New skillz.

A few days ago, we discovered that Edda can swallow her seizure pills whole. Why this didn’t occur to us years ago is beyond me. We had purchased a hospital grade pill crusher (which weighs as much as a brick) and millions of little plastic pill crush containers and crushed her keppra and trileptal every morning and every evening. We had mixed the powdered medication in a delicious yogurt (Edda’s yogurt, specially purchased for her – no one else in the family was allowed such decadent yogurt which tasted exactly like melted ice cream) and she seemed to eat it happily. But about a week ago, I inadvertently (because I often eat meals at the same time as she does), licked the seizure med spoon and tasted the bitterness of the residual medication and immediately made the toddler-yucky face and looked at Edda as if she was the saint that she is tolerating with grace all the indignities of her disability. And then Jeremy was like – maybe she’ll swallow the pills whole. The next night, Ginny took her meds and stuffed them into grapes like pigs in a blanket at a super bowl party and down the hatch they went. We all looked on with surprise. The next morning Jeremy plopped one whole on top of a spoonful of the irresistible yogurt and, again, they went easily down. Huh.

Sometime for years, we do things the “old way” and then don’t try out the “new way”. We like doing things the “old way”, but things are always changing, including things I didn’t think would ever change.

Look at this long haired corgi at the dog park. Swoon. Like a little low slung puff ball. Super cute.

Salmon dinner and plane tickets.

Jeremy made a lovely Valentine’s day dinner for us and my parents. Mom and dad brought champagne and we had cake. This is my favorite dinner that Jeremy makes, I could eat it all day every day. And he bought me my favorite berry cake for dessert.

The night ended with Jeremy helping my parents purchase their flights to China in a month or so (this is my true Valentine’s gift from Jeremy, such a good son-in-law). They tried to do it themselves and they got a price of $9000 for the pair of them (!), but with Jeremy’s help, it fell to a more reasonable, but still shocking price of $4500. It takes a PhD now to book airline tickets it’s so confusing. Cabin, cabin premium, cabin premium extra – who knows what you get with the extra extra things? 2 inches more of legroom for $30, $50, $100? Or maybe you forgo any luggage, checked or overhead. Gah.

2 hour delay, snow, dishwasher.

The nor’easter was suppose to blow into the east coast yesterday, but mostly it was going to be centered around NY and north, so I didn’t pay any attention to the weather at all here. It was gently raining in the morning yesterday, but I got Edda up and out of bed and ready for the bus and at 7:05, I was like – huh, the bus is late, I wonder what is going on and then I checked my texts and found an unread one that said – 2 hour delay! Ugh. So then I unpacked Edda from her wheelchair and her coat and fed her breakfast and and trundled with her upstairs to my office to work some of the morning.

By the time the bus was suppose to come at 9 am (instead of 7 am), it was snowing the hardest it would during any part of the entire day. Anyways, it stopped well before noon and the rest of the day was quiet weather-wise. I don’t know what it was, but I was in a terrible mood yesterday. Who knows why really anymore? Maybe the off schedule, maybe because it was rainy, maybe because the world is not exactly to my liking. I’m no longer sure.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone, love is all around and I hope you are with the people you love and who love you too. Jeremy is going to make a nice dinner tonight and we’ll be with my parents – double date. Last night, Jeremy went on a quick run to the grocery store to buy the last ingredients for the meal I requested (salmon) and so I cleaned up after dinner which is not how the usual division of labor goes. I have, sometimes in the past (though not very often truthfully), cleaned up the kitchen and Jeremy gets all discombobulated because he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be doing otherwise in the early evening and he uses the dishwashing time to watch his beloved construction and biking youtube videos and he is also particular about the loading of the dishwasher. In other words, he likes doing the dishes and I often mess up the dishwasher loading and we’ve spent many a nights thoroughly discussing the different strategies of dishwasher loading (my strategy being willy-nilly and his strategy is well thought out and involves dish nesting/size, water accessibility and effectiveness and unloading ease). Anyways, last night, he had to go out and so I cleaned up and loaded the dishwasher and started the cycle and this morning, the morning of Valentine’s Day, he was unloading the dishwasher and said happily – thank you for loading the dishwasher the way I like it loaded. And then I laughed and said – well, Happy Valentine’s Day to you! And thank you for overlooking any mistakes I might have made trying to load the dishwasher the way you like it loaded. And thus concludes the Valentine’s episode of 2024.

Weekend.

We spent a big part of the weekend doing house projects (we are mounting various shelves and hooks in our gym so all our gym accessories are up off the floor). Jeremy fulfilled a lifetime dream of being able to cut plywood in our garage. For a long time, to be able to do this involved buying a table saw or some such thing, but they invented a track circular saw which enables straight long cuts with a protected blade and he did great. Jeremy’s been working like a maniac for the past few months, but there was a lull between efforts which fell on a weekend, so we took advantage of the extra time.

