Move

Image description: a Bitmoji cartoon of me,
a chubby, fair-skinned, green-eyed,
brunette-with-gray person wearing blue
winter clothing, in yoga warrior pose

 Yes, folks, that is my resolution goal single word.

One of my favorite communities on Facebook had a thought that rather than making resolutions or even setting a goal, we might want to try just choosing a single word to represent these things for 2023.

My word is MOVE.

Not as in moving house (I sure hope not), but as in moving my body.

Resolutions such as "lose 80 pounds" or "exercise x minutes every day" or even (god help me) extra super-duper-specific ones like "forego this particular favorite food (like most dairy) out of your diet because it's Bad For You" have not served me well.

Simpler, more general goals like "lose weight" or "exercise more" or "cut down on x food" or (heh) "don't be a bitch" are better, but I still run into trouble with feeling guilty for not doing "necessary things" before self-care things.

I got an Apple Watch for Christmas (thanks, Dad!) and I'm finding it very useful. Those Activity Circles had best be closed by the end of each day, people. And I decided to hell with it, I'm 54, and I refuse to be embarrassed anymore about doing yoga modified for the elderly or the obese. I'll do what I can when I can, and I'll try to close those circles, but as the nice yoga-for-seniors instructors on YouTube keep reminding me: if I can't do some move or another on a given day, that's fine. Just modify (or skip) and move on.

Same with food. Today was a bad day for food, probably because I've been eating all the rich (and often dairy-laden) food for two weeks. So I'm backpedaling to stuff I know is safe - baked potato, asparagus, and leftover pork roast.

So that's it.

MOVE

Random Thoughts, December 2022

A bitmoji cartoon of me, a fair-skinned,
 green-eyed, brunette-with-grey person,
looking thoughtful, in a blue sweater and a
black cap with a blue flower. There is also
a thoughtful emoji in a thought bubble.

Random Thoughts, personal, professional, political, emotional, mental, social, you name it, there's probably a thought about it here.

• I am proud of my kids.

• People need to find something else to do with their lives besides defaming other folks on the internet.

• I wonder if some of those very people will be annoyed at my use of the gender-neutral term "folks" since my blog posts almost always go public instead of friends-only.

• I really adore some of my students this year. All so different, and awesome in their own ways.

• Lizzy is making a birthday card for her sister (Abby was 20 yesterday), as well as giving her three presents and cooking her favorite meal. 

• When Lizzy is invested in something, she does not fool around.

• That reminds me; I need to help Lizzy with her google search terms for a Biology project.

• I was pretty down this fall. And then it rained and I suddenly felt fine. Rain represents normalcy in my area in November and December.

• Had a lovely time yesterday; Dad took the whole fam (except those unable to make it) on a Christmas Cruise and then out to dinner. Lots of masks in evidence, which made me feel safer.

• Pouring down rain, though.

• I did not know that my brother is prone to motion sickness until yesterday.

• Twenty, for crying out loud.

• Not feeling icky anymore, as stated above. But I do still want to hibernate. I mean, fish, berries, honey, sleep. Sounds pretty good, actually. Soy una osa.

• Thank goodness school is out at the end of this week.

• Is it wrong of me to be happy that one of my students isn't going to school on the last day before break, just because I want to sleep in?

• I broke out the socialist snowplow meme again a couple weeks ago. I'll probably need it again in February or so.

• Hoo boy, some of my workmates love their soccer.

• Must put "buy gift wrap" on my to-do list. 

• Must write said to-do list for the week.

<wanders off to google "bone marrow" and to write to-do list>

I Don't Understand

I mean, I get that LGBTQ+ people are under attack, always, by people who think it's wrong. And generally, people who assume that it's All About Sex™, never mind that LGBTQ+ people are just going about their daily lives. These kinds of assumptions say more about the person doing the assuming, and they think a lot more about sex itself (especially other people's sex and gender and presentation) than anyone I know.

What I don't understand is why.

Just for existing, even in their own spaces?

Yet another shooting, this time in a Colorado gay bar. Of people who are just there in their own space, doing their own thing, and not bothering you. 

Except for their very existence, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, bible-murica-muh-guns-alpha-male, whatever.

