Friends invited us to enjoy their neighborhood’s firework display tonight. It was impressive given one generous neighbor does all the work and pays for everything himself.
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First Check
The Girl recently began working at Culver’s, which is a restaurant we’ve passed on a busy road a number of times but which we’ve never given a thought to. We really didn’t even know the type of food they serve. So we were in the dark as much as the Girl.
She’s worked a few short shifts now, and today, she picked up an extra shift through the app the company uses for scheduling employees. Workers can request coverage for unexpected time they want off, and others can pick up that coverage for extra hours. So she went in to work from 4:00 to 8:30 today.
Today, she got her first check.
First Friday
The first Friday of this July — we began with a trip to the local pharmacy to get L’s second dose of the covid vaccine. We picked up a couple of suckers while we waited, returning home to find K and E playing Wojna in the kitchen. The Boy won.
In the afternoon, we went to the pool, which to our surprise was completely empty. When we went to Nana’s and Papa’s condo complex’s pool, this was often the case. The pool we joined this year, though, has been crowded every single time we went — except today.
The Girl originally went with the intention of just reading, so she didn’t take her swimsuit. Then she changed her mind. A fourteen-year-old can just tie a knot in her shirt and dive in.
After swimming, the Girl lost the call for shotgun. The Boy has only been able to ride in the front for a little while, and he’s still more comfortable in the back due to habit. But calling shotgun — what’s not to love about that?
Thursday
A day of working, a bit of riding, some pressure washing.
Unremarkable Thursday.
Busy Wednesday
The morning was all about blueberries. We’re drowning in them. We’ve never had anything close to this amount of berries. The birds have left them alone, and although a heavy rainstorm knocked off a substantial number of young berries/blossoms a few weeks ago, we still have so many berries we don’t know what to do with them. We’ve eaten them by the handful, given them to friends, put them in cereal, frozen them, and today, made preserves. (What about cobblers? Well, our oven is currently out of commission — talk about bad timing.)
So while K and the Boy worked on preserves today, I went out and picked a few more berries.
We’re right back where we started from. Except that we have a few jars of preserves now.
Back to Normal
“I miss Myrtle Beach” was a common refrain today from the Boy. Even though we had (as the kids called it) a crusty hotel, we all enjoyed our time there. Well, the kids enjoyed being there; I enjoyed being with the kids, watching the kids have fun.
Today, we went back to reality, though. Orthodontist appointment, volleyball, swim team. And we cleaned up one of the cars — mine, because it was the most immediately dirty. We’ll get K’s tomorrow.
In the meantime, while we had the pressure washer out, we left a little message in the driveway.
Myrtle Beach 4
Back at home, I finally got a chance to download images from the X100. I used my phone for most pictures (even though I always insisted I would never do that), but a few times I pulled out the little digital rangefinder.
Myrtle Beach 3.2
Myrtle Beach 3
Myrtle Beach 2.2
Myrtle Beach 2
When we woke up this morning, it was raining. It’s bad enough that it’s raining when you’re at the beach; it’s even worse when you’re at the beach saying in what the children have come to call a “crusty hotel.”I suppose that’s What you get when you try to save a little money. Because even if you save money one way you’re going to pay for another. Still there is a right side to staying in this crusty hotel: it makes us stay away from it.
So in the morning we head to an aquarium.
In the afternoon when it clears up, we go to the beach.
And in the evening, the SkyWheel.
Myrtle Beach 1
WiFi not working at the hotel; cell service not allowing image upload very willingly. At not for want of trying.
In the end, I guess the streak still technically continues.
Thursday
Fresh
The Girl’s first day on the job was yesterday, but she was just shadowing people. “I learned how to restock the ketchup! Thrilling!” she exclaimed with a hint of sarcasm.
Today, she worked on the cash register, which means she had multiple interactions with the public.
“Hi! Welcome to Culver’s! What can I get started fresh for you today?”
“Is that what you have to say? Those exact words?” I asked during our conversation after she returned.
“No, we just have to work ‘fresh’ into it somehow.”
“So you could say something like, ‘Hi! Welcome to Culver’s, home of freshity fresh-fresh freshness!’? Would that work?”
She rolled her eyes as a fourteen-year-old will do.
As for the picture, I had to sneak it.
At the Dentist
Probably the only thing about the dentist that the Boy enjoys is the fact that he can watch Cartoon Network the entire time.
The only thing I like about it? No cavities.
