Visiting Parents in Kansas
I am in Kansas, visiting my parents, and I will be for the next two weeks. Phil drove down (10 hours) on Friday, spent Saturday visiting, and turned around and drove back up alone on Sunday. I'll be taking a Greyhound bus home eventually--I've read that now they have wi-fi and laptop plug-ins for every seat, so I'm kind of looking forward to the experience. We recently realized that this is going to be the longest amount of time I've spent with my parents since high school. Usually, I've seen them in 1-week increments, for Christmas or before they moved back to India.
The drive down went well. I wrote on "Circus of Brass and Bone" on my laptop until the battery died, and then read for the rest of it. And I just heard from Phil that he made it back fine on his own, too, which is great. I do miss him. And my cats.
Packing was a bit challenging, since I needed to cram clothes and electronics into a manageable-for-me suitcase+backpack, which meant not using two items I usually do: my camera carrying case and my laptop carrying case. Plus I added a rather large mic to the to-pack list, since I didn't have time to finish writing the next episode of "The Circus of Brass and Bone" before leaving, much less record the podcast.
Small-town Kansas is much as always. It's flat, hot, and not much has changed since I was last here. The downtown area is looking a bit more healthy. There's a coffee shop buried indoors between a baby store and an adjoining little "fancy" grocery. They put rocks down by the shoreline of the creek (pronounced "crick") and put up a fence to keep people from climbing down it, to help stop erosion. It's a bit sad--I have good childhood memories of walking down on the sandbars when drought made the river low, catching crawdads and minnows. The big excitement in town is whether or not they'll get another train line coming through, this one a passenger train that would actually stop in the depot. It's was born as a railroad town, and it pretty much still is one.
It's the sounds that really tell me where I am: the rustle of leaves in the constant breeze, the cicadas, and the trains that blow through the town every few hours.
I'm here to spend time with my parents because they came back to the US for treatment after my mom was diagnosed with Stage 3c/4 endometrial and ovarian cancer. They moved into their house just a couple of days ago after the students living in it while they were gone moved out. They are surprisingly moved in, mostly because they let the students use most of their furniture, etc., and so it was already in place. Though a lot of the kitchen things were given away, and the fridge is mighty empty, things like beds and couches are still there.
The power was cut off the day they moved in, and it took an emergency call to get it back up that day. They still don't have internet--they should be getting it on Tuesday. Right now, we're all sitting on park benches using the McDonald's wi-fi. Yes, they are just as much internet addicts as I am. My plan for tomorrow is to go to the coffee shop for the afternoon if they haven't got internet at home by then, as I have to load up the "Circus of Brass and Bone". I'm on track for sticking to my every-other-Tuesday episode schedule. It's written, I'll edit it today, record it today or tomorrow morning, and get everything up on Tuesday. And if I could get it done in time for this episode, what with working extra hours last week and then coming to Kansas and working in unfamiliar surroundings with plenty of distractions, I think that schedule should work for most any circumstances.
My mom had her most recent chemo treatment just a few days before we came down. She's in a fair amount of abdominal discomfort but her spirits are good. She says she's tired and moving a lot slower than usual, but she's always seemed like a font of ridiculous energy to me, so I suppose this means she has slowed down to a normal human pace. Her hair started to fall out and so she shaved it off. It caused a bit of a rash, but that seems to be going down. Mostly she goes bareheaded, though she has a selection of brightly colored floppy fabric hats. She's sad that she can't wear her most of her straw hat collection anymore, since they were apparently all sized for people with hair.
I did bring down a "fun" wig for her: a bit below chin length, with bangs, black with metallic red streaks in it. She wore it to church on Sunday. With the wig and a pair of dark sunglasses, most of the people there did a doubletake before they recognized her--if they recognized her! Some greeted her as a visitor, even. It happened to be "welcoming visitors" Sunday.
I also brought Farscape down with me, since my mom loves science fiction and fantasy, as long as it's not too violent. (True story: she picked up the Riddick Chronicles from the library, and asked me how it was before she watched it. "Um, I think it might be too violent for you, Mom.") We watched the beginning last night and she asked, "Oh, can we watch another episode!?" (at 11 PM, I should say, and she's usually an early-to-bed person).
