Author: Doris

It’s been a quiet – and thus – productive week.  I’m trying to work out some insurance stuff for Edda, getting letters of medical necessity ready, trying to follow up with the non-responsive durable medical equipment folks, straightening out bills that still linger from Edda’s oral surgery back in April.  You can easily lose hours doing this kind of stuff and I know, Edda’s medical stuff is like a cute, fluffy bunny compared to what other people have to deal with.  I’m trying to not be on the brink of tears when I call the fourth or fifth person in a row to try and help me out and I finally find a nice person who sighs sympathetically to my plight, yet still can’t help me – I’m sorry, we don’t cover Rockville, you have to call our Baltimore office with the tone that suggests to me that he knows the Baltimore office is full of it.  But, he says, hold on, lemme talk to my manager and we’ll find you a nice person in Baltimore.  Also, as the seasons change, so does Edda-care – so there is extra arranging for that as the school year threatens to start.

Last night, we went to National Night Out on our block.  These nights out skew towards people with kids under the age of 8.  They close off the street and the kids careen up and down on scooters, bicycles, skateboards.  Dogs have arguments (and we knew dogs would have arguments, so we didn’t bring ours).  Though I feel completely a part of our neighborhood, we don’t know many of the people on the block.  When did all these kids move in?  Did we look so young when we had toddlers?  Even though I didn’t know many of them, I did start a number of conversations with – ah, you are the runner who also has the two dogs – a black one and a golden, right?  So I’m known, if only by sight.

Vince is off with friends again this week.  I think he’s spending easily half of the summer nights sleeping in places not across the hall from me.  He went to Chincoteague, the island of the famous Misty.  It’s nice to have friends who have beach houses.  He has such luxurious, adventuresome summers.  I miss him.

Vince, Jeremy and Bob went hiking for 5 days and 4 nights in the Gila wilderness.  I think it was about a thirty mile hike with a lot of water crossings.  They went with New Mexico friends, Carol & Mike and their son Hawk.  Vince and Hawk met during one of our previous trips to NM because they used to be close neighbors to Katherine’s house there, but they’ve moved now. I credit Hawk a lot for Hawk and Vince’s friendship.  Hawk would call the MD house every 3 weeks or so a few summers ago asking for Vince, and I’d usually have to say that Vince was out – but I’d pass the message along to Vince and Vince might or might not call back.  Hawk would call back a few weeks later and ask again for Vince.  Anyways after a few iterations of this back and forth, they started playing computer games together at night and spent a lot of time together skyping and texting back and forth.  Then Vince started looping Hawk into computer games with all of his own friends in our neighborhood, so, you know, the modern world – making friends all over the place.

The week they went hiking, it was record breaking heat all over the country – I was worried – hoping they weren’t too hot or lost or thirsty.

There was a moment where they had to walk extra long in extra heat to get to the river to refill their canteens.

There was a moment where Vince was lost for 30 minutes (although he was lost right at the river, so at least he was lost close to water).

But, according to all, it was lovely and fabulous.

There was also a rattlesnake.  This photo looks like the photographer was very close, but Mike is an ornithologist – so he had an extra-long-lens on a real camera body.

I spent the day watching the beginning of Sixteen Candles while putting felt stickers to the bottom of our dining room chairs.  And I discovered that the dogs like to pee in hidden spots on the rug.  I think it’s this one particular dog, but I can’t prove it.

The boys made it to the Very Large Array.

The girls made it to Sunday night dinner!

It is now the last day before the boys get back from NM.  I made it through the week in pretty good cheer, but the last day is always tough for me.  I rely on my boys for steady optimism (Jeremy) and steady socializing (Vincent), without them, I can be a sad hermit.

