Making it through June

Well, sorry about that! I knew I hadn't blogged for a while, but I didn't realize it had been four weeks. I'm having trouble finding time to blog, because the kids have started going to bed so late at night. Our 8:30/9 pm bedtime has become a 10 pm bedtime, without my really noticing, and sometimes it's 10:30 before I manage to close the door of their room. It's the light, of course -- how can you go to bed when it's still fully light outside? How can you even start getting ready for bed? I'm often working in the yard at 9 pm. Also, we don't have to get up early these days. They've been in summer school the last three weeks, but they don't have to catch the bus to Casey until 8:49 am. Plus, they can eat a late breakfast when they get there, before class starts, so I don't really even have to feed them. They can roll out of bed at 8:25 and be out the door and walking to the bus at 8:35. In other words, even with that late bedtime, they're still getting around 10 hours of sleep.

I, however, have to get up somewhat earlier. I have to feed the cats, which is time-consuming. Pie Bear needs an insulin shot and Chester needs his new special diet cat food -- see photo of large white blob at left -- but I also give him a little bit of regular food and of course Pie gets regular food, and it takes time to find two clean cat dishes, fill a needle for Pie, measure out the various foods, distribute them, and then put away the leftovers and mark Pie's shot on the calendar. Then I have to scoop Chester's litter box and take that out to the garbage bin, bring the newspaper in, make a pot of tea, get dressed, and wake up the twins. All this is to say that I can't go to bed too late, so I feel like I never have time to blog. Only on hot Saturday afternoons like this one, when the twins are doing their own stuff.

I'm trying to think of what we've been doing over the past month. Surviving, mostly. For me, it's just one day after another trying to get the twins sorted (fed, in clean clothes, teeth brushed, hair brushed, off to whatever activity, and not 100% on the computer or TV all the time), enough work done for my job that I don't get fired, the house at least not worse off than it was, the yard ditto. I mostly fail at everything. That's not me being gloomy, it's an objective assessment. Of course, me being gloomy/depressed factors into everything too. Although I loved rain as a young person, in my old age I find that cloudy/rainy days make me depressed. And we've had a LOT of rainy days this month, leading to a LOT of days when I found myself incapable of making dinner or doing other chores. Now the weather's switched -- it's so hot. And I don't do heat well either. But at least I don't get more depressed, I just get very very slow.

The kids finished four weeks of advanced swim lessons this past Thursday, and that was a nice addition to our lives (you can see them in the back of the photo -- Kid A in the orange swim shirt and Kid B in the blue). It was good exercise and their teacher told me that they're both great swimmers. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:10 pm -- it meant I didn't really have to come up with a formal dinner on those days (that's my definition of a good day). I made muffins or some other snacky food on those days, and when Kid B would ask, "Did we have dinner?" I'd say, "Oh, we don't really have dinner on swim lesson days."

But now swim lessons are over. I tried to sign them up for the July session, but all the classes are already full. I'm bummed. Think of all those dinners I'm going to have to make.

We had our first regular visit from Rocket Boy (other than the one-day-in-next-day-out visit he made in May). He came a few weeks ago, for Father's Day weekend, not that it was much of a Father's Day for him. I had made a long list of tasks for him, and he diligently worked away at them. He had wanted to take the twins on some sort of special outing, but all he ended up having time for was a quick trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Sunday afternoon (his flight left around 11 pm that night). I was sad for a long time after he left and so were the boys. He's coming back for 4th of July and my birthday and I have another long list of tasks for him then.

We talk almost every night. He seems to be managing OK in St. Louis, doing a lot of exploring during his time off. He goes to the Botanical Gardens quite often -- seems to find it almost a refuge -- and he went to Shakespeare in the park last weekend, which amazed me (the photo is from that experience). He's found a place to live, the basement in a shared house, but yesterday apparently both the refrigerator and the air conditioning died -- and it's horribly hot and humid, not a place you can live without a fridge and A/C. I imagine today he's trying to work on sorting that out. Right now (I just checked) the temperature in his city and our city are about the same, around 90 degrees, but the humidity in Boulder is 21% and the humidity in St. Louis is 41% (and often it's worse -- this must be a good day). I'm glad I'm in Boulder...

But in Boulder I have to be in charge of everything, including the cats and all their needs. We got some unexpected news about Pie Bear a few weeks ago, when he had his biopsy. The thing growing in his mouth is not cancer, it is a rare amyloid producing odontogenic tumor, which does not metastasize, but does grow and make the cat uncomfortable. The vet did not recommend surgery to remove it, given Pie's age (14 or more) and his diabetes, etc. So now we have to wait and try to figure out when it's time to let him go -- or rather, when it's time to actively end his life by having him put to sleep. "Letting him go" sounds easier than calling up the vet and making an appointment for euthanasia. If I try to look in his mouth to see how the tumor is growing, he snarls and tries to bite me. I have also heard him yelp once when he bumped his mouth against something. On the other hand, he's eating normally, including chunky food that he has to chew. He still likes to go outside and sit in the sunshine, and he likes to nuzzle up to me when I'm reading in bed. So, is it time? And if not, how will I know when it is?

Pie ran out of insulin a week ago, so that would have been a logical time to euthanize him. But I couldn't do it. It didn't feel like the right time. So I called the vet and asked her to call in a new prescription for him. We get his insulin at Costco, which seems to be cheaper than other pharmacies even if you're not a member, but I thought -- hey, why not join Costco? I've always wondered about doing so. It isn't terribly expensive -- I think it was $60 for a basic membership. Before Rocket Boy got his job, $60 was too much, but now it isn't. So I joined, and the twins and I went to Costco to see what all the fuss was about.

