April for Team Austin

It's been a while, let's make a Catalog of life.

The last few months have been a swing down and then back up.  Tyler was having some trouble in school, in the way that kids his age usually do.  He was hitting other kids and not listening well, and so we met with the teachers to see what we could do about it.  We ended up trying a lot of things, and some combination worked.  Jess spent some time with him in his classroom, we started a chart of good behavior at home that he could use to get Ice Cream on Fridays, and one of the kids that we knew he was having trouble with ended up leaving the class.  Something in there helped him out enough that we have not been having nearly so many problems now.  He still loses control occasionally, but not too often.  And at his age, that's kinda expected.  They don't have the neurology to evaluate and hold back an impulse.  He's just not set up for it.  It would be like expecting him to run a 5k with me.  He's just not equipped for it yet.  But he's getting better day by day.

In August he heads off to PUBLIC SCHOOL.  I'm reserving judgement until I see what it's like.  I have a little bit of optimism just because he'll be starting with a few friends he knows from the street, and hopefully that will help him put it in a positive light.  But I've heard from parents that have had good experiences with public schools and parents that have had terrible experiences with public schools.  It depends a lot on the school, and the district, and especially the teacher.  We'll see how he does, and adjust accordingly.  That's right, we don't have a plan. We're winging it.  That's what parents do.  They just make it seem like it's part of the plan with their steady voice and noble bearing.  We're panicking inside.

Casey is super cute.  She's rounded the corner on Talking and is now interested in parroting a lot of words and picking up new ones as quick as she can.  She's even put together a few ideas of her own from different words she knows.  She'll probably be an author.  She likes to sing, too.  We do a pretty adorable rendition of "little boxes".  I should record it.

Oh, Mom and Dad got me an Audio Interface for Christmas which allows me to use my fancy microphones to record the kids.  I have done so to catalog how goddamn adorable their voices are.  I should post up some stuff in podcast form.  The audio quality is really nice.

This has also allowed me to start doing "Let's Play" videos with Tyler.  I edit them down a bit to just the funny parts, and I do it all in Microsoft Movie Maker (Super low-level stuff) so it's not like I'm planning to burn up the Internet with my new hilarious Content.  At least, not right away.  But it does make me pretty cool that I can record Mincraft Let's Plays with my kid.  I'm a cool dad.

Jess and I hit a rough patch for a while, but we're getting better.  I want to have a record of when it happened for to remind myself later.

Jessie's mom lives in Austin now?  I guess I don't know when I wrote the last one of these, but having her around for babysitting has been great.  Jess and I go out for a lot more dates.  We've even been going out to Adult Skate at playland Skate Center.  I'm getting pretty good.  It's great exercise, too.

On Friday I take Tyler to his first Martial Arts class.  It starts out very introductory.  Next week we can start attending classes.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm excited for the exercise as well as doing something fun with Tyler.  He tends to not want to try new stuff, though, so it will be an experiment for both of us.  Oh, and I'm taking the class too.  I'm not missing the opportunity to break stuff with my super strong hands.

Tyler had his birthday, so he's 5.  Casey will turn 2 soon.  I have been a parent for 5 years.  College didn't take this long.

I'm working on painting a big diorama for ReaperCon this year.  Which is in October, and that's good, since I'll be painting this thing for a long, long time.

And now it's late and I want to go to bed.  So good night, see everyone in another few months.

-N

My new car: A saga

In my current job, I have a pretty long commute that is mostly through traffic. I do what I can to avoid the worst of the traffic, but the fact of the matter is I usually spend a couple hours every week inching my way home on a ribbon of pavement with thousands of other commuters. My Prism gets decent fuel economy, but it does not have AC, so in the summer I was acutely aware of how much exhaust all these cars are dumping into the air. Bleck.

I had basically made up my mind to get an electric car next, and over the holidays we had enough time to make those shopping decisions (and by we, I mean Matt). He had settled on a Chevy Spark EV- a small hatchback electric. One little wrinkle, it isn't sold in WA. But it is sold in Oregon. After a bit more research we learn we cant just go down there and buy a new one, but we can buy a used one.

