Pittsburgh, Here We Come!

It's that time again for me to have to take a nice little drive down to Pittsburgh this Friday coming up -October 17th, that would be, ya know.

The reason? Gotta go have yet another check-up there at UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) with Dr. Steven Hughes in the Digestive Disorders Center of the hospital. I really like this surgeon -so do both my daughters as well -for his sensitive and very caring methods and bedside manner, plus the fact that he is very nice "eye candy" too! No, I haven't based my liking for him strictly because he is good looking as he is a fine surgeon but let's be honest here too -his looks don't hurt, not a bit! Plus, he has a great sense of humor too -willing to explain and answer any and all questions I may have or that my girls have about various things with my health issues.

So, Friday morning Mandy and I will be leaving here around 9 a.m. and heading towards the southwest region of the state to spend the day first at the Doctor's office and then, after that, we have a little bit of socializing planned too!

My appointment is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. and allowing for delays in the office till I actually get in to see Dr. Hughes, we are hoping to be done by about 2 or 2:30 p.m. and then, we will head south on Route 79 to Washington, PA to an outlet mall there.

However, our reason for going to that outlet mall in particular is because we plan to meet up with two people there. One will be a friend of Mandy's who she met through a website (CafeMom's) and who, like Mandy, has an autistic child and we also are going to meet up with a cousin of mine -my cousin Becky -who lives in Scenery Hill. Mandy has never met her friend, Rychelle, before so it will be a nice opportunity for them to meet up, in person, and be able to really put a face to the words they have exchanged for several months now online.

Mandy and I haven't seen cousin Becky for two years now though -since her Mom, my Aunt Mary, died. Becky is the youngest of my first cousins on my Mom's side and is such a sweetheart! She and her husband adopted four children -all from Korea -the youngest is now I think a sophomore at West Virginia University and one of her two daughters just got married this past July too. So lots for us to talk about too since we last saw each other at her Mom's funeral.

Last week, in anticipation of this trip, Mandy had Bill give my jeep a good once-over to make darned sure it is road-worthy for this expedition. You'll recall the last trip I made to Pittsburgh back in July ended with my being "stranded" overnight in Saltsburg at the home of Mandy's best friend because the transmission in the van I had then decided to go south and I wanted to continue going in a north easterly direction.

Bill ended up having to replace a wheel bearing, a couple other minor things and when he thought he was finished and ready to come home from work, a brake pad broke or something like that so he then had to replace that too before he could bring the Jeep back home to me.

While he was working on the jeep, he put a radio/cd/cassette player in for me because since I got this jeep, Maya has been complaining she doesn't like Grammy's jeep. Her reason -there's no radio in it!

The previous owner of this fine unit of mine had a Sirius radio receiver in it which, for some reason or other, was left behind. However, since I don't have an account with Sirius, we have no way of knowing if this works ok or not but my son had offered to get me an account -or subscription -whatever you care to call it -to Sirius because he has one in his big truck (18-wheeler) and raves about it -says the reception is absolutely fantastic as are the stations one can select from to listen to whatever type of music possible -or talk radio programs too -that hits ones fancy.

I'm thinking maybe something else might be a better investment for us to have in the jeep though. Another form of electronics that might help us better when we are traveling around a little -like maybe a GPS system! Although my sense of direction usually is pretty decent, the last time we went to see the doctor in Pittsburgh, some how or other, on leaving UPMC, I made a wrong turn and we ended up taking a grand tour of the south side of Pittsburgh until we finally saw a route sign pointing us to Route 79 and got re-oriented and heading back home okay again!

This time though we're going to have to rely on good old Mapquest before we head south on Friday to have reliable directions on how to take the best and fastest streets out of Pittsburgh to get on Route 79 South!

Cross your fingers and hope for the best for our drive down and back again. I'm not sure if we are taking Kurtis and Maya with us or not yet though. Mandy isn't too keen on "dragging" them along simply because with Kurtis, one never knows at all how he is going to react to any new situation. Well, in truth, we can't always depend completely on Maya in that department either but she is a bit more reliable now than Kurtis is about these things. However, Becky's only seen Kurtis once and that was in late September two years ago when we made our first trip to meet with Dr. Hughes and he was not quite six months old. It was the only time my Aunt Mary got to see this great-nephew of hers so it meant a lot to us -and to her too -that we were able to make that happen. And also, Becky has NEVER met Maya and I really would love for her to have the chance to meet her and see what a fantastic little girl my Princess Maya really is!

And finally for tonight, here's the latest little thing from Miss Maya.

She's notorious for dragging every toy, book, puzzle, you name it, out of the toy bin and having the living room floor completely littered with her junk and then, if you ask her to pick up her toys, she has a tendency to not be very agreeable on that matter. But tonight, Kurtis was getting into the toy bin, in that typical two-year-old's fashion -digging, grabbing and throwing item after item out with a toss over the shoulder and paying no attention to how much stuff he had thrown all over the floor. Maya, upon seeing him do this, immediately got up and went over beside him and began to pick up everything he had pulled out and thrown on the floor, telling him in her most authoritive tone of voice, "NO, NO, Kurtis. You're not supposed to make a mess!"

Now how's that for a bit of irony? Needless to say, Mandy and I had all we could do to contain ourselves from busting out laughing out loud at her actions. Just wish she would see that logic when she's the one making the mess though.

Ah yes, wishful thinking there, isn't that?