Scottsdale Arrival & The Day Before
January 29, 2005
VGP Days to go: 3
Stress Level; Moderate, Thinking About The Days Ahead
Got up this morning at just after 6:00 AM, washed up, got my Serotta ready, got dressed, checked my email and went out for my last bike ride until I’m recovered well enough to get back on the bike again. This morning ride was rather magical, the sun was just starting to rise as I began my ride out to Page Mill Road, thru Los Altos and back home. There were moments when the clearing fog and sun peeking thru the trees that looked and felt magical. The whole experience reminded me of the times I went pedaling in Paradise Valley in Scottsdale. The ride felt good both physically and emotionally. During most of the ride, I spent a lot of time thinking of the days to come. I usually don’t try to maintain my summer / fall level of fitness during the winter months due to burn out. This winter was an exception; I kept up my cycling schedule and tapered off at about 1.5 weeks before my surgery date. It’s the same process as peaking and preparing for a race. When I was at a competitive level of fitness, my resting pulse rate in just below 50 BPM, now my resting pulse rate is just above 50 BPM with a blood pressure of around 107/69. I basically trained for endurance, not power the way I during my race days.
When I got home, Jen was dressed and pretty much ready to go spend out day in San Francisco with Camille. I got out of my cycling stuff, took a shower, got dressed had some coffee and a bit to eat before Jen and I drove up to the Manor house. When we arrived at the Manor house Camille was still on the computer playing neo pets on the net. I got Camille some clothes while Jen packed Futurama & Sponge Bob DVDs. We were all ready to head off to the zoo at just after 10:40 AM. Jen has not been to the SF zoo for near 40 years and things were quite different since then. A trip to the children’s zoo to pet the farm animals, a ride on the zoo tram tour, and the last thing we did was watch the big cats eat. I don’t know why Camille enjoys watching the big cats eat, but it is something we do every time we go to the zoo. We headed off to West Portal have Pizza. We ordered a medium size half sausage with pesto and Hawaiian with a few drinks.
This will be the last time I spend any time with Camille for a while until I’m back from Scottsdale and recovered enough to spend time together. With a kiss and hug, we said good bye to each other.
After pizza we drove Camille home and I gave Arlene a check for the February mortgage. She asked me when I’m going to be back, I told her I’m not sure and will call when I know more. Jen and I drove over to the Lumiere to see, “Beautiful Boxer”. We found a parking space after a few tries with time to walk to Lumiere. The film was surprisingly good. Many scenes were too close to home and left me crying really hard at times as I thought about my own childhood and life experience. I have wanted to see this film since I read about it in the news a few years ago. I was surprised at the films honesty and presentation of this real life story. This film added to my emotions since we watched it so close to my surgery date. Jen liked this film too; this surprised me since Jen usually does like films like this.
On the drive home, we stopped by Safeway for dessert and coke. Jen needed to get her coke fix.
Jen continue to get her stuff packed while I munched on stuff and finished more of my packing. It’s basically done; all that is left is finishing packing my music CDs. I called Vicki to confirm our ride for tomorrow morning; I got her voice mail and left a message. I will try and call again tomorrow in the morning. Later that night, Vicki called to confirm our trip to SJC. I got mad a Jen for throwing out the box for the Go Video DVD player, it had a bunch of cables and other stuff left in it. It took me a while to get over it. What can I say, stuff happens.
Jen cut the chocolate cake into two slices and put a candle on top of each slice. AS we sat down on the dining table, Jen made a toast, “to another VAG.” We brought the two slices of chocolate cake and Jen’s glass of coke into the bedroom and finished our cake in bed watching All My Children.
I’m jus a bit tired right now from all the events of today. I’m just in a state of resolve to get there and get this done and over with. It’s time for bed.
