About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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June 25, 2024
Life with JB
So this is a little awkward. I’m quite friendly with an elderly neighbor whose grandkids go to JB’s school. Unfortunately, though JB tries to be kind and include the same-age kid in their class, they don’t like playing with this Neighbor Kid because that kid is very sensitive, cries a lot at school, and subsequently (probably related to the sensitivity and JB’s proximity?) apparently blames JB for their hurt feelings that JB feels is unfair and inaccurate. JB is just a kid of course and can be oblivious or accidentally hurtful but they are very quick to own up to their mistakes, apologize, and try to offer to make things better. Obviously without any observation of the circumstances, I can’t really tell what’s really going on, but I do know JB’s character well enough to know that even when they mess up, they’ll likely cop to it without pressure. So it’s likely that JB is attempting to be kind but in ways that don’t work for Neighbor Kid. I think it’s unlikely that JB is deliberately hurting their feelings.
For example, JB just spontaneously told me about a really shitty thing that they were involved in peripherally with another friend group where the Older kid was threatening to destroy Youngest’s toy to force them to help with a project. JB thought it was a really shitty thing to do and so was laughing because OBVIOUSLY Older kid must be bluffing. Right?? Wrong. Older kid followed through with the destruction, and JB was horrified. They immediately apologized to Youngest kid, tried to fix it, and felt terrible. I had no idea that any of this had transpired but they confided that they didn’t know how to stick up for Younger kid in that scenario because they didn’t realize until too late how that would play out.
What I DO know from Neighbor Kid’s grandma and mom is that the kid has suffered from severe depression, has sensory issues that probably makes life feel really difficult, and is socially withdrawn. I tell JB that they aren’t responsible for Neighbor Kid’s feelings, nor do they have to accept false accusations or the treatment they don’t like, but we are aware that there are things that make Neighbor Kid’s life difficult enough that it warrants having some compassion for their situation, at least.
Anyway this all comes up because the caregivers asked me if JB is available for playing with or talking to Neighbor Kid over the summer. I don’t want to force JB into anything they won’t enjoy and I also feel for this kid. I was pretty bad at social interactions growing up and can empathize with the kids who doesn’t really have friends. And we are so lucky that JB has many friends, is well loved by a variety of people, and has confidence in knowing they are which helps when they are still struggling with some of the mean kids at school. I think my impulse here is similar to my financial stance: If you’re fortunate (socially or financially), you should share your good fortune. But they’re just kids, and so I’m not sure if that applies in this case, especially given the circumstances where they don’t have an easy relationship with Neighbor Kid. Thoughts? Opinions?
Life with Smol Acrobat
A mom friend has solved the mystery of how the kids’ shoes look like they’re ground down by a dremel some days: the kids are using the tops or sides of their shoes to brake instead of their bike or scooter brakes!
Smol’s potty training clicked very late and very suddenly, just as my dear departed friend assured me it would. The complication, a common one, is their initial refusal to poop anymore. For weeks they would go five, even six days, between poops and that’s not good. They would just shrug and disclaim any familiarity with that bodily function. Nope. Don’t need to. I finally found a bribe that mattered enough to them to be worth trying, just trying, and eventually that got us into the every 2-3 day cycle we’re in now. We’re also reminding them to listen to their body, like when they’re eating etc: have you had enough? Are you still hungry? Are you thirsty? Tired? And so on. One night after some resistance, they sat on the toilet and rambled on their own version of Everyone poops:
“I hear my body, I hear my body saying hey I need to poop! Daddy poops. Mommy poops. Weee poops. Sewa poops. I poop! Everybody doos it. Everyone poops.”
Pupdate
Sigh. We miss Sera. The pain is a dull ache now, and I think I will finally be able to do her laundry in the next month or two, but we sure do miss her.
I was thinking about how she was a pretty quiet dog, overall. She would bark at visitors but otherwise, she was generally not very vocal.
Precious Moments
Smol Acrobat was rummaging through the dog treats while I was searching for something else and says: I want to give doggy a treat.
…. We’d…have to find a doggy….
But we have a doggy.
Um. Well, no, we don’t anymore.
Why?
She got too sick, she couldn’t get better.
Why?
Oh kiddo ….. We’ll come back to this.
