So where was I?

Was I really in Ukraine and Istanbul, or was it all a dream? That's the problem with vacations like this.  One day you wake up in Istanbul and the next morning the dogs want their breakfast and everybody is already bored hearing about your adventures half a world away.

I had slept a more or less full night of sleep by midnight, so was pretty much up for the day at that time and I started writing the final entries for our trip, choosing the photos, and sizing them for the entries.

I don't know how many hours it took, but many, many hours.  I was amazed by how much we had crammed into two and a half days in Istanbul and was exhausted just reliving it again.  I was also so frustrated not having internet access.  There is an "emergency" number to call our provider on Sundays, but it's the guy's personal cell phone -- I know; I've called him there before! -- and while this may have been a dire emergency for me being without any internet access, which meant I couldn't check facebook, e-mail or anything else, I could at least get a little bit written on my cell phone using the 3G connection.  Walt was just as frantic as I was, coming downstairs when he heard me moving around at midnight, to find out if I'd managed to get the modem up and running yet.

All of a sudden it seemed as if there were a million little things I needed to get done now that I was home -- and how could I check my Istanbul facts without Google?

At 11:45, I went off to see my mother and have brunch with her.   It was nice to see her, she remembered I had been gone, this time did remember that I wrote to her (which she didn't remember yesterday) and she wanted to hear all about my trip, but I could tell in 5 minutes that she was following none of it.  But I had brought some postcards to show her and tried to pick out the funny incidents that I knew would make her laugh.

Then the blank look would come and she would say "Well, there is nothing exciting to tell you about here.  Nothing is going on." and we were back where we were before I left, but then I hadn't expected anything different.  

(I am remembering all the times she told me about visiting her own mother, who was unable to communicate whenever she visited her in the mental hospital, and I remember her sadness at trying so hard to visit with her, how depressed the visits made her.  My mother hasn't reached that stage yet, thank God, but I still wish I could pull out of her the fun-loving mother that I remember.)

The big news, of course, is that it looks like her house in Terra Linda has sold.  They managed to sell it for about $10,000 more than they expected, which is great. Ed had written me that they expected to close escrow this weekend, so I am waiting for the final results of that.

We went to brunch and it was during brunch that I realized that I was supposed to review a show at 2 p.m.  I had somehow forgotten that.  I knew that I had agreed to review the show, but somehow had it in my head that it was an evening show, forgetting that this was Sunday.

By the time I left my mother's I really, really didn't think it was as good idea for me to try to be coherent and review a show--and besides, I had no internet access anyway, so even if I got the review written, I couldn't submit it for at least a day.

I called and made arrangements to review it next weekend instead, which was a very good decision because by 3 p.m. I was a walking zombie and couldn't keep my eyes opened and took a long nap.

(When I woke up, Walt was just coming home--he had gone to the library to check his e-mail using their wifi!)

I didn't go to the supermarket to get food because my debit card is in the safe deposit box and Walt (whose debit card is also there), couldn't get to it until Monday.  My stomach was not quite right anyway and I didn't think I wanted dinner...and knew that we had enough left over from the Chinese food last night that Walt could eat that.

I then proceeded to go back to sleep again and didn't wake up until nearly midnight.