Have your kids make you take a trip to Cancun to recover.
Just saw a meme, "Turns out Ted Cruz does understand crossing a border to escape inhospitable living conditions."
My favorite version is, "Heroic father crosses Mexican border, travels 1200 miles to find running water, heat, and electricity for his family."
It's merely ordinarily cold and wintery here, but for some reason it feels colder inside the house. I assume that's anxiety-related. There's a lot to be anxious about.
It's also (what would be) school vacation week, in a normal/public school year, but that's not a thing for us now. It does mean it's the one-year anniversary of the last trip we took..... to a resort near Cancun. I'm going to be pissed if Ted Cruz manages to spoil that entire concept.
Oh, c'mon, guys: Ted was just trying to be a good dad.
(And I love that someone in Heidi's group chat totally ratted them out to the press!)
I have news! This has been in progress for a little while now, but only recently have things stabilized enough for me to devote time to writing it up.
So, Amadea has twin half-brothers who are 14 years younger than her. After her parents split up her mom had them with a random guy who is no longer in the picture at all, and has been trying to raise them with mixed success for the 14 years since then. A few years ago her mom and stepdad (Amadea's grandparents) built them a new house right next to their own in Wasilla.
Amadea's mom is not really stable, though, and even with the grandparents next door she and the twins have had a tough time. A couple years ago we started taking the boys into Anchorage on weekends to give them a break and a familiar place where they could be comfortable if they ever decided life with their mom was no longer safe and they needed to get out. In setting this up Amadea was guided by her own experience with her mom. That went on pretty successfully for a while, but then when the pandemic came it was no longer really workable so we haven't been doing it for the past year.
Well, a couple weeks ago (Super Bowl Sunday, to be precise), things came to a head and we took the boys in. Amadea has negotiated an agreement with her mom under which we have access to their school and medical information and shared decisionmaking authority, and they're most likely going to be living with us for the remainder of their high school years. Currently they're going to school remotely, so although their school is in the valley it's not really a problem for them to do their work from here (and there's been a lot of work for them to catch up on). Starting in the fall they'll likely go to our local schools, though.
It's actually been a surprisingly smooth transition, but this house is definitely too small for this number of people at these ages. Currently they're sharing our one spare bedroom, but that's not a long-term sustainable solution so we are going to buy a bigger house, which we had been planning to do sometime in the next few years anyway. We looked around at houses in the same general part of town but weren't able to find anything that was just right, but then Amadea's dad remembered that one of his friends who lives a couple blocks away had been planning to sell his house soon and it would be a great fit for us. Amadea reached out to the friend and it turns out that the house is indeed a good fit -- much bigger (5 bedrooms!) but in the same neighborhood and a reasonable price for our current financial situation. So we put in an offer and we're aiming to have the transaction complete within two months.
So yeah, a lot of change remarkably suddenly, but I think we're handling it well so far. Here's hoping that continues.
Wow. Great. And good luck. Big quick changes for the life experiences win.
Wow, you guys are super generous and what a wonderful way to channel it.
That's terrific, teo. Best of luck.
9: Congrats and best wishes! And one note that you probably know already but I will say because it clobbered us a few years back: be really, really wary of betwixt and between. If the brothers are living with you full time, you're good. If you have to manage 100% of parental responsibilities and they're with you
What a great thing to do, I'm proud of you! I'm sure it'll be a challenge, but probably a fun one too. Parents always complain about teenagers, but I think it's a great age, and more manageable as authority figures who aren't exactly parents.
Hmm don't know what happened there. Should have said: If you have to manage 100% of parental responsibilities and they're with you
Ah it's the damn less than symbol. If they're with you less than 100% of the time, and especially if you have to manage shit generated during the time they're with someone else, it can wear you down really badly, really fast.
9: That sounds really exciting. Without knowing the people involved, it seems like it could be really great for everybody concerned.
I've been sharing horror stories from the Montana legislature, but apparently there's some good political news from here: we seem to have gotten that second seat in Congress. It's not clear what the lines will be, but the odds are quite good that there will be a deep red seat in the East and and a blue seat in the West.
Thanks, everyone! It turns out the moving process may be a little more complicated that would be ideal; Amadea has a friend who needs to find a place to rent, and we're going to try to have them rent our current place, but their needs make the timeline very fast for the house purchase so we may have to stay in an AirBnB for a couple weeks in between. I'm not thrilled about that possibility, but even if it does come to that I think it'll be fine. Since we're holding on to the current house we'll have a lot of flexibility about moving stuff at least.
13 et al.: Yeah, I definitely hear you about that. The arrangement as current envisioned will absolutely be 100% them living with us full time and I don't expect that to change.
My aunt doesn't even get a proper funeral, nor a decent burial, thanks to COVID-19 protocols. So sick of this goddamn pandemic.
