As the title suggests, I'm back on island and I must say it's been a long several days.

Sunday - Spent all day doing laundry for my upcoming flight and cleaning various things including emptying out the refrigerator as much as possible.

Monday - Left the house early to take R to his appointment in Landstuhl.  When we had left the week before at 6am we had arrived 10 mins late for his 10am appointment.  Since I wanted to stop by Deichmann's for my mom we left at 6am for his 11am appointment.  Wouldn't you know, there was a massive stau so we didn't get to the hospital until minutes to 11am.  Thankfully the rest of the day went quickly and we left around 3:45 which meant I had to drive back.  I'm not one for long drives and even worse if I'm driving.  Thankfully we made it home at 7:15 (which is what the GPS said when we left) as I don't think I could have handled any more traffic.  Still had to pack when I got home.  R decided to share his cold with me and my usual methods of fighting it off weren't working.

Tuesday - Woke up early and got the the airport for my 11am flight to Paris.  Thankfully I had decided to stay awake as my flight got in at 12:20 and they were boarding my flight at 12:30 for a 1:15 departure.  Someone was on my side as we didn't have far to go from deplaning to get to where we needed to go.  I still had to go through the crazy immigration and lightning disrobing and re-dressing (aka having your stuff xrayed) and then I had to run like crazy to catch my flight.  So there I am at 1:05 at my gate and the ticket agent is telling me it's okay, I made the flight.  I will never complain about another elderly person again on my flights as I am sure they were the sole reason I made that flight as there were a number of them still getting on the flight.

Got into Newark and as many times as I've flown through the US, this Immigration agent was the only one to notice that my DOB on my resident card has me older by 10 days (which reminds me, I still need to fix that).  Ended up going to security and having to have that flagged.  Turns out that depending on what airport you fly through, will depend on whether you have to clear your luggage through customs and Newark is one of those airports.  Seems that while I made my flight in Paris, my luggage didn't.  Baggage services said I need to wait until I get to Atlanta to file it since that is where my bags were checked through to.  Thankfully my friend from CT drove down to see me so we hung out at the airport chatting while I waited for my flight.  It's funny, when you're sitting in the airport alone, time tends to drag on endlessly, however when you have friends to chat to, it seems to go by so fast.

Barely made it on my flight to Atlanta and the flight was delayed in taking off.  Ended up dosing before the flight took off.  Made my way to baggage services and they said they don't see anything however they figure that my bags would be on the next flight in from Newark and that I should check the following morning.  Went to the hotel, stripped to my birthday suit (knowing I had to put back on the same clothes again the next day, ick) and passed out (after I set the wakeup call of course).

Wednesday - Chose hotel I did for 2 reasons, they have 24 hour shuttle service to/from airport and early breakfast buffet (their internet in the reception didn't help either).  I wasn't expecting much from the breakfast but they had less than I anticipated so I treated myself to Denny's for breakfast.  At 6:30 it was lovely and peaceful having Denny's all to myself.  Arrived at the airport early, was told that my bags would be on the 12:30 flight from Newark but since my flight to Grand Cayman left at 11am, my luggage wouldn't make it until the next day, oh joy.

Flight to Grand Cayman was uneventful except for the landing.  The pilot must have been a former military pilot who had to land on one of those Navy ships.  It is one of those landings where the back tires touch down, then the nose and then you pull back hard on the brake.  We had plenty more runway to go but I guess he decided he didn't want to have to turn the aircraft around.  The customs agent was most amused that I'm staying for 57 days and had no luggage with me.

Arrived home and the first thing I did was to change clothes and to have lunch.  Managed to stay awake for most of the day but crashed out just as American Idol was starting.

Thursday - Woke up at midnight to the alarm going off.  Whose bright idea is it to set the alarm to midnight I'll never know.  Apparently it used to go off at 4am and since my parents couldn't figure out how to turn it off at 4am they unplugged it.  Mom only plugged it back in and set the time before I came.  Been up since 4am and I'm doing good.  Even drove some today which is scary in itself.  Not only do they drive on the other side of the road here, but since I was here in January they've disturbed the roads again.  I don't know what they're thinking.

Dad went to therapy today and he's doing well.  He is now able to pedal the stationary bike by himself and with the aid of the stimulus machine, able to unclench his left hand a little bit, which is a lot more than he was able to do when I left.  He's even able to stand up a bit better and can roll easier on the bed now and can even sit up in bed by himself (although it's still a little work for him).  So I'm very pleased for him.

