Trying to look on the bright side (mostly failing)

I guess I could have skipped blogging today, since I wrote a post earlier this week, but it's Sunday and I usually blog on Sunday, so I'll do another post.

Things have been pretty awful. And tomorrow the weather's going to get bad again. Today it was only about 80 (with high humidity), but tomorrow it's going to be 95 (with high humidity). All week it's going to be like that, so I think we're done with outdoor activities. 

We've done a few fun things, fun-ish, anyway. Thursday there was another heavy rainstorm, more flooding, and we stayed home. But Friday was a nice day, so (after dithering about it for a couple of hours) I bravely drove the twins and me to the City Museum and we spent a few hours there. This was our third visit to that great place and the least fun of the three, but on the plus side, we got to go on the roof at last (it's always been closed before). The photo shows Teen B sitting in a wire structure on the roof. We didn't ride the Ferris wheel on the roof because the line was too long -- the museum was SOOO crowded on that sunny summer day -- but we still got a great view of St. Louis from various perches like this one.

The humidity really gets to me, though. I see people walking around wearing shirts with sleeves, long pants, even sometimes a sweater or hoodie. I can't fathom it. It was so humid inside and outside at the City Museum that I didn't have a very good time. The twins weren't that into it either. I spent over $100 on that visit ($28/person admission plus food and beverages). Oh well.

Saturday we did some errands with Rocket Boy, who had figured out how to hide his drains with loose pants and a loose shirt. We went to a doughnut store, a German bakery, and Walgreens. We are eating so badly on this trip, it's embarrassing. Every morning I have a big bowl of whole-grain cereal and milk and berries, with multiple cups of black tea. The rest of the day -- cookies, chocolate, chips, doughnuts... and lots of disgusting lukewarm tap water. I don't have any interest in actual food. Some nights I skip dinner altogether. I just keep telling myself that when we get back to Boulder I'll go back to cooking vegetables.

Saturday night we decided to eat out, and I found a Chinese buffet restaurant called Joy Luck that sounded good. It turned out to be a little difficult to find because it was in an area that had been flooded -- it was the last building before the road was blocked off due to flooding -- but we got there, and so did lots of other people (so perhaps it is normally very crowded). For I think $75 (plus tip) we each had a beverage and the buffet. I thought the buffet was just terrible. It reminded me of the buffet in the movie "Fargo" that the police detective and her husband eat at -- dish after dish after dish of fried brown things. I filled my first plate with fried brown things that all tasted about the same (or else were horrid). But I still thought it was a good place to go, because everyone could get roughly what they wanted, and if they didn't like their choices they could go back and get something else. As I was trying one fried brown thing after another, Rocket Boy said to me, "I would come back here," and Teen A said "Yeah, let's eat here again." 

And then we went to Trader Joe's and got more cereal and chocolate, and Target where we bought a new mop and I got a Ken doll I'd been looking for.

Today I had said I wanted to go to the Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis, which is something I discovered while driving around -- it's actually quite close to where Rocket Boy lives. It sounded adorable. But then I thought about how awful the twins are being, playing tag and hitting each other everywhere we go, and I thought about them doing that in a museum full of delicate, breakable things, and I said no, I'm not going to do that. Rocket Boy tried hard to convince me to go, he negotiated with the twins and got them to agree that only Teen B would go with me, but my mind was made up.

I wanted to do something nice for me, since I'm so miserable on this trip, but I realized that something that involved DRIVING somewhere and trying to park and dealing with St. Louis in general was not going to be that nice thing. Maybe I can do something nice for me when we get back to Boulder. Or just being back will be the nice thing.

Instead I took the twins to Starbucks -- which involved DRIVING, but it was OK, because I wasn't doing something nice for me, I was doing something nice for them, so it didn't matter if I was miserable. Does that make sense? 

