Great Expectasia: Grateful

Matt went to Boston for an eight day work trip. It was good for him. We were ok too. I can't even explain how grateful I was for being healthy while solo parenting. Those weeks before Thanksgiving were pretty traumatizing.

I went to the V&A with a new friend (same one I have gone on other long walks and museum explorations with). We saw so much just wandering around, and we got totally lost and never saw anything twice. It's huge.

Matt, when he is in town, has been helping with 2 6:30 pick ups per week. While he's gone, it's a bit challenging. If he's not in town, my Monday afternoons go like this:

2:30 leave the house to pick up at 2:55

2:55 pick up Jacob, Elie and two of Jacob's teammates and walk them to Paddington Rec

3:30-4:30 they have football practice and Elie and I read or hang (or we got a tea one day when it was raining)

4:30-4:50 walk Elie and Jacob to Elie's football practice at a school nearby

5:00 leave Elie, take Jacob home (about 35-40 minutes on the bus, depending on when the bus comes)

5:45 leave to go get Elie at football

6:30 go home with Elie.

I'm mostly outside that whole time, so when it rains, it just sucks. I promised myself that I would try to take ubers on the long hauls when Matt is out of town, rather than taking the bus and walking. But last Monday, it was raining, and I tried to get an uber at 5:00 to get me and Jacob home (I couldn't - we took the bus. took 45 minutes), and I tried to get an uber to get back to pick up Elie, and I couldn't get one (I just put on running clothes and ran there, because at that point it was too late to take the bus, and I truly couldn't think of another option). I did get an uber home that night. It's a lot, and it's not real enjoyable. That day and others like it are over 30,000 steps for me.

Logistics and schlepping are definitely my biggest complaint here.

Tuesday last week I passed my driving test! I have written about the process before, but it included a theory test that I took at end Sept (I passed), then I took a few driving lessons and my instructor said I was ready. So I booked a test - the earliest available for March. Then I paid some shady service to get it earlier, in mid-Nov. Then I had Covid, so I had to cancel and I BEGGED them to reschedule me an earlier test. I sent in a note from my doctor, my positive covid test and a pic of sores on the back of my throat. They wrote back after more than a week that I didn't have sufficient evidence. The note from my doctor was not on letterhead. So the doc office kindly put it on letterhead, and I resubmitted it all. Two Thursdays ago I got a call at 6:30pm offering me a slot on Tuesday the next week. I took it and begged my driving instructor to move things around so I could use his car (and apparently if I show up with him, that puts me on the good side of the examiner, because they all know him). He agreed. He picked me up at 8:30, drove me up north to the area near my test, and then I drove around and practiced some complicated things (roundabouts, stopping suddenly, backing into a parking spot, etc.) until 10:14, the time for the test. Then he waited in a waiting room, and I went out with an instructor - apparently I got the nicest one, the head instructor of the site. For about 20 minutes he told me where to go and what to do. I tried. Then he put on a satnav (navigation thing) and asked me to follow it. I had to tell him how I would check my brake lights were working. I had to show him how to clean the back window. I had to parallel park (I hit the curb for maybe the first time in my life - I'm actually a stellar parallel parker - I was nervous!). I went in a crazy roundabout. I went in 20 mph zones. Neighborhoods. It was all about 45 minutes with no feedback or small talk or anything. Then at the end I pulled into a spot at the test location and he told me I passed. He also told me the three things I was marked down for - but it wasn't enough to fail! PHEW! Now we can rent a car!

Sam had a choir concert at school. Elie had a learning celebration where he presented a city of the future with lots of sustainable energy sources and cool ideas.

Elie had a football game. Sam had a birthday party. I single parented on a lot of weekend days, but we survived.

A counselor from the summer camp Elie is going to this summer came over. (The camp is Bauercrest - a Jewish boys sports camp. It sounds awesome). BOTH boys got super excited. Jacob might go too. The counselor was so so awesome - he even babysat for Elie today. Nice dude.

We had a hanukkah celebration thing at shul and at Stephanie and Brad's. Both were actually really nice. I made three batches of latkas - one for us and our neighbors. One for Brad and Stephanie's. One for Elie and Jacob's classes. We only had Matt for four of the nights, but we lit all of the nights, and it was lovely.

Then, Tuesday night this week, Jacob complained his stomach hurt, and starting at 11:30, he was up, puking every half hour until 3 (there were 7 - I think that math works out, but I was pretty exhausted). It was a long night (and the first wasn't well aimed, so that took a while to clean up). SO GRATEFUL Matt was in town to help with the clean up. He was a sad mess on Wednesday - literally ate two pieces of toast that evening and that was it. Poor dude. Had a fever all day. Today his stomach was still a bit off, but he ate more and didn't have a fever. He will be home again tomorrow. I am PRAYING no one else gets it - or at least if we do, that it all be over by the time we leave for holiday.

For those of you keeping track at home, that's lice, pink eye, covid AND the stomach bug within two months. Nearly all of my anxieties!

In other grateful news, I was quite sure I booked tickets to Peter Pan Goes Wrong (which Sam super wanted to see) for Wednesday night. I put it in the calendar for Wednesday. Part of our London deal is that we will see all theater we want to see, but we will get the cheapest tickets to everything. So these were £15 tickets in the very very back of the second balcony, obstructed view. If you recall, for the last few plays we have gone to, we bought the cheapest tickets and then got upgraded, so it has worked well for us. Well, I called the box office on Wed to see if we could move two of our tickets to Saturday night since Jacob and I couldn't go (nope). I also called later because I couldn't check in to get my tickets emailed to me (she was able to email them to me). Then Matt took Elie and Sam, and the tickets scanned no problem. But when they got to their seats, there were people in them. In fact the theater was full. They went to an usher and the usher couldn't figure it out. They went to the box office. The manager at the box office realized that the tickets were for THE PREVIOUS NIGHT (I'm a total disaster, have I mentioned that recently?). And even knowing that, they said they had a box available. So Matt and the kids sat RIGHT to the left of the stage - like where the queen sits and ABSOLUTELY loved it. I am so so grateful. I wanted to write a letter, because if they went home without seeing the play, it was definitely all my fault, and I would have felt AWFUL, and this person didn't have to do anything and they let them stay. But I didn't write a letter, because I didn't want someone to get in trouble for doing that...I am so so grateful to that box office manager.

I have seen an osteo for my tennis elbow. She's doing acupuncture and other treatments. It does feel a bit better. Hopefully some rest over the holiday will help too. I haven't enjoyed tennis in the winter as much as in the fall. It's so rainy and cold.

And today I got to go on another amazing walk. In the end today, I had 39,492 steps = 16.5 miles. This includes walking Elie to school this morning. We took the train to Mortimer and walked to some Roman ruins including an amphitheater and city wall. Then we walked to a pub for a lovely lunch and then walked in the country side some more and took the train back. I am SO SO grateful that Matt worked from home to stay with Jacob so I could do this. It is so wonderful when I get out and talk to lovely women and see beautiful things.