Hello fans and friends. Today
as I word process along I'm sitting aboard the Amtrak train heading from
Chicago to the bustling metropolis of LaPlata, Missouri. I LOVE the train. There's more leg room than on a first class flight, it's way cheaper than other
modes of transportation, you can get up
and walk around, there are no seat belts and there's a cool observation car. Oh
yea, and you can also charge your phone right at your seat. It's always interesting to chat with people on
the train about where they're from and where they're headed. I typically get asked the following question
from frequent travelers of this particular route: "Oh, you get off/on at THAT place??
What do you people DOOOOO in LaPlata??" You see, if you've never been
there the LaPlata train station sits in a field of,… well,…
nothing.
The parking lot is made of gravel and the train station itself is a rather tiny historic building with OLD wooden benches (like two) and a restroom. There's a ticket window but you can't actually buy a ticket there and frequently there is "no one home" at the window. When you arrive in the evening there is only a single light illuminating the tracks.
The "Southwest Chief” train numbers 3 & 4 originates in Los Angeles and
finishes in Chicago. My trek is always
the final leg of the trip as I ride for either 2 or 5 hours depending on
whether I am headed from LaPlata to/from Galesburg or Chicago. Those who ride
the entire length find themselves on a 48+ hour journey through cities, villages,
townships, hay fields, corn fields, cattle farms and rolling hillsides. I actually think taking it from start to
finish sometime sounds kinda cool. I’ll
add that to my bucket list. Anyway, when this big train rolls into LaPlata with its desolate surroundings and 50 people get off/on it does cause a long distance traveler along the route to question the reason behind all of those people waiting in a field. (Annual Station Ridership (2013) is 10,031). Once it’s explained that this is the nearest train station to Kirksville where there is not only a university but also a medical and dental school people usually just "get it" and they move on with chatter along other lines. One of these days I'll have a little fun and tell them that our space ship is broken out there in the field and we’re here to take over the train and return it to our planet.
But that's not what this entry is about.
The reason I am returning to the corn field is because I have
just left the ASHA convention, which was in Chicago this year.
But that's not what this entry is about.
While at the convention my BFFs and I were discussing who was
currently reading what. Two of them were
telling me about a book entitled "Still Alice" written by a
neuroscientist named Lisa Genova. They
tell me it's fiction but that the scientific facts about this middle aged
woman's descent into memory loss reads like non-fiction. Being that the author is a neuroscientist I’m
assuming she probably got this stuff right. (I would also assume she now owes
me a kickback for plugging her book). Anyway, I'm contemplating shooting her an
email and volunteering to be a case study for a future book. A possible suggested title could be "Incoming
CFCC chair loses her mind.......story at 11." In January I will take over as the
chairperson for the Council on Clinical Certification (CFCC) which is a
position where one really should be in control of all of her faculties and most
certainly should NOT look like a sweaty, deranged, crazy woman who loses
personal items and then publicly comes unglued seeming to all others to be
schizophrenic. (Yea, who put THAT nut job in charge of anything important?!)
You see, I am starting to get REALLY concerned about my
memory. While at convention this year on
day ONE of the actual meeting I lost my coat somewhere at the McCormick place Convention
Center which square foot by foot is larger than most Middle Eastern
countries.
When I found it missing, I retraced my steps. My day began with a walk from one end of the
convention center to the other because the shuttle bus from the Hilton drops you off at one end
(Lets say “North”) and the opening general session was
conveniently (NOT) at the other (Lets say “South”) so off I went. (Ben and Jerry were the key note speakers and
I was not gonna miss that because they were giving out free ice cream so I made the long walk early that morning----- (hence my
need for the “mindful eating” book
but that's a blog for another day.) This was followed by a stop at three
restrooms (to check EVERY STALL because I can't remember which one I used in
ANY of the three of them). Picture me waiting in line along with 13,000 of my
closest female colleagues from the professions not once but now TWICE because I
was too embarrassed to stand in the middle of the lavatory and scream "Excuse
me everyone, no need to stop what you’re doing but anybody see a gray coat
in your stall?"
From there I found myself back in the room I presented in earlier
and later two more rooms (at opposing ends of the convention concourse) that I
attended lectures in. Thankfully I
always sit in the back so I had not far to look as I crashed the other sessions
happening in those rooms at that time. I
would have hated to have had to stand up, raise my hand as if I had a question
for the presenter and then say "well I’ve no idea what you’re
talking about not currently treating phonologically delayed children from the
inner city and all……. I didn’t actually drop in to hear you spin
your yarns of expertise but rather to ask, do you see a Truman CMDS coat anywhere
up there near you? Like maybe behind the
podium or curtain or something?”
Following this I ended up at three different information kiosks,
and then on to 2 different convention security officers and finally in two
different lost and found "rooms."
Nothing. Have I mentioned I was
wearing boots with heels and NOT flats or tennis shoes? Let's just say I’m on the train SANS coat but WITH angry blistered feet at the
moment. I chalked it up to an
unfortunate episode of forgetfulness, counted my blessings because it was NOT
my IPhone or IPAD and forged ahead into the world without my beloved "go-to"
coat.
Fast forward to the last day of the convention. It was after lunch and I was exhausted. Ask any SLP or AuD and they will tell you
that the ASHA convention is exhausting!
