Loose Strife

I’ve received a request for an update. (For the record, you all should assume that no news is good news — or at least the same news.)
Things are fine in the Kulp household. My mother went back to Virginia last Tuesday. She was a tremendous help during tough times. Laura’s father Joe is back up in Ashfield with us.
We’re at a strange point where I feel like we’re just about self-sufficient, but Laura’s too fatigued to do much, including driving, and she still can’t pick up Naomi. It’s nice to have Joe around to help with odds and ends, but with child care for the kids during the week, it seems like overkill. Still, it’s good to have him here just the same!
Laura is OK. Well enough to read the latest Harry Potter last week. The main issue is still that she throws up every morning. It’s now been a month. I spent last week contacting more doctors, but still no dice. In addition to that, Laura’s appetite hasn’t returned since chemo. She says she has no appetite for food and it’s not satisfying to eat anything. So she’s on a regular diet of jello, chicken soup, and nutritional supplement drinks. Mmmm.
Let’s see, what else? This weekend I had fun with the girls on separate activities. I went for a hike with Naomi at a park in the Berkshires. And Lily and I went to a nearby children’s art studio. I know it’s October, but we’re already pumpkin’d out, apparently, because all the kids wanted to make turkeys. (As an aside, the wild turkeys around here are an embarrassment to their species. I often see a flock of a dozen or more, sometimes standing in the middle of the road waiting to get hit. I remember true wild turkeys in Virginia in my youth as being wily and fast.)