Does it Hurt Your Brain?

It hurts mine, when I observe the cognitive dissonance - my own or someone else's - in action.

Example of my own: I know that I should not have more than one serving of dairy a day. I'm both lactose intolerant and mildly allergic to whey (one of the two main proteins in milk, along with casein). But I went ahead and had the homemade nachos (yum) and the a la mode part of the Abby's Homemade Apple Pie With Apples From Our Own Trees a la mode (even more yum). Want a picture of the pie?

homemade apple pie with a lattice top sprinkled with powdered sugar

Here ya go (no picture of the dairy - it was cheap vanilla ice cream from my local version of Kroger - but I digress. And yes, the crust is homemade from scratch. Abby's getting really good at this. But I digress again):

Anyway. The point is, I know better than to have two servings of dairy in one day - one meal - even with the Benadryl. And yet I did it.

And I owned my decision, except for a few minutes this morning (with a Benadryl hangover and before coffee or food) when I hated everyone. I was grimly prepared for my youngest to be a total jerk before she even got out of bed and I was cranky about it.

But that's the difference between me and the people I see around me exhibiting similar logical fallacies; I will own up to it when I notice it, have it pointed out to me, or fix the problem with caffeine and blood glucose.

I know I have written about this a zillion times, but the ones who truly make me want to slap them are the ones who clearly do not care about anyone but their own, though they give lip service to the "think of the children" schtick. They aren't thinking of the children. They're thinking of the "good ol' days" when it was more socially acceptable to be a jerk to everyone not exactly like them.

All of this is exacerbated (and probably in some cases, like freedumb-fighting antimaskers, triggered) by things like a global pandemic that's been going on for almost two years now.

It was interesting today, as I was perusing my Facebook feed (pretty well-curated; I try not to have an echo chamber but I don't want to listen to the likes of ultra-right talk show hosts, either. And again, before coffee or food and with that Benadryl hangover). I came across a discussion of Star Trek - generally a fairly safe topic, if often a little odd - and the various qualities of the different series.

And (as also often happens with discussions of Marvel movies, but again, I digress) people were losing their minds over how Gene Roddenberry must be turning over in his grave over "the slap in the face" that is Star Trek: Lower Decks. Not because it's animated, or slapstick, but because it's "too woke."

I'm sorry, when was Star Trek not woke? I mean, sure, there are differences based on what was considered appropriate at the time (um, hello, Orion Slave Girl Dancers), and individual episodes like Beverly Crusher and the Haunted Sex Lantern or Spock's Brain, but in general, Trek has always been about social justice and being a decent person and valuing diversity and so on. Even some Klingons are pretty aware of this, after all!

I feel like a lot of my peers in age - I'm firmly Gen X - have forgotten the lessons learned via Star Trek and Sesame Street and The Avengers when they were children. Instead, they have chosen to care only for themselves and the people just like them. Forget that IDIC and We All Sing With the Same Voice that you learned as a child.

And they don't seem to notice they're doing it, to get back to the main point of this post. Or if they do notice, and it causes them that cognitive dissonance, it just makes them meaner.

I was that person this morning before my coffee.

How do people who behave like that all the time manage?

Burnout

A cartoon of me, a green-eyed,
fair-skinned person, encased
in a burned-out candle stub.

No, it's not burnout from work; honestly, work is the least stressful thing in my life right now. 

September is not a lot better than August this year: the world is a mess (even more than usual), acquaintances are doing/saying the most ridiculous B.S. about things like Covid and masks and mandates and vaccines (not to mention packing high school football stadiums unmasked), I finally finished a project after asking for two extensions and feeling guilty and beating myself up about that, two of the three people I love most in the world are currently at loggerheads with me in the middle, the financial and other issues from last week's post are not yet resolved, yesterday was September 11th and my Facebook feed was full of never-forgets (which is fine as long as your never-forgets don't include abusing people who look different, but it's still stressful af), Liz is having a crisis of ADHD/ASD/adolescence/anger (complete with meltdown at school and at home the same day) and the school wants a behavior plan (we're looking into getting her treated finally (she was not willing before partly because her late father was against it; he was afraid they'd "medicate her into oblivion") but getting an appointment for that takes time... more below), Abby is starting college at the end of the month (assuming our 529 people and the college can work out the payment process... and their Accounts Receivable department is evidently still on summer break), Liz hurt herself yesterday (she's okay but needs these antibiotic eyedrops and ibuprofen), and my therapist is out of office.

So, yeah, a little stressed out, burned out, whatever.

Feeling like a failure as a parent, daughter, envelope-stuffer, citizen of the world, homeowner, social justice bard, gamer geek, writer, etc., ad nauseum (yeah, yeah, I know I'm not; but it feels that way).

