Heat at Last

When I woke up it was 51 degrees F in the house, but my third call of the week to the landlord's office finally paid off. We saw his van around 10:30 this morning and he seems to have finally taken the boiler off its timer, leading to an actually pleasant temperature in the mid-60s, which is amazing considering how much we've been shivering and how cold it continues to be outdoors. It's so much easier to do things like job stuff when I don't have to worry about freezing! Unfortunately Mom isn't doing well and has taken another downturn, so tomorrow's trip will be to the hospital again, possibly to say goodbye for the last time. But I've thought that at least twice before, so it's in the hands of fate at this point. Both good and bad news to end the work week, as these things tend to be.

Number 27 and the Biggest Chill

Exactly 27 years ago Robin and I were married at City Hall on a lovely bright winter's day, bedazzled by the sun glinting off the World Trade Center twin towers when we emerged. Nowadays, a bit different. It's colder than the proverbial wiccan's breast, and I'm very glad I opted not to stick around for my firm's annual holiday bash after work, as that was at the Javits Center and the wind and cold are bad enough on 9th Avenue without a 7-block walk there and back to some sort of subway where we'd have to wait for the express bus anyway. Best to leave at 5, show my coworker my new shortcut (bypassing the worst of the Moynihan Hall and LIRR crowds by walking to the post office, then outside to cross the intersection to MSG and Penn, and walk through the much more pleasant NJ Transit area to finally end up at the tail end of the LIRR mess to catch our respective uptown trains. Robin and I had a pretty low-key anniversary, as we didn't want any delivery folks coming out in this weather, and I place another call tomorrow to the landlord's office to remind them they're not obeying NYC law with heat that keeps going off before it ever warms the place up. Wish me luck!

On Stepping Forward and Back

Mostly forward, I hope. Although we're still running space heaters more than we should, given our landlord's repeated stinginess with heat that we cannot control (trust me though, a lot of folks even in this semi-ritzy neighborhood have it far worse). But work-wise I'm experiencing a lot of forward momentum, now that I can more successfully ignore the constant worry about Mom in the back of my head. And there is a plan going forward for Mom's care once she's back at the LTC facility, so I'm feeling better about a lot of things than I was a few days ago. We decided to forgo our firm's holiday party as the temps are supposed to be brutal tomorrow and I'd just rather head for home after work. And besides, it's our anniverary so I'd rather it just be the two of us.

Best Birthday Ever

Today I turned 68 years old. Aside from the kick I always get to see around 200 Facebook friends from all my Venn diagrams (Firesign, comics, Rutgers frat, online gaming) wishing me a happy birthday, as well as my work colleagues who gave me two desserts I should definitely NOT eat as well as treating me to a group lunch order eaten in our fancy dining area, I got the best gift of all, a birthday call from Mom. My brother held the phone as she coherently spoke. For someone I'd been convinced was at death's door a few days ago, this was near miraculous. I'm now told she's due to be released back to her long-term care facility on Friday, the infection and sepsis are all gone, and the only stumbling block remains her food intake, which is difficult when you can no longer swallow properly and you don't care for food anyway. But she's not in pain and she's not suffering so, at 94+, she's totally beaten the odds again! Every reason to celebrate! Which we did with a delivered sushi dinner. I refrained from the third birthday dessert of the day included with our order, a bunch of cookie-like Japanese treats in a box which looks lovely on our holiday table. On to year #69!

No News Is

White Rabbits, and welcome to December! No word from my brother about Mom's condition, so I'm going to assume all is the same and carry on with my week as planned until I hear otherwise. My coworkers and the partners I support are aware of the situation, and a couple of them checked in on me via online calls, so that was sweet. Tomorrow is a Manhattan day as well as my birthday, so we'll see how everything goes. I'm assuming I'll get birthday calls from both my brothers so I'll certainly be more clued in then. In the meantime I'm keeping busy and hoping for an easy transition into whatever's next.

Of Steaming and Stir Frying

I ended this chilly day and month by steaming a whole bunch of winter tops and, while I was at it, I moved my summer tops to the closet in the library to make room for all the steamed ones. I can't seem to only do one thing, as every task seems to have mini-tasks associated with it. But I'm task-based, and doing this stuff helps keep my mind occupied as I cannot do anything about Mom's situation (still downhill I'm afraid). I also made the promised stir fry, which was delish except I forgot to add the tofu, which I'll air fry tomorrow to blend in with the leftovers. I feel like I'm making headway and, in case the inevitable happens sooner rather than later, I won't have as much catching up to do.

