the_rck

Oh, and I completely forgot! Cordelia's high school competitive choir put out an album (digital only). The tracks are on YouTube. Cordelia sang the solo on one of the song, one called "Surprise Yourself." It's 3 minutes and 14 seconds long.

The album came out last October, and I think all of the songs are well done. The company they worked with for the production recently put together a Best of album drawing on all of the competitive choir albums they put out in 2021, and Cordelia's song is on it (the only one from Skyline Blues on it).

Anyway, Cordelia's song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5UB92d_VB0

My daughter has a hell of a voice.

I wrote this the afternoon of the 10th and neglected to post it, so please mentally re-date 'today' references.

( Hands/wrists )

Since it's February, I have to do the long term disability review to deal with. It's anxiety provoking and otherwise challenging. My brain's not working linearly, and I'm not sure I'm writing the right things in the right places. I'm not sure what I'll do with the bits that I have to sign. Right now, I can't possible manage that. Well, maybe with my left hand? I can sort of print with that hand.

I saw a neurologist the last week of January. This visit confirmed that whatever the hell is going on with my hands/wrists, it's not carpal tunnel. The doctor I saw was a resident who spent a lot of time with me. My assumption is that there aren't many patients coming in for face to face appointments.

( A-Ride related stuff )

Cordelia had a choir concert last week. It was a big Zoom lecture set up and only ran about half an hour. Usually, the in person concerts run more than two hours, but each number in this concert represented many hours of work by the instructors to combine the audio recordings made by individual students.

(I think there are also copyright/performance and student privacy issues that are still being worked out about this sort of concert, issues that differ from what a high school choir doing an ephemeral performance would usually need to consider.)

Cordelia has auditioned for and gotten a solo for an upcoming Blues piece. It's not the solo she wanted most, but she's thrilled to have gotten one at all.

I haven't heard anything further from my mother about her prognosis or treatment options. I also haven't talked to her about anything beyond making sure she had the link for Cordelia's concert. I want to know what's going on, but I don't want to push too hard given that I can't offer help in any way that she would accept. Even if I was physically up to travel and such, I don't have the necessary i.d. for flying. I've been waiting to try to get a copy of my birth certificate because it doesn't feel important enough to ask somebody to commute to an office for that.

I suppose that, after a year, those offices must be functioning to some extent because people are still being born, dying, marrying, and divorcing, but... It seems like trying to get my birth certificate ought to be low priority since it's not really safe to fly right now anyway.

Scott has to go in early tomorrow, so he's already in bed (it's 8 p.m. as I write. He'll be getting up around the time I usually go to sleep.

I've got a test scheduled for the 7th of October to see whether or not I have full on carpal tunnel. It involves needles and electricity and sounds thoroughly unpleasant. I'm not looking forward to it with any sort of pleasant anticipation.

I had energy today, so I did a lot of cooking. Nothing fancy, just dumping things into the instant pot and shoving pans into the oven. I cooked some cod, two types of chicken (I can't eat chicken thighs without reflux issues; Cordelia hates chicken breast) with potatoes and mushrooms. I found some brussel sprouts in the fridge, so I steamed them in the instant pot. I microwaved two ears of sweet corn (I don't eat it, but Scott and Cordelia do). We had a huge sweet potato in this week's Imperfect Foods box. I washed it, wrapped it in foil, and shoved into into a corner of the oven while the chicken cooked.

We got food delivered from Evergreen Wednesday because we had a Firefly session that evening. I still have leftovers and might eat them later this evening.

The Firefly session was fun. I was feeling reasonably good and awake, so I was able to think. My character was trying to investigate an artifact we'd found. She lacks the skills to do any sort of testing, but she could explain what she was looking for and why she wanted to know. The characters who can actually do the testing weren't quite sure why she wanted to do it, not at first.

