Books I Don't Like

 It's very hard to define what books I truly enjoy have in common. Maybe one day I'll try to define it beyond "interesting,  not preachy, hopeful in some way."

However, many years of reading hundreds of books a year have allowed me to clearly define the words in book blurbs that mean I will almost certainly dislike a book:

Time travel of any kind: instead of plotting,  what if time travel? Immediate shark-jumping for me.

Sweeping epic: needed a lot of editing it didn't get. 

Across time,  two ______: Just no. 

Dark fantasy: depressing and/or inappropriately sexy.

Violent: not my flavor.

Bloodthirsty: ditto.

Whimsical: high chance of manic pixie dream somebodies.

Epic tale: needed TWO editors. 

Tiktok sensation: I will 100% hate jt.

Sumptuous: see lush. 

Lush: practically a guarantee of poor editing and wandering narrative.

Horrifying: I personally do not like scary books so even excellent horror is not for me. 

Toxins: author hates science and/or advocates eating roadkill. Brain worms will not impede them serving in high office.

Me : I will be so careful in the sun on vacation. I wish I could always remember to put on sunscreen in the morning.

Monkey's Paw: Ahahaha. <finger curls> 

Me: Oh no.

Monkey's Paw: It will last for months after the last time you use a sunscreen with a sensitizer!

Me: I'll try some steroids?

Monkey's Paw: They're photosensitizers.

Me: I'll stop going out in the sun.

Monkey's Paw: The walk to the car gives you face blisters that last for a week. Have fun! 

(It has been nine weeks. I curse my Ashkenazi ancestors for this.)

More Five Minute Blogging

•  The company I work for just got acquired
• Significant chaos has ensued 
• I arrived back from vacation to find I had a different job (that I wanted)
• I have already been sent on a business trip to Europe 
• Next month I have another business trip
• My dear spouse is having some New Life Experiences of being the primary parent as a result
• The baby now wears a women's size 7.5 shoe
• The biggest kid has been working at the grocery store this summer
• The middle kid has been enjoying himself and doing house chores for cash (his idea)
• The garden is overrun with cucumbers
• Squirrels ate my pumpkin vine 

Five minute blogging: Travel

 We just took the kids off on a Big Adventure Trip. Things I learned:

• I am not taking the 16 year old on any more trips for at least 4 years
• Travel clothesline and power banks were the two most useful things 
• Honorable mention to fast dry travel towels in a moderately priced four-pack
• The little one rises to the occasion on adventures, but also wears out well before her siblings
• They will eat pretty much anything 
• I am the only person in the family who sleeps on planes

ADHD Part 2

Having now accessed legal drugs for this,  it is absolutely WILD to take controlled substances that are stimulants and feel calm and a little sleepy.

Children

Child #2 just got a cellphone because I'm tired of managing all the things and I don't want to deal with it. Like music from his sax teacher and soccer messages and texting his friends to get together and looking up recipes. This is how parents just give up as they work through the children. 

(The usual draconian parental controls have been applied. It's fine.  He goes away for soccer games and legit needs to get in touch with us. Also, he's 13.)

ADHD

I have an evaluation on Monday.  I'm not that kind of doctor,  but I feel like the normal number of times per month to set your smoke alarm off at 3 AM because you forgot something on the stove is probably  ZERO. 

Important Note To Self

When you can't walk up all ten stairs without pausing, and/or when you spend two days in bed because you can't breathe,  it is time for MEDICAL ATTENTION and LOTS OF DRUGS,  dumbass (and somewhat short of breath) self. (My baseline is I lift weights and do vigorous exercise 3-5 days a week.)

Cue my favorite neurologist saying "my patients often accept as routine a level of pain and disability that other people would find completely unacceptable."

Five minute blogging: ADHD

 My oldest kid has just been diagnosed with Inattentive Type ADHD,  which is good to know and explains a lot. We can help him more effectively now that we know this thing! However, in reading about it, I've realized that I too have this thing.

Now I'm wondering how much of who I am is normal human behavior and how much is a bundle of problems glued together with anxiety and a rigid organizational system.  Like is all of me one big problem that I need to solve? Probably no but then which parts ARE the problems.  

????

 The other night at the Hobby Group Party, a very nice woman said (in all sincerity) that she couldn't take her daily (one teaspoon of) apple cider vinegar while pregnant. 

I was polite and did not ask her about her salad dressing and pickle consumption while pregnant.  But truly, the mind boggles.

Yet More Bad Decisions

My sick relative now wants to get more quack treatment, in a foreign country, for 5 months, with their young child along. Their spouse is still in the military. What could go wrong?

(Me:"They could have to go to the hospital and have the kid taken away by social services."

Dr. S: "They could die and the child could find their body.")

Work continues to be a mess, though I can't care much.  My oldest kid continues to fail HS classes, though we're working on it. My health also continues to be a mess.

What. A. Fall.

More Decisions

 My SIL is having some kind of lung trouble that indicates dire complications and probably serious metastases.  This has changed nothing.  

My mother is now insisting she will go visit my siblings in A Certain Country What's Doing All The War Crimes Right Now. There's some trouble getting flights and I have asked if she would please not go visit a shooting war. This has also changed nothing. 

