Just a normal month

This is a most interesting chunk of weeks. When we are home I’m trying to locate myself just ahead of, or just behind, the work crew who may be doing anything from spackling the hall ceiling to applying window trim in a bedroom. While I’m completely accustomed to stepping over dropcloths or pneumatic nailers as a matter of daily routine, tripping over guys who barely know me hasn’t been a regular thing since a couple years ago.

It is also a time speckled liberally with unnerving visits to a stunning array of docs and diagnostic venues. Jeff’s default tendency to live in the moment is serving him well from the standpoint of his nerves, but mine are running a bit on edge as I can’t really turn off my mental map of the overall diagnostic schema and where it may be leading. The advantage to this coinciding with having contractors is that they usually park Jeff in, lessening the odds that he’ll duck out for a Wendy’s chicken sandwich and I’ll lose him at a critical moment.

Hazel has picked now to exhibit a flare-up of pink belly. Maybe it’s just the season, or maybe it’s that she got into the other cats’ food which is causing her immune system to complain about the onslaught of proteins other than duck and pea, but whatever the case--she’s just going to have to hang in there, or drive me to desperation before she gets hauled in for a steroid injection. Freddi meanwhile, is getting more walks than usual, but otherwise having to tolerate the one finished room with a closeable door--Gabe’s bedroom. Had she not attempted to eat the contractors’ dog (twice her size) a few days ago, she might have more liberty, but you just can’t turn that terrier tenacity off with a switch.

Jeff’s old college mate, French, is in town for an ecumenical ministry conference in D.C. We got him from the airport to his hotel with a brief diner lunch yesterday, and will retrieve him for a two-night stay chez nous on Thursday before redelivering him to the airport. And in a way, this might be the perfect time for such a visit. Who could possibly present the expert hostess façade under present conditions? I’m sure he’ll be quite happy, once he’s dodged several stepladders en route to the room I’ll put him in, to join us for two days of meals away from what my friend Katherine has dubbed “topsy-turvy land.”

Sadly, I am inescapably low on lunchbox whatnots, and must fit a trip to the grocery store in somewhere today. That will be after today’s doctor thing.

wintry mix

Gabe is showing Jeff a card trick. He shuffles, and says “tell me when to stop.” Jeff stares diligently at the flipping cards and says, “King of spades?” Gabe says “no, just tell me when to stop shuffling.”

There are some not-half-bad Whole Foods brand pizzas in the freezer. That’s what’s for dinner. I do not feel so ambitious as to cook something tonight. Even dessert. So the oven is preheating to 390° F. (What kind of a weird setting is 390°?)

Gabe says “watch closely and try to guess how I know which card to stop at.” Jeff stares intently. “You bent a corner back?” (Bravo, I think. That is in fact a trick I’ve known Gabe to use. But it’s not right this time.)

I will need to remember to go to the wine store tomorrow. Jeff keeps bringing home this stuff called “Black Box.” It is, in fact, housed within a box. But within the box is a plastic bag with an attached spigot with which you dispense the Chardonnay. It is not bad as wines for cheap people go, but it kind of somewhere between annoys and amuses me that the only way to dispense the last glass is to remove the plastic bag from the black box, unsquish it, snip a hole in it for good air flow, and dispense. Somehow I feel like I’m drinking wine from an IV bag. It is not sufficiently cheaper for me to tolerate that strange aesthetic. Tomorrow I’ll look for a nice cheap French bottle.

Tonight we got about .25 inches of snow. They’re calling for “wintry mix” later. (That should either be a form of Chex cereal based snack containing chestnuts, or a cd compilation featuring Christmas classics.) At any rate, the question remains: will the wintry mix delay school tomorrow morning? Will my intentions of getting Jeff to the new neurologist with plenty of time to spare be impeded by school shuttling concerns? Only Mr. Cold Miser knows.

Olivia calls to find out what’s for dinner, or more specifically, whether it’s something “good.” Whole Foods frozen pizzas do not qualify, so we negotiate as to whether I will subsidize her stopping at Ledo’s on the way home from work. I concede up to $5. Deal.

Jeff is standing next to my computer stool at the counter. In one hand he holds a glass of IV bag wine, and in the other, a slice of Whole Food pizza. I can’t help but note the vast departure in dining styles from my childhood of setting the table, and serving each plate with a well-balanced combination of salad, meat, vegetable, and starch. I think two things: One--It’s nice to re-experience that delicacy when we eat with my mom (except in that few of us eat the meat portion anymore,) and two--Don’t worry. I know better than to try this at home.

Wintry mix update: Liva calls. On the way home from work she hit an icy patch and does several total 360’s. Fortunately there were no cars around, and she pulled into a lot. I offer to hike 1/2 mile and drive her car home, but assure her that it should be ok if she does it slowly. I don’t know how slowly she went, but she’s home without incident in what seems like 3 minutes.

Time to become a wealthy Georgian.

There just aren’t enough people here. The girls are gone, and Liva, though technically in residence, is trying to condition me to her eventual flight by having a 24 hour social life. I do actually appreciate Gabe’s occasional card trick.

