I have had one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in a long time. Also: my favorite jeans, the ones I launder while wearing pajama pants so I can put them right back on again as soon as they’re dry, have formed a deal-breaking hole in the upper thigh. They are Duluth jeans, and they are fully reinforced in the knees; that is not where I need reinforcement. I would buy half a dozen more pairs but they don’t sell them anymore; this is the trouble with trying things for the first time when they are on clearance. I have bought other Duluth jeans and they don’t feel as good as these do, and the pockets are not as good. I am going to see if Elizabeth has learned enough fabric art in art school to patch them.
Back to the busiest week—by which I mean busiest seven days in a row, because today (Tuesday) was the last day of that week. For the first two days, Paul and I drove to the twins’ college, picked up a trailer, loaded all the twins’ stuff into it, returned their keys, stayed in a hotel overnight, drove back home the next day, unloaded the trailer, returned the trailer. Which sounds so simple when I type it out, but it was so many logistics! And it took from 7:30 a.m. on Day One until 4:30 p.m. on Day Two. But! It was a good drive in both directions, and we had a nice evening eating dinner/snacks and watching TV in the motel with the twins, and on the way home I had twins to talk to. (Paul drove the car with the trailer, and wanted to leave at 4:00 in the morning; twins opted to go with me at 7:30. Which also meant Paul unloaded and returned the trailer before we got home, la la la!)
The next two days, Paul and Elizabeth and I drove to a train station and took a train to a big city where one of Elizabeth’s artworks was being shown along with a couple hundred other student works, and stayed in a hotel overnight (over four times the cost of the hotel we stayed in when we picked up the twins at their college), and traveled home the next day. Which sounds so simple when I type it out, but it was so many logistics! And it took from 7:30 a.m. on Day One until 4:30 p.m. on Day Two. But! This was my second trip to this city (the first time was ALSO for an Elizabeth Art Thing), and I find myself unexpectedly FOND of it. AND: it was so stressful to find/choose a hotel (the CHEAPEST hotels were FOUR TO FIVE TIMES the amount I consider indulgent for a hotel!! and the mid-grade hotels were TEN TO FIFTEEN TIMES the amount!! and the expensive hotels were TWENTY-FIVE TO FORTY TIMES the amount!!), but as it happened I don’t think I could have chosen better: the style was charmingly vintage/shabby but the shower/toilet had been renovated/updated; it was cozy and comfortable; the views from the windows were delightfully City; the employees were so nice and so helpful (and asked if we wanted a room HIGHER UP or not—I said YES). I am going to write them a letter telling them how nice our stay was.
Then the next day was Mother’s Day, and there were treats and gifts and a phone call from Rob; and we watched Thursday Murder Club (my choice), which was not as good as the book but was still really good, and I think it’s fun that so many of us assumed Elizabeth would be played by Helen Mirren or Judi Dench and NO ONE ELSE (they went with Helen Mirren). Celia Imrie was as I’d imagined Joyce. Pierce Brosnan is too tall and groomed and conventionally attractive to be Ron, imo. Ibrahim is a maybe; I can maybe get used to Ben Kingsley, but I was expecting more like John Turturro.
The next day I took Edward to his Remicade infusion. Paul has been handling this for the last couple of years, because he had an abundance of paid time off and I had none, and because it was difficult for me to take time off and easy for him, and because everything about the Remicade infusions is stressful for me and Paul kept acting like that was silly, and because I had been doing LITERALLY EVERY WHICH-PARENT-SHOULD-DO-THIS TASK FOR 2-3 DECADES AND PERIMENOPAUSE HAS FINALLY CAUSED ME TO BE COMPLETELY FED UP WITH THAT SITUATION. But now I am unemployed, so it felt utterly stupid for him to take a day off when I had nothing else going on, so I did it. I still find every element of it stressful.
And the day after that, which was today, I drove to Henry’s college to pick him up and drive him home for the summer. To my pleased surprise, he was completely 100% packed up, with his room 100% (well—-70%, but that is what I would consider 100% for a college student) cleaned (and I hasten to add I did nothing to bring it to 100%), and his dorm key already returned.
