This has been a hard year for my family when it comes to traveling. My brother and his family (three kids and his oldest kid’s spouse) went to Taiwan for Christmas and came back on New Year’s Day. Well, they were supposed to fly back on that day. What happened instead was wild.
They made their flight to Tokyo with ease. Two hours into their flight back to the States, and a man started to get obstreperous towards a crying baby. As in, he wanted to harm the baby. His wife and the flight attendents tried to intervene (it turned out he hadn’t taken his meds), and he bit his wife. They tied him up and turned the plane around. They landed back in Tokyo and were supposed to leave that night. I think? But. If you recall. Tokyo had an earthquake on New Year’s Day. And then a Coast Guard plane crashed into a commuter plane. Everyone in the Coast Guard plane but the pilot died (5 people outside the pilot). No one in the commuter plane died. I heard about it as I was driving back from Cubs. When I got home, I checked my brother’s Facebook page.
By the way, I heard about the first incident because my mother called me after it happened. Not to tell me what happened (though she had to do that, too), but to fret about what to tell my father if he asked if they were back home.
She called me at six-ish in the morning at her time to ask me that! My brother said she asked him as well. He told her to tell our father that they’re still in transit. I said the same thing or that they’re already home. This is the sad thing about dementia–it truly doesn’t matter. He’s not going to remember either way.
My mom claims she can’t lie to him, but I maintain it’s not a lie. He is in transit. Even if he wasn’t moving at the time.
Side note to the side note: My brother asked why my mother seems like she can’t make even the simplest decision. I said that it’s decades of my father whittling away her self-esteem. She has given into him ever since the beginning of their marriage (which she will fully admit), and that’s what abuse does to your brain. You begin to believe what is told to you over and over again.
My brother said he understood that and could see that with our mother. It’s sad because she’s much more competent than he is everything. Without her, even before his dementia, he would have floundered. He didn’t even know how to cook rice (in a rice cooker). Could he learn? I honestly don’t know. He has no interest in learning anything that he’s not interested in. Cooking was women’s work, so why would he deign to do it? If it wasn’t my mother, he would have found another woman to do his bidding. Even now, there’s a woman who wants to be his mistress (and probably was before my father’s dementia. Yes, even at his age. He has that thing that people call charisma. I don’t see it, but I know it to be true. I know because I have it as well. So does my brother to a certain extent. For me, anyway, it’s something I consciously have to do. On some level. It’s automatic by now for me to be polite and to ask compassionate questions, but the charm bit is extra. At least to me.
Anyway. My brother was not on the plane that got hit by the Coast Guard plane. But it, undrestandably, delayed his own plane by hours. Oh, and he felt the tremors when he was in the airport waiting for the first flight.
All in all, it took maybe an extra day for them to return to Minneapolis. You would think this was bad enough (and it is), but the day after they got back, my nibling and their spouse went to the grocery store. There was a car on fire in the parking lot.
You would think this is bad enough. And it is. You may also be thinking, “What does this have to do with you, Minna?”
Because yesterday, I went to the pharmacy. When I got out to the parking lot, a man politely told me that my back tire was completely flat. I went to look, and it was. The tire that always leaks, but it was completely flat. The man suggested I go to the nearby gas station and put some air in it. They didn’t have an air pump, but I went to another gas station (fairly close by) and tried to put air in the tire. It did take some air, but then went back to zero. I drove the car home and hear a thunking noise. When I got home, the tire was COMPLETELY flat.
I called my brother. He said he should come over to help me do the spare. He could come at 10 a.m. the next morning (this morning). Around 10 p.m. last night, I was suddenly worried I didn’t have the spare. I checked the trunk, and it was there. But bolted/screwed down under something. I emailed my brother to let him know. He came this morning and it turned out that it’s bolted/screwed down so that it won’t rattle. He looked at the lug nuts and noted it needed a special tool to undo. Fortunately, that special tool was in the glove box. My brother put on the ‘donut’ (as Ian calls it) in fifteen minutes, which was well under the half hour he said it would take. It probably took a half hour total, but the actual changing itself was ten or fifteen.
Then, as I turned on the engine to put the car back into the garage, my brotehr said that the belt sounded wrong. He said I should take it in to Toyota. I sighed and asked if it could wait until next week, and he said definitely (especially as I don’t drive often). I already set up a car appointment for tomorrow (Saturday, so today by the time you read this) after Taiji.
I’m hoping that’s all the travel issues for my family for this year. I know it’s a bit much to ask, but I’m just throwing it out there, anyway.