I Did a Blip

 I have been a bad blog friend because when I'm not blogging reading other blogs makes me feel too guilty. But I miss all of you! I had a tiny manic phase which was great because I could go on four or five hours sleep a night but I was too restless to sit down long enough to write anything (my house should really be even cleaner than it is). I went to see Eve and my professor and my sister. I turned un-manic and had a tiny mental health bobble as a result. I turned fifty-six. 

I kept thinking I should blog, and then I thought what if I just sort of...float in a sea of existing for a bit. And not feel like I'm shirking some kind of duty or like I might as well just stop forever if I stop for three weeks. I hung out in extended child's pose. I gardened. I sat outside in the back yard looking at flowers and reading brainless fluff. I did another book fair and it almost killed me. 

I drove down to see Eve - briefly, because she was preparing to leave for a conference and then do a presentation for the institute that funds her lab right after returning, and had a shit ton of stuff to deal with - and then continued on to my sister's place. My sister only lives an hour and a half from Eve, but it's still been difficult to get there much because whenever we were down in Hamilton it was to bring Eve home, and she was so desperate to come home for a bit I didn't want to ask her to spend her vacation time somewhere else. Jody and her husband come up here quite a bit, which is lovely but it's always a big family thing. Since Eve's been doing her master's I've been able to visit her and then hang out with my sister alone for a few days three times in five months, which has been joyful in a way I didn't even know I was missing. 

We went to the bookstore that she used to live down the street from because we always do if it's open. She bought me a puzzle for my birthday because if I buy any more puzzles my husband will murder me, and it was really pretty and made from sustainable cardboard. When I picked her up she was wearing a dress that I wore to Matt's thesis supervisor's wedding thirty years ago. I found it and couldn't believe I still had it and showed it to her before giving it away and she claimed it and wears it all the time. I still love it and it makes me happy every time I see it on her. 

Eve showed me around her lab for the first time - the centrifuge that could rip through a wall if safety protocols aren't followed, the sign that says how many days since exploding agar, the burners where they explode the agar, the super-poisonous stuff and the e. coli that probably wouldn't poison anyone. I met two more of her lab mates and saw her bench. Her lab is in the hospital, and I had parked randomly in the underground parking lot and was not sure we would ever be able to find each other, but I got in the right coloured elevator by accident and it was actually very easy. It was very, very cool to see her in that setting, doing actual science-y stuff but in a place that appreciates her wit and offbeat humour. One of the other women bought a pink flamingo for her little boy, but when she saw Eve's face upon seeing it she turned it into a lab flamingo named Walter instead. 

Stickers on the door of their very serious workplace

Isn't her record keeping so incredibly neat and pleasing?

Where the magic exploding agar happens

I took her out for dinner and then we went to hang at my hotel for a bit. We were going to go to the hot tub but there was a hockey tournament, so Eve suggested we watch some of season two of The Four Seasons on Netflix. I was a bit surprised that she was into it (it's about a group of fifty-something couple friends who travel together each season, with various dramatic arcs), but she said "obviously. It reminds me of you and your friends because you're the same age and you travel together and you all love each other and occasionally there's drama and sometimes you're very stupid." No lies detected. 

We went out for dinner with Lauren, Eve's housemate and now close friend, and Jean, my former professor who also taught Eve (still so trippy). We had a riotous, wide-ranging, gossipy, amazing talk session as usual, and then we went outside and talked even more and I went to take a picture of Jean with the girls, and a couple was just coming out of the movie theatre next door and asked if I wanted to be in the picture. I did not - Jean is tiny, and even the small girls look big next to her, and I always feel like an ogre. Eve says this is stupid, it is obvious that Jean is jellybean-sized, and I didn't want to turn down the kind offer, so we let the man take our picture and asked what movie they had seen and it was Project Hail Mary. They said it had been hard to catch some stuff because of their hearing aids, and Lauren ended up clarifying much of the movie's action in minute detail, which it was obvious the couple was loving, and it was loud and funny and weird in the way it often is when we're all together. 

Eve putting actual coins in a parking meter, which was a huge novelty for her

I was driving Eve back to her apartment and she thanked me for being 'such a nice low-maintenance Mommy', which was awesome, because, in all honesty, parenting our kids has never come with a whole lot of heavy lifting, which is all down to dumb luck, but I have always hoped that me being around would always feel like a nice thing and not an obligation for them. She'll be home for a bit at the beginning of July, but it was nice to have an opportunity for a couple of hugs and a couple of meals until then.