Tamara Unleashed

After my time of reflection I decided to go the hot tub in the cold, windy weather. While I was there I decided to have a strawberry daiquiri – before lunch. It was quiet and pleasant and there was a movie playing on the big screen. I then dressed myself in borrowed clothes from friend Deb and sister-in-law Karen.

After dressing, I took a turn at styling my Aunt’s hair. It is a fine as mine and I do not think her bangs style is all that flattering. She was game to let me do what I could. I have minimal skills but I liked what I came up with. It confirmed my belief about her bangs. I am getting better at getting her to smile.

After lunch we went to the spa to see if we could schedule pedicures. We were supposed to get them in San Francisco, but because of how things turned out we did not have time. Carol had never had a pedicure before. While there, Carol befriended one of the hair stylists who works mornings. We reschedule her hair appointment with Vish on Thursday morning rather than the afternoon so Carol can look like a queen more of the day

We are fading fast but have a dinner reservation at 7 PM. We have to make it another half 45 minutes to eat and then I think we will not have enough energy to take in any entertainment tonight.

We did schedule a date tomorrow to play cards with a couple of women that I met in one of the long lines yesterday.

The internet connectiivy is slow and expensive. It will be another thing on my comments. I am sure they have heard it plenty of times before. We got started on reminiscing about the Prehm and Plank families and I will start writing that down later. This will be fun.

When I chose “unleashed” I thought of it as unleashed from the straight-jacket and muzzle but there is another meaning – unleashed from the past with the privilege to discover who I want to be in the next phase. My volunteer carpentry with Habitat for Humanity and Nashville Tools for School anchors and fulfills me and whatever I decide it will be in addition to and not in place of those activities.

A cold and rainy day at sea. Waters are not really rough. A perfect day to decompress from the prolonged and painful process of getting on ship. I filled out my response to the Allegiant customer survey and am curious what response I get. I will follow-up if I do not get any response. Next I will document the misinformation I received by Princess Customer Service that could have cost us the trip if we were not able to get anyone to go to Carol’s and get a copy of the Birth Certificate. Enough of the past……

I connected with a NIH colleague whom I worked with in the NIDDK who is native of Honolulu. We did not work directly together much as her area was hematology and mine was urology. She retired shortly before I did. She will meet us and show us the island from her perspective on Sunday and Monday which will be wonderful for us. It will be fun for me to get to know her better outside of our work personas.

This caused me to reflect on my departure from the NIH and the choice of the title for my blog – Tamara Unleashed. Apart from the toxicity of the last 2 years there, the role of a Scientific Program Officer was constraining to me. I felt like I was in a straight jacket with a muzzle most of the time. When I acted according to what I thought was doing my job well, I was constantly concerned that I was doing and or saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. I thought the way the NIH defined Conflict of Interest was absurd and no way reflected actual conflict of interest.

Three weeks ago I attended the annual meeting of the Society for Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital Reconstruction (SUFU) meeting in Nashville. This was the professional organization that awarded me a Distinguished Service Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Both were a surprise and a great honor. The Lifetime Achievement Award was in the midst of Covid in 2021. The meeting was vital; I had to prepare a talk for remote delivery while I was recovering from Covid. Not my finest. At any rate, I wanted to support the organization and connect with colleagues since I just sort of disappeared when I retired from the NIDDK. It was wonderful to connect with many individuals whom I think I was able to help during my tenure at the NIDDK and to mentor a few young women.

People thought I was very good at the role of the Scientific Program Officer and it was almost impossible to explain how “toxic” the role was for me. I had people suggest I become a Life Coach. I still toy with taking the role of a Health Advocate more seriously than occasional, volunteer. I am hoping the time away from it all will help be sort out if I want to have another part-time career.

When I chose “unleashed” I thought of it as unleashed from the straight-jacket and muzzle but there is another meaning – unleashed from the past with the privilege to discover who I want to be in the next phase. My volunteer carpentry with Habitat for Humanity and Nashville Tools for School anchors and fulfills me and whatever I decide it will be in addition to and not in place of those activities.

Aunt Carol on the balcony of our mini suite and me with a bottle of champagne to start the decompression process. We arrived at the terminal at 1230, our scheduled time, only to find out the scheduled times for entry were meaningless. Everyone was arriving at the same time. We were one of the last ones to board around 4 PM – you just can’t make this up. I have never worked so hard to plan anything trying to avoid any disasters and it backfired every step of the way. In the future I will revert to my more natural style which is much looser. I was able to finish my shopping in SF this morning – most importantly I have my SPF100 sunscreen.

