Friday, February 9, 2018Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2005. Mattie was three years old and visiting my parents. We took Mattie to Griffith Park, one of his favorite places to visit when in Los Angeles. This park had everything from state of the art playground equipment, a train museum with trains kids could run around on, a zoo, a dentzel carousel, and pony rides. I was very cautious with Mattie, and as you can see Peter was walking besides Mattie and this horse. In retrospect, I am not sure what I was worried about as this horse was tied to a turning wheel and couldn't run away even if it wanted to.
Quote of the day: No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. ~ Buddha
However, Sunny is a smart puppy! Normally if I am around, he sticks to my side like the lamb in Mary had a little lamb! But when I am not around, Sunny is clever. He knows he has to switch gears and work on Peter. Peter has much better will power than I do. When I see Sunny's big cow eyes, he is pretty good at manipulating me to get treats!
Typically I don't like flying, but everything about this flight today was perfect. My seatmate kept to himself, there was NO turbulence and the flight crew was lovely and helpful. I honestly never went on a cross country flight that went by so quickly. But then again, I brought a doctoral student's dissertation with me, as I have been asked to serve on her defense in March. I figured being trapped on a plane for five hours would be a good time to start reading this document. I was correct! Her target audience is older adults, which is why her dissertation chair selected me, because believe it or not, that demographic was once my clinical specialty. However, the construct of her study doesn't resonate with me because she is focused on sexual frequency and satisfaction as predicting psychological well being in older adults. I won't get into this study here, but with my experience working with cognitively and physically challenged older adults, sex is not the first issue on their minds. Just managing basic activities of daily living are tantamount. Nonetheless, aspects of the study are intriguing and I do enjoy learning new things that can potentially help others.
This is what Los Angeles looked like upon decent. It is hazy but still a green sight! Unlike the gray sight I left in DC.
When I got off the plane, I met a car service to take me to my parent's house. Driving in LA is a challenge and it makes no sense for my parents to drive two hours just to get me. But this is where the adventure began!!! Not in the air but on the ground.
When I met the driver, he greeted me as if we were long lost friends. I found this odd, but went with it, since he had my correct name and knew what my final designation was. After the greeting, he asked if I was ready to go! I said, NO, I have to pick up my luggage. That was another clue that he wasn't working with a full deck. When we got to the luggage carousel, he started talking to me about his ex-wife, her gambling addiction, how this has impacted his life, and literally this went on for over an hour. He pulled out his phone and I saw photos of his grandchildren and then throughout the car trip I learned more about the dysfunction in his life. Now why I brought this on myself, I have no idea. As I literally said nothing to him when I approached him this morning. But WOW did I get a mouthful. He is now in his 70's and because of his wife's addiction, he needs to continue to work. It was a sad life story, and as he said to me... "I can't believe how one person could destroy my life!" It only takes one bad apple though.
While he was driving on a very crowded freeway, his phone started ringing. He answered it and then after he hung up, he started text messaging on the phone. It was at that point, I thought we were going to die. He was swerving all over the place and a LA freeway is not a good place to try this! At one point, I was texting Peter asking him if we were even on the correct freeway to get to my parent's home. This driver had me that paranoid, as I truly couldn't determine how disturbed he was. He refused to use GPS, but he also didn't know where he was going. So I pulled out my phone and gave him directions to my destination.
Typically I would report someone like him immediately, but frankly he seems so unstable, that until I return home next week, I do not want to file a formal compliant. But one is in the making because of his inappropriate behavior, his bad mouthing the company he works for, his getting lost, and text messaging on a freeway. Needless to say, I was thrilled to get out of the car in one piece.
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