Trying to communicate in my native tongue and failing

Question for WA state residents: Is crossing a double yellow line with your car allowed? Out here in Shelton all the side roads and personal driveways force you to cross the double yellow to enter, including my dad's street. 

Today is Easter Sunday and I went shopping at Walmart *cuz I can* (in Germany stores are all closed on Sundays and they're very, very closed on religious days). So, Good Friday no shopping, Sunday no shopping, and Easter Monday no shopping. 

I also stopped, on Easter Sunday evening! at the auto part store to return a magnetic key holder I'd bought for J for a geocache but he said it was the wrong type. I had a German moment, I got very nervous at returning something for "no good reason" but the guy was really nice. I even apologized, which is not necessary here.

Walmart was again, fascinating and a little scary. Two friends ran into each other, neither of them masked, and one of them said, "I'm so wasted!"

An entire family of Spanish speaking people walked by me and the father was singing in Spanish. Incredible.

A store employee was wearing fluffy rabbit ears and a fluffy rabbit tail. 

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My dad was required to stay another night at the hospital and to be honest we're happy that they're being so conservative with him. I feel a little guilty but we're totally enjoying having his house to ourselves. It's been so draining, communicating with him. But we're certain he's in good hands, and we are in touch.

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Obtuse people. My communication skills are lacking because I've been away so long it sometimes takes me a while to pick up on modern English. Also, so many foreigners working with the public, with their masks on, mumbling at me, it's embarrassing when I cannot respond. But a few times this week I was sure that it wasn't me, it was them. My mom confirmed it for me.

Checking my dad into the hospital yesterday in the ER, I expected him to get the questions we medics give when bringing a patient in. They want your health insurance card, and they ask you a series of questions about your pain. Since it was abdominal, I was ready for that line of questioning.

However this is not Germany, and this receptionist was not trusted with the most basic of questions. In fact she was mostly responsible for just getting patients' identities.

"I don't need your medicare card" she said when my dad tried to give it to her. 

She looked at me, "Is the address still (street name)?" "Yes." 

"5113?" "No, 510." She stared at me blankly. I said, "Sorry, are you asking me about the house number, or a telephone number?"

She said, "Telephone number."

I said, "Why does the telephone number have only 4 digits?"

She started to get very annoyed with me and read the entire 10 digit number. She thought she would surely die from this effort.

Then she said, "Can he go to the bathroom?" And I thought, finally, she's asking the right quesitons. I answered, "He has not had a bowel movement since the pain began." 

She looked at me like that was TMI.

She asked again, "Can he go to the bathroom?"

My dad looked at me, looked at her. We didn't get what we were supposed to say.

Finally she clued us in as to what she was getting at, "We need a urine sample. Will he be able to provide one?"

"Um, yes." My gosh lady there are easier ways to get info from people. Is it a game for her, to see if people can read her mind? 

I had a flashback to that Star Trek episode where the Enterprise needed something from someone and he refused to give it up, and Deanna Troi said, "Well, Captain, he is the King of his particular Hill." And then the diplomacy began, but oh, you have to see it yourselves.

This receptionist was the King of her Particular Hill of patient names and addresses and we submitted to her like the starship Enterprise did when Picard needed something from the reluctant dealer.

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Later I visited my dad and at the nurses' station 3 of 5 nurses were not wearing masks. I stood far away and finally someone approached me and I said, "Oh good, someone with a mask." It really bothers me when health care people and Red Cross people are mask slackers cuz shouldn't they be the careful ones? Don't they know how viruses spread?

This morning I called the station again to get info on my dad. It was like the receptionist but I know it was a nurse. She said, "We removed the NG tube and we're gonna start him on Kleers."

I know what an NG tube is but I didn't know what medication Kleers is, so I asked. She hesitated like how can I not know that...and said, "Clear fluids." 

My mom assured me that she was talking to me as if I was a fellow nurse, that "clears" is not a normal English term.

I know you're probably thinking I've been away so long I'm broken, but my mom assured me it's not me, and I've typed the conversations here word for word: ) 

I talked to my dad today on the phone (and his brother in Sumner!) and he's in no pain, thankfully. He has a flaming gay CNA who is a total sweetheart and thanked me for reminding him to get my dad some slippers. Most Americans are just so nice, it's odd to run into the sullen ones.

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We went Geocaching at this amazingly beautiful park, Oakland Bay County Park, a 5 minute drive from my dad's house. It's hidden so all these years I never knew about it. I think it's weird to call it Oakland Bay because that's the bridge that collapsed in SFO.

Oh, it was one of those Geocaching experiences where we're doing a multi, we *don't* find 4 of 5 stations. It should have been impossible to find with no coordinates, but J's intuition is so good by now we found it anyway. I said a prayer of thanks to God because it was a long fruitless search for a few hours and finding the final without coordinates should have been impossible.

It was a good day.

This tree gets me.

I got this hat at Walmart for 14$. J said I look like a fisherman. I think I look like an adventurer.

Signing our names Lytha und JWaW.

Bev Doolittle trees. Was she local here?

Salmon berries, something I never cared about in the past, but are such a sweet harbinger of Spring, I had to get a photo. Someday J will taste his first Salmon Berry. July?

You could walk out and get your own shellfish, if you had a license. And rubber boots. J calls Oakland Bay "the mud pit" cuz twice a day the tide goes out and exposes lots of mud.

For Aarene. Yes, they do stink.