Category: Uncategorized

Last Saturday, we went to what I think is our last Eagle Scout ceremony. Jeremy took a whole bunch of boys to Philmont in the summer of 2017 and they are growing up and becoming Eagle scouts. I do get a little bit emotional letting this stuff go. The little boys are so little now! Like tiny. It’s hard being the parent of only adults now.

Jeremy always looks forward to the traditional sheet cake. It’s the highlight of his evening. And this was a particularly good sheet cake.

Edda started vocalizing at the beginning of the service and I thought she would “talk” throughout the service, but she did not. I started a random cough also at the beginning of the service, and I thought I would have to excuse myself from the room, but I managed to stop coughing as well. Kids! They don’t keep!

Jeremy spent most of the weekend working. So much so that yesterday he forgot to eat lunch. He has so many meetings during the week that the only time he can formulate and work on complicated things – aka deep work is on the weekends.

He comes to me at 4:00 pm and says – I’m so excited! This is a good paper! Let me talk to you about it. And then he tells me about his exciting thing and it’s really too complicated for me to follow (intricate agriculture world-wide supply involving multiple governments, import/export laws/customs, livestock (mooooo…) and palm/soy oil supply their environmental impacts in the various places they are grown). When I tease him, I tell him that he’s an expert on cow poop. But, really, I think he’s saving the world one tiny, complicated policy at a time which, honestly, still makes me swoon. The world is a complicated place and, though I may be clever in some ways, I’m a simple person with simple ideas. Jeremy loves complexity and loves working with balancing competing interests and thank goodness there is someone like him out there thinking of very complicated, very boring things that have huge impacts on what we eat, what we use, how we live and what we are going to give our children. <3

Yesterday, Dani and Vincent left for the West Coast (flight delayed a full day because of….who knows what. We went to the airport Friday and it was the best we could do – a Saturday mid-day flight). Bob and Katherine flew in from Europe Friday night and left very early Saturday morning even without any of us waking as they were on Europe time and wanted to get home quickly. A benefit of the delayed Sacramento flight was that Kiki and Kappa got to meet Dani which we thought would not happen this holiday season.

I’m spending the weekend putting the house back together, moving my work computer back into its office, beds back in their regular spaces, air mattresses deflated, Christmas decor put away, linens washed, bills paid, trash trashed etc.

With the death of Pip and our week-long illness with Covid and I, also, unfortunately, got yelled at unexpectedly and at length, so it was not such a great holiday week. We were joyful meeting Dani, for sure, the highlight of the vacation and are very glad that that happened.

The two of them, Vince and Dani, did get to spend three days and two nights in NYC which was Vince’s Christmas gift. They took the Chinatown bus there and back, stayed at the POD hotel and did so many things – the Met, MOMA, tacos, pizza, bagels, Broadway (the Book of Mormon), Rockefeller center, Grand Central Station, the vessel, the high line, ramen and the subway. It was sunny, but cold and they had a nice time. It’s a joy to hear them talk about their trip . I think it was also Vince’s first time “hosting” travel where it was his idea, he has a friend who has never been and wanted to show them a good time. He had to figure out the itinerary and execute the plan. It’s not an easy thing to do, as I know from all the times we’ve ever traveled, there is bound to be some grumpiness. They learned their way around the city, figured out the subway. I told them that if they were completely frustrated and/or lost, just take an UBER back to the hotel, but they managed fine on public transit and didn’t get lost, much.

I’m officially scared of Christmas now. The past 4 have had 2 or 3 depending on how you count of the following characteristics: 1) the pandemic, 2) death, 3) illness and 4) lots of crying. Let’s try to have a holiday season with fewer of these things. Sending love out there!

It was a rough start to the new year because we had to put Pip (Bob and Katherine’s dog) down at about 9 am on New Year’s Day. Pip had been staying with us through the holiday as B & K were traveling to Sweden to see Ben et al and we knew he had some health issues at the beginning of the visit. He was having some diarrhea and a cough which was due to his long standing heart issues. But despite these issues, Pip seemed very peppy. Eager to eat, excited to play “the game” (where we hide a piece of meat (usually from our dinner) somewhere in the house and put the doggies in a sit-stay and then we release them and they nose around until they find their treasure), happy to go on walks and sleeping comfortably. We got the diarrhea cleared up with some Flagyl, but the coughing got steadily worse waking us all up in the middle of the night, but he’d go back to sleep curled up at our feet and so would we. But it got concerning enough to take him to the local vet for a chest x-ray (clear) and another course of antibiotics. But as the days passed, we could hear Pip’s breathing become more labored and the cough getting worse and sometimes he wouldn’t eat, but then other times he’d eat happily and seemed perky and agile and so we shrugged and played the game and went on walks. Until New Years day at about 8 am when Pip, unsurprisingly, did not want to eat his breakfast and then went Jeremy went to him (while he was calmly sleeping on a dining room chair) to nudge him awake to try to eat again, Pip could not get up and was unsteady seemed about to fall off the chair and then we brought him to the living room where it was clear he was in acute distress. Jeremy took him to the emergency vet where they saw fluid all around his heart and thought it might be a tear in his heart. B and K were phoned in Europe and a sad consensus reached. Jeremy was home by 10:30 and cried and cried. Our dogs, our pets, we love so much and are so sad when they are gone.