Once we finally got through the security check to get screened to check in, we did not have the correct documentation to check in – (passport or driver’s license and birth certificate). This is in spite of working with a Princess employee on the phone. I had checked last fall whether a passport was necessary for this cruise and found that it was not necessary for a cruise that started and ended in a US port even with a stop in Ensenada. As Carol did not have a passport, we did not plan on getting off the ship in Mexico. When I spoke to the Princess agent on the phone to complete the documentation process, I was very clear that we were using drivers licenses and he entered the information. We were declared travel ready. No mention was made of needing to have birth certificates. He apparently entered the info as passport information which is how we came up as travel ready.

You can imagine my level of frustration when I was being told 3 hours before we sail that we had to have a passport or birth certificate and was shown multiple times where it said so on their website (SO NOT HELPFUL). Fortunately it turned out that we just needed pictures of the documents, so brother Tim drove an hour to get Carol’s to take a photo of Carol’s birth certificate and James went to my place to get a photo of my passport.

While James was at place he took pictures of the progress on my bathroom renovations –

What was a bathroom closet now opens into my hallway so I will have hall closet. I have ample space for storage in the actual bathrooms. I am SO EXCITED to have a hall closet.

Interestingly while I was trying not to “lose my shit” while we were trying to get checked in I had a heavy sensation in my chest. I recognized it as the feeling I had daily during most of my last 2 years of work at the NIDDK. During that time, I was not really aware of having that sensation because it was always there. Sometime between then and now, it stopped. I will be celebrating my 2 year anniversary of leaving that “toxic for me” job on this cruise.

Good night!! Carol is happy and I will be……

Remember what I said about bad things happening in 3’s – well we are in the multiples of 3 by this time. At James suggestion, I called Fed Ex and found out that there was no way for my bag to get from Nashville to SF in time for the cruise. James went to Nashville airport and picked up my suitcase with all of my stuff and it will remain in Nashville for the cruise. Allegiant is officially on my shit list. They had Friday evening and Saturday to get the suitcase to the FedEx and simply didn’t do it.

The flight to Phoenix was delayed so our connection to SFO would be missed and we were rebooked to go back through Dallas. We arrived at the hotel at 2 AM only to find out that their system shuts down for 30 minutes every night to go from one day to the next and we can’t be checked in for 30 minutes.

After I found out that I would not have any clothes for the trip, I went “shopping” in my sister-in-law’s closet and found much of what I would need. Longtime friend Deb came by with suitcase and a few more items and we went off to Target to fill in the gaps. I will hopefully be able to find a couple of more things here in the morning.

The day was not without a silver lining – I got bumped to first class on both legs so Carol got first class from DSM to DFW and I did from DFW to SFO. The walk from the gate to baggage claim was very long but we made it. All thoughts of getting to ride share with our luggage dissipated and we jumped into a private cab right outside of the door. I think we were overcharged but it was worth it.

We are being checked in now. Some sleep is sounding really good.

I forgot to set alarm for 415 AM but fortunately woke up at 427 so we were out of the house at 5 AM and to airport before 530 AM. One bag checked, and went to the Allegiant desk to see if they would call Nashville and check about my bag. They did and bag was still with Allegiant and the woman said they would call someone to get it taken to FedEx.

We get into security check line only to discover Aunt Carol did not have her wallet with ID. She apparently keeps it under the seat of her car and not in her purse. Her car was parked at my sister-in-law, Karen’s about 25 min from airport. If Karen had gone straight home we might have been able to salvage the flight. However, after she dropped us at airport Karen started a drive to visit her husband 2 hours away from Des Moines. So she was 20 min the other direction from her house when I called. She had the keys to Carol’s car with her. She turned around and went home to get wallet and made it back to airport before 7 AM our original departure time – so close.

When I first went to desk to explain we needed to be rebooked, there were seats on the 11 AM flight to Dallas but agent couldn’t book it until we got Carol’s ID. By the time we had the ID, those seats were gone, but we got seats at 6 PM to Phoenix and then to SF. In the meantime Karen started on her way again. Upon hearing that our flight was at 6 PM, she turned around to pick us up and we are back at her home until 4 PM.