January 30, 2005
VGP Days to go: 2
Stress Level; Moderate, Time to Leave for Scottsdale
I got out of bed just before 6:00 AM this morning and decided to write. I woke up this morning thinking about several scenes from “Beautiful Boxer” and how close they were to my own life and feelings. All this brought back memories from my own childhood growing up as a feminine child who was never able to hide how I felt. The scene of Parinya Charoenphol’s being physically beat up during her childhood brought back memories of a very similar thing that happened to me several times during my own childhood. Yes, these were emotionally painful memories from my child hood being brought back to life on the cinema screen. I wound up crying in bed as Jen cuddled up with me. There were also memories from years past when I would be in crying in bed hoping one day the reality of being physically incongruent would be gone.
There are only a few things left over for me to get done before we are off to Scottsdale, finish packing my music CDs, clean up the house a bit, check our travel paper work and go down the list one more time. At 10:30 AM, Vicki will pick us up and drop us off at SJC.
It all seems so unreal to me as we are about to head off to SJC and catch a flight to Phoenix / Scottsdale, it’s been a long road to get here.
Jen came out of our bedroom and gave me a hug and kiss as I was sitting in front of my notebook writing. The she went off to make some coffee for the two of us. I made maple oatmeal while Jen had oat o cereal with milk and sugar, we shared a banana too. With breakfast ready, we sat down to chat for a while about the events to come.
There was still time for a bit of last minute clean up and packing before Vicki is here to drive us to SJC. Everything was packed and the house cleaned at just before 10:00 AM. Jen and I began to get ready for our trip to Scottsdale. Vicki arrived right on time, we ended up with two more quick runs back to the house to get a few last minute things we nearly forgot, I nearly for got my passport (Vicki was telling me about her Kelly hell and the topic of IDs came up), Jen forgot her sunglasses. I’m sure there will be other little things we forgot, but it’s time to go and we will deal with it what ever we might be missing later. The trip to SJC was totally uneventful, Vicki dropped us off at the SWA curbside and we checked in our baggage at the SWA curbside skycap. It was time to head off to gate A6 with our boarding passes in hand. It is now 11:40 AM, Jen and I are sitting at the gate waiting to board flight 2884 to Phoneix.
I’m feeling just the usual stress for traveling and it seems still sort of unreal that we are on our way to Scottsdale for my date with Dr.Meltzer. I’m a bit surprised at the moments of emotional calm as my date draws near. I still feel emotionally unsettled at times, but they are the same feelings of being physically incongruent I have been dealing with for the past several years, the difference now, the end is in sight.
We boarded the plane on time in typical SWA fashion. Our flight appears to be on time and we should be in Phoenix before 4:00 PM. It’s pretty much the usual travel stuff with all the waiting and dealing with airports, baggage, rental cars, driving to the hotel and etc. So far it’s been pretty much a repeat of our trip to Scottsdale in October 2004.
SWA flight 2884 arrived in PHX on time at 3:30 PM Phoenix time. We got off the plane and headed to the baggage claim area and got our baggage. The next stop is Dollar rental car. I gave Jen the reservation for the car. Jen was at the service counter a while dealing with the rental car stuff, it turns out, Jen wanted to get a PT cruser again. The same car we had in Scottsdale during our visit here in October 2004. We got our rental car paper work and went out side to the shuttle bus area. The Dollar shuttle bus was just pulling up as we arrived at the pick up area. We go on with our stuff and the shuttle dropped us off at the rental car pick center. The car was ready and waiting for us. The doors were opened and all of our stuff went in the back and we headed off for the Holiday Inn Scottsdale. The same place we stayed at the last time we stayed at Scottsdale. The good thing about this Holiday Inn is the location. It is about a 15 minute walk to the Greenbaum hotel. During our trip here in October I brought my bike and spent most every day pedaling during the morning for a in paradise Valley for a few hours before I would walk over to the Greenbaum hotel to spend the day with Jen. If you ever visit Scottsdale, visit Paradise Valley, it is a really beautiful place with houses that generally fit well the environment.
