Jeremy is home! Came home on Monday night all jet-lagged (still jet-lagged asking – what day is it today?) Excitement on the way to the airport which included a flat tire on their kind-of-fancy rental Audi. Here is a German tow truck which looks a lot like an American tow truck.
But he made his flight (barely) and flew straight from Munich to Dulles (I didn’t know you could do that, I don’t think you can do that from Berlin, but in my head, Berlin seems like it would have a bigger airport than Munich, but I know nothing!)
I was at the hospital yesterday – it was an absolutely grueling shift. And I’m tender these days, like an angry, infected wound. I did almost cry and slip into sharp, upset and angry tones which I don’t think I’ve ever done in a professional setting and hardly ever in my own personal life. I called my nursing tech, Dawn, 14,000 times. She knows I don’t call unless I really need help and I needed help yesterday – not only physical help, but emotional help. And she knew, she knew I needed her with me. She came into the room and spoke to the patient (and me) in such a loving, gractious tone and saved me from myself. I had to run away from the hospital.
I went to Rachel’s husband’s service on Wed night at a Korean church – the whole thing was in Korean so they gave me a little headset where a person would translate the service into English for me. Rachel is my work wife at the hospital, she’s a Korean immigrant about 10 years my senior. Maybe about 5-6 months ago (after working together for more than 2 years), she look a liking to me and started to cultivate (in her words) and older sister/younger sister relationship. I did not know how much I was looking for a relationship like this. Sometimes you find things you didn’t know were missing. She insisted that I call her if I was stressed out and I would (at work, not yet while I was at home, I was working up to it – I don’t like leaning on people even when I should) and she’d help me out (she’s been a nurse for almost a decade). I’d, in turn, help her with light grammatical corrections on her papers for NP school and she’d text exclaim – my papers are so good now! your English is beautiful! to which I’d text answer, I hope so, it’s my native language, lol <3. (Please don’t look too carefully at comma placements/grammar in these posts. lol <3) She looks after me and often brings delicious Korean food for lunch for me and then I’d bring home Jeremy’s carefully made lunch uneaten and I have to apologize to Jeremy because my other spouse is feeding me at lunch. Anyways, I was sad to say goodbye to her husband, someone who I had never met before. And I got to say my condolences to her daughters who gave beautiful eulogies in Korean (and the translator couldn’t bear to translate in the first person, which is what I was expecting and translated into the third person which threw me off for a good 5 minutes.)
My work colleagues attended as well, but for some weird reason, I saw none of them come in or out or anything even though I was early and, I thought, in full view of the only entrance? So confusing, but the photo was there on the group chat later in the evening. Anthony, my manager, is front and center in the blue blazer. The funeral was the next day, on Thursday, at about noon.
Emy’s cat is well loved by us and neighbors. Ivy does miss Emy though – I can tell. And Vince found out surprisingly that he’s slightly allergic to cats and I kind of told him not to touch Ivy and he doesn’t listen to me and scratches Ivy’s head and says, but he’s so cute! And then he sneezes and has itchy eyes.
I couldn’t resist and I ordered this cat water fountain for next-day delivery from Amazon prime because my other cat friends have it and I wanted Ivy to have the pleasure of moving drinking water and I just like it. I’m not sure Ivy likes it very much.
