Hello from The Flower House in These Foolish Things

Greetings from The Flower House! It’s called The Flower House because all of the houses that this couple rents out are named after flowers. Of course, the actual name of this house is a particular species of flower, but I’m not going to name it in the spirit of anonymity.

I’m here with my Dad for the week. We are staying in an Airbnb for the week because Dad needs to be in this town (an hour+ from his home) to get these new (to him) infusions for his autoimmune disease (myasthenia gravis).

We have already completed Day 1, and it went surprisingly well today! Dad got up early and I took him to this tiny office in a strip center. I was surprised that it wasn’t in a hospital setting like my chemo infusions, but it was in a very tiny office with the sweetest nurses.

I tried to work while Dad was all hooked up, but it was really hard to do that and watch him at the same time. At one point, he got restless legs and one of his legs would convulse and it freaked me out! At another point, I could tell he was trying to go to sleep, but the machine kept beeping while I was in my team meeting and trying to mute myself every twelve seconds.

There was a point when our meeting was going over by 30 minutes and I thought that I was on mute, and I’d turned off my camera for a brief moment to turn to my dad to tell him that “uuuuggghhh, this meeting is going loooong!” and then realized that my mic was NOT muted!

And another time I was rolling my eyes at one of my coworkers, but also half looking at my dad and she was like, “What, Ginger! I see that look on your face!”

Ughhh! I don’t recommend trying to caretake and work at the same time, but I also know that I’m unusually lucky to be able to do this.

Dad and I are having a fine time so far. He’s so funny in that I ask him things like, what do you want me to make you for breakfast? And he says “nothing”, but I went to the grocery store and bought all kinds of breakfast-y things anyway because he sure wanted breakfast before we started out this morning!

I’m glad he’s opening up to me about mom. He feels like he’s losing her, and I understand that because so do I. I remind him that it’s really good that mom is not in a state of agitation or even depression and he recognizes that, but I know that my dad is depressed himself just looking the end of life in the face, and I do hope that this series of infusions offers him so much-needed relief.

We got back to the Airbnb after lunch today and he told me that he’s excited so far because he can read his phone without having to close one eye! The MG gives him double vision and he said he thinks it might already be working! I sure do hope so!

Anyway, yeah. I’m now trying to work from the Airbnb kitchen table, and while it’s super nice here, I’m not in the mood.

I’m annoyed with my co-workers who seem to be conspiring about something and I’m not into it. The two of them are clearly angling for pay raises and have been on our CEO’s ass for years about working a 4-day work week and just today they both say they would rather have a raise than a 4DWW?! The two are NOT mutually exclusive, you twits. They’ve thrown this whole thing into a spin and I’m super annoyed.

And have I even written about this other company I’m interviewing with? I feel like I have, but I don’t think I actually have because the company and the people behind it are absurd! I had a video interview with the CEO on Friday. They had to have an HR person on the call because this guy is so on the spectrum that he can’t interview. It was like talking to a fucking wet rag, but he’s taken this company from $3M to $50M in a matter of a couple of years, so…what do I do with that?

Where’s my corporate job? I need my corporate JOB back (after I get all of this infusion stuff out of the way with my dad)!

Anyway, like I said, it’s good to be in a different space and place right now. I’m glad I have this time with Dad at The Flower House, and I’ll let you know if anything crazy happens.

OH! I forgot to tell you this and it was so fucking HILARIOUSLY cringeworthy!! You know when you start settling into an Airbnb and you start finding little things here and there that are wonky or they don’t work? Yeah, like the electrical outlet in the bathroom that I’m using doesn’t work so I had to do my hair in another room using my ipad as a mirror…stuff like that?

Well, there was that and a couple more things that I’d messaged the hosts about, so the beautiful, TALL, clearly athletic and very stately woman who owns the place came out to see if she could fix some things. I had been outside with the dog, so she and I had been talking for about 10 minutes and I told her to come inside and meet my dad and to take a look at what was going on.

So, she walks into the house and I introduce her to my dad, and he says, “Whoa! You’re a FULL GROWN WOMAN, aren’t you?!!” …essentially remarking about how tall and big she is. And I was all, DAD!!! And shot him a look. Thank GOD, the woman was so sweet about it. She could have been super offended!

But that’s old folks for ya, huh?

More soon, I’m sure!
xox,
GS