5:32 PM
| Sunrise at | 8:54 AM | in direction | 120° | East-southeast |  |
| Sunset at | 5:17 PM | in direction | 240° | West-southwest |  |
Writing from Anchorage, Alaska
Last night, being the final push by two competitors in a win that made mushing history for the Yukon Quest (and possibly any other long distance sled dog race), I paid less and less attention to practical matters. I can't say that I've been overly focused on my obligations ever since the Quest began, but once I left work for the day, neither can I say much was asked of me in my home life. I managed to get other things done.
Last night, well .. I could not pull myself away from the Live Tracking window. I could not stop reading what folks were saying on Facebook. True, I am personally committed to one of the kennels that were vying for first place, but I am still not sure that justifies obsession - and obsessed I was. And while I don't want to admit to being negligent, I probably should and just get it over with because there were lapses in my fulfillment of my end of the bargain (so to speak).
I mentioned earlier that Gary is a bladder cancer patient. The only place to make use of green ray laser removal is in Anchorage. Driving to Anchorage is 6 hours and both times we've had to come here, I have arranged to fly to make it easier on him.
Last night, the race occupied my mind far more than our trip to Anchorage. I delayed cleaning. I delayed packing. I delayed going to bed even though I knew I had to be up early to catch a plane. In fact, I delayed going to bed for so long that I was beginning to feel thin, stretched out ... oops. I can imagine what Frodo felt as the Ring weighed on him the closer he got to Mt. Doom and we all know that not getting enough sleep can have some undesirable consequences.
A few things needed to be done before we could walk out the door this morning to catch our flight. For example, I needed to leave instructions for my Mom's PCA and provide lunches for two days. Around 2 pm this afternoon, I remembered I had not done that. I am not sure what Marilyn took for Mom's lunch, but it wasn't the tuna sandwich and potato salad I had planned .. oops.
Then, since we are planning to move Mom to the Anchorage Pioneer Home (the waiting list in Fairbanks is still very long), I made plans to visit the facility today. Pioneer Homes are the only facilities in the state that provide assisted living through all stages of aging. I needed to bring down copies of her medical insurance. I had them collected, but last night in my one of my efforts to clean in between watching the live tracker, I put the papers away and left without them .. oops.
In arranging the plane flights, I think I forgot to provide mileage numbers for both of us and had to save boarding passes just in case .. oops.
I turned from Ingra onto 9th Street as if it were one way and did not notice for some time that the reason traffic was stopped facing me was because I was driving in their lane ... oops.
I told Gary the flight was at 8:30 and then stood around trying to remember anything else I needed to do (the insurance information did not make even a blip on that particular radar scan). I wondered out loud if I had done the best thing I could to keep the dogs out of trouble until our house sitter arrived. Gary encouraged me more than once to get into the car. I did with time to spare, but on the way to the airport, I remembered that neither of us knew our Confirmation numbers .. oops.
Then I reasoned we were far enough away from the airport and it was still early enough I could get the confirmation numbers for an agent. So at 7:15 or so I called and gave them our name and departure and destination. He found us, but he was a little confused. He asked if we wanted to the 11:45 flight. I said we we confirmed for the 8:30. He told me sympathetically, that there was not 8:30 fight from Fairbanks to Anchorage. It departed at 8:00 and we needed to have our boarding passes by 7:30. This was 7:20 and we were 15 minutes from the airport .. really, really big oops.
We changed our flight and then I sat and read for 3 hours while Gary used my computer to listen to music and read articles on some of his favorite sites. The flight was at 11:46 and we arrived in Anchorage @ 12:30. I managed to think through the fastest route to the airport and despite traffic and slippery roads, I got Gary to the hospital's day surgery center in time and still had time to meet one of the staff at Pioneer Home.
But you know, the irony was that Gary did not go into surgery until after 5:00 PM. There was a conflict in the scheduling for the surgery room with the laser. So I did not even go back to the hospital until 6:00 PM to pick him up to bring him back here.
Sounds like the Day Surgery Center scheduler was a Yukon Quest fan, doesn't it?
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