Kid A of course wanted to buy everything he saw. "Can we get this? Can we get this?" For example, he wanted to buy a very large seal (a stuffed animal) that wasn't even all that cute. "Where would you PUT that?" I asked him. People with low impulse control like Kid A should not have Costco memberships. I was sorely tempted by several things, including a large plastic jar of jelly beans, but I resisted. But even with me saying no constantly, we bought several things, such as a box containing 30 small bags of Sun Chips, a flat of organic peaches, a large plastic container of cookies, and two large bottles of chocolate sauce. I wonder how much the existence of Costco contributes to America's obesity epidemic. And of course we picked up Pie's insulin -- $325. For a cat who is about to be euthanized.

We finished the cookies within a day. The peaches ripened faster than I expected and I ended up having to make an emergency peach crisp -- which was more like peach soup. We have only 7 bags of Sun Chips left, mostly the flavor that no one likes (Garden Salsa). The chocolate sauce will last forever. And now I have a new question: how long do I have to keep Pie Bear alive to justify the cost of that insulin?

Being a single mom

Well, Memorial Day week is over and I got a good dose of what it's like to be a single parent -- especially one who's trying to work for a living at the same time. Maybe it would actually be easier if I had a regular job where I had to go in to the office and all that. I don't know what I'd do with the twins in that case, possibly leave them at home to burn the house down.

Instead, though, I work as a research assistant, and my hours are pretty flexible. I can work at home, unless there's a meeting to attend, and as long as I get the work done, no one's going to be too fussy about when I get it done.

This week was not a week in which I got a lot of work done, however. I won't say I got nothing done, because I did a little bit. But I was supposed to work for 16 hours somewhere in there and I didn't come anywhere close. Part of the problem was that I'm not sleeping well. Part of the problem was all the housework that's building up. Part of the problem was that my two main co-workers were both out of town, one on vacation and the other at a conference, so there were no meetings to attend. I did take the twins to the office with me on Wednesday and Thursday, but I wasn't very productive with them there. And I wasn't productive at ALL on Tuesday and Friday, when I tried to work at home.

On Thursday, trying to work in the office while the twins played on their laptops behind me, I really was on the verge of quitting my job. Oh screw this, I can't do this, I'm no good at this, I can't work on top of everything else I have to deal with right now. And then, while continuing to berate myself, I clicked on the website where many of the products of our work are displayed for public use. I was trying to find some examples of a type of document I was supposed to be writing, but I also noticed three documents that I myself had been very active in producing this past year. Here's one, and here's another. They're not brilliant, but without me they would have been lesser things -- or not have existed at all. (They don't have my name on them -- this stuff is mostly anonymous.) I've produced a number of other things this past year as well, some that haven't gone through the final editing stage yet, others published in other venues.

Hey, you're not worthless, I told myself, and with this evidence to back me up I was almost convinced I shouldn't quit. I still had trouble getting any work done, though. Maybe this coming week -- the kids have a half-day camp.

On Wednesday after work, the twins and I went home for lunch and then back to CU to go bowling. This was not a good choice of activity for someone with a broken toe, and I was in pain the whole time. But we had fun. I won the first game and Kid A won the second (we're both very competitive), but Kid B did much better than he ever used to. I would say bowling has become a fun activity for us, one we'll definitely do again soon (maybe when the toe is better). It's not expensive at CU, and I get an employee discount.

On Thursday after work, we went to Starbucks for lunch/snacks. I had my usual chai latte, but I let the twins order sandwiches and treats and drinks. On Friday night, we went out for ice cream at Sweet Cow, and on Saturday, we ate out for dinner at Panera Bread. Today, Sunday, Kid B is having a playdate (is it still called that when you're going to middle school in two months?) with some friends of his from school -- they're hanging out at one kid's house and then going to a movie. Kid A played with Z from next door for a while and then (with my permission) walked to our local branch library to play on the computers. I don't like the extra computer time, but at least he gets a good walk to and fro.

I'm trying to assign an area of the house to clean each week (this is a slight modification of a cleaning program I set up a few months ago) and this past week the "area" was the front yard. It was rainy the first few days, but when it dried up a bit I started pruning. I cut off two leaf bags full of juniper bushes and then started on the volunteer Siberian elm. And then Kid A saw what I was doing and wanted to help. He took over the saw and began sawing off gigantic limbs. Now this tree desperately needs to be removed by a professional. It's considered a "junk tree" in this area (maybe everywhere except Siberia, I don't know), but more importantly, it's growing in a very inappropriate place, right next to the sidewalk, and I'm sure it's interfering with sewer lines and whatnot. It needs to come out, and that's on my list of things to pay for once we get a few paychecks into the bank. But in the meantime I thought I could remove sections of it.

Between us, Kid A and I removed so much of the tree that the driveway was covered with branches. Which I then had to put into leaf bags (the smaller branches) or cut down to size and bundle with other branches for compost pick-up on Friday (which actually turned out to be Saturday, due to the Memorial Day holiday earlier in the week). I worked and worked on this project on both Thursday and Friday, but finally gave up. We put out our big compost bin and five leaf bags, and the rest will have to wait two weeks. It's a big job, and oh boy I missed Rocket Boy while I was working on it. Of course, if he were here he wouldn't have done the pruning (he hates pruning, thinks it's akin to killing) and then he would have criticized me for doing it wrong. I do think, though, if I had managed to do it, he would have helped saw the branches down to size and helped bag and tie everything up for the compost pick-up. Almost everything's harder with him gone.