Adventures in Traveling

So I’m on vacation and we’ve done some short trips in the Northeast – Lancaster, PA with a stop at Sesame Place along the way and then a visit to Dutch Wonderland on one trip and the Poconos (en route right now as a matter of fact) for some hiking and possibly another amusement park. This has been a lot of fun but not without some moments of “are you kidding me?”

Mini-me the younger can be quite the challenge on trips. For starters, this child who has refused to sleep late for her entire life (6:30 has been late for her) has chosen this summer (yeah – the summer before kindergarten) to start sleeping until 8 AM on a regular basis. On the one hand this is a good thing but on the other hand – when we need to go somewhere and get up early – she’s a cranky mess. I’m trying to get out the door and she doesn’t want to do anything she needs to do, wear anything she needs to wear. She is one giant hour of “NOOOOO.” Needless to say she isn’t the best car traveler – you need to be armed with the ipad and movies to keep her occupied as best you can (and it has to be a movie that appeals to the elder and the younger). She also alternates between random statements on past actions (“remember that time we were walking on the sidewalk and saw the bug? Where is that bug? Can we see it now? Why? I miss it!”) and claiming her belly hurts (this is what she says when she is bored – why, I don’t know).

Mini-me the Elder is great in the car. A book, a movie, the ipad – she can keep herself occupied for a good amount of time. I never have to worry about her in the car (please don’t let me have totally jinxed the situation).

Then there’s me. I am in the no-man’s land of adult passenger. As the driver, Big Guy gets total radio control so it is usually all Howard Stern with a few detours to the traffic channel. I just get anything anyone needs. I try to read – but get interrupted too much. I listen a bit to Stern (I find him amusing at times). Today represents my first attempt to write a blog since it is a good block of time. It is a little difficult with the interruptions that I have to deal with. DVD is skipping and needs fixing. The younger has moved on to reminiscing on her Jessie doll and where it is (“is it in the attic? Can we go look? My princess castle is there too – can we bring it down tonight?”). Meanwhile, Big Guy sees random towns on the road signs and recalls some place he has been to or heard of is there and I need to confirm it on my phone (Big Guy - “Stanhope, NJ. Isn’t that where Waterloo Village is?” “There’s a big mall around here – can you look?” Me – “ What’s the name?” Big Guy – “Um, I can’t remember but it’s big.”). But I don’t really want to drive (although I offer now and then) so I put up with it.

Then there’s traffic. I understand some traffic will occur, like at toll booths and accidents and merges (this is not to say I like it, just that I logically understand where it comes from) but don’t understand it when it just appears and disappears out of nowhere. What is up with that? You will be zooming along at a good clip and then boom – almost a dead stop for about 5 miles. Then, boom, gone – not even at an exit, just randomly gone. Where did everybody go? It doesn’t help that Big Guy can’t stand traffic. He used to try other routes to avoid it, but we usually ended up getting lost and taking longer than if we had stayed in it (I think I’ve mentioned his shortcuts before – this is a similar concept). So now we wait it out while he rages against it. “What is this? How can there be traffic? It’s one broken down car - I know it. One car messing everything up. An accident. Probably a rear-end. Some idiot can’t stop and we have to sit here.” It is particularly amusing that he will lower the volume on Stern to say all of this – like I wouldn’t hear him if he didn’t. It’s like he is changing the channel for me from Stern to Big Guy’s traffic rant. And of course, 90% of the time it is just the disappearing traffic which drives him crazy.

Which brings us to the gas situation. Big Guy wants to leave with just enough gas to get to Jersey and buy it there to save money. Theoretically I am on board with this but the problems arise when the traffic issue intersects with the gas plans. Nothing like being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and seeing that little orange light come on. At which point we hit the perfect storm of anti-traffic raging, getting off the parkway for a shortcut/detour (it’s always an exit where the gas isn’t right off the highway) where we get lost. And we end up paying more than we would have at home if we had just filled it before we left.