(It’s now been more than a month and I think they’re processing that Sera’s not coming back)
Plans: Mommy, after I sleep and then I wake up and then I brush my teeth and then I eat something first, can I pick a sticker for my friends and me?
Gesundheit!
Gahzootateit!
June 24, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 82: Turns out the local blackbirds like goldfish crackers and dog treats, but they do not like cinnamon cookies.
For six days we’ve been experimenting with Smol Acrobat’s sleep arrangements. They wake up yelling no no no! in fear and terror almost every night so PiC started staying with them overnight months ago. It hasn’t stopped. This isn’t night terrors, though, they’re responsive to us. Angry but responsive. When they’re sleeping with both of us: still hollering in terror. When they’re sleeping with just me: minor disturbances, or sleeps quietly. What is this about and also this is not great for me! They like to sleep on my ribs and dig their toes into my ribs now and again. Reminiscent of pregnancy but now with child on the outside! It’s a bit less disruptive than the waking up screaming, but not much since I can never really get to REM sleep with a squirming critter at my side, so… sigh.
It’s been a hectic several days trying to get back on our feet and I have to: schedule our signing with the notary, shop for kid birthday gifts, pay bills, deal with three times more work nonsense than usual, deal with a flood of community donations I wasn’t expecting.
Year 5, Day 83: We’re not experiencing the same heat that the East Coast and Midwest are, but it’s hot enough that my fingers are swelling up like sausage while I’m working. It used to happen a lot more often, not really a FOND memory I have.
This, plus a big changeover in our software at work, means I’m working at about 50% efficiency and I hate this so much. I FEEL slow.
I was so proud of myself for going out for a long brisk walk today, my first since Sera died, until I stopped. Then, OMG, the heat set in. I forgot how much harder it is to cool down after getting my heart rate up when it’s warmer than “nice” outside.
Year 5, Day 84: I’ve been watching a baby hummingbird perch atop its nest and it is like one of those living statues you see in the cities. It finds a position and just stays there. No changes, even with a stiff wind blowing, not even pointing its tiny little beak in a different direction or anything. It’s weird and fascinating.
Water definitely has a taste, but I didn’t realize how picky I’d become. Visiting family, I tried to force myself to drink their filtered water but it was just so disgusting I started avoiding drinking water entirely. This makes me feel like such a brat.
Body acne in your 40s is such crap! Also ingrown hairs is crap at any age. Mostly I don’t seem to grow much leg hair anymore but every so often a large swatch of my legs itch unbearably and after I scratch it a little, large bumps rise up and sting like the dickens. Looks like ingrown hairs trying to get out but why randomly and all at once? Anyway, I declare this nonsense.
Year 5, Day 85: I think about the heart of this line from Madam Secretary every time I think about the Republicans and their agendas to strip rights from everyone right, left, and center. I don’t understand why much of the Democratic party is so ready to concede defeat at the first sign of resistance, and why they give up concessions so fast. They need a spine, it’s so frustrating: “If you want to do good, you’ve got to be prepared to do bad. Okay? To be canny and watchful and mean, so when the bad guys come, you know just where to stick the knife. ’cause it is a fight to the death and that is the only language they understand.”
Like this thing with the Ten Commandments in school in Louisiana – they know it’s unconstitutional and that we’re going to have to fight them in court. I think that’s the point. They win either way. If we don’t waste that money fighting it, they’re going to run roughshod all over us. If we do spend the money fighting it, that’s money we can’t spend elsewhere on needs, and they can bleed us dry. It’s so frustrating.
Year 5, Day 86: Smol Acrobat has been yelling I NEED A SNACK a lot lately, even shortly after a meal and I finally figured it out today. “Are you asking for a snack because you feel sad?”
Yes.
“Oh! Well when we’re feeling sad, we don’t have to eat a snack, we could hug or cuddle a soft friend. How about that?”
Thankfully they were amenable to the redirects. It’s been a rough few weeks with their tantrums, lots of screaming “I need a hug” followed immediately by “do not wook at me! I don’t NEED you!” lasting 15-30 minutes at a time. I don’t know if it’s just a phase or if we’re doing something particularly wrong, often it feels like the steam must have been accumulating unbeknown to us and then the avalanche is set off by some minor disappointment.
