End of April

We are so close to done, it's freaking me out. Two more weeks of classes, then finals, then graduation. Three weeks from today I will be writing a post about how I have two high school graduates (actually I might have to wait until the following Monday to write it -- Sunday will probably be a busy day, with my sister visiting and all). I'm panicking, quietly, trying to think of all the things I should be doing before time runs out.

What always happens in spring, and it's happening this year too, is that plans get interfered with. Last week was a total loss for my plans, due to illness (and the effects of the shingles shot). I didn't do any yardwork or really much of anything else either. No walks, no exercise of any sort. A little cleaning, a little writing, a lot of reading. I didn't eat much, wasn't hungry, but gained two pounds. Sigh.

This coming week it's supposed to rain every day (maybe). This will be wonderful -- we need it SOOO badly -- but it will interfere with plans. I will try to do a little yardwork in the mornings, when it is less likely to rain, but there will probably be days when I skip it altogether. 

I can only work in the front yard, though, because of something that happened this past week in back. A house finch pair decided to build a nest in the pieces of wood that are sticking down from where a tree branch punched a hole in our patio roof two years ago. 

We have never gotten this fixed because no handyman would touch it, and quite honestly, Rocket Boy doesn't want to touch it either. The only real solution is to pull the whole structure down and start over, and we don't have the money to do that. So in the meantime some stupid finches decided it was the perfect place to build an incredibly messy nest. This is a finch thing, apparently. Just throw a few sticks together and call it good.

So now I can't really work in the backyard. Maybe once the eggs hatch I could do a little work, carefully, but right now I think I should leave Mrs. Finch alone. I believe she is already sitting on eggs, and it scares her so much she flies away if I even look at her through the window. We have started keeping half the curtains closed, to give her a little privacy. (She very bravely put up with me taking this photo, but I closed the curtains again right afterwards.) 

On Thursday, Rocket Boy and Teen A flew to Los Angeles to attend his cousin June's memorial service. It turned out that it was really more of a funeral than a memorial service, at least the way I understand the meaning of those words. There was a coffin and a wreath and all that. I told Teen A that no one would be wearing a suit at a memorial service in California, so he didn't need to bring his. I suggested he bring one of his button-up shirts, that would be good enough. He chose the blue & green plaid one, which looks very nice on him.

But then, for whatever reason, on Friday, the day of the "memorial service," he wore a gray t-shirt with a picture of a Camaro on it. If I had been there, I would have made him change, but Rocket Boy didn't realize that he had brought anything better to wear and didn't say anything to him. And, it turned out that almost all the other relatives were wearing black (one was in dark blue), and some of the men wore suits and ties. Oh well.

Rocket Boy had prepared some words to say about his cousin, had worked over them, typed them up, etc. But the "memorial service" was run by a minister who never gave anyone else a chance to speak. At the end of his talk, he asked the attendees to think of a single word that described June. Rocket Boy's word was "gracious," which I thought was very nice and very accurate. I don't know if Teen A offered a word.

Oh well. It doesn't matter. As Rocket Boy said, philosophically, his friend Chris came to the service too and he "looked even worse than [Teen A]." So there you are.

Also, Teen A had photos on his phone from prom that his girlfriend had just sent him (I haven't even seen them yet!) and so the relatives got to see him looking good. Rocket Boy said that Teen A was the object of great interest, since many of the relatives had never met him (or hadn't seen him since he was a baby). So it all worked out OK.

They are coming home tonight, with a flight scheduled to arrive at 6:15 pm. I just checked, and right now they are early (the flight hasn't left yet). 

*** 

Despite illness, this was a productive week for me in some ways. I dosed myself with cold medicine every night and some of the days, so I never had a lot of "symptoms." Teen B has had this thing for over two weeks and he's STILL coughing, because he refuses to take cold medicine. 

Teen B had his yearly physical on Thursday (after Rocket Boy and Teen A left for the airport), which was one of the reasons why I didn't want to go to LA. I desperately wanted to show Dr. Johnson the neuropsych report, but felt as though I couldn't give it to him, because Teen B is now 18 and in charge of his own health. Right before we went into the medical center, I said to Teen B, "I brought a copy of the report from that testing you did and I want you to give it to Dr. Johnson." He didn't say no. But then when he was called in by the nurse, he insisted that I go too. I said, "You're 18, I'm not supposed to go with you anymore," but the nurse said, "You can come in if he wants you to," so I did. And I gave Dr. Johnson the report. And he read it quickly and then we talked about it. He gave us a lot of his time -- he's such a good doctor.

The upshot is this: we're going to do auditory testing, as recommended by the psychologist. We're not going to do any anti-anxiety medicine because Teen B hates taking any drugs and didn't want to take this kind either. Dr. Johnson said this summer would be a good time to try it out if we wanted to, before college starts, but Teen B said no, so we respected that. I mentioned that I felt guilty because everyone I knew with a kid like this has had them on drugs from a young age. Dr. Johnson said, "With a kid like what?" And I said the word: "autism." Dr. Johnson said, "There's no drug that treats autism," and he kind of half-smiled at me. "It's best to just learn how to live with them. Autism's not a disease, it's just a different way of being." I got tears in my eyes. This is how I've been starting to think, from reading these books. I just can't seem to drop this idea that I've let Teen B down by not getting him all sorts of "treatments." Maybe I can finally let that go.

I thought Teen B would be mad at me after the appointment, but he wasn't. He had to get a vaccination at the end, the second Meningitis B shot, so his arm hurt, and we laughed about that, comparing it with my shingles shot. We went to Starbucks for a late lunch and then went home and crashed. And it was OK.