Today, I mixed a can of Zevia ginger ale with a can of carbonated water and about three tablespoons of lime juice. The goal of this was to make the Zevia palatable to me, and I succeeded. Previous attempts haven't gone really well because they've usually intersected with migraine days. I was almost certain that the migraines were't caused by the Zevia because each occasion had other fairly clear explanations and because there's nothing in the Zevia that ought to give me trouble.

I did wonder if I had an upper limit for the amount of stevia I can handle in one day, but it seemed improbable.

( UCon related )

Cordelia's had a week of classes now. Most of the instructors are still figuring out how to make things work and are finding their planned lessons either much too short or too long for the scheduled time.

Cordelia's really missing the social interaction. It's not just the between classes chatting. Normal classes include some time when the kids can talk to each other or, at the very least, exchange glances. Right now, Cordelia's crocheting during some lectures. She's done some classes in bed (which is apparently common) and some in the dining room (also common).

The dining room had the downside that the chairs are all terrible, so she and Scott went and bought a new chair. Scott put it together last night; Cordelia used it today and gives it two thumbs up.

Choir is going to be an issue for me because I wake up and want to make tea halfway through the period. I can be in the kitchen during choir, if I'm quiet, but I can't use anything that whistles or dings.

Skyline Blues poses a similar problem to food preparation because the rehearsals run two hours and put the kitchen off limits. For Blues, Cordelia wants us in our bedroom, the bathroom, or the basement for the duration because being reminded that we're in the house increases her anxiety about doing well.

I think the Skyline Blues stuff is mostly a matter of me and Scott adapting. We can make sure we have food before practice starts. I'm less sure about choir. The classes run just short of two hours, and I need 10-15 minutes to be able to make my tea. If I set an alarm and get up at 10:00, I can do it before choir. Otherwise, I can't do it until after 12:10. I'm mostly waking up between 11:00 or 11:30. Sometimes, I sleep as late as 1:00 (having gone to bed between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.).

I keep meaning to work on shifting my schedule to an earlier bedtime, but my body keeps wanting me to stay up later every successive night. I think my internal clock might be expecting a 24.5 hour day or something.

I've leveled up in Ingress. Almost all of the points involved in that came from recharging portals since I haven't gone out much in the last several months. I need one badge in order to attain level 16 (currently working on 15, so it will be a long time). At the beginning of this year, I assumed that I'd be getting the 4th level in Trekker for distance walked sooner than any of the other options, but I think I'm going to have to try for one of the others (I think it's called Sojourner), the one for playing daily for so many days in a row. I hadn't wanted to commit to 360 daily treks to the nearest portal, but I'm more than halfway there because of how they shifted what counts toward it.

I'm just concerned that I'll miss a day and have to start over. 360 consecutive days is a lot. I'm at 184 days now, and it's something I'm currently capable of doing, but...

I've put in a grocery order for pickup. I'm not sure whether the substitution thing was toggled on or off because the state wasn't marked in either position. The last time I ordered for pickup, I said no substitutions, so I'm hoping that will hold.

In many cases, it's better to get nothing at all than to get whatever the Kroger employee thinks is the closest match. I mean, the half and half would be fine, but the wrong hummus cups would mean I couldn't eat them. I picked a loaf of bread that didn't contain anything that would make me sick, but some other whole wheat breads do and so do other breads from the same company.

I got my gold Pioneer badge in Ingress today. That's for capturing 1000 unique portals. I got there because I tagged along when Scott and Cordelia went out for driving practice. We went to Chelsea. When we got there, the streets were pretty empty, and there were a lot of portals in a small area, so I walked around a block while Scott and Cordelia waited in the car (they thought it was too cold out). I needed sixteen portals and got sixteen. I got one more unique capture on the way home, so I now have 1001. I need 5000 for the next badge. I don't really expect that I'll ever manage that many.

Cordelia's choir teacher is the only one, so far, to have let us know anything at all about how the class will go forward. Of course, she's also the one with a completely stable group of students and the pretty certain knowledge that parents will understand that a rehearsal to performance class isn't going to work well this way.

