I'm Not Afraid -- What Am I Doing Up Here!?

Disneyland. It bills itself as "the happiest place on earth". If I'm going to go to a convention located just down the street from this place, I have to go there, right? If you aren't familiar with Disneyland, it's really two parks; the land itself, and California Adventure, across the plaza. The premise of California Adventure is a recreation of California, Disney-fied, of course, as it was when Walt showed up in the 1920's.

There are, of course, additions to the land which wouldn't, really, be what Walt saw, like Cars Land, from the Pixar movies. But the Main Street buildings bear a resemblance to what one would have seen in Anaheim in the 1920's.

One of the land's big attractions is the pier area, a Boardwalk-ish section with arcade games, similar to a 1920's-era amusement park. It is dominated by a roller coaster and a ferris wheel. You can see both as we walk towards them from the Main Street area towards the pier.

Now, if you know me at all, you know roller coasters are not my thing. There is an exception for Big Thunder Mountain Railway and I really wanted to try the Matterhorn. Supposedly, Space Mountain was based off that and I don't mind Space Mountain; I think, mainly because it's done in the dark. The physics behind roller coasters are clear. They take you up high and drop you in creative ways. Being afraid of heights, the "high" part of that is troubling and, well, the "dropping creatively" can get rather hairy.

As we got closer to the pier area, I got a full view of the coaster.

Wow and um, no, thanks. I'll just sit right over here. Fortunately, Liz was all about shepherding me about the parks to have the best time possible so she really didn't care if I didn't want to go on the coaster. She was staying an extra day beyond me and she has a yearly pass so she can ride this whenever she wants.

I debated. Many years ago, Carole and I went to Navy Pier and rode the ferris wheel there. It's a reasonably enclosed structure of strong metal. I can do this. I got three quarters of the way up and was terrified, so scared I had to close my eyes. It didn't bother Carole at all. I couldn't open my eyes again until we were half-way down. I couldn't get off the thing fast enough.

In my head, the Navy Pier ferris wheel looked much bigger than this one. The views from up there must be fantastic. I love to fly and enjoy looking out the windows at the 25-30,000 feet between me and the ground. It's been years since I was on one of these. Disney wouldn't put any guest in a suspect ride. I was totally safe. How bad could this be?

There are two lines here. If you go to the left, you ride in the usual gondola. If you go to the right, you can ride in a swinging gondola. We watched those. They travel along a track and swing out from the wheel, swaying back and forth. Oh lawd 'o mercy! Not for a million dollars.

We will take the standard gondola, please and thank you. These don't rock.

The car glides to a stop and we get in. The wheel starts and up we go. Suddenly, about a quarter of the way up, my brain, which has largely been in "ohboy ohboy ohboy!" mode, kicks in and says, "What do you think you are doing in this contraption? YOU HATE HEIGHTS!" There is a realization that I am on this ride and getting out is not an option, at least not without extreme humiliation and having to ride all the way around anyway before they can stop the thing and let me off. That familiar twinge of fear I know so well starts to develop in my stomach. Doggoneit. There is no reason to be afraid and yet, terror is growing.

About that time, we clear the height of the trees and I can look out.

To the left is the Grand Californian Hotel. Paradise Pier Hotel is in the center with the Disneyland Hotel to the right. Far off in the distance are mountains. I ask Liz to tell me about this park and the hotels. An admitted "Disney freak", she told me all sorts of tidbits about the hotels and the park. Her excitement was infectious and I felt the terror ease.

It never really left, but I was determined to keep it at bay. A camera with which to document my travels is my best friend at a time like this. I can point it at the view and look at the viewfinder.

Looking down is not so scary when you're looking at the aftermath of pushing the shutter. See, there is just no way I'd be able to ride that coaster unless I was duct taped into the seat and had duct tape over my eyes.

We climbed over the top and headed back down.

This really doesn't give you a feel for the swinging of some of the cars. I think it's the green-bottomed one that is moving around on the extra set of tracks, but I'm not sure. We came down and had one more pass around the wheel. I could feel the fear arguing with my sanity over who was going to win. Sanity won out, I'm happy to report. Fear went to the bottom of my stomach and pouted.

While the cage in this photo is clear, I was aiming for a view of the mountains in the east. Forgot about that focus business.

I had Liz take my photo as documentation of my journey around the ferris wheel.

I know I don't look the happiest for being in "the happiest place on earth". But, I wasn't clutching the seat or the car sides in abject terror and my eyes are open. This is a win.

