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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May 26, 2023
1. I had my weekly therapy session, PiC had his weekly (when he can, this depends on friends showing up) sportsy outing. These are both good for our health.
2. We walked the whole family to the local park on Sunday for outdoor time. That was good for everyone though I crashed hard a couple hours after we got back. Impromptu nap!
Helping folks:
From a dear friend… My friend’s partner needs a new car or repairs because rural Minnesota. They teach ASL and drive folks just a little older than them all over. (They’ve been stuck at this funded level of $1000 for 2 months, can we help them out?)
These poor dogs got QUILLED. Can we help their family with the vet bill?
I follow @tinytempest on Twitter and she’s fundraising for family in a tough spot. Emergency Help for the Byrd – Bradford Family.
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May 22, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 52: There are days I’m tired of being the only working set of eyes around here. This isn’t one of those stereotypical overworked wives things. PiC sees all the clutter and cleaning that needs to be done, and maintenance and does his share. This isn’t a household fairness thing. It’s literally about eyesight. The two of them cannot find things!
JB let their backup set of glasses go missing, the pair that’s supposed to live in their backpack, and I was annoyed that PiC had to find this out when their primary pair broke. I was grouchy that I hadn’t remembered to follow up about whether they were wearing their glasses at school MONTHS ago like I’d intended. Anyway, he did the disgruntled first parent on the scene talk with them, then I followed up with the slightly calmer but still irritated orders that they were to spend the entire afternoon today searching for the glasses and doing nothing else until they succeeded.
6 pm rolls around, PiC had gotten dinner on the table, and JB still hasn’t found them.
Still irritated, I went through their desk area, knocking over the apparently never been emptied pencil sharpener in the process, vacuumed that mess up, and then checked their room. I found those damn glasses in 15 minutes without zero idea of where they had last been sighted.
Smol Acrobat had better have my finding ability, I refuse to be the only one that can find lost items in this family!
Year 3, Day 53: Smol and JB were sick all weekend and Smol spiked a really scary fever overnight so I was up all night with them making sure that the fever responded to meds. It did but it was a trudge along, trying to just get the bare minimum done, no-rest sort of day for me.
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Bless my GP, she doesn’t know whatall is wrong with me but she’s always willing to explore and test to cross things off the list if there’s even a semi plausible reason to consider it. While I don’t present with classic Cushing’s and she’s mildly skeptical that it is the (or a) cause for some of my issues, we’re doing a screening for it anyway just to be sure since I don’t object to it.
Year 3, Day 54: Squeaky and hoarse, Smol started talking at about 630 this morning. They made it through the night, thank goodness, without waking and crying like they’d done six times Friday night. They were even in a GOOD mood, thank more goodness. PiC was up too late working, and small miracle I wasn’t feeling as bad as usual, so Smol and I had an unusual early morning together. And it was ok! They were opinionated but not overly difficult.
Random food thoughts: Cilantro suddenly tastes like soap to me this week. Liquid Dawn, in fact. It’s never tasted like soap before. It’s always tasted like green stuff. Not great, not terrible, and I didn’t love or hate it before. But suddenly, it’s a mouthful of soap. Weirdly, that wasn’t terrible like a real mouthful of soap would me. Surprising but I didn’t hate it.
That was related to the cilantro that I stopped adding to the leftover pozole I had for lunch – absolutely wonderful. I love fresh squeezed limes. Also apple fritters. I love those unexpectedly crunchy little bits scattered along the edges.
Year 3, Day 55: FINALLY! I remembered to follow up on the form I need to volunteer at JB’s school. Now, to be fair, I only just got my required physical done recently so it wasn’t that I was dragging my feet. I just forgot all this week that I could ask them to get the form filled out now.
I’m not particularly in love with the idea of more socializing but I do want to have the option of going on field trips with them or helping out at the library or in the garden if I can make time, someday. Here’s hoping I’ll have enough time to get those forms into the school office before the end of the year.
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It’s pitiful that it’s taken me months to get around to the dog bedding laundry but it has. Today, today was the day! Sera’s 🐶 bed cover was swapped out for the clean spare, and washed with her blankets and sweaters. The washing bit isn’t hard, though timing things so I wash and dry everything before 4 pm is tricky when squeezed in between working, doing school pickup, and walking and feeding Sera. The part I’ve not had the energy to cover is, when the washer dries out, needing to vacuum the whole thing or else the lingering fur gets all over the next load of laundry. But today, I did it all. I was tireder than a sloth but fit into today’s rounds and now Sera 🐶 is snuggling happily with a fresh blanket and we are both happy. No wonder I live a small life. The simplest things are satisfying.
