Transplanting a Seattleite

The electrician arrived! Yay!

There is a lot of early morning banging. So, there’s that. I’m glad, but A. is miserable, and we still don’t know (but will soon, foreshadowing later in this post) when insulation is happening. Obviously, the electrician doing that work means insulation CAN happen. Which is good! Turns out google nest has discontinued the smoke alarms we use, and the replacements through First Alert (boooooo) are not yet available. R. ordered them without discussion, and we don’t even have a shipping date. Reddit is not encouraging on this topic, either. In the event, we can slap any battery powered ones up there we want to. We could get reseller google nest ones, but a lot of that is old stock.

There are a bunch of Ring, Alexa and other integrated smoke alarms, battery and hardwired. Some of them say things like z-wave. It’s clearly going to take a while to investigate and it’s unclear that any of this is useful in the new house, because it’s going to have sprinklers and a fire panel so it probably has commercial everything anyway. I do need to ask some questions about that, clearly.

A. wanted to wash her hair this morning, so a shower got added to the schedule, and we weren’t exactly ahead of schedule. But we did get her through that process. I didn’t have time to do much more than the minimum on Duo.

Later in the day, we got the insulation install date, so that’s something. Of course, that triggered a bunch of implementation on earlier research, because while the VOCs on this stuff aren’t too bad, they are still not compatible with being in the house while the work is being done, or for a certain amount of time thereafter. We also have to coordinate with getting R. to a hotel near Deerfield for the night before his bike race. Complications!

But it’s all sorted out, including a couple dinner reservations. Tomorrow I’ve got a long day with meetings both before and after the usual OAC / MEPFP and walk arounds. I need to figure out my morning schedule some time before I go to bed tonight.

I walked with M. at 1 pm.

Someone finally came over and picked up the two mini flashlights that take one AAA battery each! Yay! Nice guy. He’s a mechanic for another town’s DPW, and loses them all the time. Might as well lose an old one!

ETA:

The guy who picked up the Hue Bloom lights is struggling to get them to work. He’s partway there, and is being nice about it, so I’m trying to help him out. I don’t really know what to think about any of this, especially since FB Messenger is warning me this might be a scam, but I really don’t think it is.

I dusted my room while chatting on the phone with Priestess. That was lovely.

I also transferred the summer skorts and shorts to the main dresser and moved the longer, warmer pants to the secondary dresser in the closet. I really should pare some of this down, and probably will over the course of the summer.

I got out my old Kokoons, realized that I no longer pack a micro usb in my charging bag, went downstairs to retrieve one (I only use the Kokoons on transatlantics), and actually found the cord that originally went with it. That’s a sign that the volume of cords we have around is manageable, and that we’ve saved the right ones. Love it! I grabbed a spare block while I was there, altho I won’t travel with it. The combo induction charger has a usb-a in in the front and that should work fine. Probably should test it some time soon.

Oooh, and someone just came and picked something up from the bin on the porch. R. keeps turning the porch light off, and I keep having to remind him to leave it on. At the holidays, for deliveries. And lately, for late pickups from the bin.

It cooled down a lot today, which is also pleasant.

I listed a bunch of luggage yesterday, and many things left today — R.’s jansport backpack, several duffels, the cord management thing and the travel pillow. Two different people who were supposed to pick up the small flashlights ghosted me. I was worried for a minute that I’d double-booked those, but then I was like, no worries, so many people have ghosted me already the odds of both of them showing up are absolutely zero. Indeed, in the event, neither showed.

M. came over for a visit.

I’m going to have a zoom with E. later today. Woot!

It’s been nice and quiet, and I’m feeling really good about how my closet is looking. My closet and office were really looking bad as I was going through the rest of the house, and I kept feeling like, wow, is this ever going to feel like it’s time, and it did eventually feel like it’s time and it’s so much better now. I mean, the office is still terrible! But I’m starting to pick things out of there, too.

It got up into the 90s. It was already really hot by the time I dropped A. at school for her 11:30 homework cafe.

I had a visit with M. in the afternoon, but it was too hot to walk. We talked about it, and then in the evening we walked at 7 pm. Still mid 80s, but shady and not too many bugs yet. Pleasant, and will happily do again. Lots of people out with the same idea.