Three days after getting home, I had to climb a ladder to a vacant floor to take photos during an inspection. I'd done this building in 2014 and had climbed the ladder only to freeze on climbing down. The maintenance man who accompanied me had been ever so calm and spent 10 minutes talking me down out of the deserted 4th floor. All the while I'm doing the post inspection on the occupied floors, I'm hoping, against hope, I don't have to go up. Yeah, well, about that...

Going up has never been a problem, other than the small rungs and climbing being a bit of a problem for my legs and my RA. But up I went and did my documentation. Finished, I went to the ladder. The maintenance man went first to hold the ladder and I climbed right down. Didn't give it another thought. It was only as I was in the stairwell walking down the stairs to go outside, that I realized what had just happened.

There is probably not a chance that I will "outgrow" my fear of heights to the point that roller coasters don't scare the bejeezus out of me. But something has changed. Something, confidence in me, perhaps, has grown so the fear I have long lived with doesn't have to be accommodated to the exclusion of fun.

I was nervous, to be sure, and I recognized that if I didn't come to grips with my fear: win over it, if you will; that this trip would be remembered for my breaking down and screaming to get off the ferris wheel. I couldn't have that. Would I ride this again? In a heartbeat. The view is wonderful. I'd actually like to ride it at night. I'll bet it's doubly gorgeous then.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Still Hanging On

That's kind of how I'm feeling right now. I'm still hanging on. I'll blog on that this weekend. Right now, let's have a real post.

As I was going through the photos of the Civil War trip, I ran across a couple that struck me.

I believe this was at the top of the observation tower at the southeast side of Gettysburg. From here, you can look north, east and west over most of the battlefield. It's a rather tall tower and it's very open. As you know, I'm afraid of heights so I stood at the bottom of this looking up and contemplating whether my Civil War experience would be diminished if I didn't climb the tower. The steps were rather wide and there were many more people here than we would experience at any other battlefield on the trip. I decided that I would always kick myself for not climbing so up I went. I had to stop at least twice, that I remember, force the fear down, and continue on. "Look where you're going, not to the side, up or down," I remember telling myself that. This was my Uncle Moe's advice when paralyzing fear gripped me as we walked to the open 2nd floor of the Iowa capitol building in Des Moines. It doesn't always help but it can get me through some of the height issues. I had her photograph me at the top to prove, mostly to myself, that I did get to the top.

This next one was taken inside our hotel room at Gettysburg. My daughter has often made fun of my penchant for documenting the hotel where we stayed. I'm not exactly sure why I do it other than I take photos for documentary purposes. She's the artistic one. Sometimes, mine come out artistic but most of the time, it's a record of what I saw and where I was.

 

A couple of things struck me in looking at these photos. First of all, I still have that Charleston tee shirt and it still fits. I'm not the same size as I was in that photo. I'd like to say smaller but no. I also don't die my hair dark brown anymore. I've given that up. But the shirt was big back then and it's just the right size now. It's still in very good condition too, witness to my having probably more tee shirts than I really need. 

The next thing is in the bottom photo. See that lime green container on the bed? That's a lunch bag and I still have it and still use it. I drop an cold pack in the bottom and it does a great job of keeping my lunch cold. I have a bigger one that I use if I want to bring a plate with me. The green one doesn't hold a plate very well. It will be adequate if I tip the plate at an angle but that's often not feasible based on the containers of food I'm bringing. 

I look at other items in the photos. The visor, the shorts and tennis shoes are long gone. I don't know about the socks. Carole's sweat pants and top and the backpack are, I think, gone too, although she could have them and I wouldn't notice. It's just interesting to me what stands the test of time, what we hang on to, and what is gone. I look at further photos in this group and there's a Hawaiian shirt that I still have. Does Carole have that red shirt or is that gone? We are such a consumer society. So much landfill space is taken up with tee shirts and shorts that don't fit or are out of style now. It's one thing if they are falling apart. It's another to just get rid of them because they are last year's style. 

I'll wear the shirt and use the lunch box until they actually fall apart. They have made it at least 11 years on. Here's to another 11 years. 

Beverage:  Water

Deb

I just couldn't do it.

I had to go back to this job today. We have a couple of instruments at a very large public works project. Last Friday, I was there because it had been two weeks since installation with nary a word from the client. Both of the machines had lost power, which means they will get low on internal battery power and turn themselves off. If you are collecting data, this is not a good thing.