June 21, 2024
1. I accidentally made a human friend in the process of befriending their dog who had picked my legs to huddle next to.
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June 18, 2024
I started this at the end of 2022! Added 2024 notes.
I’m tinkering a little with our 2023 spending/saving/investing budget. Most of it worked well this year so it’ll just be small tweaks.
Investing
In the first two quarters will be focused on maxing out PiC’s 401k. We usually opt to make high contributions in the year from his paycheck and add any bonus he might receive. This reduces our take home pay significantly. We experience shortfalls almost immediately on the same spending/savings plan that we used the month before so I have to nearly cut the auto-investing from cash flow until the 401(k) is done. Goal: max out a 401k and hit my arbitrary personal contributions goal for the brokerage. The arbitrary goal may be whatever I set for 2022. Or not. I’ll pick a number in March.
2024: We maxed out PiC’s 401k in the first quarter as usual. Then, a week ago, I got some information from a friend that I had never even dreamed of. I always assumed the company match was based on how much you contributed, period. Friend pointed out that some companies only match what you put in per paycheck so if you’re doing what we’ve done, making larger contributions at the start of the year, we’re possibly losing matching funds. I’m still trying to get the information from not helpful HR reps and to wrap my head around this for 2025.
Cash savings
Split between saving to spend (on property taxes) and saving to invest in our brokerage. In the first months of the year, cash savings will be dramatically reduced. I used to fight this tooth and nail because it felt like a failure but that was too self blaming. We can’t save and invest at the same rate for every account all the time. We make decent money, but not THAT good. Once the 401k is maxed out, the cash savings rate can inch back up. This felt like a duh but I needed someone to point it out so I still have my money issues.
2024: I don’t know how this feast and famine effect evened out by this year. I’d tinkered a lot with our savings auto-deposits and maybe found the right average amount to achieve that. Seems like I should know how I got here but … 🤷🏻♀️
Big spending:
We have both regular and irregular big ticket items to plan for. In no particular order: travel (including dogsitting which is $$$$) – annual, my life insurance policy – annual, a UPS for the router – one time, a power station for the house – one time. Maybe a car if one can be had for anything like a reasonable price.
2024: we still haven’t bought the UPS but the power station for the house was set up to take the place of that UPS. We plugged the router into the Yeti and it’s plugged into the wall so our service isn’t knocked out by a short power outage. I wouldn’t call the car purchase a reasonable price but I also know now that nothing was ever going for anything like my idea of a reasonable price. 2020 and 2022 me were blissfully ignorant of what a racket the car buying experience would become.
Monthly: Daycare and mortgage and property tax.
2024: same same and same.
Giving
We don’t budget specifically for giving because we just give every month. I treat it like our other monthly spending. As long as I don’t go over the aggregate monthly spending limit, then we can give / spend. I switch between just outright giving out of cash flow or opting to not buy some things for myself to reallocate those funds to worthy causes. The latter is a fine trade because mutual aid is important.
2024: also same. Though with Sera’s ill health, I have had to be less generous to others. We’re spending thousands each month for her. It’s painful in an abstract sort of way.
Giving my time
In this situation, my time is more valuable than my money. If I spend my time fundraising for the Lakota families effectively, we can collectively pull together a larger pool of money and then I can get that aid directly into the hands of families who need it. I’m still considering how we might do this in 2023 without the boosting effect of Twitter.
2024: still true. I’m lucky that there are still core supporters who remember the project and help now and again.
June 17, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 75: Triple Monday! Half my work day was spent sitting and waiting for tech support to figure out their problems.
Half my emotional reserves were used up comforting JB because their visiting uncle had to go back home and they were very very sad about it. We were very lucky to have him over for the weekend, it’s such a gift to have the company of someone who’s so easy to get on with and who the kids adore so thoroughly.
I don’t feel as drained as I expected to with a social thing we had to do for PiC’s work as well as the family visit on the weekend and I’m pretty sure that’s because the visit was a “filling the bucket” sort of visit. I’m grateful.
Year 5, Day 76: Oh boy. I don’t feel great, I’ve been taking my antivirals since last week and still don’t feel great. Of course it could be the combination of an unexpectedly warm day and only sleeping 1 out of the past 7 nights, I told myself, but then JB’s headache wouldn’t go away by the mid afternoon and then they clocked 101 temperature. PiC, on coming home from work, said he didn’t feel so good and Smol Acrobat was a roaring furnace in human skin again. None of this is good!
