Author: Doris

We had a lovely dinner at home last night with Deb, one of Edda’s favorite OTs. We started seeing Deb weekly when Edda was 3 or 4 and didn’t stop until Deb retired about 5 years ago. (Vincie also went to Deb for about 3-4 months back when he was a 2nd or 3rd grader to correct some backwards letters in his handwriting and she helped tremendously which Vince did reminisce about during a phone call after dinner last night, but he said that while his handwriting is pretty good now, spelling was still a problem. I said spelling was outside the scope of Deb’s practice.) Edda showed off her hand/fork self-feeding skills which are surprisingly good. We’d been worried about Edda’s walking, but Deb says that Edda seems steadier somehow.

Jeremy is still training insanely for a bike race next week. He slightly rearranged the home gym over the last few days adding a 2nd remote-controlled fan to the setup.

My mid-day walk showed the crazy cicadas. These climbing on iris stalks.

Alice, Sofi and I ate (not cicadas), but berries off of a tree. I’ve lived by this tree for 12 summers and have never eaten anything from this tree. But now I will.

This is both a surprising and kind of sad update from Vince’s college. Most of the alerts have been about Covid, but yesterday was about a bear. And then the bear got hit by a car and died. 🙁

I’m still feeling blue. I think it’s mainly hormonal, but it’s a drag. Sometimes I think I don’t know how to have fun. It’s OK, it’s just a feeling. It will pass. Look at these amazing 90ish year old men from Japan breaking the world record in the M90-95 4×400 – splits are: 2:07 / 2:34 / 2:27 and (holy crap!) 1:40!!!!

I’ve been in a bad mood for a couple of weeks now. When I was younger, I thought that my bad moods were based on something bad happening to me at that time. Now I think my bad moods are independent of anything happening outside of me. My life is seriously objectively better now than it was two weeks ago! And I can’t shake this – ugh- bad mood. I need to pet a cat. Lol.

Jeremy went bike riding in Frederick this morning. I have nothing to report except that it was a good workout and he’s feeling strong.

Edda’s class had a going away/thank you party (after school! in person! outside in the courtyard!) for everyone’s Best Buddies, especially the seniors who are graduating and leaving us. We would have liked to have gone and participated, but we couldn’t because of COVID rules. So we bought Georgetown cupcakes which for whatever reason, delights everyone. I knew there were going to be a lot of snacks, so we got the individual boxes so everyone could take theirs home. We accidentally ordered the birthday assortment which actually has birthday wishes on top. Whoops! It’s someone’s birthday, I’m sure.

OMG. This TV. It’s like I’ve never seen TV before. I don’t think we’ve bought a state of the art TV in over 15 years. Go QLED technology material scientists. We’ve always bought cheap-ish, small-ish TVs or waited for Vickey to outgrow her state of the art TVs and give them to us. I can’t believe how good Finding Nemo looks. Or how people seem to be sitting in your living room. It’s really a shame that my eyesight is aging so quickly – I’m sure it this TV would look even more fantastic with 16 year old eyes. Edda is delighted. We consume a tremendous amount of media, but we don’t (except for Edda) sit in front of a TV and watch shows together. Jeremy watches lots bike races and commentary on a paid bike sports channel and various youtube channels, mostly on computer monitors set up in the kitchen while he cooks and in front of his indoor bike while he rides. I generally watch random things on youtube or Netflix, but almost always privately on my phone. Never the Crown, Game of Thrones, that tiger wife show, the kardashian shows or Bridgerton. I eagerly watched Away, My Octopus Teacher and Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. I watched Fleabag on Amazon Prime.

Jeremy went on his first group ride since the beginning of the pandemic. I’m glad he got to go. Look at all those MAMILs.

Jane cooked Sunday night dinner. I’m so sorry I missed this (I was at the hospital working). She hit it out of the park with vodka pasta, a salad, app and dessert. And Jeremy said the conversation and company was lovely.

This has been one of my favorite pandemic outfits. Both the sweatshirt and pants were given to me by (different) people I love, but I think they would both agree that I look wacky and slightly ridiculous, especially when paired together. Now that people are emerging from their homes and talking with one another, I have had numerous, serious and lengthy conversations wearing this exact outfit and I often leave the conversation thinking – omg, they saw me in my pandemic outfit. I know, why wear it out? But I do. I’m lazy. You know Chinese people hang out on their porches in their underwear, right? (OK, mostly older men.) Gah. I’m attached to this outfit, it really leans into my crazy old Asian lady esthetic that I’m eagerly running towards – I just need some sparkle something – socks? or maybe on the sandals? But I think I might have to give this particular combination up now that I’m not really quarantined. Honestly, I’m a little loath to do it, to give it up that is. We’ll see what happens.

I wore the sweatshirt (not with the pants! progress.) to Vickey’s house where I hung out with her and her mother. The last time I went to Vickey’s house, it was late October and it was raining and super cold and we hung out on her back porch shivering and thinking omg, this pandemic is the worst thing ever – when will I ever be able to hang out in her house?

Vickey, as always, was a great host, making a delicious lunch with a recipe from Ina Garten. Her mom made a great cheese bread. I took the whole day as a vacation and drove to Virginia. I’m so out of practice with the driving. And there was a Friday afternoon traffic jam on 495 (of course). Took me almost 2 hours to get home (I also might have missed some exits in my weird unpracticed driving fog.)