This may well mean that she actually teaches the kids to read music. She doesn't normally do that (although she occasionally tests them on sight reading). Cordelia doesn't like doing it because she hasn't done it very often. She says, though, that she's better at it than most of her classmates because she learned in orchestra and has done a little bit with a keyboard.

The school district is currently saying that instruction is going to be 'centralized' this week because the teachers haven't yet been trained as to how to teach online. I have zero clue what that's supposed to mean but suspect that it's more applicable to elementary school age kids because there's some likelihood that first graders at all schools in town will be learning very similar things. Even in middle school, there's a state curriculum for core subjects.

I have my annual appointment with the sleep disorders clinic tomorrow morning. Since Scott will be able to drive both ways and since I really need some new c-pap headgear, I intend to go. I'll cancel the appointment I have on Friday because rescheduling that will be easy and because my prescriptions there are already up-to-date. Also, while Scott could get me there, he'd have to leave for work before the Friday appointment ended.

I'm trying to decide whether there's a better way to deal with getting home after tomorrow's appointment than calling Scott when I'm done and waiting at the main entrance to the building. I'm up to walking a ways; there just aren't a lot of places where it would make sense for Scott to wait for me that aren't home. It's not warm enough for it to make sense for him to walk around Island Park or some such.

I think I will try to start taking walks now that my knee is doing better. The neighborhood we're in doesn't get a lot of foot traffic, so I'm unlikely to run into anyone. I could use the exercise, and the temperatures outside are currently in a good range for me (40s and 50s F. Any warmer and I overheat).

I think it will take me a while to build up to long walks again, especially since I'll want to be cautious about exhausting myself. Usually, I just figure that I'll stay near a bus route and take that home if I'm done in. I still can do that, but I'd rather not take the bus unnecessarily.

Scott and I watched two Netflix DVDs yesterday. Usually, they sit for weeks, even months (Cordelia's much faster in terms of watching and sending things back). My list of TV/DVD logging is long enough that I've forgotten what some movies are, so hopefully, I'll manage some posts in that direction this week.

I wrote this four days ago and then neglected to post it. Hopefully, I'll do better with that in the days to come.

I'm feeling frustrated because I only get one hour a day to myself. Scott plays vlogs and TV episodes on his laptop constantly. I don't like cooking when people are around, and I can't watch things I'd like to watch because Scott's watching things. He doesn't understand that last because he can follow two audio tracks simultaneously. I've got DVDs from the library that I've been sitting on for weeks because they're not things Scott will like and not things I want to watch while Cordelia's home.

I mainly don't want to cook while Scott and/or Cordelia are around because I drop things and knock things over and get upset about it. Scott will lecture me about how I should have asked him to do it (and then not complain if it wasn't what I wanted). Cordelia will freak out and assume that I'm dying.

I don't like asking Scott to do things like preparing me food because I find the necessity humiliating. If he offered, it wouldn't be. If I ask, it's an imposition that I should be ashamed of. He doesn't see it that way or says he doesn't, but he delays getting up to do things, and he groans as he levers himself up because his feet hurt.

Cordelia's concert on Friday was stressful. Scott left our tickets at home, so we got there late. Our seats were high up in second balcony. The concert was primarily orchestral. The first half included some numbers with an adult tenor/bass choir. The high school choirs were in the second half, the last few numbers.

I always wonder about timing like that because it seems designed to keep the parents from leaving in the middle of the concert.

The first number with the high school choirs sounded odd. Cordelia told us, after, that her choir had learned the piece in the time on the sheet music while the other choirs had learned it in a different time. That seems weird to me unless they had somehow gotten different versions.

The orchestra did a medley of songs from Frozen. I was a little surprised that the orchestral version uses brasses for the vocal line on "Let It Go," but I think I shouldn't have been. The brasses sounded right.

Measure for Measure, the tenor/bass choir, did "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful," and I thought it didn't sound great during the first verse because they all sang the same notes. They didn't divide into parts until after I had already started wondering if I was going to have to sit through a dirge. It sounded very wrong to me. It was the right notes in the right sequence, but it sounded like they all expected to die before the end of the concert.