I've read the Bible cover to cover (twice, two different versions), I've lived in the US my whole life, I've handled guns, and I'm mentally ill (GAD and SAD). And white and fat and female. Oh, yes, and ASD/ADHD, since people usually pull that one out as either a defense (couldn't help it) or as another disenfranchised group to vilify as "part of the problem." 

They are not the problem, you hypocrites. You are. 

You can't say "God is Love" and "God hates [f-slur]" in the same breath. 

That's bullshit.

It's just hatred of stuff you don't understand, you don't try to understand, but really you just can't be bothered to understand anyone who isn't a straight white male "Christian."

And that's what I don't understand.

An Air and a Spare…

I thought about calling it “back on the road again“ but I figured that one has been done to death. And since the only thing in my news feed besides politics and/or billionaires imploding is Prince Harry and Company, the title seemed apt. 

So anyone who has seen me in person or a few people who have not but who know me pretty well are aware that my car, a Honda Odyssey 2002 minivan, is getting old and decrepit and tired. It started life as my dad’s car, was Laston’s car while he was sick, and then it was bequearhed to me and also Abby learns to drive in it. It’s just tired and rode hard and put away wet.

So yesterday I got a flat tire. Not a huge deal but also kind of urgent because I have to get back to work. One of my coworkers came to pick me up and all was well for the time being. But the tire was still flat and I couldn’t change it where I had pulled it over to the side of the road and evidently AT&T’s roadside assistance is either having a busy week or just Having Issues. This may have something to do with their roadside assist people being in Tennessee when I am in Seattle. A little far for things like landmarks and how to get from point a to point b for dispatching purposes.

But I digress. I took mom‘s car to work this morning (all my coworkers thought it was great, by the way, because it’s a cute little purple Honda Fit and they thought I had gotten a new car) and then Abby took it to school while I waited for the guy to come change my tire to my spare.

My mom is very generous with the use of her car, especially since covid started.

Anyway the guy came and changed my tire to the spare (we’ve never had so use the spare before so it needed air, which he had) and I took it to the tire place down by my work, about a half mile away. I checked my car in (two new tires and new wiper blades) and they said they’ll try to have it done by the time I get off work at five but they can’t promise it’ll be done before six. Good enough.

For me this is a fairly long walk to work, but I’ve built in plenty of time so I can chill out in my work building before I clock in and catch my breath. It’s an issue with those of us who are less active in our daily lives, but I think I’m going to get a lot of extra steps today. 

I also think it sounds like a (healthyish) comfort food via take out kind of evening after work today. When Abby picks Lizzy up from the school bus stop, I will suggest our local sushi place. https://sushihana5.com/ (I would have invented that but I can’t figure out the control for it on my phone, where I am writing this post)

Mistaken Assumptions (Learning Aids part two)

Today I would like to talk about assumptions… especially assumptions about stereotypes in education.

Similarly to women being assertive and called “aggressive,” or women being ambitious and called “bitchy,” we have a similar issue with neurodivergence. 

An example of this is me and often other adults thinking that any undesirable behavior on Lizzy‘s part is because of ASD, ADHD, or both. It came up because her math teacher noted that she was slow to start her in class work one day last week, and called her IEP coordinator in to assist. In and of itself, this is great because it shows that the teacher understands the supports outlined in the IEP and gets Lizzy the support she may need without calling all sorts of attention to it and/or pissing Lizzy off because she’s being condescended to.

The thing is though, that Lizzy was in fact doing the work, she was just slow to start it because she already knows this lesson and she knew she could finish it by the end of the class period even if she started late. She just hadn’t gotten started yet… which means that the teacher jumped the gun.

This is, of course, very common. And it is especially common among those teachers who read and understand the IEP. But it was absolutely unnecessary in this case and I think that’s a matter of societal expectations and assumptions based on stereotypes.

The stereotype here is that if your autistic or ADHD student is not working right away, it’s because they’re struggling with the material or the situation or some sort of sensory issue or whatever. Great, that means you understood the IEP! But, as in this case, there can be plenty of other reasons.

Reasons like, say, not wanting to jump right in and do an assignment that you already know the material for, because you’ve taken the first quarter of algebra one at least twice before this. Or, as is sometimes the case but not here, Lizzy is just being 15, or feeling tired, or simply in a bad mood, or distracted by something but able to finish the work.