Friday night I had gotten tickets for the spring play at the other high school. Most of the high schools do a musical in the spring, but Fairview does their musical in the fall and a serious play in the spring. Last year they did "Macbeth," which was of course pretty gloomy. This year they did "Almost, Maine," which is a series of sketches about love, so it was more upbeat. Of course, Fairview like all schools has trouble coming up with enough male actors, so they didn't have enough boys to play the male parts. This meant that several of the sketches appeared to feature lesbian couples (one of the sketches is actually supposed to be between two women, but the others aren't). I thought they did a really good job and I enjoyed myself. Not sure what Teen B thought.

Saturday afternoon Teen B had a haircut appointment -- another reason I didn't want to go to LA. Those haircut appointments are REALLY hard to come by. Melisa is so popular, you have to schedule your haircut several months in advance. In fact, I have already made his next appointment, for early July.

And today it was pouring rain, with some thunder and lightning, but we braved the elements and went to Starbucks as always. Now we're just hanging out. I'm trying to think about what I should do before Rocket Boy and Teen A return. Oh, right, laundry! I'll go start a load as soon as I finish this. And maybe some other tidying. Mostly I'll just enjoy the solitude. It's been really really quiet while they were gone. They're both sort of noisy, messy people, whereas Teen B is very quiet and doesn't take up much space.

What about the week ahead? Well, as I said, I probably won't get a lot of yardwork done, due to the rain. Ditto walks. Maybe I can lift weights and do some stretch videos instead.

Many things are scheduled: the band concert on Monday, the orchestra concert on Wednesday. On Tuesday morning I have a mammogram (oh joy), and on Friday Teen A has his yearly physical with Dr. Johnson. I bet he won't want me to come in with him, which is fine. He'll have some private things to discuss with Dr. J.

And the book group is coming the week after, so I need to get serious about cleaning. I haven't been getting emails from the FlyLady for a while, so I went to her website to see what was going on. And oh my goodness, the whole thing has changed. All the good useful stuff she used to have on there -- gone! It's bare bones, and not very useful at all. But I decided it was OK. I learned everything I needed to know from her a long time ago, and I can keep going on my own. I made a new weekly schedule (not that much different from the old one, just tinkering), and I'll work with that.

The last few days of April. After this, I'll never have kids in local public schools during the month of April again.

Prom week

Yes, this was the week of Prom, a rite of passage that I had almost no knowledge of until this year, since my high school didn't have a prom. We had something called the Tri-School Formal, which may have been similar, I don't know. The three high schools in town (there were three back then, but soon after, it dropped down to two) had a big joint dance every spring. I think my little sister went one year. My boyfriend and I went to the Winter Formal -- me in an absolutely dreadful dress, black with red roses. I was thinking about that dress as I scrolled through pictures from last year's After Prom yesterday. All these pretty dresses. Why couldn't I have had a pretty dress? 

My high school had a big party on grad night, which I think most schools don't do. That was sort of our prom. It went until late at night and you weren't expected/required to have a date, so all my dateless friends went to it too, which was nice. I think there were games to play -- I don't remember very well. What I do remember is that I had a dreadful dress for that, too. It was sort of beige-y, with puffy sleeves, I think vaguely prairie style. So unattractive, so juvenile. Why couldn't I have had a pretty dress for graduation? Were there no pretty dresses in the stores? Well, it was the late 70s. I know my mother and I worked hard to find me something nice, but we failed.

I guess that's why it was important to me to buy Teen A a really sharp looking suit for prom. I want my kids to look nice. I want everybody to look nice!

At the last minute, practically, Rocket Boy got interested in Prom, or more specifically After Prom. He donated $150 and signed up to help with setup. He did some setting up Friday night and a little more on Saturday afternoon. This photo shows the game room being set up in the East Boulder Rec Center gymnasium.

We studied the online sign-up sheets with great interest, spotting the names of parents of two kids that our kids went to elementary school with. (We haven't had any contact with these parents for a long time.) But Rocket Boy didn't see either of them when he was helping out. Maybe he wouldn't recognize them. People change a lot, going past early middle age to late middle age. Menopause has a big effect on women's looks, and hair turning gray does a lot too. And men's bodies often fall apart.

There were still some slots available, such as bathroom monitor from 2 am to 3 am, and I actually considered signing up. But at midnight, when we were tucked into bed and getting ready to turn off the light, I was really glad I hadn't. When I was younger, staying up that late was possible, but I think I'm past that now.

Rocket Boy went by the East Boulder Rec Center around 1 pm this afternoon, but they were all done cleaning up already. Someone told him there were 1500 kids there last night! That's kind of hard to believe. The two schools only have about 1000 students each who were eligible to attend (500 in the senior class, 500 in the junior class), and you know they didn't all go (for example, Teen B). So that was a lot.

Of course, Teen A didn't go to dinner with us last night (he stopped by to get his suit and tie and then was out the door in a flash). We considered going to the Bohemian Biergarten, which is basically right across the street from where our kids' school's Prom was held (at the Boulder Theater), so that we could watch the kids arriving. I nixed that idea, suggested we go far out of town to get away from it all. So then RB thought of Helga's, a German restaurant near where he works. It was a 45-minute drive to get there, but they stay open until 10 pm, and we had time. 

It was OK. When we got there, a man was playing the accordion -- really well, but really loudly, and I wasn't sure Teen B was going to be able to stand it (he's pretty sensitive to noise). Fortunately the musician finished up, said he had to catch his bus, and left.

I had pork jagerschnitzel, which was such a bad choice, I don't know what I was thinking. But the spatzle and red cabbage were good, as was the goulash soup that we started with. And we brought home delicious apple strudel. So I would go back, just order something different next time (like the vegetarian plate).  

I'm feeling a little spacey right now, because (a) I'm coming down with Teen B's cold that he's had all week, and (b) I just had my second shingles shot, about an hour ago. I am anticipating that the week ahead will not be a good one, at least the first few days. Unlike Teen B, I will dose myself with cold medicine religiously, but that's not going to help with the shingles shot reaction. Plus, I have to give myself my Mounjaro shot tonight. Oh well.