Guinness glasses went out today! Very exciting. R. brought down a charging kit from Kanga Room, from some time around 2007. We’d even put an appropriate size power strip in it. He had no recollection of using it; I thought we’d moved it along a decade or more ago. We switched to Anker charging blogs when things stabilized on USB-A; the kanga setup was needed when there were still a lot of proprietary things out there, and we had a lot of devices. Weird to remember when the kids were preschool age, and each had their own iPad, and I had one too, and R. and I both had phones but mine wasn’t even an iPhone yet. Things change.

I’ve got people who are interested in the drafting board, the flashlights and the kanga thingie, but I’ve been ghosted so many times who knows what will happen. But things will probably keep leaving the house slowly. I spent a few minutes on reddit, found a home organization group, and one of the posts was a photo of a kitchen that someone had sharpied up what was going to go into each drawer and cabinet and asking for suggestions. I had zero interest in the details, but I pulled up N.R.’s document for my future kitchen and started marking it up. Always challenging figuring out where the flatware goes!

I attended the OAC / MEPFP meeting remotely, so that R. could bring the tandem to Florence and try it out with J. It seems to have gone well. Also, the meeting with the metal artist that was supposed to be today has been moved to next Tuesday.

T. wanted to go to lunch, but I had that meeting, so we’re going to try for dinner tonight.

I’ve been digging through old email and catching up on reading and deleting. Today, I found in my climate newsletter email, a reference to this:

https://www.bioliteenergy.com/pages/backup?srsltid=AfmBOooMpuWiBf16Mgt_tJMO1TgAi5_BZgXyPqKKHwcoLXr94ejnrooO

I had no idea! Coming soon, apparently (this fall). I had been thinking we’d be in a world in which appliances incorporated a rechargeable battery, a la the fancy induction stovetop, but nope. Apparently it’s going to be a thing you plug into the wall and then you plug your appliance into, a la UPS, but even simpler. Sweet!

I had the Running with the Pigs, but I think that Licor 43 is a bad idea; it gave me a headache almost immediately. Super tasty tho!

I had the steak frites, but they were out of frites, so I had fingerling potatoes instead. Also, oysters and bread. They never did deliver the salmon crudo, which is sad but we had slightly too much food anyway so it’s just as well. Great conversation as always!

A. finally went to The Paper Store with R. and came back with a couple small gifts and a card for me. I always love the blue people cards.

I also called DVC, because some upcoming vacation planning involved moving points from one membership to another, and then also borrowing, to get the right amount for the reservation. Can’t do that online! LOL. First called mysteriously dropped on me. Second one put me on hold but it all worked out, other than that my name is still on the stay and it’s for my sister’s family. We’ve got months to figure it out, tho.

Today was the very first person on FB Marketplace who interacted with me in a way that really raised some questions in my mind.

As soon as someone expresses interest in an item I’ve listed free for local pickup only, I give them my address and tell them that if they give me a date and approximate time I will mark it pending for them to pick it. If they give me a date, and no one else is currently interested / has already ghosted me, I don’t insist on the approximate time. I’ll just mark it pending and tell them to give me an eta when they have one. This works well, and while sometimes I’m ghosted (sometimes repeatedly) it does move things along with the absolute minimum amount of communication on my part. I have some frequent flyers who if they ask if it’s available, I immediately mark it pending for them and tell them I’ve done so. They come pick up after they’ve got a half dozen or so things waiting for them and one of them brought me cookies when they did.

There are certain items, usually the kind of thing that a stereotypical guy might like (multi tool, incense burner, Guinness glasses), I tend to get a lot of Is This Available and then zero followup. I just let those sit, because sometimes they’ll follow up days later and if it’s still there, they can have it. But if someone else claims it, I don’t necessarily tell the people who asked about it that it has been claimed. I used to, but they rarely responded so I just don’t bother for the most part. I’ll bother if I list, multiple people express interest in a few minutes, and someone meets the provide a date criteria. Then I’ll tell everyone else that it’s been claimed but I’ll let them know if I’m ghosted.

