It's not like riding a bike...

When I first got here with the kids on Saturday, my dad asked me if it feels strange to be here again while we were driving down the highway.  I told him, "No, not really."  He looked at me a little strange and said,  "Really? It's not different for you not to sit in traffic with people trying to sell you things?"  Then, I thought about my parallel life and how in Nigeria, Nigerian things are "normal" for me and in the U.S., American things are "normal" for me.  For some reason, it isn't strange to drive a car even though I haven't driven in six months.  It isn't too weird to walk into a grocery store and see such fresh food and clean floors...those things feel like getting right back on a bicycle....you never really forget.:)

But, I do think living in Nigeria has caused some serious atrophy to my neurons to allow me to operate a credit card machine to pay for the groceries.  I swear, the cashier had to reset the machine four times until I realized which buttons to push for "credit" and "accept"!!! Now, that is something that didn't transfer over to my parallel life!!! (Darn that cash system in Nigeria!)  But, I plan to give those neurons a very serious daily workout while I am in the States.:)

I had planned on going on about some other silly things that were giving me a little difficulty...but I just am not feeling the "funny" coming on tonight.  Some of you know that my mom has had several health problems over the years ( and especially lately) and today,she has another one.  She is back in the hospital and hopefully the doctors there can figure out what is going on.  She has been in and out of the hospital so much that you would think it is "old hat" for me.....like getting back on a bike and riding it down that road like so many times before.  But, every time she is in the hospital, it feels like I am learning to ride the bike over again...will this one have brakes to stop? Will the bike chain break?  Will I fall off?  It's funny how some things which seem so familiar are the hardest ones to understand.  Tonight, I am feeling like it's not like riding a bike...when she's back in the hospital, I have to relearn every time.