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.

A New Hope?

Not that new hope.

A cartoon bitmoji of me, a smiling,
white, green-eyed brunette-with-grey
woman wearing a green sweater
and a gold 2022 crown

I don't have high hopes that 2022 will be awesome, but I do have some hope.

Example: I love my job. It's not super safe right now, what with the Omicron variant of Covid and parents who still think it's okay to send their kids to school if it's "just a cold" (not that it ever was okay) because honestly, how would they even know without testing? But I love it.

It's also part-time because by both union and school rules, I count as a substitute. And there (usually) isn't work in the summer. And it's rather ad hoc, because the student load is highly variable, depending on weather, Covid, and each student's pretty fluid housing situation.

I don't really mind either of these things, but what I am concerned about is that this is also not a terribly stable source of income. It varies widely due to the reasons stated above, and also because it's a school district position, my paychecks come only once a month.

I can write (see?), but writing for my personal blog or Vocal or whoever is even more ad hoc than McKinney Vento driving, and my other writing work is freelance stuff that lasts a few weeks before it dries up and I have to go through the process to find a new gig again. I'm still in the running for one of these, but who knows how that will pan out? I can do retail or call center customer care or deliveries, but I would really really rather not be out among the viral strains more than I already am; I'm the only parent Lizzy has left (Abby's dad is alive and well, and Abby's a legal adult (most ways) besides).

Wow, that turned into a lot, didn't it? At any rate, what I really hope for (for me; the kids are a separate matter) in 2022 is a part-time (like 15 hours a week), remote (from home), writing job with like a year or two contract, to do in addition to driving the kids. And if it wants to ramp up for summer hours when I'm off work, so much the better.

Speaking of the kids, at least they're currently as safe and happy as I can make them. We've postponed their NYE girls' day out plans until there is less snow, ice, and omicron out there (and hopefully at least Abby can be boosted; Lizzy's not old enough for the booster). We'll do some of that from home tonight instead - watch movies, play games, do our own mani-pedis, pizza (for them; pork chop for me because dairy is bad), and sparkling cider. 

Abby's school is in person this quarter (after a week of remote for covid-and-weather concerns) so that should work out well for her. Lizzy's school hasn't said yet, and I work for her school district (see all that up there) so I have mixed feelings. I want to work, I need to earn money, and Lizzy really needs to be at the school (distance learning is not her bag). But I don't want either of us exposed to kids whose parents think nothing of having huge unmasked events with their unvaccinated families and then sending their kids to school.

Ideally? Distance learning for a week or two (paid, because why not, as long as we're wishing?) and then back to the buildings. 

Wouldn't that be nice?

All's Well That Ends Well

So I spent the morning alternately cleaning the house and writing a diatribe (on my more political account over at Vocal Media) regarding the school shootings here lately, and I'm looking forward to trimming the tree with the kids in the afternoon. 

This did not go as planned.

Our artificial tree won't light up anymore.

Liz, 14, suggests Google. Google tells me that the average lifespan of pre-lit artificial Christmas trees is seven seasons. Well, this is season 8 of owning this tree - Lizzy picked it out herself when she was six - so there you go.

So after a little internet checking for who might have affordable trees in stock, Lizzy and I head to Target.

Yeah, no.

Most of their trees are either over a hundred dollars - up to $350 - or over seven and a half feet tall.

Or both.

And as our ceilings are fairly low (that same seven and a half feet, in fact), it's a no-go.

All right, on to a local hardware store, buying local is good, right?

Uh, sure. If you're rich.

At this point, in addition to all the swearing I've been doing because I'm super frustrated and last week's vague elbow injury is sore again, I've become aware of a nagging ache in my lower back. Must've tweaked it somehow while getting decorations out of the shed. 

Grand.

Anyway, we hit Home Depot, same issue. All artificial trees are too tall and/or too expensive, especially the lit ones. I wouldn't mind a live tree (not big on the cut trees because they're a fire hazard and a pain in the neck to take care of), but most of the living trees within my price range are about on par with Charlie Brown's tree, and we have an entire solar system of ornaments to put up here. 

Literally.

Including Pluto.

So we end up in my work parking lot, a safe place to use the phone, checking the Walmart website. As much as I loathe Walmart, it usually is cheaper. I get all excited because the website claims to have a 6' tree, prelit in your choice of white or color, for $40, in stock for pickup!

Except that for some reason, Walmart thinks I'm in Los Angeles.

I'm in Seattle, but my time zone - thanks Apple! - is listed as Cupertino, so...

I'm about ready to cry (for the second time that day, although the first was closer to hysterical laugh-crying) but we decide to hit Fred Meyer (the PNW's version of Kroger) on the way home. 

Finally! 

It took some time and some doing - and my helper stayed in the car because she was about peopled out - but I finally found a great tree for our purpose! Six and a half feet tall, pretty skinny, prelit with twinkly white lights, and on sale!

Ugh, but the sale price is still above my budget. And I can't find a box to match the display. So I ask the person running the garden center if there might be another shipment in the back. 

No, they say, but I can sell you the floor model for a discount.

And the cashier can add another $12 off because of the holiday sale going on.

So, we're safely at home, about to eat dinner and then decorate the tree, and cozy-warm. 

And I met my step goal for the day, so...

EDIT: now we can't find the tree ornaments. We have banners, stockings, hats, snow globes, music boxes, even Dreidel Mickey and Christmas Dora, but no ornaments.

I'm going to bed. We'll look again in daylight, maybe run to Grandma's storage unit.