Last night, someone wanted the Guinness but didn’t want to drive from Brookline MA to get it and wanted to know if I would leave it somewhere for them. I didn’t respond (“local pickup only” is the criteria). Several other people did the Is It Available and then nonresponse, and finally, someone said they’d get it Monday (two days from now). I marked it pending for them. The Brookline guy asked if I marked it pending for him, and I said no, someone else gave a date and it’s marked for them, and he put an angry face emoji. I thought about that for a while, and the fact that he had my address, and then I thought about the fact that he hadn’t wanted to drive from Brookline to here to pick up some Guinness glasses. I blocked him, and if he rolls up to harass me in person (unlikely, but possible), I’ll decide how to deal with it at the time.

In recluttering, last December at Epcot I saw a woman wearing cargo pants. She was built like me, and I asked her where she got them and she said what I should have expected (amazon). I found them on Amazon, and then wait, but can I get plus sized cargo pants in purple? I could! I did! And then I realized I really needed a belt. And I also really hate taking belts off going through security. So I’ve been shopping for metal free belts, and I started with Arcade, but they don’t make their extra long ones in the narrow width. The wider width just barely works, and is a hassle to get through the loops and back out, and I’m afraid it’ll wear at the loops. (Which is fine, but also I don’t want something to break while I am traveling.) (Nor do I want to travel with a sewing kit, which I’ve done in the past, but never actually needed.) I went looking for a narrower width and found the Invisibelt, which I initially dismissed until I realized their plus size really was long enough. I got it, and it does work, altho I have no idea how I feel about the buckle on that. Today, a Thomas Bates one arrived and I initially thought it wouldn’t work, but it’s actually great and super minimalist, rolls up tiny. I am very happy about this.

I took A. in and R. picked her up. He stopped briefly to get a birthday card for me (it is not my birthday today, let’s just get that right out there) and the deal was he was supposed to give her the opportunity to shop for one for me as well. However, they were late heading home and traffic was bad, and we had a dinner reservation so that did not work and she was still pretty angry when she got home. I got her some food and we discussed it and R. agreed this was an error. We went to 80 Thoreau and I had two stiff drinks, we split the tuna crudo, bread and a salad, and I had cauliflower for dinner. And then I came home and had a blondie and some Ben & Jerry’s The Tonight Dough (non-dairy). Pretty awesome. I suggested we get rid of another one of those collapsible tables that I got during that thing in 2020 when we needed some extra work space for school from home. I had 3, and efforts to get rid of them have been weirdly unsuccessful. R. uses one on the porch, and figures we should keep the other because we’ll have two houses for about a year. I’m like, but we could have nice porch furniture. So we’re going to put the other one out for the summer in case someone else wants to have some table space on the porch.

In the meantime, I pointed at the glassware that is super dusty and somewhat greasy on high shelves in our kitchen. We have cleared a lot out of the top shelves in the kitchen (future house does not have as high cupboards; there is a pantry, but it’s not really going to be that much bigger than the pantry we have, sadly), but there were 4 Guinness glasses, a lidded cocktail shaker that we never use, 4 coupe glasses, and 9 sherry or nick and nora glasses, depending on your perspective. There are also a ton of water glasses. The water glasses we are keeping; the rest have been cleaned and posted on FB. I suspect they won’t move, but you never know.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about misunderstandings and how people very confidently believe things that are trivial to demonstrate as Not True, either as a result of trusting someone who told them something incorrect or because they heard something unfamiliar, imagined what that might have meant, and assumed they were correct. So in the one case, the person was specifically told something that was incorrect. The other case, they were told something, but misunderstood it and as a result now believe they were told something wrong (that they weren’t — they didn’t understand).

That was confusing, and boy, it’s even more confusing when it happens.

Today’s Say What Now involved a request to start a refund process with Amazon. The item in question was cheap enough (around $20) that I probably would have donated the item rather than return (tray for a walker that did not work out for the person who needed a tray for their walker). However, if they want to drive it over to return it, I will do the two minutes of work on the web to make that happen. Which I did. I had a choice of Kohls for free or two different UPS for $6.99 options. I went with the Kohls AFTER checking to make sure there were Kohls options close to where the item was currently located. There’s one 6ish miles away, 20 minute drive, and there’s a person involved who has a vehicle. Kohls it is.

She had specifically requested a Staples, which confused me, because I can only do what options Amazon presents. I told her nope on Staples, but Kohls instead.

“ We apparently don't have a Kohl's...”

Say what now.