My fondest memories of Pip are of Pip and Elka when Elka was still a puppy and wanted to play all the time and Pip was game. I’d never seen Pip play before and he was already a tiny, old man with a weak heart, but he played and played with Elka – our ferocious half pit bull puppy – flipping his body and baring his teeth and standing his ground. I am alpha to you! Grrrrrrr!!!!

Happy new year’s eve. Time to look back and think forward:

Spiritual Goals:

This past year, I’ve been working hard on letting go of things which is what I think I work on every year. I find that gripping tightly to things causes anxiety and undo stress. There are things about my relationships with my children and my parents (friends less so, but not not included) that I’m constantly working on – for example, Edda’s future for which emails and phone calls are starting to ramp up, to soften the anxiousness I feel about school ending and her possible future living situation. I’m also trying to support myself better, to calm my inner critic and doomsayer, which is easier said than done. This year, I started Effexor which was a good thing and I remain on it at year’s end, but I’m always looking towards getting off of it. As examples of the calmness I want to have is always my husband who steady temperament and general optimist guides me in difficult times and for just pure joy of day to day living, I look to Elka and Edda who both live in the moment and are generally both Buddha-like and are gracious for the here and now and for the feeling of possibilities and curiosity, I turn to Vince who is beginning his adult life and full of these things. My family helps me grow spiritually always. I recommit to putting my phone away while I’m at the house, and in the new year, I’m looking forward to bringing music and more of the outdoors into my life which always has a spiritual aspect.

Financial goals:

We are only one final quarter away from finishing Vince’s college payments and then, theoretically, he will be financially independent of us and he is eagerly willing to be so – we’ve already discussed – this is the last cell phone I’m buying you – not so many more sneakers I’m purchasing, lol. So, there needs to be a rejiggering of our financial picture. We spent the last year or so putting together a will, a special needs trust for Edda and those are in place. They will need to be revised once Vince is on his own and Edda is on her own (in a way). All the guardianship paperwork/social security stuff for Edda is done. I took a week long course offered my my workplace about retirement planning (this was offered through my HR department and they do this for mid-career gov’t workers) this past year and realized that things are more complicated than I want to take on and with Edda’s special circumstances, I feel like I need a professional on my side, so this is the year I’m going to start working with a financial planner and get things in order. I mean, things are in order, but I want a more clearer understanding and some advice on Edda’s situation. Jeremy is, honestly, a good financial partner in the sense that he trusts me, pays no attention, doesn’t recklessly spend money and makes a good salary, but he’s no good when I’m like – How much Roth? How much regular? How much in Edda’s trust? International fund? He shrugs and smiles and kisses me and says – I trust you, you are doing a good job. Gooo Doris! And then I smile and I’m no closer to my answer. I’m also working on loosening the tightening feeling I have with money – my scarcity mindset where I never have enough, it’s never enough. But honestly, it’s enough, and I’m working on being more generous money wise. We have friends who are retiring, so we think about this as well. When is a good time financially?

Career goals:

This is tricky. I gave up nursing about a year ago and I’m unclear if I’m going to go back. I’m keeping up the licensing, and for a brief moment this year, I thought I’d go back and work for the state or the county doing community nursing – either at a jail for for homebound citizens (I have a friend who travels to people’s houses to give flu and covid vaccines, this seems like a useful thing to do) – part time and that is still an interest of mine, but I feel like I’ve not yet really overcome the burnout I had working through the pandemic. I did start another position at the patent office this year which has been a mixed bag of sorts – I’m meeting other people which has been fun, but the work itself is rather unsatisfying. But the pilot program got extended for another year, and I decided that I’m staying on another year. So for this year, I maintain the status quo and continue thinking about this. I feel like I have one more block of professional thing to do before I retire. It might be to become a manager at the patent office, I’ve never managed people, so it might be something I need to do before I retire.

Intellectual goals:

Hmmm? I guess to stay off my phone. My enjoyment of learning guitar has increased in the past month or so, yesterday I practiced for an hour! I remain curious to what life brings to me. I’m not going to learn another language or try to become a youtube influencer or anything.