But I will try to make it through the week, keep trying to follow my new resolutions as best I can. This past week I did OK, some good, some bad. I only managed four walks, but four walks is much better than zero walks. We had SNOW on Friday, so amazing, so I didn't walk that day. In this picture, it's just getting started, but later it got really heavy and coated everything with white. I didn't get a picture of the snow on people's lilac bushes, but it was so beautiful, the purple and white.

And then it all melted, most of it before it even got dark. This was a very quick storm. But more is predicted this coming week, maybe Friday to Saturday. It won't help the snowpack much, but it will be wonderful. 

You can see all those leaf bags lined up by the compost & trash bins in the picture -- that's my hard work cutting down junipers and picking up sticks. I did yardwork on four of the five weekdays (the fifth was Friday, when it snowed, and I decided it was OK to take that day off). And I did yardwork all five weekdays the week before. So that's 9 days = 8 leaf bags plus the compost bin itself.

I will try to do the same this week, with the caveat that the shingles shot and the cold may prevent me from doing so. It will be OK.

As I noted above, I took some walks, but not as many as planned. I lifted weights on Tuesday, but not Thursday, and I did not do any stretch videos. I just seem to have no energy these days. But I will keep trying.

I did some writing, including writing a letter to an old friend who I haven't heard from for a few years. I should probably stop writing to her, but she's such an old friend -- I met her in 1979 -- and she's had times before where she got depressed and didn't write. So I figure I'll keep writing occasionally, at least for her birthday, which is in May, until/unless she tells me not to or I hear that something's happened to her. 

I should note that it was a strange week, because our email was shut off from Tuesday night to Friday morning, when Rocket Boy finally managed to get our domain name reinstated. Any emails sent to us during that time just didn't get through -- they're lost forever. I hope there was nothing important. Nothing I can do about it if there was. 

Housework this week was mostly a bust. The house is really getting very dirty, and I have the book group coming in a few weeks, not to mention my sister's brief visit for the twins' graduation. Finally, yesterday, I thought -- what if Teen A stops by with his girlfriend -- or even, horrors, the girlfriend's father -- not that that was likely to happen -- but what if it did -- and they needed to use the bathroom -- and it looks like this. So I set the timer on my phone for TEN MINUTES, and I got busy. I cleaned the sink, the top and sides of the toilet, scrubbed the toilet bowl, and worked on the weird orange stains in the shower.

(Later, Rocket Boy said to me, "Why is the shower wet?" I said, "I cleaned the bathroom, can't you tell?" He hadn't noticed. But if Teen A's girlfriend's father had stopped by, I'm sure he would have noticed if I hadn't cleaned it.)

And then I took a break, and then I set my phone timer for 10 more minutes and cleaned the kitchen (mostly just did dishes and wiped off counters).

Ten minutes is a very bearable amount of time. I will try to remember that this week, do a few more ten minute sessions.

Today I am doing a lot of laundry, speaking of housework, because last night our cat Sillers lost control of her bladder (I think?) while sitting on my pillows. She likes to do this when I'm in bed reading at night. Baby Kitty settles himself on my lap, and Sillers perches on the pillows above my head, nestled close to me. Last night I was reading as usual, and suddenly it felt like someone was pouring warm water down my back. I sat up, looked behind me, and there's this smelly liquid coming down from the cat. She didn't seem even slightly perturbed. I grabbed her and put her on the floor. The stuff was on both pillows and their cases, my nightgown, a little on the sheet, probably in my hair. 

Today, everything's getting washed. I hadn't washed those pillows in ages, so it's probably a good thing. They're currently on the clothesline, baking in the sun (we're beginning a heat wave today).

I don't know what to do about that cat. I think I will call the vet tomorrow. What could have possessed her? She poops all over the house, has no control of that, but she's never peed on anything that I know of. And to pee on the pillows and on me! Sigh. Problems with companion animals.

This might be the place to mention the dead raccoon we found on our neighbor's front lawn a few days ago -- Tuesday, I think it was. Our neighbor on the other side had mentioned seeing a possibly sick raccoon on Friday or Saturday, she'd even called Animal Control and they came out, but couldn't find it. So it somehow made it past our house and died on the other neighbor's lawn. She called Animal Control, but they told her to just double bag it and put it in her trash. I helped her. I lifted the raccoon by its tail and put it in the garbage bag, which she then tied, and then we put it in a second bag. 

I was very glad when the trash was picked up on Friday, knowing the dead raccoon was gone (no, I didn't take a picture of it).

So, the week ahead. Teen A has a dentist appointment on Wednesday morning, and then he and Rocket Boy are flying to Los Angeles on Thursday, to attend Cousin June's memorial service on Friday, and then flying back on Sunday. Teen B and I have several things to do while they're gone: he has his yearly physical on Thursday, we're going to the other high school's spring play on Friday night, and on Saturday he has a haircut appointment. I am HOPING to cram all my sickness and feeling crummy after the shot into the next three days, so I'll be up for things getting more complicated later in the week.

Speaking of which, I think I might go back to bed for a little while. Maybe take some Tylenol for my sore throat, maybe some herb tea with honey. Take it easy. We old people have to look after ourselves. 

A quiet week in springtime

Yes, this was a quiet week for me, no appointments or special things I needed to do. Rocket Boy actually had multiple appointments, including two at 8 am (Thursday and Friday), which meant he needed to get up at 6:30 those days. On Saturday he and I both slept until 10 -- we were so tired! 

But other than that, it was a quiet week, perfect for me to get started with my new resolutions. To refresh your memory, I wanted to (1) be more religious about exercise, (2) do yardwork every weekday morning, (3) write a little every day, and (4) get back into decluttering the house.

I did pretty well with exercise. I went for a walk every day except Friday, so that was good, and I managed to lift weights two days (which was the goal). I did not do any stretch videos, but that's OK. Getting back into walking every day was the main thing. I must say, though, I struggled. On some of the days, I got really tired, and on Tuesday, when I went for a longer walk (1.74 miles), I wasn't sure I would make it back. So I must go a little easier on myself, work my way up to longer walks.