I’m so proud of myself, I hit 1,000 workouts on my Peloton treadmill this past week. Now many of those workouts are 10 min warm ups and 10 min cool downs and many days I’ll string three 20 min workouts to have an hour long run, but still. I was so disdainful of having this treadmill in the house, I didn’t want it, I didn’t want the Peloton content, but I wanted to run and I didn’t want to go to a gym. Now I preferentially run on it even when the weather is good, it’s so convenient (Edda is often by my side) and the content is very soothing to me. And a thank you to Paul, who still, after all these years, is coaching me even though I’m getting older, slower, and tired-er. Even though I’m boasting about these workouts, I wanted to say that these days, I feel like it is the only thing I get done all day. The whole day will pass, I will have just 1) slept, 2) fed the family & cat 3) cleaned up and cleaned up again and 4) done the workout. What happened to work? paying bills? fixing the dishwasher? figuring out my identity theft? unclenching enormous, overflowing email boxes? following up on school/camp paperwork obligations? all those have been shoved aside. I had to take so much time off work, ignored various admin stuff, and just kind of buried my head in the proverbial sand. If you had asked me 10 years ago, if I was overwhelmed and grieving and almost 50 years old, would I prioritize going for a run over almost everything else, I would have said, you were out of your freaking mind. I would prioritize eating potato chips (which I have done this week as well). Actually, truthfully, I think I would have said I would have prioritized work.
I am getting photos from Jeremy in Germany, but I’m not there to experience it, so it’s hard for me to blog about him without him here or me there. He saw Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in Munich. I thought there was only one and that it didn’t live in Munich, but there are a few (6?, 7?) and yes, this one is in Germany.
Jeremy had to get a covid test (even though he’s vaccinated) to return back to the states and that took a bit of running around (three trips), but he got it done and it’s negative. (Thank the lord.) Today is the last day of his trip, tomorrow he flies home from Munich and back to me.
Emy came by mid-week to stay a few nights and to bring Ivy to us on her way to the southwest to see her partner, Seth. Ivy is my new diabetic patient. I lobbied for this cat-sitting job because 1) I love cats and generally haven’t had a cat in the house because various people who visit often are allergic to cats, 2) I love Emy, 3) I owe Emy an enormous cat favor since she took care of Yeager, my college cat, when I moved to Taiwan with Jeremy and Vince and then Yeager, unfortunately, got really sick and passed away under her care which was 1000x more than I thought would happen with the cat and I’m forever grateful and ashamed that I put her through such cat-sitting trauma 18 years ago and 4) I take care of diabetic patients all the time. With Jeremy away, 2 funerals and the kids starting camp, I just could not handle Maxi (the dog) meeting Ivy (the cat) and dealing with cross species rivalry, I asked my parents to home Maxi for a little while, at least until Jeremy got home, before I took on that. Honestly Maxi is like – what? eat meatballs everyday that my human grandmother will cook for me and lounge around on a couch or stay at home with a stressed-out human mom and a hissing cat? I’ll take the meatballs.
Ivy’s very own glucometer. I’m semi-tempted to test my own blood.
It was a stunningly beautiful day on Wed and we had an afternoon free and honestly, I couldn’t concentrate very well, so we went to the Billy Goat trail to walk it out which is a great trail, probably one of the most popular trails in the area and spent 4 hours scrambling over rocks.
It felt great to move and share the afternoon with Emy. I’m happy we did this mid-week because on the summer weekends it can be quite crowded, but we had the trail mostly to ourselves. This is a photo of Emy climbing up the “traverse”. Aptly named the “Billy Goat Trail”, we spent a lot of time climbing up and around lots of rocks.
This has been quite a week – Jeremy gone, the kids starting camp (both as a participant and an employee), Emy visiting and me learning to take care of Ivy the cat (diabetic – both very familiar as I’ve been managing insulin injections for humans for a long time, and completely unfamiliar as, you know, he’s a cat) and then, friends who are distraught, not only did I go to Molly’s service on Sunday, I have another service to go last night (church service) / today (funeral) for my nursing friend Rachel whose husband died unexpectedly at the end of last week. It’s a lot (but only a fraction of what my friends are going through, I know!), but I’m working through it. Emy has been a great houseguest, helping out in the kitchen and keeping an eye on Edda while I was at the service last night. She’s leaving today to head out on her trip and I asked this morning Vince to step up a bit, probably with the kitchen stuff, as now I have no at-home Edda-care until Jeremy gets back on Monday night.
