April update, the second part
May. 9th, 2017 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexI've caught up on reading now, so let me try to catch up on writing, some. The previous April post only covered the first few days of the month
In between there was the saga of the disappearing child, which is long and gets its own cut tag:
Fridaypygment and I were supposed to go out for an appointment and then a dinner together. She was at an all-day training in Providence. I get home to discover that Thing 2 is missing. Call Pygment. Is he upstairs? Thing 2 is often hiding out in their room, usually napping or listening to NPR. Nope, not this time.
Thing 1 thinks that Thing 2 got into a car driven by the parent of a school friend. We have a first name. I am good and do not actually explode at Thing 1 over the level of less-than-useful this is. Instead, I start tossing the house, looking for data. Pygment arrives and starts her own search. We cover the physical spaces of the house, finding a notebook from said school friend (so now we have their last name) but no phone number. Checking email and other online resources also does not produce a number. I check online white pages while Pygment calls the parents of mutual school friends. If Thing 2 hangs out with A then maybe the parents of B, who hangs out with both of them, may have A's parent's number. No luck.
After about 15 minutes of increasing levels of frustration, Pygment decides to call the cops. Her hypothesis is that the officer who works with the school might have the family's information and although they can't release that info to us, maybe they'll call? Yeah, no. Less than ten minutes later we get a call from Thing 2, who is annoyed that a cop has showed up at the friend's house and insisted that Thing 2 call home.
I have to point out here that this is a clear violation of our house rules, which Thing 2 bloody well knows. After assuring the officer that everything is OK, and speaking briefly to the other parent, Pygment then has a nearly 10-minute argument with Thing 2 about whether or not they are allowed to stay and finish the game they are playing. I do not actually shout murderous threats, but it is a good thing Pygment is talking on the phone and not me. It is typical of our challenges with Thing 2 that they are completely unfased by having a cop show up, or by the obvious ignoring of house and family rules. All that matters is what they decided, what they wanted, and what we're not letting them do.
Eventually, Pygment gets the other parent back on the phone and the other parent agrees to bring Thing 2 home. Which they do, and when strangers show up at the house Holly has to go bark at them. Since someone has failed to close the door, Holly then takes this opportunity to BOLT for freedom.
I'll spare you the boring details but suffice it to say the dog spends 20 minutes punking us around in the woods. Eventually Pygment gets her to come out for a treat and re-leashes her. We walk out together, to discover that Thing 2 has not arrived, despite being closer to home than we. There is more searching and hollering and just as I'm backing the car out of its parking space to drive around the other side of the woods to look for them, Thing 2 emerges.
So no, we didn't go to our appointment nor to dinner that night.
Then there was Passover, which got its own post eventually.
That brings us to mid-April, when we took a family trip to eastern PA.
Partly the was to bring Thing 1 to visit Drexel, the last of our chosen possible application candidates. Unfortunately, the tour was high-level and didn't really cover the things that we'd want to know in order to apply. By contrast, when we visited GATech there was in-depth discussion of their CS curriculum and even though the talk was given by administrators it had enough meat to pique Thing 1's interest. (It's a kind of mix-and-match system that seems to have a lot more flexibility than any other curriculum plan we've seen.)
The other purpose for the visit was to catch up with my Dad, celebrate his birthday, and have a small family confab about the parents' plans. Said plans include putting the house up for sale and moving to some kind of elder housing situation. This kind of sprang up suddenly. It went from "some day we'll need this" to "we've visited a bunch of places and will be putting a deposit on one" in the space of a couple months. It hasn't helped that the parents are back-and-forth about the entire concept of doing this, not to mention specifically where.
We'd love it if they'd move up here so we could visit with them more often; my uncle (dad's brother) is moving himself and his wife (who really does need memory and physical assistance) into a local place. But Dad and Stepmom don't want to give up their network of doctors and local friends. I can understand that. So we helped them decruft their place a bit more, talked about options, and offered to take some furniture if they couldn't move it into their new place... which they later that week backed out of taking. Because... reasons.
I have a great deal of sympathy for their indecision but at this point all I can do is sort of wait on the sidelines for them to make a decision. Meanwhile I have a bunch more nice wooden bowls that my Dad turned.
The next weekend was intended to be the Boston version of the March for Science, but that seemed to be the "stand around for science" and there were other things and I ended up not going. I still feel ambivalent about that. I'm really failing to find a resistance group or activity that holds my attention and interest and lets me feel like I'm DOING something. I call my Rep now and then to congratulate and encourage him; most recently for continuing to try and get some measure of truth around the Trump team's involvement with Russia. There's so much going on (wrong) that it's easy to lose sight of the things I think are important. Like, is anyone else in the current Administration subject to blackmail or actively suborned by the Russians? Like, how the hell do we stop them upgefukking the next election?
More to come...
In between there was the saga of the disappearing child, which is long and gets its own cut tag:
Friday
pygment and I were supposed to go out for an appointment and then a dinner together. She was at an all-day training in Providence. I get home to discover that Thing 2 is missing. Call Pygment. Is he upstairs? Thing 2 is often hiding out in their room, usually napping or listening to NPR. Nope, not this time.Thing 1 thinks that Thing 2 got into a car driven by the parent of a school friend. We have a first name. I am good and do not actually explode at Thing 1 over the level of less-than-useful this is. Instead, I start tossing the house, looking for data. Pygment arrives and starts her own search. We cover the physical spaces of the house, finding a notebook from said school friend (so now we have their last name) but no phone number. Checking email and other online resources also does not produce a number. I check online white pages while Pygment calls the parents of mutual school friends. If Thing 2 hangs out with A then maybe the parents of B, who hangs out with both of them, may have A's parent's number. No luck.
