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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October 20, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69.
Week 31 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 31, Day 213: We had a talk with JB’s tutor about the two priorities we’re balancing: academics vs structure. Structure is the part that they have always had with daycare scheduling to prepare them for the way a traditional classroom is run, vs the learning itself (academics).
Kindergarten completely lacks consistency and structure. We never know what they’re going to be doing at any given time of the class session, or even what time the class will end. Daycare was incredibly structured down to the five minute mark and we always knew what they were expected to be doing at any point in the day. Our tutor expressed concern that if JB were to continue on a trajectory where they are academically a grade level or two above their current grade but continue to lack that ability to handle the structure, skipping a grade would be a real problem. We appreciated that insight but we realize that JB’s social development isn’t progressing at a pace that I would think skipping grades could work well for them in the next year or two. That could change, but at the moment, with the few opportunities they have to socialize, I have my doubts it’ll shift much over the next year.
We decided that within the tutoring session, focusing on the academics will be our higher priority. PiC and I will continue to work on balancing flexibility and structure across the whole day so that they aren’t completely feral by the time first grade starts.
Today I introduced a short post-kindergarten class exercise session. We took the dogs outside for a very short walk to a safe part of the street where I could send JB to do wind sprints. I posed this as their “real dog owner training”. They need to build up strength and stamina if they’re going to have a hope of keeping up with running Sera one of these days. Then they get to do a quiet activity of their choice for up to 40 minutes, followed up by an assigned chore. We’ll go into lunch and rest time before their afternoon educational session from there. (more…)
October 19, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69.
Surprise! Chores!
I’m pleased with the occasional initiative JB continues to show. They got up early one morning and while I still lay abed, they set up the dogs’ breakfast without being asked AND remembered the whole rigamarole of the kibble, and the supplements, and the medications, and the everything. Seamus’s dietary needs are many.
They can also be responsible for most of the laundry now. They load the washer and start it after an adult has poured in the detergent. They check and spin it again if it hasn’t spun enough water out. They can transfer to the dryer and then they hang up and put away the clean clothes. I generally do the sorting first just to make it more efficient (and I like sorting). I also do most of the folding but they’re good at folding the dish towels.
The initiative is still very sporadic though.
Education
I will leave this space free of my rant about the state of education for the moment but commenting on JB’s education: we spent the entire summer cobbling together a consistent education stream for them.
We were very lucky to have the help of a trained teacher to do the actual teaching and I added occasional supplemental classes through Outschool to give them some variety. They’re exploring all kinds of fun educational experiences as and when I can fit them into our schedule: “visiting” the cultures of other countries, dance, literature and math.
I was oh so grateful we had that solid foundation when they started kindergarten. JB is well accustomed to regular remote learning if done well (that part remains to be seen) and the regularity of a five day school week. Whether I feel like that formal education structure is best for them is not relevant right now, it’s what we have.
Different generations
Breakfast when I was growing up: small bowl of rice porridge, maybe soy sauce.
When PiC was growing up: bowl of cereal.
JB: Bowl of raisin bran, scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh mango and strawberries.
We ALL eat the same meals now (except for the parts I can’t eat), so it’s not like I’m blaming them for the choices we make. It’s just a huge contrast!
Pupdate
Seamus is losing senior dog friends left and right, as his cohort ages, and it’s so sad. They were all getting on in years and it was time for each of time, but it’s still heartbreaking. I’m glad he has Sera to keep him a bit engaged, even if he doesn’t necessarily appreciate her. They have a bit of a bond though, they check on each other every so often and she functions a little bit like his remora fish, cleaning up after him after their morning treats.
I keep tracking the number of Happiness Rolls he does every day. Once he stops having Happiness Rolls, loses mobility, or stops eating or drinking, we’re going to know it’s time. It’s very important to me that we do our best to get that right. We want him to squeeze out every good day and bit of joy he can but not hold him in misery because we’re too selfish to let him go. We know people who have been holding their suffering pets hostage to their emotions and it’s absolutely awful. When your pet hasn’t been able to get up or walk to tend their basic needs in months and has seizures almost regularly, it’s not a secret that they are suffering.