We just navigated a very confusing few days where Smol Acrobat tested medium positive once but negative on all subsequent tests last week. I would appreciate getting off this fever merry go round.
On another note, we had a lovely five minute visit with the bright neighbor’s dog and I scattered more seeds in the flower patch evening and watered it a little more. My diligence has been rewarded with a handful of new seedlings today. Yay!
Year 5, Day 77: FINALLY four of my therapy FSA claims have been approved. It’s truly like pulling teeth with these people. Zero communications for weeks and months and then when they do get in contact, it’s all useless. It sure does feel like a tactic to try to get us to give up. Or maybe they’re using “AI” (NOT intelligence!) to process the claims and that’s why they’re all rejected six or more times.
Only one of three green bean #2 had come up a few days ago. I went out to check them in the morning, wanted to confirm the watering system was working intended, and it was still a loner. I went out for a few minutes in the evening to “visit” the plants and lo! A seedling fully one inch tall had emerged! This is still nowhere as satisfying as a bond with a dog but it brings its own quiet satisfaction. Now, I whisper to them, turn into bushes and grow beans to harvest. That would be exciting.
Year 5, Day 78: I felt better more than not today but the weird temperature disregulation is still bonkers. I woke up several times because I was sweating profusely, but also chilled? Makes no sense!
I have an off and on again sore throat but that does tend to happen when I’m stressed and overtired. Go, antivirals, go!
Year 5, Day 79: Whoops, forgot to save this day’s entry!
Things were super hectic, on top of trying valiantly to recover from the Persistent Bug that’s been plaguing the four of us, and what sounds like the entire daycare.
We’ve got Commitments this weekend and we attended masked since not attending wasn’t an option. Smol Acrobat has been insisting on bunking with me this week, an unwelcome development because I’m the one who struggles to get back to sleep when disrupted, but weirdly when it’s just the two of us, their screaming fits are reduced to grumbles. Also an unwelcome development! I don’t want to be held hostage to their sleeping well! I hope we can figure this out because it’s getting old.
June 14, 2024
1. I finally tackled the linen closet with an armload of compression bags and organized every room’s bedding into their own labeled bag. It doesn’t look a great deal different from before but tis vastly more functional. I’ll know exactly which bag to take the sheets from for each bed and I’ll know where all the pillowcases are because they’re all in one bag. I’d tried the stuff all the sheets and pillowcases in a pillowcase method but then I couldn’t tell which set was complete with matching pillowcase. Now it doesn’t matter, I can grab a sheet set and then pick a set of pillowcases from the pillowcase bag. Very satisfying.
Challenges this week: Smol Acrobat’s going through an unbelievably grumpy big dramatic feelings phase. Any tiny disagreement will send them into a total meltdown.
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June 10, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 68: I woke up to a very swollen hook finger (swollen so much it can neither bend nor be straightened out. Hook!) and that set the tone of the day. Smol Acrobat was very clingy all through breakfast. I couldn’t shake the looming doomsies feeling from the moment I sat down to work, I also couldn’t quite focus without being hyper aware that I’d overdone it over the weekend and that should have provided dopamine for days, instead my brain is quietly chanting new dopamine new dopamine in the background like whispering Minions. Waiting for a lot of things to ship/arrive: snacks for my Lakota sponsee, the hose accoutrements so the drip watering system can work properly, an answer about my new seeds order.
I keep hoping something going right will fix the mindset or settle down the unpleasant unsettled restless feelings but that’s not happening.
Instead I got the opposite of a fix: a meeting ran way too long and then my team ran into tech problems that ate the rest of my afternoon like a hydra chomping on a nice snack. What a Monday. I received too much Monday, I need to return some. Where do I send it?
Year 5, Day 69: I miss my girl. I just realized again today that I can yell at my computer in frustration without upsetting any canine sensibilities. On the one hand, great, I’m yelling, but on the other, of course I wish I couldn’t. The grief has dulled, it’s a bearable sadness.