Neither of Scott's parents attended.

Scott and I both have colds. He thinks we caught it from our nephew at Thanksgiving. I'm not sure because our nephew didn't come near either of us. Also, he's 20 and much better at not getting germs everywhere than he was when he was 3.

I ended up not sleeping at all last night, partly because of not feeling well, partly because of feeling too warm, and partly from stress. Scott and I had appointments Monday and Wednesday, the former at Cordelia's school to meet with the counselor who specializes in college applications/financial aid/career counseling, the latter with Scott's psychotherapist. This is the second time I've gone to one of Scott's appointments, and I'll have more to say on that later.

Thursday is the FAFSA information night at Cordelia's school. Cordelia will be at school until 9 p.m., and I'd rather not risk waiting for the January date at an easier to reach school. That one might well end up a casualty of bad weather, too. I can be fairly sure that tomorrow's won't be. I'll head out there very early (possibly having Scott drop me off before he leaves for work) and take food for Cordelia. There's no prospect for her to eat during the 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. rehearsal tomorrow unless I do that or she carries her own food in.

Friday, Cordelia has another concert. There are three choir concerts this month, on top of the one last week. They're also going caroling the Friday before break. The schedule is kind of overwhelming. The rest of December looks like it might be just as bad.

Scott's therapist really wants us to do some sort of family therapy. He can't get Cordelia there because of the conflicts between her schedule and Scott's, but he wants me there every week. The two sessions we've had have underlined my issues in dealing with therapists-- If they're skilled at handling people, I read them as gaslighting me. If they're not, they generally assert things that make me disregard all further words coming out of their mouths, things like 'Being a panentheist is responsible for your anxiety. It's not a valid view of the universe' or 'Anxiety and depression are the same thing. If you say you're anxious rather than depressed, you're wrong. Call it depression.'

On the gaslighting side, I suspect that that comes mostly from the many years I spent having my mother and stepfather telling me that I was making up physical symptoms in order to get attention. There were other, more specific instances, but that bit permeated my childhood and adolescence.

It's not helped by the BS that my father tended to spout on other topics, but his BS tends to fall into the 'disregard all further words' category. I don't so much think he's gaslighting me as that he's constantly doing it to himself and attempting to do it to the world around him.

My father and my stepfather both used to be therapists and still have the mannerisms.

But, also, a guy I've met twice telling me that cognitive behavioral therapy not working for me must mean that none of the times I've tried it involved doing it right. I've tried it more than once and with different therapists over the last 30 years. At this point, I feel that him pushing it on me is rather like him trying to convince me that eggs don't give me migraines. The experience of testing that is so unpleasant that I'm not willing to go there again.

This morning started with a migraine. I got somewhere between 4 and 5 hours of sleep before I woke and couldn't manage to fall asleep again after. I was in that weird state of being too near to sleep to be able to get up to do anything about the headache but also hurting too much to manage sleep. I've been functioning at less than 50% mentally all day.

Thursday evening, there was a choir thing at Cordelia's high school, a parents' meeting for information about a trip to Spain that she doesn't intend to go on. I dithered a lot about whether or not I should try to go. It was fairly cold out, and with the meeting starting at 7:30, I expected a bus once an hour which might mean sitting at the bus stop for a very long time before being able to get into the building or after the meeting.

I wanted a better idea of the timing, so I looked at the bus website. The ride planner told me that I couldn't get to the school between 3:14 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. unless I walked a considerable distance (estimated as 20 minutes). I'm very nearly certain that it is possible to get there by bus between those times, but I wasn't willing to risk it. I also wasn't keen on spending between $30 and $40 to attend a meeting about something that Cordelia doesn't want and that we really couldn't afford if she did want.