I think it’s been three years since we brought Sera home and for the first two and a half years, I was pretty sure she didn’t even like us. She was happy to eat our food and wanted to show submission but she was only bonded to Seamus, she didn’t want much to do with us humans.
We’ve spent loads of time on her training, even though it was frustrating to feel like we were pouring in gallons of energy into a bottomless pit. She’s still very reactive and therefore cannot be trusted off leash or on leash with JB. Not that she’d ever deliberately hurt JB, she’s simply still not capable of paying attention to the human on the other end of the leash and would absolutely drag JB face first on the ground to go after a dog she thought was menacing her. Well, she previously couldn’t. She’s finally making some progress. She looks at us when she sees another dog, anxiously and ever so briefly, but she does break that intent gaze voluntarily sometimes and that’s a world of difference from her earlier levels of hypervigilence. She’s also very much into the treats I’ve been getting her and she’s learned what heel means, though she won’t STAY heeling so that’s the next step of training. Her sit game is weak but she’s recently learned down!
What I find absolutely fascinating is that she listens to JB. (Seamus categorically will not obey JB unless there is obvious bribery. He considers himself above them, and he’s been a mature adult longer than JB has been alive so his judgement has been trustworthy much longer. But that’s diminishing now in his 15th or 16th year. It’s funny to hear JB adopt my low deep training tones to try and exude authority over him because it does not work.) Sera, though, will obey JB when we’re home. She’s obeyed commands to go to bed, sit, and lay down. She’s obeyed the sit and stay when JB is feeding them, and she’s sort of obeyed, about as well as she ever does for anyone, the “walk” command which is her release to go eat. JB scruffs her as best they can to “help” her slow down which is also hilarious because a five year old cannot possibly hold back a 60 lb pibble dashing for her food bowl. But they try.
Random questions
How do we make chips?
How do bears get their sounds?
What does ‘dire’ mean?
***
Things I didn’t expect my five year old to know about: Baba Yaga (thanks to Itty Bitty Hellboy which is a great read)
***
Amelia Bedelia moment
In one of their lessons, JB learned to make fish decorated with tissue paper. On a day they needed something to keep them busy, I asked JB to make me a school of fish for my office.
They taped together a few sheets of paper to draw a large building with a sign at the top: “Fish school.”
***
Believe me, I know you.
JB: Can you ask if mom can come on our walk?
Me: they just want me to come so I can walk Seamus and they can go fast with you and Sera.
JB: NO!! I JUST WANT YOU TO WALK WITH US. *Offended face*
Outside two minutes later…
JB: ok! Mom can take Seamus, you (PiC) ‘n’ me can go first.
Me: AH HA! J’accuse!
:: What were your favorite kinder-level books? What was your favorite childhood breakfast?
October 16, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69
1. We’re seeing improvement in JB’s reading comprehension from PiC’s reading with them every single day and with their tutoe. That’s really heartening amid all my frustrations with the kindergarten teacher who is working at a snail’s pace of one letter or one two-letter word a day/week. They spend a lot of time reading comic books we find at the library and early reader books. Oddly, they gravitate to reading under my desk or the dining table. Not a great deal of light under there but they seem happy and all I care about is that they develop a love of reading.
2. Saturday we each had an ambitious list of things to get done. Too ambitious. We had about a week’s worth of work on each of our lists. I sat down to start working on my top priority and immediately started working on something that wasn’t even on the list. I pulled a huge stack of old tax paperwork from my overstuffed filing cabinet, checked the digital copies, and scanned and filed everything that was missing. Same for our closing docs for every property we have bought, sold, or refinances. Then the whole five inch stack of documents went into a sack for shredding later. So. Satisfying. I added that to the list just so I could cross it off.