Saw my friend Sidney who is now a doctor who I haven't seen since we graduated high school.  He hasn't changed much at all, I may have to see if I can entice him out to dinner one night so we can catch up.  The last time I saw him he was leaving for medical school in Jamaica and since then I've been married and left the island and he told me today he's been back for 5 yrs.  Time certainly does fly.

Yes, I'm still around but have been either very busy and very tired or off catching up on rest.  Either way I've been a poor contributer here recently.  Hoping to rectify that soon.

Yesterday was Spring cleanup.  I spent from about 9am until around 2:30 (off and on from noon to 2:30) doing things like mowing the lawns (couldn't just mow mine, so I mowed my neighbours also), weeded my back porch and my front area, re-did the flower bed area (although there aren't any flowers in it) and played with the weed eater.  Yesterday was a gorgeous day to have done all of that.  Just as well as last night it was spitting down with rain.

Woke up this morning with my legs killing me.  I guess all the bending and squatting yesterday gave me a bit of exercise.  The sun was out, but I don't see any indication of any sort of tan so I guess it was more warm than anything.

Booked my flights to see my parents and the prices are unbelievable.  Last week when I was looking at flights for this week, it was running around 4k, so I looked at next week and they were a little over 1k.  Thankfully I hadn't booked my flight as I took R to Landstuhl (talk about a long day with 4 hours on the road each way) and he has another appointment on the Monday (that I was going to fly out) and he can't drive back.  I decided to get a flight leaving the Tuesday ( as week today) that was only about $30 more.  Thankfully expedia let me save that itinerary because when I checked those flights again this morning, they were running about $1500.  One nice thing about expedia saving my flight is that I was able to keep the price it quoted me.

I'll be on island until early July, while I know how I'm getting to the airport, I'm not sure how I'm getting home from the airport.  I think flying in/out of Nürnburg helps as it is a short drive and if anything, i can take the train to Parsberg and be picked up from there.  R will be deployed shortly after I leave, I'm not sure of the dates yet however.

Why am I coming back while he's gone?  I have a feeling that the Army is going to want me to clear housing and move us to our next duty station while he's still deployed.  I have several walls that need to be re-painted white not to mention finishing certain projects (ie scanning, scanner is on strike as we speak) before we move.  Do I know where we're going yet, nothing concrete yet.  We have been told there's an 80% chance of us going somewhere however we won't know anything for certain until the orders are cut.  Once again we're playing the hurry up and wait game. 

That's it for me in a nutshell! Will try and catch up with everyone soon.

Let me see what's been going on...

Discovered last week that my oil needs changing, that's scheduled for the end of this month however we're getting that done elsewhere on Thursday I think.  On Sunday I noticed that my "check engine" light came on, that was not a good sign for me.  I checked the gas cap and the light was still on.  R found a place to take it to today but funnily enough, the light went off.  Now the car is idling really low.  Will the fun never end.

Been emailing some long emails back and forth with my friend.  By long I mean taking almost an hour to respond and this is after having read the email earlier in the day.  One of the great things about this form of interaction for us is that he understands what I'm going through with my dad and his stroke as he has been through something similar with his mom.  There's nothing like loads of information about something foreign to us to help us along.

Right now I'm at the library waiting on my ASL class to start, I have about another 75 minutes to go.  I haven't been as productive as I would like however I have started on my scanning again (surprise surprise, I'm not done with that yet).  However I do have a deadline to meet.  I would like to fly out to see my parents at the end of this month and am planning to be gone for two months, so I need to finish it by then.  Speaking of going to see my parents, what in the world is with the FAA and the flight cancelations/delays.  I'm almost afraid to book my tickets, although I can't afford to wait for too long as I'm sure it'll get expensive.  The only thing working in my favour is that my dates are flexible.

Dad is doing good, incase you're wondering.  He's back at home with another pill added to the lot and hopefully we won't have another seizure any time soon (preference will be for never but failing that...).  I asked mom what he was watching when it happened, some home improvement show on HGTV.  Not quite the strobe-like special effects I was expecting.

Picked up the results of my blood test today.  Now I get to go home and compare numbers with R.  A couple of things were low, but that's not unexpected since I'm borderline anemic.  Cholesterol was 143, Triglycerides 105, HDL 53.9 and LDL 75.  I guess I'm good until my next set of blood tests.

I've recently signed up with Spamcop (dot net incase you're wondering) to combat some of my spam, we shall see how that works.  I get so much spam on a daily basis that it's not funny.  Some of them have the unsubscribe but I swear those never work.  I will try those and see if they work, otherwise those will also be reported as spam.