I ended up sending the school board an email about the accessibility issues of having evening events at the school. The nearest bus stops are on the other side of the highway from the school. The highway exit ramps let out on traffic circles. The lighting is lousy, and there aren't sidewalks or any allowances for pedestrian traffic. It's not a safe walk in full daylight. I wouldn't want to do it at 7 p.m. which is full dark here at this time of year.

I pointed out that I can't possibly be the only parent who doesn't have access to a car all of the time and/or can't drive. I also can't possibly be the only one who considers cabs/Uber/Lyft prohibitively expensive for anything that's not life essential. The school has been there more than a decade, and the district and city have done damn all to make it safe for pedestrians to get there. 90% of the city of Ann Arbor is on the other side of the highway from the school, and the city is zoned for three high schools, so most of the students live on the other side of the highway, too.

One of the main barriers for Cordelia in doing extracurriculars is transportation. All of the kids who stay for those have to get on one city bus. She was pretty constantly stressed about whether or not everyone would fit and what would happen to people who couldn't get on or who missed the bus. School policy is that the kids can't wait in the building without adult supervision. There's a lot of emphasis on penalties for being in the wrong place.

This is the same school that made her think that they were going to close the building and kick all the kids out into the parking lot in a snowstorm to find their own way home. Cordelia doesn't trust them.

At any rate, even though it was around 7 p.m. when I sent the message, I got an email from the superintendent of schools less than two hours later. She said they're going to try to figure out a solution. I'm not sure what they can do, but I hope that this eventually goes somewhere. I've been meaning to complain the last 2.5 years, so it's past time that I did. I pointed out that the access issues most strongly affect poor families and parents with disabilities. I think I actually said 'ADA.'

I also finally sent an email to our representative in the state house to ask why Michigan law doesn't penalize bad faith by insurance companies. I don't know that that will go anywhere, but it definitely wasn't going anywhere without me asking.

I've made more progress on my UCon games. I think the space scenario is only going to need about another hour of work. A lot of what I want to happen in the game doesn't need to be in the character sheets or the setting material. I'd probably have gotten it done today if I'd had a reasonable amount of sleep. The superhero scenario will need quite a lot more than that, but I'm more optimistic about getting it done.

I have no idea why I'm still awake now. Hopefully tonight will be better than last night and tomorrow better than today.

Please assume that I haven't read anything here in the last ten or so days. My brain has been refusing to deal with DW recently.

I've had about ten days of just not being able to cope with everything I needed to do. Appointment after family thing after paperwork after chores after choir thing... And on and on. At this point, I've lost track of what I did when.

I have given up my driver's license. I hadn't driven in more than 20 years, and it had been more than a decade before that occasion since I last drove.

I've printed the paperwork for me and Scott get certified copies of our birth certificates. We need them in order to get i.d. that will let us fly once the laws about acceptable i.d. change next year. I expect to need to fly some time in the next few years as my father and his wife are both in their mid-70s and in New Mexico. My mother is in the same age range with my stepfather just shy of 65. Neither of us has yet filled out the paperwork yet.

Cordelia turned 16 on the 17th. We went out to lunch at Red Lobster the next day because she wanted crab. We went early enough that I was able to have shrimp scampi without ill effects. I didn't order crab legs because I don't think my hands are up to the task any more.

Scott ordered a four place setting set of Corelle tableware. We're in the process of rearranging our storage to accommodate that. Scott's more willing to go with moving things to the basement than his is to go with throwing anything out. I'm not convinced that saving the cost of replacing a box of plastic spoons is enough to justify storing that box in the kitchen cupboard for a decade. They don't go bad, and we use a few every year, but... The basement is a compromise.

My mother and stepfather got a local rental for three nights and went home this morning. They found a place that allowed dogs. They attended Cordelia's choir concert last night and went back to Lawton this morning. Scott's parents are attending tonight's concert.

Cordelia had a half day of school yesterday, so she and I and my parents went to Totoro for lunch. The ladies there gave us free edamame with our meal.

