Nursing home. Mexico.

I was in a nursing home trying to get to Room 123 to see someone, but it was laid out with odd angled hallways and intersections and no logical numbering pattern, so I was having trouble finding it.  Attached to the nursing home was a gymnasium and recreational center and as I went down one hallway it got crowded w/ sweaty people from the gym to the point I couldn’t even push through.  I went into the gym to look for another door, but at the far end there was an 8’ wall with a level w/ doors above it and no way to get to them.  There were some pipes and conduit attached to the wall and a bunch of Indian kids were climbing up and down them to get from the upper to lower levels, so I thought I’d do it too.  I grabbed onto a piece of conduit but it wasn’t attached well enough to hold me.  I pulled a bench over and grabbed onto the bottom of the upper level railing and pulled myself up.

When I went out of the gym I entered a gathering space that had lots of people in it, but wasn’t as crowded as the other side.  There was an old woman lying on her back on a large ottoman.  She arched her back and tried to stand up, but didn’t quite have enough strength to make it and flopped back down on the ottoman.  She did this multiple times and each flop moved her body a little more off the ottoman until only her head and neck were on it.  I thought that if she did it again she would miss altogether and flop down on the tile floor and hurt herself, so I went over and put my hand in the middle of her back and lifted her up.  She grimaced and groaned in pain and as I moved my hand away I saw that she had bandages on her back where I had lifted her.  I hadn’t seen any evidence of pain when she was trying on her own, which seemed like it should have been far worse.

Later I was walking down a dusty road in Mexico with a friend.  He had a giant pair of pliers, about as tall as him.  We had been using them for some purpose that I can’t remember, but he thought it was illicit, because we were leaving and he made a comment, “We’ve gotten a lot of good out of these.  We should give them back to the power company.”  Then he heaved them up in the air where they hit the power line and their jaws clamped shut and they hung there.  He was also carrying a couple clevises – one about 3” diameter and one twice that size.  He decided we didn’t need them either so he tossed them over by the side of the road at an intersection where there was a beat up old Camaro sitting at a stop sign waiting to turn the corner.  They bounced off the wheel of the Camaro and immediately people got out of it and looked to see what had hit them.

I was concerned that he’d gotten us into trouble when two rough looking guys came walking over toward us from the car, but then I saw they had little kids with them.  A little boy about 3 or 4 was carrying one of the clevises and one of the men was carrying the bigger one.  They didn’t speak any English, and of course our Spanish wasn’t much good, but we soon realized they were taking them as a gift and were letting us know they appreciated us giving them to them.

Later I was driving in a city and Emma pulled up alongside me in a beat up old Indy style race car.  We turned a left corner with her slightly in front and she cut me off so I hit the curb and jumped my right front wheel up on the sidewalk in front of a glass storefront.  I pulled back onto the street and we headed up a hill.  I was impressed that she was able to drive it smoothly at low speeds up this steep hill, but apparently the gears and clutch were taking all her attention because she kept swerving and causing me to drive over into the bike lane and shoulder.