When I last updated you on the kids and the Great Northern Migration, it appeared that everything was more or less in order.
To recap: Sunny was headed to grad school just north of BlueCity, and the girls had secured an apartment and scheduled their move (with the help of their dads). Monkey was headed to grad school in the heart of BlueCity shortly thereafter, and had secured an apartment and a fellow nerdling roommate. I was busy poking and prodding Monkey to clean out their room, figure out what they needed to pack, etc. And our dining room had been turned into a packing staging area, awaiting the girls’ arrival on their way north, where they would be picking up packages and childhood items to add to their truck before heading north.
It was a perfect plan. Everything had been arranged. Everyone was excited. And it was all going to go seamlessly!
Hubris—it’s what’s for breakfast! (For me, anyway. Always for me.)
Spoiler alert: Everything’s fine. Truly. But you already know what happens when I think everything is going according to plan, right? Yeah.
The first minor bump in the road was that one of the girls’ cats (the oldest one) was diagnosed with cancer about a month before their move, and there was much agonizing over whether or not she would live until the move, and if she did, would she potentially have a crisis on the road or even immediately upon arrival, and how would they handle that, etc. I was absolutely convinced this poor kitty was going to shuffle off this mortal coil before it was time to load the truck, and I was sad about it, too, because she’s my favorite of their cats (she is the dumbest animal I’ve ever met and loves everyone). But hey, good news! She lived! She’s still perfectly fine, as I type this, nearly two months after their relocation.
While Chickie and Sunny fretted about their elderly cat in the lead-up to moving, their YOUNGEST cat decided to develop a weird health issue, because why not? And obviously they love all the cats, but the elderly cat is, well, old, and that tempered their sadness a bit, I think. But then when the youngest one got sick… PANIC. DISTRESS. He is also fine (now), but it certainly made the lead-up to their move more stressful than planned.
Otto flew down to the girls’ place and rented the U-Haul, and they all hung out while the pack-and-load crew tried to share their testimony and bring the girls closer to their lord and savior (Chickadee admits she maybe should’ve paid a little more attention to the nature of this particular business, but mostly they found it amusing) WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY doing kind of a crap job of packing. (After the crew was “done” in the kitchen, it was discovered that the entire silverware drawer had been skipped. Um. What? Fortunately that was caught and rectified, but upon unpacking in the new place, a few cords were missing as well. And they’d done a thorough cleaning of the condo before they left, and no cords were laying around, so this means… the packers pocketed them? Is there a black market for power cords among the born-again??)
But no matter—Otto hooked up the trailer to the loaded truck, loaded Chickadee’s car, and headed our way. The girls stayed in an adorable lofted AirBnB that night and FaceTimed me to force me to witness the fact that one of their cats was TERRIFIED of the ladder. I had to admit, it was both pitiful and hilarious.
Otto got home early the next evening, but the girls got stuck in some sort of traffic situation where their ETA kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed. It would’ve been a long day under the best of circumstances, but here it was getting even longer, and then a big storm blew in and one of their cats began yowling and freaking out, plus driving is always harder/more exhausting in heavy rain. They were going to be staying at a friends’ house for their nights in town (both parental households have two dogs, plus at least one allergic-to-cats resident), and they had a document of instructions on where to find the key and how to get inside, but by about 2 hours prior to their arrival, my child was DONE. The rain wasn’t letting up, everyone was exhausted and cranky, and the texts started coming fast and furious, about how they didn’t have raincoats or umbrellas, and the AC would be off, wouldn’t it? so the house would be too hot (Chickadee and I share an extreme heat intolerance, so this was a legitimate health concern, not her being a pill), and they had SO MUCH to unload, and it was past time for the cats to eat, and what if they couldn’t find the key, etc., etc. I ended up offering to go to the house ahead of them—I would find the key and get inside, turn on the AC, bring extra raincoats and umbrellas, and help them unload.
That’s how I ended up greeting them in the pouring rain at about half past midnight, and I’m glad I did, because they were clearly cooked. We got the cats and everything inside, and I hugged them both and told them to get some sleep, and then I went home to bed.
The next morning, we quickly emptied the accumulated contents of the dining room into the moving truck. Hooray! But then… once the girls showed up, they brought a bunch of stuff to leave in Chickadee’s room. Which was not part of the plan. Oh, but it’s not a big deal, she said, because this stuff is to sell and this stuff we’ll deal with when we come home next, we promise. There was much side-eyeing but fine, whatever. I am grudgingly coming to accept that until Otto and I move into a much smaller place, our home will forever be the Offspring Crap Repository.
Anyway. The next day the dads set out with the truck, and early the next morning the girls and cats left. Other than the missing cords, move-in went pretty smoothly, it sounded like, and about 36 hours after they started moving the girls in, the dads arrived back home.
The very next day, Chickadee gave me a FaceTime tour of the apartment—it was fully unpacked and set up. Not gonna lie, I was impressed.