3. PiC and JB tackled the furniture situation in JB’s room. We needed to make some space in there for various uses and the heavier furniture also needed to be secured to studs in case of earthquake. Naturally that meant that all the books and everything in the bookshelves had to come out for the moving and it looked like a tornado hit. I hollered at them every so often to focus on actually putting things away and not get sucked into reading every book before it goes back on the shelf. (more…)
October 15, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69
PiC often tells me to buy the thing I’m thinking about because I deserve it, and that framing always makes me choose not to spend the money. It brings on one of two kneejerk responses: well obviously I deserve everything OR no, I’ve not proven myself in X lately I don’t deserve anything. Emily Guy Birken’s pandemic spending post reminded me of how and why I probably don’t respond well to that: “… when you make a decision based on what you feel you deserve; you are making a value judgment on yourself. If you deserve something, that means you could be undeserving of it. That’s no way to feel good about yourself. You are not put on this Earth to earn the right to be happy. You are neither deserving nor undeserving of happiness, luxury, or comfort.”
The Doctor in Charge of the NBA Bubble: this was a fascinating read. Also a little sad because it shows that something can be done if you plow a lot of attention, time, expertise and money into the matter. But here we are with people still denying COVID is even a problem.
I Called Everyone in Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Black Book: “Built into the premise of Epstein the mastermind scammer is the notion that some kind of legitimate path to a legitimate global aristocracy exists. There is no scam here. It’s grifters grifting grifters all the way down.”
I was trying to figure out the Child Tax Credit in advance of next year’s filing (or the year after). I can’t remember whether we were going to ditch the kid(s) dependent care FSA and that’s why I was looking at this but Jeremy at Go Curry Cracker covered a few scenarios, none of which apply to us, but it’s worth bookmarking to help wrap my head around it.
Virtual zoo visit
October 13, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Week 30 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 30, Day 206: Mondays continue to live down to their reputation. It was a Very Monday Monday. Partly this was an effect of Friday being so bad, things piled up heavily even though I put in some time over the weekend.
PiC commented that it’s feeling like fall now but I hadn’t noticed that until he pointed it out. It still doesn’t feel like fall, except I just realized that it’s getting dark earlier and THAT feels like fall/winter.
JB has requested a rain coat AND an umbrella and I’m not sure I believe we’re going to have need of either. But if we do, I’ll happily take suggestions for good places to look for decent quality kid umbrellas out there.
Week 30, Day 207: This morning really stunk, not coincidentally because I was overseeing kindergarten, but the afternoon was much better.
I took a real break from work at lunch, both to actually eat lunch and make a pan of enchiladas for dinner. Cooking is so soothing when I’m using it to dodge regular work.
JB was more reasonable, overall, and much less whiny. They went and did their chores with a minimum of grumbling and then took the initiative to prepare a snack for us both. They were so proud of themselves. I like this phase a lot better than the other phases. (more…)
October 12, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69
I’m trying to decide what to do with our travel cards – we routinely use the Marriott Bonvoy and CSR cards. Broadly speaking, I don’t see us using the Marriott free night to offset the annual fee anytime soon, and we aren’t going to get our money’s worth out of the CSR anytime soon either. I prefer to only have two active keeper cards so I need to do some in depth research here.
American Express
Replacing the Marriot Bonvoy?
I intend to stick with AmEx because their customer service has always been good to us, but does carrying on my usual hotel points hoarding makes any sense given we have no intention of traveling for probably a year.
Perhaps it’s time to downgrade the card to something without a fee. The best of both worlds would be an AmEx with great earning potential and slightly better cashing out options.
They have stated: Points expiration is paused until February 2021. Starting February 2021, points will begin to expire 24 months after your last activity.
That’s good. I’m not worried about expiration right now since we continue to earn points every month but I will have to remember we have 2 years after I change cards to have activity on the account.
Initial Research for replacements: Meh.
Cash Magnet: 1.5% cash back on everything, redeemable as statement credits whenever reward balance is $25 or more (meh). Free ShopRunner membership. No annual fee 👍🏻, 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
AmEx EveryDay card: 1 point/$ on all purchases; 2 points/$ on groceries; 20% more points when the card is used 20+ times per billing period less returns and credits. No annual fee 👍🏻, 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
Blue Cash Preferred® Card: 6% Cash Back at U.S. Supermarkets (capped); 3% cash back on Transit; 3% cash back on Gas; 1% On Other Purchases redeemable as a statement credit. Annual Fee: $95 (meh), 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
Blue Cash Everyday® Card: 3% Cash Back at U.S. Supermarkets (capped); 2% cash back on Gas; 1% On Other Purchases redeemable as a statement credit (meh). No annual fee 👍🏻, 2.7% foreign transaction fee 👎🏻.