Year 3, Day 56: The mass exodus from Twitter (and maybe also the economy? I’m less sure about that part) has made fundraising for the Lakota families
REALLY slow this year. I confirmed there will be a post-school giveaway of lost and found clothes where I’ll gather many armloads of kid sized coats to ship to the Allen Youth Center this month, I confirmed that’s still on. My fingers are crossed we’ll gather enough funds to help out another family in June but it’s hard to say if we’ll be able to hit that goal.
I’ll continue throwing notes out into Twitter in hopes enough folks are still around who want to contribute. I’d surely appreciate y’all sharing too if you can.
May 19, 2023
1. Do you, too, love otters? The Monterey Bay otter live cam is a really soothing way to start or end your day. So are the moon jelly and jelly cams.
2. I love the feel of freshly vacuumed floors underfoot. Eternal thanks to robot vacuum for making that happen with little effort from me.
3. Our local taqueria has pozole, how did I never notice before now?! It’s delicious. It was worth deviating from my currently normal order of taco salad.
Helping folks:
This powwow is at the end of the month and the organizer will have to bear the costs personally if funds aren’t raised in time: Help fund the 3rd Annual Odenong Powwow. More info on it from @NDNSilver
An activism: @mbrockenbrough tweeted: “For fun, I filed a complaint against the fascist book banning organization Moms for Liberty with the IRS. The form is here, if you’d like to join me: https://irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f13909.pdf
This should not be a tax-exempt organization promoting social welfare. Hate is not social welfare. Teachers promote social welfare. They pay taxes. Librarians, too. They pay taxes. Children’s authors pay taxes. Defamatory wannabe fascists shouldn’t get a free ride.”
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May 16, 2023
Life with JB
JB and I had a serious talk about red envelope etiquette. You never open them in front of the giver, you never ever count the money inside in front of them! They’re so accustomed to Western gift giving traditions where you open gifts you were given in front of the giver (I also hate this tradition) that they recently did both in front of a person who is far too permissive. I was horrified. I’ve spoken to them in the past about the rule. They clearly had not absorbed the lesson. It didn’t help that said person pooh-poohed the error and then tried to naysay me when I corrected JB. Oh, hell no. My kid, my rules. This dismissive nonsense is Not Happening. (I’m proud/glad/relieved that this difficult person in this particular encounter didn’t affect my blood pressure as usual. Thanks, meds, therapy, friends with helpful coping strategies!)
This isn’t an idle worry. I’ve seen Permissive Person with their other child-relatives. Those kids are unbearable. They ignore people speaking to them, pout when they don’t get everything they asked for, pitch tantrums in response to everything that isn’t precisely and exactly what they want. As far as I’m aware (and there are Special Ed specialists in the family who would have identified it if this were the case), this isn’t an issue of being neurodivergent and overstimulated. They’re just bratty and worse for not having any boundaries enforced. Anyway. Cautionary tale as far as I’m concerned. Permissive Person’s influence has to be counteracted at all times. (more…)
May 15, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 45: Experiencing mild jealousy. JB’s friend is the 3rd of 4 kids and all the kids have been looked after by their grandparents. The older kids who are in school are dropped off and picked up by grandparents if the parents aren’t available, they also chauffeur the kids to all their afterschool activities. Entirely leaving aside the reality of the parents we have, I can only imagine how much we could give and save if we didn’t have to spend over $2000 a month on childcare ever over the course of JB and Smol Acrobat’s pre-school lives. Anyway, I don’t envy their lives. Four kids is just too many for me to wrap my head around. I just sigh over the imagined savings for a minute because I’m feeling our inability to do ALL the things. I need to save, and invest, and really want to be able to help a whole lot of people going through rough times right now. But with the huge $2300 monthly bite out of our budget, I’ve had to pull back. That is going to annoy me for a bit. I’d gotten used to being able to help folks more.
To go with that, I am mildly annoyed at myself. We/I somehow failed to increase our FSA contributions this year to the maximum $3050. How did I mess that up?! Ugh. Next year we’ll get it right.
Year 3, Day 46: Ant update: they still haven’t returned to the kitchen and might be gone from one bathroom. Several were spotted in the other bathroom today, though. Where to bait them…? They were inside the shower which gets wet daily. Outside the shower is too accessible to kids and Sera 🐶.
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Gripe: people like @trappercap on accessibility are the worst. American society is hugely inaccessible. This is related to games development but it’s so common to hear this kind of tripe with regard to accessibility in anything. It’s so frustrating as someone who could really use a lot of accommodations but constantly makes do, at my own personal health expense, without. Making things more accessible is often good for so many more people than you’d think at first. It’s not just for people who are disabled. Often it’s also good for the very young, or elderly, or new parents who have babies in strollers, or any number of other life circumstances that may be temporary but still difficult. (more…)
May 12, 2023
1. I was happy to find out that Staples takes tech recycling, not just the ink cartridges, and they’re giving $10 in rewards for one recycling item per month until mid-June. I have a couple things we hadn’t gotten around to recycling so we dropped off one of those things this weekend and I’ll take an old phone next month. Declutter and a bit of spending money, woo!