Vince is doing great at camp as a counselor. It really plays to his natural strengths/abilities. He’s in charge of 10 eight-year-olds and technically, he’s never suppose to leave them (because he’s the adult) even though he has 3 high schoolers as his junior counselors. So he’s been in situations where he has to go to the bathroom, but none of his charges needs to go to the bathroom and then he has to bring everyone into the bathroom with him (I guess they stand around the sinks?) and then they complain – why are we in the bathroom? we don’t need to go to the bathroom! He came home the first day and said – mom, 8-year-olds are, like, children. I’m like – yeah, they’re eight. And then he said – I’m exhausted. Children are exhausting. And this morning, he called after he had left for camp and said – hi mom, we are all OK (he found a job for a friend of his and is now carpooling, him, his friend and Edda. And he got permission to park in the handicapped spot all day instead of across the street at the school like all the other counselors), but I got rear ended on the way to camp. It’s ok, there is no damage to either car (we got out of the car and checked), but tonight could you teach me how to exchange information, so I know what to do next time? Because I didn’t know this time.
Edda is sleeping a lot of camp which knew would kind of happen and kind of makes me sad (we are ramping up her seizure meds so it’s not great on her ability to stay awake or enjoy a lot of things). Here’s her camp counselor Isabella who seems game for anything and Edda enjoys being in the pool and being in water and I’m grateful for that. I’m also grateful that they bring her indoors when the weather seems uncooperative, which is fine with me.
While at work, Vince is masked whether he’s inside or out (except when eating) and technically, masking is now optional when outside per CDC and national camp guidelines (changes all the time, the rules), but I think, everyone (esp the parents) is more comfortable if unvaccinated 8 year olds wear their masks and I’m happier if Vince wears his masks around the kids because if Vince is sick, even if vaccinated, I want to minimize the risk of transmission to the kids. (There are some parents who strictly said – my kid needs to mask all the time and if you need to eat indoors (distanced) because it’s raining or excruciatingly hot, let me know, I’ll come pick them up). So no one really told the 8 year olds that masks are optional outside, but the 8 year olds are figuring it out somehow. But Vince is enjoying his Hot Vax Summer, already told me he went to the mall and the movies without masking.
Jeremy made it to Germany on Saturday night/ Sunday morning. The rules went into effect on Sunday morning – that’s when Germany was allowing American tourists, but no one at the border seemed to know this, so Jeremy did have to be routed through strange locations with the border patrol to plead his case and he did successfully, almost missing his connecting flight from Frankfurt to Berlin. Doubling masking on the airplane.
He met up with his parents – it was hot in Berlin – 95F
Molly’s service was on Sunday afternoon. Jeremy was in Germany and Vince had a work obligation, so I decided to go with Edda, alone. Vickey had offered to come with me to help, but I said that we were going to be OK – other Rett moms would be there, it was going to be a short service and I wanted to be with Edda. I went early to set Edda up, to find a shady spot near to gravesite (it was a hot, muggy day) and hug the family. Because the ground was uneven and grassy, I first rolled Edda’s wheelchair to a shady spot and then I returned to the van to get Edda and we walked (slowly) the short distance to the wheelchair and I eased her into the seat. But Edda was upset – crying and unwilling to settle down. I tried all my soothing tricks, but she was having none of it. I thought it was the heat, so I walked her back to the car and get her back into the air conditioning and by the time I turned around to retrieve Edda’s stroller (and my purse & phone), the service had already started and I didn’t want to interrupt it, so I watched from the van. But Edda, while calmer in the van, was still upset. Upset enough that I had to drive her around the cemetary like a toddler to soothe her. I haven’t had to do that for many, many years. I did end up parking the van and I could see the crowd of people. I cried and watched the service from a distance. Anyways, at the time, I thought Edda couldn’t tolerate the heat (honestly, semi-cursing myself that I signed her up for an all-outdoor summer camp (necessary for covid rules) and that this was a sign she wasn’t going to be able to last a day at camp). I’m not a Rett mother who is confident that her daughter knows of things going on around her. Does she notice that Jeremy is away? Or that her brother came back from college? I’m never sure. In my weakest and most insecure moments, I will look at Edda and wonder if she knows that I’m her mother. So, I didn’t think she would know anything had happened last week. Honestly, I did not actually verbalize to Edda that Molly had passed away until we were pulling out of the garage to go to the service. Perhaps it wasn’t the heat? Edda, who had been calm all day, got upset on the drive to the service (while pleasantly air conditioned) and was upset through the service and only when we were driving back home and she was lulled to sleep by the motion of the car could she calm herself. In retrospect, I think she was grieving the loss of her friend.
