Author: Doris

Yesterday, I took the day off entirely to rest and try to recover from my illness which at points during the day – I was like my head is going to split open and I’m just going to have to pick the pieces off the floor and shove them up my nose. I spent most of the day in bed reading/sleeping and scrolling. I did, at one point, get woken up by a call from Verizon (I’m trying to get FIOS installed at the church), and the technician was at the church trying to get into the phone room! I rushed over there in my pajamas and my throbbing head in drizzling weather to meet him and said – you folks were suppose to call/email me to set up a time to come over, the church isn’t staffed all the time and he sighed and said – they don’t tell me anything, it just comes up on the computer and I do what it says – it didn’t used to be like this. This is the 2nd visit from Verizon – which basically was the same as the first visit from Verizon and now some third visit is going to come by sometime from some people to do some things (hopefully different from the first 2 visits). I’m actually happy it’s gotten this far, as it started by no one calling me back for months and being on hold so long I had to hang up.

I finished Gone Girl on audiobook last week. I had read it before, but it was not satisfying this time around. I really dislike unreliable narrators. I don’t mind if you have dementia and are unreliable in that way, but if you are just straight up lying, it’s terrible to go through an entire book that way. It’s so hard for me to find good books to read, it can’t be too much like real life, full of trauma, abuse, etc. Where is the beauty? I need beauty in my life. I’m reading The Everlasting now – fantasy – time travel romance. Full of swords, love and dragons. It’s not bad.

We’ve been thinking about getting a new puppy. Jeremy spends a lot of time on instagram looking at doggies. I sigh because it’s work, but I will tell you that Jeremy is the main dog carer this time around. He generally walks Elka about 5 miles a day, I think they have a secret language together. Elka got kicked out of the coffee shop a little while ago and was nervous about being tied up outside while Jeremy got his coffee, but now she’s a champ and relaxed and often gets pets. Jeremy sidled up to me last night and said, it’s not our puppy, it’s Elka’s puppy – she wants a puppy and she’ll take care of the little one. lol.

I’m a little bit sick right now, so I’m slow moving and a little knotty in my head, but I’m trudging through the days. I’m out many nights doing things and I’m slowly getting used to my new routine. It turns out you can get used to a lot of things (not everything, but many things). I used to want to go upstairs at 8 pm to get ready for bed at 10 pm. If I was out at night (choir nights), I would get back after 9 pm and couldn’t sleep for a long time. But now I can more reliably sleep at 10 pm if I’m home at 9:15 pm. I’m getting used to being more social – I do really enjoy being by myself (amplified by the quarantine), but now I talk to people a lot and it used to exhaust me, but it’s been ok and..dare I say, fun? Perhaps.

People are messy and complicated. Feelings are hurt left and right, my feelings are hurt, I hurt other people, it is inevitable in a group setting. I understand why one might want to hole up in your own apartment with your ai friend who is always nice to you. Last week, I had an astonishing run of conversations with different people about hurt feelings and disappoints and fears and so many things. All I can say is that things are not as they seem, everything you see is complicated and has layers of stories and feelings and mystery.

I’m always happy to hold babies, and Nat surprised us with a little visit with week-old Ari. I don’t often get to hold such a new person, it was a delight and that baby was very calm and at ease in my arms. Leon is doing well, so happy for him, curious and less anxious, it’s great to see him growing up.

Friday, I volunteered to help decorate for the Roaring 20s themed vibes. There was a mocktail bar – prohibition punch. Not bad, very festive.

I collect plants from people that they don’t want. Usually there is a story behind them: this is a plant of lame apologies.

This is a plant of happy life transitions:

This is a plant of love, leisure and time together:

This is a plant of family trips:

And this is a photo of Elka!

So busy – but all fun. I have to remind myself – it’s all fun. Which is mainly is. Friday night we hosted Ben and Ali from California burrito night. They were staying in DC and Ben was going to come by himself to Rockville, but we’d never met Ali before even though they’ve been going out for five years and Jeremy sees Ben at least once a year in the Bay Area. Anyways, we told Ben about Carmen’s – our ice cream store – and Ben convinced Ali to come out to Rockville and when Ali saw how long the line was on a warm Friday night, she was delighted! Apparently nothing delights Ali more than a line to indicate the desirability of a food item.

Saturday night was a music fundraiser at the church. I will post videos of my two contributions. Please don’t make too much fun of me.

Our refrigerator broke again. I’ve known what was wrong with it for a long time, but I couldn’t ever figure out how to get to where I needed to go. So I always knew I was fixing it temporarily. But thanks to Jeremy who helped me get over a problem I could never solve, I really think I fixed it this time. Every time the fridge breaks, we need to take everything out, put it in coolers and wait for the fridge to defrost. Jeremy is very unhappy during this time. It’s the same way I feel when the washing machine or dryer goes down. But I think when the fridge goes down, I don’t even really care and I think it is also true of Jeremy when the laundry grinds to a halt. It just shows how we view the tasks in the house. It’s not only that I like fixing machines, but the fact that I’m also very comfortable contorting myself in small spaces that helps me fix appliances in the house. While the fridge was broken for about 24 hours, Jeremy looked at new fridges and there are a lot of new fridges including a delux one which was $9,000 – way out of our budget. But after I fixed the fridge, I was like – I just saved $9000 today. Not bad.

