I started a real full-time hospital nursing job today. (No scrubs, not yet – all HR stuff today). I went half time at my regular job. I looked carefully for this job. I wanted a short commute, days only, and as diverse a patient population and nursing staff as I could manage. Even though logically I know everything will be fine & I will be fine, every time I settle on the fact that in about 6 weeks I’ll have 5 patients who I’ll have to take care of on my own, I feel like I’m going to throw up.
Vince texted this photo to us today. He climbed to Viewing Rock with his friend Jack. Ignoring the first rule of scouting – “be prepared” – they failed to bring water and Vince hiked in his Vans sneakers. Hmmm. This summer has reinvigorated his desire to be able to work at other scout camps including Sea Base which means he wants to do a bunch of things like lifeguarding and boat safety.
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Our newest across-the-street neighbors invited us to their housewarming party. They are approx. 20 years younger than us and the invitation indicated that the evening’s activities were going to be ping pong and video games. I was concerned that they were still in the furniture-acquiring phase of life and that it might be hard to find a spot for Edda to sit down. But first, in order to find that out, we had to go through the pouring rain and up about 12 narrow and steep steps. Challenging, but doable.
Jeremy looks good in a floral backpack.
They are still acquiring furniture (the whole living room is fabulously filled with only the ping pong table), but we found a seat for Edda to sit down which just happened to be the closest to the food.
It was delicious even though Edda wasn’t sure at first.
Happy 16 years of blogging to me! I know, I know, no one blogs anymore. Only me ?
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Vincent called mid-morning today. I missed his call on his first try, I was outside admiring the coolness of this summer day. I spend a lot of time at home, often I feel the need to step outside for a moment to remind myself that I’m not trapped in the house constantly attached to a computer. I returned his call after stumbling to find his summering Verizon number and not his regular T-mobile number. He had called to arrange for his ride home as he had warned us when we visited that the original planned date wasn’t firm. The call was brief and he said, “I’ll call again tomorrow to really talk.” Last night, as Jeremy and I tried to fall asleep (as we age, our sleeping skills are deteriorating at the same rate as our eyesight), we spoke about how we both missed him but that we had gotten used to the quieter rhythm of the house. Jeremy said that the house is ridiculously large without Vince. His presence fills the house, expanding to every corner. Without him, we could cut the house down to 2/5 size and be fine.
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I have been feeling nauseous recently. Most notably every night when I wake up at 4 am and have to take my beloved mouthguard out in order to fall back asleep because I can’t suppress the urge to gag. At my six month cleaning today, I mentioned this to my dental hygienist and she said that she didn’t have a solution, but the last person who mentioned to her that her mouthguard made her gag turned out to be pregnant. I laughed and said there was absolutely no way I was pregnant. I usually love my dental cleanings, I find it relaxing to have plaque scraped off my teeth. I had to hunt down a hygienist whose technique I liked. Sometimes I think I should brush less well just to have a little extra time. But this time, the cleaning also made me feel a little gaggy. I’m not sure what is going on. Apparently this is slow news season here in the household.
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Chinese takeout tonight for dinner.
hahahahahaha!
The weather has been so delightful the past few days. Low humidity & warm but not hot temperatures make for happiness in DC. Now that the solstice is well past, I’m looking forward to fall (my favorite season). But there is still a lot of summer left in which to arrange Edda-care. Other people think of summer as fireworks, summer camp, easy grilled dinners, lounging around and I think it as the season in which child-care is difficult with a non-regular schedules for anyone and everyone (Edda and caregivers alike). I thought I should reframe and think less about the hassles of summer and focus more on the grilled burgers.
I have given serious thought to getting a puppy in the fall. Max is well in her middle-aged-ness and I want to get a puppy while Vince is still living in the house. Vince is desperately campaigning for a corgi. Jeremy, with the same enthusiasm, wants a lab. I kind of want a cockapoo. I think Maxi will be unhappy with the new addition.
I love my two-person-book-club and we’re reading Little Fires Everywhere. Now that I’ve been spending more time reading, there is less time spent on other things (like quilting).
They take their staff photos at scout camp seriously. In the lounge, there are photos going back decades and when we first showed up, it was one of the very first things that Vince & I admired. Vince sent us the link to this year’s photos which are all on Facebook. If you want, you can search “Facebook Lenhoksin” to see the whole series, it’s kind of amusing.
Here’s Vince’s staff photo with the following caption:
V*ncent M*rtin of Troop 447 in Rockville, MD is serving his first summer on staff as a Mountain Sports Instructor.