I want to tell this story, but its a bit complicated and quite drawn out, so I will try to fit it to a timeline for you. Its a little more fun if you try to imagine a laugh track being played along with it.

Dec 25: We celebrate Xmas with Betty. We tell her we might spend a few days in Portland car shopping.
Dec 26: Return home.
Dec 27: Water pressure drops- main line is leaking int he yard. We turn off water, and dig a hole to find the leak.
Dec 28: We schedule a plumber. They fail to show up. Matt watches some YouTube videos and fixes it himself.
Dec 29: Plumber comes and tells us to fill in the hole. Not to worry about the line until it gives us serious problems. (This is foreshadowing.)
Dec 31: Matt finds a used Spark online, contacts a dealer and agrees to buy it if they will ship it. They agree to overnight us the papers to make the sale final.

Jan 2: No papers in sight, but we go to Mt Rainier for the weekend. We go snowshoeing and stay at a lodge in the park. It is wonderful. The lodge has a shared shower facility; we opt to shower when we get home.
Jan 3: We go snowshoeing, and head home, fantasizing about warm showers. At home, there is a note from the city on our door: We shut of your water, it was leaking and freezing in the street. Please call the utility. (For the record, no papers from the auto dealer. Also, different leak than the one Matt fixed.)
Jan 4: Plumbers come to give us estimates on replacing the mainline. We connect a hose to the neighbors house to run water. The plumber is scheduled for a week out
Jan 6: Matt calls dealer to ask about missing paper work. They agree to over night it right away.
Jan 7: I get a ticket for expired tabs on the Prism. Which I would not be driving if my new car had arrived.

Jan 9: Paper work arrives, post marked Jan 8. We sign and return it, expecting it to arrive Jan 11.
Jan 10: Matt calls dealer. Loan goes through (Matt will call the dealer every day this week to ask various versions of whats the hold up?) The plumber comes to start the replacement process. He goes home sick
Jan 11: Replacement plumber comes to finish the job. Water is turned back on. Faucets no longer smell like hose.

Jan 14: Shipment of the car is scheduled.

Jan 16: I fly to Austin for a week. Later that afternoon, the car arrives. The dealer has not included temporary plates. Matt calls the dealer. Again.

Jan 20: Temporary plates arrive. Real plates should arrive in ~3 weeks if the dealer has done this properly. (Not real confident that this is the case.) Matt can legally test drive the car. The car we agreed to buy Dec 29.

Jan 25: I take the car for its first commute. I get rear ended on the way home. *rimshot*

Now at this point, the claim on the accident AND the actual permanent  plates are still outstanding, but we are hoping the worst is behind us. A friend suggested I needed to make amends to the old car, to clean up my car Karma and maybe make things right there.

I rescued a cat. I feel terrible.

I had a doctors appointment today (1 year post-op!), which means I worked from home and walked. On my way home, I noticed a little lump of fur in the leaves by the side walk. It hissed at me, and then meowed pathetically. And when I looked at it straight on, it hissed, and then meowed again. Heart breaking meows, like I am so sorry for that hiss, but I dont feel good right now and I am scared, and I am cold, and I am alone...

Well, I couldn't unsee that, I couldn't unhear that, and I couldn't walk away. I have no idea what to do though. I am on the side of a busy street, with no other pedestrians. This cat doesn't have a collar, and might be mean. I pull out my phone, and look for cat rescue, which leads me to animal control, who tell me to take the cat to a vet clinic. I call the vet clinic (because really? You can just leave stray, injured animals there?), and they say, well, actually, take it to the animal hospital. If the cat looks injured (and this one seems not right about the back legs), its going to need care all night, and we go home. A guy came by to check on the cat, and said it had been there since 6am. He also didn't know what to do. But now I have been talking to the cat, and it let me pet its head a bit.

I am going to help this cat.