Molly, beloved daughter of Lauren and Kevin and oldest sister of Sophie and Rory, passed away yesterday afternoon from complications stemming from her lifelong struggle with Rett Syndrome. Molly was at home and surrounded by her loving family. She was 17. Our hearts are broken wide open with grief, please keep her family in your thoughts.
So it does look like the EU is going to open the borders to travelers for leisure while Jeremy is flying through the air on Friday. I think it’s a go. Jeremy is trying to figure out how to pack. It’s a skill, traveling. Like remembering how to pack. Jeremy just emptied out his backpack that he hasn’t touched since March 2020. Look! Old physical therapy exercises from an injury that he doesn’t remember. Keys? To what? Old subway cards. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to go a week and a half without Jeremy.
I’m dog sitting. This is a dog that snuggles. This snuggling thing is not something that Maxi does.
This dog also hates Jeremy. I asked Alice if Jojo could move in with us and she said that she could, but that Jojo hated Jeremy and maybe she shouldn’t for Jeremy’s safety. I hadn’t noticed. I asked Jeremy – hey does Jojo hate you? Jeremy is like – Jojo totally hates me – she barks her head off everytime she sees me and seems to want to rip my hand off, if she moved in, I’d have to move out. But it turns out that Jojo and Jeremy do get along. See? We can still be friends.
Vince has been introducing us to Bo Burnham – I like these clips (he’s on Netflix). Not my natural go-to, but actually very funny. It’s nice having a kid in the house to tell us to watch these things:
I got the link for this video from the Technique (college yearbook) email listserve. I know I’m old-ish, but every once in a while, it really hits you how much time has passed and how much has changed. When I was in college, a big part of my life were my cameras. I took photos on black and white film, I developed the rolls myself in darkrooms, and then I printed photos on paper waving little lollypop wands to underexpose certain areas (dodging) or cardstock with little holes cut out to overexpose other areas (burning). I might have fallen in love with and kissed a few men in darkrooms (usually not at the same time – neither the few men nor the love/kissing), argued with friends over which CD to listen to over the sound system (I was partial to Annie Lennox, Natalie Merchant and the Indigo Girls) and eaten many egg salad sandwiches surrounded by people arguing which camera/film was better/worse. I’ve heard the shutter sounds of many of these cameras in real life. I’ve used a bunch of these cameras in real life. I can’t believe these were all in use in the 1990s. I used to be good at photos and think about composition and lighting and angles, but these days, I just take snapshots. Lots of people take lots of good photos now, I just want my quiet, soundless snapshots. I see more clearly how different my life is than Vince’s. I think it’s the same, but it’s not really. Any advice I give him probably is outdated too. The advice on love, though, stays the same, right? Maybe. Maybe not, what do I know about falling in love online or with text or social media? I know nothing about those things. Do I know what a young woman wants these days? I have no idea. Vince sometimes asks what it was like without smartphones. How did you make plans? How did you find a person’s house? How did you know if school was closed on a snow day? Honestly, a lot of times, I just didn’t know. As an immigrant kid, there were lots of things I saw and I just didn’t understand. I would go into another kid’s house for a sleepover and marvel at the “American-ness” of it all. Sloppy joes for dinner, an indoor cat, air conditioning, going to church. All weirdness and unresearchable and unseeable except for that moment. I didn’t even know they were called sloppy joes until years and years later because I didn’t want to ask and how could I find out? I just couldn’t. I also didn’t understand a lot of what my parents did as well! What’s the deal with plastic wrapping things? Or slippers in the house? Youtube and Netflix comedy specials are helpful with all these things.
