Author: Doris

Last year, I discovered that I could download books for free from the library.  The library app is fantastic, if a book is on hold, I just click on it and it puts me in line to get the book.  I get three weeks to read each book.  Once it’s due, it disappears back into the ether from where it came.  I don’t have to even leave the house.  After admitting to too many people that I didn’t read any books and fearing that I only read Internet memes and short click-bait pieces, I kept track of the number of books I read last year.  I made it to 17!  Not bad, I think considering that when I started, I thought I’d be lucky if I managed 4.  At this rate, if I’m lucky, I think I have only 500-1000 books left I can possibly read in my lifetime.  I reacted to this realization by getting rid of bookshelves full of books.   If I didn’t think it made the cut, out it went.  I started out this year by reading a hard copy of “H is for Hawk” – a book I got for Xmas and I wanted so much to love.  I love the idea of falconry and I love memoirs about grief, yet “H is for Hawk” was disappointing to me.  Each sentence was beautiful.  I do love a beautiful sentence, but I need a little forward motion, a little plot.  I can’t just admire each sentence for 300 pages.

Out!

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I tried to get a better photo of Edda’s curved back, but this is what I got instead.

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I might have made a poor parenting judgement this Christmas.  I gave Vince the game – Cards Against Humanity.  It’s a little not politically correct. I’ve never played it, but I heard from a reliable and hip 9th grader it was really hilarious and fun.  Now I think that maybe I don’t want other parents knowing that I gave him this game.  Anyways, Vince insists it’s perfect for his age group.  He won’t let me play it with him.  He declared that he’s never going to play it with any relatives. 

I signed up for my pediatric clinical rotation for spring term today.  This will be my 4th clinical course.  The first three were adult health, psych and OB.  I was lucky enough to do adult health and OB at Shady Grove.  I did sign up for psych at Shady Grove, but that one ended up cancelled and I went to NIH (which at 5:30 am is only about 15 minutes away from the house).  For peds, my choices were Baltimore, DC or Annapolis.  All far from the house, all an insane commute away.  I know tons of people commute more than that every day, but I’ve gotten used to commuting the 10 feet from my bed to my desk.  I ended up choosing Children’s Hospital on Saturdays.  I’m not sure I’m excited about working with kids and their parents.  Lots of people know they want to work with kids.  I’m a little nervous about shoving an NG tube down a protesting kid’s nose.  I also am, yet again, starting with a new cohort – so I gotta find some friends.

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Speaking of Children’s, Edda’s back is curving as she’s growing into puberty.  You can’t really tell from this photo – her neck is tilted from her hand mouthing, but she’s developing an “S” curve.  We have an appointment in early Feb for an ortho to eyeball her back.  I thought we would be able to dodge the scoliosis part of Rett Syndrome since Edda has been able to walk so well, but now I think the scoliosis is due to her constant, repetitive hand tapping.  The tapping causes her to lean in one position all the time and now as her back is lengthening as she’s trying to add height, the curve is becoming more pronounced.

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Vince is trying to figure out his version of a philly cheesesteak.  Steakummmmmmssss..

Jeremy wants you to admire the mitts that are attached to his bicycle that keep his hands warm.  I think he told me they are really for motorcycles.

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I did give Vince a ride to school this morning, but he had to scrape the ice off of the car.  Note the complete disregard for the 17 degree weather by the lack of jacket.

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Math.  The final is in a couple of weeks.  The county gave him a 30 page review packet he needs to slog through.  I’m trying to instill the love of the mechanical pencil (swoon!), the love of checking the answer, and the love of writing all the algebraic steps out.  Oh, also the love of flipping the inequality sign when you divide by a negative number.   It’s not sticking very well.  He mostly just loves being done.

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To those who gave Jeremy some Christmas $, he’s happily spending it on bicycle accessories.

So cold today!  Vince and I have a little passive-aggressive fight when the weather gets cold.  I’m of the mind he should still bike to school in bright, sunny, bitter cold weather.  He thinks otherwise.  I want him to ask for a ride.  He wants me to offer him a ride.  There is a morning brittleness that rivals the temperature outside. We are at a morning impasse.  Jeremy comes and rescues us by giving Vince a ride to school.