I spent a lot of time in the car this weekend. Saturday morning, Edda and I packed up and drove three hours to see Vince. I set his tent as the final destination on the GPS. Meanwhile, Jeremy set off (at about the same time) on his bike to cover the last 50 miles of his three day biking adventure. We did finally converge on Vince’s tent!
It was great to see Vince. He says being a camp counselor is a lot of hard work and that he’s working basically 24 hours a day. His voice is hoarse from yelling chants, singing camp songs and telling stories. He’s had to unclog toilets with giant poop. He’s had to convince kids to go caving even though they are scared to go into the cave from hearing about the Thai soccer team. He’s gotten “favorite counselor” evaluations from at least four different troops. It’s nice to see. I didn’t know he knew how to unclog toilets.
Now that he’s seen at least 12-15 different scout troops, he can see how varied the troops can be. And he’s come to the conclusion that even though he own scout troop can be disorganized at times, it’s not a badly run troop. He’s also noticed that each troop generally has the same kid types in them – the super studious kid, the kid who always makes jokes, the no-fear kid, the slightly awkward kid. He met the 23rd highest ranked person in geography. Ask this kid any geography question and he knew the answer. I asked him what is the hardest thing and he says to be a really good camp counselor, one has to remember everyone’s name! There are so many kids going through, it’s tough to remember who is who. He’s resorted to calling everyone – hey, you!
We were hoping to see the outposts where he works, but there was a giant bee nest at one of them (I hope they were figuring out how to get rid of it) and then they are a little far and Edda can’t manage the trails. So we did what he wanted to do which was to head into town to eat at the Waffle House.
These are Vince’s friends at camp, Jack, Jeremy & Jackson. I think I don’t need to go to Waffle House again. The service was excellent tho.
After Waffle House, we dropped them off at Walmart and then we bought tickets for them to see Antman & the Wasp in downtown Lexington, VA.
Jeremy drove the kids back to their tents after the movie at about 9:30 pm. Vince said they were planning on staying up all night because it was Jeremy’s last night working. I asked him what they were going to do. He said he was hoping to get Jeremy to do his summer pre-calc homework that he had made me print out and bring to him. Apparently Jeremy likes talking about calculus in his spare time.
We had a hotel in town. Edda fell asleep peacefully.
We drove home Sunday morning. I hung out at home for a few hours, long enough for Jeremy to get some groceries and for me to pick up Maxi from the Ellerby’s. Then I headed out for another 3 hour drive to see Vidya and family near Philly. I’m sleeping over tonight, though not in a tent.
Jeremy is missing out on his free gelati today. Carmen’s has listed Doris, Vince and Jeremy in the past few months. If they have Edda’s name come up, I’ll be amazed.
Jeremy made it the 2nd hundred miles. Now my boys are close together, but far from me. Jeremy saw a mama bear and her cub this morning.
I dropped Maxi off at Dennis’s. She was so excited to go.
There he goes! He’s crazy.
But in a good way (I guess.)
Had this lunch at noon.
Made it to this luxurious motel room in Front Royal (which is 75 miles from home, but Jeremy did some extra looping to make it a 100 mile day).
I explored simple dinners – I steamed frozen peas in its packaging for the first time.
Baked some salmon in the toaster oven.
Jeremy’s ready to start his bike odyssey tomorrow. He’s located all the gas stations where he’s planning on stopping at to buy snacks and they are spaced just so. He’s got chafing lotion partitioned in individual ketchup-like packets to dispense as necessary.
He packed everything he needs for two days in this special baggie. I’m suppose to follow in the van on Saturday morning. But we still don’t have the van back from the shop. We are waiting for a new driver’s seat.
We took the van in for service today to look at: a whispering wheel, an unadjustable seat and a flappy air conditioner. The whispering wheel turned out to be bad rear brakes/rotors. We got that replaced. The a/c is not a problem, it just sounds bad. We left that alone. The unadjustable seat (which is the driver’s seat) is because the motor busted for the front/back movement of the seat and in order to replace the motor, we have to replace the entire seat. The repair shop guy was like – you don’t want to spend the $, it’s not that important. But I’m very short and I’m a nervous driver, so I like everything just so, so we asked him to replace the seat. And I need to drive six hours this weekend. I love a frugal repair guy.
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I went to the scout meeting tonight while Jeremy was giving testimony in support of the MoCo master bike plan. The scouts need merit badge counselors, so I thought I’d sign up to do some. The boys in the troop went to Goshen last week which is the camp that Vince is working at, but they chose to do a non-hiking program which is not where Vince spends his time. But Vince had a chance to meet up with them to watch fireworks for the 4th of July. The boys from the troop did not have a very good time, which is unfortunate, but one of the troop leaders pulled me aside tonight and said that Vince seemed very happy and well adjusted.