I had my phone in my hand as I was walking from the poster sessions in the
exhibit hall over to a meeting room in the connecting Hyatt hotel when I sat
down near a fountain to rest and watch the show the fountain waters were
dancing to. When I stood up to leave, to
my UTTER HORROR my phone was GONE! Now
people, this is where I completely lost my mind. I DUMPED all of the contents of my purse and
shoulder bag onto the floor of the walkway and began muttering to myself. With each passing moment the statements I
made under my breath grew in intensity and I began to chant things OUT LOUD allowing
passers-by to hear my sentiments including phrases like "oh NO Lord, this
CAN’T be happening to me again, why do you HATE ME SO
MUCH?!?!
(*This is where you please refrain from
psychoanalyzing me over my catholic guilt issues......).
I literally had trouble breathing and was visibly shaking. By the time I shoved all my crap back into my
two bags and arrived at the first available ASHA info booth I was
hyperventilating. I was fanning myself
with the convention program in one hand and clapping my other hand on the marble desk top and I
am sure to all observers looking more than a little psychotic. Did I mention on top of all this I was
sweating?! Large drops of sweat were
falling onto the information booth counter. I managed to tell the info help desk folks
that I lost my phone and that the cover was pink. I was seriously growing ever more
hysterical as the attendant hung up the phone following each inquiry she made to other
info desks across the convention center.
I felt a little more faint with every negative response she received
from staff members on the other end of the line. No one had seen it.
It was then that "Gennith" who was one of the women staffing the booth became my hero.
She asked me if I had enabled the iPhone “Finder”
option and I briefly remembered checking yes to some box somewhere at sometime
indicating that indeed I DID want that option because it sounded nice but I had
no idea what it meant. She worked some
kind of iPhone voodoo magic and asked me to enter my password on HER phone and
*poof* there was a picture of the convention center and my iPhone icon. Turns out I could then choose to have the phone
send out an alarm, lock itself or delete all of its info right there from
Gennith's phone. I chose the "sound
alarm" option and she told me my phone was now emitting a LOUD alarm noise
which would have made me chuckle if I were not busy being psychotic. It was then that another ASHA staffer
suggested that Gennith perhaps walk WITH ME to find the phone since I quite
obviously looked like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Luckily Gennith had much experience with her
MOTHER and her iPhone (Okay, when did I fall into the category of grown peoples mothers?!) as she often lost it as well. In fact, her mother lives in an entirely
different state than Gennith and she has to help her find her phone from miles
and miles away. I'm wondering how I can
hire Gennith to be my personal "handler" now that I'm officially
losing my mind. I'm also wondering if Alex's future is headed in Gennith's direction.
She walked me to the other side of the convention center using
the map on the “find your iPhone”
app. As we were crossing the sky bridge
she called my phone (which I kept telling her had the ringer off but being from
a younger generation than I she understood something about these things that I
do not) and lo and behold someone answered.
Unfortunately though, since we were in the sky bridge the call was
dropped. I was smack dab in the middle
of an emotional roller coaster that I could not understand (I was fine it was
found--I was not it was stolen, kind of thing) when we arrived at the end of
the sky bridge, rode the escalator down and saw it sitting on a security desk
outside the Hyatt entrance. Just prior
to this "Parrish" who was stationed at the info desk at the bottom of
the escalator saw us coming and jumped up to assist Gennith who was clearly
chaperoning an insane sweaty shaky incoming chair of an important ASHA council
crazy woman to the other side of the hall.
Parrish and Gennith were there with me and I have never been more
grateful to two young ASHA staff members in my life. Seriously, the ASHA president needs to
invite these two to some sort of ASHA party or something. I found them to be VERY valuable to the
association!
Just as they turned to take their leave one of my Truman colleagues
appeared coming out of the Hyatt and said “hey have you”.........when
I lost it. I just sat down and
cried. The stress of losing two items at
one convention just got the better of me and I had a full blown meltdown right there at the dancing water fountain. Lucky for me, she has an extremely calming
personality. She sat by me and patted my
back, handed me a Kleenex from her purse and amazingly had CHOCOLATE on her
person that worked wonders. I was so
glad to have her appear that exact moment.
I calmed down and moved on to sit in my next session (because I
was actually hell bent on learning about how the current health care reform was
affecting our profession) and I thought the drama of this year’s
convention was over.
But as with many things in life so far, I was proven wrong.
I had requested a late check out this morning at the Hilton (for 1:00 pm)
because my train was not scheduled to leave until 3:00 pm. At 12:30 my husband called to tell me that
the Bears stadium was being evacuated due to a tornado. HUH?
At that moment I heard a gust of wind so strong that it rattled my hotel
room window up on the 19th floor. I
LITERALLY grabbed every possession I had and SHOVED them into my two bags and
began to run for my life half dressed toward the elevator.
In the frenzy of all of this I turned around when I heard a
crack.......and realized I had stepped on my glasses. Seriously????
Quite luckily I made my way down from floor 19 and sat out the
weather in the main lobby with my new Hilton buddies awaiting directions to
take cover in the downstairs ballroom if needed. I needed these new friends because should we
need to read any signage on the way to the disaster shelter I was in big
trouble with the remnants of my vision assistance located nicely in my luggage in
a crumpled mass of metal and pink plastic and not located squarely on my face. I also needed them to tell me if my socks matched having run from the room only partially covered.
As it turned out, I remained safe though clearly shaken a bit by
the last few days’ near disasters. At the moment, I’m
enjoying the sunset out of the window of my train seat.
Nope, just midlife me trying to return to the husband, kids and university happy to have just SURVIVED another set of travel dates.
Now if I can just remember if I drove myself or if I have a ride
waiting once I arrive……