Jeremy is such the peacemaker in the house, he rescues all sorts of situations.

Jeremy and I went on a supermarket date tonight where we bought fixin’s for our own Philly cheesesteaks.

Everyone went back to school and work today.  Like the rest of the US, we’ve been letting our sleep drift later in the day.  Somedays we were still in bed at 7:30 am which was so luxurious.  I do like getting back into the regular routine even though our winter break was relatively quiet, I like being regular in all the ways one can be regular.

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It’s finally properly cold in DC, Jeremy and Vince are still biking.  I think Jeremy has on all his windproof gear.  Vince may be riding still in his shorts, he is a determined middle schooler when it comes to fashion.

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Ruby will be 15 years old next week, that’s 105 in human years. We are planning on frying up a delicious piece of steak for her to celebrate.  So rarely do we bring beef into the house, it’s going to be a special treat for all of us.  As she’s aged, she’s grown some lumps and bumps all over her body.  We decided a few years ago that we wouldn’t mess with them, we’d just leave them be.  Vince hadn’t really noticed them until yesterday one appeared, rather quickly, on her cheek.

Tony & Natasha and their pal Minna came over for brunch today.  They offered to cook!  It’s a little weird being in the kitchen cooking and not seeing Jeremy at the stove.

Jeremy and Tony talked a lot about race in America.  The rest of us chimed in every once in a while, but it was mainly Jeremy and Tony hashing it out.  Here are some of the topics:  affirmative action, Ta Nehisi Coates (TNC), transit, SmartGrowth, Asian American sororities (Do these exist?  I guess they do now.), unions, middle school math classes, charter schools, smoking cessation and a BonaVita coffeemaker.

Jeremy took me on a 1-mile bike ride to town center today.  Both Jeremy and Vince bike commute and I could too, but somehow I don’t.  Jeremy would love for me to bike commute to school (3 miles), but I’m resisting.  I think I’m resisting for two reasons.  1) I’m resisting because Jeremy is excited about it and somehow his excitement makes me less excited to do it and  2) I’m resisting because I’m a little scared of being hit by a car.  (I’m not resisting for the main reason why women don’t bike commute: helmet hair.  I don’t care about my hair.) When I needed to commute to the metro from the house, I did bike to the Metro because 1) I could save the $5 parking fee and 2) it was just about the same time as driving because the bike racks are located right at the entrance to the metro and the parking spots were so far away.  I think if I bike commuted to school and got a job at Shady Grove hospital and bike commuted (and if Uber / self driving cars / Star Trek transporting picks up), maybe we could drop to one car.

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I ate kale today.  Raw kale is pretty unappetizing.  When you eat it, you KNOW you are eating healthy.

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Right after I ate the kale and was feeling pretty good about myself.  I went to Bagel City and shared a chocolate eclair with Jeremy.  Kale + eclair in the stomach together = yin + yang = light + dark = Ariel + Ursula.

We spent New Year’s Day cleaning and doing small tasks.  The Christmas tree came down.  I enjoy putting everything neatly away and scattering all the pine needles throughout the house.  I even got new storage boxes for everything this year because Edda accidentally fell on the old boxes and broke a bunch of them.

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Jeremy spent the morning thinking and reading about things he likes to think and read about.  He likes to think and read about transportation.  He spent the last week engrossed in a book about asphalt.  Every once in a while, I’ll work on an asphalt patent, so I kind of know the words: aggregate, tarmac, bitumen.  But to me, they are just words I search for in old patents.  To Jeremy, it’s a transportation revolution and revelation.

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Edda’s working on a mean case of chapped skin because her face is always wet and rubbed.  I must remember to slather her with Aquaphor tonight.  It’s best to do it when she’s fully asleep so it can infuse her skin for hours.  But I always forget and then she ends up with a chapped face all day.

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Jeremy spent hours trying to repair our fridge.  A condenser drainage pan has corroded through and through, so instead of directing water into a funnel and out of the fridge, it spills and floods our bottom drawer.  He’s going to try and replace it – we ordered a part for $18.  We’ll see if it works on Tuesday when it gets here.

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I washed and repaired Edda’s wheelchair.  It’s ready to go for the new year.