All four non-launched kids are now at home for the summer.
Consider checking Poshmark for your Duluth jeans. I’ve been amazed at what I can find either new with tags or very gently used.
I was also going to suggest ebay!
Poshmark, Mercari, Ebay…there are people in my family who are Very Particular about their clothes/shoes/etc. and I’ve had luck finding identical items on those sites!
You can search all three of those sites at once on Gem.app.
I actually liked the movie version of Thursday Night Murder Club better than the book! I liked how they tightened up the story lines. But I didnt even realize that was Pierce Brosnan, so don’t trust me.
I mean, that really does sound busy, sheesh! We are taking our first to college in August, it’s so bizarre to me to think of all these former babies just … leaving!
Wow, that is so busy! I’m kind of tired just thinking about it.
How IS Edward? I think about him sometimes, I know Crohn’s is kind of miserable – but it sounds like his is under control? In remission? I don’t really know the wording around it but I wanted you to know I think about you and him and hope all is well.
Arrrrghhhh the jeans. THAT is miserable, and I hope they can be fixed.
I think about Elizabeth and her back! Has that been resolved/become manageable?
Yes: she had to wear the scoliosis brace until she stopped growing, and they were pleased with the progress they’d made. It’s too bad it wasn’t diagnosed earlier, but they said she got the most improvement she could have gotten, considering the delay.
He’s going to have to have some surgery this summer, which he is looking forward to and I am dreading—while also feeling assured that the doctors know what they’re doing and that this is likely the right decision. But THEY ARE CUTTING OUT PART OF MY BABY. But it may bring on a temporary remission-like state that could even last several years. And we have known since diagnosis (at age 8 or so) that surgery was not preventable, only postponable. So I am trying to be okay with it.
YES – patch the jeans!!
So fun to have 4 kiddos home for the summer.
That does sound busy, with stressful things and fun things, too.
I bet it’s nice and cozy to have the crew almost all back together for a few months.
How is Edward doing academically? Better, I’m guessing, since he’s still in school.
BETTER! It is so pleasing. He’s still not a straight-A student, but he is doing WELL ENOUGH, and I keep thinking of the “C’s get degrees” mantra some of the commenters mentioned!
I’m so glad! I remember the concerns after his first year and I’m so glad it worked out!
I’ve thought of Edward lots of times and am so pleased things are looking up and he’s finding/found his way. Yay for him – and you! (not that everyone has to go to college – yada yada – but nice that this path that he started on is working out).
I had the same kind of busy week/month. We took 4 trips to the kids’ college in 5 weeks, and my husband is down there again today helping my (now graduated) daughter move out of her apartment and into a sublet, and dropping off a dresser, mattress, and extra small appliances to both kids. Before that was trips for a bike race, an honors ceremony, Little 500, then graduation. Whew!
My college son is home for the summer (or… longer? he graduated) and, because of his girlfriend ALSO being home, they are both in my house all the time. I had forgotten this from last summer. I like having him home… but when they’re together… all the time….in my small house…. I don’t like that as much.
I’m trying to treasure it! Cherish this time! hahaha. But I’m also a little stressed/annoyed about it.
Your week was super busy, I hope you’re taking a Big Nap today. You earned it!
Tip for city hotels: book through your credit card rewards portal. Even if the stay is expensive, at least you get a good amount of miles to use next time.
I am trying to do the math in this post and can’t decide if A) there are cities where the hotels are fantastically more expensive than I could even imagine or B) my California self has lost track of what a reasonable hotel room costs anywhere else. I suspect it is probably B.
Hotels are weird inflation mystery zone for me. They have gotten so much more expensive than it feels reasonable for them to be, and since even relatively short trips require 2-3 nights it adds up so quickly. But we also almost never stayed in them growing up, and when we did it was usually Motel 6, so maybe it’s not that unreasonable that they feel unaffordable now. But I have people I want to see that live a hotel stay away, and somehow crashing on couches and living room floors feels like less of an option now too.
