Journeys and rewards

A day of many journeys; of many projects.

First project: Visit the oculist. Are my glasses out of adjustment? I hope that's all it is, 'cause if it isn't, it might very well be The Disease (even though fortunately it hasn't been... yet...), and then again, it might very well just be age (which always has something to do with everything, Disease or no Disease).

Second project: Brave ... The Valley (San Fernando Valley, for non-Los Angeleans)... to visit the shop where I got my "translator," the official name for my walker/wheelchair combo. The back-piece has nearly come completely undone, thus making it impossible to rest one's back against in wheelchair mode. The people at this shop are so nice, a third-generation help-the-handicapped shop; and they really know what they're doing. Always a relief to work with competent caregivers; even better when they're kind and compassionate as well as competent. (All of my caregivers are like that: expert, kind, compassionate. Boy does that make the M.S. Highway so much easier to endure.)

Third project: Cross the Great Divide (that's the 405 freeway) and visit the acupuncturist. Expecting a treatment that, in the words of Eustace in The Dawn Treader, "Hurts like billy-oh, but feels great when he's done."

Fourth project: Travel up the Great Divide and then enter... The Valley... and visit the herbalist. Fortunately, driving to see him is the worst part of the treatment; there's never any pain, and the worst thing that happens is that what he gives me tastes bad.

A reward for my efforts: The herbalist is only blocks away from somewhere I can get vegan Ethiopian food. Ethiopian food is absolutely wonderful, but traditionally, it involves butter. Lots, and lots, of butter... one of the few things on my herbalist's "you can't ever eat this, ever" list.

Somehow, surviving each of today's journeys will end with a treat.

Not a bad day traveling the M.S. Highway... when at every stop, you get a treat.