So here's what I've discovered about having an (almost) empty house: there is no need for food. Breakfast is a wrap from Starbucks; lunch is a sandwich from the corporate cafeteria; dinner, last night was stale matzoh with avocado spread on it; tonight it was 100-calorie microwave popcorn. There is, however, several bottles of wine, which makes it all the more like that first apartment.
So it seems that the empty nesting? Is a lot like being single only in some cases, with a partner.
Honestly, I cannot remember a time when our house had no peanut butter; cream cheese; crackers; cheese other than that shredded crap; or bread. I think we are saving money on food and maybe even losing weight (probably not as there is all that candy that was not used for the "candy bar" at the wedding, and I opened the Snowcaps. Shhh! Don't tell Mr. Pom.)
The newlyweds and the rest of the Poms THANK YOU ALL for your lovely comments, hearfelt wishes, and general support and applause for the deed well done. The newlyweds are knee-deep in moving their stuff into their first apartment and although she no longer lives here, UPS rings the bell at least once a day with packages from home stores. We are now like a halfway house for brown cartons.
Just to keep us on our toes in case we think that weekends are for relaxing, we are also knee-deep in getting Micalangela ready to go back to college, where she has a summer job on campus. At the same time, June was the start of the lease on the off campus apartment for the fall, so she is moving in there with her friends until she moves to the dorm for the summer job. After work, I went to Home Goods with her after work and trawled the aisles trying to find "cool stuff" for the house.
Tomorrow night, I will take out the whip and crack it to get her to actually pack a single fork or spoon, as well as chairs, tables, clothes, computers, etc, so we can leave at 6 a.m. Saturday morning for Baltimore to move her in to the house that we have heard from another roommate is kind of "dirty" and has "roaches". Oh, joy. Seems that Baltimore landlords like to charge market value rents for unfurnished student housing, but don't believe they need to 1) clean; 2) paint;or 3) exterminate student housing. They have no idea that a Noo Yawk lawyer is heading down there and intends to make a lot of NOISE.
I am now waiting for a steroid prescription, which no one seems to be able to find at CVS, as the sinus infection is not responding to the Augmentin. I dragged my sorry self all the way to CVS after Home Goods only to have the clerk tell me they never received the script. We don't use CVS- or rather we never used CVS - because we used a local, indepedent pharmacy for many years.
Unfortunately they closed up after 25 years with no notice because they could no longer make any profit now that the company that owns or is associated CVS convinced the insurance companies not to pay for any script that gets more than one refill unless it is filled by mail order. I cannot tell you how much I hate CVS, and judging by the lines and the grumbling, and the yelling, many people share my antipathy.
While I was at CVS, the woman in front of me was making a phone call while simultaneously picking up her prescriptions. As the clerk tried to ask her questions, she continued with her very loud phone call while miming her answers to him.This was 1)time-consuming, and 2) obnoxious.
Here's the kicker: this woman is a doctor and her loud cell phone call was to a patient, Mrs. X (I am not publishing the patient's name, but I know it because she greeted her by name and repeated it a few times), who I now know had surgery on 5/15; whose labs are back and show that her iron count is down; whose diet has not returned to normal since the surgery; and now needs to start taking iron pills and come in for new bloodwork.
Now, maybe I'm wrong but pretty sure I'm not: there's a small matter of doctor-patient privilege. I am fairly familiar with the concept from my own job as an attorney, where we have that little matter known as attorney-client privilege. I would no more think of discussing a client's case on my cell phone in CVS than I would sending an email with Personally Identifiable Information (PII)(Social Security number; date of birth; medical records, etc) from work, which is an offense punishable by immediate termination.
So what was this 40-something doctor thinking of, and more importantly, what is her specialty so I make sure I never see her as a patient? Has she lost her mind?
Enough of my rant. I am looking forward to having a large cappucino at a sidewalk table in the sun on Sunday morning at Baltimore harbor. It's the simple things, right?
