I'm Sick

 Seriously you guys, I am SO SICK, and I have been stupidly engaging in presenteeism even though I am STRONGLY DISAPPROVING when other people do it. It's not because I think I owe anything to the school board (oh my goodness I do not). It's not because I have delusions of grandeur about how important my job is - wait, maybe I do, because at some of my schools my classes have already missed two weeks of library because of EQAO (which necessitated students writing exams in the library), and it's almost the end of the year, which means most of the librarians are closing the library to circulation soon if not now, and I really didn't want to make them miss one of the last library periods. 

Also, and I am putting myself out there so try to be kind, I have realized that there is a dumb little part of people-pleasing oldest-child self that always suspects that if I call in sick people think I'm faking, so it's a tiny bit gratifying to go in and have people say oh my GOD, you sound TERRIBLE, why are you even here. Except then, well, I'm there and I'm sick, so what the hell, I'm an idiot.

Anyway, I went to the doctor yesterday and even there they were like oh my GOD, you sound TERRIBLE, and stuck thermometers and pulse oximeters on me, and now I have antibiotics and inhalers up the wazoo.

Today I sent Angus a song that I can't stop listening to lately and said I couldn't decide if it was country. He said "look at you sending music" as if I was five, or eighty, little twerp. Then I said "on further reflection, I'm not entirely sure it's not about contemplating suicide, which is not the vibe I'm going for." We decided that buddy is probably not actually going to the water to throw himself in. 

Angus is driving to Virginia this weekend to see his friend Ben Adams play in the College World Series. Ben's parents were both teachers at the kids' high school, and they always called Ben Angus's Brother from Another Mother. In university some of the team saw him on Instagram and pretended they thought he was Angus's younger brother who he never talked about because he was jealous of how good he was at baseball. He's staying with the family in the hotel, so that should prompt a whole new round of confusion. When we went to watch Angus's old team in the finals for Provincials one year and Ben came up to bat, a kid behind me who sounded about ten said confidently "That's Ben Adams, who's the brother of Angus Adams who went to the LLWS two years ago". He sounded so certain I was like, is it possible he is better-versed in the previous occupants of my uterus than I am?

Eve has been having a very un-fun period while I've been sick, and Lucy has spent many days going back and forth like oh no, both women are down, who do I comfort first? One night while I was still reading Eve came in my room at about two a.m. with a monster cramp that wouldn't let up, and her body's pain response is always alarming - she gets pale, her pulse gets thready, she passes out, it's a whole big thing. She laid down with me and I went downstairs to heat up the rice pillow and then rubbed her back. Fortunately the heat did the trick. She went back to her bed a half hour or so later saying "thank god I have a mommy who doesn't sleep at night", so what do you know, maybe everything IS for a reason.

I still have no voice. If I was the kind of librarian that always shushed people I might say this was divine justice, but I'm not, so maybe the divine whatever could give a girl a break. 

And I have been having the craziest fun times with old people lately. My doctors office is right by an Independent grocer so yesterday after my appointment I went to the garden center to grab a few things to plant because the garden center is outside and I wouldn't be a pariah if I coughed. This old Greek woman nabbed me because she couldn't reach the tomato plants and she said "in my country we say the tall person is the slave to the short person" which, um, but she was very sweet, and we figured out the different kinds of tomato plants (pineapple tomatoes? Intriguing) and picked out all the ones with the thickest stems and she was very grateful.

Today I stopped for a couple of things on my way home from work (where I wasn't supposed to be) and as I was unloading my cart into my car an older woman came up with her cart and said "would you like me to return yours too?" (I was between her car and the cart return). I said "oh, I can return yours", but she seemed bent on grabbing mine, so I put the last bag in and hit the button to close the back, and she said "don't forget your avocado". I saw there was an avocado still in the cart, which made me think I might have just inadvertently stolen an avocado, but I managed not to say that. I hit the button to make the back hatch go up again, and then it was confused and kept going the wrong way which was awesome, because now I had an audience. In the end I let her return the cart and she probably felt like she'd helped someone who really needed help. Circle of life, I guess.

What Day Even Is It?

 We headed to Ithaca Friday afternoon, got there and met Angus for dinner, a few hours after he successfully defended his master's thesis. We had to stay in Elmira forty minutes away, in the same hotel we stayed in visiting him all through undergrad, due to how late we booked, but it was kind of fun going back there. Saturday we went to the brunch for the Health and Exercise Science faculty and hung out with Angus and his supervisor and profs, which was really cool. Then went to the grad ceremony, then dinner, then drove home. Then there was still Sunday and Monday of the long weekend, so I've been confused about what day it is all week.