We had a good breakfast so I am feeling better and ready for a nap. As bad things happen in 3’s I am counting the alarm not set this morning as number 2 so we have had 3. I did call an confirm the hotel this morning. The checked bag will arrive on the original flight so we can pick that up as soon as we land and won’t have to wait for it – a silver lining.

All prayers and positive energy to the Allegiant and Fed Ex gods is greatly appreciated.

Upon awakening after a fitful night of sleep, I checked my AirTag and my last luggage location was 2 hours earlier at Nashville airport. I called James to see if that could me it was in the FedEx plane. He thought it might and I felt a bit optimistic. 2 hours later the bag was still in Nashville. To help manage his mother’s anxiety, James went out to airport and was able to get a screen shot of the FedEx screen with the tracking ID.

At the bottom I read package received by FedEx and I relaxed a bit.

We made it to Des Moines and I got a few things at drug store to get me to Monday. We had another wonderful family birthday/bon voyage dinner.

After getting back home I had a chance to check the tracking ID and I realize it does NOT say received by FedEx. The status is still “label made”. I will take a bit of Ambient tonight to help me get to sleep quickly because 415 AM is going to come very quickly.

Aunt Carol is 13 years older than I am and has been like a big sister to me. Last summer when I was visiting Iowa, I asked her what was on her bucket list and she said she wanted to cruise from the West Coast to Hawaii, stop on all of the Hawaiian Islands and cruise back. I had no idea if that was possible but it almost is. The 15 day cruise stops on 3 of the 5 islands. We are leaving from San Francisco on Monday. We will be on open water when Aunt Carol turns 80 next Thursday. I flew to Cedar Rapids from Nashville on Allegiant the only direct flight from Nashville. Tomorrow we drive to Des Moines which had better fights to SF and leave at 7 AM on Sunday morning. We spend Sunday night at Fisherman’s Wharf near where we board the Princess ship. I thought I had it planned out to allow for challenges with air travel.

I planned a family birthday/bon voyage dinner in Cedar Rapids for siblings and their kids in CR tonight and we will have another birthday/bon voyage dinner with those in Des Moines tomorrow night.

This morning, in addition to finishing packing for the nearly 3-week trip, I was preparing my condo to have the bathrooms renovated while I am gone. I was feeling pretty good when I got to the gate at the airport. All going according to plan. The flight was uneventful. The Allegiant plane seemed a little “stripped” down on the interior but was great – until my checked bag with all of my toiletries and 2 weeks of cruise clothes did not arrive in CR. I had an AirTag in the suitcase and knew it was still in Nashville.

Now the challenges with flying on a lower cost ticket become glaringly obvious. They employ fewer people at the airports. There is no baggage person. I was instructed to go to the ticketing counter which did not have anyone at it because the employees were getting a plane loaded. After about an hour, a person came and called Nashville and they were unaware all bags had not made the flight. I was told someone would call me later. There was no number I could call to follow-up. I was getting ready to panic around 930 PM. My plan was to have my son go to Nashville airport tomorrow and talk to Allegiant there to make sure they had the bag.

The call came from Nashville just after 930 PM. The next flight to Cedar Rapids is not until Monday. While Allegiant has a flight to Des Moines on Saturday – arriving at 730 PM, sometimes their weekend flights are cancelled. I could have had the bag Fed Exed to Des Moines for expedited, overnight but it wouldn’t go out until Saturday morning and Fed Ex doesn’t deliver on Sunday so it would arrive Monday. Next option is for it to be Fed Exed to the Hotel in SF to arrive at 1030 AM on Monday a couple of hours before we are to get on the ship. Fingers crossed it gets there as I won’t have a lot of time to shop.

On the positive side we had a great Italian food at Zio Johno’s with table decorations, singing and a cake – the first of 3 celebrations.

Tomorrow is another day of time with friends and family – and sending positive energy towards Fed Ex for the timely delivery of my luggage to Hotel Riu Plaza Monday morning.

As much as I hate the Tennessee summer, I have to say that the weather in the fall is amazing. Unfortunately I was recovering from the trip for several PERFECT cycling days. I did Habitat builds on Friday and today. No need to sweat or excessively hydrate like in August before I went to Poland. I did learn that the sun still burns my skin in October. If I hadn’t committed to working at Habitat Friday and Sunday, I could have easily vegetated for a few more days – even though I wouldn’t have needed to.

I find myself looking at the headlines regarding Ukraine a bit differently now. One of he Ukrainian women we were with last Friday in Krakow was home in Ukraine on Tuesday. I hope she is able to stay there.