Productive Pre-Birthdays

As my 68th birthday is on Tuesday, and Robin's is next Saturday, we have already pre-ordered our gifts for each other. My new AirPods are waiting to be charged then paired with my phone and work computer (with any luck the noise cancellation feature will work well enough for me to leave the headphones at home), and his new Huion Kanvas art tablet arrived today, which he integrated pretty quickly into his home office setup in place of his old Wacom which doesn't play well with any of the newer software. We shopped at H Mart (the Asian grocery) and our regular supermarket, and I plan on making a stir fry tomorrow to take us through the worst of the cold weather to come. Meanwhile, Mom's situation has gotten worse, so I'm more grateful than ever that I visited her on Wednesday.

Bubbling and Squeaking

The holiday table is all set up; the bowl filled with copious amounts of sugar-free chocolate goodies we've been buying was the piece de resistance. No card wreath this year since we won't be sending out cards. t's all I can do to keep myself together, between Mom's situation (slowly improving again) and my impending birthday week. But having the fiber optic tree trimmed and festooned does provide some sort of comfort, and between that and Robin (who is always a comfort!) I'm okay at the moment. We got through about half of the Beatles Anthology remaster, and will probably finish it again by the end of the weekend. And the bubble and squeak today was delightful.

Graditudinousness

Yeah, that's how Robin and I talk sometimes. In any case, I'm grateful that yesterday I got to see Mom, who has taken a turn for the worse today so we're back to a day-to-day watch to see if she's going to rally again or face the worst. With sepsis infections it's often this type of waiting game. But she's in the best possible hospital, they've cared for my brother and sis-in-law on a number of occasions, and as I mentioned in yesterday's post they impressed me greatly, so I live in hope. I'm also grateful for a job that allows me to buy food for the Thanksgiving table, and for the wisdon that comes with years that teaches me that less is sometimes more, especially when Robin doesn't have the appetite he used to. The most labor-intensive thing I made was the apple and chestnut dressing; the Marmite gravy (surprisingly tasty!) was a cinch, the sprouts were just boiled with some lemon glaze (not worth it, I think they've gone past their best), and everything else was microwaved. The Macy's parade was a bit bewildering, as it is every year when I recognize fewer and fewer celebrity performers, but it led me to check out the K-Pop Demon Hunters movie as at least five of those heavily Autotuned songs are Grammy nominated and at least four are on the Billboard Top 100, so I feel a bit less removed from that now. Tomorrow we start rewatching the newly-mastered now-9-episode Beatles Anthology, which we haven't seen since it first came out as 8 episodes. So yeah, grateful again for my job that allows me to have the money for streaming programs. Lastly, grateful it wasn't that cold today, as the landlord still doesn't provide enough heat, but that's a convo for after the holidays.

On the Road to Recovery

After two consecutive exhausting commute days, I knew I wasn't going to get much rest today what with the drive into New Jersey (on what's always been touted as one of the year's busiest travel days), so I was up around 4 or so, lay back down at 5:30 for an hour, and couldn't stay asleep due to leg cramps. I did what I should have done much earlier, put on compression socks for the drive and the visit to see Mom in the ICU. If you're at all in the Morris County, NJ area and you need urgent medical care, I truly believe you could do no better than the Morristown Medical Center. Everyone there was attentive, professional, knowledgeble, compassionate (which Mom, having been a nurse for decades, took pains to confirm to her nurse today, saying "if you don't have compassion, you have no business being a nurse"), and extremely helpful as we wound our way around the corridors and environs trying to get a bearing. Mom was still pretty out of things, but she's been pretty ill and needs time to recover, and she was able to hold up her end of short conversations. And she's trending better! By the end of the day she had been moved from ICU to stepdown, the next stage before she can be released back to her long-term care facility to continue her recuperation. I could see the relief on my brother's face, which I'm sure matched my own to an extent, and felt good enough to treat Robin to sushi on the way home (Kura currently has great fish & chips!) before I simply collapsed. (Although I must say, I never felt anything near to a "biggest travel day" traffic situation!) I was going to do some prep for tomorrow's Thanksgiving-for-two, but Rob's appetite isn't what it used to be so we've cut way down on the sides and when I woke from my afternoon nap I couldn't do anything more than chop the chestnuts Robin had roasted and peeled. That dish will have to wait to be assembled and cooked tomorrow, when I will have so, so much to be thankful for!