I was feeling kind of insanely allergic to everything in Ithaca, then Sunday was snotty and coughish all day. Monday felt fine, Tuesday took my mom shopping, all good. Yesterday I woke up and got ready for work without talking to anyone because Matt is in Boston and Eve was still sleeping (she got up and weeded the back yard while I was at work, so I do not begrudge this). I got to work, tried to say good morning to someone and only a horrifying croak came out. So I guess it really was/is a cold. Happily I still have a good amount of the vat of narcotic cough syrup my doctor gave me last time, because the Cough of Death is making itself known. 

We were really happy Angus decided to walk at grad. All year he said he wasn't going to bother, been there done that, and when he thought he was leaving for North Carolina in June or July he thought he'd be busy packing and looking for a place. Then he found out he doesn't start until September, so texted me "just picked up my cap and gown" (Me: "What now?"). It was totally worth missing the event we were going to for Dave's birthday, not that I wasn't looking forward to some scantily-clad stormtroopers action. 

The brunch was extremely informal, but a nice chance to meet some of the people he'd spent two years with. His supervisor, who he said was the GOAT, knew more about figure skating than baseball, but she was willing to learn with him and was so encouraging whenever he was having difficulties. It was in the Health Sciences Center so there were pictures of motion analysis and stuff on the walls, including one of Angus's leg being handled - not quite as glamorous as his fifteen-foot-tall photo at the Little League World Series, but still cool. 

Saturday was only the graduate students walking, so it was much smaller than it would be Sunday for all the undergrads, but still about the same size as his tiny undergrad college. But it was inside, not under the blazing sun, and it went quickly. Ithaca has a robust music program, so the four-part harmony for the national anthem and a couple of other pieces was stunning. Every faculty got hooded by a representative of their profs - we met the one doing Angus's at the brunch. Funny guy from California who moved to New England for college and never went back. The college president is an impressive woman with a lot of presence, and her speech was really moving. Angus knew her from working in the provost's office for two years, so I like to think her first bump with him was a little extra.

We got to meet Angus's roommate from this year (last year he was with kitchen slobs that he didn't click with at all), super nice kid and family. He's going to be in Virginia next year so they have plans to get together again. Angus surprisingly had a line on a roommate for next year too - a friend of friends from Division 3 baseball who is starting work at the same facility but a couple of months earlier. Would be nice if he's not all alone, although the sports connection seems to help him, uh, connect with people pretty well. 

Angus and George, his roommate

There were professional photos taken at the grad ceremony. The pics themselves are nice, but we have been chortling over the horribly tacky fake backgrounds they offer. 

"That's it, that's the one" I said when he sent the proofs to me.

Note the Maple Leaf sash they gave him to wear. "This is character growth, I would never have done this for undergrad" he said. We were walking over from the brunch to the building where grad was and we passed a group and heard a woman say "OH, he's CaNAYdian". 

Alternatively, this one where he's about to... get clocked?

We walked around campus after the ceremony. I felt a little sad that we hadn't spent much time there during his two years. The first year Covid was still sort of a looming spectre, and the second year we did come once in the fall. It just feels strange to know so little about somewhere that was such a big part of his life, but I guess that's part of the whole stupid kids growing up and making their own stupid lives thing. (I do take Steph's point from the previous post, though, that it is probably better that they are out in the world doing their thing than stuck. Here's hoping Noah finds something exciting and satisfying soon). 

I had thought ahead and made a reservation at the really nice restaurant we went to in the fall, because the Commons was pretty much thronged after grad. We got Angus fed a giant hamburger, went and collected a couple of loads of winter clothes from him to take home, and hit the road. 

Imagine the starting size of that pickle!

It wasn't quite enough time with him, in the way that it never is, quite, but it was really nice. He is happy and excited about the next stage, and we are happy and excited for him. 

Oops I Did it Again

"I will blog again before a week and a half goes by". Reader, she did not.

It's fine. This is fine. Everything is fine. 

Lucy's improving. I'm making it to work. We cleaned the house yesterday before my parents came over for Mother's Day. The windows are rotting out of the frames and we have ants, but, you know, it's clean. I was tired and out of sorts because I'm having a violent resurgence of every-night Restless Leg Syndrome and it sucks beyond belief, but it was still fun.

