fox | inventory

When we last spoke (or—last time before I triumphed over the stack of Postcards to Swing States, that is), my mother had briefly almost failed to recognize me and I had made an arrangement with my doctor to medicate my anxiety as well as adjusting the medication for my blood pressure.

Then one Thursday evening as we were going to bed, Himself said "Just so you know, I'm feeling what I'm pretty sure is a kidney stone," and half an hour later he got up while he still could and drove himself to the ER, and he got the meds for that and passed the damn thing the following Tuesday and stopped taking the medication . . . and then went down with another one on Wednesday. That was back-to-school night, and we definitely needed to speak with the prince's teacher, so I went to the elementary school, my father-in-law drove Himself to the ER again, and my mother-in-law stayed with the prince. When I got home I traded places with my FIL while the grands handled the prince's bedtime, and it turned out the new stone was actually two stones, one on each side, for which the protocol is admit and go after them surgically.

So that was awesome! Nothing like waking your 7yo up on a Thursday morning and telling him his dad is in the hospital. I took him to school and took my laptop to the joint and did work from there all day, and they finally wheeled Himself in at like 8:30 Thursday evening, so I did the school run again on the Friday and then went and got him and brought him home, but Friday was when I was supposed to have seen my own doctor, so I'd rescheduled that appointment, as you might imagine. 😛

Then Himself went on a work trip for a week so there was more solo parenting—scheduled and planned, at least, in this instance—and came home with COVID, which is particularly unfair as he had got the booster about two weeks before and was one of a very few people he could observe wearing a mask. Grr. So when he returned he slept in the guest room and ate separately from us until he tested negative. The weather was pleasant so it didn't suck having the windows open, and both the prince and I escaped household transmission, which is now 4x not sharing for us (when the prince had it neither of us got it; both times Himself has had it neither the prince nor I got it; when I had it neither of them got it), whee.

While he was gone I'd had my rescheduled doctor's appointment where she tweaked my BP meds and added something for my anxiety and I'll tell you what, I haven't been great about keeping up with my BP measurements, but after a couple-few weeks on the new cocktail my heart rate is down into a reasonable range and I don't feel that kind of tight about-to-cry feeling in my chest all the time? I'll take it.

MEANWHILE. Back in the late spring I bought an electric scooter to make my commute a little shorter and less unpleasant. Especially in the 100-degree heat, scooting for eight or nine minutes in a slight breeze is a lot more comfortable than walking for 15 or 20 minutes. There was a shipping snafu where they sent me a tracking number but sent the thing to(ward) Chicago and had to call FedEx and get it back and re-send to me, but it eventually got here and all was well. Then one Tuesday in early August I came up out of the Metro and the bike rack where I'd locked it was bare: scooter was nicked. Alas. I called the Metro police but never really expected anything to come of my report, and annoyingly my homeowner's insurance doesn't cover it for Reasons, so I heaved a sigh, congratulated myself for buying refurb on a heavy discount instead of new at full price, and contacted the place to reorder. (I also bought a much better lock.)

They were out of shipping materials and I was not able to reorder for another month. /o\

When I finally did reorder, I got the tracking number and then sat on "label created" for a solid week before someone went over and sorted out a "communication issue" between the warehouse and FedEx and the package actually started moving. It arrived a week later in two parts that had been extensively taped back together—the carton, I mean; the scooter inside was scuffed a bit, but no more than expected, because refurb, so no worries. Fine. I sent some pictures back to the CSR I'd been emailing with so she'd know FedEx wasn't super honoring the "fragile" marking on their packaging, but whatever. I also let her know the scooter was missing one taillight, which might for all I know have fallen out when the carton was mangled or might have been lost by the original owner. That object is for sale on the website, so she said she'd ship me a replacement (at no charge to me, obviously), and sent me a Priority Mail tracking number the next morning.

A week later, that tracking number was still on "label created." I inquired and she said the warehouse had handed the package over to USPS, and the latter must have lost it, so she'd re-send a new package, and she sent me a new Priority Mail tracking number.

A week later that tracking number was still on "label created." I inquired and asked if they could maybe, if USPS couldn't track down this package, try a different courier?, because although I didn't have a ton of confidence in FedEx given the condition the package was in when they delivered it to me, at least that package had actually. You know. Been delivered to me. This poor CSR was all I don't know what to tell you, both packages have definitely been handed off to the postal service, the fact that they're not showing as being in their possession is such a mystery—anyway, after the second tracking number was created on September 30, the package was finally delivered on October 12.

It contains side reflectors rather than a taillight.

Sigh. I have two out of three taillights, I don't ride in the dark anyway, and this isn't legally a "vehicle" so riding with an incomplete light array is neither dangerous nor illegal, so whatever. Nevertheless I reminded my CSR friend that I had sent a picture on September 22 clearly showing which part was missing, and she said she'd have the warehouse re-re-send the correct replacement part and I should keep the side reflectors in case I need them in the future, but y'all, I'm here to tell you the Anyhill UM-2 is a good scooter with a high weight capacity and a replaceable rechargeable battery, but their shipping and customer service are no better than fair and in the event something happens to this one? I'm going to go with a different and more reliable brand if I need to try this a third time.

This past weekend my brother and his family were in town for Indigenous People's Day, which is when we celebrate Foxgiving, because traveling on the east coast at Thanksgiving has become so wretched nobody wants to do it. It was nice, some good together time, but the day his cousin goes home is always the prince's least favorite day and takes him a little time to recover from, poor bug. There's also been some Stuff with his (the prince's) mental and emotional health that we're Dealing With and also (not related, I don't think, but not helping) other stuff with his school, in amongst all this health and family stuff, and Himself is . . . not entirely projecting based on his own unhappy elementary school experience, but not not projecting based on his own unhappy elementary school experience, either, and the prince's second-grade teacher may not be a great fit for him (and definitely suffers in comparison to his first-grade teacher, whom he adored), and oy vey.

AND (a) I mean, look at the world, plus it is (b) concert week—which means three late nights and a full Sunday for me, always a pain in the ass, although we're doing the Brahms Deutsches Requiem, which I love more every time I sing it—and (c) the month of October, which is always uncomfortable for me ever since the time, 12 years ago tomorrow, that my mother told us my father's oncologist said it was probably time for my brother and me to come home. There's no avoiding it: Even in years when I haven't realized where we are in the calendar, the body remembers. Last night I got home from rehearsal and got quietly ready for bed so I wouldn't wake Himself and lay there with my phone screen dimmed trying to wind down by doing the crossword puzzle and reading a few pages of . . . something, I don't even remember what, and I could feel my bite guards clacking together as my TMJ just twitched and spasmed. Making the effort to hold your jaw slightly open so your teeth don't clench is just another kind of tension, of course. I can't win.