When I was in high school I, quickly, over about 6-12 months, lost about half of the hairs on my head.  My luxurious head of jet black straight hair dwindled, the diameter of my ponytail got smaller and smaller.  Every shower I saw a large clump of hairs collecting in the drain.  I was/am never (never!) one for caring much about my looks, but this hair loss made me distraught for a long time.  I will not be above admitting that, over the past decade, after letting go the incredibly unreasonable desires I had for Edda (first female president, Olympic gold medalist, savvy billionaire entrepreneur, solo-eureka-cancer-eradicator), the high reasonable desires (high school musical, college degree, nice husband/spouse, fulfilling career, a family of her own), the low reasonable desires (enjoying a joke, telling a secret to a friend, learning Avogadro’s number, baking a cake, taking the dog for a walk) and the things I didn’t even consider desires when I was pregnant (the ability to speak/eat/dress/go to the bathroom by oneself), that I sent up prayers to the powers that be to have it arranged so that she didn’t inherit my hair loss – that at least when people walk up to her, that they can always say – Edda!  You have such beautiful hair!  (Which is what they all say – just so you know.)

But I think the powers that be didn’t hear me – I think Edda is losing her hair.  There have been hairs collecting in the shower drain for a few months now, and today!  Of course today – the day before the boys get home, I really pay attention – I pull on her hair the same way I did when I was 15 and I see the same number of strands pull from her scalp in the same way mine did three decades ago.  And this is what brings me to the ground today – not the scoliosis which is progressing despite the brace, nor the turned out foot that threatens to deform so much and put the ankle bone on the ground, and not the advancing stiffness that pervades her body that makes it hard to bend at the waist to sit in her wheelchair or to lift her arms above her head to put on a shirt or to bring her legs into the footwell of the car – I fixate on the few strands of hair on the bathroom floor.

Summer has peaked, you can taste it in the fading flavor of the berries.

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Boys are back within internet range.  I got some texts today:

Boom.  Back into civilization.

Edda and her new counselor for the third and final session, Elizabeth, at drop off this morning.  Elizabeth is in nursing school!  Very nice.

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It’s been hot here in the DMV – but it broke today with a mf of a summer thunderstorm.

Drenched at camp pickup.

Edda’s painting masterpiece suffered a little.

You know what’s fun?  Being three is fun.  You get to play in the splash pad and have hamburgers and fries for lunch.  I learned both the word butt and butthole in Korean from Bert.

Vickey introduced me to cajun flavored fries with malt vinegar (at my most favorite burger place – Five Guys).  She says it’s like fish and chips.  I said I liked it, but when pressed by Vickey, I admitted that I wouldn’t order them again – I’d have the plain ones and I’d stick with ketchup.

Vickey also introduced me to this new thing – a way to make 100 water balloons in 1 minute.  Each of these balloons have little straws all attached simultaneously to a garden hose connector and when they are full, they pop off the straw and seal with a tiny rubber band.

We got to assemble a Playmobile ambulance which was harder than I remembered when I assembled little toys a decade ago for Vince.  I think it was harder because my eyesight is terrible-er and I didn’t have my glasses within arms length.  Lots of squinting to apply the small stickers in a straight line.

Came complete with an injured “Jeremy”.  Poor guy, luckily it was only a flesh wound and just needed IV fluid, which the ambulance had.  I miss my boys – they don’t often leave for a week together.  I have a slight, irrational fear that they won’t come back and then I’d miss them and then I’d have to do the rest of my life without them.  That would be hard.

Kitachi helps out with Edda on Tues & Thurs nights and Sat. days, she’s been working with Edda since last August – almost a year now.  They went to see Secret Life of Pets on last Saturday with a tub of popcorn and soda.   Tonight was taco tuesday – to which Kitachi said, I love tacos, they are my favorite!  I did not know this, or I would have made tacos on tuesdays earlier.  I was all excited because I had gone out of my way to purchase taco shells that had a flat bottom so you could stand them up and fill them, but alas, many of them had broken in transit.  So we had slightly crumbled tacos on this tuesday.

Quiet day here with just the girls.  Edda’s wound looks good today.  I found some medical sticky tape with some padding to hopefully prevent abrasion against the armpit.

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Home for dinner.

Nat helped with dinner and Edda tonight.

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Vince texted me this rainbow from their drive last night:

Into the wilderness this morning:

Headed to the Gila Wilderness:

Ready for takeoff.

Made it to NM – and Sparky’s – the home of the world famous green chile cheeseburgers.