
October 27, 2017 at 11:50PM

(This is not just about the cat.)
I love my new house, the housewarming is going to be lovely, we are so inexpressibly blessed BUT ALSO my back hurts, I can’t sleep because my arms go numb when I lay down, we’re hemorrhaging money (to a normal new-house degree, but still), I’ve started a brand-new teeth-grinding habit and I just want to take a nap without dreaming about the to-do-list.
Trust me, I want to punch my privileged face, too, don’t worry.
My favorite part really was helping one of mom’s neighbors. She’s soon for a memory care facility, and the whole concept of eclipse glasses was upsetting her. She couldn’t understand that they were completely opaque to normal light. She insisted they were broken and alternated between near-crying that she was going to miss the eclipse – the first one of her life at eighty-six years old – and trying to look directly at the sun without them. I finally knelt down next to her wheelchair, asked if I could touch her head, and physically moved her face until she was able to see the sun through the glasses. I got her all straightened out before the totality, so I didn’t even miss anything. It felt good to do such a simple thing that made someone so happy. It seems like most helping these days is impossible.