We are staying up on election night – all watching the returns (well, all of us except for Edda). Jeremy took the day off and spent the day canvassing and manning phone banks in Northern VA. We just heard that PA is called for Obama, which I’m sure was due to Jeremy’s diligent 4-hour volunteer effort there ;).
Here’s what it looks like at our election tracking headquarters, Vincent is the most manic of us all.
As one of our last big road trips before turkey day (only 3 weeks away!), the four of us ventured to New Jersey to visit my friend Ingrid (who works so hard fundraising to find a cure for Rett Syndrome and runs Girl Power 2 Cure and helps to run RSRT) and to meet her family, in particular, her daughter Sarah who also has Rett Syndrome.
Edda got to go to Sarah’s school and was her “share” at show-and-tell. It was really sweet and touching.
About 5 weeks ago, when I was in the midst of a cloud of grumpiness, I discovered a small lump on the side of my neck. Do you know when you google, “lump on neck”, it pretty much means that you have lymphoma. So my heart sank, not only was I dealing with fundraising, my job, the kids, the house, I was going to have to find out that I had lymphoma and that it was going to be bad.
So I trundled off to my family physician who said that it’s one of three things: 1. a benign growth, 2. a response to an infection or 3. cancer – and he said all three with equal weight in his tone of voice. So he said that we could do three things – wait to see if it got bigger, take a course of antibiotics or see an ear, nose, throat guy. I asked if I could do all three. So the antibiotics did nothing, it took me 5 weeks to schedule the ENT guy, so in essence I was waiting to see if it got bigger and on Halloween, I finally got to see the specialist – who assured me that after feeling lumps on necks for 35 years and my particular lump for a few minutes, this was a lipoma – a benign cluster of fat which has probably been there for a million years. And he said if it was cancer, it would have gotten bigger over the course of the 5 weeks I’ve been poking at it. (It has gotten some intense poking over the course of 5 weeks.)
I’m quite relieved and happy, of course. Sometimes I think life is like dodge ball, you see all those balls coming at you, ready to knock you over, some of them miss you and some of them hit you full force on the noggin (or lymph node).
Look out evil-doers everywhere! Leia and Indy are out to get you!
Oh no! Leia’s down – she got ambushed by some nasty storm-troopers!
We need the force! Call on the force to get up! The force (otherwise known as Jeremy) is coming from above.
Ahhh, much better – now we are off to the Temple of Doom!
Happy halloween everyone! Keep warm and safe and don’t eat all the candy at once.
This week, we finally turned on the heat in the house, it has turned so cold here in MD – I’m wondering if I need to break out the winter coat. I’m still trying to right myself emotionally from various minor injustices I’ve felt throughout the week, it involved way too many tears in front of way too many people, but I think I’m done thinking about it all and as Jeremy said, “it’s not a guanine” – a reference to Edda’s genetic deletion (806delG on the MECP2 gene) meaning that these things I’m shedding tears about are bound up in my ego and actually nothing really is wrong with life.
The kids are well, the neighborhood is full of kids and every afternoon after homework, Vince runs off to a number of different houses on the block which is great – but there is also major playground politics which are as complex as any adult group interaction.
Edda has been nursing an amazingly disconcerting sore on the corner of her mouth where she constantly stretches due to her hand mouthing. I’m sure it has to do with the sudden turn in the weather, I was actually worried that we needed to take her to the emergency room last night as it looked like it was getting infected and spreading to her lips, but luckily this morning, it looked a million times better with some antibiotic ointment.
Here’s a hair salon photo from last Sunday night’s dinner.
This weekend, I’m going to my first gala event – a fundraiser for the ballet school that Vince and Edda go to. The dress code is elegant. I went to the thrift shop (I’ve been pretty lucky trifting these days) and got this:
It’s understated and shows a little skin which I guess makes it elegant. Then is occurred to me that I could wear my Chinese wedding dress:
A little flashier – I’m only going to know one other person at the gala (Jeremy isn’t going) – and I thought it would attract a bit too much attention. Anyways, which dress should I wear?
Jeremy and I have been married for 10 years, together for 13 and for that whole time, we’ve relied on each other heavily for friendship – we’ve moved every year during our time together – it’s been hard to make friends when you are pretty sure you won’t be around next year to hang out with them. So now that we’ve made the decision to stay here in the burbs of DC, I’m enjoying getting to know other people and going out and doing stuff with them (like having a mojito). What a new concept! So I did a few things this week, I went to the Obama rally in Leesburg with a friend from work, I went to the religious education meeting at church and then last night, I went out to dinner with women who have special needs kids and we all laughed and laughed and talked.
So why is this post titled the “official make Doris feel bad week”? Well along with all this greatness, I often felt kind of hurt this week by a slew of unrelated offhand comments about things I work really hard at. These are those comments made you know, as you are turning the corner to leave, or while you are chatting while waiting for the bus/elevator/another person. I know I shouldn’t take these little issues to heart, but what can you do?
I stumbled upon the Obama headquarters in Alexandria, VA
and I had a Five Guys burger for lunch.
I got to go to Leesburg today to see Barack Obama. Can you see him? He’s the dude at the podium.
