Plans, Knees, and Birthdays

In my last post back in early February, I wrote “All the kids are coming for a few days next week.” Originally, I had written “All the kids are coming for a few days next week if all goes according to plan.” But I decided to strike that last phrase because I thought it sounded too pessimistic and might jinx things. So I deleted it.

Well, a couple evenings before her flight, Heather was playing soccer in a co-ed league and blew out her knee at the end of the game.

She managed to see a doctor the next day, and he gave her the green light to fly. He told her it was a matter of either sitting around there or sitting around here. She made the flight on a pair of borrowed crutches and with the help of her boyfriend Lucas. We picked her up with a rented wheelchair.

So, technically, the kids did indeed make it out here according to plan. In fact, we had a couple extra kids. My nephew Dave and his wife Liv joined us when they heard all the Moodys were going to be here.

However, part of the plan while they were here was to play a lot of pickleball. I even had a family lesson lined up. But Heather was out of commission. And then I was out of commission because I “tweaked” my knee during my tennis match (I had a hard time walking for the rest of their stay). And then David was out of commission because he came down with a bad case of vertigo. (I now know all about vertigo.) And then it rained. So there was limited pickleball.

But of course we had plans for things other than pickleball. Plans for the beach, the pool, eating out, playing board games, throwing a Super Bowl party, and celebrating a very special first birthday. All of that went according to plan.

Heather had her own plans for later in March. Like skiing and hiking. In celebration of her 30th birthday.

Those plans changed of course. She had surgery on her torn ACL shortly before her 30th.

And my plans changed. I flew out to take care of her. Fortunately, my tennis team had a couple of byes, so it was perfect timing and gave me a chance to rest my tennis elbow. (My knee was okay because I had gotten a cortisone shot.)

I got out there a couple days prior to the surgery so that we could have a little bit of pre-surgery fun which included walking Rex along the Greenbelt in the morning and the Strand in the afternoon.

I also got a head start on reorganizing the kitchen. This is something that Lexi had not allowed me to do during my last visit out there, but she was away while I was there this time. My goal was to free up even just a tiny bit of counter space.

After dropping Heather off for surgery bright and early (actually dark and early) Thursday morning, I came back to continue working on the kitchen and to walk Rex. (😳) Surgery went well, and I picked her up – still in the morning.

Lucas arrived the next day and immediately voiced excitement over the counter space in the kitchen. While he made dinner, I installed a new window blind in the living area using the drill we borrowed from Heather’s next door neighbor Eric. Of course, just like that hammer/nail thing, once you have a drill in hand, you look for things to drill. The drill came into use several times over the remainder of my stay.

That weekend, I made the most of Lucas’s time by working with him to rearrange both the living area and Heather’s bedroom. While we were working in the living area, we had Heather set up in the bedroom. When we were working on the bedroom, we had her set up on the couch. Occasionally we would have her crutch over from one room to the other to see our progress. We would also occasionally get her ice and pain killers. And walk Rex. The rearrangement of the living area was quite successful. The rearrangement of Heather’s bedroom was not. We went back to square one there. I did not touch Lexi’s room.

On Monday, Heather’s friend Taylor and her brother Alex stopped by. Alex noticed the TV mount I had bought but was too nervous to put up because I was not sure of what kind of studs or material was behind the plaster. He encouraged me to give it a go. The two of us worked “together” to get the TV mounted. We got into some discussions during the process. I won the discussions on horizontal and vertical placement, tilt, and the degree of levelness. He won the discussion on the use of anchors. During these discussions, he often had a look on his face that said “Who is this woman?”

Lexi arrived that evening. Her favorite change was the new blind. She didn’t like anything else. Including the height of the TV.

Tuesday was Heather’s birthday. Lexi put together a couple of her famous charcuterie boards, and both she and Taylor set up a small surprise birthday party for Heather on the beach at sunset. It was quite lovely.

While relaxing on the beach and enjoying Aperol spritzes, something I said prompted Alex to turn to me and comment, “Mrs. Moody, you have a quiet aggression.”

I replied, “Alex, it might be better if you called it a quiet strength.”

We finished out the night with a cookout in their back courtyard with Eric, Maddy, and the three kids joining us. (Those three kids are so adorable, I really need to include photos of them in my next Hermosa-based post.)

I do have more stories about their landlord (if you remember I had some from the last time I visited), but this post is already too long. I will say, after offering to speak to him at one point, Lexi noted “It doesn’t make sense to do all this remodeling if we are going to get kicked out.”

The next day, I wasn’t quite ready to go home. And, despite what you might think from this post, Heather was not ready for me to leave. Taylor asked me why I wasn’t staying a couple more days. I told her tennis.

Back on the tennis court, my teammate Lynn asked me if the trip had been good for my tennis elbow.

I responded, “Yes, it only bothered me when I was drilling.”

She said “I won’t even ask.”