Day in the Life of an Idiot

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all!!

My apologies. once again, for being silent for so long. However, I come bearing good tidings!  Shawn has graduated from the cane and is now officially walking UNAIDED. WHOOT!!  Once again, Shawn passed all her tests with flying colors. The only disappointment is that she has not reached zero degree extention (being fully straight). For whatever reason, despite all her work, she's still hanging out at 1 degree. Otherwise, her flextion is 134 degrees, which is outstanding. Now she's been tasked on working on STAIRS.... dun dun DAH!  (She's been going up and down them since day one; this is to get her doing stairs like normal people). 

This big graduation has allowed me to start to return some of the fetch and carry duties to Shawn... and I feel like I finally have enough spoons of my own to return to the wider world.

I've been complaining about this, privately, to a number of people, but I had no idea that caretaking would wipe me out the way it has. I often really enjoy being that person who asks, "Can I get you anything?" But, something about it being non-optional was weirdly SPOON sucking. I wasn't even the one who had major surgery!  Why? The only thing I can figure is that I apparently get very tired by being interrupted?  This tracks if only because I remember having a lot fewer spoons/energy for extra/thinky things when Mason was a toddler. This is not to say that Shawn was as much work as a toddler, just that there was something similar in the way her needs interrupted my... flow? I dunno. It was weird and I'm glad it's mostly settling back into to normal. 

How was your New Years Eve?  New Year's Day?

We are very boringly traditional on New Year's Eve. Outside of skipping the general drunkeness, which I guess makes us at least somewhat atypical, we do try to stay up (or be woken up for) the countdown. We no longer try to find it on television, but just watch our phones and make our best guess. Then we all toast the new year, usually with sparkling apple cider, and then attempt to sing "Auld Lang Syne." With apologies to  Bobby Burns, "Auld Lang Syne" is possibly THE DUMBEST SONG IN THE HISTORY OF TRADITIONS. First of all, I absolutely can never remember the words. Second, I can't find a key that works for me. I mean, to be fair, I am not normally fussed by "what key is this song in??" because I can't hear such nuances in music, but I am REALLY BAD at this particular song. I'm almost as BAD at "Auld Lang Syne" as I am at the US National Anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner." Luckily, I am so BAD at "Auld Lang Syne" that my family and I have a tremendous laugh as we attempt to sing it (or howl it, given that I'm involved.)  Shawn and I always share a quick kiss and then stumble back to bed. (Vogue has an interesting article about why we kiss at midnight on New Year's Eve that I linked to.)

I have this weird supersition around whatever it is that I do first on the first day of the year, it's an indication or omen about what's awaiting me for the whole year. 

The upside is that this means I tend to do all the dishes on New Year's Eve so that I don't spend a lot of time having to do them in the morning. I generally take out recycling and garbage, do some other light housekeeping--like sweeping and whatnot, so that I also don't find myself feeling an urge to do that first thing in the morning. Also, this year I made make-ahead hot cross buns (which didn't quite work out, but more on that in a second) so I'm not tempted to spend the morning cooking or baking.

Last night, neither Shawn nor I could fall back to sleep. So, we ended up having one of our "midnight chats." These rarely actually fall at midnight exactly, but we have this thing that I'm sure a lot of couples do, where sometimes we are just awake at the same time at night and we end up just talking about everything and nothing. Because we talked for more than an hour, I'm counting that as my first activity of 2025. This bodes well for my relationship, if nothing else.

Also there have been some indications from the universe that "friendship" might be a general theme for the year. The New York Times ran an interesting article called "The Vexing Problem of the Medium Friend," which got me thinking about friendships, in general. And, with a certain in-coming presidency, a number of my friends have put out "circle 'round" requests to stay in touch, etc. So, I will also take this as a Sign of Things to Come.

Because otherwise we are left with my sad Hot Cross Buns. And, yes, I know hot cross buns are typically an Easter traditional food, but as I noted I found this really great recipe that worked like a charm the first time I made it that seemed ideal for a make-ahead plan. I COMPLETELY misread the recipe last night. I put in too many eggs. Like, I don't know what was wrong with me exactly. I did not have my reading glasses, which I should just CHAIN TO THE KITCHEN WALL OR SOMETHING, because then I *also* put in an extra teaspoon of salt. So, they just did not rise the way they should have. The extra egg did, at least a little, do the heavy lifting so that they weren't fully inedible, but they were not the fluffly, light delight that I was expecting.  As I told another friend, that felt like the 2025 omen was, "We have f*cked up the recipe for Democracy, so we will have to make do." 

