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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July 27, 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, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 17 and 18 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 17, Day 115: I stepped out of the house for exactly 45 seconds today. My butt was alternately numb and aching from the number of hours logged at my desk. Mondays are the worst of the worst. Compounded by post-holiday weekends :/
I had a rough evening feeling like a bad friend. I was practicing, though it was uncomfortable, naming my guilt, understanding that it was foundless and knowing I still felt it, and trying not to shame myself for feeling the guilt OR into believing that I deserved the guilt. It was a complicated and conflicted feeling. But it ultimately felt better afterward.
I then reconnected with another dear friend who was feeling bad about her own rough life situation so we talked late into the night and I think we both felt better afterwards.
Week 17, Day 116: JB finally had a good lesson without any balking, whining, delaying, or wasting time. Freaking finally! It’s been a bumpy couple of weeks and their teacher and I were discussing minors adjustments along the way to get here. I’m not sure if they worked or if it was just a phase but I’m crossing my fingers that changing locations and physical set up helped them get back on track. (I suspect it was also because they felt well rested, got to read with Dad when they woke up, AND got to play with their cards for a while in the morning.) Hamilton has been a great incentive for us to get through dinner and bath quickly at night, they get to watch a couple songs before bed. Probably not the best to induce actual sleep but it gets them through the nighttime routine so fast. (more…)
July 24, 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, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. JB asked for chicken noodle soup at the perfect time. I had a half carton of chicken broth to use up and I used that for a starter base plus water, onions, salt, pepper, and a dash of cumin and garam masala. Odd but it worked!
2. I made a Thai (ish) chicken curry on Sunday and it was a hit! It was chock full of goodies: tofu, straw mushrooms, chicken, bamboo shoots, and bell peppers. My hand still hurt too much to cut up an onion this time but it still turned out well.
3. This was such a lovely note to wake up to one morning.
4. Sir Patrick Stewart with Sonnet 91.
Challenges this week: My pain flared up again, this time in alternating wrists and hands and arms. I worked through it during the week which was alternatively good and then bad for it but then made it a real point to rest on the weekends and maybe most importantly, not feel guilty and horrible about my body’s failings. We should be at SDCC right now and I’m feeling so sad we’re not.
5. After lots and lots and lots and lots of medication, and an equal amount of passive resistance on his part and grumpy insistence on my part, Seamus is better!!!
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
July 23, 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, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Structural racism is why I’m leaving organized psychiatry
Coronavirus contract tracing: Woman infects 71 people in 60 seconds
Babies under 1 are diagnosed with COVID; Children are not immune to coronavirus.
A both/and approach is so much more nuanced than the current either/or approach we keep seeing in the discussions about reopening schools: “The choice isn’t online schooling or schooling as it was pre-pandemic. The choice is between online schooling and a shell of the version we had. We have no actual evidence that in-person school during Covid-19 will work any better than the online schooling some have decided was a failure. There is no good solution — just band-aids on a broken system.”
DHS is sending federal officers to snatch people off the street in Portland. Here are some ways to help.
SDCC isn’t happening this year and I’m ever so sad about the lost family and friends time. But we can still support the people who would have relied on those sales as a big part of their finances. I’ve been adding tweets to this thread of the vendors currently listed with online shops that we’d normally buy from.
Miser Mom on reducing our use of single use plastics.
Baby llamas falling asleep: a thread
We lost a civil rights giant.
I missed him at this SDCC visit but it was wonderful just knowing he was there leading this Children’s March even if I didn’t make it there in time.
July 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, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Siblings, the abyss, something something
JB squatted in front of Sera, staring intently. I wondered and then: Mom!! I don’t like Sera looking at me!
Me: …. Weren’t you staring at her?
JB: Yes! I wanted to look at her. But I didn’t want her to look at me.
Me: That makes absolutely no sense! If you sat right in front of her face and stared at her, she absolutely has the right to look back at you.
JB: No, I don’t like it!
🤦🏻♀️ Why. Are. Kids. So. Weird.
Punishments, consequences, and effective parenting
I don’t choose to issue punishments because as a rule, I know they come from a less than great part of me as a parent. I want to punish JB when they have gone way over the line because I’m mad at them. And generally when I’m mad and assigning punishments, it’s about hurting them back and not about what’s appropriate (like throwing away toys they love). But that’s entirely the wrong motivation. That does work if we were always authoritarian and they’re not allowed to speak their minds or think for themselves – then punishment is suitable to that kind of parenting.
But that’s not what we’re trying to do here – we are trying to teach them that making poor choices is a bad thing and that they should choose to make better choices. Like not doubling down when you’ve said something mean and hateful, and saying MORE mean and hateful things.
