Enchiladas, Vince cares for Edda, biking & orienteering.

Hi loves, it’s Saturday night and I’m sitting in a hotel room by myself in Northampton, MA.  (Both fantastic! and kind of lonely!) We are executing the plan, but the plan is a little crazy.  I’m knee-deep in the part of the plan where you feel like maybe you shouldn’t have undertaken the plan, but now it’s mostly over so there is no choice but to keep going and hope for the best.  Spirits are flagging, stress is mounting, but we are on the third lap of a mile race.  Let’s keep going.

Friday morning: I woke up at Bard, Vince woke up in Troy, NY and Jeremy and Edda woke up in Rockville.  Julia had spent the night at our house.  (Debbie, my birthday party friend, had taken Maxi home with her on Wed. night).  Jeremy packed up the car with three bikes, a wheelchair, bedrails and various other items and headed up to Bard – stopping in New Jersey at lunch to drop Julia off at her brother’s house.  They got to Bard around 3 pm.

I did sleep in on Friday and I found a quilt shop in Red Hook (who knew?  I’ve only been going to Red Hook my whole entire married life and never knew there was a fabric store) and spent the afternoon grocery shopping and making bean enchiladas to accompany Katherine’s delicious tomatillo  soup.  I usually fry the corn tortillas, but this time I did not and it turned out just fine.

Vince and Josh arrived from RPI at about 5pm and then we had a lively dinner.

Edda fell asleep on the couch next to Vince and Emy.

Saturday: Today was a big day for our family, it was the first day that we have ever asked Vince to take care of Edda for a long stretch of time.  Kiki and Kappa were going to be around, but it was Vince’s job to dress and feed Edda from about 7 am – 4 pm.  I didn’t really like asking Vince to do this for us, we had looked into taking someone or hiring someone at Bard, but it just turned out this way.

Saturday morning, Jeremy got up early and left at 6 am for his bike race (ride?) about 2 hours north of Bard.  As we fell asleep last night, I had to tape his bell’s palsied eye shut because when he’s in a relaxed state, the eye wants to open.  I woke up at six and I wanted to leave at 7 to go to an orienteering meet about 2 hours east of Bard.

Edda was awake at 7am in an upstairs bedroom.

Vince was asleep in the downstairs living room at 7 am.  I had to push Vince awake at 7 to ask him to help me carry Edda downstairs because I can’t do it by myself anymore.

We got Edda downstairs and sitting on the potty and I reminded Vince that she needed breakfast and a change of clothes.  I told him where her diapers were and then I left.  I drove two hours to the orienteering meet – I ran around the woods for a couple of hours (I came in last! Last!  Someday I won’t be last.  It took me 2.5 hours.  The winner took 47 minutes to finish the course.  I hope this means I have a lot of room to improve.)  The woods had no cell service, so it was only after I got down from the mountain that I got this photo from Vince showcasing his care of Edda.  It’s ever so slightly awkward, but she’s dressed!  And outside sunbathing with Pip.  They did end up seeing a movie.

Here are my views from my run/walk/getting lost adventure.  It really was a beautiful day, I was worried about my bum hamstring, but really, I was not limited by my physical capabilities, I was limited by my inability to navigate properly.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon at Smith College.  So fancy!  I pull into the main campus drive and I see a huge lake with people canoeing.  Jeremy asked me if I saw any swans – I did not.  I went to the Smith botanical gardens and the Smith art museum and sat in front of a Picasso.  I walked to the super cute downtown and bought pastries at the very adorable independent bakeries.  What if I had gone to Smith?  I would be a very different person.