2. We FINALLY saw our friends with a new baby, 8 months after the baby was born. We meant to see them the first month after but that coincided with the last several months of being sick all the damn time. Every time I thought we could set something up, BAM, sick again. I worried about jinxing ourselves but decided to ask them for three possible times they’d be free that we could pick from and hope for the best. We made it happen! So much fun was had. So much fun I was wrecked, but fun!
JB adored having a new infant to cuddle. Smol Acrobat was less enthused and more jealous that their big sibling had so enthusiastically ditched them for this new baby. They were fine with the baby if JB wasn’t snuggling them, though!
3. We baked Monday cupcakes! YUM.
Helping Folks!
I’ve been tied up working on setting up a sponsorship for a Lakota family but Bethh asked me to share this. It sounds like these folks could really use a helping hand:
“I visited this school in Kenya – it’s the only school in the region, it’s community-supported and run, and it was just attacked by armed men who looted and burned this sanctuary. They’re going to rebuild but it won’t be easy.” Here’s the Facebook post with the link to help.
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May 9, 2023
When I set up our Synology system, a few years’ worth of photos didn’t transfer over so it’s been on my to do list since, oh, 2020? That’s about right.
Out of the blue, last week, I was hit with the “the moment is now” feeling that lets me actually do something on the list, so I’ve been doing manual photo backup for a week and change. All of 2018 is now uploaded and half of 2019 is too. That takes care of the big gaps. Once that’s done, I’ll have to edit the metadata for a chunk of photos that got relegated to the year 1970. Technology is great but also weird.
This process has brought up a lot of memories. Missing Seamus 🐶 a whole hell of a lot. Seeing the pictures of when he met Smol Acrobat for the first time, and finally realizing he had a “you’re joking” look on his face when he looked up at me after a long sniff. Then he took another long whiff and gave PiC the same look. It might have actually been an “I’m too old for this shit” look. It was an entire world away from when he last deeply sniffed a newborn and immediately claimed JB as his very own. That made me laugh and made me sad all over again. A dog’s love is so sweet. A totally invested clever dog’s love is intense.
The photos from the hospital stay, with occasional videos of Smol Acrobat snoring like the tiniest of frogs, reminded me of how deeply lonely that time was. Just me and my day old baby, with short drop ins from nurses, or PiC checking in because he also had to be home caring for Seamus (who’d only have another couple months with us). Smol Acrobat was so tiny. They’re still small for their age now, so I get to cuddle a smallish kiddo for a little longer.
As much as I will always and forever love cuddling itty bitty infants, I don’t ever want to do any of that again. Pregnancy was weird the first time. It was unbelievably scary, bizarre, unsettling and strange the second time in the first year of COVID during shutdown.
It got me thinking about how much things have changed in the past three, seven, and ten years.
I’ve gotten mighty comfortable in my current job, which was unexpected. This was my risky leap, a decade and change ago, I truly didn’t know what to anticipate.
I’ve become even more of a homebody, unexpectedly thanks to that same risky leap job that has become much more stable than I ever had the nerve to hope for. Travel doesn’t feel appealing anymore, especially with our small circus, but maybe that’ll come back in a few years. We’ll see!
We’ve made new friends because of the kids. Neighbors who never acknowledged our existence before JB came along slowly warmed up to us and some of them became, and stayed, friends. JB makes friends with the whole world but a select few classmates have parents who were open to socializing and we enjoy their company. That’s been a new experience. A lot of parents around here don’t seem to have time to even acknowledge a familiar-from-dropping-off face.
Our relationships with some chosen family has gotten a lot stronger. Our relationships with some family has gotten much more distant.
Feels like lots of new, mostly small, stuff to take the place of things I haven’t done in the past decade:
- Interviewed for a new job (less than zero interest)
- Dated someone new (also less than zero interest)
- Spontaneously agreed to vacation with a friend (semi interested in the abstract, depending on the friend)
- Gone out for drinks (zero interest)
- In the workplace: felt compelled to prove that I’m a good person, really, even if I would dropkick a person in a professional sense for being an asshole. I’ve never been good at pretending to be ok with politics playing assholes and I’ve gotten even worse at hiding it since my job got so comfortable (zero interest: but also I have a couple hypemen colleagues who warn people, ever so congenially, never to fuck with me as I can professionally dropkick them.) I like that the folks in the Kaiju Preservation Society understand you can both be a great person and not mistake that for weakness.
