Year: 2018

After I gave Edda a shower today, I was trimming all her nails and found a wound about 0.75 in diameter on her pinky toe on her crooked foot.  I’m wondering if her day orthotics or night brace is rubbing that toe too much.  I put some ointment on it and a band aid and hopefully it’ll clear up in the next few days.  I’ll have her out of her night brace until it clears.

After the her shower, we made our way to in Blacksburg, VA, home of Virginia Tech.  We are on a college visit without our prospective college student.  No no no no, we (Jeremy, me and Edda) are here for a bike race called Mountains of Misery tomorrow that Jeremy signed up a few months ago.  Originally, he was going to go by himself, but then it occurred to me that we could go with him – he had a hotel booked and what else was I going to do?  Laundry.  So I decided to not do laundry and go on the trip with him.  Mostly I think we haven’t been spending enough time together – he’d been out of town a few days, we both did things on Thurs night that didn’t involve each other and Friday night I was driving home from Philly.

What also spurred me to go was Vince’s absolute delight in having the house to himself for 24 hours.  You know how we have Sunday night dinner with family?  Vince hasn’t been going regularly for a few years, which is fine.  I thought he didn’t want to go because he didn’t want to hang out and chat with family, but the real reason he doesn’t want to go is because he gets to have the house to himself for a couple of hours and he LOVES it.  I asked him what he was going to do after we left and he said the first thing he was going to do was take off his pants and wander around in his underwear.

Four hour trip to Blacksburg. 

We did all the things we do together – quilt store, thrift store, small ethnic dinner, ice cream, bookstore (oh, and quick college tour – driving).

Packet pickup.  Gels.  Yucky.

Friday – quick trip to Philly and back to see my friend Vidya.  Left at 7 am, got home at 10 pm.

I’m up too late!  Both Jeremy and I had evening plans and our regular Thurs caregiver needed to call out, so Nat came over and pinch hit.  Vince cooked his favorite no-parents around dinner – Japanese curry with carrots and potatoes.  I told Nat that I was going to be late coming home and that once Edda was in bed, she could let Vince know that Edda was tucked in and she could head on home because tomorrow is a work day and all, but I came home at 9:15 to find her and Vince watching YouTube videos in Edda’s darkened bedroom.  Then we sat around and chatted for a little while – Vince climbed into Edda bed to snuggle with her as we finished our conversation and finally I had to shoo Nat home…  We all got to go to bed!

Hello loves, I have no pictures of my own surroundings today, so I give you a beautiful day in Chicago.  Jeremy texted these photos of Chicago from his business trip – he gave a keynote speech today to some people around noon and then headed back home to me.  He’s home now which makes me happy.  I always, always feel that when he is away craziness ensues.  Vince is sick and is in full standardized state mandated testing mode and so it’s been tricky keeping him feeling good enough to go through hours of testing everyday though really he is feeling pretty lousy. My side gig job is going crazy with my photo ping-ing all the time with various unsolvable problems related to aging & family members. Edda’s is well, but I’m following up on various insurance snafus and her transitional meeting to HS is next week.  Various other things are happening which make me feel left out, unsure,  rudderless, blah, blah, blah. 

With the arrival of Memorial Day, I moved the houseplants out onto our deck.  One year I moved them out too early when a warm burst of air gave me spring fever and then a cold spell hit and they all suffered terribly all being evolutionarily ill equipped to handle anything below 50F.  So I’ve now implemented a strict summer only deck residency.  Memorial Day to Labor Day.  I take poor care of my houseplants during the winter and the natural light is terrible in the house, so I can actually hear the plants sigh with relief and see each plant cell reinvigorate with regular summer rain and sunlight.  Turgid.  The plants are happily turgid and not flaccid like they are throughout winter.

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My side gig nursing job?  Today was the first day that one of my clients passed away.  I learned first thing this morning and I took it harder than I thought I would.  Threw me off most of the day.

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Jeremy is in Chicago for two days, one night.  He left the house before I woke up this morning.  By lunchtime he was having a deep dish.

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The family got me a new running watch for Mother’s Day.  I have not been running much because I’m still working on my hamstring, but I’m enjoying the watch more than I thought I would.  It’s not just a running watch, it’s a smart watch, so it texts me and counts how many flights of stairs I do in a day. 

It measures how much I sleep.  I average about 7.5 hours a night, I’m trying to nudge it up to 8.  If I want it to be a full 8 hours, I’ll need to have lights out at 9:30.  I think that is impossible.  The one day I made it to 8 hours is the night before the royal wedding when I was having a sleepover at Vickey’s house.  But my watch tells me I was awake at midnight for 20 minutes?  I don’t remember that at all. 

