I picked up my first prescription drug in at least 20 years the other night. It was a strange feeling; it made me feel old! I’ve been blessed with extremely good health throughout my life. I’ve had a couple hair line fractures and ligament tears from sporting injuries, but never anything that required a hard cast or strong pain killers. Never had mono, strep, bronchitis, or any other ailments that required antibiotics. In fact, the last time I think I had a prescription was when I had a stomach virus when I was 10. That was a good one. I’d be sitting there, feeling fine, and suddenly have this overwhelming urge to puke. I’d find a suitable location, unload, and five minutes later, I felt great again. I tended to act out in class a bit that year, so when I sheepishly walked over to my teacher to let him know I puked in the bushes at recess, he generally blew me off. I remember one day Mr. Dice flew into the restroom after me to confirm I was really throwing up. He was too late that day; I had already flushed. However, his demeanor changed the day I let loose at my desk during our CPR class. After the initial shock, the rest of the class loved me because they got recess 10 minutes early. Mr. Dice, racked with guilt, overloaded me with books to read while I was convalescing at home. Guilt can be a wonderful thing when aimed from children towards doubting adults. A week off from school and some medication later, I was good to go. After that, nothing from the pharmacy in 23 years.

As I shared back in March, I had been suffering from some pretty intense reflux. At first, I thought it was sympathetic pregnancy. Then it got worse, the pain changed, and it became easier to anticipate. I gave up my afternoon caffeine, which seemed to trigger it. That helped for about a day. I started downing Pepcid each day. That helped for about a week. I finally booked some time with my in-house health care professional who listened to my symptoms and said, “I think you might have an ulcer.” Great. I blame Roy Williams. So I’m popping the Little Purple Pill (not to be confused with the Little Blue Pill), Nexium, and hoping two weeks of that does the trick and I’m not forced to have a scope done to see what’s going on in my stomach.

We received our annual neighborhood directory last week. Very exciting times in this house, as this was the first edition since we became home owners. We marveled at our names in print, looked at the lot map and compared our property to that of our neighbors, and checked how long the people around us had been living in their respective homes. We also looked up the “interesting” people we’ve cataloged over the past 11 months.

One such family moved in shortly after we did last year. Separately, but at roughly the same time, both S. and I noticed that we only saw a woman at the home with two little boys. The woman did yard work, repairs to the outside of the house, picked up the mail, took out the trash, and played with the boys. She was there in the day and also in the evening. Once we realized we had both noticed the same thing, we came up with all kinds of theories. Widow. Lottery winner. Divorcee who got an especially sweet settlement. High class hooker. Or, most likely, married to a man who works constantly. “What’s the point of having a home like that if you’ve never, ever home?” we wondered. Well, finally, about two weeks ago, we saw her husband one weekend. So looks like the final theory was the winner, which just reinforces our question.

Another fascinating (even if only to us, but I’m sharing anyway) discovery came when we looked to see who moved into the other house we had looked at in our neighborhood. It was a smaller home, with a really bad yard, and didn’t interest us at all. As she was looking it up, S. said, “Well this is interesting. Someone with the same last name lives two houses down.” “Parents/grandparents?” I wondered. “Hmmm, the same kids are listed for each home owner.” Very interesting! Apparently there was a divorce last year and dad moved literally two houses away. If I wasn’t so fed up with the corporate life, I’d give them a call and see what company pays them well enough to afford two mortgages in this neighborhood.