Oct 4, 2023
At some point in the night/early morning, I woke and got up to go pee. I didn’t even have to go that bad, but I knew if I didn’t, I wouldn’t go back to sleep. After that, I went back to sleep but was woken up multiple times by a certain little kitten. N. is about 3 months old and is still getting kitten wet food, which she likes to request it in the wee hours of the morning. She’s discovering that my wife doesn’t give in, but then she’s awake and pouncing and playing with her sister S. She being N. the kitten, not my wife, of course. Apologies for the unclear antecedent but not for the amusing image that entered my brain there. S. (our 3-year-old cat) loves the new kitten. She snuggles her, licks her, plays with her, etc. We wanted the kitten, no doubt, but we also knew S. was the type of cat to want a friend.
Naturally, the first thing when my alarm does go off at 7:30 is to feed N. I shut her in the extra bathroom, so the other cats don’t harass her for her breakfast.
Then, it’s the usual routine of getting ready, letting N. back out after my shower while the two older girls do, in fact, vie for any leftovers. I have coffee and my favorite Almond Crunch Cheerios for breakfast while checking news and social media on my iPad. I finish my coffee while writing this and then scoop the cat litter and get ready to head out to meet a friend for a walk.
I arrive right at 9, and my friend and I take a nice long walk with her dog around the neighborhood. We talk about both personal and professional things, and I pay little attention to where we are going (good thing I don’t have to navigate). I’m just immersed in the conversation. I tell her the whole saga of my mother’s ankle. My 87-year-old mother was hit by the automatic door at the grocery just over a week ago, fell and broke her ankle, had surgery a week ago, and is now adjusting to life back at home with the limitations of having to put no weight on that foot for months. My dad is learning how much she’s done for the household for 50 years. When my friend L. and I get back to her house we stand in the driveway and talk for probably 30 more minutes before I head back home. Midwest good-byes, I suppose.
When I get home, I have a Nature Valley bar for “second breakfast” and chat with my wife briefly while she’s on a break. She’s at a workshop and had to ask for them to take a break, and she tells me how passionate she is about breaks and the research that shows how important they are to learning. It makes me think more about how I can bring brief breaks into my classes.
I bring in some cat litter from the car that I bought on Monday and never brought in the house. I love the new packaging I’m getting that is a bag with a handle rather than a big plastic bin. Unfortunately, G. (12-year-old cat) is obsessed with licking plastic and decides she also likes the new packaging, so I’m writing this to the raspy sounds of cat tongue on plastic. I’ll find a closet for it, I guess. I send a friend a happy birthday text because I’ve come to the point where I don’t really like doing that on Facebook. If I’ve got your number, then you’ll likely hear from me. Otherwise, we likely aren’t close enough for this weird social media performance.
I sit down to do some work. My work is pretty flexible right now because I’m on sabbatical. I write my course description for spring, send a couple of emails, request a Canvas site to start working on spring. Then I look into recruitment for the next stage of my research project and send a couple of initial inquiries.
Around noon I feed N. the kitten her lunch and check in with my wife about lunch. She decided to take the afternoon off since we are going this evening to help my parents. So, she’s going to have a late lunch. I haven’t planned much for food this week since I was with my parents pretty much all last week, so I take some salami out of the freezer and run it under water to thaw so I can have some charcuterie for a light lunch. Meanwhile, I go outside to read a book for work in my “sabbatical chair,” which is a fancy outdoor lounge chair that I got in May to read in. It’s actually really nice with the breeze and not too sunny, although it’s unexpectedly in the 80s today.
I eat my food while my wife, E., prepares her lunch. She tells me about her morning workshop, and we talk a little about the anniversary vacation we are planning next summer. While she eats her lunch, I give my parents a call for an update. My mom had her first in-home PT today, which she said was hard, but they got her to the wheelchair, which was not too bad, she says. They also got meals ordered to come on Friday, so that’s good news. However, her blood pressure has been way too high, which she’s worried will land her back in the hospital, and the physical therapist was frank about how hard it is to recover from this type of injury. She is “anxious” for me to come up this evening.
My wife and I decide to lay down and snuggle a bit since she’s taking the afternoon off. Of course, as soon as I start to relax at all the national alert test we were expecting today goes off. Then, as I settle back in, I get a text, and reach over to silence my phone. My “do not disturb” feature does let my parents ring through, otherwise I’d probably not silence it right now. I’m enjoying snuggling but my mind is going and having trouble settling. I’m thinking about the fact that the PT said it was worse than breaking a hip and am feeling things about the fact that when I texted my friend about the incident she said, “at least it’s not a hip!” I know she probably didn’t mean anything by it, but I’m feeling some feelings about it. Finally, I doze at some point, and then we wake up around 3:15, not long enough, but I’m overheating in bed right now.
86 in October. Ridiculous.
I have a couple of cookies when I get up. I do some dishes, then help my wife on dinner. She agreed to make me Chicken Parmesan, and she’s making the sauce from our home-grown tomatoes, which we have a ton of. We put on some tunes, and I chop the garlic and help peel the tomatoes. I like being the sous chef. While waiting for the sauce to thicken, I text with a friend, play around online, and feed the cats. We get dinner ready about 5:30. We planned for an early dinner since we are going up to my parents. We eat and head out about 6.
As we’re pulling out, we see a big package on the porch, and it’s the ramp I ordered for my mom so we can get the wheelchair in and out of the house. My dad and I had a really hard time getting her over the threshold when we brought her home from the hospital. I ordered the ramp to come to my place (and ordered a different one to theirs) because we were worried it wouldn’t come in time for her doctor’s appointment next week. It said it would arrive on the day of the appointment to her, and on the 9th to me. So, it’s a nice surprise that it’s here now and E and I can take it up and get it set up. It’s super heavy so this is something that’s good to have more hands for.
On the way up we listen to music and chat. It’s a 40-minute drive to where my parents live in Fishers.
At their place we say hello and then work to get the wheelchair ramp set up before it gets dark. We get the backup ramp that we ordered into the car so I can take it to UPS for a return. (That one doesn’t seem as good as the one that we set up.). We take a look at some trim on the house that needs to be painted (seems doable for the weekend), help do the trash including the cat litter, look at light that isn’t working, and do various other things they need assistance with. We also both have some good time to chat with Mom who is in good spirits. We even talk about some things not related to her treatment. E shows her how to use dry shampoo. It’s the best visit I’ve had during this ordeal, and I know having my wife there makes a ton of difference.
We head back to Muncie about 8:30. E. drives and puts on a podcast that sounds interesting, but I’m getting really sleepy and can’t concentrate on it. When we get home, we take care of our cats, including a long play session with the kitten, and then get ready to go to bed and read. I also text a bit with a friend who I was updating about my mom, and ask about her dad, who has also been having health problems.
Today I’ve thought a lot about relationships. In talking with my friend on the walk, we talk about my professional success in recent years and how having a really secure and wonderful marriage supports me in that. And of course, having E’s support with my parents is also so important to me. My parents certainly have their things that annoy me (and those are highlighted in times like this), but overall, we have a good relationship. I see others who are cut off from their families at times of crisis for various reasons. I can be there for them and support them, and they appreciate it. I’m also thinking about friendships and which ones feel supportive and generative, and which do not. It’s hard to maintain friendships long term, long distance, and through many of life’s changes. I’m not sure the longest friendships are always the “best” but there is still something unique about someone who has known you so long. I feel like working to accept what people can and can’t give and valuing what those relationships are without expecting them to be something else is key to being happy in them. Not that we shouldn’t ask ourselves and others to do better when and where we can, but there’s a balance to be struck between what is and what we’d like. a