Transplanting a Seattleite

I finally got A. out of the house. We went through the car wash and now the car smells horrifyingly of lemon cleaning scent. It’s now in the garage with the windows open.

We went to Trader Joe’s, where she used the loo while I bought a bunch of stuff, but notably chocolate chips and peanut butter.

Then we went to Stop and Shop, where we bought even more stuff, notably cucumber, yogurt, frozen yogurt, applesauce, oat milk pudding, almond creamer and coconut whipped topping. All in all, a lot of fun. I bought a batch of small waters, since A. did not bring her water bottle with her. I used the bathroom at the stop and shop. For a really short outing close to home, we should not have needed to do all this. OTOH, maybe I just need to suck it up and plan for these things to happen.

I _am_ thinking that for future road trips, I should plan on stopping for snacks and the loo at TJ’s and possibly other grocery stores (whole foods?) because the snacks / prepared foods quality is awesome and the bathrooms far superior than, you know, a rest area or gas station. Probably everyone else already does this.

R. and I were supposed to have dinner with the MBs however they canceled so I had canceled our reservation at LTGT because also we were there for drinks recently. We did, however, go out to Luna, which was fun. I got the veggie chimichanga, which was really, really good.

I also made a thin crust pizza for lunch — I got out the rolling pin. I burnt it slightly, but it was still tasty.

T. came over and we finally had a long conversation about how scams work. Fingers crossed. He’s a smart person and he’s very meticulous about listening to people, and that can unfortunately expose him to badly behaved folks who are exceptionally good at creating confusion, but he’s starting to understand the value of early-blocking people who are obviously bad news, which is a great life skill to have.

I cooked bacon.

A. and I both took showers, so maybe tomorrow we’ll go run errands together.

Oh, and I was in bed before 11 pm. Wow! Goals!

Months ago, I negotiated some changes around here in terms of who is responsible for what. There has been mixed success, which is better than nothing and also definitely not good enough.

So today, I’m making further changes. We’re going to double down on the create checklist for A. thing which we tried, did okay at, and I abandoned because it was a lot of work for me and the gains were decreasing. I’m going to try to transition the task to her to manage.

We’re also going to lean into get to bed early through the 3 day weekend, with night time routine starting at 8 pm with a goal of in and down and quiet at 10 pm. We’re also going to move her Dot and set up an alarm to get her up in the morning so she doesn’t slide later and create jetlag by Monday. If 8 pm doesn’t get her in and down and quiet at 10, we’re going to move one hour earlier each night until we find what does. And then we are going to document the length and content of the night time routine and share it with relevant supports, because honestly, people need to know this is what is going on. If you just look at academic performance, and don’t see this, the picture is really incomplete.

I have already shared a bunch of the various selfcare/ADR stuff with the therapist, because she didn’t know and she really should.

I’m going to also actively include A. in more weekend activities. The car needs to be washed, because it is really dirty but also because the dirt on the outside of the car reinforces A.’s desire not to touch anything. We can go do that together. While we are over there, we can stop at Trader Joe’s and pick up some stuff there. We mostly don’t like to fight through the effort of getting her ready to leave the house unless it is school or travel, and we probably need to get her out more often than that.

Yesterday, R. took down the alabaster bowl pendants from above the dining tables (in the dining room and the eat in part of the kitchen) and boxed them up. Today, they are at the new house being installed now. Woot! They are also going to put the rainbow light up in his room. The Ziba pendant will wait a bit longer to be installed. He also programmed a whole lot of switches.

He put the budding branch lights up here as replacements, and they look really nice and match the rooms well and by matching each other create a little thematic cohesion in the space.

Also! I ordered a sample of the Forbo Harlekino Sotto a couple days ago and got a FedEx notification about it today. Which was NOT expected! But cool. We’ll see if it genuinely materializes.

I drove out to the house today and got to step into the (no water yet) pool. Very exciting! Things are looking lovely.

I stopped at a Starbucks on the way back to get a decaf oat milk mocha iced. Mmmmm.

AY called so we have a long lovely chat on the way home, and after I got home.

R. took A. took and from school, and between he worked a shift at the town election. Good for him!

We checked out, said goodbye to my sister, and drove home. We did not attend any panels today.

I risked 95 and GWB on the way home. I planned no sit down meals. We stopped at many rest areas/gas stations to pee and/or refuel. We got sandwiches at a Shake Shack but otherwise ate snacks in the car and drank water. Google maps route through Fort Lee was unusually bizarre even for google maps, in that it was convoluted, residential AND not many other cars. I wonder if they are switching up the routes suggested to annoy the neighborhoods less? The bridge itself was tolerable as these things go.

We got home around 10 pm, which was a real accomplishment.

I’ll catch up in a bit on the drive down and so forth.