Teo: you are doing a really good thing here.
Better than an AirBnB, Amadea found another friend who is moving out of state and will probably let us stay in their house for a little bit if we need to during the interim. That puts my mind at ease about that part.
Today was the shittiest workday I've had in a long time. Thankfully, I had cleverly put in for the 22nd and 23rd off a couple weeks ago, so I will have approximately 111.5 hours between phone calls! What hath God wrought?
Loneliness and cabin fever have been on an upswing. The mild cold snap did not help of course. I've been trying to watch more feature films all the way through, stay away from the demon YouTube! (I know they have feature films there too, but it's not the same as having your own DVD of it. Or VHS, I still have all mine. If you lost your 'edge, you never had it.)
I did pay off another credit card last week, so that was awesome. Gonna be consolidating with better interest rates this month. It's nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel with the credit cards, and the slightly-less-dark-part-of-the-tunnel before the light at the end of the tunnel with the mortgage. Time doesn't exist.
How bold and exciting for you and Amadea, Teo. Wishing you the best of luck.
On Valentine's day, we decided to get takeout and eat it by the river, and our first choice wasn't doing takeout that night, so we picked up fish and chips from a bar we would sometimes go to in the before times. When I went inside to pick up the food it was crazy. Absolutely full, nobody except servers in masks. It was so disorienting. I know some people have had the virus and maybe some patrons figured they had immunity but...it just seemed like a whole bar full of people who don't give a crap. We've been so thoroughly isolating that it was like visiting another world. Not one I really want to live in, though.
Thanks for the supportive words, everyone. It really means a lot to hear that.
That's awesome, teo. You're doing a good thing. Best of luck with it all, especially with that potential double move looming.
Children are like a box of chocolates, you sometimes get them because of a decision you made around Valentines Day.
That's amazing, teo. So glad you and Amadea feel in a position to be so generous, and hoping for the very best.
Good for nontraditional aid / life paths, teo!
Good luck Teo & Amadea! You're doing a good thing.
18: You don't think they'll gerrymander to give them a shot at winning both seats? Or is that inherently difficult?
I got the Montana Senate election results by county, randomly assigned counties to one of two districts, and recorded the voting "results" only in random outcomes where the total populations of the two districts were close. Using 2020 Senate results, Republicans won both districts 80% of the time, otherwise split. Using 2018 Senate results, Democrats won both districts 57% of the time, otherwise split. I guess that didn't tell me much.
33 I'll be shocked if it isn't an east-west split. That puts Missoula and Butte in the same district, and probably Helena too. (Missoula, Silver Bow, and Lewis & Clark counties). Anaconda/Deer Lodge as well.
I don't think anyone thinks we'll see numbers like 2020 again soon -- especially with the Republicans getting rid of mail-in voting, which hugely helped them here this year. The question is whether ticket splitting will return to 2018 levels, or whether 2020 is the future on that. A very bleak future.
Yeah, teo, that's a wonderful thing to do. Those boys are lucky to have you. Amadea sounds like a wonderful person, and *you're* lucky to have her.
20: Jane, I know, it's awful. Can you do an in-person Memorial Service later? I know that here socially distanced burials have been possible.
20: I missed condolences in the other thread, so sorry for your loss, JPJ, and also the loss of your family's tradition. The Zoom funeral is better than nothing, but it's terribly bleak. My family has always done much-delayed memorial services, but I know other people think it's incredibly odd.
Teo, I wish you the very best of luck. I gather teenagers may require a serious adjustment of your food budget. It's kind of you both to give them a soft place to land.
My life is the same, work and home, but my college roommate whose mother has late-stage Parkinson's is trapped in an utter nightmare. Her father dismissed all the in-home caregivers, has rekindled an old (unknown to the children) affair, and is threatening to leave her mother. The kids are terrified since he is withholding medical care, her mom is getting worse after improvement with the added support, and they're worried he'll make off with shared assets. He's defensive and abusive to anyone trying to help. The kids are torn, holding onto the numbers to Adult Protective Services and lawyers, waiting for the moment when they feel like they have to call. I feel awful for them.
Teo, you and Amadea are such good humans! Sending all my best vibes as the four of you embark on this new adventure!
38.last: That's awful. They should probably not wait too long to call.
My parents got their second jab on Friday. Hooray!
The registration system is really messed up here, I tried to register a few weeks ago, got it returned for correction the other day. They want the Arrakis IDs of my dependents here. I don't have any. I have a phone number to call but I hear it's jammed.
Chani is worried about the Chinese vaccine, they have started providing Pfizer to Emiratis only and I've advised her to hold out for that.