We parked the PT curser in the front of the Holiday Inn and went to the front desk to check in. we asked for a room on the third floor thinking that it would be quieter, since the last time we stayed here, our room on the ground flood was noisy and kept me up for much of the night. The desk clerk obliged and gave us a room# 359. We rolled our baggage into to the elevator and found room# 359. I reminded Jen that we stayed in room# 159 the last time we were here. Jen put the door card into the lock and opened the room. The room was fine except for one thing, there was a buzz coming from some where in the room. Now, we are both pretty tired from the stress of getting ready for this trip and travel. The last thing we needed was a room with an annoying buzz. We tried to locate the buzz but were unable to find it. I was not in the best of moods either. I’m basically bottomed out with my estrogen and progesterone levels and this makes me easy to irritable, it’s what some call this PMS. I called the front desk and they put me on hold, after several minutes of waiting on the phone. I got tired of waiting, hung up and redialed the front desk. When the clerk answered, I told them the room has something buzzing would like to get this fixed. We waited for over 20 minutes with no results. I called again to ask for a different room. The clerk said, “Fine, come down to get another room card.” Jen was patient and kind enough go down to the front desk to pick up the room card. The room card was for room#356, it was just across the hall from room#359. We opened the door and rolled our baggage in to the room and parked them in the same place as the other room. Strange enough, this room buzzed too. How tiresome! Jen and I went to the bed room to lie down for a just a moment. That buzz was still there, so Jen closed the doors to lower the sound of that buzz. We got a few moments of rest and relaxation before Jen got up and went down stairs to try for another room. When Jen got back to our room, she got a room card for room# 147 on the first floor. I asked Jen if the room was buzz free and she said it was, so it was time for another move. We rolled our stuff into the elevator and arrived at room#147, parked our baggage in the same place as before. Guess what, that buzz was in the room again. This was strange and frustrating all at the same time. When things get this way, I can get short fused and the wrath of Nici comes roaring out. I went over to the front desk and told them the buzz was still with us. One of the guys at the front desk told me he would send some one over to look at it. After waiting for over 15 minutes, no one came over to check on the problem. I headed over to the front desk again and finally got one of the guys to come to the room and have a look. He followed me to our room, heard the buzz and told me he would get one of the maintenance guys to look at it. Another 15 minutes passed with nothing happening. With all this lack of service and attention, Jen and I were getting pretty darn irritated over the whole thing. We were talking of getting some form of compensation like a room upgrade for all this hassle. I went over to the front desk one more time, this time I got another guy from the front desk to have a look at the problem. When he arrived at our room, he looked around, did a bit of listening and announced that the buzz was coming from my luggage! I was more than a bit surprised. He went back to the front desk, I opened up my luggage and to my amazement, and I discovered the battery powered tooth brush was the offending object. I took the tooth brush out of the bag and turned it off. Something must have bumped that toothbrush to the on position along the way here. Jen and I had a big huge laugh with this discovery. I’m not going to hear the end of this from Jen for a long time. I asked Jen if she would like to stay in this room or go back to room#359. We discussed this for just a bit and decided room#359 was better. I sheepishly went back to the front desk and asked if we could move back to room# 359. The deck clerk obliged and gave me another set of room cards for room# 359. We moved back to room# 359 in short time and finally got settled in.
After our episode of musical rooms, it was time to get din din. SA we drove down Scottsdale road looking for a place to eat. We decided to have din din at Coco’s after getting caught in a traffic jam due to road construction. Jen had a bacon burger with beer and I had sun dried tomato chicken with a glass of Fetzer Cabernet wine. We shared a piece of pecan pie for dessert. Our next stop was Target for a few toiletries. The last stop was Trader Joes on Scottsdale road for drinks and a few snacks. We are now back in our room and taking time to relax and unwind.
Tomorrow morning is my pre-op appointment at Dr. Meltzer’s office. It is also going to be liquid diet and bowel purge day. It’s not something you want to do often, but part of the pre-op process.