It's good seeing her settling back in to the town. She's always reached out to people, offering friendship and what help she can if they're having a rough time. Now it seems they're reaching back. She can't walk a block without people coming over to say hi and ask how she's doing.
The drive down went well. I wrote on "Circus of Brass and Bone" on my laptop until the battery died, and then read for the rest of it. And I just heard from Phil that he made it back fine on his own, too, which is great. I do miss him. And my cats.
Packing was a bit challenging, since I needed to cram clothes and electronics into a manageable-for-me suitcase+backpack, which meant not using two items I usually do: my camera carrying case and my laptop carrying case. Plus I added a rather large mic to the to-pack list, since I didn't have time to finish writing the next episode of "The Circus of Brass and Bone" before leaving, much less record the podcast.
Small-town Kansas is much as always. It's flat, hot, and not much has changed since I was last here. The downtown area is looking a bit more healthy. There's a coffee shop buried indoors between a baby store and an adjoining little "fancy" grocery. They put rocks down by the shoreline of the creek (pronounced "crick") and put up a fence to keep people from climbing down it, to help stop erosion. It's a bit sad--I have good childhood memories of walking down on the sandbars when drought made the river low, catching crawdads and minnows. The big excitement in town is whether or not they'll get another train line coming through, this one a passenger train that would actually stop in the depot. It's was born as a railroad town, and it pretty much still is one.
It's the sounds that really tell me where I am: the rustle of leaves in the constant breeze, the cicadas, and the trains that blow through the town every few hours.
I'm here to spend time with my parents because they came back to the US for treatment after my mom was diagnosed with Stage 3c/4 endometrial and ovarian cancer. They moved into their house just a couple of days ago after the students living in it while they were gone moved out. They are surprisingly moved in, mostly because they let the students use most of their furniture, etc., and so it was already in place. Though a lot of the kitchen things were given away, and the fridge is mighty empty, things like beds and couches are still there.
The power was cut off the day they moved in, and it took an emergency call to get it back up that day. They still don't have internet--they should be getting it on Tuesday. Right now, we're all sitting on park benches using the McDonald's wi-fi. Yes, they are just as much internet addicts as I am. My plan for tomorrow is to go to the coffee shop for the afternoon if they haven't got internet at home by then, as I have to load up the "Circus of Brass and Bone". I'm on track for sticking to my every-other-Tuesday episode schedule. It's written, I'll edit it today, record it today or tomorrow morning, and get everything up on Tuesday. And if I could get it done in time for this episode, what with working extra hours last week and then coming to Kansas and working in unfamiliar surroundings with plenty of distractions, I think that schedule should work for most any circumstances.
My mom had her most recent chemo treatment just a few days before we came down. She's in a fair amount of abdominal discomfort but her spirits are good. She says she's tired and moving a lot slower than usual, but she's always seemed like a font of ridiculous energy to me, so I suppose this means she has slowed down to a normal human pace. Her hair started to fall out and so she shaved it off. It caused a bit of a rash, but that seems to be going down. Mostly she goes bareheaded, though she has a selection of brightly colored floppy fabric hats. She's sad that she can't wear her most of her straw hat collection anymore, since they were apparently all sized for people with hair.
I did bring down a "fun" wig for her: a bit below chin length, with bangs, black with metallic red streaks in it. She wore it to church on Sunday. With the wig and a pair of dark sunglasses, most of the people there did a doubletake before they recognized her--if they recognized her! Some greeted her as a visitor, even. It happened to be "welcoming visitors" Sunday.
I also brought Farscape down with me, since my mom loves science fiction and fantasy, as long as it's not too violent. (True story: she picked up the Riddick Chronicles from the library, and asked me how it was before she watched it. "Um, I think it might be too violent for you, Mom.") We watched the beginning last night and she asked, "Oh, can we watch another episode!?" (at 11 PM, I should say, and she's usually an early-to-bed person).
It's good seeing her settling back in to the town. She's always reached out to people, offering friendship and what help she can if they're having a rough time. Now it seems they're reaching back. She can't walk a block without people coming over to say hi and ask how she's doing.