Hospital Stay
Dad’s been in the hospital since Friday. He was talking such nonsense that it was unbelievable, unable to calm himself, hyperventilating and rocking his head back and forth. In the midst of all that, he had (or was having) a stroke. So he’s been in the hospital four nights and four days. He’ll likely be discharged tomorrow, and we’re hoping he’ll land in NHC, where Mom was. Of course, she hated it there, but I don’t think he’ll be that bad off. He’s much more social, and he’s not suffering from shingles, so he’ll be able to go out into the common area (or be wheeled out there) and talk to people.
At any rate, we need the time to prepare. It’s a little like Nana: we don’t really know what we’re getting ourselves into because we don’t know what kind of mobility Dad is going to have. I’ve been fearing the worst, but I think perhaps my fears were a bit exaggerated? At any rate, we’re going to try to get a hospital bed in place and get some help lined up. We’re more confident about the former than the latter. We’re hoping to get Dad on hospice, but we don’t know if he’ll qualify.
Everything is up in the air.
Boys’ Lunch
After visiting with Papa this morning, E and I decided we needed a boys’ afternoon out for lunch. And when it’s a boys’ afternoon out for lunch, we always choose Mexican. And when we choose Mexican, the Boy always chooses the same thing: enchiladas.
The Girl couldn’t go with us because, well, it was a boys’ afternoon, but also because she had her first day at work. I got to see her in her Culver’s uniform, but I didn’t get to snap a picture. Not yet, at least.
Father’s Day 2021
With Papa in the hospital, the simplest gifts are the best: a visit from the kids made his day.
Saturday
I see in the time machine widget at the bottom of the page that it was ten years ago today that I set the four-by-four posts in concrete to make the supports for our raspberry canes.
The canes are no more; the posts are no more; the carport is no more. Ten years and so many changes.
One week and so many changes.
The Week Ends
We go from week to week without much thought most of the time. Monday comes, and we drag ourselves out of the bed and into work. Sometimes we’re lucky and have a job that we enjoy, and we’re eager to get to work. I’m fortunate that most Mondays, that’s how I feel. But no matter how much we love our job, the week grinds us down, and Friday evening brings a welcome release. We make the most of the weekend, try to recharge ourselves, and head out into the world the next week.
We go through these weeks week after week, again and again, and each week brings some progress to whatever our goals and adventures might be, but after a while, everything just seems to blend together. Week after week, no single week seems to be different than the one that preceded it, or the one that proceeded it. Weeks pass like days which pass like hours, which flow by like seconds, which make the steady stream we call reality.
But every now and then, we have weeks that change everything made up of days that are constant little shifts that are made up of hours that are utterly unpredictable. And the reality we start those weeks with is completely different than the reality that ends the week.
When Nana had a pulmonary embolism two and a half years ago, the week she spent in the hospital afterward was just such a week. She should not, according to the statistics, have survived that first night. But she did. And any time someone survives like that, the week that follows is a week that realigns the reality of everyone connected to the survivor.
This has been such a week for us, ending in a trip to the ER. We make it into a room at the ER but have to wait for a while: there is an arrest issue on the floor, the nurse explains, and I have to ask for clarification: cardiac or criminal? It is, of course, the former, and I feel immediately stupid for asking the question.
The doctor comes in and asks Papa some questions. He sits behind me and talks to me about what’s been going on. I show him some videos I shot. He’s suddenly as concerned as I am. He orders some tests and tells me he’s going to try to get the presiding hospital doctor to come in to see Papa.
While we wait, we hear a child outside crying as his mother tries to explain something he ate while crying at the same time. No one can really get the words out, but in the midst of it all, the mother is trying to comfort her son, calm herself, and talk to the doctor at the same time.
A nurse comes in and wheels out Papa as I reflect on the role reversal that’s been building over the last two years. I recall an ER visit when I was in second grade and got busted in the face with a football helmet face mask because the coach was letting me run the workout with the other players even though I didn’t yet have a uniform. Blood gushing everywhere, I required several stitches that evening. That was a week that changed a few things, but not everything: I refused to give up football even though my ability to practice was hampered. Curtailed even.
When Papa comes back in, he asks me where we are. I take his hand and tell him, giving his hand a squeeze and assuring him that we’ll all be alright.
It reminds me immediately of what I used to say to L when we were nearing an argument over some petty triffle: “Don’t worry, honey, you won’t be thirteen forever.”
“You always say that!”
“I’m not just saying that for your sake…”
Coming full circle in so many ways.