Chase
Replacing the Chase Sapphire Reserve?
I’m far less attached to Chase. Their customer service isn’t much use. I enjoyed the CSR card for a while because they had a decent set of perks but those perks are declining in real life value.
I do like that Ultimate Rewards can be cashed out and that I have some reasonable flexibility in earning potential. Perhaps this current stash should just be cashed out and this card downgraded as well. Once upon a time, I was happy with the Chase Freedom card, the current Chase Freedom Unlimited might work for us. I like the flat 1.5% cashback, I dislike the foreign transaction fees. I won’t need to worry about that any time soon but I typically plan for the long haul with keeper cards (vs churn cards I don’t care about).
I haven’t had time to do any Chase related research but I am willing to consider ditching Chase entirely and using our Citi Costco as a regular keeper card to save me the trouble of thinking about this too hard. The perks aren’t as varied but that may not matter much since we haven’t been using many of Chase’s perks lately.
I did like getting the choice to redeem points at 1.5x for restaurant purchases but I didn’t end up doing too much of that. I suppose I’d just rather have the cash in hand.
:: Do you have a favorite go to card that you’d recommend?
October 9, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69
1. I was in a tough spot on the weekend and made myself ask for help from a friend. Their kids, actually. I asked if they might be free for a Zoom playdate with JB and they happily obliged. They read books, colored, did art for each other, played tic tac toe and play-doh for HOURS. It was amazing and made it possible for me to pace myself for the rest of the day. I won’t call it a silver lining because that seems weird but I definitely appreciate that only under these circumstances would they have been available. When else would social ten and thirteen year olds have hours to spend with a five year old and actually enjoy it?
2. I sorted through my and an old friend’s gift of handed down comics this weekend. They were gifted them to me over ten years ago and I only JUST got the chance to go through them. 😬 But it’s perfect timing. The kids from #1 were interested in taking the whole shebang off my hands for themselves and to share with their friends. I won’t even have to sort them, that can be their project! I’ll look through my shelves one more time to see if there are good younger kid graphic novels to add to the already full box. I’ve picked up a handful of bargains at SDCC over the years that were good reads but not necessarily keepers so it’d be great to pass them along to someone who will enjoy them and reduce my sense of Stuff Claustrophobia.
3. JB has had permission to, under strict supervision, go through a few of my comics and they’re really enjoying the treat. I should go through them and organize it so the age appropriate ones are more accessible.
Yotsuba&! is a wonderful read and probably suitable for their reading level. I also found a small stack of Powerpuff Girls that are about the right level. Weirdly the Walt Disney comics seem to be a little too advanced for them right now (by my estimation, I haven’t had them try it yet).
Challenges this week: I’m not sure what words there are for the state of this federal government / presidential administration that lies so often you can’t tell if they’ve met a truth in their lives. I honestly can’t help but think that 45 is just lying about having the virus, still, because his behavior continues to baffle me.
We’ve pulled a bunch of previously inaccessible boxes out of storage and now we have to deal with them. It was always on the list of things to do but it’s rather daunting now that we’ve doubled down on the stash.
I need to consolidate old photos and also just plain get rid of a lot of old duplicate photos but darn if I can think of when I can make time for that to happen.
4. I did tackle and condense two boxes into one. I recycled a bunch of old paperwork and had a moment of reminiscing about my finances and filing system 10-15 years ago as I sorted a big pile of paperwork to be shredded. In 2010, I declared $43,000 of income, and $11,000 of that was unemployment. I’ve come such a long way.
The rest of the boxes are going to be tougher. I didn’t realize I had saved my yearbooks so now I have to figure out what to do with the darn things.
:: How was your week? Any good things to share?