I came home to find that Edda’s giant TV had been delivered. Edda’s Roku had broken (it made an actually physical clicking sound – is there a whirring something or other inside that little black box? it’s hard to imagine any moving parts in that thing.) and instead of buying a new Roku device, we bought a whole entire TV around the new, but TV-implanted, Roku device. Edda was delighted (she never asks for anything, honestly). Jeremy was like – this TV has quantum dots in it. I’m like – really? those, honestly, sound very small there must be a a quadbijillion of those dots in that single TV. Who knows – the marketing people like the sound of the word quantum. We plugged it in – shoved the bookshelves over (apt) and put the TV front and center. Unfortunately, some of her favorite shows (mostly Blue’s Big Music Show) have not been remastered for 4K resolution and look pretty bad on the new TV. Who wants to watch a pixelated Steve? And no one is going back to remaster the old Blue’s Clues shows. Sigh. (Though Finding Nemo in 4K is amazing.) Edda is much, much less picky about TV than she was in the past. In the past, she would walk over and cry and hit you if you didn’t show her one of her favorite 6 tv shows or movies. Now she’s pretty chill. So I think it’s mostly me that will be sad that Blue’s Big Musical Show won’t be on the TV as often.

The cicadas are out in the neighborhood. Honestly, the anticipatory build up was enormous, and there are a lot of cicadas around the old trees in the neighborhood, but on our street, all the old trees lining the sidewalks have been cut down, and so one can walk down our street and not even know that it’s cicada season. I think they are suppose to make a noise, but I can’t hear them.

Maxi tries to eat them after sniffing them for a bit, but she spits them out usually.

The bird feeder is attracting no birds, only deer, so I assume all the birds are eating the cicadas.

I was trying to remember 34 years ago (17×2) if I remember the cicadas then. It would have been the summer between 9th and 10th grade. I think I didn’t notice them then because I was living in a brand new development with all of the soil disturbed and the old trees cut down. Seventeen years ago (2004), I was tending to a toddler and a newborn in Millbrook, NY and they don’t hang out there. And I would have been too tired/busy to notice.

Take a look at Catherine on the Today Show yesterday, the Best Buddies president of Edda’s school! Go Catherine 🙂 (Edda makes a cameo.)

https://www.today.com/video/student-fights-for-accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities-in-schools-112291397847

A nice, social weekend. We had dinner at my parents on Saturday night. My father looks particularly grumpy in this photo, but don’t let it fool you, my parents were in fine, jolly form. The food was delicious and if you look carefully, you’ll see Vince on facetime hanging out too. He’s still hanging out in school, a few more weeks which is surprising to East Coasters.

We are starting to be able to meet the pandemic pets. We had Sunday night dinner at Eric and Colleen’s. This is Luna (or Tuna) and Sarah.

This is Jane holding Phoebe (or Peepers) in her sweater and Tuna on her lap. When her parents said – it’s time to go. Jane said that she was very busy holding the doggies and couldn’t go home. Peepers, for some reason, does not like Jeremy very much.

I’m not used to adding in travel time between appointments now! I’m used to scheduling no time between zoom commitments. But now I have to had the travel time. Gas is still not regularly available in my neighborhood. The extra socializing is fun, but we are all out of practice.

The last few weeks have found me slightly irritated at Jeremy. While the pandemic has been stressful (of course), nothing has been as calming for me as the steady presence of Jeremy. But as we are nearing the “end” (?) of the pandemic, I can tell, I want him out of the house more. I want him to find other people to talk to. I don’t want to be the only person he talks to about biking (omg so much data). I want the house back to myself (which isn’t going to happen because he’s probably going to work from home for the rest of his life).

On that note, Jeremy found gas on the Rockville Pike mid-day Friday and fuel-stress-free drove 100 miles to see his biking coach Dan and they biked around together and had dinner with his family. The dinner invitation was unexpected and last minute. I encouraged him, if he wanted, to have a few drinks and stay the night. It was alright by me and Edda (who when presented with a free night at home, indulged in ice cream and long phone calls with friends).

Jeremy acknowledged that he was a little out of practice having a dinner conversation, but it was fine! it was fun. omg. So exciting!

I remember, before the pandemic, I had a Spanish speaking patient who yelled at me the entire shift as if I knew Spanish. If I started dialing the phone to use the phone translator, she’d swipe the phone from my hand and said (in Spanish), you don’t need that! you understand! you can understand me! Of course, I couldn’t quite understand her, but I managed enough understanding (along with frantic and exaggerated hand motions) to move the table just so, arrange the bed to her desired height, set the bedside commode an inch higher than it was, to comb her hair and sweep it up into a chignon, and order her some lunch. After that shift, I was like – I kind of wish all my Spanish speaking patients did that. I would learn so much faster.

If I ever do learn Spanish, it will be because of Ana. Because on my first try of looking for a Spanish language exchange partner, I found Ana who lives in Cabo san Lucas, Mexico. Both of us beginners in each other’s native language, we’ve stumbled through almost a year of 30 minute sessions about 4-5 times a week, exchanging English one night and Spanish another night. We’ve spoken about our families and routines and vacations and neighbors using the simplest of vocabulary. She’s a dedicated student which encourages me to be a dedicated student as well.

The other thing I do is spend a bunch of time listening to full speed Spanish podcasts. Sometimes I listen to podcasts that are geared towards language learners, but just as often, I listen to podcasts which are meant for native speakers to get the rhythm of the language.

I’ve also tried paid teachers, I had one who lived in Ireland and now I have a new one who lives in Trinidad-Tobago who is in school to be a nurse. It’s an interesting adventure, I still can’t really say much and get tongue tied trying to talk. I still can’t quite understand quick exchanges I hear all the time at the hospital when people speak more quickly and probably more idiomatically and through laughter, yelling or whispering.