it was closer to ten thirty when we left, with all our various paraphernalia. When Marty filled the portable oxygen machine from the big tank it froze up (which happens sometimes--I think it's certain weather conditions) and no oxygen was coming out, but I was sure that it would unfreeze during the ride, and I would be fine since I would just be sitting and not exerting, and in fact that's just what happened, as it finally started giving that reassuring "puff" to let me know that it was working. Meanwhile, once we got off the highway on the one lane road to the fairgrounds, we got stuck in an enormous traffic jam that just crept along and we weren't sure we were going to be able to park once we did get there. Marty and I started singing old camp songs to pass the time, which had us all in hysterical laughter, especially when we started "arguing" over the lyrics to songs we barely remembered and hadn't sung in thirty or forty years!

When we finally got to the entrance to the parking lot there were cops just waving people to continue on (presumably to another lot), but when we showed our handicapped placard they waved us into the lot and we found a space quite near the gate. Because Donna was in a wheelchair and I was in my scooter, we got in free, and Marty "complained" because they didn't accord his cane the same privileges and he had to pay the admission fee.

There was lots to see and Marty and Donna (who had attended many previous fairs there) had a good idea of what they wanted to see first, and I was quite content with whatever we did. There was, of course, loads of junk food, but when we ate I got something relatively healthful (a turkey dinner with stuffing, gravy, potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce). I had brought along a bottle of my iced green tea since there seldom are any unsweetened beverages. I was feeling good and didn't get tired, as I expected.

The main attraction was the famous circus family, the Flying Wallendas. We asked about wheelchair seating and were told just to go in and park in the front of the first row of bleacher seats. We were afraid we were blocking people's view but were told it was no problem, as everybody would be looking up. There were some big wind gusts and it was announced that wind was the main enemy of jugglers and tightrope walkers, but they managed to do all of their main tricks, although the jugglers did drop a few things. They not only walked the tightrope, but also rode bicycles on it, in one case with several people balanced on top of them.

There was also a petting zoo with lots of baby animals, an enormous sand sculpture, the largest pumpkin (in it's own little glassed-in enclosure), a flower show, and lots of other stuff, ending with a ride on a carousel. I had talked about riding the ferris wheel as well, but decided not to. By that time, my oxygen machine had stopped puffing, and we decided it was time to get back to the car (where we had the portable concentrator), but we did stop to get some apple crisp with ice cream for dessert.

The ride home went quickly (without the traffic jam), and I was surprised at how good I felt once we were home. Marty got me settled in the living room with the tape rewound, while he went to take Donna home, and I got to watch the Giants absolutely blow away the Oakland Raiders 44 to 7. The game was so lopsided that the network shifted away to another game in the third quarter, so I didn't get to enjoy the whole thing, but I was really happy as the Giants are now five games into the season with five wins. This is definitely the way to start a season!

Marty got back a little after ten and we watched TV for awhile and then went to bed. We both were quite pleased with how good I was feeling, not weak at all, or extraordinarily tired, but just pleasantly worn out from a long, enjoyable day.