34: Thanks. Using my table to sort counties west to east starting from your list, and trying to get as close to an even population split as possible, the western district was Beaverhead, Deer Lodge, Flathead, Glacier, Granite, Jefferson, Lake, Lewis and Clark, Lincoln, Madison, Mineral, Missoula, Pondera, Powell, Ravalli, Sanders, Silver Bow, and Teton. With the 2018 vote so sorted, it was Dems 54.1% in the west, Rs only 50.4% in the east. (2020: Rs 52.4% west, 57.6% east.)
So I see what you mean, but it still seems like ratfuckable territory. In particular, Cascade County has a lot of people and Tester only got 53% of the two-party vote there in 2018 (it flipped in 2020), so I bet a lot of its suburbs could be peeled off to make the west redder.
Congrats on the expanded family, Teo!
42 OMG the people in Teton and Pondera would hate that! There's an interesting tension between the ratfuckery angle you're rightly focussing on, and the fact that Teton and Pondera are culturally Eastern, while the urban core of Gallatin is culturally Western, and ordinary people want to be in the correct slot. But Gallatin is too big to give us the whole thing, and the urban core is near the eastern edge of the county, and we don't have anything like the tradition of snaky district boundaries that you see elsewhere. (I guess there's a house district the crosses the divide so that it includes Pablo [the CSKT capital] and Heart Butte [a Blackfeet community] and is a safe Indigenous seat. The other house district in the same senate district is most of the Blackfeet nation, so it's a safe senate seat as well.)
I don't think anyone fully understands what happened in Cascade in 20. We lost legislative seats that we should certainly have won, and I think there's a fairly good chance we'll get something back in 22.
I have a sense that Cascade is one of the places where we could gain some ground with a registration drive in Indigenous communities, but smarter and more plugged-in people are looking at that.
And I guess the other side of the ratfuckery coin is that if you want to be MAGA-Forever, maybe you want that eastern district clocking in over 60R, so you don't end up with Republican nominees saying they have to appeal to educated suburban women.
Ydnew, that is absolutely dreadful for your friend, and I hope things get better.
Teo and Amadea, you are decent and inspiring people. Thank you for giving me something admirable to think about on a bad weekend.
Mother still alive, but vey clearly on the glide path. My sister has been visiting her this weekend -- they are allowing in-person visits, in her circumstance -- so I have been spared the work of a vigil until Monday, for which I am grateful.
44: Teton and Pondera are small enough moving them to the eastern district would change the results by no more than 0.2% for each district - although it would make the eastern district's population share more lopsided, from 52.2% to 53.4%.
That's good to hear if your state leg districts are usually straightforwardly drawn. Although one should be prepared for a break from that pattern.
This story about the new chair of our redistricting commission is pretty confidence inspiring: https://montanafreepress.org/2020/12/16/tribal-law-expert-appointed-chair-of-districting-commission/
What's the smallest number of seats where there's still a clear gerrymander? Everywhere I can think of with 2 or 3 seats does it along very clear geographic/cultural boundaries.
Teo, too often when children in a bad situation, nobody has the guts or fortitude to take them in. I admire you and Amadea tremendously for doing this, and wish you all the best.
I guess Utah got rid of a SLC district in 2003 when it still only had 3 seats.
nw, this is grim advice but offered with the warmest intentions - if your mother is ready to go, you and your sister may need to tell ger you are ready for her to go or give her space to do so. if the staff gently suggest you take a break, they may be saying your presence is the only thing holding her here. if she isn't in pain, this is less urgent but of course emotional turmoil and striving is pain as much as physical.
congratulations teo & amadea & brothers! teenagers are immense fun ime. also nerve-wracking, expensive to feed, etc., but still so much fun.
DQ, were only there for a couple of hours a day. I think it is her own good constitution that is holding her there. I know she wants to go.
So, I was driving along a two lane last night at dusk when a pretty big doe decided that it was the perfect time to cross the road at a full sprint. Broadside driver's door. Humans unhurt, car deeply dented, deer didn't make it. Insurance won't cover.
wow c carp you were v lucky no humans were hurt!
Glad only the deer was hurt, CC. One of the rare times when "hit by a deer" instead of vice versa seems accurate.
We were on the way home from an unsuccessful attempt to photograph owl sex.
The deer was successful, but distracted by the experience.
Teo is a hero but this messes with my conception of people here because in my mind Teo is still the young kid at the blog and I'm thinking will teenagers really listen to someone not much older than they are?
These teenagers could in fact be my biological children, age-wise. I've been commenting here a long time.
We watched you grow up on television.
You know what cracks me up? In my first few months commenting here I referred to myself as a lecherous crone. I was around 34 at the time.
I should have a midlife crisis about now.
Midlife? You're my age. We should both be so lucky.
64: Well you were past half + 7 for college kids at that point.
Then again I have a 34 year old son.
67: I don't count childhood or time in Ohio as "life".