Health/Wellness goals:

I think I did pretty OK this year. It was a low-key exercise year where I had a lifting coach for the first half of the year and then a running coach the 2nd half of the year. I’m getting weaker and slower as I age (which can be frustrating, but I turn back to letting go), but, for the most part my body felt good and strong. I worked hard, but didn’t exhaust myself or hurt myself (very much, lol.). I did gain some weight this year which made my pants tight – mostly on our vacation where I ate ice cream everyday for five weeks and it didn’t come off easily once I stopped eating the daily ice cream, so for the last six or eight weeks of the year, I really focused on eating more fruits and veggies and fewer carbs and gradually, very slowly, the weight has started going back to where it was before.

Family goals:

Jeremy and I and Edda are still getting used to being the three of us, even though Vince is almost done with college. These changes are slow to adjust to. We are learning to travel more, just the three of us (our epic 6-week vacation was glorious), or maybe just the two of us (party in NYC). We are very much homebodies and love being at home and with each other, but we can all turn inward a little too much. So more exploring for us in the way we enjoy exploring. We are slowly repairing/decluttering/decorating the house because we have more time. I’m finding some joy in cleaning up the house. I don’t need a totally decorated house, but I like one that is functional not not very crowded. I’m pleased with what happened last year as a family and look forward to more of the same this year.

Social goals:

This past year saw a big social upheaval in my life in which a decades long friendship ended which I did not see coming. So heartbroken from that, I am slowly regrouping and trying to figure things out. This Christmas, I did feel like I have a good group of friends/family who love and support me, but alas, there is some sadness mixed in all that too. So I’m on the lookout for something social, I’m not sure what, but I’m working on it and hopefully, slowly, it will come to me.

Today is Thursday and we were supposed to host the DC Martin Secret Santa gift exchange. Jeremy had been feeling bad since Saturday, but he thought he had caught Vince’s cold – Vince tested negative for Covid, so he (Jeremy) didn’t bother to test. By Wed night, he was feeling much better, had gone out to buy 16 people’s worth of frittata ingredients and coffee cake, but because the DC Martins are more cautious than most, Jeremy pulled out a test at about 7 pm on Wed night to just ease their concerns. After 15 minutes, he groaned and said – I have Covid. Argh, we need to cancel brunch/secret santa.

So then I tested (I felt fine) and it was not negative! I was so sure it was going to be negative, but Jeremy walked by this lame 30 minute test and said – there is a faint line, you have covid. I looked at it in disbelief. I’m like – I have covid too! Then the kids came home from the bookstore (Vince and Dani) and camp (Edda) and we tested them all and they were all on team negative.

Today – Thursday – I’ve spend the day in bed. Sometimes I feel sick/tired and other times, I feel fine. I think if I hadn’t seen the line, I probably would be up and about trying to work and play, but since I saw the line, I can convince myself I’m quite tired. No fever, no runny nose, just a tiredness.

Of course, it’s terrible timing, this beautiful quiet week. Sofie is in town next door and we spent some time together.

Playing our board games again.

I went out to the mall with Vince and Dani where I played the role of the mother and not the friend. Does this make any sense? It’s so weird to be the mother of a couple! I’m not used to it.

Dani had a $50 gift certificate to Build a Bear so we built bears.

We had a nice time together. Fun. And then we welcomed Covid Christmas #2. Not fun.

Christmas eve – Vince and I went to Pike and Rose to have some ramen and do some light shopping for nothing. Which included this hat from Uniqlo (with the eyeballs). We also went into Sephora and Vince happily tried on some fragrance and declared – I smell like a Yankee Candle – which was true.

We went to a local indie bookstore which was new to me too and spent the afternoon happily looking though stacks of used books.

Christmas Day – Jeremy remains sick and is still surrounded on all sides with crumpled up tissues. Vince gets a water pik (recommended by his dentist), Edda gets some clothes from friends, Jeremy wants some sort of weightlifting bar which is enormous and is not ordered yet, but will be once the gym is more organized and there is a place to put the bar. My family bought me a new mechanical keyboard which is clicky and types very fast.

As is our tradition, I took the kids and the dogs to my parents house for my father’s birthday McDonald’s meal. This is what my father wants and he had a 20% off coupon to boot. So we all had McDonald’s and gave the entire shift a Christmas red envelope. It was hopping for Christmas dinner. Nine people on staff and the drive thru was 5 cars deep the entire time.

During dinner, my mother got a phone call on the land line which is attached to a rotary phone. I had to take a photo. I told Vince, now pua pua is attached to the wall. I spent so much time in my youth attached to the wall on the phone.

I’m also doing some catsitting on the side (not at my house, I do house calls!). Say hello to flower!