I struggled with that a lot during the week that JB was just stomping on my last nerve and then some. They were being rude, then pulled faces and rolled their eyes at me warning them that their words were rude and hurtful, then shouted even meaner things at me when sent to timeout as a result of doubling down. I was so angry that I was harsh and took away toys when they kept shouting at me and being ruder – that was a reaction to their behavior but not a good reaction. The first time this all blew up, I walked away and ignored them until they were done tantruming and returned to say so, and then we had a long talk about the fact that they would have a real and appropriate consequence later that wasn’t just taking away toys, I had to think of something that was related to the problem. The next time that happened, though, I realized that a better way to put it for us would be this:
For every minute of nastiness and negativity, they have to do two minutes of good things. So that half an hour screaming tantrum of rudeness = 1 hour of being helpful around the house and doing good things to balance the negativity. I didn’t want to assign chores after the first round because I didn’t want to associate chores and punishment. But this way, their doing chores as their helpful thing can redeem them as a positive contribution instead.
New levels of autonomy
It’s still a little hit or miss but I can assign chores to JB with a time frame and they will do it! It’s more likely to happen if I say “in the next 20-30 minutes, the dishes have to be put away” than if I give them a wider time frame like “between breakfast and lunch” though.
Precious Moments
Who’s the Boss?
Me: When you’re done with cleaning up that pile, you can go through the other bag.
JB: You got it, master!
Me: …
JB: I called you master because you’re the boss of me.
Me: That’s true.
JB: And I’m the boss of babies.
Me: … what babies ….
JB: And Older Cousin is the boss of me, and I’m the boss of Younger Cousin!
Me: Uh that’s not how that works.
Taking sides
Me mocking PiC: your dad is silly, JB
JB: Yeah! He’s so silly!
PiC: hey! I thought you were on my side!
JB: I am on your side. Actually I’m on both your sides.
PiC: good. That’s how it should be..
JB, whispering: but mostly on daddy’s side.
Me: I KNOW. YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
JB: Daddy, this was an EXCELLENT lunch!
PiC: Thank you!
JB: What does excellent mean?
Creepy or cool?
I woke up to JB in my bathroom whispering: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, preparing to die!
Ratings, levels, we got em all.
JB: The Rock has guns in it!
PiC: what?
JB: The movie! The Rock! It has GUNS and FIGHTING and it’s a higher level than I am right now, I’m not ready for it yet.
JB: can I walk both dogs?
Me: no, Sera’s too strong for you right now.
JB: but I want to be a real dog owner!
Perseverance and perspective
JB’s muttering sullenly as the glass noodles slip off their chopsticks: this is too HARD! I’m never going to get it!
Me: Not like that you’re not. You’re not fast enough. Be the predator. Scoop up your prey and POUNCE.
JB, clumsily imitating the pounce: nomf! I caught it!
Me: Yup. Noodles are prey. Be the predator.
Pop culture can get it wrong, sometimes.
JB’s been singing and dancing to The Cure’s “Boys don’t cry”. They keep correcting the lyric with “that’s not right, boys DO cry when they’re sad!” or “boyyyys don’t cry, boyyyyys DO cry”!
Wait, what?
Me: How should you be sitting? (Correct answer: on your butt)
JB: Criss cross applesauce, pepperoni pizza, hands in your fish bowl, bubbles in your mouth!
Me: Uh…..ok….
:: When did you first watch The Princess Bride? What was the first music you remember listening to? How are your chopsticks skills?
July 17, 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, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. PiC had the opportunity to do a fun social active thing both days this weekend with friends. Since it’s the safest thing he can do by nature of the activity that forces them to be something like ten feet or more apart, it seemed like a great idea for him to do both days instead of just picking one as he normally would have. He had fun!
2. JB and I had a little less fun but I very deliberately set my expectations incredibly low. Gauging how I felt Saturday when I woke up, I proactively decided we’d do chores half the morning and watch TV for half the morning. Normally that’s not on the menu at all, it’s just a treat. But it was good. JB got their chores done in record time without whining. I got a bunch of administrative crap out of the way and that felt good. PiC got much wanted social time.
Lest that seem unfair, there’s really no one super local I can safely and easily hang out with so I keep in touch with my people via text, tweet, or email. I’m pretty set on the socializing front.
Sunday was similar, I destressed the day from the get go by planning for it to be a “lazy” day. I ended up knocking off a whole list of things I had to do because I was too achy to be up and about doing chores, JB was instructed to do some quiet activities and they did so, and mostly things went well.
3. Spendy but good. Our toaster oven called it quits on us this week and we use that thing 3 or 4 times every day, so we had to replace it. I picked a digital combo air fryer and toaster oven because I’ve been yearning to do air frying but adamantly against adding yet another appliance to our countertops. A combo situation was the only way I’d be willing to get myself a fryer. We’re giving it a test run, I hope this is the one!
4. Little treats: I adored these Fairydrop mushroom cards from Redbubble. The quality was great and I am really feeling like that angry mushroom these days. As I’m not black I can’t use them myself, but I could (and did) gift them to a friend who can. I’m swooning from the cuteness of Pikaole’s Redbubble shop but given Seamus’s emergency and our other purchases this month, I will have to wait a bit before I shop again.
Challenges this week: The school district’s reopening plan was a steaming pile of terrible. And then we were told to decide what we’re going to do in a week with very little information. We have the WORST President and Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos. We spent a whole day this week tending to Seamus’s almost-emergency situation that was, thankfully, not quite at the emergency level we thought it could have reached. I’m glad we spent the day working on that because it can very easily tip over to the Actual Emergency and Serious Consequences zone, still can if he doesn’t respond to this treatment plan, but at least we have a chance.
