Look, it’s a Monday in the first weeks of school, so I do recognize that this is always a little rocky. But this morning, I got up at 8:30, because I didn’t get to sleep until after 1:30 this morning. I woke A. up after I got through the laundry I forgot in the machine (weirdly did not smell, so I hung it up to dry and fingers crossed).
R. came down after that, and started making coffee, which is annoying, because the last thing I need when I’m this exhausted is someone underfoot. I saw a plate on the counter (I’d emptied the clean dishes from the dishwasher during my meltdown last night), asked, “Is this for you?” He said, “No,” so I started putting it in the dishwasher. At which point he said, “It’s for Ali’s pancake” and I completely lost it. I couldn’t start my tea, because he was using the kettle for coffee. He got up _after_ I’d already gotten up later than usual and after I’d already started waking A. up, and at no point in this whole process had he said anything about planning on taking care of the morning routine for A. I mean, obviously he meant to be helpful, and I did acknowledge that explicitly in my morning meltdown, along with, I get what you meant by saying, the plate was not for you, and also, do you understand how maddening that was. You had to have known that I wanted to know if I could put that in the dishwasher or if you were using it _which you were_. He didn’t realize he’d gotten up too late to start the whole process for A. Also, he couldn’t remember how I make the pancakes. Just all the things.
Anyway. I was very clear about the importance of Using Your Words, and if you are going to help out (thank you for helping out last night, which I did say out loud, Using My Words, because it was actually helpful that he got A. some real food to sop up some of that lake of chocolate milk she swallowed), then we should plan that the night before. Also, totally pointless, because I gave up on sleeping in in the morning and having R. get through the routine, because every single time it resulted in A. screaming and ranting and I had to get up anyway. Not Restful. And that isn’t years ago, either. That’s like, last school year. That’s how we settled into, fine, you can pick her up in afternoon routine, which is a genuine improvement over me having to do both sides of it while supposedly I’m doing the afternoon, but actually I wind up having to drive her in the morning, too.
They actually have a really good relationship. One of the reasons I’ve been pushing on the idea of me traveling alone more is because they definitely need more time to figure things out without me getting sucked in by screaming. (I want to be absolutely clear. All this is autism stuff. It’s genuinely screaming. People are genuinely distressed. This is not people being manipulative. This is people running off the end of their rope.)
R. drove her into school. She was apologetic about the previous evening. She was only about five minutes late to school, which is honestly somewhat amazing. I asked her to really work to get along with R., because he is trying to be helpful, they both made an effort. I walked with M., and ranted a bit about the whole thing, and we talked through an interesting story idea she had, which was fun.
A little side note on that. She was thinking of having one of the vampires of Shadow’s Brook consult / do work for the government on matters supernatural. Some of that would be supplying background, but some of it would involve actually dealing with threats / bad actors / wtf that involved other supes. This is obviously a common device in lots of series out there, and often it becomes a way of describing how even supernaturals can wind up suffering at the hands of malicious bureaucrats. I find that obnoxious, so I asked how she intended to deal with that issue. She didn’t have a plan — no one ever seems to — so I suggested maybe this work fell under some kind of treaty between the supes and the government, perhaps negotiated by the fae, as that would be the kind of thing they might do. She liked that idea, and then I asked about enforcement and since she’s brought up the idea of a geas to do enforcement to prevent supes with magic from using their magic after they’ve been convicted of serious enough magical crimes, I suggested perhaps any bureaucrat that is read into working with the vampire on this kind of consulting situation might have to swear and oath that connects to that kind of enforcement. It was a fun thing to think through; I’ll probably eventually use the idea myself elsewhere.
After we had a walk and visit, I had a brief conversation with D. from the builder, which was enjoyable. I then went and laid down in a dark room for about an hour, which was very helpful.
T. came over. He picked up the bag of spices I found in the pantry with his name on it. He’d forgotten them. He wanted to see the progress on the guest bedroom. Also, he wants a TV stand and his TV from his bedroom. He had an idea for one, and I thought it looked a little suss, so I did some research on other options, came up with a plausible one, ordered it. I had made fried chicken and salsa (sort of) without garlic or onion in it, so I put a piece of chicken and some salsa in a bowl for R., walked it out to where he was playing bridge on the porch and got his signoff on the plan. It should arrive on Thursday, and R. can assemble it, try the TV on it, and if all is well, he can drive it over to the dorm Friday or over the weekend and install it with T.
Things are definitely better now (I mean, fried chicken, amirite?), altho I am not caught up on sleep. I’m probably going to go continue dis-assembling lego next. Altho when I went to put the bucket away (I got it out of the tub to give to A. in case the bad judgment wrt chocolate milk led to vom) where it belonged, there was no space, so this morning I pulled out the foot cleaning appliance and set it next to the tub because it has some staining. If it can clean up well enough, I might list it on FB marketplace, so that might distract me from lego dis-assembly.
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