We had a lovely Chinese New Year dinner on Saturday night with Xiao Ying and Chenny. Their kids are growing up and it’s fun to see. My parents are worried they won’t be able to buy snacks at the 7-11 in China, since the pandemic, they switched over to a completely cashless society (even panhandlers have smartphones apparently) and to get into the system, one has to be completely registered with the Chinese govt – so this makes it incredibly difficult to pay if you are an expat or a visitor. It’s this circular thing like you need to get a QR code to by a phone, but you don’t have a phone to produce the QR code, and it keeps going around and around.

Chenny was hilarious and handled all the ordering and he ordered all the americanized Chinese dishes that he loves. Sesame chicken, shrimp with mayo and candied walnuts. Classics. And a whole fish, because of the new year. Red envelopes all around.

Sunday, we went to Eric’s house for the superbowl party. He made delicious chili and we had frito pie. I love how the fritos kind of soften in the chili, but are still a bit crunchy. I also know that fritos have something in them that gives me a bit of a headache, so I have them only when I eat frito pie which is probably less than once every three years. I’m also in a fight with Luna, their chihuahua. Luna kind of “attacked” me a few months ago – I forgive her because I think she was in tooth pain. Attacked might be too strong of a word here because I may have inadvertently provoked her. But I’m a bit scared to approach her now (her bad teeth have since been addressed). Here we are at a little standoff over pita chips. We stayed until almost the end of the first quarter. I’m a party pooper – I look at football and I don’t like sanctioned head injuries happening before my eyes (but apparently all it takes me to participate in this is a bowl of chili and fritos). Nor do I like the money spent doing it, I told a friend, I think we should funnel all this money to child care subsidies and early education efforts. Again, I’m no fun at all.

Vincent, I apologize for my many shortcomings and please forgive me that in 20-30 years, I’ll be calling you about tech issues. Gene, for weeks, has had no internet in his apartment and various efforts have failed. I’m on his opera email list and I’m constantly getting emails which say – because Gene doesn’t have email, I’m sending this out – love Leah! My dad called last night all flustered because his $300 laptop stopped working. My in-laws, at the same time, called because they needed to download Firefox on their mac and couldn’t figure it out. We divided and conquered. Jeremy is better on PC and I’m better on Mac, so Jeremy walked my dad through his computer woes which involved thumb drives and ordering a new computer. I walked my in-laws through downloading a new web browser through the impenetrable thing that is a Mac. I can also feel this sliding of tech myself, even now. What’s a tiktok?

Seizures.

It’s been a seizure-y week here in the Martin-Lee household. Let’s see, today is Thursday… Monday, Edda had a seizure at aftercare, but seemed to recover OK and Ginny brought her home and we went through the evening hopeful it was a one off. Then, during the night, she had another seizure at about 4 am. Still, she seemed fine in the morning and we sent her off to school. So this is Tuesday morning. She had a seizure at dismissal time and her teachers/nurse were reluctant to send her to aftercare on the bus, so we went to pick her up and bring her home. No seizures the rest of the day/night. Wed morning we sent her to school and not even at 8 am, the teacher texted that she was having yet another seizure. So we picked her up and she was home by 8:30 am and spent the day with us, mostly happy. Yesterday, we spent some time rehydrating her and also she had a big poop which we were very happy about – sometimes the seizures are associated with constipation, so maybe we’ll be monitor that more. Fingers crossed today is a good day. Seizures are the worst. They tend to cluster together and come and go and sometimes they come for months and sometimes they come for a few days. Because of this, I really don’t know if the med do anything for her? I’m a skeptic hahaha.

Jeremy remains busy, busy – here he is taking a video call at dinner. But he still feeds all of us.

Lunch.

So many colors! Eggs, avocado, beans, beets, spinach and then I put a bit of balsamic dressing on it. I’m trying to dial down the fat and carbs and put more beans and greens into my diet. I’m not a huge fan of beans, Jeremy makes fun of me because he eats a lot of beans and has for years and many people who have dinner at our house are a big fan of his beans, but I don’t like them very much and have always avoided eating Jeremy’s beans. But he only makes black beans and I’ve been trying different kinds of beans (mostly canned though I want to buy some dry heirloom beans and try to understand how to use the instapot). Just experimenting and seeing how it goes.

Acne.

So, Edda, like most teenagers, has suffered from acne and it comes and goes with her monthly cycle as per normal. I don’t think much of it as I don’t think it bothers her too much and I know it will go away as she ages. I know that teenagers now generally take Accutane to clear their skin, but I didn’t want to (or it really didn’t occur to me) to put Edda on Accutane because 1) she didn’t seem to mind her pimples and 2) I hate giving her more medication. Everything you put into yourself is asking your kidneys and liver to filter out more stuff which is why I also dislike medications for myself and I also dislike supplements. If I decide that I want more vitamin C or more magnesium or calcium, I try to take it in food form. But I’m not against medication, I’ll take it if I need to. I take my antidepressants regularly. I’m anticipating taking high blood pressure medication in the future and I’ll take that when I need to (I measure my blood pressure every morning and I’m watching it slowly go up over the years as I creep into middle-agedom). I’m hoping to outrun it (literally), but I’m not sure how much longer I can be ahead of my genetics.