I feel like we tend to assume that if anything does not go to our (usually) neurotypical expectations, it is because of the neurodivergence. 

But sometimes it’s not.

Or it’s more than one thing.

In our hyper-capitalist, rugged-individualist society, we seem to want to place blame rather than our go-to being supportive. Lizzy can’t concentrate? It must be the ADHD. Couldn’t be, say, that she was coming down with a cold. Or that she was just not into it that day. Or PMS or problems with her friends or worrying about her next therapy appointment or whatever.

People who are perceived as “not normal” are often assumed that every single thing is about their differences. It’s similar to LGBTQIA+ people perceived as having no identity other than their sexuality or gender.

And frankly, this sucks. In the case above it wasn’t a terribly big deal. In some cases it’s much much worse. Neruodivergent people or LGBT people or disabled people or people of color or whomever… They - WE -have a lot more going on than whatever it is that makes us different from the person doing the perceiving.

A long time ago, over 10 years, I wrote a paper for my communications degree on the topic of whether gay couples should be allowed to adopt (I’m for it). I’m going to quote my paper here rather than making you read the whole thing again, and hope that you understand the analogy I’m making:

There are countless examples in the world all around that homosexuals have the same parenting skills and talents (and faults) as any other adult human being. They are doctors, soldiers, lawyers, line cooks, retail clerks, artists, software programmers, engineers, musicians, taxpayers, and most importantly people… just like everyone else. Defining them solely by whether they sleep with people with the same sexual equipment as they have – this does everyone a disservice – parents, children, teachers, world leaders. Would the world judge a heterosexual white married lady as a bad parent simply because of her straight status? No. So why does the world judge a gay white married lady as a bad parent simply because her spouse is also a woman?

Learning Aids

Good news! Lizzy likes high school more than she did middle school. Or, at least, she hates it less. It helps that our IEP coordinator is just as awesome as the one we had in middle school, and that we are not starting with a deficit due to the crapshoot that was 2020 and all that entailed. 

There are still some issues of course. She’s struggling a bit with topics she finds boring or teachers she perceives as “having bad vibes.” The weird little quirky things that are part of her autism/ADHD are still in play (wooden pencils feel wrong and notebook paper must have 32 lines for math homework, for example), but we have methods in place to assist with those. These are the learning aids of which I speak in the title.

The first of these is people; she has a counselor/therapist who has experience with ADHD, teenagers, and just about everything else on Lizzy‘s list except the autism itself. And the therapist is willing to learn about the autism from Lizzy herself which is super helpful in making a connection between the two of them. And her IEP coordinator is also her academic lab (study hall with extra social/emotional supports) teacher; she’s awesome!

The second is ADHD medication. I have a number of people in my circle who think that medicating for mental health or educational reasons is the wrong thing to do regardless of context. So I tend to put it this way: the ADHD medication does the same thing for her brain that reading glasses do for my eyes. 

Example: I can keep my eyes from crossing, or I can focus on things that are close up. I can’t do both without getting a headache. The reading glasses take over one of those tasks for me. Similarly, Lizzy can focus on schoolwork, or she can focus on socially acceptable behavior/controlling impulsivity, but she can’t do both (for long) without having a meltdown. Her ADHD medication makes it easier to do these other two tasks so she doesn’t have to have the meltdown by the end of the day/week/month/whatever.

It really is that simple.

The Dichotomy of Fifteen

I've said it before, regarding Abby's bathroom counter, as a weird-but-fun mixture of naked Barbie dolls and stage makeup, LEGO bricks and pantyhose, and strange little combinations like those.

And now Lizzy is there as well.

For her birthday weekend, I took her and a friend to the mall. Build-a-Bear was their first stop, so that's comfortably childlike. They also went to Claire's, Tokyo Japanese Lifestyle, Hot Topic, and Spencers (where they giggled at people buying things too adult for the kids).

That's quite a combination of Kid Stuff and Adult Stuff.

I've warned her, now that she's fifteen, that she is not to go all Anime-Protagonist. That seems to be a very common trope, most of them starting their Epic Quest at 15 and growing up as they go along. Some of them start older (Monkey D. Luffy, Edward Elric, Allen Walker), some younger (Ash Ketchum, Gon Freecs, Sakura Kinomoto), but most of them are 15 or 16, at least to begin with. 