I got a little too excited last week and brought all my “Hawaii” plants outside. These plants aren’t all from Hawaii, but these are the plants that don’t do well inside the house (I mean, all plants would be happier outside, who am I kidding), but these are the plants that I hang grow lights and try to coax through winter, so they can go outside in the warmer weather and flourish. But I forgot my own rule which was that they go outside after Memorial Day which is like in 2 months! It had been so warm and, honestly, now that we are no longer tied to the school calendar in this house, I don’t know what time of year it is. Now it’s a bit too cold for these tropical plants, but I’m too lazy to bring them inside.

I’m trying to avoid putting up a deer fence to protect my flowers, but deer like all flowers except for daffodils. So here is one for you.

Each morning, I take the compost out and look at my baby trees. They all made it this year and are leafing out. I apparently have to spend more money and not just by bare root trees (the year I did this, only the oak trees survived and they are teeny-tiny. Like smurf sized right now). So I bought the second smallest size – this is a serviceberry tree which has these beautiful flowers. I was talking to Jeremy about my desired tattoo. I want to get a bird from this guy in Baltimore who has a three year waiting list. I want to get a cedar waxwing perched on a serviceberry tree. Jeremy was skeptical of this idea until I asked him to look up the personality of a cedar waxwing – social, not aggressive, sharing, fruit loving, gets slightly tipsy on fermented fruit sometimes, and has a polite courtship where the male offers up a piece of fruit and they pass it back and forth a few times and then the female eats the fruit if she likes him. That’s pretty much us. So now Jeremy’s more enthusiastic about the bird tattoo. (I’m nervous about getting on the waitlist for the artist because one of the questions is..are you local (because people fly in from all over for his work) and can you come in on short notice if there is a cancellation and … my answer would be yes and then…I would need to get the tattoo on like very short notice…so..that makes me nervous.). I’m not getting a tattoo of a cuckoo bird which lays its eggs in another birds nest and then when it hatches, the chick pushes the other hatchling and eggs out of the nest and makes its unconsenting foster parents raise it.

Happy spring. As the world spins terribly on, I rest my hope in nature and the rebirth of good things.

Last week my air pistol team won the winter season air pistol league. There was a celebration dinner – pulled pork and potato salad and delicious pudding cake. Jeremy and Edda came with as they had never seen the league’s building and met the people I target shoot with. It was fun and I got a trophy for the first time in a long time. They even typed my name on it.

This photo has the pistol unfortunately pointing right at my head, so…um, it’s the only one I have really. Do you see the wood paneling and the bar? It’s like classic old school. The bar top is made from a fallen tree on the property – it just got installed a few weeks ago. I really wanted to get the “most improved” shooter which I thought I had a good shot (hahahaha) at getting, but my friend Tim won it instead. Goooo Tim! Now it’s time for outdoor pistol league. I bought ammunition for it and ear protection. Jeremy shakes his head at all this, but is very supportive.

Kristen and I went on a long outdoor walk with Elka last Tuesday, that was glorious too. We walked 4.5 miles and talked and talked!

The reason I was also tired was because I also decided (after much deliberation) to take on a leadership position at the church (three year term – first year VP, second year Pres, third year, past Pres) to run the capital campaign to renovate a significant portion of the church. It needs to be done and whether it gets done, I guess is up to me. Because of this, I now feel the need to be at church when church happens. Right after Edda’s birthday party, in the evening was the biggest social event of the church calendar, the fellowship dinner – for which only I went as Jeremy and Edda were tired (I was tired too, but I got to sit next to the delightful Paulette who made me laugh the whole time). I told Jeremy that for the next few years, the two events absolutely can not fall on the same day – otherwise, I will be dead from overwork.

And then the next morning I went to church on a non-choir day – so unusual for me and helped out in the kitchen to understand what we’d need in a new kitchen. (As an aside, I had to tell Ward that it would be very difficult for me to continue olympic weightlifting as it meets in Frederick at exactly the same time as Sunday services. He gave me a hard time and I gave myself a hard time. I’m still practicing, I still want to do it. I kind of want to do it more than I want to do the church thing…but this is how it goes).

Now, part of my deliberation was my general uncomfortableness with “going to church”. Do I even consider myself a Unitarian? Almost…no. But I think that is OK, I asked around and it seems OK. hahaha. I had been thinking, in a previous life of going to seminary or divinity school, but I don’t really believe in God and would that be a hindrance, and Bob, my father-in-law laughed and said – absolutely not! So there you go. I go forth in this as my own protest to the current world order, to learn things, as a step to building a house for Edda. Wish me luck.