I went back, this time to google maps instead of the Kohls store locator, confirmed the presence and the Yep Still In Business status of the two closest Kohls and sent that information along, and asked where they were that there wasn’t a Kohls. This took a while to get an answer, but basically, the person’s elderly mother told them that there wasn’t a Kohls nearby or perhaps that it was inconveniently located.

!!!

The mad disrespect these people routinely point in my direction. I mean, they don’t _mean_ it. But every single time I suggest something and they shoot it down _because of something false or confused_, it is fundamentally a choice on their part to believe a bad source or something garbled (as in the, shooting down Harmony because of a bad review of Homeland, but turning around and going with Homeland anyway), versus whatever I said. I’m extremely accustomed to being told No You Can’t Because on the house project, and at this point, I just view it all as, tell me exactly why I can’t, and I’ll use that to find how I actually can so much faster with that information.

But having it happen in this other context is raising a lot of questions in my mind. I want to be clear _I am not taking this personally_. I _am_ being disrespected, unless you really want to be finicky in which case you could say I am merely being disregarded, and I will look at you and go, my point exactly. I am choosing to view this as an opportunity to better understand why people would do this.

I think the easiest way to understand this choice to disregard or disrespect or treat as less trustworthy a suggestion, idea, or information from me, versus the sources that _are_ being attended to, is to look at motivation. The motivation in all of the above cases is crystal clear: an anxious adult daughter, attending to her aging mother, is hearing conflicting statements about reality from her mother than from her cousin’s wife. I mean. Obviously you believe the aging mother, right? Anything else would be Being a Bad Daughter, right?

And obviously, it would NOT be being a bad daughter to disregard the easily checkable and factually incorrect stuff coming out of Dear Mother. If you argued with mom, THAT might be Being a Bad Daughter. Mom’s in a care home and doesn’t need any additional stress. But why make Mom get every last little detail correct? So the issue I am having here is not the obvious one: is Mom more believable or is Walkitout more believable. No, the issue here is, Why Does Daughter Think She Has to Believe the Stuff Mom is Saying?

And I think the answer there also is motivated. I think if at any point Daughter starts critically thinking about the stuff Mom has been saying for Daughter’s entire life, Daughter would have a radically different set of thoughts, feelings, beliefs about herself, her mom, and their relationship. And she doesn’t necessarily want to commit to that.

Who really does, anyway?

I mean, obviously _I_ do. I’m Team Reality, and I have the terminated relationships to prove it. So why is it when we talk about “critical thinking” we don’t talk about the impact on relationships of engaging in critical thinking? I asked the therapist yesterday how do you teach people to have discernment and to make good choices. And she was talking about trust. And boy, she’s just not wrong at all. The people you choose to trust create the structure of what you can and cannot think and know and believe about reality.

As a little addendum, I was told:

“Ok. Already have several things to go to Staples for Amazon returns.
And I have to FedEx something else.
So I'll add Kohls to the list and hopefully get time to do all those before I go to placenameremoved.

(Though when setting up Amazon returns you can pick a specific Staples, but can actually take it to any Staples.)”

This actually has nothing at all to do with Mom. This is straightforwardly the person telling me how to do the return process at Amazon, which, LOL. I had _already told her_ that I didn’t have a Staples option; I had to repeat it for it to get through at all. I mentioned that in my part of the world, the good choice is a UPS store which is free, and she finally seemed to absorb the idea that maybe the choices are different in different places. *shrug*

Anyone who read this far and is wondering why I’m doing this at all, this was a conscious choice on my part and it’s not driven by pity. I chose to provide a certain type of support (problem solving and at times monetary support) in her journey to manage anxiety and motivation issues that I see very broadly in my husband’s family. Because I have kids with half that DNA, it seemed like it might be useful to get a real insider perspective on what it’s like to live with these issues (since they very much are not issues I have personally!), and to get some perspective on what helps and what doesn’t in a person who also has that DNA. I got roped into this Mom Fell etc. situation, and chose not to step away because there’s a pretty clear need and I hate watching people do things in the obviously wrong way. It’s not actually taking up much of my time or money and the germophobia guarantees I won’t be asked to provide any hands on support. And boy, am I learning a ton from this process. Way more than I would have expected. I learned about respite, I learned pricing (in that particular area), I’ve learned about a bunch of equipment and therapy for rehabbing from this kind of incident, I’ve learned about transportation and all kinds of other stuff. But mostly, I’m learning a ton about how distortions in relationships can really limit the ability of people to understand reality and to make better choices in reality.