But I’m in RVA (R. is still at home) for RavenCon, and have already ventured into Carytown in Richmond for vegan baked goodies from Minglewoods. I got chocolate chip cookies (the gluten full ones, which I have not yet tried), a blackberry cardamom cookie (yum!), a croissant, a chocolate croissant, a danish and coffee cake. The croissant is really good, if you are not supposed to be eating dairy. If you can go out and eat dairy without violating your values or your health, probably you’re better off with the butter-full croissant. But this is a really good vegan croissant. The chocolate croissant is quite good, period. I’m surprised how savoury the blackberry cardamom cookie is and very happy with it. The coffee cake is fantastic (gluten-full, and I want to say almond cherry something or other?).

But the Frangipane Danish is freakishly amazing, and easily the best of the batch.

I did not eat all of any of these! Other people should get a chance to try these, and A. is still waking up, and the rest will arrive in the evening. I may have more of that danish tho. Mmmmmm. It sort of depends on whether I’m eating lunch in the room, in the hotel restaurant, or at Twin Hickory, and that mostly depends on how quickly A. gets moving. There’s a 3 pm panel I’d like to attend, because apparently Nate Hoffelder is also here.

ETA:

Lunch for me was at Domoishi and it was good! I would happily go to this chain again (poke ramen etc. I got a poke bowl).

3 pm panel was fun (hobbies for writers). The line between fantasy and sf discussion was average, and very limited engagement with things like romance/cozy and litrpg/progressive fiction and where those fit in. I missed opening ceremonies. Dinner was at The Tavern at the hotel. My sister and niblings arrived around 7ish. The drag show was pretty good as well, altho I didn’t stay for all of it, as I went over to the monster romance panel, which was meh, altho Dagmar Avery was awesome, and Stella Price was very sensible. Some of the audience had no idea what the topic referred to, and the moderator’s questions weren’t super helpful, and I was really hoping for a lot more discussion of interesting authors/titles.

The kids have in person therapy with completely different folks at overlapping times. I didn’t need to go to A.’s therapy, because R. and A. got there on time (I now go if they are going to be late, to assuage my own issues with being late). A. thought I was going to be there either way, ooops.

Meanwhile, T. stopped by after his therapy (the reason I couldn’t just attend all of A.’s because hers gets out later than his) to drop off snacks from R.’s aunt C. that T. didn’t want (small oranges and kind bars, so they definitely will be eaten at our house). Then we planned a trip together to Seattle in August for R.’s (so many R’s! This is my cousin S.’s wife who was the first person to inform me of my mother’s death, quite by accident) retirement bash. She does an annual party in August that has never quite worked because school starts and dealing with 3 hour time difference at the start of school is a special kind of awful.

Anyway, just T. and I this time, which will be interesting. I’m going out earlier than he is, and planning some fun stuff with friends. I’m very excited about it! (If you are in the PNW, haven’t heard about this, and are an FB friend, details can be found there OR you can just email/call/DM or use telepathy if that’s one of your upgrades. Would probably love to see you!)

Also, Boston Marathon Day.

I walked with BW in the morning, and we had lunch at Tavern on the Square. Yum! Also, leftovers!

R. got A. about an hour earlier than usual, and we got her dinner set up and then we drove over to Riverside, parked and took the Green Line D to Kenmore. We navigated the still partially closed streets (and trash) and had tacos at El Jefe’s. I got a burrito (cilantro rice, black beans, chicken, veg, guac, lettuce next time get some salsa the hot sauce added while eating was fine but salsa would have improved things). We walked over to MGM, waited in line briefly, and then found our seats, used the loo and beveraged. The openers for Raye were her sisters, first Amma, who has a sinus infection and was still delightful in every way, and then Absolutely, who was so amazing. And Raye! About 15 people on stage — not a full orchestra, obviously, but they did a great job of playing big, and Raye herself is as incredible as one would expect. Very enthusiastic crowd. A lot of shows I go to there are a fair number of teens, this far fewer. Couples and groups of all sorts — no obvious theme, so I’m thinking just people who somehow found the music and loved it. Which, fair, that’s why I was there, too.

No drama getting the Green Line back to our car and driving home, arriving a little after midnight (I’m posting this the following day after breakfast and before driving A. in to school). I’d been texting and calling A. to get her at least somewhat along the path to bed before arriving home and ultimately resorted to using the alexa app to drop in on various devices until I heard her respond. I probably need to get a few more of those scattered around the house.

R. made lunch for A. for tomorrow.

Really fun day! I was sooooo tired by the end and my knees are wonky.

I’ve been really struggling with a variety of kid-adjacent issues lately, and while other professionals are also involved, we’re all feeling a little unsatisfied.

My latest Grand Plan was to have a sit down and talk about it thing with R. and A. on the topic of Evening and Sunday planning for The Next Day / Week as a Useful Life Skill and Helpful Routine. It had not happened yet in an organized way — I did mention that I intended something along these lines in my usual haphazard fashion — when A.’s hoodie fell off the counter stool and onto the floor, which was Distressing to her, and her Distress was Exasperating to me.

Look, I’m sympathetic, but the floor is actually pretty clean, and it’s not like the hoodie was all that clean anyway. Also, I had planned to do laundry later today.