So... Lizzy's injury: Between the crisis at school and the same-day issue with other people, we're looking into getting her treated ("as long as you make sure they don't turn me into an uncreative zombie, Mom") and if it works the way it's supposed to, medication will make it easier for her to self-regulate and make good choices. I made an appointment with her pediatrician for a well-teen check, to discuss medication, and for a flu shot if they're available by her appointment on October 7th. I also signed her up for a recurring D&D session for teens through Outschool (with a teacher Abby has had there before; they are particularly experienced with 'at-risk' teens). It starts in late November, and so in her Lizzy- way, she wants to be creative and give a nod to her late gamer-nerd father, and make a covered dice holder out of a wooden cup he owned. She has the tools and the safety gear, so cool, kid, have at it.

A pair of eyes, one swollen and bloodshot

Yeah, she's had a rough week (see above re: crises) already and so it did not occur to her to wear the safety goggles while blowing sawdust out of the drill hole. Sawdust goes everywhere, including her left eye, and we don't know for sure whether there are bits of old varnish mixed in there, and we can't get it out ourselves, so off we go to urgent care (I try to avoid the ER even pre-covid, and now a mere minor eye injury would likely take hours to get seen because of all the anti-vax covid patients). So we are at urgent care and we get all that done with minimal help from assorted items in my purse, thank the deity of your choice. Urgent care closes at five on weekends and we are locked in until we can find someone to unlock the door and let us out. Then I get Liz home and go to get her Rx eyedrops.

Pharmacy closes at six on weekends, it's 6:07, and I'm ready to cry (for the third or fourth time this week) and just drop spoons everywhere until the pharmacist (on his way out) hears me talking to the cashier and says, "Oh! Elizabeth Kirkland? That just came through; let me get it for you." 

Thank goodness for conscientious pharmacists!

During checkout, he notes that some of the ADHD meds come in liquid form and that they have these at their pharmacy, so that's a good data point for the doctor visit in October. And now Liz & Abby are off to get the medication aid that Liz needs to swallow pills (applesauce in a pouch) and possibly an eye patch so she stops rubbing it unconsciously.

So... was it all bad? No, of course not - we have some hope for behavioral strategies, medications, and other Things to Help. The financial and other resolutions are still in process, the injury is minimal and treatable (and she can do it herself), the safety gear lesson learned, and the project I fretted about so much is complete. And the therapist is out of the office, so I'm writing it out here.

But the burnout is real.

Even Good Stress Is Stress

A cartoon rendition of me, a white,
brunette-and-grey-haired woman,
smiling unconvincingly at the camera
with the caption "I'M SO TIRED"

Please excuse me while I write this stuff out so it doesn't keep weighing on me. If you don't want to listen to me whine, just skip on down to the next post. This is therapeutic for me, and the rest of you - sorry! - are secondary for this purpose.

So, Abby is finally enrolled in CORE (orientation) at Cascadia. This is set for next week, and after that, she is able to enroll in her first semester classes. I am happy to report that she is able to enroll on the strength of her high school transcript (her cumulative GPA is almost a full point above that required to enroll) and so no other hoops needed to be jumped through. This is as it should be, but when your kid graduates from high school during the Pandemic Year of Doom, this is no small feat. Go Abby.

Getting to this point was a trifle stressful, though, not least of which is because I hate August. Anyone who has read this blog ever knows why this is, but in case you need a reminder, go ahead and read any post tagged with a blue ribbon. I didn't really grok this, though, until my therapist wrapped up our session yesterday by saying, "Jenn, August is hard for you. That's okay." I guess knowing is half the battle, etc., because that really made me feel good, like oh, well, I can just cut myself extra slack every year for a month and we're good. I can do that. 

And I guess it was my week for simple statements that should be obvious making me feel so much better overall. Monday I went to the financial planning company recommended by my bank and said, "look, my finances suck; how can we fix this?" I mean, I've been to them before, as my finances have sucked from before Laston died but much worse since (medical debt in the USA is real, y'all), but this time it was a solid hour discussion with an action plan and recommendations and options and all that. More than just the usual platitudes of saving x percent, blah blah blah, you know? And the simple thing he said that really made me feel better (I knew it but I hadn't had it said to me in so many words by an expert before) was this: "First housing/utilities/groceries, then transportation, and anything else comes later."

Oh.

Oh, wow.

As I said, I knew this already. But having it said outright by an expert in the field? Game changer.

At least in my brain.