Which is just not nearly as nice as having nice "midnight" chats with one's loved ones.

Of the two, I know which one I'd prefer. 

I hope you all had less fraught and/or omen free New Year's Days.

 I got up early this morning to take the car in for its check-up. We are T-2 days for launch. I just got the call and they are going to do their best to fix our air-conditioning. They already did an oil change and are replacing and rotating tires, and giving me new front brakes. The bill will be hefty and Shawn won't like it, but the car will definitely be road worthy after that. 

One of the reasons I picked this particular auto place--besides the recommendations from friends, of course--was because it's on a fairly easy bus/train line from me. Unfortunately, the bus runs straight down Snelling (out-of-town friends, just think major thoroughfare.) Normally, this makes the trip fast.  But, I kind of forgot that today is the first day of the Great Minnesota Super Spreader, aka the State Fair, which is right on Snelling.  The bus crawled almost as much as my skin, as I watched all those maskless people amassing. You can feel free to yell at me about how outdoor events are safer, but I will remind you that they could literally track the explosion of cases from Sturgis. And, like Sturgis, the main event might be outdoors, but there are going to be indoorish places to buy beer and food and I don't know? Are the craft barns open? I did see a giant pumpkin being delivered, so I can only imagine so.

A big enough viral load and we all get overwhelmed....

I mean, can I point fingers? Only if I remember that most of them are pointing back at me. We are choosing to travel across the country to deliver our child to a university. At least Wesleyan is requiring proof of vaccination and masks indoors. I have no idea how that works in a dorm, but I presume you just kind of have to have your floormates as a pod. I don't know. That's the crazy, risky part. We are trying to mitigate what we can. I'm grateful a booster is coming. And, selfishly, even though Mason is lucky enough to be one of those people who did FINE with distance learning, I would like him to have the in-person experience, particularly at the university level. 

The other thing that has me stressed is our eldest cat, Ms. Piggy. She's 21. Until a couple of days ago, however, you really would not know it. She's had the Katherine Hepburn head shake going on for some time, so you'd know she was OLD, but she could hop up and move around like a kitten. In the last couple of days, she's been having a lot of trouble moving.  She's still eating and drinking like a champ. She's been trying to make it to the box, but last night she just let loose on the floor next to the box right during dinner. We have a piddle pad? But, it's clear her hips are just not up to even the shallowest jump right now. 

We have cat sitter coming to live-in while we're away, which makes me feel somewhat better. This person has cared for Piggy before, but I am going to need to write an addendum pre-absolving the cat sitter of any guilt should Piggy pass while we're away. I mean, she's a tough old lady? But, did I mention that she's TWENTY-ONE??

Yeah. 

Mason is mostly packed. I feel pretty good about the amount he's bringing. Shawn joined the Wesleyan parents Facebook page and there are people trying to send PALLETTES of stuff. We also watched our across the street neighbor load up a U-Haul for his kid. We're going to have a stuffed trunk? But, that seems reasonable in comparison, I think. I mentioned that he's getting a single, so that's kind of nice. He can decorate however he wants. 

His best local friend showed up last night in her car and they went off for ice cream together. She's going to Seattle, and him to Middletown,. Connecticut. They're going to be an entire country apart. 

On the other hand, this is the big moment that parenting is all about as far as I'm concerned. His own life begins! I have to be honest, I have jettisoned a lot of my memories of high school. I had one friend that I still sometimes miss, but I attempted to visit her at her college during one of my breaks and... it was awful, partly because I came head to head with the fact that I had a massive crush on her and the fact that she was in a serious relationship with a guy just about broke me. I came out only a few months later. She ghosted me after that... and that was probably actually a reasonable response in retrospect. I was deeply hurt at the time, of course. She never goes back to high school reunions and neither do I. I mean, I went back to my five year? Mostly because I'm an asshole and wanted to come out to everyone. I brought Shawn. People didn't recognize me with my hair short and with no make-up. It was actually kind of fun. No regrets. 

So, I mean, for me, the friends I made in college were the ones that lasted? 

I hope its the same with Mason.