VGP Days to go: 3
Stress Level; Moderate, Thinking About The Days Ahead
Got up this morning at just after 6:00 AM, washed up, got my Serotta ready, got dressed, checked my email and went out for my last bike ride until I’m recovered well enough to get back on the bike again. This morning ride was rather magical, the sun was just starting to rise as I began my ride out to Page Mill Road, thru Los Altos and back home. There were moments when the clearing fog and sun peeking thru the trees that looked and felt magical. The whole experience reminded me of the times I went pedaling in Paradise Valley in Scottsdale. The ride felt good both physically and emotionally. During most of the ride, I spent a lot of time thinking of the days to come. I usually don’t try to maintain my summer / fall level of fitness during the winter months due to burn out. This winter was an exception; I kept up my cycling schedule and tapered off at about 1.5 weeks before my surgery date. It’s the same process as peaking and preparing for a race. When I was at a competitive level of fitness, my resting pulse rate in just below 50 BPM, now my resting pulse rate is just above 50 BPM with a blood pressure of around 107/69. I basically trained for endurance, not power the way I during my race days.
When I got home, Jen was dressed and pretty much ready to go spend out day in San Francisco with Camille. I got out of my cycling stuff, took a shower, got dressed had some coffee and a bit to eat before Jen and I drove up to the Manor house. When we arrived at the Manor house Camille was still on the computer playing neo pets on the net. I got Camille some clothes while Jen packed Futurama & Sponge Bob DVDs. We were all ready to head off to the zoo at just after 10:40 AM. Jen has not been to the SF zoo for near 40 years and things were quite different since then. A trip to the children’s zoo to pet the farm animals, a ride on the zoo tram tour, and the last thing we did was watch the big cats eat. I don’t know why Camille enjoys watching the big cats eat, but it is something we do every time we go to the zoo. We headed off to West Portal have Pizza. We ordered a medium size half sausage with pesto and Hawaiian with a few drinks.
This will be the last time I spend any time with Camille for a while until I’m back from Scottsdale and recovered enough to spend time together. With a kiss and hug, we said good bye to each other.
After pizza we drove Camille home and I gave Arlene a check for the February mortgage. She asked me when I’m going to be back, I told her I’m not sure and will call when I know more. Jen and I drove over to the Lumiere to see, “Beautiful Boxer”. We found a parking space after a few tries with time to walk to Lumiere. The film was surprisingly good. Many scenes were too close to home and left me crying really hard at times as I thought about my own childhood and life experience. I have wanted to see this film since I read about it in the news a few years ago. I was surprised at the films honesty and presentation of this real life story. This film added to my emotions since we watched it so close to my surgery date. Jen liked this film too; this surprised me since Jen usually does like films like this.
On the drive home, we stopped by Safeway for dessert and coke. Jen needed to get her coke fix.
Jen continue to get her stuff packed while I munched on stuff and finished more of my packing. It’s basically done; all that is left is finishing packing my music CDs. I called Vicki to confirm our ride for tomorrow morning; I got her voice mail and left a message. I will try and call again tomorrow in the morning. Later that night, Vicki called to confirm our trip to SJC. I got mad a Jen for throwing out the box for the Go Video DVD player, it had a bunch of cables and other stuff left in it. It took me a while to get over it. What can I say, stuff happens.
Jen cut the chocolate cake into two slices and put a candle on top of each slice. AS we sat down on the dining table, Jen made a toast, “to another VAG.” We brought the two slices of chocolate cake and Jen’s glass of coke into the bedroom and finished our cake in bed watching All My Children.
I’m jus a bit tired right now from all the events of today. I’m just in a state of resolve to get there and get this done and over with. It’s time for bed.