She even has the brightly-colored puff of hair on her head to fit the trope!

And she has just escaped the 13-to-14-yeard old mess that's another stock trope. 

It's such a transitory thing, this mix. And the transition between middle school and high school, "young teen" and "teen," unicorn tees and hot pink hair she does herself, Minecraft minifigs and writing her own fanfic,.etc. 

I kind of love it.

On a Downswing

A bitmoji cartoon of me, a chubby,
fair-skinned, green-eyed, brunette-
with-grey woman in a pale-blue
top, with a green depression
support ribbon on the chest.

We all - anyone who has known me for more than a couple of weeks - know why this is. (TL:DR, coming up on the sixth anniversary of my husband's death)

It's things like this that prove you can't just positive-think (or yoga or sunlight or crystal or meditate or special-tea or wiggle your toes in hot pink Himalayan sea salt harvested by virgins on the full moon or or or...) your way out of depression. Not all the way, anyhow. 

If I could, I would. 

And goodness knows I have tried.

Don't worry; I'm okay. I'm not having self-(or other)-harming thoughts or anything like that. 

Just feeling down.

Part of this is the obvious thing up there, a bit of it is the weather, this horrible allergy season, money, the folks I see already gearing up to make this school year harder than it needs to be, the state of the world, assorted plagues, the usual suspects, blah blah blah.

I'll get over it.

But in the meantime, I'm gonna pout. And write utter fluff posts rather than anything serious.

It's Been Awhile

No particular reason.

All of my usual day-to-day has been Too Much - I'm even behind on reading and games.

This just doesn't happen.

Not often.

I feel fine except for the constant onslaught of allergens this year, and the weather getting back to high-of-70-and-slightly-damp is helping that a lot. Highs in the 90s (for several days running. In western Washington) with the extra-bad-allergy-season are no fun at all.

I mean, I also have the entire score of Mamma Mia! in my head.

On that note (hah! that note. For songs, hee hee...), there's one weekend left of Studio East's production of Mamma Mia! at the Kirkland Performance Center (KPC). 

On Kirkland Avenue. 

In Kirkland Washington. 

That just tickles me. I should live there.

Oh. My kid is in both casts, as a Featured Dancer and Backup Singer. People keep asking. 

Masks not required but strongly encouraged.

I Can Do The Thing

Really, I can.

I think.

I'm at the eye-crossing stage of fatigue right now, for the past three days, no matter how much I sleep. Mind you, I was very cross-eyed as a small child, and it's a sure sign of fatigue when it starts happening now. 

I mean, I have reason for fatigue. Don't we all? What with shootings and pandemics, all the -isms and -phobias, and people just Being Jerks.

But it's still disconcerting.

One more week of my school district's 2021-2022 school year (a neighboring district to which I transport a student goes until the 23rd), and boy will I be glad when that's done! Not the work so much - although with the number of personnel we have out with Covid or other reasons, we're all pitching in and taking extra routes, even those like me, who don't drive actual buses - as the process of Lizzy finishing middle school. She did not take well to distance learning, academically or socially, and we're really looking forward to a break before she rejoins her besties in the fall (they went to a different middle school than she; they were in elementary together).

At least I have a working computer again. Have you ever tried to type a 300-600-word article on an iPhone? Not great for fingers or eyes.

This spring has been ridiculous as to allergens - warm and wet springs in Seattle are always like that.

My doctor, when asked if I should have this test or that shot or the other procedure, has taken to saying, "Over 50. Asthmatic. Works with children. YES."

So - given that I have full containers of this and that allergy meds and such - I should be able to deal. 

One more week. 

I can do the thing.

Really, I can.

A Mother's Work Is Never Done...

...and that is totally okay with me.

A Bitmoji cartoon of me, a brunette-with-grey
and fair-skinned woman wearing blue,
toasting with wine. The caption says
Happy Mother's Day.

Today is a mixture of mom tasks, daughter-of-a-mom tasks, sibling tasks, and - most importantly - celebrations of all these people. It's almost ten AM and I have called my mother-in-law, checked on my (step)brother and his wife (his mom, my stepmother, passed away a couple of weeks ago), folded a load of laundry, asked my girls to do the dishes and take out the garbage, mindfully wore a short-sleeved shirt, and actually done something with my hair.