One of the instruments had been pulled from the job by a well-meaning employee who marched into the supervisor's office, instrument in hand, saying, "We found this and don't know what it is."

In neither case were we notified to come out and check the machines or set them up again. We kind of wondered, if I hadn't said anything, would they have let us know? Oh well, they are paying to rent the equipment and we'll bill them. They know the stuff has to be on power.

So we reestablished power on Friday and I came back today to get the data out of them. Both of them are in the "basement", if such can be termed that, if this huge facility. From where I stood to where these are, it's a two-story difference. No, there are no elevators or stairs.

It means I have to climb down ladders. You all know I have acrophobia, the fear of heights. I will, if absolutely necessary, force that fear into my boots. I had to when I installed these machines. Safety is paramount on these jobs and they had constructed a couple of ladders that, once I got onto the rungs and started down, made me feel reasonably safe. They take long boards of differing lengths and bolt them together with the rungs. These are, in turn, bolted at the top and at the bottom. These hand-made ladders have some give as you're climbing up or down, but they do not move. Although I'm slower than the guys on the construction site when climbing, they waited for me and even held this ladder just because I appeared a bit nervous. I felt even safer when one of the two-story ladders turned out to be a double ladder that was top and bottom bolted. I back onto the top rung and look straight ahead as I climb down. I look up as I climb up.

Last Friday, however, the only way to get to one machine was to climb down a two-story metal extension ladder. I watched the guy go down and that thing just bounced and swayed. I took one step onto it and said, "I can't. I'm sorry. This makes me really, really nervous." He just waved and we took care of the machine with me calling down instructions.

In servicing the machines today, I climbed down the home-made ladder with no problem. The extension ladder? Forget it. The guy who was with me patted my arm and said, "It's no sin to be scared. Even the safest people can fall." He retrieved my machine and put it back after I had serviced it.

I still feel a bit badly that I couldn't, for the life of me, convince myself to go down the ladder. I could see that it was tied off and anchored, but it was just too high. Generally, we don't climb ladders to begin with because our job is in the basement. This was a very rare occurrance.

I'm very glad these guys were understanding. I don't know how I would have managed had I been shown the ladder and told, "Climb down and take care of it. We'll be back in 30 minutes."

Beverage: Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

"And you want me to do what, exactly?" say the legs.

To the left is the raccoon repellent. Jalapeno peppers, along with Cayenne pepper was mentioned most in homemade raccoon repellents.

I was to take raw peppers, slice them in half and let them steep in a quart of water overnight. Then take this mixture, puree the peppers in the water and add it to a gallon of water mixed with a teaspoon of dish detergent, which is a wetting agent. Then pour this mixture into a squirt bottle.

I don't mind spicy but I don't like hot. The chances of me accidentally rubbing my eye after slicing raw Jalapeno peppers is probably akin to the chances of the sun coming up in the east in the morning. That wasn't going to happen.

So the next option was to mix a container of Cayenne pepper with the dish detergent in a gallon of water. But lugging a gallon of water to the roof and then to the vent was not a grandly safe idea.

When I got to the store and saw that I could get Jalapeno hot sauce, I decided the thing to do was to take one bottle up on the roof and spread it around the shingles surrounding the vent. I would then sprinkle the Cayenne pepper on top of the hot sauce. If that wasn't a deterrent, I don't know what was.

So I got the ladder and leaned it against the house and started to climb. Now there is a deck and last night, I stood on the deck railing, which would be at the bottom right off the photo, and, at 1:30 in the morning, slung a 25 foot electrical extension cord toward a raccoon near the chimney. But the problem is, that in order to get onto the roof, I have to climb all the way to the top of the ladder, swing my leg or body onto the roof and slide up. I got to rung number 4 from the top and realized, I couldn't do it.

Yes, part of that is my fear of heights although I have been on my roof on at least 3 occasions. But, at those times, there was someone to hold the ladder and hand up the things I needed, like the trowel to clean the gutters or the basketball to knock down that huge wasp nest or the hose to wash off the roof after cleaning the gutters. It's just me.

Therefore, although I could put the pepper and hot sauce in the gutter, I could not make myself climb the extra two rungs to maybe get clear of the gutters to get onto the roof. Yes, I feel like an idiot, but I just cannot do it. It scares me. If there was someone to hold the ladder, perhaps, no probably. Me myself and I? No.