I don't love the mall, and typically when I go I go Monday to Wednesday so it's dead, and yet I inexplicably asked Eve if she wanted to go to the mall. On Saturday. And we did, and it was super fun! We got a not-terrible parking place, it was busy but not insanely so, and we met some fun sales people (along with one catastrophically bad young man at Bluenotes - mumbly, sullen, negative-fifty-fucks to give - who was so bad it was enjoyable). 

The last time we went looking for jeans for Eve we went to a dozen stores and found one acceptable pair on our way out of the mall. This time she wasn't even LOOKING for jeans and she found some on a thirty-dollar sale table. Actually she didn't at first, they didn't have her size, but she was waiting for me to get there because she won't try on anything without me there to give an opinion (isn't that cute?) so she kept checking back and eventually her size appeared.

She was looking for a long white skirt, and she found one. Then she found a better one for less money. We went to the Uniqlo store that just opened ("Old Navy for Asians" says Matt, who spends a lot of time in Asia) and got mildly overstimulated. We went out for lunch and stuffed our faces with guacamole.

I bought a sundress to wear to Angus's grad, which we are now going to, because he wasn't going to walk on the basis of "been there, done that", well, done that somewhere else, so we said fine, but then he found out that he's not actually going to start work until the fall so he has some time, and his last month's rent is paid, so he's going to do grad (the graduate students are the day before the rest, and it's smaller and more individualized), so we told him he was a giant dork (MULTIPLE TIMES we asked "do you want us to come to your grad?" NO, he said) and then booked a hotel room.

Did I mention he got a JOB? Did I mention the job is in NORTH FREAKING CAROLINA?

For years he's been saying he wants a baseball job somewhere warm. His most likely prospect was in Rochester. Rochester is basically Canada. He interviewed with Tread Athletics in North Carolina. What are the odds, we thought? Turns out the odds were... well, I'm not entirely sure whose favour they were in. "Tell them thanks but your mommy said it's too far?" I suggested. Then I said "just kidding" and he said "okay, whew, wasn't sure."

At least we have a lot of Air Miles? I said "my son is moving to North Carolina" to someone at school today and felt like I was in a weird dream. It feels a little strange to have to get on a plane to visit my kid (or drive for 13 hours), but truthfully I probably won't see him that much less. It will be a fun adventure?

Eve had an interview at an Engineering place for a job doing water sampling at schools. It sounds kind of hard and like it should be with a senior person (the title is 'junior environmental scientist' which sounds so cute, like it should come with a miniature hard hat), and she's not entirely sure she wants it but will still be offended if she doesn't get it. Whatever, one kid at a time. At least she's not likely to move a country away, how would she ever buy clothes? I guess she could text me pictures. Sigh. 

Hello Yes I Am Here

 Lucy is doing really well, and Eve is home, and work has been quite enjoyable. I have also been feeling like I am teetering at the edge of a giant sucking depression vortex. I knew that some kind of emotional backlash was likely after the intense two weeks alone with Lucy recovering. At this point I am kind of viewing the cyclical depression thing as a bout of the flu or a spate of bad weather. Rest, fluids, raincoat, galoshes (?)

Anyway, I have sat down to blog a few times and been repelled from the computer by some kind of magnetic force field. Let me list some good things that happened.

Nicole's fabulous ass was IN MY KITCHEN CHAIR FOR AN ENTIRE AFTERNOON. Except when it was helping me do a rehab walk with Lucy. It was so lovely. We talked and talked, over and under each other, we laughed, we ate guacamole and Macintosh apples, she snuggled Lucy, who was as besotted with her as I am. When she texted that she was on her way I texted that I was just making guacamole. My phone dinged with a notification and it said "Nicole removed a heart from 'just making guacamole', and I was like dude, it's fine if you're not hungry. It was actually a car-texting mistake, but it was very funny. We also Facetimed Eve, who was coming home two days later so just missed meeting Nicole. 

Eve came home! Matt drove down Saturday and brought her back Sunday. I let Lucy sleep in bed with me for the first time Saturday night and she was so happy, but at one point she went to jump off the bed and I literally caught her mid-leap. She is not supposed to be jumping on and off furniture yet. We are trying to catch her and lift her up and down. This has been, predictably, a bit of a shitshow. She is small and crafty. We are hoping that preventing her from jumping eighty percent of the time will be enough. She is walking pretty well on the leg most of the time, but Jesus, she is shortening my life on the daily. A funny adorable thing that happens is that when I put out the blanket for her massage now (we're supposed the massage the leg and do passive range-of-motion exercises a few times a day) she comes over and flops down immediately. This may be part of a lifestyle to which she is now accustomed). It is much more fun doing doggie rehab with an extra person to help. 

