Happy Birthday Week to The Wrightlettes

 As promised, I brewed up a nice little pot o' tea about the birthday festivities: 

They happened!

There were many gifts and infinitely more candy hidden around the house. All in all, it took me a bit shy of an hour to set up and Allan a bit more than an hour to locate! At which point, the floors were piled! There were a few gifts of honor: 

Paint your own cat lamp!

R2D2!!!! We have been working our way through the main storyline starting with The Acolyte and moving through the trilogy films (with a family side quest through Andor that isn't as rigidly tied into the trilogy viewing schedule). The main takeaway so far is this: "R2D2 is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute!!!!!!!!!" And apparently this holds in Funko form as well. R2 is not something you can get a ton of play with, but the Funko R2 has been brought to the coffee table and is persistently bobbled with small squeals of "R2D2!". So, a win. 

Then of course there was this Switch2! Not technically Allan's present, but kind a household present on the occasion of 2/3 of the household celebrating birthdays this week. 

Allan did  get to break it in. And play it for roughly 8 hours. Eventually joined by the father figure. 

So. A win. 

On Saturday we went to the zoo. I brought my camera. I somewhat wish I hadn't. 

It was not a good place to play around with manual settings: not easy lighting much of the time, and not a lot of great spots to take planned photos. A grrrrrreat place to be overstimulated. So, basically a place to bring a much less bulky autofocus phone camera and go for quantity. 

Which is what Allan and Andrew decided to do, and I can't say I say a ton of difference in the end, except they all took many more because my camera was a lot heavier and harder to aim! 

 It's interesting. I've more or less been socialized to be self-conscious about my intense interests/short term hyperfixations and keep them fairly on the DL. You wouldn't know that from my blog or Facebook, obviously, but then again I clearly know how to self-deprecate with the best of them and I'm always still fairly self-conscious about being intense. But also the abstraction of the internet feels safe. And certain friends feel safe, but there's still a reticence to get over most of the time.

 

 So on top of all the other opportunities for frustration and paralysis, learning something new is always fraught with tenuous social implications. You'd think a lot of support would be the way to go, but it's surprisingly fragile, because I have a certain level of innate demand avoidance that makes me push back once the hobby no longer feels like it's coming from internal joy. I don't think I'm PDA exactly. It's more that once people have expectations, it's (1) no longer about my enjoyment, (2) now about living up to somebody else's expectations. Which is a deep stress for me, because - as an undiagnosed ND kid - I set expectations higher than my jagged profile could consistently meet up to and therein lies the burnout. 

It's just really a pain finding that sweet spot where I'm "seen" and also "not seen too much". Lawdy I'm a pain!

So, I think the sweet spot is really to be supportive, but in a "wait for me to come and share and then be impressed and then wait some more" kind of way. Which is not surprising, since I think Allan tends to be the same. Is she my mini-me or am I her giantic-her?

She's cuter!

On the bright side, I got some cool pictures of the tween and I do think my fancy camera does portraits quite nicely!

 I gave her one of my backup hats and it is so cute on her that it is now going to be hers going forward!

 I had fun, and I did take some cool pictures, but still. Lesson learned. 

Incidentally, note to family: If you are excited about your disabled wife+mother having a new hobby to call her own, you might want to stop outshooting her with your dinky Pixel phone or the fancy new snap and shoot camera that cost more than her DSLR and . Because my hobby building can be very fragile!

I'm not fighting anyone for hobby supremacy!! And, ok fine, it can be our thing if that's what you want, we can do that, but that means I need a new "my thing." 

And I warn you now: 

Pigeon breeding is next on my list of potential interests! 

Like maybe a Victoria Crowned Pigeon?

or... hear me out...

These things have a way of snowballing!

Naw, naw. Allan and I have been going on little "photo walks" (i.e. "get the heck out of the house and off your cute little ten year old tushie so you sleep at night" walks). She tells me what to take pictures of. And I do. And they're usually awful, because I'm playing around with manual. But that's not always bad. 

At any rate:

Zoo! I did really enjoy the snow leopards an awful lot. 