5. I feel bad that I couldn’t make the time to spread the net wider but a group of us pitched in to support the vaunted Sandy (of Yes, I am Cheap fame) as she moves the Elevate Conference online and I’m really happy that we were able to come together this way for her and members of our PF community. The conference looks like it’s going to be fantastic and I’m so excited to sit in on some of the sessions.
6. Sera finally stopped vomiting after 3 days, thankfully. It was just a run of the mill bug because absolutely everything else was fine and she most definitely had an appetite the entire time. I was grateful that if she had to be nauseated and vomiting a few times a day, she usually came to tell us when it was time to go out. That’s an improvement over horking on the thick pile rug.
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
July 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, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Scientists warn of potential wave of COVID-linked brain damage
A tiny part of me wanted to believe that just maybe it would be possible to see some things improved by the end of the year. Just some. Not all, not a lot. But I’m betting Scalzi‘s right that we’re looking, at the very least, at this complete bullshirt through the end of the year.
I read that younger children are supposed to be less susceptible and less likely to be carriers. Then I see reports like this and this and I remember how many people are selfish idiots who refuse to mask or do anything to keep people around them safe, or naive and ignorant of proper masking, or have no idea they’re asymptomatic carriers, and my risk assessment goes way the hell up. Because it’s not just a risk based on the biology of the virus. It’s amplified by human behaviors. And too many Americans are not trustworthy.
The Plague States of America. Painful to think about how true a lot of this is: It’s not that other nations don’t want to welcome Americans, they just can’t. The point of a passport is that a sovereign power vouches for its bearer, but America can’t vouch for the health of their citizens at all. America’s public health regime is far less trustworthy than Liberia’s (which is actually quite good). Its sovereign is mad.
At the same time, you can’t trust Americans. Americans have poor hygiene (low masking rate) and at least 40% of the population can’t be trusted to even believe that COVID-19 exists, let alone to take it seriously. They’re likely to refuse testing, not report symptoms, break quarantine, and generally follow rules. Americans have a toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance that makes them unwelcome travelers.
I am so sick of this administration and their attempts to further destroy this country. This time it’s their attempts to bring down USPS. USPS isn’t perfect, what is, but none of the private companies that compete with it are any better and in a lot of ways they’re worse in my experience.
People looking for permission to lie to stand out on their applications. It reminds me of the candidate who would have been a shoo-in for the job but I knew the company he had come from so the way he chose to lie made it obvious he had inflated his title. He would have been just fine with the truth. But I will not hire someone who is willing to lie to get a foot in the door. Why would I trust them?
Are you an anticipatory joy person or a live in the moment person?
It’s 2020 and people (Americans, I assume) are still looking for ways to discriminate against pregnant employees. I can’t stand the “values” in this country.
Beyoncé and Jewel singing together on Divas and a lovely nod to Beyoncé’s work ethic and graciousness
https://twitter.com/AnimalsWorId/status/1281612140684537858?s=19
July 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, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 15 and 16 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 15, Day 101: I think things are starting to open up in our county but I trust no one and when so many people are gadding about maskless, I’m staying home. I frame it as a choice so that it doesn’t feel like a forced confinement. My hands are still terribly swollen and my bones were filled with molten lava yesterday, so physically I’m not in good shape but emotions are a little less fraught today. It might be because PiC and I had a few good talks about our mental health and just basically took a little time to reconnect as humans. Also it might be because we pulled off a pretty nice Father’s Day weekend. Since I’m not an early riser (except for those days when I wake up in the middle of the night and simply can’t go back to sleep but that’s not quite the same thing), I couldn’t get up and surprise him with a Father’s Day breakfast and the whole deal.
Instead I played to my strength: dinner! I found two new to us local restaurants to order takeout from and we tried some fantastic Korean dishes and BBQ.
Week 15, Day 102: While I wouldn’t call it a silver lining to the pandemic, I am finding a few things that are not terrible about this situation for us personally. It only took me 100 days: No commute means I can rest a lot more and our mornings are about 90% less stressful – no rushing to wake up JB, no rushing. Social distancing means I don’t have to socialize with anyone I don’t have to (even if it also means I can’t socialize with people I DO want to, this is still a plus).
Week 15, Day 103: I didn’t leave the house at all today because work was a crushing load and also because I was busy checking on a family member who nearly died. STRESS.
Week 15, Day 104: We finally got confirmation that JB’s elementary school has set an early August start date and that their registration was processed so they are officially enrolled. This would be exciting in normal times but the complete lack of information on how they’re going to handle COVID means my excitement is in the negative zone. Best case scenario, according to their email, we will get a letter telling us how to prepare 5 days in advance, worst case is 2 days. What IS that?? I’d much rather they take the time they needed to plan and figure out how things will work and start late, with some real time to prepare, than this nonsense.
Also I finally got my act together and ordered some organizational storage bins. I’m not positive I made all the right choices but it was a start. I spent the next 36 hours eagerly anticipating my curbside pickup and hoping I didn’t run out of steam too quickly. (more…)