I'm also getting over bronchitis - I had it for the first time in about twenty months because masks do actually work - and I don't have covid; I've been checked. It was a nerve-wracking 24 hours between the test and the result though.

These positives almost (not quite, but almost) make up for the note from HP, which basically said, "Yeah, well, she must've dropped it, because Chromebook LCD screens don't just crack on their own." Which, okay, she says she didn't, her sister says she didn't, and I've been in the biz before, long enough to know that tech support makes their money saying consumers violated the warranty and getting them to pay. But I'm unwilling to pay more to repair the damn thing than it would cost to buy a new one, thanks, so HP and I are having a conversation via email. I'm a widowed mom of teens with a job in a sector that was out of work for most of the last year, my older child no longer gets social security money from her stepfather's death or from child support, and I haven't got the cash. I didn't get that detailed with HP, of course -some poor hapless repair tech is probably calling me a Karen as I type - but there it is. They'll have to wait.

In any case, it's now safely not-August, life has ups and downs, and I'll survive. I'll even enjoy myself most of the time. I just need to remember that a) it's okay for some times to just be hard, b) priorities are a thing, and c) writing it out almost always helps me.

Back to Me and Mine

A cartoon rendition of me, a chubby
brunette-with-grey woman in blue,
wearing a smiley-face mask and the caption
"WEAR YOUR MASK"
in light blue and pink.

Hello, folks! I am trying to separate my Angry Political and News Ranting (mostly on my Vocal account) from my About Me and the Kids Family And Mom Blog here on Blogger.

Naturally, there will be some overlap, as I am in fact part of the world I'm ranting about. But I'm going to try, at least.

And although this particular post is mostly about me and Liz and our outing today, it is colored by the fact that I was on tenterhooks most of the morning because of pending Covid-19 test results. Again, part of the world here; complete separation is neither healthy nor practical. Note: I am fully vaccinated (Moderna) as of April 16 (and that's including the two weeks). I was able to get it that early because I work in K12 education. For anyone new here, I work as a McKinney-Vento driver for the school district in which I live; there are details in the link.

Anyway, so Tuesday of this week I had what seemed to be a migraine. When health-checking (online) into work, I was reminded that a new headache is cause to check with a doctor. All righty, pretty sure it's a migraine, but I'll check for safety. I work with kids, after all, some of whom are not old enough to be vaccinated, and school starts this coming week, so best to be careful.

The consulting nurse said that if the migraine responds to the usual treatment (in my case, Tylenol, icepack, caffeine, and a nap), it's likely just a migraine, no worries. It did, and I stopped worrying.

Thursday I started feeling wheezier than usual, a little lightheaded, a bit of ear pain, nasal and chest congestion. You know, cold symptoms among the asthmatics of the world, the usual. But it's been about twenty months since I was sick last (I know, it's like masks and stuff work or something!), so again, let's play it safe. Even though I can smell the blessed, blessed petrichor so I'm pretty sure I'm okay.

I went in, double-masked, had a visit with the urgent care doc, told her my concerns, and she examined the salient bits. Good news - no fever (98ºF even), reasonable O2 level (97%). Not so good news - wheezing, nonproductive cough, general malaise, congestion, blah blah blah. Seems like a cold, but who knows? Then it went like this: "Okay, Jenn, given your history and current symptoms, this sounds like a classic allergic sinusitis and asthmatic bronchitis to me. I’ll prescribe you a Z-pac in case it complicates into an infection, and you can use that if you need it, here’s a better over-the-counter cold medicine (Coridicin) that won't affect your blood pressure, and we’d better do a Covid test just so if you do have residual symptoms next week you can show them a negative Covid test and people won’t freak out."

So that's what we did.

And all the way back on Monday, I had promised Liz a last outing of the summer before school starts next week. Great. But now we can't be sure I'm not contagious, so... Okay, here's the plan. I will double mask, and I will stay in the car. We hit the drive-through at the bank and at Value Village to donate old clothes Liz has outgrown. Then I sat in the car in the parking lot while Liz took separate jaunts into the dollar store, the store part of the Value Village (the drive-through donation area is in the back), and the bagel bakery to get lunch. While she's in the produce market, I get notified that my test is negative, hallelujah. I mean, I thought it probably was - like 98% sure, but there's that niggling little doubt, you know? 

So now we're home, 13yo Liz has done some shopping (toys and sweets at the dollar store, shoes and purses at Value Village, and assorted fruits at the produce stand), and I am wiped out. But I have that negative Covid test to show anyone who looks askance at my coughing/wheezing/sneezing, ad we got to have our outing, complete with Liz gaining some real-world shopping experience and a sense of accomplishment for Taking Care of Mom.

It was a nice day.