For the rest of the weekend I either had some kind of mild illness or just a fibro/MCAS flare (or maybe, just maybe that's just how mid forties feels! It's possible!!!) and spent several covid tests over a reflux induced sore throat and bad neuropathy. Lord knows. But typically, if my heart rate is low to normal, it's probably a flare. When I get sick my circulatory system decides I'm running away from snow leopards!

FORTY-THREE!!! I think. Don't quote me. I have totally lost track and just wrote thirty-three before I noticed that probably was incorrect. So yeah. 

Mid-forties. Sweet. 

I even got the gray hairs now to prove it. It is kind of hard to spot because I've always had platinum hairs and the silver strands don't look much different yet. But they are there. Honestly, since most of my cohort aggressively dye their hair for decades before going gray, I wasn't really sure when that was going to happen. Still. I don't mind them. Yet. We'll see how I feel when the texture of my hair changes. 

Because I'm having a bit of a hair love moment. From my childhood I've always been instructed to scrunch and serum my "Irish curls" into some form of genuine curls instead of the ever-accursed frizz (gasp!!!!!! Swoon!!! AAAAAA!). 

And I've always just let my hair collapse into flattened straight limpness. Especially after I stopped being able to use most conventional beauty products. In the meantime, I've definitely had some thinning since the wee bae was born. My hair used to be froth upon froth when it frizzed up. For a while I kept it short and layered, which looked nice, but made it much harder to play with it. And then it became just impossible to keep up with!

 On top of this I used kitchen oils to moisturize, which inevitably got into my hair (and the shower, and my clothing, which then made a really bad rancid smell after the wash... so yeah, I don't do that anymore).

 Anyways the flat, somewhat greasy, and thinner combination made me feel self-conscious for a good few years. But it was still lovely to pull my strands through my fingers and across my lips, so I still loved it. 

This summer with the humidity I feel we've come to a happy point. I wash my hair with my free and clear shampoo, it dries, it gets fluffy! And yes, fluffy involves frizzy. And you know what? I like frizz. It's boisterous. And energetic and yeah you can see the sky through my hair unlike before (god it was so thick when I was a wee one) but it's fun. 

And then yes I flatten my hair down and leave it in a ponytail so I can rub it against my lips, but that's just delightful. I love when it gets all smooth too but from a more textural point of view!

Anyways. I'll have to enjoy the texture for my next handful of birthdays before it changes all over again!

For forty-three. Not much happened. I aged. I felt slightly less under-the-weather. We watched some Full Metal Alchemist (my show with Allan) and then some Andor (the family show). I played with my camera a little. Andrew got his own camera. It worked!

We played.

Many games!

And later on in the week, I finally learned to be a Sidewalker! Allan is in her second horse therapy session. She can use fifteen different brushes to groom a horse, and even knock the gunk out of her horse's hooves. And I can stand next to a horse and walk. Now this is a skill that's going to take me places! Mostly around the arena a lot. 

We didn't stop there but I forgot to post this blog when I thought I was done, so we're in this sort of awkward Postlude phase? 

Let's Make It Official!

Epilogue: 

On Friday I met my Bumble BFF friend Michelle. We got coffee, wandered the neighborhood and met her loved ones.

 Allan was a little nonplussed at my absence, which I hadn't anticipated. But I also didn't anticipate that the ductless heater service dude would be there while I was gone. He came to service the units just as I was leaving. Meaning I got a handful of kind of confusing texts for Allan saying things like "stranger!" and "when are you coming back?" followed by "when is the ac guy leaving?"

But we all survived!

The next day we visited my mom, who is done with radiation therapy (thank god!) and recovering nicely. 

And, well, time kind of dragged on until this week! 

Andrew is off in Long Beach again, so it's just me and Allan. We're surviving well enough at our newer older and wiser ages! I think!

Maybe! 

Next week, school starts up again! And... oh boy, we've started doing some math review to "ease into it" and... it's gonna be a long year.

That said. I have plenty of gel pens, M&Ms, Cheerios, Poppit multiplication tables, and whatever else it takes to make it seem "fun" (enough for me to remain calm and carry on in the storm of "hells no" from the child!)

May god have mercy on us all!