Author: Doris

Seussical!

Tomorrow is the last day of camp for Edda.  So tonight Edda was in the Suessical musical and she was fabulous.  It can be an unpredictable time for Edda as it’s close to her bedtime, but she did great – walking across the stage in her purple shirt.  During the performance, she lost a shoe and always wanted to exit stage left, but Kara handled it all with grace and style.

Here we are post-performance with Kara and one of Edda’s castmates who could not resist posing in a photo with us.

Thank you Kara for a wonderful summer!!  (Jeremy is making chicken noises.  Edda often will laugh a a good chicken impersonation.)

Sleeping Edda.

We’ve moved Edda’s OT to Saturdays for the summer.  She’s usually too exhausted from camp to see Deb afterwards during the weekdays.  I don’t have a set time on Saturday, I just wait for cancellations and Deb’ll email me last minute.  Because Nat usually doesn’t work on the weekends, I get to hang out with Deb for an hour on Saturday while we encourage Edda to move blocks with her hands or play piano keys.  I love spending some time with Deb since I so rarely get to see her during the school year.  This Saturday, Edda was sound asleep when I pulled into the parking lot so the first 15 minutes of the session involved me and Deb chatting out in the middle of the parking lot and gently nudging Edda to wake up from her nap – hoping for cheerful Edda instead of grumpy Edda – you never know who you are going get when she wakes up.

Bad Things Hard to Get Rid Off

Back in February, I was in my attic dealing with raccoon.  I got rid off them, but my left leg was hurt and showed up two days later, very difficult to move.  It took me about 6 months to recover.  Now, I still have some minor problems using my left leg.  6 weeks ago, I caught something and coughed a lot.   After two rounds of antibiotics medicine, I still have some minor cough.  Really, I think I am getting pretty senior and recovering very slowly.  At least, not the speed that I would like to have.

Surprisingly, at work, I don’t think I have slowed down a bit.  I still have the memory that I had while I was in my 50s, of course, not at 20s or 30s.  May be, I have done a lot similarly things and find easier ways to do it. May be, I am much more relax and know the tricks just to stay half step ahead of the critical path.  But, I lost my ability to track numerous things without notes.  Now, it is notes, notes everywhere.

Hiking.

My boys are back in town and the house is settling back into its normal routine.  I’m going to include some photos from the hiking trip and I can’t add too much commentary since I wasn’t there.  The other boy in the photos is named Hawk.  Three nights and four days!  10,000 ft altitude.  Vince carrried his pack the whole way.

Coming home!

Jeremy and Vince are out of the wilderness!  I got a call from them yesterday evening.  They reported that the trip was fantastic.  They went with some neighbors of Kiki’s, including a 12-year-old named Hawk and everyone got along well.  Everyone will be home tomorrow which is wonderful for me and wonderful for Edda.  I wish I could have gone.  I wish Edda could have gone.  Per the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want. But! If you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need. Which is fine and true.

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I went to lunch yesterday with a friend who works at NIH.  She works in a lab with chemicals and pipettes.  Even though I love labwork in theory, I can’t imagine working in a lab anymore.  It’s a little too unstructured and slow for me.

I have another friend who is a nurse at NIH doing clinical trials.  She’s trying to encourage me to work there when I graduate.  No emergencies, no late night, last minute admissions.  Low patient to nurse ratio.  The campus is very college-like – even down to the numbering of the buildings – although I think that even though we called all the buildings by number in college, they didn’t actually have the numbers boldly affixed to the exterior.

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We have been combing Edda’s hair every morning.  Diligently.  Obsessively.  I do see little sticky white things at the crown of her head which get worse with the combing and the pesticide treatment that I’m applying weekly.  I did get a call from the nurse yesterday from camp saying they found a nit.  I really had to tell them that I’m doing my most impressively perfectionist effort to get Edda rid of lice.  No one else in the family has lice – I even sleep right next to Edda night after night, temple to temple.  I had to even state that the AAP states that no child should miss school because of nits.  I can’t tell if they are nits (I don’t think they are as they are worse when we scratch her scalp) or are little impostors (which I’m leaning towards) that are out to ruin whatever sanity I have left.  Not only does it mess with me mentally, but really?  Physically, I’m at the edge of my vision capabilities and my eyes can not really see something so small so early in the morning.  Now head lice are gross but transfer no illnesses.  Body lice, on the other hand (I found out yesterday), transfer typhus.  Now that would totally freak me out.

Copy Cats

A lot of our friends, especially those of our college mates (more than 150 and, of course, all seniors), learn that we try to have a family-reunion every year, they are jumping in and doing exactly the same thing – to have a family re-union.  It just like wildfire spreading very fast.

But, I guess, most credits should go to all participants.  Our half (1/3) is easy, Mom and I are retired or semi-retired.  The other half (2/3) isn’t that easy.  Understandably, their schedules are more than full and, may be, they have other interesting/urgent things to do.  And/or, they enjoy things that seniors may not. Therefore, I guess, when arranging the re-union, a lot of behind the scene compromises are made.  To that, Mom and I are very much aware.

In short, Mom and I look forward to having family re-union every year and appreciate your companionship.