Shingrixia

The appointment for my second Shingrix dose had been timed perfectly -- on a Friday morning. That would allow me to recuperate on the weekend. But my doctor rescheduled to this Wednesday morning. Therefore the worst of it was during the work week and weeknights (sweats, little men punching me all over, joint pain, weird dreams). Occasional bursts of energy would be followed by deep exhaustion and a retreat to the lady room, where boy kitten spends his days. I had some nice floppenkatzen with bk, who really enjoyed his mama time.

He has been super solicitous, and has taken to stretching out on the credenza to watch us while we watch tv.

Meanwhile, work on the bathroom is almost complete. I look forward to being in the bathtub with less clothing, but for now I am just pretending that I'm bathing.

They're painting the bedroom, and without the curtains up we can really see the view left behind by all of the dead trees that have been removed in the last few years.

Yesterday, mom and her caregiver came over for lunch. Unbelievably there was no complaining. Absolutely none. She liked the bathroom and said "Glamor". She really dug the view. Mrguy just remarked that she also liked her lunch -- didn't complain that there was too much food -- and she made her little dainty happy grunts that signify that she really likes what she's eating.

The main event was our caregiver's storytelling. She told the story of how she met her husband (note: she refers to her first husband as "my husband" and her current husband by his first name). She and her mother were in her country, and in town buying a tomato when a very handsome man introduced himself and offered to buy them whatever they liked. They thanked him for his offer and said that they had enough coins for their tomato. He learned that they had mutual friends, showed up at their house and asked permission from our caregiver's parents to speak with her. The rest is history, as they say. Also history is her husband asking a member of the monarchy for a piece of property where they could build a house. After they started building, people in the community started talking about the land they'd been given. She and her husband worried about causing strife in the community and they bulldozed the house. Along the way we also heard stories about her husband 1) following a guy home who had a truck and a business to ask the guy about his business, and 2) starting an emigration club for people who wanted to come to the US. Still haven't learned the end of the story about the furniture business and the goat.

There were tears in these stories. It's the anniversary of her son-in-law's death last year, and there are lots of memories of him, our caregiver's husband who died, and other sadnesses of the season. We couldn't really interrupt in order to bring mom into the conversation because of the tears and Totie Fields-level lack of space between stories. Mom started to fall asleep. I was out of energy myself. Our caregiver suggested that the mama was pooped, and as we were getting the mama up the steps she said we should come over soon to chase the baby with them. What??? Mom now "sees" a little baby in her apartment and she and the caregiver have fun looking for it.

Wow