I was successful with doing yardwork, even though some days I really didn't want to. But I got out there all five days. I alternated between front yard and backyard, as I used to do in the summer of 2023, when I did all that yardwork with Teen A. 

I don't like to work in the front yard, because people walking by can see me, and might perhaps comment on what I'm doing wrong or how I should hire someone to get rid of the junipers, etc. But in fact no one does comment, or at least they haven't so far. I don't like working in the backyard because I'm afraid a dog will run in and bite me or a homeless person will come in and attack me, none of which makes any sense -- wouldn't those things be more likely in the front yard? Not that they are likely at all. But the whole time I'm out there, I keep looking around -- are there any threats, is anything in the yard with me -- and I try to keep some sort of weapon (clippers, saw, large branch) in my hand at all times.

It's going to be a long summer.

I also managed to do some writing every day. I'm currently working on a little essay memoir about my wedding, back in 2002. My wedding was absolutely the loveliest experience it could have been -- everything was perfect -- and it was also the most horrible experience it could have been, because of some things that happened the week before it, connected with my difficult sister. Whenever I think about my wedding (usually when I hear about someone else's wedding) I think, oh, it was so lovely, and then I think, well, except that it wasn't. I thought maybe by writing about it, I could tease apart my real feelings about it. So far I have written seven and a half pages and I am no closer to making sense of the experience, but I will keep working on it.

A few nights ago I had my dissertation dream again. This is the dream I have where I realize that I haven't finished my dissertation yet (in some of the dreams I haven't even started it, perhaps don't have a topic, but it varies) and I'd better get busy, because time is running out. (Of course, I actually finished the darn thing almost 30 years ago!) I have this dream every 3-6 months, something like that, and it's been going on for several years. While my advisor was still alive, I would dream that he told me I'd better hurry, he didn't have much time left to help me. After his death, the dreams have been concerned not only with finishing the diss, but with finding a new advisor. The last time I had the dream, I had to meet with the current linguistics faculty, to see if any of them would be willing to work with me, because of course almost everyone who was there when I was there has retired by now.

In this week's version of the dream, I was still trying to find an advisor so I could finish, but it wasn't looking good. I did manage to connect with one professor in the department who I knew slightly as a graduate student. In the dream her last name was Hope (this is not her real name), which must be significant. Anyway, she didn't seem to want to be my advisor. Throughout the dream I kept thinking, this is it, there's no time left, I'm going to have to give up. I'll just be ABD (all but dissertation). It's not so bad. Lots of people are ABD. I tried to reconcile myself to the idea. I was getting there. Lurking in the background of the dream was the sense that I was going to die soon, that I had cancer, which was why I had to give up on the dissertation.

The dream was so vivid, so clear, that I couldn't stop thinking about it (all the dissertation dreams are like this). I kept thinking, what does this MEAN? Is it an anxiety dream? Is it about getting something done before I die? But what? Is there some big project in my real life that I'm worried about completing or being unable to complete in the time I have left? Surely this isn't about the yardwork. Maybe my novels, but are they really so important? Do I have cancer? My health seemed perfect at my physical last month, but... 

I tried to think who I could ask to explain the dream to me. Finally I thought, the only one who knows the answer is me, so I must ask my psyche. So, the last few nights before going to sleep, I said to myself, tell me what the dissertation dreams mean.

The first night, I got no response (that I remember). The second night, last night, I dreamed that I had two long papers to finish. Not dissertations, just long term papers for classes I was taking. I knew exactly how to finish both of them, but I was running out of time, and my sister Barbara kept talking to me. She was cleaning her kitchen and chatting away. Finally I said to her, Barbara, I really need to stop talking to you and go work on my papers.

Was that my answer? It seems like a different dream altogether, although there is that sense of running out of time, but there were no worries about advisors, and I was clearly capable of getting the papers done. I guess I can just keep asking. 

*** 

The one resolution that I completely failed at was decluttering. Man, I really do not like to clean. I did take apart some of the boxes in the living room and put them out for the recycling pickup. But Rocket Boy did some cleaning himself yesterday -- worked on decluttering the living room a little too. He found some of my shoes, some green sandals, buried in a basket and said, "Whose are these?" Whose do you THINK they are, I scolded him. Obviously they're mine. No one else in the family wears green sandals. "Do you still wear them?" Well... I said I did, but later on I tried them on, and they're really ratty. So I threw them in the trash (they're too far gone to donate). Rocket Boy will probably pull them out later and try to do something with them. Arrrggghhh.

I managed to get all the things done (that I did get done) by curtailing my reading time during the day, and that turned out to be less stressful than I'd anticipated. Mainly it just made me eager to go to bed at night, so that I would have more time to read before turning off the light. 

On Friday I kind of ran out of gas. I did the yardwork, and maybe half an hour of writing, but that was all. No walk, no stretch video, just that little bit of cleaning. I didn't even make dinner (bad Mom). Rocket Boy got home at 6:30 and I was lying on the bed reading. He ended up baking himself a frozen pizza. Teen B just had snacks, as did I. I wish I had the kind of family that didn't expect a formal dinner on Friday, but I don't, so, oh well. In penance, yesterday I made the banana bread coffee cake. It didn't turn out that well. The bananas weren't really ripe enough, and I ran out of cinnamon. But it's OK. We've all had some and it's fine.

Now, the week ahead. It will be a funny week because of state testing. Tomorrow is "senior ditch day" again. I have told the twins I will NOT put in an excused absence for them -- if they want to "ditch," it is their decision and they will have to face the consequences. Tuesday and Wednesday they have off, because the other grades are doing state testing and taking the SAT and PSAT. That means Teen A will be off doing Teen A things, and Teen B will be sitting at home pestering me. But also, he and I are supposedly going to practice driving those days, in preparation for him taking the test to get his license. We will see how that goes. Thursday and Friday are normal days, more or less. 