Jeremy’s camera on his phone is better than my phone.  His photo are way nicer than mine. He does send me the links to his photos, but it takes me a while to get them on the blog.  They are time-delayed.  Here’s our newly refinished table.

I think it looks more beautiful than it did before.

One day this past month, we snuck out of the house to get ice cream without Vince.  Shhhhh…..hardly every happens.  Ben & Jerry’s.

Last friday was bike to work day.  They had a to-do in Rockville Town square.  Jeremy rustled Vince up early to get to the festivities.  Both the boys bike to their respective day jobs.  Vince won a pair of socks. 

Vince and I went into the woods today. It was hot and muggy.  Saw a frog. 

Edda slept so well in her couch crib – from 9pm to 6:30am.  When Edda was ready for bed,  we shoved the back of one couch against the other couch to create a little nest so she wouldn’t fall out and I brought all of Edda’s sheets from home so she have a familiar smell & feel.  This way we didn’t have to carry her up/down the stairs for her to sleep.  Vickey – true to form – started watching the wedding at 5 am (she often is up at 5 am on a regular day) in her basement as to not disturb sleeping Edda.  I went to the basement at 6:15, tiptoeing past a sleeping Edda on the first floor.  When Edda woke up, we moved to the first floor.  Vickey and Bert look way more put together than either me or Edda.

Wedding!

I brought over our keyboard because we aren’t using it and Bert has recently shown interest in learning the piano – so I assembled it during lulls in the ceremony.

Vickey cooked so much delicious food and I brought it home to a hungry Vince.  He went straight for the tub of cheeseballs.

Then I went to Nat’s graduation in College Park.  She’s graduating with a degree in accounting.  I realized that I don’t care very much for my own graduation ceremonies, but these graduation ceremonies that I get to go – not quite as a mother figure, but something like an auntie figure – are fun and meaningful to me (even though they are long.  oh so long…) .  When Edda was born, I didn’t realize how many caregivers would become an important part of my life.  I’ve listened to stories about their loves, families, schooling, friends.  I’ve given advice when asked for it, I’ve seen them grow up and change and figure stuff out for themselves and I’m happy to be part of it.  I like thinking that when they tell their life story, there will be a part where they say – and I worked for a year or a couple of years for this family in Maryland and they had this special needs daughter and it was (fill in the blank here).

Congrats!

Thursday night we headed into Bethesda to do a larger family celebration of Bette’s 80th birthday.  This was held at Mon Ami Gabi.  Vince was very excited because they serve steak and we very rarely have beef in the house.  We are a chicken, pork, fish house. 

The famous profiteroles. 

Edda loved her shrimp and polenta.  Recently some nights, she’s been a picky eater and not eating much of her dinner which is very unusual for her.

Jeremy and Christine (talking about Vince).

Friday morning started off very early with kittens.

I headed to Baltimore with Adriana’s family (Adriana is one of Edda’s weekday evening caregivers) to see her graduate summa cum laude from nursing school.  The ceremony was long.

We had lunch near the water where in an unusual move, I ordered at drink at 11 am.  Note: I had no alcohol at 7:30 pm the night before with the steak dinner, but happily ordered a mojito at 11 am with chips and guac.  Must be something about the guac.  Adriana’s family is lovely.  They like to rock climb and were giving me some tips.

Then I headed back home and took a quick nap and then packed up Edda and some stuff and headed to Virginia to meet Vickey’s new guinea hen.

Edda and I are sleeping over to wake up bright and early to celebrate the royal wedding.  We started celebrating by eating pie.

Edda’s first sleepover!  Kind of.  It feels that way.

Karuna came over for dinner, but we couldn’t convince her to join us for the sleepover or the wedding.  Boooo.

An actual Corner Market opened at the little strip mall 0.25 miles from the house!  We are very excited.  I went in there today and bought some fuzzy water.  Jeremy wanted to go after dinner and he bought some salad dressing.  They will also have a pharmacy there.  That’s exciting too!  These are the businesses I patronize at the little strip mall down the street: the vet, the Chinese food place, the Corner Market, the burger place, the ice cream place, the pizza place, the nail place and my dentist.  I think the only places left are the bank and the therapist.  Oh, and maybe the massage place.  I could add those places and then I’d be at 100%.  I love the little strip mall.  I’ve been going since I was a little kid!  There used to be a Safeway there and I remember shopping there as a kid.  My parents used the bank there.