Sometimes serene, sometimes not so much

Highlight of the week

The sound of a woman's voice with an accent I couldn't pinpoint was encouraging when I picked up the phone for last week's ride, as was the name of the company: Serene Transportation.

I wasn't disappointed. The driver was a lovely woman wearing a long flowing skirt. It turns out she was Nigerian. Usually I find out something about the driver but I drifted off because I was tired from almost three hours at our tennis clinic. It was not my usual destination, but rather a trip to Mass Eye and Ear on my week off from  ECP for a checkup on the status of my eyes, which are drier than the normal person's due to the transplant. Dr. Dana was pleased and said I should stay on the Restatis (the drops advertised by the woman with the bright blue eyes) and come back in a year.

I knew I would have to wait a long time based on what happened before, so I wasn't as annoyed because I wasn't surprised by the two-plus hour wait.

On the way back, I was happy that my driver was listening to All Things Considered on NPR — a first.

Tomorrow is my ECP day, followed Thursday by a visit with Melissa. I had to make a separate trip for Dr. Dana because he only sees patients on Wednesdays, which obviously means three weeks in a row for a total of four appointments.

Everything is fine, and some great things happened in the interim between last week's Boston visit and tomorrow's, but I have to admit that although I usually present as super cheerful, I sometimes get down because I don't get any distance. Almost eight years is in some ways a lot of distance, but it is undercut by being such a frequent flyer.

When talking to a friend about something that had upset me, I said I didn't feel right about complaining because all the people I knew who had the same illness had died. She said to the contrary, I have every right to get upset. So I had a little cry

I  didn't have much time to dwell on it because I was consumed by the Democratic Convention, staying up so late on Thursday that on Friday it took me most of the day to think of getting out of my pajamas and get out of the house.

Proud Grandmas

Saturday was Nell's first birthday party, a fun and memorable day, meaning so much on many levels, as I wrote in my blog post a year ago.

Sunday I went to Tanglewood with a group of Boston University alumni for lunch and an all Brahms program.  I used to go to Tanglewood a lot, always picnicking on the lawn, and only once sat in the shed. I loved sitting in the shed and although when you listen without seeing it you obviously know that real musicians are making the music, actually seeing them do it is quite another thing.

I wished they would do an encore, but watching the encore bows was a treat that you can't experience if you're not there.

Last night I played in a great tennis match with my summer team, the Paper Dolls, against our sister team, the Valley Dolls, followed by pizza. If I could play tennis all the time I would be happy. Even better, if I could take a portion of the Holyoke Canoe Club clay courts with a slice of the river view around with me I would be all set. I would have to add coffee and a few other things.

But tomorrow it is back to Boston. I'm going to drive myself and sleep over at Margaret's due to the appointment I have on Thursday. When I have back-to-back appointments I sometimes combine the long distance rides with the local service, The Ride, but at other times like this week I feel like I'd rather not deal with the extra moving parts.