Decisions

My relative with the bad diagnosis is going to Ye Olde Quack Clinic in three days. They will be charged $4600 per week to be treated with combinations that, if they worked, I assure you every clinic in the world would be using.  I expect them to be gone in a year tops, leaving behind a young child and a spouse. 

They are being gulled willingly, but there's a special place in hell for the people running this clinic. Shame on those despicable humans for exploiting the desperate with false hope. 

Five Minute Blogging: Mortality and Sense

 We recently took a delightfully relaxing vacation to see family. While there, one of my siblings-in-law received some distressing health news (of the kind with a 50% 5-year survival). They immediately tried to think of just the right combination of "alternative" remedies,  quack clinics in Germany, and powdered mushrooms to solve this.

The news is obviously very upsetting.  I had also never seen so close up the bargaining with the universe,  the magical thinking,  that underlies all these unscientific bullshit "cures." And I realized that the fundamental driving force is: If I can just do all the right things, I'll be okay. Bad things won't happen because I can control the randomness with this (herb, gluten-free diet, stem cell transplant in Mexico, by drinking vinegar every day.) 

Unfortunately the survival rate of this condition, untreated by modern medicine,  is pretty darn close to zero.  It's hard to think you might do everything medicine has to offer, and still die. I just don't see how denial is going to make this situation better. 

Should I Stay?

Dear Readers, my work has been more than a little dysfunctional lately. Questionable leadership decisions, iffy financials, a large round of layoffs.... I am extremely torn about whether I should be looking for the exit. 

On the one hand, the company is in at least warm water financially and I don't see how the staffing issues will be resolved.  The level of uncertainty,  verging on chaos, is high,  and the department I want to move into probably will not happen for various reasons. 

On the other hand, I have a stellar and realistic boss ("Look out for yourself,  but know your work is valued and I'd be sad to see you go"), I work with a whole lot of great people, and I have an enormous amount of freedom and responsibility without much stress. I regularly problem-solve interesting things,  get drawn into meetings with higher ups, and overall am pretty satisfied.  Also I'm well paid and got a 10% raise last year. 

SO, do I stick it out,  knowing I don't really NEED a job and we could get by on one income,  or do I look really seriously at other jobs, or do I apply to stuff but only if it looks really appealing???

Confidential to My Now-Estranged Sisters

Imagine- just imagine!- that I refused to speak to you because you said Trump is a menace and America should do better.

Now turn it around: I'm not supportive of you because I think Israel shouldn't bomb hospitals? 

I'll keep the principles and leave this relationship behind, thanks.

 

Misc Five Minute Updates

•  Still alive! 
• Tree Board Chair involves a surprisingly large amount of work. Yeesh.
• However we have planted quite a lot of trees so I feel pretty good about it overall. 
• Vacation in the mountains next week with an old friend! I can't wait.
• Work has been purely unhinged.  I'm editing my resume right the hell now.
• Kids are enjoying a lazy summer full of pool time, hanging out with friends, miscellaneous camps, and ice cream.  Lots of ice cream and soccer.
• Spouse has been enjoying kayaking whenever possible. 
• In laws have been enjoying my kids dropping in randomly to chat and mooch cookies. (I hope they've been enjoying it because it's inevitable.) 
• My garden is wild and happy. 
• I am having assorted complicated feelings about health and work and partnership but mostly I'm just tired right now. 

Dealing With Elders

 MIL: "Oh, don't worry about it, we'll carry the [extremely heavy, requiring two hands] crocks down to the basement."

Me: ".... no please don't."

Me: "You can sign up for a membership to [local nature garden] online,  it's super easy." 

FIL: "I just don't trust the internet."

Me: "Don't worry, all your financial transactions are processed there anyways!"

MIL & FIL, repeatedly: "There's just nowhere to put this."

Me: "You could get rid of it."

Them: "We just can't bear to let it go. We'll put it in the basement."

Me: "Okay! The garage sale will just be that much bigger when you die."

(I do actually care about them and want them to be okay, but a a certain amount of snark is needed to deal with people who LITERALLY brought almost 30 tables, 45 chairs, and a five-foot-high pile of rugs to a six-room house.)

More Changes

 The in laws are now here. While I recognize they are not at their best after uprooting their whole lives, I'm also a bit surprised at how not-okay they are. They're tired and overwhelmed... and also I filled out a new-patient visit request for them yesterday.  They're worn out... and also somewhat unable to prioritize (though that has always been true, it's just worse now).

Anyhow, I'm glad they're here, because it was definitely time. More of the everyday stuff is for sure landing on me, and I am not at all surprised. In some ways I think it's easier for them to ask me for help because I'm not THEIR child. 

But it's still a lot.

While Constructing

Dr. S: Five wires?  FIVE wires?  How? WHY? One outlet,  one switch,  one fixture....

[Somewhat later]

Dr. S: What are you doing?

Me: I'm filtering paint through a stocking.  It's kind of old.

Dr. S: WHY.

Me: This is a thing people do!

Dr. S: Yes. During the Depression.