January 30, 2005
VGP Days to go: 2
Stress Level; Moderate, Time to Leave for Scottsdale
I got out of bed just before 6:00 AM this morning and decided to write. I woke up this morning thinking about several scenes from “Beautiful Boxer” and how close they were to my own life and feelings. All this brought back memories from my own childhood growing up as a feminine child who was never able to hide how I felt. The scene of Parinya Charoenphol’s being physically beat up during her childhood brought back memories of a very similar thing that happened to me several times during my own childhood. Yes, these were emotionally painful memories from my child hood being brought back to life on the cinema screen. I wound up crying in bed as Jen cuddled up with me. There were also memories from years past when I would be in crying in bed hoping one day the reality of being physically incongruent would be gone.
There are only a few things left over for me to get done before we are off to Scottsdale, finish packing my music CDs, clean up the house a bit, check our travel paper work and go down the list one more time. At 10:30 AM, Vicki will pick us up and drop us off at SJC.
It all seems so unreal to me as we are about to head off to SJC and catch a flight to Phoenix / Scottsdale, it’s been a long road to get here.
Jen came out of our bedroom and gave me a hug and kiss as I was sitting in front of my notebook writing. The she went off to make some coffee for the two of us. I made maple oatmeal while Jen had oat o cereal with milk and sugar, we shared a banana too. With breakfast ready, we sat down to chat for a while about the events to come.
There was still time for a bit of last minute clean up and packing before Vicki is here to drive us to SJC. Everything was packed and the house cleaned at just before 10:00 AM. Jen and I began to get ready for our trip to Scottsdale. Vicki arrived right on time, we ended up with two more quick runs back to the house to get a few last minute things we nearly forgot, I nearly for got my passport (Vicki was telling me about her Kelly hell and the topic of IDs came up), Jen forgot her sunglasses. I’m sure there will be other little things we forgot, but it’s time to go and we will deal with it what ever we might be missing later. The trip to SJC was totally uneventful, Vicki dropped us off at the SWA curbside and we checked in our baggage at the SWA curbside skycap. It was time to head off to gate A6 with our boarding passes in hand. It is now 11:40 AM, Jen and I are sitting at the gate waiting to board flight 2884 to Phoneix.
I’m feeling just the usual stress for traveling and it seems still sort of unreal that we are on our way to Scottsdale for my date with Dr.Meltzer. I’m a bit surprised at the moments of emotional calm as my date draws near. I still feel emotionally unsettled at times, but they are the same feelings of being physically incongruent I have been dealing with for the past several years, the difference now, the end is in sight.
We boarded the plane on time in typical SWA fashion. Our flight appears to be on time and we should be in Phoenix before 4:00 PM. It’s pretty much the usual travel stuff with all the waiting and dealing with airports, baggage, rental cars, driving to the hotel and etc. So far it’s been pretty much a repeat of our trip to Scottsdale in October 2004.
SWA flight 2884 arrived in PHX on time at 3:30 PM Phoenix time. We got off the plane and headed to the baggage claim area and got our baggage. The next stop is Dollar rental car. I gave Jen the reservation for the car. Jen was at the service counter a while dealing with the rental car stuff, it turns out, Jen wanted to get a PT cruser again. The same car we had in Scottsdale during our visit here in October 2004. We got our rental car paper work and went out side to the shuttle bus area. The Dollar shuttle bus was just pulling up as we arrived at the pick up area. We go on with our stuff and the shuttle dropped us off at the rental car pick center. The car was ready and waiting for us. The doors were opened and all of our stuff went in the back and we headed off for the Holiday Inn Scottsdale. The same place we stayed at the last time we stayed at Scottsdale. The good thing about this Holiday Inn is the location. It is about a 15 minute walk to the Greenbaum hotel. During our trip here in October I brought my bike and spent most every day pedaling during the morning for a in paradise Valley for a few hours before I would walk over to the Greenbaum hotel to spend the day with Jen. If you ever visit Scottsdale, visit Paradise Valley, it is a really beautiful place with houses that generally fit well the environment.