Eve's marks have been rolling in. We had talked extensively about the fact that doing the musical would almost certainly have an impact on her marks. As exams drew near she confessed that when she said "I don't care about my marks" she really meant "I'll be okay with a B" and now it was looking like even Bs might not happen and she wasn't that okay with it. In organic chemistry this did turn out to be the case - C+, her lowest mark ever. I said "so what? Do you want to be an organic chemist?" She said no. She also never has to take chemistry again. She got over it fairly quickly, especially when her tech mark came in and was an A-, an absolute shock since she wrote the 'worst paper ever' while in the middle of tech week (five-hour rehearsal every day) for the musical, and thought the exam went pretty badly too. In her Lit course and Visual Culture she got A pluses, so the term average was totally fine. I think the musical experience was totally worth it.

My friend Sonia gave me some tea tins, and I reorganized my tea shelf. I know this is a very small thing, but I took Lucy for her walk a few days ago and then instead of retreating to my room to brood I did kitchen stuff and then did yoga before showering, so I brooded while stretched AND clean. 

Yesterday was the Broadview Book Bonanza (giant book sale at my Thursday school) and I got some great books for the library and for my book-overflowing house. I will show and tell the books tomorrow, or definitely before a week and a half goes by. 

Touching Grass

 Lucy is doing really well. She's still mostly hopping around on three legs, and it's a little demoralizing to see her poor naked leg just hanging there. I keep looking at the posts on the Facebook group I joined to be reassured that sometimes it can take weeks for them to trust the leg again. We've started doing a daily walk around the block which she loves, and our new strange bargain seems to be that if I let her eat grass by the mailbox she will put the foot down and take a few steps. Sometimes she stops because she wants to go towards our longer route, which I understand but it's too soon. The good part about the standoff is that the longer she stands there the more likely she is to get tired of balancing on three legs, and she puts down the fourth. After I massage it and lift her up and set her on her feet she will put it down, but then hops away again. It's probably going to be a bit of a long haul, but we're moving in the right direction. Apparently the bargain we have struck is that if I let her stand by the mailbox and eat a bunch of grass, she will put the foot down and take a couple of steps. Which, okay, I guess?

Eve wrote her last exam on Tuesday, which is a full two weeks earlier than she usually finishes. This was a mixed blessing since it also meant that she did the musical, then had a day and a half before three exams in four days, one of which was organic chemistry (if you know, you know). Because Matt's been on his extended work trip and then in Thunder Bay for his step-dad's retirement party and I'm saddled with our gimpy little mutt, we're not able to pick her up until next week. At first she thought that was annoying because if she was there for that extra time she could have been studying. But then she realized that she usually writes her last exam and then has to pack semi-frantically before heading home, whereas now she's hanging out and living her best life making cups of tea for housemates that are still in exams and doing fun stuff.

There was one day where the weather was bad and she couldn't decide what to do. I asked what the movie was at the little theatre right in the cute village down the street from her, and she looked it up and frowned and said "some kind of ... maybe drag show and then Shrek 2? I don't get it, why not Shrek 1, and ...why Shrek at all?" Fairly soon after she FaceTimed and said she mentioned it to her housemate Lauren who said "omg -- is it the Drag Queen Shrek Show?" and now they were going. Afterwards she said it was great and the main takeaway was that I had to re-watch Shrek 2 because it was way better than she remembered it (I had already remembered the Fairy Godmother doing Holding Out for a Hero, so not much of an argument from me). 

She also went to the Arts and Science Drop-In, which is basically a backyard party with a bunch of pizza during exams that she had never been to before because of all the, well, exams. She said it was funny because at a lot of parties non-Arts and Science people accuse the Artsci students of just talking philosophy for a few hours and then the older students escorting the first years back to residence so they don't get lost. This one, unusually I guess, had a fire and beer and people doing keg stands at two in the afternoon. Also she's going to Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto (an hour or so away) with friends on Monday because she remembers loving it but hasn't been there since she was about twelve.

Today she FaceTimed me from a tree. Like, climbed up into the tree and talked to me from there. 

Both my girls are acting a little nutty while outside. Spring fever, maybe? 

Someone in This House is Getting the Good Drugs, But It's Not Me

 Lucy's surgery was on Wednesday, which was (counts on fingers) six days ago (probably seven by the time I get this posted). It was a TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) - when dogs rupture their ACL they don't repair the ligament, they shave a piece of bone from the tibia and flip it over to reconfigure the knee joint and put in an implant to stabilize everything. I think. Don't quote me. 

