I regularly have meetings with providers for Edda’s services – some of them are annual, some of them are quarterly, some of them are every 45 days and some of them are monthly – at least none of them are weekly or daily, though I do have paperwork tasks that are both weekly and daily. Often, it seems like after I finish a group of them, I immediately turn around and do another set of them. I do not track them, I just get random emails from random people – time for our check-in! I’m like…didn’t we just check in? And we have the meetings and generally Edda is…the same as she was two weeks ago – two months ago. (A good thing).
Sometimes these meetings can happen without Edda, but often they must happen with Edda (because she is suppose to be her own advocate). I used to try to schedule these outside of her day program hours, but everyone (else) prefers to do it during day program hours – so I trek over to her day program to do many of these meetings which I like (sometimes) because I can say “hi” to her personal aide and say hi to some of Edda’s friends. (I also want to take credit here and say that I protect Jeremy’s time with these meetings and almost never ask him to come unless I deem it critical for his presence. He is grateful and will bring home cookies for me from time to time. He will also say “I’m so lucky” with a big bear hug when I feel sort of put-upon and suggest that he tell me that he’s so lucky to not go to the ten thousand meetings I’ve been to. (Mainly I need him there when I think I’m going to cry or when I think they are going to reduce services or tell me some other bad news bear type of news. He doesn’t cry – he says nice things that smooths things over for everyone.))
Sometimes, at these many meetings, the questions are strange – like “Do you have an emergency plan?” and I’m like, for what? Like a zombie apocalypse? Does anyone have a general emergency plan beyond – run? hide? or in the case of covid, sit on your couch and watch tv? (I know some people are preppers with both food and guns, I’m not one of those people. I know the country is going down, but, like the captain of the Titanic (or in my case, only the co-captain of only my household) , I’m going down with it with the string quartet playing. Not moving to Portugal, not moving to France. I’m not sure this is the emergency plan they had in mind, staying on the sinking ship.) Then the questioner leaned over and said – this is more for people on ventilators or what not and the power goes out. I nod and then I say confidently, “Yes, we have an emergency plan”. And then the questioner asks, “Does Edda approve of the emergency plan?” I tilt my head ever so slightly – like…does this meeting even need to happen? do these questions need to be asked? And I say confidently, “Yes, Edda approves the emergency plan for the zombie apocalypse”. And we both laugh.
I love lighting candles for breakfast and dinner – especially in these winter months when it’s so dark. I usually light only one at at time, but last weekend I came into possession of like 4-5 candles and then I decided that it would take me a lifetime to burn though these – so I’m burning them all at once which feels a little scandalous and dangerous. I feel, not like a zombie, rather like a witch. Witch-y! Did you read Circe? I really enjoyed the entire book, but loved Circe’s ability to be a witch with her plant-y spells. Highly recommend!