After about 15 minutes of increasing levels of frustration, Pygment decides to call the cops. Her hypothesis is that the officer who works with the school might have the family's information and although they can't release that info to us, maybe they'll call? Yeah, no. Less than ten minutes later we get a call from Thing 2, who is annoyed that a cop has showed up at the friend's house and insisted that Thing 2 call home.
I have to point out here that this is a clear violation of our house rules, which Thing 2 bloody well knows. After assuring the officer that everything is OK, and speaking briefly to the other parent, Pygment then has a nearly 10-minute argument with Thing 2 about whether or not they are allowed to stay and finish the game they are playing. I do not actually shout murderous threats, but it is a good thing Pygment is talking on the phone and not me. It is typical of our challenges with Thing 2 that they are completely unfased by having a cop show up, or by the obvious ignoring of house and family rules. All that matters is what they decided, what they wanted, and what we're not letting them do.
Eventually, Pygment gets the other parent back on the phone and the other parent agrees to bring Thing 2 home. Which they do, and when strangers show up at the house Holly has to go bark at them. Since someone has failed to close the door, Holly then takes this opportunity to BOLT for freedom.
I'll spare you the boring details but suffice it to say the dog spends 20 minutes punking us around in the woods. Eventually Pygment gets her to come out for a treat and re-leashes her. We walk out together, to discover that Thing 2 has not arrived, despite being closer to home than we. There is more searching and hollering and just as I'm backing the car out of its parking space to drive around the other side of the woods to look for them, Thing 2 emerges.
So no, we didn't go to our appointment nor to dinner that night.
Then there was Passover, which got its own post eventually.
That brings us to mid-April, when we took a family trip to eastern PA.
Partly the was to bring Thing 1 to visit Drexel, the last of our chosen possible application candidates. Unfortunately, the tour was high-level and didn't really cover the things that we'd want to know in order to apply. By contrast, when we visited GATech there was in-depth discussion of their CS curriculum and even though the talk was given by administrators it had enough meat to pique Thing 1's interest. (It's a kind of mix-and-match system that seems to have a lot more flexibility than any other curriculum plan we've seen.)
The other purpose for the visit was to catch up with my Dad, celebrate his birthday, and have a small family confab about the parents' plans. Said plans include putting the house up for sale and moving to some kind of elder housing situation. This kind of sprang up suddenly. It went from "some day we'll need this" to "we've visited a bunch of places and will be putting a deposit on one" in the space of a couple months. It hasn't helped that the parents are back-and-forth about the entire concept of doing this, not to mention specifically where.
We'd love it if they'd move up here so we could visit with them more often; my uncle (dad's brother) is moving himself and his wife (who really does need memory and physical assistance) into a local place. But Dad and Stepmom don't want to give up their network of doctors and local friends. I can understand that. So we helped them decruft their place a bit more, talked about options, and offered to take some furniture if they couldn't move it into their new place... which they later that week backed out of taking. Because... reasons.
I have a great deal of sympathy for their indecision but at this point all I can do is sort of wait on the sidelines for them to make a decision. Meanwhile I have a bunch more nice wooden bowls that my Dad turned.
The next weekend was intended to be the Boston version of the March for Science, but that seemed to be the "stand around for science" and there were other things and I ended up not going. I still feel ambivalent about that. I'm really failing to find a resistance group or activity that holds my attention and interest and lets me feel like I'm DOING something. I call my Rep now and then to congratulate and encourage him; most recently for continuing to try and get some measure of truth around the Trump team's involvement with Russia. There's so much going on (wrong) that it's easy to lose sight of the things I think are important. Like, is anyone else in the current Administration subject to blackmail or actively suborned by the Russians? Like, how the hell do we stop them upgefukking the next election?
More to come...
no subject
Date: 2017-05-09 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-13 02:12 pm (UTC)Not much to say, but
Date: 2017-05-10 04:56 am (UTC)! And !!!
I feel you on the parental units and their indecision. I am also dealing with parents who are tap-dancing into and out of the state of it being okay to discuss their plans with me and not at all okay that I show any interest in said plans. The latter manifests most often when they've changed their minds on some point that I ask about - I'm doing my best to make it clear that I don't mind them changing it. I just would like to know when I'm operating with older information.
Re: Not much to say, but
Date: 2017-05-13 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-13 01:36 pm (UTC)Basically, I wonder if you're creating unnecessary work for yourself with this level of strictness and oversight. On the off chance that the answer is yes, then you have a chance to free up a TON of time and energy, which would be awesome.
no subject
Date: 2017-05-13 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-13 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-13 03:30 pm (UTC)I remember being fourteen... I had super strict parents in many ways, and still a lot more freedom to wander around than you're describing. All us kids used to come and go at all the houses, and parents didn't really care. Things seem to have changed a lot.
At any rate, I'll remove my nose from your parenting decisions now.
no subject
Date: 2017-05-13 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-14 02:37 am (UTC)My guess is that it's not just that you were fourteen and the world was different, but that you were fourteen and you were different than this. How would your parents have reacted to you not being home and not knowing where you were or when you'd be back? What about you being at someone's house they never met, with a friend they never met? If they had no problem, then that showed trust of you, and this is about you, not the world. Just like for us this is about who Thing2 is as a person right now.
no subject
Date: 2017-05-14 03:36 am (UTC)In four years Thing 2 will reach the age of majority and you won't be able to legally restrain their movement, so I see it as kind of a choice on whether you want to ramp them up to full freedom gradually or just let it happen faster later.