We parked the PT curser in the front of the Holiday Inn and went to the front desk to check in. we asked for a room on the third floor thinking that it would be quieter, since the last time we stayed here, our room on the ground flood was noisy and kept me up for much of the night. The desk clerk obliged and gave us a room# 359. We rolled our baggage into to the elevator and found room# 359. I reminded Jen that we stayed in room# 159 the last time we were here. Jen put the door card into the lock and opened the room. The room was fine except for one thing, there was a buzz coming from some where in the room. Now, we are both pretty tired from the stress of getting ready for this trip and travel. The last thing we needed was a room with an annoying buzz. We tried to locate the buzz but were unable to find it. I was not in the best of moods either. I’m basically bottomed out with my estrogen and progesterone levels and this makes me easy to irritable, it’s what some call this PMS. I called the front desk and they put me on hold, after several minutes of waiting on the phone. I got tired of waiting, hung up and redialed the front desk. When the clerk answered, I told them the room has something buzzing would like to get this fixed. We waited for over 20 minutes with no results. I called again to ask for a different room. The clerk said, “Fine, come down to get another room card.” Jen was patient and kind enough go down to the front desk to pick up the room card. The room card was for room#356, it was just across the hall from room#359. We opened the door and rolled our baggage in to the room and parked them in the same place as the other room. Strange enough, this room buzzed too. How tiresome! Jen and I went to the bed room to lie down for a just a moment. That buzz was still there, so Jen closed the doors to lower the sound of that buzz. We got a few moments of rest and relaxation before Jen got up and went down stairs to try for another room. When Jen got back to our room, she got a room card for room# 147 on the first floor. I asked Jen if the room was buzz free and she said it was, so it was time for another move. We rolled our stuff into the elevator and arrived at room#147, parked our baggage in the same place as before. Guess what, that buzz was in the room again. This was strange and frustrating all at the same time. When things get this way, I can get short fused and the wrath of Nici comes roaring out. I went over to the front desk and told them the buzz was still with us. One of the guys at the front desk told me he would send some one over to look at it. After waiting for over 15 minutes, no one came over to check on the problem. I headed over to the front desk again and finally got one of the guys to come to the room and have a look. He followed me to our room, heard the buzz and told me he would get one of the maintenance guys to look at it. Another 15 minutes passed with nothing happening. With all this lack of service and attention, Jen and I were getting pretty darn irritated over the whole thing. We were talking of getting some form of compensation like a room upgrade for all this hassle. I went over to the front desk one more time, this time I got another guy from the front desk to have a look at the problem. When he arrived at our room, he looked around, did a bit of listening and announced that the buzz was coming from my luggage! I was more than a bit surprised. He went back to the front desk, I opened up my luggage and to my amazement, and I discovered the battery powered tooth brush was the offending object. I took the tooth brush out of the bag and turned it off. Something must have bumped that toothbrush to the on position along the way here. Jen and I had a big huge laugh with this discovery. I’m not going to hear the end of this from Jen for a long time. I asked Jen if she would like to stay in this room or go back to room#359. We discussed this for just a bit and decided room#359 was better. I sheepishly went back to the front desk and asked if we could move back to room# 359. The deck clerk obliged and gave me another set of room cards for room# 359. We moved back to room# 359 in short time and finally got settled in.
After our episode of musical rooms, it was time to get din din. SA we drove down Scottsdale road looking for a place to eat. We decided to have din din at Coco’s after getting caught in a traffic jam due to road construction. Jen had a bacon burger with beer and I had sun dried tomato chicken with a glass of Fetzer Cabernet wine. We shared a piece of pecan pie for dessert. Our next stop was Target for a few toiletries. The last stop was Trader Joes on Scottsdale road for drinks and a few snacks. We are now back in our room and taking time to relax and unwind.
Tomorrow morning is my pre-op appointment at Dr. Meltzer’s office. It is also going to be liquid diet and bowel purge day. It’s not something you want to do often, but part of the pre-op process.
posted by Rupunzell | 10:13 PM
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