YES. I too grew up staying in Motel 6 and Red Roof Inn, and also the price of hotel rooms is at least half again what it was before Covid—and meanwhile the hotels themselves have gotten grubbier, with more broken elements. In the city, we paid for one night in a hotel room what I used to pay for RENT—though of course that number too is VASTLY out of date!
I remember you saying awhile back that Elizabeth was thinking about switching majors – does this mean she decided to stick with the art major after all? Or is she double-majoring or something like that?
Also, how cool that you got to see her work on display like that!
She seems, not for lack of trying, to be sticking with art. She’s been seeing her advisor and the career advisors all year, and they keep giving her tests that say she should major in art, and asking her what else she wants to major in and the answer is “nothing,” and her professors are saying she should definitely major in art—so she is going to major in art. And then we will see what happens next.
Well, if it helps to have a data point: I have three fine arts degrees (not visual art, but still), and I’m now happily employed in an unrelated field with, like, regular hours and health insurance and stuff. Many of my friends with fine arts degrees have done the same. So if she’s worried that she’ll be closing the door on non-art-related careers if she sticks with the art major, that doesn’t have to be the case. (I also know lots of people who are happily employed in art-related fields, if that’s what she decides she wants!)
My daughter was an art major and worried about what to do after graduation. She eventually switched to be a visual arts education major. Now to find a teaching job…
My husband gets the inner thigh of his jeans patched regularly–we take them to the dry cleaner that we use for hems and such. They use denim and it definitely extends the life of his jeans.
I’m curious whether Paul still thought your stress about the Remicade appointments was still “silly” after he started doing them?
Yes – can we get an answer to this?! I’m curious, too.
Unfortunately mostly yes, because he doesn’t stress about city driving and being on time for appointments and some of the other things about it that are stressful to me. But then I was like “How nice! So then it obviously makes sense for you to keep doing this task”
I am SO impressed with your busy week. Also, sorry about your jeans. Jeans are basically a human right. We are entering a phase of extreme business brought on by an impending move, an INTERNATIONAL move, which is a lot. I told my husband we are speed running adulthood. Not that we haven’t done most of these things before, but that we are now doing them all at once and harder: putting our house on the market, getting our kids into new schools, planning transportation including for our large dog and our stuff, getting rid of a lot of stuff so we don’t lose our minds. Today we drove halfway across our state and back (TX, so no mean feat) to apply for our long stay visas, which is a whole thing. I… my brain is done for today, thank you for listening.
I feel like Paul should keep taking Edward to his infusions. He seems to like it and it’s good for their relationship! It’s good for the one who hates something less to do it more. He has plenty of PTO and it’s good for dads to take time off work for their kids. Good for the dad, good for the kid, good for everyone in the company to normalize men doing care work for their children.
Swistle you can contribute to the progression of our society by selflessly allowing Paul to be the hero of this story.
if that means more cozy time for you with the cats and tea, oh well, sacrifices must be made sometimes.
“It’s good for the one who hates something less to do it more” *heart eyes*
Ooof! It all sounds utterly exhausting. There was some good stuff in there, but oh, the anxiety of managing logistics!
Kudos to Henry for acing college check out!
I love the mini updates on your non-launched kids. What about Rob? Is he still enjoying being launched on the West Coast?
I’m sure Elizabeth doesn’t want to think about more school, but the combination of her undergraduate degree (and internship) combined with a 1-year certificate or even master’s degree could give her some interesting direction. Consider: Undergrad in art, Masters in Education; Undergrad in art, Masters in computer science or even an MLIS (hopefully with better leadership than your library had). I think she would be a fantastic children’s or teen librarian with her interest in art and education.
I started a bit of a diatribe about Joyce in the movie version of the Thursday Murder Club, but then realized I was yucking your yum so I’m going to leave it as “I thought the book was much better.”
How did Henry’s academic suspension work out, is everything alright now? Did you ever get an answer to the “what HAPPENED?” question?
whoops, *Edward I mean!