Anyways, I bring this up because I’ve had two medical professionals (neurologist and dentist) kind of gesture to her forehead and say – so what’s up with this? And I’m like what do you mean what’s up with this? It’s regular teenage acne and they look at me like I’m a crazy person. Like teenage acne shouldn’t exist anymore in the land of regular suburbia. I also want to say that if Edda was a typical teenager and was bothered by her teenage acne, I would not deny her access to Accutane – I would take her to the dermatologist and follow through with their recommendation. But I also would imagine that she wouldn’t be on two types on anticonvulsants and have trouble drinking enough water to help her kidneys process all that through her system.

Last will and testament.

We went downtown via the metro yesterday to sign a bunch of legal paperwork that I’ve been working on for more than 2 years. Mainly because I don’t want to deal with it. I could have had it done in 3-4 months, but I dragged my feet. Honestly, it took so long that I was worried that my lawyer would up and leave her firm and I would not be able to find her again (she reassured me that she had no intention of leaving the firm and if she did, she would send me a letter/email telling me and that I could choose to follow her or remain with the firm) I hired a crack legal team – I paid $4000 for her services – and learned a lot from the process. Most notably, I learned to set up a special needs trust – which I did (that took like a year, because it was a whole ‘nuther rigamarole) – and now I can die a peaceful death knowing that the world will go on exactly as I have planned. Or not. I won’t care because I’ll be dead and the world will surely go on without me. My lawyer also coached me regarding beneficiaries and various tax implications and various whatnots which I promptly forget or remember enough until they change the rules again and then I’m confused.

I understand now that everything involves practice. The first time is terrible, but then, you practice and it gets easier. Is it ever perfect? No. Is my will absolutely perfect? Probably not. But I’ll try again in 3-5 years and I’ll have been introduced to it before and it will grow from there.

It was the first time that I met the lawyer face to face and I like her very much. Funny and matter of fact, she’s like – if you have a question, call me! I won’t charge you for that. Jeremy brought up Bleak House which I thought they wouldn’t get the reference to, but apparently, he said – oh, yes, everyone got the reference except you. And I’m not the slowest person, apparently there is one client who has not signed his paperwork in over 9 years. Nine! And the lawyer’s husband, to her great exasperation, not signed his either. Lol.

Jeremy, who really didn’t do any of the paperwork for this, did coach me through the entire process. I would freeze imagining all of us dying on a plane and he would calm me down, hug me and tell me that I’m doing a great job and to not think to hard about it and keep going. This is the story of my life, I’m anxious to always do A+ work, but really, life really goes well doing B- work. They don’t teach you that in school.

To celebrate the B- work of the will, Jeremy noted that the attorney’s office was right next door to Rasika, one of our favorite downtown Indian place and we impulsively went into the restaurant and ordered way too many dishes and somehow seemed, also, to get an entire free fish entree as well. I celebrated the will, Jeremy is celebrating a very nice time at work, he’s doing so well and I’m so pleased for him and we rejoice over chic samosas.

I’m a superficial girl.

Another blog from Jeremy! He’s very excited. There was a nice reaction thread on BlueSky (a twitter replacement), but I can’t log in to show you because I need an invite? Hmmm, let see what twitter is saying…OK, I can’t figure out twitter either. Sigh. I really can’t be on social media at all because it just sucks my time away from me AND it makes me feel bad and jealous. Why can’t I have fancy vacations and beautiful hair and make beautiful birthday cakes and homeschool seven children at the same time ? Social media is a world without poop or stubborn stains or the inability to log into your banking website because they have an old phone number to authenticate and you no longer have that phone #, but you can’t log in to change it. It’s as if everyone can do everything all the time in 70 degree sunshine near a beach with no wrinkles and you don’t ever have to carry groceries in from the car while your child screams from the car seat.

I’m easily influenced in many ways, but…I’ve always thought of myself as a judge of character based on behavior and not on appearance, but I think that is not true either. So, I’ve had a Peloton treadmill since the fall of 2020 when we really started working out in our home gym in earnest. I (surprisingly to myself) enjoy the programming and do all sorts of workouts on it, running, walking, strength, yoga and meditation are all on my rotation. There are many instructors that I enjoy (I happily call them my “fake friends”) and a few I do not prefer. I don’t follow them on social media because I generally like them less when I did that (it’s so weird that sometimes I find a friend (real, not my Peloton fake friends) completely annoying on social media, but perfectly fine in person – like absolutely charming and personable). So there is this instructor, Rebecca, who I generally didn’t like – I found her a little off putting and awkward or whatever. I mean, not in a terrible way, but since I had like 35 instructors to pick from, I wouldn’t pick her. But then about a year ago, she got some slight plastic surgery – most notably teeth veneers so her canines were not as pronounced and pointy and then, lo and behold, I enjoy her classes a lot more. I was ashamed to admit this to myself, because, you know, it’s a superficial thing and I’d like to think that I’m not swayed in this way, but I’ve spend a few months now going through her classes pre and post veneer and it’s terribly true, I enjoy her classes much more post veneer than pre veneer. Ugh ugh ugh. Though I’d like to think if she was my “real friend” and not my “fake friend”, I would not have cared, but would she ever turned into a real friend if my initial reaction to her was that she was off-putting? Probably not and that hurts my heart.