68.1: Right, I believe what made me say that about myself was that I'd been idly noting that one of the 22 year-old paralegals at the law firm I was working at was remarkably attractive. You couldn't make him work without threatening his family, but boy did he have nice eyelashes.
(I don't actually know that threatening his family would have worked, but nothing else I tried did.)
Did you try complimenting his eyelashes?
Don't make me schedule another training.
Maybe you could have rapped to him about the need to do the work and worked in his attractive eyebrows somehow. Bari Weiss would have approved.
My right arm is now immune to coronavirus since last Tuesday. Something like that. I will say that the distribution center was very well-organized. (And right along the T so mass transit accessible by Allegheny County standards, hopefully something they took into account).
When your state regulates ADHD meds super closely and has week-long weather shortages, you are forced into weird situations like having to go to the school nurse and retrieve meds that you gave her, because you portion out an appropriate number each month for her to give out at school, and stay at home days throw everything off, and you canNOT fill the refill early even mid-societal collapse. If we'd actually run out last week, we would have had to get the doc to call in a new rx. If the doc's power had been out too, I assume we'd be SOL.
I passed by covid test, which I had to take because the government of Pennsylvania doesn't view the Midwest with freedom-colored glasses.
Also the price gouging by Griddy are somehow represented visually to me by Gritty. Griddy, Gritty's evil variable-rate electricity providing twin.
Griddy is coked to the gills in celebration this week. No more buying stimulants from school kids.
69:. I was going to get all offended by this, but then I realized that by this standard I am still in my 30s. If I don't count my childhood, maybe even my 20s! Thanks, Moby! I feel younger already.
You can only discount Ohio- time if you've moved out.
Does that mean you aren't eligible for the vaccine?
Quick hive mind check- did anyone else learn to sing the quadratic formula to the tune of pop goes the weasel? Teaching one of the kids and my wife seems to think that was something unique to the district where we grew up. I think it had to be more common.
Your wife is right. Your school was weird.
I think my kids did? I've heard it from somewhere and I can't think of who else.
Maybe a NY state thing although there was no singing section on the Regents exam.
Ohh, you'll always know your neighbor,
You'll always know your pal,
If you've ever gone out,
To watch the sex of the owl.
76: That's almost every state, in my experience. Total nightmare.
85: I learned the quadratic formula to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," which is the only reason I still remember it.
I admit that I don't remember the quadratic formula.
I admit that I don't remember the quadratic formula.
There are two solutions to Moby's forgetfulness.
76: In my state at least, the doctor cannot legally prescribe extra ADHD meds before 30 days are up, even if you dropped off 20 at the school a few days before it unexpectedly closed for a pandemic. Nothing like a kid going off meds at the very beginning, most strict phase, of lockdown!
We always try to get the next 30 day prescription filled 28 days after the previous one, to build up a modest reserve. They won't let us have it after only 27 days.
91-2: from memory without checking to see if I've gotten any of it wrong:
X equals the opposite of B
Plus or minus the square root
Of B-squared minus 4AC
All divided by 2A
Further on ADHD meds, I was traveling a free years ago, and couldn't get a refill ahead of time. I took the official paper prescription I had with me to a branch of the same pharmacy I always used, but in Atlanta, and they couldn't fill an out-of-state prescription for a scheduled drug. By the time I got back home from traveling, I also couldn't use the prescription in my home state, because they expire after 7 days. That was back when any kind of electronic prescription for stimulants was illegal, so I had to actually go back to my doctor for a new paper prescription.
I don't think I was ever asked to memorize the quadratic formula. Use it, but not memorize it. (And I made it up to AP Calculus BC.)
I'm pretty sure i had it memorized at some point. Just not this century.
I just got vaccinated! At a Samoan church, of all places.
This one, in fact. I qualify as a "childcare worker" because we took in the boys.
85: I sing that to my students. More as a joke than as actually teaching it. I can't recall if I actually learned it growing up or not, though.
I'm being stalked by an elderly man on FB who apparently had a lifelong crush on my mother. I'm not even kidding. He sends me all kinds of weird shit every other day or so.
My mother died in December 2012. That's 8+ years ago, boyo, and it's time to acknowledge that it's over ....
Sorry about the frequency, it's just that Facebook messaging is much more efficient than some smelly old birds.
We are not smelly. You are smelly, when you die and rot.
But the eyeballs are still good
I just "attended" my aunt's funeral Mass online. What a bizarre experience! A near-empty church, with a mere handful of mourners, all heavily masked.
Ordinarily, that church would have been packed with people; with children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins, friends, neighbours, and so on. But under COVID-19 regulations, no more than 10 people are allowed in the church at any given time, and that 10 includes the priest and the organist. A sadly attenuated version of a send-off for someone who deserved so much more. No wake; no family get-together; no sharing of food and drink, of songs and stories, of music and memories.
I am so damn sick of this pandemic.