Thirteenth day : outing

9-27-2011 Tuesday

Today was sunny from early on and it was supposed to be a hot day.
I woke up late around 7:30 due to a long period of time of awakening  
in the middle of night. But I felt fine. I did all the morning chores  
by myself: brush teeth, washing face, put cloth on.
Having grapefruit,  swteet bun and soy milk for breakfast. then I read  
news from my iPod while Lei went out to a sports store to get  
something and it turned out he got the foams for my kayak which I told  
him multiple times that I did not need them. Well who was the most stubborn of all?

Lei asked me I could go downstairs or I needed him to carry me down.  
I  wheeled my self close the the stairs. After I locked the breaks on  
the chair, holding the benersters I stood up, then I put my weight on  
the benersters by both arms resting on the benersters. Carefully I  
lift my left foot and lowerd one stair down, then sliding down my both  
arms, I took second stair down, those I finally got downstairs!  
Resting on the wheelchair that Lei placed there for me I felt a  
certain satisfaction: one more step fowards to freedom. My world  
extended from upstair rooms to livingroom downstairs now.

Lei decided to go to Long Beach and tried out my little kayak. By  
using the foams he just purchased this morning he tired the kayak on  
top of my car. I was wheeled to the front yard after Lei pulled the  
car out of garage and I was able to sit in the front passenger seat in  
the car. Around 10:30  we headed to Mothers  Beach in Long Beach.

It took us a bit more time to get there by a detour route due to construction work on the freeway. The parking lot was very sparsely used so we pulled the car very close to the beach. Lei wheeled me into the grassy area under big trees where a group of kids were having outing. Then Lei unloaded the boat and carried it to the beach and parked the car on the parking lot.

Mother's Beach was a small beach, a part of Marine Park which were  
composed by several sections along the shore line, bay and water channels.  
there were Many luscious yachts on the marina.
Soon Lei boarded, headed to left, and soon disappeared under a bridge on which  thesecond street was running across the narrow water way.

I sat there with my ipad on by which I read and did some work. The  
cool breeze made me feel a bit chilly. I tried to move to a sunny spot  
but the wheelchair on uneven grassy ground was not easy to negociate  
with, so I put all the stuff: water bottle, grapefruit, ipad and  
everthing into a bag, then used the bag as a weight to do arm excercises.

Only a bit over thirty minutes Lei emerged from the bridge. I waved to  
him and asked him to go left a bit in order to let me take some  
pictures. It was a short run. But Lei said it was enough. He was satisfied with boat but complained the weight of the boat (38 lb vs 20lb of his boat with similar size). 

Sitting in the wheelchair next to the sandy beach while Lei sitting   
on a small beach chair we were very relaxed. While we sat to watch the  
world goby, we had some sweet buns and grapefruit for snack.

After rested enough, we drove by to pick up our lunch from an in& out  
burger place right at the corner where we drove out from the parking lot. It  
was a really nice outing and I did not know when and where my next  
nice outing will be.

I layed on a couch in our living room downstairs of our house for a long time, and it was the first time after the fall I was there to rest. Looking around  
everything looked beautiful and peaceful that I felt fortunate to enjoy the moment.

I managed going to upstairs by half crowing and half pulling myself up by  
holding the benersters without any problems. I made a good headway  
today: went down and up of stairs, also sat in car and in a park next to a beach.

After rested in bed for a while Lei pushed me out to the balcony to  
get sun and he told me half hour in sun everyday was required for  
strength my bone. I allways value Lei's opinion very much.

Tonight dinner was very good. Lei steamed some xiao-long-bao, boiled  
some dumplings and fixed jelly fish cucumber salad. The best part was  
Lei and David all came up to have dinner with me that made it even  
more special to me.

Lei cleaned up everything after dinner then layed next to me to do his  
work on his computer while I was in bed to relax. I felt so fortunate  
and proud to have Lei, yet a bit sad that he was leaving very early  
tomorrow before 4am.