The week before Christmas I got sick. Maria & Manolis had the cold, now it was my turn. Sue was sick too, so I also had to take care of Maria. The weekend before Christmas, we drove to Oceanside to spend the holiday with Rosanne. Manolis spent several days painting their fence. Amelia was mildly interested in Maria this time–at least she wasn’t scared of her! We had nice dinners and a good visit, low-key Christmas.
We took off the day after Christmas; I wanted to see my friend, Karen, but she wasn’t available, so we just blindly headed up north using the GPS I got Manolis. Maria gets bored easy in the car now, but at least she sometimes falls asleep. I got her some homeopathic spray for her congestion, and it seems to have worked!! She’s breathing better than she has for a couple months.
We stayed in Santa Monica one night, went out on the famous Santa Monica Pier in the morning. It was freezing! Very windy, so Maria was freaking out so we were freaking out. Not a pleasant experience. Headed up to Santa Barbara, walked around the old town area. Very cute, but crowded, and still quite cold. Headed up to Santa Maria and stayed at the Santa Maria Inn, a nice historic inn suggested by Jill (the GPS).
Friday we drove across California to Vegas. Decided to abandon the idea of driving any farther north because Maria wasn’t having too much fun. Took us more than an hour to get the 2 blocks from the freeway to the Tropicana, it was so damned crowded in Vegas. Then after we checked in, it took us more than an hour to get into our room because the lock was messed up. A guy down the hall couldn’t get in either so we chatted until the security guy came. He (the other guest) has a 7-yr old son who doesn’t walk, has a feeding tube, I didn’t get too much info beyond that, but he was very helpful with Maria–told the security guard that Maria has a problem, so they’d better take care of us; he also “gave me permission” to change Maria’s poopy diaper in the hallway. Because of him, either the security guard or the maintenance engineer stayed with us the whole time, while Manolis unloaded the car, found a parking spot, went and got a hot pot to warm Maria’s food. Finally at 9:30pm we were in the room.
We hung out at the fashion mall Saturday, Manolis gambled a little bit, I walked around for an hour or so. Nothing too exciting. It was so busy (holiday weekend, near New Year’s eve). Just the few times I walked through the casino, the smoke triggered a relapse of my cold, only worse this time. We drove home Sunday, I missed work all week. Sue took care of Maria, who was healthy until Saturday. Now I don’t know if she can go to school tomorrow, and Tuesday we’re supposed to fly to San Diego for an audiology appointment. Happy Holidays!