So, I will keep going with my new goals, as best I can. Yardwork every morning, a walk every afternoon, possibly weight lifting and stretch videos in the middle of the day. Some time to write every day. And a little decluttering every day. And of course cooking dinner, bleah. And laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, all that jazz. It'll be a week. Hope yours is a good one.  

Easter and springtime

Happy Easter! And welcome to the second quarter of 2026. This is a strange Easter, as they all are when your kids grow up. Rocket Boy really wanted to hide eggs for the twins (one of whom isn't even here, staying over at his girlfriend's house as usual), but instead, facing reality, he offered up our collection of plastic eggs to our neighborhood listserv on Friday. And someone responded right away, and after some miscommunication finally picked up a big sack of them on Saturday morning. 

So now we have no more eggs (except the random ones that constantly appear and disappear around the house). I didn't even set out our bunnies, as I usually do, or our Easter picture books. All we have on the coffee table are a few jellybeans.

Nevertheless, it feels like a special day. I'm wearing my new yellow shirt, which I think of as my Easter egg shirt. Rocket Boy came with us to Starbucks, which he doesn't usually do. He was hoping there would be a special Easter drink, which of course there wasn't. But Teen B got the iced lavender cream chai, which has a purple top, kind of Easter-y. I got the toasted coconut latte. Rocket Boy just got a chai latte.

Rocket Boy wants to have a special dinner. I, of course, don't, but I compromised. We bought asparagus at Trader Joe's yesterday, and I bought the ingredients for a cheerful spring salad (butter lettuce, avocado, oranges). We had dinner at Aunt Alice's in Longmont and came home with a whole strawberry cream pie. But I told him I don't want to kill anything in honor of Easter. We can have leftovers for a main course (the refrigerator is overflowing) or we can have an omelet. No ham (dead pig), no lamb (dead sheep), not even seafood (dead fish). Unless he wants to handle the whole thing himself. I'm not partaking.

Easter feels like a day of new beginnings, despite the fact that I don't go to church anymore. Coming so early in April this year, it's right at the start of the second quarter, so that's a good time for a refresh.

In the first quarter of the year, what did I do? I read 34 books, saw two movies, went to two concerts and one musical, and saw the Pissarro exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. We took an awesome Spring Break trip through the Upper South. 

I saw my doctor for my yearly physical. I did not lose any weight, in fact, I gained a few pounds (due to eating vast amounts of candy). I was kind of up and down with exercising, some good weeks, some bad. I did not do much writing, nor much housecleaning. I didn't have the energy. 

I kept the house running, cooked dinner, helped with homework, all that jazz. I did the taxes! Our preparer finished them this week and sent them in! Time to watch our bank account for those big refunds (which I'll use to pay our property taxes and the house insurance, sigh).

So, spring quarter, April-May-June. What are my plans?

Well, I would like to read another 30 books or so, see a few more movies. I really want to see the sheep detective movie when it comes out in May, and I'm on the library's waiting list for the dvd of "Hamnet," although I'm number 53, so we'll see. I also ordered a dvd of "Pola X" from Amazon -- that's the movie based on Melville's Pierre. I felt silly buying it, since I'll probably only watch it once, but the only library in the Prospector system that had it won't let it go beyond "local use." And money is so meaningless right now. So I ordered it. What the heck.

I hope to go to three more concerts this quarter -- at least -- the spring band, orchestra, and choir concerts at the high school. Maybe also the spring play at the other high school. Then there's graduation, got to go to that. Before that, in two weeks, there's Prom, so I'll have to shepherd Teen A through that. We still need to get him a tie. And there will be other end-of-year, end-of-high school activities, I'm sure.

I'm not planning to go to Cousin June's memorial service in three weeks. Rocket Boy and Teen A bought their plane tickets this week (and I've already paid off the credit card). I'm sorry I don't want to go, but I don't. I have a very strong negative feeling about it, and I'm respecting that. I'm glad the family will be represented, and I think Rocket Boy and Teen A will have a good time together. Without me there, they may do something wild and crazy, which would be great.

Maybe we'll plan a family trip during the month of June, I'll see.

This quarter I also have a lot of plans for getting things done, and I hope I'm not planning too much. I had no energy in the first quarter of the year -- who's to say anything will be different in the second quarter? But maybe the sunshine and warmth will help.

1. I want to be more religious about exercise. I want to go on a walk every day possible (i.e., excepting days when the weather's terrible or I'm sick or we just have too many other things scheduled). I also want to get back into doing stretch videos and lifting weights. Ideally, I would have two exercise periods each weekday: a stretch video or weight lifting AND a walk. And extra walks on weekends.
    
2. I want to start doing yardwork again every weekday morning, 20-30 minutes. Got to get back to cutting down those junipers, even though it's not much fun. At the start of May, plant my flowers (I don't think I need to wait for the last freeze date this year, sigh). 
   
   
3. I want to write, at least a short bit every day.
   
   
4. I want to get back into decluttering the house. Specifically, I want to clean out the twins' room in preparation for them going to college. I probably wouldn't start that until late May, after graduation. I thought I could do it gradually, assign myself to one small section of the room each week (a set of shelves, a section of the closet, the space under their beds, the dresser they share). I used to think this was something they would do themselves, but the fact that they're basically not speaking to each other has made that impossible. Teen A has worked on the area around his bed a little, but that's all. No reason to wait for them to sort it out. I should just get busy. 

If I'm going to do all this -- or even a small part of it -- I'm going to need to borrow time from other places. What do I spend time on now that I could give up for these activities?

Well, reading. Maybe my goal shouldn't be to read 10 books each month, maybe it should only be 7. Or just however many it turns out to be.