These last two do have a purpose, as silly and minor as they may seem to the casual observer. Short sleeves are because I'm getting a second Covid booster today (I'm over fifty, asthmatic, and work with children), and hairstyling is because my mom enjoys it when I look "put together" (which I don't usually; I just pull the hair out of my face and call it good).

So that's the Mothers' Day plan at Chez GamersBabes in 2022. Call or otherwise contact affected family members, do Mom Things around the house, go to my mom's with my sister for coffee and pastries and chat, run an errand, get a Covid booster, pick up my mom's groceries curbside, come home and probably do more Mom Things, and lastly, eat comfort food (yes, it is Lizzy's specialty of tuna salad on sourdough with the fancy toothpicks and all), and eat whatever special dessert Abby is making as her gift to me (her specialty is chocolate chip cookies, but I'm prepared for a surprise).

I have a number of friends who dislike Mothers' Day for assorted reasons, and that's absolutely valid. And to these friends who struggle, just know that you are loved and appreciated by me, regardless of the day. 

To those who do celebrate, Happy Mothers' Day!

Lessons Learned

Nothing serious here, really. Not the usual diatribe about selfish asshats or any of the deep stuff about Life During a Pandemic or my common rants about those asshats up there persecuting whatever group is being persecuted this week.

Or not much, anyway. There may be bits of these. But mostly just a bulleted list of random things learned or relearned this spring.

• That garlic in the pickled carrots? It's to flavor the olive oil and thereby the carrots. It is not for eating. It's mostly raw and it hurts going down.
• The sharp feeling of extreme relief when the Low Battery light in the car turns out to be indicating a low battery in the key fob.
• Teens and preteens still like to search for their Easter candy.
• Sometimes the old video games are the best. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my ancient (32 years is ancient in game-console time) SNES with my ancient SNES controllers is the best!
• Trust the Libby app's book recommendations.
• I am dismayed that our Superintendent of Schools is leaving us, even though I'm excited for her. Do I think she's perfect? No, although I think she's excellent and the people of the school district on the other side of the country are lucky to get her. 
• I hope we get a decent new Superintendent because as much as I'd love to rub the (few but very noisy) entitled asshats' noses in how wrong they were about her, I don't want any of us to have to go through that to learn the lesson.
• My fingers are getting old. The SNES is great, but the controllers are... less than ergonomic.
• I was a snob regarding college. I blame the hiring manager who talked me into going to college when I was 42 (he was about half my age) because "your lack of a degree tells me you can't stick to things." (No, it told you I couldn't stick to things when I was 17. I'm a grownup now, thanks). 
• But yeah, I still bought into the "degrees make everything better" schtick, until I realized: I have a four-year degree in Intercultural Communications and I drive a school bus for a living. 
• The degree in IC does improve my side gig of 8-10 hours a week writing internal copy for a company, mostly in the Diversity and Inclusion space; it does not really affect my primary employment.
• Supply chain shortages are weird. Some days they're toilet paper, and a week later it might be chocolate coins or clam strips or Otter Pops.
• Apricot nectar is an excellent sweetener for chai.

This post reminds me of some of my early Random Posts before the world got weird. It was nice. I enjoyed it.

It's Not That Simple

Given that it's Autism Awareness Month (and for the love of whatever you may hold holy, remember that awareness is not the same thing as paranoia, please), I thought this was a good time to write this.

A well-meaning person (friend of a friend of a friend) said to me, "Look at how smart your Lizzy is! She must do really well in school!" They were saying this in reference to a Facebook Memory I posted, wherein then-six-year-old Lizzy stated, "myths are like fairytales we used to believe before."

Well, yeah. She was right, they are.

But this well-meaning friend of a friend of a friend (WMFFF) doesn't seem to get that wise little statements like these and excelling in school (or even attending school every day) are not the same. Not at all.

One of these is a one-off statement, clever, off the cuff, probably when everything was okay in her then-very little world. 