But then, I took my Dissatisfaction and said, Let’s Do Something Useful with All Your Negative Energy. And I got out a paper spiral notebook and a pen (and then three more, because the first few kept running dry, we never use them) and wrote a list of tasks and a check box next to each of them, including Clean Clothes and Put Away Clothes (and brush teeth and shower and other things of that nature). These are all things I usually nag at her to do and get yelled at. I explained, hey, I meant to talk to you about all this, but the hoodie is me bowing out. This is what you need to get done. At some point. I will probably point to it repeatedly throughout the day. She was remarkably good-natured about it, and left the room (which is an acceptable next step, even if she does nothing else today, because at least I’m not hearing about the hoodie falling off the stool).

I may or may not update on the results.

(The dead pens went into the trash, which felt like a real decluttering accomplishment, honestly.)

https://uscholar.univie.ac.at/detail/o:1635308.pdf

It’s a few years old and in English.

“However, even though digital readers and multi-format users seem to be more diverse in their reading practice than print readers, the additional digital reading medium does not seem to be the reason for this diversification, but rather a tool utilized by a specific group of readers with pre-existing differences from print readers.”

This is one of the most interesting analyses of reading that I have ever read. I was raised JW, which is an extremely reading-intensive religious organization that produces its own reading material at scale for both in-group consumption and as part of their extensive efforts to recruit new members. Some years ago, they modified their signage to direct to their website, and zoom-attending funerals for JW family members means I’ve seen the insides of Kingdom Halls and usage of tablets to consume their literature in their programs. They have been at the forefront of adopting technology for their evangelical work for their century plus of existence and have been quite proud of it, so this is not particularly surprising, altho it was immediately preceded by a strong antipathy to the internet as a locus for people to lose their religion.

I have assumed that in general other religions have been slow to switch to e-books for consuming religious publications, mostly because that’s how it has been for tech and church in general. I’m wondering when that will happen? I’ve been using Bible Gateway for, as Priestess would say, “Yoinks”, because it let me get rid of a shelf of translations and only keep around one Moffatt’s for nostalgia/affection reasons, an NRSV, a JPS Tanakh, [and the Ahmed Ali Quran, apologies for initially forgetting to include and also still so sad at the lack of an ebook version], and a JW interlinear because it belonged to my grandmother. (I’ve mostly given up arguing with people about anything scripture related, but I like to have the ammo available in case of need.) If I’m sitting here thinking I could probably get rid of what’s left on the shelf, perhaps its time for all the other religions to be switching to e-books. . .

More quotes!

“ The assumption that print readers, in particular, would value aspects such as participation in cultural life or social recognition more than other readers is not con rmed and does not underlie the reading media decision. In contrast, the results show that multi-format users seem to have a stronger conscious reading motivation than the other two groups, while print and digital readers might not be aware of why they are reading a book. The reason could be that multi-format users have to re ect on which reading medium they use for a specific book and what the use of a specific reading medium implies for the reading experience.”

The first really bad bit of analysis: “ Only erotic novels are rather preferred to be read digitally, most probably because of the greater anonymity when buying (i.e., ordering or downloading) and reading them.” I’m not saying that the anonymity is irrelevant, but the real issue is finding and acquiring — a lot of this stuff does not (yet) exist in print format.

This is really on point when it comes to attacking e-books on the basis of DRM and then complaining about reduction in access and the luxury of having the time and attention to read.

“the results are clear and revealing regarding reading places and
situations.“Reading on the go is not new”, said Balling et al. (2019, p. 198).
However, our findings suggest that it is more prevalent than before.”

And

“digital readers reported reading in more diverse places since they started reading digitally,
suggesting that digital reading changed their reading practice.”

If you sincerely want long form reading to compete with social media, and you sincerely want people who are very busy to still have time to read, then making e-reading “not count” is literally the worst position to take.

So I am back to: values driven positions that are at odds with each other within the same person. Pro-reading folks being anti-ebook. Pro-affordability folks being anti-cheap-option. Pointing out the luxury of time, and then blocking the mechanism by which bits of time can add up to enough time to read a book.

To be fair, I think what’s actually going on in the anti-e-book crowd is ludicrously simple. Everyone who still makes more money off each p-book sold, and whose books are not available in e-book form except on pirate websites is obviously motivated to push p-books over e-books. But one does have to wonder if that’s all of the people involved in this debate, because that is super implausible to me.

In recent weeks, PP on FF has talked about and then acquired a large format e-reader that you can write on with a stylus. He put a lot of thought into it, and I’ll be interested in how much use he makes of it over time. One of the things that works poorly in e-form on many devices is note-taking. I usually resolve it by creating a Note or coming over here and liveblogging, but many of those entries are Private (Just You) because while I’m happy to stream of conscience (ha ha) on this topic, I don’t always feel comfortable sharing my most vicious criticisms of something I’m reading or thinking about with randos parachuting in from google. I often change my mind and almost always tone it down within a few days at most.