So hey, one down, one to go! We began moving Monkey’s To Be Moved items into the dining room (who needs a dining room, anyway?) and going through their clothes and bookshelves and such in earnest.
Sunny started her classes. Chickadee returned to work (she’d taken a couple of weeks off for the move). Here at home, we were throwing things away and donating bags of stuff. All was well.
And then… Monkey started complaining about work. They complained about their boss. They complained about their coworkers. They complained about their projects. It was a pretty grumpy couple of weeks, is my point.
Those of you with excellent memories may recall that Monkey’s previously-amazing boss was decidedly not-at-all-amazing when it came to their grad school letters, so maybe this sounds reasonable to you, given everything that happened. But. BUT. Monkey really isn’t a complainer. Especially about work; their approach is generally just to put their head down and grind, and not waste time dwelling on distractions. So this was… well, it felt a little weird. I chalked it up to “short-timing” (they were ready, SO READY, to just get on with it and head to grad school), but it was odd.
And THEN… Monkey came downstairs one evening and laid their head on my shoulder and began a long litany of anxiety-fueled concerns, everything from “I feel like I’m not being effective at work and it’s frustrating me” to “I don’t get it, I don’t even want to talk to my friends, and I don’t FEEL like I’m anxious or depressed, but this is what happens when I’m anxious and/or depressed, so am I falling into a pit without even realizing it? And if I am, WHY NOW?” I let them vent, tried to practice my active listening skills, and finally—FINALLY—as they were mid-spiral about how SOMETHING IS REALLY WRONG WITH ME, I realized that the head on my shoulder… was warm.
“Hey, kiddo?” I said, when they paused for a breath, “I think you might be sick.” Monkey has a long and storied history of not recognizing when they’re ill, so I was quite relieved to have hit on this relatively quickly.
“No, that’s not it,” they insisted, “I’m just… tired and unmotivated all the time.” They were the saddest sack of sad, y’all.
I patted their back as I eased them off of me, so that I could go get a thermometer. “I really don’t think I’m sick,” they reiterated, as I popped it into their mouth.
They had a fever. SURPRISE!
They stayed home from work the next day. And the day after that. At which point I told them to call their doctor. They did, and of course there were no appointments available, so I sent them off to Urgent Care.
Guess what happened next. GO ON. GUESS!
I’d offered to go with them, but they said they were fine on their own. Which is how it came to pass that I was puttering around here at home and Monkey called me from Urgent Care…
… to tell me they had mono.
This was initially terrifying to me, because when their sister had mono she nearly died, but it quickly became apparent that Monkey had “regular mono” rather than “exploding liver” mono. Phew!
What followed from diagnosis was a whole new Monkey, one who was completely boneless and had sleeping sickness. They had already given notice at work for their move, and ended up having to say “Well, sorry, I have mono and I need to quit effective immediately,” which they felt really guilty about, but it couldn’t be helped. They couldn’t keep their eyes open. It was wild.
[Sidebar: I was also sorta sick when all of this was going down, and Monkey often buys weird sodas and says “Here! Taste this!”, and I don’t know if I’d ever had mono as a kid, because the standard medical treatment I received as a child was “you’re faking, stop it” or “fine, you’re sick, suck it up,” so I ended up going to Urgent Care after they got home, to get tested, myself. My test was negative. But the staff there thought it was adorable that they’d just seen Monkey and then I came in after. Tuck this tidbit away for a minute.]
Monkey’s diagnosis came in exactly two weeks before they were scheduled to move. And they commenced sleeping approximately 16-18 hours a day. Otto looked at his schedule and said he could push the move out one week, if necessary, so we began the waiting game to see if Monkey improved.
As we neared the (original) move date, Monkey got up one morning and complained that one of their ears was very painful. I took them to Urgent Care, this time (I was afraid they might nod off while driving); the (same) staff determined that the ear was fluid-filled, but not infected. As Monkey was still determined to move in just a few days, the doctor instructed them on a regimen of decongestants and gave them a “just in case” antibiotic prescription to fill if it got worse (which I thought was very kind). We went home and Monkey went back to bed.
The next morning, I got up and went to the bathroom, still half-asleep, as one does. That’s my explanation of how I didn’t realize until I’d turned on the faucet and was about to wet my hands that… my left hand was caked in dried blood. Front and back. Under my nails. Truly an alarming amount of blood, from… well, I had no idea.
I probably stood there, water running, staring at my hand, for just a few moments, but it felt like a long time. I couldn’t see any sort of cut or abrasion on said hand. I checked my other hand; no blood or cuts. I began checking my entire body—because WHERE DID IT COME FROM??—and I couldn’t find anything. I even tried sort of lifting my shirt and turning around and craning to see my back in the mirror. Nothing.
Finally I decided to go ahead and wash my hands, anyway, and as I did so, I realized the water sounded normal in my right ear but kind of muffled in my left.
Good news! I found the source!
I cleaned up the side of my face and neck, and as much of my outer ear as I could. I took my meds and got dressed and THEN I realized that my pillowcase was an utter crime scene (how had I missed that, earlier??), so I spent some time stripping the bed and scrubbing the pillowcase. And then I went to Urgent Care. Because I’d just been there the day before!
