Year: 2014

Bad Things Hard to Get Rid Off

Back in February, I was in my attic dealing with raccoon.  I got rid off them, but my left leg was hurt and showed up two days later, very difficult to move.  It took me about 6 months to recover.  Now, I still have some minor problems using my left leg.  6 weeks ago, I caught something and coughed a lot.   After two rounds of antibiotics medicine, I still have some minor cough.  Really, I think I am getting pretty senior and recovering very slowly.  At least, not the speed that I would like to have.

Surprisingly, at work, I don’t think I have slowed down a bit.  I still have the memory that I had while I was in my 50s, of course, not at 20s or 30s.  May be, I have done a lot similarly things and find easier ways to do it. May be, I am much more relax and know the tricks just to stay half step ahead of the critical path.  But, I lost my ability to track numerous things without notes.  Now, it is notes, notes everywhere.

Hiking.

My boys are back in town and the house is settling back into its normal routine.  I’m going to include some photos from the hiking trip and I can’t add too much commentary since I wasn’t there.  The other boy in the photos is named Hawk.  Three nights and four days!  10,000 ft altitude.  Vince carrried his pack the whole way.

Coming home!

Jeremy and Vince are out of the wilderness!  I got a call from them yesterday evening.  They reported that the trip was fantastic.  They went with some neighbors of Kiki’s, including a 12-year-old named Hawk and everyone got along well.  Everyone will be home tomorrow which is wonderful for me and wonderful for Edda.  I wish I could have gone.  I wish Edda could have gone.  Per the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want. But! If you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need. Which is fine and true.

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I went to lunch yesterday with a friend who works at NIH.  She works in a lab with chemicals and pipettes.  Even though I love labwork in theory, I can’t imagine working in a lab anymore.  It’s a little too unstructured and slow for me.

I have another friend who is a nurse at NIH doing clinical trials.  She’s trying to encourage me to work there when I graduate.  No emergencies, no late night, last minute admissions.  Low patient to nurse ratio.  The campus is very college-like – even down to the numbering of the buildings – although I think that even though we called all the buildings by number in college, they didn’t actually have the numbers boldly affixed to the exterior.

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We have been combing Edda’s hair every morning.  Diligently.  Obsessively.  I do see little sticky white things at the crown of her head which get worse with the combing and the pesticide treatment that I’m applying weekly.  I did get a call from the nurse yesterday from camp saying they found a nit.  I really had to tell them that I’m doing my most impressively perfectionist effort to get Edda rid of lice.  No one else in the family has lice – I even sleep right next to Edda night after night, temple to temple.  I had to even state that the AAP states that no child should miss school because of nits.  I can’t tell if they are nits (I don’t think they are as they are worse when we scratch her scalp) or are little impostors (which I’m leaning towards) that are out to ruin whatever sanity I have left.  Not only does it mess with me mentally, but really?  Physically, I’m at the edge of my vision capabilities and my eyes can not really see something so small so early in the morning.  Now head lice are gross but transfer no illnesses.  Body lice, on the other hand (I found out yesterday), transfer typhus.  Now that would totally freak me out.

Copy Cats

A lot of our friends, especially those of our college mates (more than 150 and, of course, all seniors), learn that we try to have a family-reunion every year, they are jumping in and doing exactly the same thing – to have a family re-union.  It just like wildfire spreading very fast.

But, I guess, most credits should go to all participants.  Our half (1/3) is easy, Mom and I are retired or semi-retired.  The other half (2/3) isn’t that easy.  Understandably, their schedules are more than full and, may be, they have other interesting/urgent things to do.  And/or, they enjoy things that seniors may not. Therefore, I guess, when arranging the re-union, a lot of behind the scene compromises are made.  To that, Mom and I are very much aware.

In short, Mom and I look forward to having family re-union every year and appreciate your companionship.

$2.99 Breakfast

At Oak Ridge, TN, a local Krystal fast food restaurant promotes $2.99 breakfast which includes, a cup of medium size coffee, two toasts, two eggs, sausage and three pieces of hash browns.  They even place your order to your table.  Not bad and very good service.

It depends on my glucose level, I should come back often :).

Foundation of Addition Is Done

  
After excavation, forming, pouring concrete and taking the forms away, the concrete foundation of addition is done.  Far side the foundation of the wall, in the middle are non-load bearing concrete preventing the floor from sagging and squeaking.  The red plastic pipe at the corner are tapping line for hot water.  Look pretty good and Mom is very proud of her managing the work.

Quietness.

The house is very quiet without Jeremy and Vince.  I think this is the first time that both of them are gone at the same time for days on end.  I have Edda, of course, and we spend lots of time together (mainly getting ready to eat, eating, getting ready for bed and sleeping together), but she’s pretty quiet and I’ve gotten used to the constant jabbering of the male half of the family even though I thought, in the beginning, I would never get used to a very talkative house. The first day they were gone was fantastic – a whole Sunday with nothing to do except to amuse myself which I did do and the hours passed in a slow, aimless way that I enjoyed so much in my early 20s. Now I just wish they were home.  I can’t even call them because they are some remote mountain somewhere.  I’ve been trying to keep busy:

I baked a blueberry/buttermilk cake and a few loaves of banana bread.

Explored the pre-owned bookstore in town.  Never been before.  Bought a book about Rwanda which I’m 90% sure I will never read.

I added a dog to the mix.  Boba is here for the week.  His blindness had progressed since the last time I babysat Boba, the milkiness in his eyes is from his degenerative eye disease.  I think he’s fully blind now. He does look possessed.

I hand-repaired some of Edda’s bibs while watching a movie a night on Netflix.

I worked with Nat to help her pass her math placement exam at MC.  It’s fun digging up all the old math rules that I’ve forgotten.  I do wish could do all the problems without looking stuff up, but when you don’t practice everyday, the trig functions slip through your fingers.  And Nat is a quick study.  I show her once and she understands.  I can start with OK, you have a unit circle and this is 0, this is pi and this is pi/4 and she gets it.  Sometimes when you try to teach someone, you start with that sentence and you just get a blank stare and then you have to back up even more and then it becomes apparent that you are not going to get there from here within the 4 days that you have to study.

Boba’s mom lent me this wooden puzzle, do you see the pieces are amazingly shaped?  I like to imagine that I’m putting it together, but I don’t think I will actually even start to do this puzzle.