Happy Christmas Eve – sending love to all of you out there. We are having a quiet Christmas eve weekend here, just the 4 of us. Vince was sick most of last week and Jeremy is sick now, so there is lots of time in bed and lots of quiet time watching a lot of TV. I think everyone will be better by Christmas, unless either Edda or I succumb to the cold today or tomorrow.

Last Thursday, we went to the annual Christmas party at Edda’s school. We had a lovely time – I think every year, it gets better and better. It used to be just like a “snack-y” party, but it has morphed into a potluck lunch of sorts and goes on for a longer time. Jeremy dressed well. I forgot to dress festively.

We are so lucky to have this community.

Good friends will scatter and move on.

We bring the expensive cupcakes every year and did so again this year. lol.

I bought myself a swiffer – which is one of those things I’ve enjoyed knowing about, but never actually held in my hand. I have never ever ever dusted anything in my life, but now I want to dust the entire house. I see cobwebs that are high and dust bunnies on ceiling fan blades. So I watched some youtube videos on “how to dust the house” and now I know. So I started to dust 15 years of dust from the high places in our house – high shelving, light fixtures, inside light fixtures, knick knacks. The house is very dirty. It turns out once you declutter objects in the house, you then go on to clean the house itself. Interesting. Or else it just means that I’m not busy enough which is also a possibility.

Vince got home on Saturday night and we’ve been busy, but in a very quiet sort of way. We started our Santa Candle tradition – thank you Christine!

Bob and Katherine are here a few nights to see Vince before heading to Sweden/Europe for the holidays. Louisa and Leon came by for dinner last night.

Vince made this delicious almond cake which kind of fell in the middle, but was very enjoyable and made a bowl to hold the blueberries.

For whatever reason, our house has 10,000 lightbulbs. Eliana (who was here on Saturday) is beautiful in her Christmas themed sweater, but notice just 7,500 lights in the ceiling behind her. When we moved in, they were all incandescent light bulbs and in a flurry of environmental consciousness soon after we moved in, Jeremy switched them all to compact fluorescent light bulbs. This was very expensive and slightly heartbreaking for me because we were throwing away perfectly good things doing their slightly less than perfect job. Anyways, we always didn’t like the compact fluorescents as they are annoying and they go into environmental waste when they burn out, so we are switching (in theory) over to LED as they burn out. But I’ve been so busy the last 5 years, they have randomly burned out and I haven’t notice and I didn’t do anything about it, because instead of 7,500 lights, there were now 7,494 light bulbs and then who cares because, really who cares? But I care now. But here is the problem, I found 6 brand new incandescent light bulbs deep in a closet while decluttering and I didn’t want to throw away perfectly good new light bulbs that I could use right now, so I got up on a step ladder while Jeremy was not paying attention (this is hard to do because he never leaves the house and is often found within earshot of the burned out light bulbs) and then installed the 6 heat spewing Edison era light bulbs. And then I did notice that the there were pockets of darkness that are now no longer dark. I left them there for about three days without telling Jeremy. But I finally had to break down and tell him that I went backwards three decades in light bulb technology and he yelled at me and said – what are you doing?!? you have to take them out!!!? They use so much extra energy and then I said – but they were brand new! What should I have done with them? Throw them away? And then he said – yes! THROW THEM AWAY! And then this resulted in – literally a 45 minute discussion of which new light bulbs to buy – Amazon? Home Depot? Phillips? Off brand? 48 or 12? what about the ceiling fans? Globe lights? Ack. I think now we have a light bulb plan for the entire house. The incandescents are still up there awaiting their death.

Jeremy had a nice bike ride on Saturday.

I spent the weekend volunteering at a horse rescue? Why a horse rescue? I’ve never really been interested in horses at all, but I wanted a “job” where I meet people, is outside and there is some physical labor involved. This used to be nursing (ahhh, it technically wasn’t outside outside, but it was outside the house…, but I really can’t take the 12 hour shifts which often involved yelling (not by me, rather at me) I tried the state parks, but they wanted me to clean up trash by myself around the campground which seemed lonely and gloomy and I would be mad the whole time about the people who hadn’t picked up after themselves in the first place. Then I found this horse place which is a well-run incredibly well-oiled volunteer organization. There is poop shoveling, horse grooming, tractor fixing and an online system to sign up for shifts and people will tell you exactly what to do and it’s endless work. So I did the two day orientation and I’m ready to muck a stall. Anytime! Even on Christmas Day if I wanted to, because horse pooping does not take a holiday. It’s a little far from the house, I’m the only person of color, but the horses are handsome and it fits all my volunteer criteria. This is Waldo. I’m excited. I also am excited I get to buy a pair of horse-y boots.