North never made it to camp, and they didn’t even get a doctor’s appointment the week they were unexpectedly home. They didn’t have a lot of plans, as a lot of their high school friends had already left for school, and I think after a few weeks of not working, they were bored. They had long phone conversations with college friends and a couple online OSCA meetings. (They are one of two food coordinators who serve as liaisons between the co-ops and wholesale food vendors this year and they needed to plan food orders for the welcome picnic for new students.) They said it was the first week they wished they back at school. Lucky for them, it was their second-to-last week at home, so they didn’t need to wait long. This is what we did during those two weeks:
Week 1
Watch Movies
North was home, but Beth was gone, first at the CWA convention in Pittsburgh and then visiting her mom in Wheeling. What we mainly did in Beth’s absence was watch scary movies because she is not a fan. After Sinners, we went to Weapons in a theater, and then we watched Good One (which I hesitated to watch with Beth because I thought it might take a turn it did not) and The Gift. I’d seen that one alone in the theater ten years ago when Beth and the kids were out of town on a camping trip. Kind of funny I saw it again while she was out of town yet again.
Bake a Cake
Normally, North would probably bake something during a slow week, but it’s not that appealing when you feel sick much of the time. However, Noah made a ginger-apple cake with cream cheese frosting. It had three kinds of ginger (crystalized, fresh, and powdered). It was excellent and had quite a kick. I wondered if he thought all the ginger might settle his sibling’s stomach (they’d been drinking a lot of ginger ale) or if he was trying to summon fall during a miserably hot, sticky week by using autumnal flavors. North didn’t get better, but the weather eventually cooled down, so it worked on at least one front.
Protest
On Thursday night, I went to a Free DC protest. You’ve probably heard that the President tried to federalize the DC police. The legality of that is up in the air (and may change before I finally finish and post this), but there are National Guard troops from several states and other federal law enforcement agencies occupying the city, even though crime in DC is declining. They’ve set up checkpoints and some employees from Cielo Rojo, a Mexican restaurant a twenty-minute walk from my house, were seized in the city on their way to work. I’ve lived in the DC Metro area since 1991, so I am just heartbroken over all this. Not to mention that there have been more people seized in Takoma Park on the Maryland side of the border, including some landscapers in my friend Becky’s neighborhood. She posted video of it to Instagram.
The protests are happening in neighborhoods all over DC, every night at eight o’ clock. I went to the closest one, just over the DC/Maryland line. It was organized by our friend Sara, who used to work with Beth and is married to Mike, who frequently employs Noah. The bus schedule meant I got there early, so I went to the hardware store to get yard bags and then got myself some gelato. While I was eating it, a couple also eating gelato noticed my sign and asked where the protest was, so I told them, and they came along.
It was the second night there was a protest at this corner (Carroll and Maple if you’re local and want to come) and about fifteen to twenty people showed up, including my two recruits. Signs, pots, wooden spoons, and various percussion instruments are provided, and for five minutes, everyone makes a lot of noise, and people in passing cars honk or shout in support. That night, a Metro bus driver honked, too.
I resolved to go again sometime soon. As I told North, these protests are very short, and I should spend at least as much time holding the sign as I spent making it. I used colored tape to make the Free DC logo, as I did with my No Kings sign. I was pleased with it. Beth says I am becoming a “tape artist,” though North finds it amusing that “DC” is so much smaller than “Free,” because I ran out of room.
Week 2
Go to the Fair
Beth came home on Saturday afternoon, a day earlier than originally planned so we could go to the last day of the Montgomery County Fair. When we walked through the gates, I was awash in nostalgia. The fair always does that to me and now I have fifteen years’ worth of memories to add to those I mentioned in that post.
We did a few rides first thing. North wanted to ride the swings and some other favorites before eating in case they got sick to their stomach. I did the swings and the Mouse Trap with the kids. (Beth only rides the Ferris Wheel.) We went to get dinner next. North wanted dessert first for the same reason they wanted to do high-priority rides first. So, they got a root beer float while Beth got pupusas and Noah and I got crepes. Later in the evening, they got fried pickles while Beth and Noah were getting dessert.
In between we visited the animal barns. Because it was the last day, most of the stalls were empty of their tenants, but we saw sheep, goats, and North’s favorite, rabbits. I always feel a little sorry for them when I read the judges’ notes on their cages. I mean, would you like to be on display with a card that says, “uneven fur density?” I want to tell them “You are perfect just as you are,” but since they can’t read, I guess I don’t have to do that.
The line for the Ferris Wheel was long, so the kids went to ride something else while Beth and I stood in line, but it turned out that ride had a short but slow-moving line, so we had to give up our place and go to the back of the line before they came back. That was frustrating because it was getting late and it had been a hot day, so I was tired and ready to go home. But once we were high in the air, all together in the little car after in a week and a half apart, looking at the colored lights of the fair, it was worth it.