I think mainly, though, my time gets used up in feeling sick and having no energy. I don't know what to do about that. I did think I might try to eat better. For example, eat lunch every day, don't snack on candy and then just wait until I feel awful to drag myself out to the kitchen and stare unhappily at the contents of the refrigerator (incidentally, it's currently 2:23 pm and I have not had lunch). Plan lunches, even. Buy bread (we have none at the moment) and make myself a peanut butter and jam sandwich at 1 pm every day. Or eat leftovers. Or cottage cheese. But something. 

I also spend a lot of time avoiding things. Every night I make a to-do list for the following day. Certain things on it I do pretty much without thinking: feed cats, start laundry. Some things I don't want to do, but I do them (emptying the dishwasher, eating breakfast). Other things I actively avoid, and that takes time and energy. Examples are the litter boxes and hand-dishwashing. I hate cleaning the litter boxes because I have to bend over and that bothers my stomach. I can't get through the three boxes without triggering an episode of heartburn! So of course I avoid them. 

Hand-dishwashing isn't painful, but it isn't fun. We have so many dishes that can't go in the dishwasher, and most of them are large -- big pots and pans, ancient cookie sheets, and worst of all, our reusable to-go containers, which we take with us to restaurants, keep in the fridge full of leftovers, and Rocket Boy takes his lunch to work in them. It just seems like there's always a stack of them waiting to be washed, and they are such a pain, full of nooks and crannies. The photo here is what I actually have waiting for me at this very moment. FOUR to-go containers, plus a small cookie sheet. Ugh. It's impossible to wash them without splattering myself. Their lids are attached, so they're big and they don't really fit in the sink.

Complain, complain. 

I think the only way to keep from having tasks like this derail me is to not plan to do them early in the day. Schedule them for the evening, when Rocket Boy might even do them for me (he won't do the litter boxes, but he might do dishes). 

Well, I don't know. I'm probably planning too much and I'll probably totally fail at all of it. But all I can do is try. 

Something else that I want to get done is Teen B's driver's license. I told him this week that we need to either do that OR get him an ID. He said, "why can't I just take the test?" So we agreed that on April 14-15, when the kids have the day off due to state testing, we'll go out and do some practice driving. And then I will schedule his test.

Once that's done, whatever the outcome, we need to apply for passports. Rocket Boy convinced Teen A to get his last year, which was smart. I want to get mine renewed and I want Teen B to get one too. Of course, if the stupid SAVE act passes, a LOT of other people will be doing the same thing, but we'll just get in line. 

And so on, one task after another. In the beautiful time which is spring. 

Reading post: March

In March I planned to focus on "classics," loosely defined, that at some point in the past I said I'd like to read. "Classics" are often long books, so I figured I wouldn't read very many this month, but it turned out that length wasn't the problem. I just had all these other things to read, like book after book about autism and a very long biography of Dwight David Eisenhower, and the book for the book group. My "brief reviews" book this month was long too. It's fine! It's all good. I can read classics some other time.

Books I said I'd like to read (Classics)

Passing by Nella Larsen (1929). In 2020, I read Larsen's first novel, Quicksand, and noted,

Larsen is better known for her second novel, Passing, but that was checked out at the library (I might read it later). 

Passing is short, only about 120 pages, and very tightly organized. I didn't enjoy the book, but I was fascinated by the subject, the question of "passing" as white, back in the days of Jim Crow and the one-drop rule. The main character, Irene, who occasionally tries to pass, is forced to think deeply about the subject when she meets an old friend, Clare, who is married to a white racist and thus passing 100% of the time, but still wants to hang out with Black people, including possibly Irene's husband. It is a thought-provoking book.

Pierre or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville (1852). In 2019, I read Moby-Dick, inspired in part by Jill Lepore's article on Melville in the New Yorker. In that article she also discusses Pierre, which I had never heard of, so I made a note that I'd like to read it. Hmm. The edition I got from the library is truncated -- it's an attempt to recreate Melville's original version, before he tacked on some extra stuff to appease his dubious publishers. But that means it's not the Pierre that other people have read. Probably doesn't matter. This edition also has wonderful illustrations by Maurice Sendak, so that's a plus. 

Anyway, Pierre is one of the weirder books I have ever read. Moby-Dick is actually not hard to read, but Pierre is -- I think intentionally -- written in this florid, confusing style that was just so hard to get through. The story itself is nuts. Pierre, 19 years old and engaged to be married to blonde Lucy, meets a dark young woman, Isabel, who claims to be his half-sister (from an illicit affair his father had before marrying his mother). Pierre, who has a weird, vaguely incestuous relationship with his widowed mother -- he calls her "sister" -- doesn't want to destroy his father's reputation by acknowledging Isabel, but he wants to take care of her. So he comes up with a crazy scheme: pretend that he has married Isabel (his sister -- maybe -- but no one else knows that) and then run away with her. He breaks up with Lucy, his mother disowns him, his cousin pretends not to know him, his mother dies and leaves the estate to the cousin. Lucy, who still loves Pierre, comes to live with him and Isabel, and her mother disowns her. And then they all die (sorry for the spoiler -- was anyone actually going to read this?). Completely nuts. Well, I've read it. It's done.

Books from the New Yorker's "Briefly Noted" reviews

The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Gregg A. Hecimovich (2023). No one really knows who wrote The Bondwoman's Narrative (the oldest known novel written by an American Black woman), but Hecimovich makes a good case for Hannah Crafts. In part the book is fascinating -- the research that he and others did is just wild. But I found his descriptions of the men who owned her to be boring and hard to follow. I kept thinking, you shouldn't have written this chapter like this, you should have done XYZ differently. A family tree would have helped. So it's a mixed bag, but in general pretty darn amazing. I will now have to read The Bondwoman's Narrative.

Other reading

Your Child is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Without Losing Your Marbles by Heidi Mavir (2023). My third book about autism, and I liked it a lot. The author's son was not diagnosed until he was 14 and started experiencing autism burnout. The author is herself also autistic, diagnosed late in life, and the second half of the book is more about her, which I was less interested in. Also, she's in England, and things seem different there. She had a lot of horror stories about how parents of neurodivergent kids are treated. I learned a lot from this book, especially the first few chapters, and I liked her attitude. I started to think that perhaps I haven't done everything wrong with Teen B, perhaps I've even done some things right. What a thought.

Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism by Barry M. Prizant with Tom Fields-Meyer (2015). My fourth book about autism and it was great. Everyone with an autistic kid should read this. I may even buy the updated edition from 2022. As far as I can tell, there are two possible approaches to autism: behaviorally modify the heck out of kids until they act more normal OR let them be themselves and work to understand what makes them happy and less stressed. The first approach (ABA) is very popular these days, but Prizant follows the second approach, which appeals to me (it may be possible to do some of both). Really good book. Rocket Boy read it too, after I finished it.

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith (2012). I am so close to the end of my presidential biography project! Eisenhower was elected in 1952, serving until 1960, when I was born. My parents were Adlai Stevenson supporters, so I grew up thinking there was nothing to like about Ike. In fact, I think he was a pretty good president (based on this book), although he made some very bad decisions, causing the current mess in Iran and destabilizing Guatemala. I was also uncomfortable about his romantic history, his affair with Kay Summersby and his relationship with his rather trivial wife Mamie. I was planning to read just this one book about Ike, but now I'm thinking I might read Kay's tell-all book, Past Forgetting. I'll see.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (2020). The book group book. I was really interested in reading this book about Shakespeare's son who died at age 11, possibly of bubonic plague (but we don't know). It's mainly about his mother, Anne/Agnes Hathaway, an interesting decision since nothing much is known about her. So O'Farrell makes up all kinds of stuff, turning her into almost a Mary Sue. Then Hamnet dies and Agnes becomes more human. I don't know. I found the book disappointing. I was hoping for something like Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, which is my idea of a perfect work of historical fiction. This isn't that. I'd like to see the movie, though. Wonder what the book group will think of the book.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman (2015). My fifth book about autism. It's 477 pages long, but I started reading it on the 25th and finished it on the 27th. It's fascinating. The author is a journalist, not a clinician, and it's not a book about how to deal with autism -- although there are lots of horror stories about what NOT to do. It's a history book, all about how autism was first recognized, the ways in which it has been misunderstood, the different approaches to treating it, all the controversies, and where we are now -- or were, in 2015. Supposedly there's an updated version of this book too, and I think I should buy it. A very useful, helpful reference.

March is ending, as are many things

We're almost at the end of March, traditionally one of my least favorite months. This year was somewhat different. As usual, I couldn't handle the twins' birthday, messed it all up, but we got through it. The anniversary of my father's death didn't seem to bother me this year (maybe after 37 years I'm OK with it?). And the weather has been so weird, so sunny and warm. It worries me, but it's hard to be miserable when the sun is shining and the flowers are starting to bloom.

Speaking of flowers, on my walk the other day I spotted a lilac in full bloom! It is too early for that. I am not sure when exactly lilacs bloom, but I think mid-April is more normal. Not March. 

Our lilac blooms in May, normally, and it doesn't look as if it's going to be early this year. In fact, it shows no sign of being alive. No, I take that back, I just spotted some teeny-tiny leaves on the branches. So, it's alive, but it won't blossom for a long time. That's a relief.

Yesterday, we participated in the No Kings rally and march in Boulder. It was hard to decide where to go -- we considered going up to Longmont or even down to Denver. All the little towns around us had their own protests too. But in the end we stayed in Boulder. We parked in Teen A's parking place in the student lot at Boulder High and walked over to where people were gathering by the bandshell. They were playing 60s protest music ("For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, etc.) and then some people gave short speeches, but we couldn't understand a word, too far away.

Then everyone started moving toward the street, so we followed. They had actually closed off the streets -- that's a first in Boulder for anything other than the Christmas parade and the Bolder Boulder race. With thousands of other people we marched down Canyon, turned right on 9th, turned right on Pine, and then right again on Broadway. 

When we got to Broadway, we kept going, crossed the street, and walked toward Arapahoe. The idea was that everyone would wave their signs as people drove by and honked -- but no one could drive by because the streets were blocked off! We waited for 15 minutes or so, but it seemed like the march would go on for a long time yet, the streets were still blocked off, and we were hot and tired. It was around 80 degrees! In March! We decided it was OK for us to go home -- we're old. The young people could stay and wait for the streets to open. I hope they did.

I was depressed before the protest, and had trouble making a sign. What can you put on a single sign, when so many things are wrong all at once? This is what I came up with -- so silly. Rocket Boy did not approve of it (I didn't approve of his sign, either). But today in the paper they mentioned someone in Kansas who had the same sign as me (with presumably different cats, lol), so I felt vindicated. And a few people laughed at my sign, so that was a good thing. I always think other people's signs are so wonderful and mine are dumb, but it was OK.

It's kind of blowing my mind that March is ending. The kids have only six weeks left of regular school, then finals week, and then they graduate on May 17th. It's going to go so fast. 

I keep thinking of that book I read last August, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly. I really disliked the book... and yet, the title keeps running through my head. Of course, as I noted last year, EVERY year is a year of no do-overs -- you can't do a year over. And yet... senior year is really that year. If you don't go to prom, you can't go to prom the next year, because you will have graduated. If you don't take astronomy with Mr. C., you can't take astronomy with Mr. C. next year (though you could take it in college). If you don't go to the cast party for the spring musical (which Teen B is missing right now), you can't go to the cast party next year. And so on. This is it. It's almost over. No do-overs. After graduation, it's on to adult life.

But the kids seem OK with that idea. They've both made their decisions about college, and we've started filling out the forms. Teen A got started last week and then his girlfriend got home from her spring break trip and he ran off to see her. So we'll have to finish his forms soon, but at least Metro knows he's coming. Teen B made his decision today (he might have made it already, but he TOLD me about it today). He's going to go to CSU, which I think is a good choice. We started his application and I paid the $300 deposit. We'll do more as the week goes on -- there are a million things to fill out. 

