Cold Spaghetti

— We’re moving (the website, not us) although it may take a little bit of time to get set up and functional. I figure since I’m working out a whole new way of operating in terms of photography, word processing (no more MS Word!), spreadsheets (no more Excel!), and all the other random things that connected me to my past work, photography and otherwise (stuff like the bibliography of my prospectus/first part of my dissertation, which was done in Endnote)… I may as well just go for it and do the jump. The website has been there for a year, hosted and ready, so hey… one more thing to use to procrastinate.

— The Dean’s Office Communications Department looked over the photos from the trip and are selecting which they will use. So soon I will be free to get everything else viewable. Of course they want some of the best work and I am not really sure what kind of rights I’ll retain for future use (still working this out). I’m waiting to talk about the trip when I have photos to tell the story… and also in the hopes that my travel notebook will show up. I’m trying not to think about it’s current ‘lost’ status, as it is just one more thing to contribute to that nausea that won’t go away.

— The guy who laid the tile, the one we trusted so implicitly in ways we have never, ever trusted anyone before, never called us back. Despite our several messages and despite his own sister calling him on our behalf. What else can we assume, except that he ripped us off? Going down this road is worrisome, considering we gave him our key and unfettered access to our empty home. Being trusting was a very expensive mistake.

— We have some ideas for how we might salvage part of the poor tile… but need some professional input to really feel good about it. We’re just not sure. We were so hopeful that this guy would come around and want to make it right that we have tried to let it go a little in our minds just to recover enough to keep working.

— In the meantime, we ordered some wooden closet pieces. They arrived, we installed. Last night, we HUNG CLOTHES IN A CLOSET. We haven’t done this since before Thanksgiving! Granted, the closet has no doors and only has room for a small amount of shoes (we’ll do seasonal rotation like we do with clothes), but! still! A closet!

— Countertops for the laundry area/utility sink and master bath vanity will be installed either tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday morning. Paul finished the plumbing prep yesterday and just painted the primer around the install area. This means that we may have a BATHROOM SINK and a UTILITY SINK by as early as tomorrow night!

— Will is miserable at his new school. He misses his friends (several of whom, surprisingly, won’t be moving on to other schools this fall) and I think is struggling with a strict activity schedule. It doesn’t help that we pick up Kate after Will. When Will walks into Abeona each afternoon to get his sister, it is like Norm walking into Cheers. The kids line up to greet and embrace him, some of the hugs lasting several minutes and including kisses and whispers. I’m not sure that he’s totally miserable all day in school (he’s told us that he talks silly with ‘the boy in the soccer shirt’) and certainly his teacher seems to think he’s fine… but when he is out of school, he is clear that he is not interesting in going back.

— Paul went to infectious disease last week for the 3-weeks of (ahem) that we’ve been dealing with since he swam in the Amazon. Not that I am drawing any conclusions by pointing that out; in all likelihood I had as much exposure to the very same river water in the shower as he did swimming and showering. Still, the garlic treatment held it aside while we were on the road and the 2 cycles of z-packs didn’t make a dent in curing it so he went in for tougher stuff. Ironically, the vote was giardia… the same stuff we were concerned that Will had… and they started him on treatment. It started working quickly, so maybe it’s a match? No confirmation yet on the exact bacteria he had/has, but I’m really happy he is finally feeling better.

— Between insurance phone calls, house stuff, reduced school hours, and getting everything set up from the Peru work, I have not been able to follow-up with anything for my dissertation. I’m feeling defeated, dumb, and un-engaged. I feel like writing some stupid survey, going door-to-door, and analyzing it with statistics that I can make say whatever I want. Isn’t that what public health is, anyway? (Okay, so maybe I’m feeling sort of grumpy, too.)

— Paul’s job… and all our health, life, and whatever other insurance one carries for wellness and security… ends on FRIDAY. Currently, we have no plan for any of the above.

— Will is out of school for three weeks in August. Kate has the first week of school off for Abeona, which is NOT one of the three weeks in August that Will has off. There is a distinct possibility that we may have kids at home for an entire month. We have no idea what we are going to do.

— Paul is sporting a painful crick in his neck, I have stress ezema popping out on my left hand and have bit off all of my nails. Not that the stress is getting to us or anything.

UPDATE: The International Health Newsletter for the Summer just came out, with a really nice blurb about me being recognized as a Schweitzer Fellow (this project is actually going better than planned at the moment) and has bouyed my spirits a bit… thanks INHL! (sniff, sniff)