Or she who has two children has 50 woes. Either way, Buddha was correct.
Quarantine has proven to be incredibly challenging for my oldest daughter. She seemed okay, and even appeared to be thriving in the online school environment, but that was not the case. No need to get into the details here, but she spent a week in the hospital for depression, and that was disabling in a way I didn’t think could happen to me. But she has been home for 11 days, and is making progress, which is all I was hoping for during those darker moments.
So while my last post was about the upside of quarantine, things flipped on Mother’s Day, and I became painfully aware that those who have depression or mental health issues have most likely been affected exponentially by this pandemic.
My takeaway is to check in with people I care about more … make sure they are really okay, not just telling me they are okay. ❤
While there have definitely been hard moments, several good things have also come from being home with my family for eight weeks. The best part has been all the quality time with the girls. We haven’t been crafting or learning a new language, but just being around them 24/7 has been wonderful. For example, Scarlett loves breakfast, and she is usually awake right after my first few standing calls of the day, so I’ve been able to make her something special a few times a week. With Anabella, it’s all about Starbucks drive-thru and watching “our” shows (The Masked Singer, Below Deck Sailing Yacht and Catfish … don’t judge!). They are both growing up fast, so I feel blessed to get this weirdly special time with them.
Having time to do things around my house (cleaning out closets, organizing, gardening, etc.) has also been cool. I’ve knocked a lot of things off my “to do” list … things that I probably never would have gotten around to.
And at least two or three times a week, I go outside with Rocky around 7:30 p.m., listen to music and watch the sunset … all by myself. And I’ve discovered that doing nothing is awesome. I rarely, if ever, get this much time to just be.
I’m officially one step closer to becoming a Stepford Wife. I was already the woman who is constantly cleaning/tidying the house, but quarantine has me gardening, cookinq and now I’m throwing dinner parties for my less-than-enthusiastic family. It was actually sort of fun to make a big Tex-Mex feast … almost everything from scratch. Two hours of prep and over in 15 minutes, but what else was I doing? 😉
Scarlett and I attempted the “drive thru” option at the vet’s office, because Thor (the puppy) needed his next round of shots, and Scarlett spotted a flea on Rocky (OMG!). Sounded easy enough … you pull up, call them, and they come get your dogs.
We arrived on time, but they were “running behind.” (Just like a normal doctor’s appointment), so we sat there for the longest 25 minutes ever (the dogs both wanted to sit in my lap …and also look out the window, while also fighting, honking the horn, etc.). They FINALLY come to get the dogs, but they say they only want to take one at a time. Well, Thor loses his mind when they take Rocky … he jumps in the back seat and immediately pees all over Scarlett. She starts screaming, so I tell her to put him in the cargo area and start handing her paper napkins and Clorox wipes.
Thor does not enjoy the cargo area, so he pees there too (thank goodness I had a big blanket down from a flower purchase a few weeks ago.) He starts barking like crazy and then hits the button to fold the seat down on Scarlett. She’s screaming again, he’s barking, and I’m laughing because it’s literally like an insane asylum in my truck.
The vet tech brings Rocky back, and he immediately lays down to chill. We all get a nice 20-minute break while Thor is gone … but when they bring him back, it’s like he had two espressos and an adrenaline shot. He’s running back and forth over Scarlett in the backseat, she’s screaming at him again, so finally I’m like “put him back in solitary!”
He starts barking non-stop, but we are only a five-minute drive home, so we decide we can handle it. About two minutes later, the whole car fills up with the smell of crap. Scarlett is holding her nose, I can barely breathe … she looks in the back and says “Mom! He pooped THREE TIMES back there!” He stops barking, and we hang our heads out the window the rest of the way home.
It’s day five of a business trip, and as I sit here with a bit of a hangover, listening to a presentation on finance, I thought I would jot down a few random thoughts …
1. Potatoes and schnitzel can be found everywhere. For every meal.
2. German men enjoy colorful socks. Stripes, polka dots, bright colors … you can find the Germans in the room by their socks.
3. The German language is intimidating. How many 25 letter words can you have?!
4. Cryophobia is clearly rampant. I’ve had one glass of ice water since I’ve been here, and I had to beg for it.
5. Flight simulators are awesome. If I had $25 million euros, I would buy one.
I enjoyed 17 glorious “office free” days over the holidays, and while I didn’t go anywhere, I did give myself the best gift ever … girl time, and lots of it. Time with former colleagues (on a party bus no less), several fun evenings out with close friends, time with my mom and aunt, and of course, time with the two most special girls in my life.
I also watched 53 episodes of Scandal, and organized every closet in this place. So 17 days may have been a few too many.
Tomorrow I’m heading into a third surgery on my neck for a staph infection. I should be sleeping, but instead I’m wasting time on Twitter, watching bad TV and contemplating all the bad things that could happen. It’s interesting how I’m now nervous about things (like anesthesia) that I wouldn’t have thought twice about pre-kids. I’m also considering staying up all night, so I can sleep until my surgery at 2 p.m. … since I can’t have food, water or even a stick of gum until then. WTF? I think my doctor is pissed at me for not just healing already.
Oh, and did I mention that it is currently 60 degrees in my room? I was just telling someone how I love sleeping in the cold, so the Universe said “Really? How cold would you like it?” And then the heater downstairs stopped working. But at least I have this one to keep me warm.
So I leave you with this … what I fear will be a regular feature on this site. We’ll call it … Questions Scarlett asks to make me feel stupid. Today’s edition is “What are chemicals made of?”
An article I read last week discussed several consumer trends, including one called media binging. Media binging is when you watch crazy amounts of TV at one time, usually because of NetFlix or Hulu.
So now there’s a name for my condition. In the last five weeks, I’ve watched:
• Two seasons of Orange is the New Black
• One and a half seasons of True Blood
• Five seasons of Drop Dead Diva
• One and a half seasons of Masters of Sex
And now I’m looking for something new. Any suggestions? I’d prefer something with humor (as the drama level has been a bit high in real life lately).
Saw this billboard on my way out of downtown Chicago. For Cinnabon vodka. Yes, you read that correctly.
I don’t normally have a problem with sweet cocktails, but this just seems really wrong. Please quit effing with vodka. It started out all cute with the fruit infusions. Then we moved to vanilla and other spices. Now we are moving to baked goods? Just stop already. Vodka is pretty perfect all by itself. That is all.
