Author: Doris

We are back from vacation. Edda is back at school and we are back to work. A few quick photos from the week:

A walk in the bay area with Jeremy’s high school friends Ben & Steve at Inspiration point:

We, by chance, rented a Chrysler Pacifica minivan, which is a plug-in hybrid. We had a good time charging a friends’ houses or finding different charging stations around – a period of time where Jeremy was trying to not use any gas and we were drafting behind semis to improve our range. Fun.

It was a very fancy Chrysler – it had lots of USB outlets, many many screens and a “fam cam” to look at all your passengers.

We met a bunch of Vince’s friends and hosted a burrito dinner. A pair ordered this enormous three pound burrito. The person holding the burrito is decked out in UCDavis gear because he works at the bookstore and these items are slightly mis-printed so he got them that day for free.

Jeremy reattempted his 1-hour-up-Mt-Diablo bike ride for the 3rd time in 4 years and basically got the same time as the last 2 times – 63-64 minutes. He tried many different approaches to training which included: losing weight, gaining weight & lifting, less structured training approach, more structured training approach, more volume, etc. etc. I thought he could gain the 3 minutes with better pacing and not with fitness, but he said this final time, he thought he paced pretty well (not going out too fast). I think he’s going to let this goal go…and turn to other things.

We drove to Ashland Oregon on the 13th and on the 14th, my 50th birthday, I woke to a beautiful day and a good mood and I ran a half marathon up and down the local mountain. 5000 ft of elevation gain and one of the best runs of my life. Gorgeous trail, only about 5 groups of people – so the entire wilderness almost to myself. We were lucky! Just a week ago, Ashland was smoky from the nearby wildfires and I was unsure I’d be able to do this run.

Our stay in Ashland was short, but beautiful. Our air BnB was nice and close to downtown so we could walk to all the cute shops.

Jeremy rode his bike the following morning.

And we left town having the most beautiful breakfast.

And then we drove to the outskirts of Portland to my mom’s home-cooked meal

We walked along the river.

And enjoyed a more elaborate, celebratory dinner for my 50th.

My mom in her natural environment – her garden.

Jeremy got to ride with an old friend of ours – Mike. He was on our first date (a long story).

We sent Vince home via plane on Saturday and we flew home on Sunday. It was a lovely week, I complimented Jeremy on the vacation planning logistics – it’s not easy to plan, book all the things and I thought the vacation was well-paced. But it was not without stresses, the main one being that on my birthday, a few hours after I finished running, we got an email from Edda’s new aftercare (where she had been for only four days, so, you know, I figured was still getting to know each other) saying that she wasn’t a good fit for them and that they were terminating services. So I spent a good deal of time afterwards, on the vacation, crying about this. I wished they had sent the email the next day, the day after my birthday, but how were they to know? All these years, I had thought Edda was too much trouble and too hard to take care of, but honestly, all the programs, all of Edda’s caregivers (well except for Tilli…these things have a long half-life in my memory), have all embraced her and reassured me about this – that she’s a “lovebug”. Until now! Anyways, I got home – yesterday was kind of terrible because I was weepy from the jet lag and then I had to deal with some aftermath of the aftercare stuff. But it’s mostly straightened out. The logistics, that is. No so much the heartache.

Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to George, out dog sitter, who hung out with Elka all week and managed her poopyface behavior and OMG Elka looks so much more grown up after we got home. Like she went from a tween to a grown doggie. Thank you so much for taking such good care of Elka <3.

We are on vacation on the west coast. We are taking vacation in the fall, which I enjoy. The temperatures are cooler, the crowds less crowded, I get a thrill from skipping school and work when everyone else is schooling/working. Vince is not in school yet, it starts at the end of Sept. And it’s my birthday week!