I would love for someone to explain to me HOW my eardrum had ruptured in the middle of the night when 1) I’d not had any ear pain prior, 2) I apparently didn’t have enough pain to wake me, when it happened, and 3) it didn’t hurt currently, either. The whole thing was completely bizarre. The Urgent Care staff had a lot of fun at my expense (“Here’s our frequent flier!” and “You’ll be back!”) but they also gave me some antibiotic ear drops and took good care of me.
That evening, Otto and Monkey and I sat down to discuss whether we should delay the move by a week. Monkey insisted they were well enough to go, but of course they’d defer to me if I wasn’t feeling well. I said I was fine to go—I still wasn’t having any pain, I was just having a little trouble hearing—and although Otto was clearly not thrilled to be loading up a caravan of invalids, he agreed that we could proceed as planned.
The next day, Otto came home with the trailer and we loaded up all of Monkey’s stuff. We took Turnip to a friend’s house (she spent her entire weekend there pouting and glaring, which meant a rich catalog of photos being sent our way while we were gone), and all went to bed early. We were up at dawn and on the road with Goose in short order.
Otto drove the whole way. I dozed a bit; Monkey swears they didn’t, but I’m not buying it. We stayed in a hotel outside the city, that night, and managed to find a parking spot just around the corner from Monkey’s apartment early the next morning. With three of us we were able to rotate one person staying with the trailer, one person inside, and one person ferrying items in, until the trailer was empty. Otto left to return the trailer, and Monkey and I started moving boxes around inside.
The girls had planned to meet us first thing, but they’d also taken public transportation, and there was an issue with a station under construction and a route that was rerouted… something… I don’t know exactly, but they showed up eventually, and Otto returned, and with five of us, the furniture was built and arranged and most everything unpacked by early afternoon. We took a snack break (is there an ice cream and “other stuff” stand right across the street from their apartment? HECK YES AND AMEN) and did a few more small tasks and then headed back up to the girls’ apartment. We hung out and ate pizza and eventually we said goodbye to the girls and took Monkey back to their apartment, then said goodbye to them and headed back to our hotel. We drove the whole next day and came home and went to bed.
It was weird, I’m not gonna lie. Monkey’s roommate is super nice but also super busy—after greeting everyone and offering to help in any way and chatting for a bit, he took off for the rest of the weekend, so we were not just leaving Monkey, we were leaving them truly ALONE in a new city. And they still have mono, too, so the whole “move early and get to know the city” thing was foiled somewhat by their continuing need to sleep a ridiculous number of hours every day. I was really worried that by the time classes started, they’d still be dragging, but they seemed to turn a corner this past weekend (just in time for the start of classes).
I get a lot of texts and FaceTimes. There’s been a lot of “I walked to the grocery store and got some stuff and it was fine but then when I came home and put everything away I had to lie down and then I accidentally slept for four hours” kinds of things, so I’ve spent a lot of time issuing variations on “Hey, did you know you have mono?” and “I hear that having mono will do that, kid!” Although the roommate isn’t around much, he recently (shortly before Monkey moved in) adopted a cat, and that cat truly believes that Monkey is her human. Monkey has never lived with a cat before, but as I was worried they’d be lonely, receiving an endless string of cat videos has greatly soothed my anxiety.
Monkey has already had dinner with the girls once, and spent a weekend at their place taking care of the cats while Sunny and Chickie were out of town. They have another dinner scheduled, too.
My eardrum healed. Turnip was so excited that we came back for her and she hadn’t been rehomed that I may never get to pee alone again. We moved the dining room furniture back where it’s supposed to be, and I’ve begun the laborious process of moving around all of the left-behind pieces of apartment furniture and childhood items. I’m not progressing very quickly, but I suppose there’s no rush. Probably no one will be back home until around Christmas, so I’ve got time.
Chickadee is happy to be settled and back at work. Sunny is loving school. Monkey is loving school. (I am currently in a play and several of Monkey’s classes are at night, so as they real-time update me, my phone is off and I’m on stage, but after rehearsal I have entire novels on hand about this professor or that project or this topic that is SO COOL.) Otto is working too hard, as per usual, and I’m keeping busy doing my various things and spoiling these ridiculous dogs.
It’s a little too quiet. But I think we’ll get used to it.
Also, they don’t have to live here to make my day:
“Otto was clearly not thrilled to be loading up a caravan of invalids” is the most entertaining line in this whole soap opera. And I will highly recommend moving to a smaller place and forcing the kids to go through their crap. It didn’t leave, but it’s all more organized in tubs instead of 15 years worth of boxes. I cracked up at one box that looked like it said “Hayley’s boobs” – it was actually books, thank God. And now those tubs live in the basement and the only things in the garage are a piece of Mark’s grandma’s furniture that Shea wants some day, and her house-shaped toy box (painted like our first house) which also contains my/her dollhouse.