Licensing Worker Visit

So she came an hour later than expected, but that is technically my fault for writing the wrong time on the calendar. You know, technically.

It all went fine. She walked in prepared to love us because we had mailed in all the forms, properly filled out and signed, way back when we were originally asked. I know, that doesn't seem like a big deal, but apparently long-time foster parents get a little lazy about that.

We answered some of her questions before she asked, "No, we don't have any guns, and the prescriptions are in the lock box behind you. The only major change to the house is that we had it re-wired, and we even remembered to change the batteries in all the smoke alarms."

We were quick on the draw with others, "Yes, we have fire extinguishers. One in the hall outside the bedrooms on the ground floor, one in the kitchen, one outside the bedrooms in the basement."

I did tell her that I was dealing with issues with my girl parts. She is a good ten years older than I am and I have found that women "of a certain age" react matter-of-factly to that sort of information. I told her that I hadn't told anyone at the agency because the more people you tell about tests the more people you have to remember to tell about results. I did tell her though that we spoke with Gary and reassured him that there wouldn't be any reason why we couldn't all take care of each other if I had surgery. She said she would be careful how she wrote the report, that she would say something to the effect that I was dealing with some medical issues that might require surgery down that line but which did not present any challenges to the continuity of care we could provide.

Works for me.

Speaking of my girl parts, my body has been behaving itself since I started the hormone treatments. This gives me hope that that is all the treatment I will need. I am of course carefully ignoring the fact that my body has had stretches of a week or two of behaving itself since all this started.

and speaking of the visit, Gary came home and said, "Wow, you guys cleaned the house! Why did you ... oh yeah, you said that social worker was coming."

he knows us well.

We are about to start our tenth year of providing care. [Update for clarification: we have completed nine years.]