Of course, I’ll start with the logistics. I hired Jeremy’s nephew (not really, but close enough… I think 1st cousin once removed) George to be Elka’s companion for the week. He’s staying in the house with Elka, so my vacation really started on Friday when I took most of the day off to pack and pick up George and his computer set up, bring all that back home, set up the computer in the house, go grocery shopping to make sure George is well nourished, pack some more, order pizza and introduce George and Elka to each other. I usually do not have someone in the house to watch the resident pet dog, but I’m a bit self conscious about Elka and her small bladder and tendency to be incontinent, so I wanted her to pee only in my house if she was going to pee in anyone’s house.

Our flight was late afternoon on Saturday, Jeremy booked us out of Dulles and home from National, so he dropped us off at Dulles, drove the car to National and took an Uber back to Dulles. We had a plan of early, early check in, but the counter didn’t open until 2 hours before our flight. We probably could have used another 30 minutes. We are not only traveling with Edda and all her gear, we were also traveling with Jeremy’s bike and all that gear. We do not travel light. Sometimes I look at other people whose family members each pack one carry on rolling bag for a week in Europe and I’m like, nope nope nope. Not us.

In the security line, one of the TSA agents kindly pulled us aside and recommended that we should get PreCheck for Edda, that then they would only have to wipe down her hands. I mentioned that we travel so rarely with Edda that it didn’t seem worth it and the wipe down they do never seems too onerous, but then Edda got pulled aside and they did the most involved wipe down, full body thing I’ve ever seen them do which took at least 15 minutes. I’m not sure if it because she’s 18 now, or what, but while I was waiting for them to finish it, I was like – OK, that’s worth paying for PreCheck to skip.

Edda did great on the flight to SFO, rocking back and forth and enjoying her TV. I had a long sleeved shirt on so her rubbing didn’t bother me, but the velcro on her arm braces were tough on Jeremy’s arm.

And we are at SFO. The unloading of the luggage/rental car went smoothly. We got into the van and started to drive to Davis. About 20 minutes from leaving the airport, we got a text from George that Elka had pooped in his room (!, she really has only pooped in the house the first week she was with us) and then when George went to go get a poop bag to pick it up, she decided to eat the poop. Ahhh, poopyface re-emerges. Poor Elka, poor George.

Yesterday was Jeremy’s 54th birthday. To celebrate, I made a ginger cake the night before. Jeremy loves a ginger cake with a full cup of minced fresh ginger. I mixed all the things together and popped it into the oven when I realized that I had forgotten the eggs! I pulled it back out, added the eggs and put it back in the oven. And then I left it too close to the upper rack and you can see that it baked into the rack a bit. ooops.

It was delicious and we are eating it at all meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner.

to my old man, my darling, many many more ginger cakes together.

It got really hot in Davis yesterday. Hot enough to make the national news and break all sorts of records. I got a text from Vince in the late afternoon saying the power went out at his apartment – perhaps from overload or from rolling blackouts? Yikes. I’m not sure. Anyways, they headed to the pool at their complex. I told him to hydrate!

Sofie and I hung out on Monday – we made keto cookies for her dad. Given that keto and cookies are like not at all related, I think they turned out lovely. There were no flour, sugar or butter in these cookies. And that is basically what a cookie is – flour, sugar and butter. (The sprinkles are not keto – we made an exception).

We also spent part of the afternoon like this – Edda (still in her PJs in the afternoon watching a video), Sofie with a slushie from Kung Fu Tea and watching a youtube video on my phone and I’m trying to take a quick nap without anyone noticing by having a dog cover my body.

Washington Monthly named UCDavis the 2nd best public university in the country. This ranking was based on social mobility, research, and promoting public service, all things I am proud of Davis doing. Vince was very pleased when he told me this. The only other public university to outrank Davis was Berkeley. To which Vince told me, well that doesn’t matter because Berkeley sucks! Hahaha. We are spending a quiet labor day weekend at home. Catching up on work and finishing laundry!!