I stepped back the PT that the doctor I saw on the 3rd suggested. I think that it may have caused the ongoing headache I had the following week. I'll be seeing a physical therapist I trust on the 6th. I also had one session with a psychologist who specializes in pain management. I'm not putting a lot of reliance on her coming up with anything helpful, but I'm willing to find out.

The psychologist appointment was exhausting because I made two mistakes with the bus trip. I got off too early on the way there (and walked down a deadend that I thought went through) and made a mistake about the route of the bus home that meant I had to walk quite a lot farther than I expected before I found a bus stop.

I found my curvy back thingy still in one of the suitcases in the basement. My guess is that I took it to UCon and didn't get it out of the suitcase before Scott closed it up and stuck it in the basement. I'm finding it helpful, but we're having trouble figuring out where/how to store it because it's an inconvenient shape.

I've gotten nice recipient comments on my two recently posted exchange fics. Both exchanges are still anonymous, though, so I can't yet link to them. I think author reveals are late on Sunday for both exchanges, so I'll likely announce the stories here on Monday.

I've somehow lost a few days in terms of checking things off of my to-do list. I have no idea where the time has gone (I can't blame snow days this time). I think I just kind of got overwhelmed again. I have a couple of things I need to do and a couple of things that I want to do, all of which will take a good bit of mental oomph, and I can't seem to pick one and do it.

Possibly it's just having had to deal with Cordelia's concert last week. I tend to underestimate how much an event like that has taken out of me until after I'm past the recovery period.

Cordelia has another choir concert Saturday evening, so the beginning of next week may be shot, too, depending on how I cope.

I had three Ingress portal candidates approved in the last few days and four rejected. I'm not sure why two of those were rejected since they were part of the same nature trail as one of the ones that got approved and had the same sort of signage. I'm very puzzled at the idea of approving one and not the others. They were a decent distance apart, so it wasn't that.

The local high schools are doing standardized tests this week. Cordelia will be taking the PSAT tomorrow. She's a bit cranky about it because the scheduling isn't much fun. They aren't allowed water bottles, and the test is 4-5 hours (I'd have to look it up to see exactly). She'll be crankier next year, though, as the juniors have two days of testing rather than the one day that the freshmen and sophomores have.

Note: I haven't read anything here since some time on Sunday. I probably won't go back that far, so I'll have missed some things.

Cordelia's choir concert is this evening. I expect every bit of the day after noon to be stressful and overwhelming because it's also Thursday which means the cleaning lady will be here. (She'll also be going with us to the concert. She considers Cordelia something akin to a granddaughter and had asked me to let her know when the next concert would be.)

I still need to call Totoro about my glasses. If they're there, I should go downtown and pick them up. I need to empty the dishwasher and tidy a bunch of things.

I've got another couple of phone calls I should make, but I'll probably put them off until tomorrow. I could make banana bread and then manage the tidying while it bakes. What I do after that will depend. Right now, I want sleep, but that might be me not having had a proper breakfast yet. If I'm energetic, going for a walk might make sense. I just need to be home by 2:00.

I took a two hour walk yesterday. My intention was to go to north campus so that I could see about Ingress missions, but I got side tracked by a nature trail that I didn't know existed. I got to north campus in the end, but I didn't have time to do much. I got eleven unique captures, but I still need almost three hundred more for the badge. I didn't get anywhere near any missions, though.

Scott picked me up from north campus on his way home from work. I wasn't able to reach the spot where I'd hoped to meet him because it turned out that the path my map showed wasn't actually there and that the intervening terrain wasn't pedestrian friendly. Scott found me via Life360 in much less time than it would have taken me to get to a landmark we'd both recognize.

I claimed a pinch hit that'll be due in May. That gives me two stories due then. I've started both, just barely. I think the pinch hit is something I could very nearly write in my sleep. I have a nearly complete first draft for a thing that isn't related to any of my open assignments. I'm not sure what I'm going to work on first. Finishing the nearly complete story might make senses because then it's off the list; then again, there's no one waiting to see this one.