See, I have to get to that vent to the right of the chimney. That's where he hung out and we played a cat and mouse game of me pummeling him with the extension cord as he wandered about each side of the chimney.

What do I do? Well, Plan B is to have the hot sauce and the extension cord at the ready. If he comes back and starts again, I will dump the hot sauce into a bowl and then dunk the business end into the hot sauce and fling it at him. My hope is that even if I don't hit him square in the head as I did last night, enough hot sauce will get flung in his general direction that some is bound to splash onto him. That alone should get his attention and make him run.

Then tomorrow, I can ask Rodney if he would mind coming to the house and holding the ladder. It's supposed to rain on Sunday and Monday so this will be gone then anyway.

I need to see, up close, if he pulled anything up. From the top of the ladder, or as far up as I got, it didn't look like he did. I am pretty sure I don't have roofing nails in the basement, but I need to go to the hardware store anyway on Saturday.

My real hope is that, because I put up a fight, he will go somewhere else where there isn't someone who fights back. Oh the joys of home ownership.

Beverage: Dr. Pepper

Deb

Not on a bet.

I would imagine you have all heard the news. It's plastered all over my Yahoo news feed today.

Sears Tower unveils 103rd floor glass balconies

The full article is here.

I just want it made perfectly clear; nope, no way, nada, nix.

But why, you ask?

Simple, says I. I'm afraid of heights.

I've always been that way.

The first time I became aware of it, my family and I went to visit my cousins who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. I don't remember what year it was but part of the visit included a trip to tour the state capital building. I remember running into the building and seeing, on the first floor, a large circle in the floor which looked down into some room with chairs and desks. There was a vague feeling of uneasiness but I passed it off as excitement.

Looking up, there was another hole in the second floor and you could look straight up to the dome. It was, if memory serves me correctly, a beautifully decorated interior with lots of marble and statues and frescos on the walls. We looked about the first floor, what was open to the public, turned and hastened up to the second floor. I remember standing on the landing between the first and second floors, looking up at what my memory thinks were WPA paintings and being totally unable to go any farther. I can remember the fear, the paralyzing fear, that gripped me. I was scared to have to look down through that hole in the floor and just the thought was enough to prevent my legs from moving.

I've always been interested in art so I pretended to be studying the walls. My mother ordered me to come up the stairs. My dad made fun of me, once he realized I was scared to move. My cousins and siblings thought me weird. I felt humiliated and totally confused about this. I'd jumped from the hay mow to the basement of the barn through the hay chute. I'd jumped from the top of the hay stacks to the floor. I'd jumped out of trees. I'd sat on the sill of my second floor bedroom window with my feet dangling on the side of the house. Why was I so scared?

My uncle Moe came back down the stairs and put a big arm around me. In a jovial tone of voice designed to help and make me feel not so awkward, he told me this was a normal feeling. "You're scared of heights. It happens. The trick is to not let it paralyze you." He told me to keep my head straight and don't look below my nose. "So, you'll have to figure out where you can stand that lets you look at that hole in the second floor but not in a way to tilt your head down." I could look up but I couldn't look down.

I still can't.

Carole and I went to Gettysburg for her graduation from high school trip. There is a metal tower some 65' in the air at the border between the battlefield and General Eisenhower's farm. The winding staircase is wide enough for four people to walk abreast. I had to walk up two or three twists and stop. Carole said I didn't have to go to the top, but I knew I had to. I had to walk in the middle of the staircase and look only at the next set of stairs. But, I did it. I climbed to the top of the tower. Coming down wasn't hard.

In the former Marshall Field's flagship store on State Street in Chicago, the east side of the store has an open atrium. You take escalators anchored at each end but open to the atrium between the levels. I hate it. As long as I can stand in the center of the escalator, I can do it. The north side of the store has open holes in the floor where you can look from floor 7 to the main floor. I'm told it's an interesting view. I've never seen it.

And I'm told the view from the top of the John Hancock Center is gorgeous, particularly at night. I'm told it's the best view of Chicago, topping the view from the Sears Tower. I've never been up there. Carole and I spent one drizzly day in March of 2001 wandering around the area near the Hancock building. I had coupons for money off the trip to the 95th floor. But every time we got into the building, I could not, could not get into the elevator to go to the floor where you purchased your tickets for the observation deck.

But I love to fly and I always get a window seat.

So, when you come to Chicago, I'll be happy to take you around, but if you want to go to the Sears observation deck, you're on your own.

Beverage: English Teatime

Deb