Some fun tidbits

I was a bit serious in yesterday's post, so I thought I'd be a little lighter in this one. As you can see from the photo I posted, Trish and I had some girlie fun last weekend. We first had a pedicure (Trish's treat), which was nice and luxurious. Trish was a little concerned about my sticking my feet in hot water (memories of the famous hot tub incident), but I was careful to tell the pedicurist (is that a word?) to not make it too hot and everything was fine. I especially enjoyed the foot and leg massage. It reminded me that I'm supposed to be massaging my feet every night to improve the circulation. I'm going to try to do that. Trish sent me home with a tube of foot massage cream to help me remember.

Then we went back home and treated ourselves to a mud pack facial. That was fun! We applied the mud with a paint brush - it reminded me of watercoloring - let it dry until it became white and caked, then washed it off with warm water, leaving us with baby smooth skin. What fun.

Trish has now formally and completely moved into Stan's townhouse in El Sobrante. It's further out than Oakland and a longer drive, so I opted to take public transportation. Carla dropped me off at the train station here in Redwood City. I then took the train to Millbrae, where I transferred to BART (our version of an underground) which took me to Oakland where Trish picked me up. It was easy and painless, as the BART car was right across the track from the train and was ready and waiting for me, and only took about an hour.

The trip back, however, was another story. Trish took me to a BART station in Oakland that was bigger and therefore sure to have working elevators (I don't like to take an escalator when I have a suitcase and a cane). Unfortunately, this station had two lower levels, so you had to take two separate elevators, and of course the two elevators were two blocks apart from each other. By the time I got to the relevant track, I was exhausted, plus by taking the second elevator to the lower level I seemed to have bypassed the turnstile where you use your ticket. That unfortunately meant that when I tried to exit the BART car in Millbrae, I couldn't. The turnstile wouldn't accept my ticket because I hadn't used it at the start of the journey and thus the system couldn't figure out what the fare was (I have a senior/disabled card that's 62.5% discounted). I ended up having to walk all the way to the end of the platform where someone let me exit through an official gate. Then I discovered that the track for the southbound trains were on the other side, making it necessary to take an elevator up a level, cross over the tracks, then take another elevator back down to the platform. By the time I did this, dragging my suitcase, my cane, and my legs, I'd missed my train. And the trains only run once an hour. Oy.

The adventure continued in Redwood City where I had to decide whether to take a rogue yellow cab that was allegedly illegal because it was waiting right where you get off the train, or a suspicious white limousine that had tiny tiny lettering saying "American Cab" whose driver was jumping up and down shouting that I shouldn't take the yellow "illegal" cab and should take his. I spent about a minute trying to decide who was the bigger liar and finally opted for the white limo. All's well that ends well. I made it home in one piece. The entire journey took 3 hours. But it's still better than driving in the East Bay which I HATE.

My "cancer class" ended two weeks ago, but we all bonded and have decided to continue to go on the same days at the same time. One of us is also having a holiday party in a few weeks, saying that "since we all had such a good time in class, I'm sure we'll have an equally good time at a party." Everyone is very supportive of everyone else, and it almost feels like another village. I'm not lifting as much weight as I did before, however, due to some pains in my shoulder and those bruised ribs, but I plan on getting back up there soon. I'll let you know when I do.

However, I still miss the people from my exercise class at Canada College and so will continue to drop in there now and again. After Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday (which was a wonderful, fun occasion at Stan's sister's house), I went for a vigorous walk with my sister and Stan's two sisters and was surprised and thrilled at how well I did. It gives me hope for being able to do the walk in class. Of course, I always do better at night - I've begun to think I must have some Vampire blood in me. After all, my ancestors do come from someplace in Russia. Weren't there vampires there as well?

Speaking of Stan's family, they have welcomed me into their fold and accepted me as part of the family, along with Trish. So that's another family I can count on. The riches just keep increasing!

That's all, folks.