I found this photo on our shared photo stream…what was Jeremy doing yesterday? Testing out his camera set up no doubt. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t recognize his face. It changes all the time. Hair color, wrinkles, glasses, hair length, smiling, serious. Is it because I see it all the time? It can be harder for me to imagine his face in my mind compared to other people I see much less often. Maybe because I see it in all its different configurations.

Vince moved into his apartment successfully – this is the first year he’s living with friends. We are now ordering beds and bedding to be delivered to the house. Let’s see how that goes. He seems happy which makes me very happy :).

Back to school night! We had no Edda-care, so she came with us. Our beloved three-teacher team who have been together for 4 years. Edda’s here for 13th grade…

This is what Edda thought about it.

Summer is over. Vince left for California early Tuesday morning. Bob and Katherine left late morning (taking Pip, with Elka looking forlornly out the door as they left). Tianpei left for Rutgers early Wed morning. And now we are just ourselves again.

Vince got to California (smoothly through the air travel and connections), all upset because of the stress of moving in. But it got straightened out in the end (after a bunch of phone calls which threw me for a loop and left me anxious and unable to sleep) and he’ll move in today. He’s having meals with his roommates parents and driving their cars(!). They (with the kind parent) had to pick up a moving van from a neighboring town and they didn’t want to leave the car at the moving truck place and it turns out no one else has their driver’s license except Vince and so it was he who drove an enormous Highlander across town back to Davis. He was like – omg! – I have never focused so hard on driving in my life. Full concentration – as is appropriate for driving someone else’s car for the first time.

To cap off the end of summer, I went stand up paddle-boarding at Black Hills regional park. I have a nurse friend who goes all the time and was trying to convince me to go. I didn’t really need convincing, it’s just that I don’t have a SUP. She managed to borrow one for me, and we had a great time on the lake. The weather was perfect. It was a little bit windy, which makes for a paddling workout, but I don’t shy away from the workout. My tender right shoulder, which has been giving me trouble (at times incredibly painful) for almost 2 years now, was quiet and held up to the paddling. Normally, I wouldn’t do this again and again, but my friend goes all the time and I would go with her. We spent the afternoon looking at SUP online – I’m afraid I’ll buy one and never use it. But this lake is 20 minutes from the house.

Jeremy went on a beautiful bike ride.

Jeremy went downtown last night to see his boss (who works in California) and is in town for a few days. There was a happy hour from 4-6 pm and it wasn’t a great time as Jeremy’s parents, Vince, Tianpei and Edda’s first day of school were all overlapping at that time. But Jeremy hasn’t seen his boss (who he likes very much) in three years and didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. So he headed downtown in the late afternoon. It was exactly the same time that 1) I discovered that Edda’s aftercare doesn’t start until next week because the bus depot called and said – ummm, do you have a kid who goes to this aftercare? and I was like ummm, yeah…, and they were like, she’s back at the school because the aftercare is closed and 2) Vince wanted all the administrative help with filling out onboarding documentation for a job that he should have probably done 2.5 weeks ago and because of all this extra socializing, we are both under-slept and snippy. He’s like mom – what’s my SSN? And I’m like (a little uppity)- you should know your SSN. And then he sighs a big sigh and rolls his eyes and says – these forms make me want to die.

So I pick up Edda at 4pm (!) at school, in a sopping wet diaper because of the extra long bus ride (diaper/pants/wheelchair seat/shirt all wet). And then I came home and helped Vince find his SSN and get Edda into new clothes and wash the wheelchair seat and then Jeremy came home (I did not bother to text him any of this information because there was nothing to be done) and then we had Korean take-out and went to bed early-ish and woke up and everything is better. I took Vince to National at 6:30 am and he gave me a big hug and told me adulting is hard (the forms and various move-in things (like figuring out rent and how to get three people to pay with one check… are still not yet finished)) and that we’ll see each other soon.

On the drive home I thought, I’m a lucky bastard. So so lucky. I love my family and love that there are apartments and jobs to start, an aftercare to go to, a husband who will celebrate with me with leftover cake and family to make my house full. Even though it drives me crazy at the exact same time.