We had debated whether we should wait for the surgery until Matt was back from Asia, but once we knew we were doing it I really just wanted to get it over with and start moving towards things getting better. I knew it was going to be grueling and I knew I wouldn't really have a right to complain since it was my decision. And I really love complaining, you guys. 

In a lot of ways it's been better than I expected. My house is destroyed and my back and neck and hands are toast, and in some ways it's been like bringing home a newborn. But babies only have two legs that they can't even USE, and Lucy has four and is booting around handily on three, so there's less carrying than their might be. Also, I can hoist her up in a football carry under one arm rather than using both, which is good because at this point in my physical life I would be pretty worried about going headlong down the stairs. Also, never mind the people that have to do this kind of caregiving with actual people, there are people whose dogs blow out their knees when they are only puppies, and people doing this with some big-ass dogs, and that must be much more difficult.

The first two or three days were pretty rough. She was still coming off the anesthesia, I couldn't leave the house, there were crates and towels and pee pads everywhere as I tried to figure out which configuration was going to work, as well as stuff piled all over the furniture so she wouldn't be tempted to try jumping up on it. I had a list of things I was supposed to do to help her recovery, including icing the leg and doing massage and passive range of motion exercises. And I am nothing if not a diligent student. You know what she didn't find awesome? Having me coming at her poor beleaguered leg with an ice pack and my pokey fingers. She didn't bite me, but she was definitely displeased. The secondary instructions were "if your dog hates all of this, just don't bother." Eek, okay, I was a little bummed, but let's be honest, we are aiming for the ability to walk comfortably, not a return to an Olympic career, so following her lead is probably fine. 

Naturally while I was preparing for her to come home I went to various pet stores and spent way too much money on various assorted beds, toys and treats with various spurious claims to magical healing properties. Most of these are piled on the table waiting to be returned. A few of them she spurned in the first few days and is more into now

Much like bringing a newborn home, or following a human's healing path, there has been a disproportionate level of rejoicing surrounding bodily functions and tiny milestones. She's tolerated the inflatable doughnut collar pretty well, but two friends came over and brought dinner Sunday night, and while we were eating and she was in her crate with my back to her, my friend Nat saw her wriggle out of the cone and try to lick the incision. So I promptly freaked out and worried I'd have to call in sick instead of going back to work on Monday because I would be a nervous wreck worrying she would hurt herself. I asked Sonia if she could come babysit, and she worked remotely in my kitchen while keeping an eye on Lucy. It was the first time I'd left the house, and it was really nice to get out and do a normal work day. 

Sort of counterintuitively, dogs are allowed - even encouraged - to put weight on the injured leg right away. The vet said many small dogs will hold off longer because it's easier for them to get around without it. After a couple of weeks there are exercises to try encouraging rebuilding muscle mass, but things will be on her timeline. As for her ridiculous naked shaved leg, when we looked up how long it should take the hair to grow back we found the terribly precise range of "one month to ONE YEAR". 

I told Eve about the surgery on Sunday before I came back to Ottawa so it wouldn't impact her performances. She was okay. Later we were texting about it and she asked if it was a back leg and said "back leg seems important" and I said yes it was, but maybe a little easier to get around without (meaning hopping on three legs). She said "hang on, is the surgery to REMOVE it?", which required a hasty clarification. 

Right now she's able to lie on the back small deck in the sun and is fine on the two steps down and to get over the sliding door lip into the house, so that's making her much happier and things feel a little more normal for me. I have refined my doggie massage technique (at one point I said "is 'my dog is having surgery' one of the the bougiest statements ever?' and then I remembered Jody sometimes has to tell people her horse is having a massage) and yesterday I texted the family chat "I have just made scrambled eggs and turned on classical music. For the dog".

Apologies for this being rambly and not terribly coherent. Things are okay. I have friends that have come over and brought food and held Lucy and kept me slightly saner and watched period dramas with me and that has really helped. I am still really glad that when Matt gets home things will seem that much easier when I'm not alone, and we'll be that much closer to complete recovery. 

Project Sassafras

 Okay, Crisis One addressed and diverted: Eve did vocal rest and gargled an ocean's worth of salt water and drank hot honey water ("honey is not good and I want to know who is generating this worldwide deception that it is", and also "I had a whole thermos of warm water and I drank it all during rehearsal. I was still thirsty") and absolutely killed it in the musical. I sort of knew she was a lead, and that she could sing, but she had a big solo right before intermission and had the last line in the play and came out for the curtain call in the middle of the three leads and it was kind of insane and magical. She has two high school friends who are really good actors/singers and they would likely have had leads in the musical in grade twelve, but Covid, so the fact that this happened was just... I don't even have the word.