And then there are our destinations. We really like amusement and water parks and we have a great time at the ones we go to, but I have one thing to say to Sesame Place – WTF is up with charging $15 for parking? $52 a person to go for the day and you add a parking fee for regular parking? Full disclosure – we got season passes and added an upgrade to one so that we didn’t have to pay for parking (it was totally worth it for the amount we go) but why should we have to do that? I can perhaps understand paying for *closer* parking (although I never would do that – walk a little people – it won’t kill you). Dutch Wonderland does this and I am okay with it – walk a bit and it’s free, $10 and you can park much closer. But there is a free option because they understand you are paying them to come in the park for the day and you need to put your car somewhere. If my kids didn’t love Sesame Place I might boycott it for just this reason. You should not charge your customers for parking!

Let me be clear that these are 2-3 hour trips. Every once in a while Big Guy mentions something about driving cross country. I suppose it seems like a pretty cool concept in theory but in reality I don’t know if I want to google nameless malls while sitting in traffic that will disappear right after we get really expensive gas because we are desperate. I guess it will be okay as long as I don’t have to pay to park anywhere.

Why Can't We Improve The Mammogram?

With age comes benefits – experience, wisdom, and, as a woman, the mammogram. I just had my second one, which at the age of 46 could mean that I don’t go frequently enough, go just enough, or go too frequently, depending upon whose guidelines you follow and how recently you read them (if it was more than five minutes ago, they may have changed). The medical world can’t seem to make up its mind regarding the necessary frequency of the mammogram. And they seem to be doing a lot of studies on it. Lots and lots of studies on how often women get mammograms and if this type of screening is beneficial and saves us from breast cancer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it isn’t important to find out this information. But, I would like to request that, along the way, they do a few studies on how to examine the breast in a different way than painfully crushing it between two metal panels. At various angles. Because that shit hurts.

It all starts so nicely. I go into a little dressing room, put my clothes and belongings into a little shopping bag and put on a nice white bathrobe. It all has a very spa-like feeling to it. That’s kind of mean because it all comes to a brutal end when you enter the giant metal room and they tell you to slip your left arm out and slap your boob on the table. Talk about adding insult to injury – you have to put it up there yourself like you are offering it up for a sacrifice.

Meanwhile, the tech is a nice little old lady, which only makes me realize they really haven’t made any advances in the mammography field. When was the last time you had a sonogram or an MRI or anything else that required a piece of advanced medical equipment that was operated by an older person? I’m not trying to be ageist here, but they are always on the younger side. But here’s the mammogram lady, in her 30th year of operating it – no additional training required.

Like I said, she is very kind and is chatting with me and I am doing my best to answer her, but as I mentioned earlier my boob is being crushed after I propped it on a table and held it there while she moved it around to get it in the perfect position before pressing a button to lower the second plate onto it (is it me or does that seem awfully similar to the death traps used in a lot of adventure movies on the way to the gold?). After a few short answers (not mean, just short, like you tend to when you don’t want to be impolite but your tit really hurts) she says “are you okay? You seem like you don’t really want to be here.” I’m not joking – she really said that. Seriously, old lady crushing my boob? Do you get people that *do* want to be here? Do you think I should be enjoying this? What kind of crazy old lady are you?

After I had my mammogram, I had to have a sonogram on my thyroid (don’t ask – it was just one of those days where I did everything in one shot to get it out of the way). I had a nice young woman as the tech (thereby supporting my earlier theory) who squeezed some gel on a little hand held thing which she gently rolled around my throat and under my chin – almost massaging me at times. I was able to chat with her at the moments when it was just resting there as she took a picture and then gently moved it to the next spot. It was very relaxing.

So medical world, a little customer feedback if you will. As you continue to spend money investigating mammograms, in addition to frequency, could you put a few cents into figuring out how to turn them into a gentle massage with some warm gel? Me and my boobs would greatly appreciate it.