The other is a complicated series of things, involving self-confidence, executive (dys)function, anxiety about everything from grades to antimaskers up in her face, self-esteem, boredom with some subjects, being a teenager, shame about previous school behavior, the inability to grasp why she needs to know dates and names when she already understands the stories behind them, trouble staying on task, finally being able to start to deal with her father's death, poor habits she picked up during distance learning, being terrible at asking for help, impulsivity when stressed, the need to understand the why rather than just the name/date facts, and a lot of autistic/ADHD overwhelm at the mere thought of facing any of these, much less all of them.

(And no, none of it is due to vaccines, none of it can be cured or even should be; the issue here is that the world is not built for people who think differently. That's it. That part is that simple. If the likes of Autism Speaks would shut up and let actual autistics speak, they might learn something.)

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here (through my own slippery neurodivergence) is that the issue lies not with Lizzy. Nor with me. Not even with her school (they have tried so hard - bent over backward - to get her on a track that she can thrive in, from switching teachers to letting her draw or read to other accommodations. They're great!). 

The problem is with the system at large. Not even just the educational system (though that's part of it) but the whole dystopian, unrestrained-capitalism, screw-the-planet, -ist and -phobic, awful system that basically says, "If you can't conform to this set of mostly unspoken arbitrary rules, then you're not a whole person."

And because we're all steeped in this since birth, programmed to think this way by society at large, even the kindest of WMFFFs think - way deep in the backs of their minds where they can't even perceive it consciously - think that if we just tried harder, we could be rich or lose weight or get straight As in school or avoid illness or climb the corporate ladder faster.

I wonder how many of them stop to think that maybe - just maybe - it's not all about "getting ahead."

The Horns of a Dilemma

A bitmoji of me, a fair-skinned, brunette-
with-grey, green-eyed woman, in a green
sweater, looking at the caption "No Good Choices"
with an alarmed expression.

Yes, I've talked about this before, many times. The ridiculousness of people who want their kids in classrooms at all costs, butts in seats, no matter who it affects. Come hell, high water, or school shooters.

But here we go again.

Some background regarding me and mine:

• Lizzy sucks at staying on-task unless she chooses the task and its timing.
• School is not one of those tasks that she can choose.
• I suck at keeping her accountable for tasks.
• Bribery sometimes works but I also have no money.
• It's melting but there's still snow and ice in outlying areas in our school district.
• And in some school parking lots.
• And there are a lot of outlying areas.
• And a small amount of snow in the forecast.
• And it's likely to freeze overnight, causing ice slicks on all the melty bits.
• It's also all Omicron-Covid out there.
• Which is extra-contagious, even to the vaxxed and boosted.
• And through cloth masks.
• And people have been traveling for the holidays.
• With Google only knows how many people from how many different areas.
• Lizzy is too young for boosters and Abby hasn't yet been boosted.
• First we couldn't find boosters, then snow and ice.
• I have been boosted but I also spend time in close proximity to kids at work.
• School shootings and bomb threats were a big thing the week before the holidays. 
• Some people blame TikTok because - I dunno - scapegoatism?
• TikTok does seem to be this year's AD&D or porn magazine or violent videogames.
• Both my kids are TikTok users and saw zero challenges on this topic.
• A number of parents both district- and state-wide seem to think that education by a "real expert" somehow trumps the physical and mental health (and safety) of kids and staff alike.
• Even though many of these same parents decry the same experts for teaching things like actual history or consent or critical thinking.
• The superintendent cannot call for Covid remote-learning without permission from the state.
• She can call for snow days.
• We'd have to make those up at the end of the year.

So, I can pull Lizzy and take her asynchronous for the week, to effectively isolate her from her possibly-contagious peers. That in itself is no problem. But keeping her accountable and on-task is not all that easy. Abby's in college, and two of her three classes are already remote for the week (we haven't heard from the third). No real worries there; it's college and they have their own rules, not subject to OSPI and the governor's office. She can stay home without issue.

If the schools are open, though, I have to go in unless I'm sick; someone has to get the kids to and from school, after all. And I need the money.

This is the dilemma. 

There are no good choices here.

I think the safest bet is to pull Lizzy asynchronous for the week, get Abby to do the same, have a(nother) serious talk about accountability with Liz, and load myself up on the PPE. 

Oh, and pray that our superintendent calls us out for a snow day or five. Or that the Powers That Be at the state level get serious about protecting the kids more than appeasing the adults who think their child's (in-person) education is more important than everyone's health and safety.