I go back to the doctors office and get a box with a lid. I take my sweater off and put my coat back on. The cat is shivering, and it doesn't mind when I throw a sweater on it. I figure I can cover the sharp bits with the sweater to move it into the box and slam the lid on. But the cat doesn't fuss at all when I pick it up. It also cant move its hind legs when I get it in the box. Its legs are sticking out so I cant get the lid shut.

I just have to get the cat to the hospital.

I am talking to the cat the whole way home. Its ok. You are having a bad day. Almost there. You are so brave. Good kitty. Its ok, buddy. ... And the cat is talking back. That same, lonely, scared meow. The hospital is close, and they gladly spring to action. Lets get him into a room, and have a look, they say.

Now the cat is warm and alert. And friendly. He nuzzles the microchip scanner the detects nothing. He nuzzles the vet tech as she pulls him onto a clean towel. He looks for a new hand to nuzzle as the vet tech pinches those back legs to see if he feels anything. Nothing. She says he has no circulation back there. She takes him back to see a doctor, and they tell me Thanks for bringing him in.

I am going to hold my cat and cry now.

I am pretty sure they are going to put that cat down. They probably already did. Matt says dying by the side of the road would be worse than going to a cat hospital. And that is true, but now I feel like I lost a cat that was mine for a while. I feel like I lied to the cat. I feel like if I could be so moved by a cat, why do I not do more to help with human suffering? I feel like I should not have left the cat to be put down by strangers, when I might have stayed with it. I feel like my rescue backfired. I almost want to call the hospital to see what happened to the cat, but the outcome seems so obvious. For a minute today, I thought I was going to be a hero, but now I just feel heart sick.

Biannual Blogging

Things kinda fell apart there for a while for me. I've been doting around with various forms of antidepressants for a while and without entirely noticing it I had fallen back pretty hard with my attempted solution. It's meant something of a personal reset, but I think I'm doing better now, and Jessie agrees.

I'm much less busy now. I don't run as often or as long, and I haven't touched my VR project in a couple of months. It's intentional. I wanted to spend some time just relaxing with my free time and seeing what that did for me, instead of turning every moment of the day into currency to be spent against future happiness. Current happiness has some value too. So for the last few months I've just been playing video games in the evening. Because I want to. I don't have to do job hunting or skill developing or anything else I don't want to do. I just pick something I enjoy and I'm doing that for a while. It's gone well.

I'm back on antidepressants as well, and it's helping. The side effects aren't as bad as the symptoms they help with, so there's no reason to complain. It does seem to make everything just a little bit easier to process, a little less of a burden. I like that.

Hobbies...I'm trying them out slowly. I'm less interested in finding some activity that will bring me some measure of bliss I'm just...trying stuff. I'm taking a portrait drawing class. It's all right. It's not making me think I need to get seriously into portraiture, but I like taking it. After the class is over, maybe I'll take another. Or maybe I'll try something else. I'm trying not to be so damn intense about it.

Work...I dunno, man. I still don't like it at all, but I'm trying to complain about it less. They pay me a lot of money, I try to focus on that. I'll work on things in bits and pieces and see what I can do with my career, but it's not worth wrecking myself over. Nothing is.

Fran lives here now. We bought a condo for her and helped her move over from Florida. It's great to have the help. We get to go out on date nights and she helps with chores, and when the kids get into regular school, critically, she'll help to pick them up. It's expensive, and our finances have taken enough of a hit that I'm eying our budget more carefully. Date night is a nice perk though.

To the kids: Tyler continues to improve his attitude in fits and starts. He got really angry a lot for a while there, but has gotten better at managing his anger. Growing older helps, as does a buffet of other things we have tried, I assume. Also moving up into the next class where there is more to do and more to challenge him. His reading is definitely coming along. Every time he reads me a book he gets a piece of chocolate. I'm willing to keep this up indefinitely if needed. He has been carrying a big plastic t-rex around with him lately. He asked if the t-rex could sit at the dinner table with us today. I said yes, and the t-rex was quite well behaved. Also Tyler ate two bowls of Squash soup, which is nice.