The musical itself was bonkers and sometimes incomprehensible but a huge amount of fun. Every year, arts and science students write a musical that sort of addresses the fact that people outside the program don't really understand the program - it's interdisciplinary, inquiry-based, big on critical thinking and social justice. The songs are parody songs based on whatever the writers feel like - there was Summer Lovin, All That Jazz, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Thank You for the Music by Abba and some Portuguese one I didn't know but the version they did was killer. Eve's solo was based on a Dionne Warwick song I'd never heard. The musical supposedly took place in 1977 at McMaster and there was this group running around talking about "Sass", the 'research opportunity of a lifetime' (The Society of Arts and Science = SASS, and their emblem is a Sasquatch). 

Matt's brother came on Friday night - he and his wife were both in the program and are now doctors (it's a popular one for people who want to go into medicine). It was really funny that he commented beforehand that the McMaster campus seemed a lot like the University of Toronto, just on a smaller scale, because in the play Eve tells someone to come to the library with her and the person ("Just assume everyone is non-binary, we are a queer-ass program") says "which library?" and she says "THE library - what is this, U of T?" (there is more than one library now).

I went again on Saturday night after Matt had left for the airport to fly to Singapore. I was supposed to go with Jean, my professor who is now Eve's professor. In true Jean fashion, she was going to a McMaster choir performance first and then had to run home to have dinner and then meet me at the show. She asked if we should meet outside and I was like dude, I will go in and save you a seat - she's the former head of the program and an arts and science celebrity, I knew no one would quibble. I said I'd sit on an aisle, and she said "oh, sit wherever you want, I don't mind climbing over people", which made me cry laughing. I was also with Eve's friend Alison who came from Toronto an hour away, and her former suitemate from first year, and her housemates. Friday we sat further back so she wouldn't see us and be nervous (but it's a pretty small theatre). Saturday I said the hell with it and sat in the second row and clandestinely shot pictures and video from my lap with my phone's brightness turned all the way down so I couldn't even see what I was getting, but it worked pretty well. I dropped them at home and picked up Wendy's for the house and left them to go to their after-party. 

Sunday I woke up feeling happy and relieved and ready to get home and meet the next challenge. I swung by Eve's house to hug her and drop Alison at the bus station. The drive home was an easy 4 and a half hours. I got home and immediately collapsed in a puddle of tears feeling like everything was terrible and broken and ending. Then I took a deep breath and chatted online with my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) who was calm and reassuring and sympathetic as usual. Then Eve texted that Jean had invited her out for ice cream with her daughter and grandkids (the little girl adores Eve) and her mother who was turning 97 the next day. We were driving Jean home the night before - she just lives up the street from the university - and she said "and I don't take the bus" and Eve was like "whoa whoa whoa, easy on the personal attacks" because apparently there had been a thing where a girl was late to their class and said the bus was late and Jean (five feet of uncontainable energy, walks everywhere, swims every day, barely sleeps) asked innocently why she didn't just walk, and Eve stood up for the bus girl. So Eve enjoyed telling Jean she had just had lunch before the five o'clock ice cream and seeing her be appalled "because she already judges me for taking the bus to school."

After this I pulled it together a little more. I did a bunch of laundry, washed all the fuzzy blankets so I can make Lucy a bunch of fuzzy nests for after her surgery on Wednesday. I'm still having trouble visualizing exactly what things are going to look like, and I really need it to just happen so it can suck and be on the road to getting better. I joined a couple of Facebook groups about the surgery (before the thing happened, instead of months after, which is usually when it occurs to me that there was probably a Facebook group about the thing I'm struggling with). I nearly noped right out of them after a series of "this is the hardest thing I've ever done" posts. Look, I love my dog, but I had a two-year-old with a broken femur when I was four months pregnant with Eve. I couldn't lift him easily. I couldn't put him in a crate and leave the house. I have to think this is not going to be as hard as that, although I guess I can't distract Lucy with Elmo video games. No judgment though, I appreciate when people accept my complaining without comparisons, and I'm sure this recovery with a big dog would be pretty rough. 

Much appreciation for the support and encouragement on the previous post. I drop Lucy off at stupid early o'clock tomorrow and then the fun begins. 

Link to Eve's solo (I think): https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_12-ooqZI&si=G0qg9na0M-0yan7C