Whenever the turmoil at work gets to be too much and a friend says “you’re great you can get another job if they suck”, I feel the opposite of reassured. I know what they mean but also (I sound whiny even to me here, sorry, I know) I don’t wanna. Where else can I be a total gremlin? Avoiding talking to people 99.9% of the time is a huge factor in my quality of life. While the job is definitely imperfect, it caters to the highly antisocial part of me. I can exist in almost sheer isolation, while still managing a large team, which has preserved a good deal of my energy for the important things all these years. That’s the part that’s so hard to replace. Any other high level management job is going to require peopling to an unbearable degree.
Changing jobs may be unavoidable but … Cross your fingers that it’s not?
Year 5, Day 70: My hook finger is a hook no more! Yay!
We can never use up a whole container of sour cream or even remember we have it. The waste makes me sour. How do you remember things that accidentally get pushed to the back of the fridge or are only a sometimes food?
PiC brought home a chocolate chip and a raisin bagel, the tasty and the terrible respectively, leftovers from some work meeting. Raisins are for other people (like everyone else in my household).
We’re on the last steps of THIS chore!: The will and trusts have been updated to include Smol Acrobat, change our executor(s), disinherit my biodad and biobrother from claims on the estate or guardianship of the kids (in the hopefully unlikely event that our chosen guardian won’t be available, the court will generally go first to bio relations and I don’t want them to be in the mix AT ALL), and name backup beneficiaries. We need to sign the documents with a remote notary, and we need to find a friend to witness that signing. Once that’s done, I’ll make copies available to our executors and our chosen guardian so if they’re actually needed in the worst case scenario, all responsible people have the required documentation in hand already. I’ve seen some horror stories about people having had wills made but locked them in some drawer where they couldn’t be found, thereby rendering them useless and the estate went to someone it was not intended to go to.
I’m beyond overwhelmed right now. In the next two weeks, at home, we have scheduled: a (much anticipated) family visit, a wedding, 2 more family visits, a funeral (not someone I knew but family knew). At work, everything is a complete mess, and tons of vacations requiring coverage coming up, and tons of recruiting I have to somehow do at the same time, and KPIs to meet. My ears and shoulders have become one.
Year 5, Day 71: Work: terrible. Spreadsheets to document the terrible have been enabled so we can try to attempt to fix ALL the terrible and also because there is SO MUCH terrible that I can’t keep track of it all.
Also terrible, I’m still waging bureaucratic war with UHC that is holding more than $1000 hostage. They keep rejecting my therapy claims with “PLEASE PROVIDE DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES PROVIDED SO WE MAY PROCESS YOUR CLAIM REQUEST”.
I DID! SIX TIMES! On every claim! There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the ones that they accept and the ones they reject. For some claims, it looks like they have actually sent more rejections than I have submitted claims. United Healthcare is the worst.
Also also, Smol Acrobat spiked a fever and tested positive for COVID AGAIN today. Then negative six hours later. I’m thoroughly confused. PiC and I are negative… I’m not feeling great but that’s as much attributable to stress and sleep deprivation as any virus.
But my claw finger is still not a claw (yay!) and the green bean sprouts have put out two large leaves each (yay!) and the snap pea and snapdragon seeds have arrived (yay!) so I will plant some tomorrow? This weekend?
PiC is a saint, he ran to Costco late tonight to pick up supplies and also get me a new hose for our drip irrigation system that’s awesome except for the wickedly leaky old hose that we haven’t used in about 7 years and no wonder it’s leaky after sitting in the sun and fog all this time.
Year 5, Day 72: Smol Acrobat’s third COVID test is negative. So did they have COVID this round of fever or not? I have no idea and I hate this all so much. Smol Acrobat has also started engaging in prolonged histrionics this week, screaming they want or need a hug at the top of their lungs but refusing all overtures. These fits last anywhere from 15 minutes to a record 75 minutes, set off by the most innocuous things. It’s exhausting. I can’t tell if this is a post-COVID or a terrible-threes or both thing but I’m very much ready for the fits to stop.
I was going to push myself to help clear out the work logs for my team who are swamped because of the Terrible, but then remembered that I handle an entire section of work alone on top of active management work . They each have 2-6 people backing them up, and I have no one. So it’s probably ok that I don’t ALSO over extend myself to help them (which necessarily means neglecting my whole host of responsibilities).