We have started to play some video games together, too. He likes to play minecraft and to explore and jump into lava. He gets a really big smile when I let him be in control and he walks us forward into a pit of lava and we lose all our stuff. I don't mind, it's a big smile.

Casey is a full-on Toddler now. She walks around a lot, and even likes to walk instead of being carried sometimes (because that's what her big brother is doing.) She is starting to talk more and more:

PPPPPPtttt = Please

Peessssss = Please also, but with Less spitting. I try to encourage this one

Ma-Me Ma-Me = Give me that!

Raaar = The sound that lions and Bears and Dinosaurs make

“I know” = What daddy says to her when she is fussy, and what she says in response

She's a pretty champion Babbler. She likes to hold books and make lots of sounds at you, which is what she assumes you are doing when you read a book to her. She also gives kisses and hugs and nuzzles on command, and likes to wave hello and bye-bye to strangers, which is the cutest goddamn thing in the world. Also she wears pigtails sometimes which are so cute they should be illegal. She's flipped over to liking mommy more now, which does happen with kids, but it was nice when she thought I was the best. I'm sure she'll be back eventually.

Micronews:

I've started eating Soylent for Breakfast and lunch. Being as I have been eating the same thing for breakfast and the same thing (nearly) for lunch every day for the past decade or more, it's not a huge adjustment.

We lost a set of keys, and getting car keys replaced is real damn expensive.

Jess may get Lasic!

Next blog should be in 2016 sometime...

-N

Mom and Dad's Wedding Announcement

In going through Nana's momentos, I found this. I am always amazing by what she still kept. She and I sat together while she ruthlessly parsed out old photos, giving them to children and nieces or nephews, or just straight to the bin. Before she moved to Bothell, she was feeling particularly unsentimental about objects, but this gem she kept. Or at least, she allowed me to "hold on to it for her" at my house.

Preecs-Warner Wed

Buried in other albums are choice photos from the wedding itself, including the remarkable pink tuxedo. I just think it's lovely that this treasured clipping still exists. Especially given Nana's fondness for newspaper clippings.

Eulogy I read for Nana 8/16

For those of you I haven’t met yet, Martha was my Nana. Nana was a role model in so many things: being a loving wife, mom, grandmother and great-grandmother, being an engaged political citizen and community member, aging gracefully, staying open minded and always learning. I learned a lot from her life and her stories. But perhaps the most important thing I’ve tried to learn from her is how to really listen to people with love. 

When I was in college, I would visit her and Papa, and they were so excited to listen to my dreams and plans. And what I noticed is that she was always listening in a way that reflected the best in me. I told her about my ambitions to study science, and work to discover new drug treatments- she told anyone who would listen I was going to cure Alzheimer’s Disease. When my husband Matt got a job at PACCAR doing sustaining engineering, she told her friends he was making a greener truck. Now, of course, she is my grandmother- it makes sense that she would hold me in high esteem. But since I have been able to spend time with her as an adult, I’ve realized :This is how she listened to everyone.

I am so fortunate that when Matt and I moved back to Washington from Pittsburgh, she decided to move closer to us. It was a huge adjustment for her, but she took it on with an enthusiasm for change that it uncommon for people her age- or frankly people my age. So, thank you to the friends in Spokane who let her leave, and thank you to her friends in Bothell for helping her to never regret the decision to move.

 

I was impressed by how considerate she was of new friends- she used to carry a little notepad to write down people’s names as she met them so she wouldn’t do them the injustice of forgetting their names. And she didn’t limit her circles. When she realized how many of the nursing staff at the Chateau were immigrants, she got a map, and would ask each of them to point out where they were from so she could really learn about them and their histories. Many of the servers in the Chateau dining room are young, and she gladly nourished their ambitions for school and careers and travel. Because she always made time, and paid attention to people in a really personal, compassionate way, she brought out the most patient, considerate side in others.