Bake a Cobbler
I had been planning to make a peach-blackberry cobbler to welcome Beth home, but I delayed it a little because of the presence of cake in the house. North said they wanted to help, so while Beth was grocery shopping on Sunday morning, I made the filling, and North made the crust and assembled it. They did a good job rolling the dough thin enough to cover the whole pan. I sometimes have trouble with that. I’ve been making this cobbler for decades, usually near the end of summer, and it tasted comfortingly familiar.
Go to the Doctor
On Monday afternoon, North finally had a doctor’s appointment (with a new doctor since theirs was on vacation). The results of their bloodwork were in the portal Monday night and by Tuesday morning we had a message from the doctor saying they had an elevated count of a specific kind of white blood cell, which was consistent either with an H. pylori infection causing an ulcer (the original theory) or gastroenteritis (a new one). They got another prescription and depending on the results of another test they might need an endoscopy. This will mean they’ll need to find a gastroenterologist in Ohio.
Protest Again
Tuesday night, Beth and I went back to the Takoma DC Free DC protest. We were the first ones to arrive and I was afraid no one else would come, but eventually over a dozen people gathered. One woman said she’d heard the protest the night before while in a meditation group at a church a block away and came to check it out. Sara wasn’t there that night and she brings the extra pots, spoons, and instruments, so there weren’t enough to go around. We chanted and clapped instead. Right at the end, a woman with a DC flag joined us. She said she’d been looking for a group that’s sometimes at the Takoma Metro but wasn’t that night.
Wade in the Creek
Wednesday morning the kids and I went on a creek walk. We’ve been doing this since they were small, often in the late summer, usually in Long Branch, the creek nearest our house. We altered our most common route this year because on my morning walks, I’d noticed a lot of deadfalls in the part of the creek where we usually wade since a big storm in mid-July. I also wanted to change the normal order of events to get food and beverages after the walk instead of before. This was in case North felt sick after eating.
So, we entered the water at the spot where we usually do, but we went in the opposite direction to a part of the creek I don’t see as often on walks. I don’t think there were any fewer trees down that way, but it was pleasant to wade in the water and look at pretty fungus on a downed log, little fishes in the water, and a spiderweb full of drops of water. We waded for twenty minutes until we got to a tree that was too big to clamber over and turned around, exiting where we entered. Then we went to the Langley Park farmers’ market where we got pupusas and drinks from Starbucks. North was able to eat most of a pupusa. It was a very satisfactory outing.
Go to the Hospital
North had a psychiatrist appointment Thursday morning, and I met them afterward for coffee at Lost Sock. They were somewhat subdued because they’d had a headache since the previous day. It didn’t feel like one of their usual headaches and it was accompanied by dizziness and blurry vision and a feeling they described as being “off.”
We went home and North talked to a nurse in the Complex Care program at Children’s (where North still gets most of their healthcare). They were advised to go to the ER, so that’s where Beth and North spent much of the day. As they left, Beth said, “We haven’t done this in a while.” Even so, we’ve gone to the ER with North so many times it’s a familiar ritual, if not a pleasant one.
Beth texted me updates throughout the day. North eventually got some IV migraine meds, and it did take the headache away, so it must have been a non-typical migraine, like the one they had when they were almost eleven that paralyzed their hands and feet.
We thought we had one health problem solved but the headache came back the next day mid-morning. They had been told to take ibuprofen and electrolytes if it did, so I went out and got them some Gatorade, but it only helped a little. Then Beth remembered we have another medication on hand that North hadn’t tried because it’s only semi-effective on their usual migraines and they rarely use it. But they tried it, and it worked, at least temporarily. They can take it twice a day for up to three days in a week, so that’s what they did, timing the doses strategically depending on our plans. It’s been more than a year since they’ve had to ration their migraine meds, but that’s where we are again.
Observe Friday Traditions
On their last day at home, North packed and that night we went out for our traditional Friday night pizza. Most of us got Red Hound, but North wanted their favorite Roscoe’s so we got takeout from two places and ate it at the tables on Laurel Avenue. (Maya, you can visualize us there. It was just up the street from where we met.) Then we went back to Red Hound for ice cream. I got orange with stewed figs. They always have interesting flavors there. North got doughnut peach-maple, but they couldn’t eat much of it.
At home, instead of randomly drawing a movie from the index cards in the cookie jar on the dining room table as we usually do on Friday nights, we looked at all the cards and picked the shortest one because it was late and while Beth and North were packed, I was not. The movie was Marvelous and the Black Hole, which I’d had on my list of possible movies to nominate for a few years but only nominated in this round. It was worth the wait.
And then North’s wait to get back to school was over, as we were leaving the next day. More on that trip soon…