*** 

Yesterday we got word that Rocket Boy's cousin June had died, Friday night, at the age of 90. She was born in 1935 -- in June, of course -- so if she'd lived a couple more months she would have made it to 91. She had serious dementia, though, and had been bedridden and on hospice since early January, and you could just hear the relief in her daughter's voice when Rocket Boy called her last night. "We haven't been able to go out to dinner together for years," she told him, referring to herself and her husband, who were June's caregivers. "We just thought, tonight, we could go out to dinner!"

Rocket Boy had meant to go to California for a visit after we heard June was on hospice, but he didn't do anything about it. I know he thought he had more time. So he'll probably go to the memorial service, which will be in mid to late April, and I'll go too if I can figure out how to make it work. It'll probably be the same weekend as prom. Hmm. We'll see.

June came to our wedding, in August 2002. So that's 23 and a half years ago, so she would have been only 67. Two years older than I am now. Twenty-five years from now, will people be hearing about my death and thinking about something that happened this year (such as the twins' graduation)?

June was not someone who did anything important in her life. She raised four children, who have experienced various degrees of success or failure (one is deceased). She buried two husbands, as they say. She worked as a cafeteria lady in a public school. I don't think she did any volunteer work or anything like that after she retired. She mainly liked to shop and watch TV. But she was a nice person, and I liked her a lot. I always looked forward to visiting her when we went to southern California, because she was such a good gossip. Not a mean gossip, but an opinionated one, always full of interesting stories about her various relatives and friends. She had a good sense of humor and was very fair. Also a Democrat, which always helps. She liked Obama, disliked Trump. She liked people!

I will miss her. Even though we knew she was already gone -- the dementia was very advanced when we last saw her, in June 2024 -- actual death seems different. More final, yeah?

*** 

I spent quite a bit of this past week reading, trying to finish various books by the end of March. I kind of bypassed my plans for the month (to read classics) and read books about autism instead. I'll write more about that in my reading post (probably on Tuesday), but here I'll just mention the last book I read, NeuroTribes, which is about the history of autism and how it's been interpreted and diagnosed and treated through the years. One thing the author, Steve Silberman, mentioned really brought me up short. He said that autistic people tend to find each other, tend to be attracted to each other, like they're finding their own people. 

Now, I've never for a moment thought I might be autistic. I've always had lots of friends, I like being with people. I have very well-rounded intelligence. One common trait of autistic people is "spiky intelligence," where they're really good at one thing, i.e., math, and really terrible at others, i.e., reading and writing (Teen B is terribly spiky). I'm good at almost everything. My SAT and GRE scores were almost identical for math and language arts. I'm creative, love to make up stories. I'm also pretty good at time management and organization. I alphabetize everything -- spices, books, records. I organize our family's vacations. I make charts and plans for all kinds of things.

But... It's a fact that a lot of people don't like me. They liked me in high school, in college, in grad school - but not anymore. I've almost given up trying to make friends. Men sometimes like me, but women just don't. I don't know why. One experience I've had is when people get to know me through my writing, they think they're going to like me, and then when they meet me in person -- nope. In fact, they often actively dislike me. I don't know why this happens, I just know it does.

Also... I really like routine. I write this blog every Sunday and have done so for YEARS. I don't know of any bloggers who are as regular as I am. Most people gave up on it long ago, or if they still do it, they do it only occasionally. I hate it when I miss a Sunday. Sometimes Teen B annoys me, the way he always wants to stick to routines, but I'm honestly just as bad (they're just slightly different routines). 

And autistic people are prone to depression and anxiety. Well, hello me. Of course, plenty of neurotypical people also have those issues. Still, hmm.  

Now, going back to that attraction thing. Before I met Rocket Boy, I knew I had a type. I described the type as "physicists and engineers," but I knew that wasn't exactly it. My Michigan boyfriend, Steve, is a lawyer. My high school boyfriend, Greg, is a doctor. But they, and most of the other guys I've been interested in through the years, have things in common. I've always thought of it as just being really smart, but that isn't it either, not exactly. My high school boyfriend wasn't that smart. Plus, really smart "normal" guys are of no interest to me whatsoever. They bore me, honestly. I feel like they're members of a different species.

I met Rocket Boy at the Boulder Singles Hikes "Anniversary Hike," in June 2000, on Father's Day. There were a lot of people there that day, and as they milled around, waiting to find out where we were going to hike, I scanned the crowd, looking for someone, anyone, that I might be interested in. I spotted Rocket Boy and immediately zeroed in on him. I thought he was cute, but it wasn't just that. He had this LOOK in his eye, this abstracted look. He was wandering the edges of the crowd, observing something -- I don't know what. He definitely wasn't doing what I was doing, looking for appealing members of the opposite sex. He had things going on in his head. THAT's what I'm attracted to, that sense that someone is thinking about something that goes way beyond what's actually happening.

Can you be attracted to autistic people without being autistic yourself? Am I autistic, even a little bit? It doesn't really matter whether I am or not, at this point in my life, but it is interesting -- and very puzzling -- to think about.

***

So, the week ahead. A few more days of March, and then we move on into April. Like last year, it looks like we're going to have more "weather" in April than we did in March. Starting Tuesday, there's a chance of rain every day, and we could even get snow Friday and Saturday nights. We could really use the moisture, any moisture, in any form, plus, it means I can wear my lavender raincoat!

The book group meets Tuesday night, finally, and Teen A has an eye doctor appointment on Wednesday. Those are the only things on the calendar, so it'll be a fairly uneventful week. I'll cook and clean and read and write and go for walks -- at least when it's not raining hard. Next Sunday is Easter. I don't have to hide eggs anymore, but Rocket Boy likes us to have some sort of special dinner, so I'll have to think about that. And on we go, into the last six weeks of high school classes. OMG.