I had a sneaking suspicion about the calendula ointment on Jeff’s bathroom sink. I was not aware of any burns or rashes he needed to treat, yet there it was, conveniently stashed behind the cold water handle. I asked. He allowed as how the toothpaste has had a funny taste this week. I couldn’t help but note that the tube design bears no resemblance to Tom’s of Maine, nor have we ever tried a flavor that comes in a clear yellow gel, but you know, I guess they could make one.

Agua Clara is on the touchy cd player. For now. Once I shut a drawer over there a little too hard it will stop, protesting that its cd insertion door is OPEN. Silly thing. Years ago, Gabe made what is meant to be some sort of ball shaped vase in school, shiny with brown glaze. It is a useful wad of ceramic to place on top of the cd player's lid to fool it into thinking it’s closed, but it’s still a touchy thing, and reacts to the slightest bumps. Agua Clara is a Peruvian group. They were playing in Penn Station a couple weeks ago, and so pleased me in a mere 5 minutes that I bought their cd. Lots of hooty bamboo flute type instruments, with guitar and percussion.

This has been Pride and Prejudice immersion week. In addition to watching the ‘06 movie for the 4th time, I read the book, and watched the film once again with the director’s commentary running. Now I am very much wishing we had house guests, staying for 10 days, or 6 weeks or so, who would be keeping company with me in the drawing room where we’d play cards or engage in clever conversation. A prerequisite, of course, is that this whole fantasy would come with a cook and housekeepers. I do not require the fully outfitted guys who, one per chair, would push each diner’s chair in as we sit.

The Big Apple & some small worms

Our quick NYC get-away was, as usual, all in all a good thing. There is a remarkably endless array of places to eat. I really like places to eat, so it grieves me slightly to pick one in the sense that I must forego numerous others in the same neighborhood. Other times, other times.

Among the more discordant notes, there is nothing like a trip to exacerbate the noticeable neuropsychiatric deficits of chronic Lyme. Sometimes it means you fiddle around with your continental breakfast uncertain whether you need to pick up a fork, move your coffee cup, or get the muffin out of the way before you can eat your fruit. Your partner will almost certainly have to stop frequently, when walking in crowds, to make sure you haven’t lost sight of her, which you will do. A lot. You will not understand, or be able to keep track of, the day’s agenda even if your partner has discussed it with you several times. It is highly likely that if there are several blocks to go before you get to the subway stop (from which you will take a 30 minute ride across Queens to Forest Hills,) that you will forget that you haven’t done the subway part yet and ask a random stranger, in Greenwich Village, if he knows how to get to Forest Hills. This will chagrin your partner more than it does the random stranger who will merely look confused. It is also highly probable that, once on the subway, you may forget to sit down or grab the pole, and you will fall into the lap of yet another random stranger. Most random strangers, in my experience, are fairly good-humored.

The Hotel Gansevoort is a great place to stay if it entertains you to watch (from eight floors above) an endless processional of yellow taxis circling the block as they drop off and retrieve the hip in-crowd. I found it entertaining at midnight, and still so at 2 a.m. when my bladder called. By 7 a.m there was only a cab or two on the street, but there was a NY Times on our room door in a gray cloth bag.

The girls are all out. Somebody got Clunkola the Jeffmobile. I suspect it was Becca. It must be one of the pitfalls of middle child-dom. You get the yucky car. I feel strongly that I would like to go to bed tonight. Last night I got to feeling yucky on the train, and still did when we retrieved our car which was sadly low on fuel. We found a non-functioning BP station where Jeff failed to notice that he was not filling the car with gas while I discreetly barfed in the empty stretch of grass next door. Fortunately it was after midnight and no one was about. Fortunately no cop stopped to question whether I was fit to drive. Fortunately I was, as it had nothing to do with alcohol. And the next gas station had gas. But I just don’t think I can do the wait-up-for-the-girls thing tonight.

Today we discussed how there was no way for me to help Jeff with his activities of daily living without being--at various times--annoyingly solicitous, annoyingly impatient, or just plain annoying. He assured me that it is not a focused irritation he displays, and I must not take it personally. He is mad, he is frustrated, he is irked. But then, who wouldn’t be?

HNY

I do not, just because it’s New Year’s Day, have any particularly meaningful comments to make. The word observations, in this context, would mean pretty much the same thing as comments and I don’t have any good ones of those either, so I’ll make some stupid ones.

I really ought to go turn off the coffee pot so its little red light will stop reminding me to drink more. Even though it’s half-caf. Enough is enough.

This is the first New Year’s Eve in three years that I haven’t been hit by a surprise wave of melancholy while deciding whether to go to bed early or watch dumb tv. A distant friend in Scunthorpe sent me cheering words each of those times, and greatly appreciated those words were, but somehow I dodged the wave this year.

One apple pie does not go far in a house with Jeff and Gabe. If I’m going to bother, I may as well make two.

A kind and clever neighbor has a niece who lives in Paris. He responded to my expressed twinge of envy the following way: “The way I see it, you’ve got sky, you’ve got ground, you’ve got shelter and a warm bed pretty much anywhere you go, if you’re lucky.” Very true. Dandelions could be quite charming if all you’ve got is bougainvillea.