Carli and I are reacquainted and after her 3 weeks learning to be a dog with Brady, she will actually play with me for short periods of time now. She likes her little green dragon from Krakow – it is small and not too fuzzy. The bigger dragon I brought back for Brady was destroyed within a short period of time. It was not a dog toy. Carli had one of the wings in her mouth and a short, gentle game of tug of war opened the seam. Brady’s favorite thing is to take the stuffing out of toys so she was very happy. Now they have a dragon carcuss to play tug of war with.

It is hard to know what the follow-up to the experience in Krakow should/will be. I will be preparing a handout that can be used in presentations as well as a short slide deck and some collages of images that could be used in various venues. We are all trying to make outreach to Rotary groups to see if we can make some connections with the Krakow Rotary group.

Visiting a new city with the shared purpose of using the funds we had raised for Ukrainian refugees as wisely as possible was an amazing experience. I would like to say life-altering but I am not sure that is true. I hope that the recent victory in Lyman is the first of many and that need will turn to helping rebuild Ukraine – perhaps next trip will be to Ukraine to help rebuild with my Habitat acquired skills.

I got back to Kay’s in Spartanburg about 730 PM Sunday evening – about 21 hours after I had gotten up to go to the Krakow airport. I napped on the plane a bit but tried to stay awake. I forgot to use my No Jet Lag pills at the beginning but started in the middle of the trip. I do think they make a difference. I woke up at 5 AM yesterday but stayed in bed until about 830 hoping to get more sleep. I felt fine yesterday. I did not need to nap and even got an evening bike ride in.

Soon I will be packing my car and heading for Nashville – about a 5.5 hour drive. I will stop for coffee about 45 miles north of here with dear friends. Tomorrow I will meet with a bathroom designer to see if I can convert my Jack and Jill bathroom into 2 full baths. It is one thing that would increase the value of my condo for rent or sale. In the meantime, updated bathrooms will bring me great joy.

I am not looking forward to the unpacking but I need to get it done quickly as I have Habitat this weekend and I need to get ready to go to Iowa next week. Carli has been doing great at my son’s and I am anticipating she will miss Brady. They routinely wrestle several times a day now.

I really want to spend some time pulling together all of the information about various small organizations that are working to support Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees. They are all working pretty much in isolation – with no or vague awareness each other. I am not sure here is a way to avoid that in a crisis circumstance. All energy goes to meeting immediate needs with no bandwidth think more strategically. Perhaps with all that we learned in Krakow, we can serve at a minimum catalogue all of individual efforts and share that list back with them as a first step.

Time will tell. First step is get back to Nashville and see how things evolve.

When I decided to be a part of this small effort to help Ukrainian Refugees in Poland (and support the Polish people providing the support), I really had no idea what this experience would be. I had never tried to raise money before. While Teresa had told us US dollars go a long way in Poland, I had really no idea how that would play out. I reached out widely to my friends and family. The response was so tremendous that I did not have to send out reminder emails to those that did not respond first time around.

In our conversation with Tamar Jacoby, the author of the book Displaced, she asked us what we were going to do to continue our efforts given our fundraising ability and all that we have learned about the needs here. Prior to coming Mary, Kay and I were thinking of this as once in a lifetime experience but that may be evolving.

The Polish people and Ukrainians we have met are very concerned about the winter and an anticipated influx of more refugees as a lot of the infrastructure that will provide heat is not there in Eastern Ukraine. Of course no one knows how long the war will last and there is a real sense that Poland and Ukraine are in this together.

Through our contacts with the Krakow Rotary, there will be ways to provide support by transfer of funds from the US. To help the Krakow run Central Pomocy Ukraine (Ukrainian Refugee Centers) support is best provided on the ground though purchasing of gift cards and supplies. We have learned of smaller organizations that are providing targeted help to the in-country Ukranian refugees and those that are fighting Putin’s army. I don’t like to refer to them as Russians as I don’t think (nor do the Polish and Ukrainian people) think the rank and file Russian people support this war.

I will start putting together a slide show that we can use with Rotary Clubs in the US as a starting point.

It is very helpful for both the Polish and Ukrainian people to visible see the support of the Americans. None of us anticipated how comfortable we would feel in Krakow and while it is very helpful to be able to speak Polish, you can easily be here without speaking or understanding the language.

Time will tell…..