I went last night to a training at the hospital. They are throwing away all the old IV pumps and giving us all new IV pumps with new tubing. This training was held in the outdoor tent/temporary structure they had used last year to triage covid patients that were overflowing the ED. Now it’s used for IV pump training. These new IV pumps are connected to the internet, so it can download new programming changes automatically. The old IV pumps are not and so when pharmacy wanted to change drug dosing parameters, they had to hunt down all the pumps floating all over the hospital and put little blue/red/green stickers indicating they were “updated”. (The IV pumps, when programmed correctly, help you not overdose a patient by giving you guardrails (both hard and soft) because it’s suppose to know what you are running into the patient). I was planning on quitting my nursing job in March of next year, but I’m not sure I can. My last shift (which was really difficult and challenging), I got a hug from my manager, I got a hug from my charge nurse, my tech and I walked arm in arm down the hallway to help a patient out, the night shift nurse and I leaned against each other during report, I hugged the night charge nurse as I was heading home. I don’t think I can get another job in which I can get this kind of support. I never, in ten thousand years, would have anticipated that I would want a work environment in which I felt this way.
Vince is back in town! He flew home on Saturday and Jeremy picked him up on Sat night and he texted this photo of them to me. The first night back, he gave us hugs and we briefly watched a youtube video (our usual before-bed ritual) and he headed out into the night to see his friends returning at 4 or 5 in the morning. Then he got up on Sunday at 10 am to make (virtual) orientation at his summer job (which he found out only at 3 am the night before while hanging out with his friends eating lasagne because one of them was like – ugh, I gotta get up tomorrow to go to my job training at 10 and then Vince was like, let me figure out when my job training and opened an email and said – omg, I have to go to my job training tomorrow at 10 too!). He’s working at the same JCC camp that Edda is going to and that he went to when he was about 8 years old. He’s a bit on the older side for a camp counselor, most counselors are high school kids, so Vince is a “senior” camp counselor with 3 high schoolers as his “junior” staff and then 10 kids who are third or fourth graders. He slowly realized yesterday that maybe he wasn’t only in charge of kids, but maybe also “in charge” of the high schoolers as well? Anyways, a new experience for him. Very different from the boy scout experience he has. It’s a joy to have him back. I never went back home for longer than a couple of weeks after I left for college, so I know Vince doesn’t have to come back. mmmm, the house has a teenage boy smell now.
The morning of Vince’s flight, Jeremy was making oatmeal in Jeremy’s favorite bowl. It turns out that it’s also Vince’s favorite bowl and when the two are living together, it’s always a little bit of a fight who gets to use the bowl and if it’s clean or dirty or if it’s hidden somewhere in a room, so Jeremy was looking forward to this back and forth bowl ritual. (I have no interest in the bowl. It also turns out (I had forgotten) that this was the bowl that Jeremy bought for our wedding to serve whipped cream cheese in for the brunch. We had a brunch wedding.) He was gingerly moving it from one place to another and it slipped out of his hands and broke and then he was heartbroken. It turns out it’s really hard to console a heartbroken Jeremy before he’s had his morning cup of coffee. We are trying to find a good replacement. A Pier One bowl from circa 1998.
After rejoicing that Germany had taken the US off the “at risk” Covid country list and relaxing into thinking Jeremy had a break from work and that he’d get to see his parents and I ordered a whole week of Hello Fresh in anticipation of me cooking dinner for a week, we spent some time reading and rereading the travel restrictions and it seems like the borders might be still closed to vaccinated US citizens. It’s a bit weird that on a Tuesday, we aren’t sure if he’s going on Friday, but that is where we are.