On Saturday, we held Edda’s 22nd birthday party at Main Street in Poppy Boy’s Kitchen. I was really not feeling it going into it (actually, I was going into it a little resentful but I was trying to not display it too much), but, of course, now that it’s done, I’m happy that we did it. I know it gives Jeremy a lot of pleasure and it gives Edda a lot of pleasure and it does give me a lot of pleasure, the same way doing a really hard workout gives one pleasure.

We have a very wonderful support team now that have helped us for many years – Seni, Emilina and Megan all help with the setup, the party and the breakdown and now we’ve all been working together a few parties, we have a great rhythm going. Eliana was Edda’s constant companion and got her showered, dressed and ready in her finest and a tiara.

This is the 2nd year we’ve had the party at Main Street and we are getting better at moving a shit ton of equipment, food, decorations, about 1.5 miles from our house to the venue. We had to make multiple trips for forgotten things like butter and extension cords and ladles.

My parents and Jeremy’s parents came to the party. The DC Martin’s all came. And we were surrounded by love. It’s interesting how the demographics change as we get older. As a younger family, we had a lot more Rett families and parents of Vince’s friends. This year, we had a lot of Main Street residents and a new addition – the folks from Edda’s day program. I do not know a lot of these families, so I just asked the program to tuck invitations into the communication notebooks and three or four families showed up and I got to meet these folks! Haha, the night before I was telling Jeremy – well, I’m getting RSVPs from people I don’t know, but now I know them.

Lauren made the beautiful cherry blossom cake which was perfect for the occasion and so delicious.

I had taken Friday and Monday off of work because I knew I needed that time to ramp up (tapering) and decompress (recovery). The house remained disaster-y well into Monday with bags and pots and pans strewn all over the house – but it’s mostly put away now. Jeremy is deep into figuring out how to make everything more efficient with loading/unloading so it seems like we are going to do it again next year. I feel like we can cater a very specific party with 24 hours notice. Do you want a pancake breakfast for your family? We can do it!

I’m enjoying this spring – every morning I take out the compost (which is a task that I procrastinate on in the winter, letting the buckets molder and decompose right on our kitchen counter rather than taking it outside in the cold) half-full as an excuse to watch the buds spring open on my semi-newly planted trees. I have a new redbud, new serviceberries, new witch hazels. I have new daffodils and new crocuses. The redbud and serviceberries are leafing out in little bits, but the witch hazel is still a mystery to me. I look at it and wonder if the little stick I planted last fall made it through the winter. I think so, but I’m not quite sure. Sometimes I think it’s green and getting a little fuzzier, and sometimes I think it’s unchanging and a brittle as a plastic straw.

There is the dogwood tree that was planted in the depths of the pandemic by our beloved former tenants who now live in Texas. For many years, it got ravaged by the deer and its trunk half broken at the base by who-knows-what because we had put up only a flimsy cloak of netting as protection. There was also the time I accidentally nicked it with the weed wacker putting a bright green and deep gash in it’s baby, struggling bark. But now I’ve fortified the defense and the deer don’t get to it and it it now taller than me (by just a bit) and is mending its wounds, slowly growing bark around the eaten and broken parts.

Sometimes I feel like that – a little wounded all the time. Serious difficulties and tragedies, set backs, a stinging comment, a world run by toddlers. But I’m also protected and shielded and strong and capable of regrowth. We are having Edda’s extravaganza birthday party tomorrow and it’s always a bit stressful to me even though Jeremy runs the show mostly. A few weeks ago, while he was away, he said – don’t think of a party where you are the host, try to think of it as a party where you are a guest.

I’m baking so much that the kitchenaid it on the counter almost all the time. I baked on Tuesday, I baked on Thursday – it’s fun and interesting and so absolutely caloric. Our supplies of chocolate chips, butter, flour and brown sugar – things I’d not really thought about for decades, I now know the quantities in our pantry intimately. I can modify what I’m baking by the ingredients I have. My mom bought a six pack of cream cheese from Costco of which she gave me 4. Four! I made a cream cheese berry coffee cake for Edda’s actual birthday. On Thursday, I found myself without any butter, so I went to oil-based cooking which ended up with chocolate muffins. I

Today is Edda’s birthday. She’s 22! I’m…happy. If you’d asked me 15 years ago if I would ever be happy on Edda’s birthday, I would have said no, absolutely not. But here I am, happy and grateful. She’s a tough cookie and has been through a lot, but I’m often impressed by her equanimity while dealing with her challenges. When she was younger, I was a desperate for things to be different and now, I’m more OK with things as they are. Not that I’m not trying to make things different, my God should things be different, I just like taking that desperate feeling out of my life.

It got up to the 80s this weekend and this was Elka’s response: too hot. She is like the princess and the pea – things are either too hot or too cold. Precious thing, so fearless, yet also fragile – aren’t we all like this? Strong in some ways, and crumble in other ways – directional strength.

This is birthday week for Edda and we happily started it by having ice cream last night in the summer-like evening. We walked to Carmen’s – ok we drove to Carmen’s and walked the 500 feet to the line and Elka got pets and Edda decided to upgrade from her regular vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles to a more grown up chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. As we stood in line, we texted Vince about his new apartment and IKEA furniture construction. And then we went to bed early.