Later I took a nap, because I'd gotten up at 6 am. We are really having a problem with the nights. Rocket Boy of course always wants the room we sleep in to be warmer than I want it, but in St. Louis this becomes a major issue. There is an air conditioner in the room we sleep in, next to the bed, but it is SO LOUD. I like to set it to 68 or so, which means it roars along pretty much all night, blowing cold air at us and yet somehow not really cooling off the room. Rocket Boy prefers it to be around 75, which makes it cycle on and off and the room is horribly hot and humid. We go to bed with it set to 68 and then he changes it to 75 during the night when he can't sleep. I sleep under a sheet, only partially pulled over me, and he sleeps under the sheet and three blankets. I can't sleep naked because Teen A is on the couch right through the open doorway. So I wake up early and can't get back to sleep because it's so hot. Naps help.

Later this afternoon RB decided that we should go to a park (I more or less agreed, since it was going to be our last day with temps below 90) and he picked one near us, Bellerive Park and Sr. Marie Charles Park, which are separate parks but right next to each other. After my usual multiple screw-ups, I got us to Bellerive, but it was kind of a weird park, in a very dicey neighborhood. We parked on the road and walked over to a small playground, but there was a couple doing some heavy canoodling right next to it, so we quickly walked on. We inspected some plaques and tried to look at the river, but the trees were too thick and you couldn't see much. And some weird guy was sitting on a bench smoking. And it was so humid. 

The twins and I started back to the car, with Rocket Boy somewhat behind (he walks slowly with his drains, plus he was cross at us for wanting to leave). Then we heard a scream. A blond woman in a red car was parked near us and she had screamed. Then she seemed to be crying. She was alone in her car, but I didn't feel good about this. We paused, and she started her car and began driving very fast along the park road. She came up behind another car and honked at it and yelled things out the window. But then it got really interesting. She started pursuing a Black guy, who was on foot. She drove UP ONTO THE LAWN, trying to run him down. She drove around a tree, while he raced to keep on the other side of the tree from her. Then she drove off. The twins and I ran to the car and got in, trying to explain to Rocket Boy what we'd just seen. He wanted to call the police, but all I wanted to do was get out of there as fast as possible. He insisted that I drive to Sr. Marie Charles park, so I did (it was a block away), but there was no obvious place to park, and as I was driving away from the park I saw the woman's car again! I hurried us away from there as quickly as I could.

Later I read online that Sr. Marie Charles park is a sex/drug hangout/meetup place, not somewhere you'd want to take your kids. St. Louis -- always an adventure.

After the parks we drove downtown to ride the St. Louis Ferris wheel, which we'd enjoyed for the first time back in 2019, on our first visit to the city. That time we rode the wheel at night, and it was quite different during the day, scarier. Before shutting the door on us, the attendant pointed to a button on the ceiling and said, "Push that red button if you have any difficulties." Immediately after the wheel started turning, I wanted to push the red button. Rocket Boy commented that he should have taken his anti-spasm medication. But we survived the ride. It was $15 each, so $60 for five turns of the wheel.

Then we decided to go out to dinner again. It was Teen B's turn to choose, and he finally chose Denny's, which was quite a ways south. I drove us there, badly. And when we got there it was hot and humid inside and the food wasn't very good. With tip it was $59.50. 

As we were leaving, I asked Rocket Boy if he thought he could drive home. This was only the second time he's driven since his surgery, and the first time was like three blocks. He felt he was ready, so I turned the wheel over to him. God, I hate driving in St. Louis! And it's so easy for him. I don't know whether he'll be able to do all the driving from now on or not. We'll see.

He has an appointment on Tuesday morning and we're desperately hoping he'll get his drains out then. If they decide they need to stay in a little longer, he may get them out Friday instead. We still don't know whether we're driving home together on Saturday/Sunday or flying home on Saturday. I checked airline fares yesterday -- they're still reasonable. I think it's going to be a last-minute decision.

All I want is to be able to go back to Boulder, any way we can (despite the fact that it's hot and humid in Boulder right now and of course we have no air conditioning). I want Boulder's version of hot and humid, not St. Louis's. And I want Rocket Boy to heal quickly and come with us.

I'm not enjoying this.