I had a one hour phone call with J.

I had a brief walk with T.

I walked with M.

I had all my meals at home — stir fry for lunch, and a meatloaf sandwich for dinner.

I had a one hour google meet with J. from the builder going over electrical outlets. We are going to try to finish that tomorrow.

We were about ten minutes later for therapy, but it was an interesting conversation. The process with making decisions post C.’s fall has highlighted something I saw a ton of during the house project. People knee-jerk doing the opposite of whatever someone wanted. Some of that I’m prepared to chalk up to territoriality and status crap, but sometimes, it really starts to look like poor judgment. After listening to A. (therapist), I’m starting to see how trust issues and discernment also play big roles — and probably in interacting ways. Lots to think about!

It is Memorial Day, which is, variously, a Monday where one may not have to go to school and/or work, a day where one has to figure out how to juggle child care responsibilities while still having to go to work, a day to remember those who have died in the service of our country and, for me, this year, a moment to remember how much I enjoyed Over My Dead Body by Greg Melville, because the author did such a lovely job of placing Decoration Day in historical and cultural context.

At the moment, I’m catching up on blogging, because I’ve been attending Balticon and hanging out with my sister and niblings who joined me at the con. It was a much shorter train ride for them than it was for me, and we left all the menfolk at home. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a ton. I’ll probably come back. Ironically, my sister wasn’t that enthused about this con, until I unilaterally decided to go with A. and invited them to come with me. Once here, it is being compared very favorably to RavenCon. Certainly, it is bigger, and both cons are very reader/writer focused, so the programming at both is what we love, but the quality of the moderation and the qualifications and competencies of the panel participants is wildly better. Some overlap, tho! Balticon is still running as a hybrid con which is nice to see.

ETA: I bought a tiara, a print, and a bottle of whisky over the last few days. The tiara wrapped up nicely and didn’t take up much space. The print is going to have to be handcarried. The whisky, it turns out, fits into a side pocket on the fjallraven kanken 17” laptop bag. It’s in a plastic bag within the pocket, in an effort to encourage people to not see what’s in my backpack. I’ll report back whether I have to ditch it on the way home. In theory, I think I can bring it on the train. Obviously this would not work on a plane.

ETAYA: I got a 30 minute reprieve on checking out, which was handy because A. wasn’t quite ready. We left our bags with the front desk, and walked over to the science museum where we looked around and saw the planetarium spring skies show. A. could not have dippin dots (sad face) because we were out of lactaid. Our next stop was a CVS where we bought offbrand lactase and branded Pepcid, both of which I intend to leave packed for future trips. Because of all this. CVS was a few doors down from a Shake Shack, so that’s where we had lunch including a frozen custard for A. She got the chicken sandwich, which looked really good.

We walked across the street to the con hotel to use the bathrooms, and then back to the Residence Inn to pick up our bags. We got an uber from there to the train station. My sister had gotten her train changed to an earlier one, still in the quiet car, so she was already home. I initially went to the wrong track, realized it was the wrong direction, asked for help, switched sides of the island (no need to go back up the stairs, yay!) and waited a couple more minutes and boarded. So far, have not had any damage to the print or the whisky. Presumably the tiara and so forth are fine in the bags.

We had a really nice time! I panicked a little, because time was getting tight, but we got to the train station about 30 minutes before boarding, so I even got to use the bathroom. The con floor was totally dead when we stopped at that hotel, so we had a bathroom to ourselves there. I know it’s stupid, but getting to have clean, quiet bathrooms is amazing.

Also! While waiting to board, there was someone with a paper Analog bungied on top of his roller so we chit-chatted. He’s got a novel coming out in the Eric Flint Ring of Fire universe involving Venice getting a radio (maybe 1633?). Apparently that’s where Charles Gannon is editing, keeping that massive multiverse going post death of Eric Flint. I couldn’t remember as we were chatting which panel I saw Gannon on; it was The Stakes are High and They’re Well Done, which was mostly about pacing. That’s the panel where I finally realized that all the “getting the beats right” comments were references to Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, and thus more examples of Novel / Story as screenplay.

It was a really good day.