Almost home - Day 1518 (Year 5, Day 57)

New York, NY

This has been one hell of a whirlwind week, and the exhaustion finally caught up with me last night, when I went into bed and collapsed at 8:00.

I came into Manhattan on Friday to take sis-in-law home from the hospital.  Knowing that I needed to shop at Trader Joe's which was a few blocks away from the hospital, as well as pick up all her bags, I chose to only throw a few items of clothing into a tote bag and leave the rest of my stuff in the Bronx.  The plan was to bring her home and spend the weekend getting her settled in and return to the Bronx on Monday afternoon.  I took the NYC subway to the city; it's been a few decades since I rode the train.  It hasn't changed at all except for the payment method.

Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned, as she needed quite a lot more assistance than we expected.  She's making tremendous progress now, but it was clear that I needed to spend the rest of my time providing physical support to her, rather than emotional support to my dad.  I made the trip back to the Bronx by train on Sunday, spent a few hours there and returned via taxi with all my stuff (which is too heavy and bulky to carry on the train and up the stairs).

I have a real big complaint about New Yorkers and need to vent my outrage. My apologies in advance to my friends and family who live in NYC, as I know this doesn't apply to you, and probably doesn't apply to about 1% of the NY population either.

Although she is making good progress, my sister in law is only able to get around very slowly using a walker.  We took a little walk outside yesterday to do some grocery shopping and run a few other errands. There is a supermarket around the corner from her building and the other stores we needed were across the street. 

I just could not believe how rude and outright DANGEROUS many people were. They either rushed right past her, practically knocking into her, or more often than not, they were looking down at their phones and very easily could have run into her because they didn't see her right in front of them. And then there was the bike rider who did not ride in the bike lane and rode right through a red light and almost knocked her over.

In most other parts of the country where we've visited (and how I was raised as well), if I was walking (without looking down at a phone) and saw someone with a walker or in a wheelchair, I would either slow down, get out of the way, or offer assistance.

I just cannot believe the rudeness and self absorption of the people who live in this city.  New Yorkers certainly live up to their reputation.

Rant over.

On another note, I will be leaving tomorrow to return home (Augusta).  Flight leaves at 11:45, and I will be taking a shuttle service to the airport, which will pick me up in front of the building at 6:50 am.  The shuttle service from Atlanta will pick me up at 3:45 pm, so I hope to see Mitch again by 6:30.  The flight over here was uneventful, with no turbulance.  I pray it's the same way on the return flight.