Since Martha’s passing, I have heard from so many people how sorely she will be missed. Thank you all for recounting your stories of how kind and generous Nana was with her time and attention. As you all know, She made friends quickly. She delighted to share and celebrate your fantastic stories with me-athletes who completed amazing feats swimming huge distances in open water, artists who were perfecting a craft shaped by years of practice and the thrill of travel, and even one guy single handedly restoring an amphibious landing craft in Portland Oregon. When Nana describes her friends to me, they always sound young, vital and full of a joy for life, which is something she just brought out in people. 

She just had a way of warmly acknowledging everyone to make them feel special.

When I defended my doctorate, she proudly traveled to Pittsburgh to listen to my seminar and defense. At the after party, she pulled out her camera and took pictures of every single person who came to wish me well- not just the faculty and my close friends, but the post-docs, the undergraduates and the techs. There were probably 100 people there. She was thrilled to celebrate with all these people who must have played an important role in my education; she knew they must be special because they turned out to support me. She chatted with every single person at the party, and for weeks afterwards, people told me how charming my grandmother the photographer was. 

A few years ago, we took a trip to Winthrop with Nana and my mother-in-law Betty. There were people who looked like me and my husband, who were returning from bike rides or hikes, people who looked like Betty or even Nana, who were perhaps gallery shopping or RVing.  Nana wanted a picture of us happily enjoying lunch at a brewery, so of all the available patrons, she of course turned to the table of surly-looking, leatherclad bikers pounding beers at the table next to us, and asks them for a photo. One of these tough guys hops up with a “Yes ma’am,” very happy to oblige. I was already bemused with the interaction, then she sincerely asks him about his shirt- he is wearing a Caribbean beer shirt, with bright colors and scantily clad ladies. And Surly McBikerGang lights up and tells her about the joy of lazing on the beach and partying in Belize. And she of course has heard such wonderful things about Central America from her dear friend who has a tree house in Costa Rica… the way they hit it off, I thought he was going to buy her a beer. But that was Nana: she always saw the best in people- these weren’t thug bikers, these were a few guys enjoying each other’s company just like us, and she brought out the best in people just by treating them like they truly are treasures. 

I hope to spend the rest of my life working to be as warm and loving to every human I encounter as she showed me how to be. To Nana, everyone was special, and everyone was worthy of her time and attention.  She will be sorely missed, and fondly remembered by everyone who had the great pleasure of knowing her.

Forever GreatNana

This morning, the lights dimmed for the last time for our beloved Mom, Nana, Gramma, Auntie, and friend. She was blessed by the presence and support of her niece and fellow Christian Scientist, RayAnne who was with her at the end reading her entries from Science and Health. It was quiet and peaceful, consistent with her life.

We remember her as all the vessel of all the admirable qualities the human spirit can express: kindness, strength, compassion, courage and on and on. At 66 years old, I still wanted to impress her, make her proud, be a good son to such an amazing mother.

She survived the Depression, WWII, teenage boys, 30 years of retirement, 65 years of marriage, 5 years of widowhood, and a lifetime of friendships. 94 years covers a lot of human history and family life. She never seemed to let any of it defeat her for very long. A bright outlook, a generous spirit, and determination to see good in everything and everyone around her seemed to carry her through.

In her last years here at Chateau Bothell, she continued her relentless goodwill, making friends, doing good works, finding activities to engage her active mind. We are spending time in her little nest here extracting the library books and literature that she continued to absorb in her final days. Her email account is crowded with appeals from a host of liberal, compassionate causes that she believed in and supported. Apparently, the Democratic Party has lost a real pillar.

I find it a bit ironic that the first sign that she really was slowing down was when she took a header into the sidewalk on Father's Day while trying to WALK to church. That's a quarter mile up and down hills and, in retrospect, a real stress test. Her last "public" event was when she came to Cousin Kate's house two weeks ago for a family dinner. I was oblivious to her situation because she really wasn't letting it show. More sensitive table mates got us to recognize that she was struggling. That was the first ER visit that started on the path to this day. Mom allowed us to impose enough "traditional" medicine to recognize the course of events as we saw them, then we returned to her home with RayAnne's guidance and gracious support.

She is at peace. Someday, we will be too. Into His Loving Arms, we commend her spirit.