Week in Review--August 21, 2010

Back from vacation but still two weeks "off" before school starts, it should have been a pretty easy week, just speech on Monday and Wednesday. But L's GI office called on Tuesday and offered us an appointment the next day. Thus, suddenly Wed. was going to be crazy--GI appointment at PCH (downtown Phoenix) at 10:30 am and speech in north Scottsdale at 2:00 pm. So I was hoping we'd make it home by 12:30 (allowing for an hour at the doctor's plus drive time) and leaving for speech at 1:15. In other words, it would be hell.


Normally, when something comes up like this, I tend to cancel speech, but as we'd just missed two sessions for vacation and they have a policy of dropping clients if attendance drops below 80% in 30 days--that wasn't a viable option this week.


So Wednesday comes and it was a nightmare as expected. The first IBS episode happens after we pass Dollar Tree, I take 2 Imodium and stop at my usual McDonald's bathroom. Back on the road, we hit construction and I get another episode and there's nowhere to stop before PCH, so I pop another Imodium, make it through the construction and eventually get to the hospital.


Although it felt like we waited forever (and the waiting room was packed), it wasn't even 11am by the time the doctor came in. So that was good, we made it home about 12:10, moved straight into lunch, and made it to speech, exhausted but on time.


We were like a traveling circus at the doctor's office. In the waiting room, my kids were jumping off the furniture and squealing like banshees. In the exam room, I'm trying to talk to the doctor while L and T wrestle on a chair. And I'm a mess because the whole thing gives me great (IBS-related) anxiety. Circus!


So having survived Wednesday, I promptly do nothing on Thursday or Friday, can't even manage to take us to the grocery when we run out of whole milk, I just feed T skim milk instead. Fail.


Saturday was "workday" at L's preschool. Two hours passed super-slowly as I bleached toys and cleaned a fan and generally tried to make myself useful. Never mind that I don't clean my own home, I cleaned up the preschool. Thank you, Hubby, for not pointing out that irony. Bright side--I met several nice moms from L's class.

GI Appointment

All four guaiac cards were negative. I asked for a "big picture reality check" because hello, my son is 5 and drinks a bottle and poops in a diaper. First, she said these issues derive from a medical problem. Second, "we messed up" on behavior (her words--I think she means we didn't break the bottle habit soon enough, on her advice) but we are all grateful he never needed a tube (amen to that!). We talked about the poop issue, which she called a normal developmental stage, and told me a few tricks to try including a laxative. She didn't have any new input on the getting-through-the-school-day issue, I said we're sending a lunch box full of food plus a thermos of Neocate and he's just going to have to figure out that if he's hungry he has to either eat or drink.

The young girl in the waiting room in a wheelchair with a breathing tube gave me a "big picture reality check" too. Things could be a lot worse!

Reading

Before our vacation, I checked out 3 Jane Austen spin-offs from the library.

I started reading An Assembly Such As This thinking it was a Pride & Prejudice "sequel" but it turns out that it is a retelling of P&P from Darcy's perspective. No thanks, I won't be reading that.

Next up, a P&P sequel called Desire and Duty. I read the first page and a half and set it down because it was so poorly written.

Book #3: Jane Austen in Boca, a modern-day P&P that takes place among retirees in Florida. I loved her Jane Austen in Scarsdale (see my review here) and this time I enjoyed that she was describing the culture and manners of a society I knew nothing about. Sadly, I just couldn't get into the saga of an old folks home and I gave up. (Also, the plot departed too far from Austen for my taste.)

So I picked up Desire & Duty again. The writing style is awful, painful sometimes, but I like "hanging out" with my friends from Pride and Prejudice and the plot follows Georgiana's quest for a mate--and the book (thankfully, because the style is so lacking) is plot-driven (no analysis of culture or manners) so I can, for the most part, ignore its faults. I'm not loving it, but I'm enjoying it.

All this puts into perspective Pride & Prescience that I read last month (and partially reviewed here). When I finished the book, I was disappointed that the "solution" to the mystery involved the paranormal. Lame, I thought. Now, I think I will forgive that shortcoming because the style was the closest to Austen that I've yet read. Or at least she's readable. Anyway, I'm willing to try her next novel in the "Darcy mystery" series.

Watching

We just finished "The Last Station" starring Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren as Mr. and Mrs. Leo Tolstoy (technically Count and Countess, but whatever) at the end of his life. We loved this movie! My husband is a huge Tolstoy fan, which helped because at the beginning I didn't know what was going on. (Don't worry if you don't have a Tolstoyan to watch it with, the movie explained everything a few minutes after Hubby did.) Great acting, fast-moving story that was almost a comedy at some points, fun to watch. And Paul Giamatti, James McAvoy, a little love story among the younger characters, made for many surprises. I highly recommend it (and would like to see it again, maybe even own it, so two thumbs up).

That's what I've been up to. Another school-free week ahead but it will probably be full of errands. Lots of cooking, I'll try to post my meal plan tomorrow.