Better Late than Never

 A while back when I was out walking solo in the neighborhood,  I thought back fondly on all my passions and deep interests of the past, and got a bit teary eyed, missing them.  There are current obsessions, of course, but I miss the Old Friends. 

One of those Old Friends was Judaism, triggered by reading and rereading and obsessively rereading the Diary of Anne Frank in approximately 1992-1993.

(Please note that her full name was Anneliese, and the shortened version is appropriately pronounced AH-neh FRAHNK.  She was German, not Dutch, though of course the house where her family hid from the Nazis was in the old part of Amsterdam; I have been to it, now a museum, twice.  Her father, the only member of her immediate family to survive their eventual internment in the death camps, died on August 19, 1980.  I felt significantly tied to their family through this small piece of chronology, as I was born the following day.)

I studied Judaism fairly extensively from the vantage point of my middle school bedroom in an era without internet, but with reasonable access to various small libraries at home, school, and church.  I did create some various small religious artifacts which I stored on the second to bottom shelf of my chiffarobe, including the small metal box containing the Shema (which observant Jews tack onto their door posts.)  Mine was fashioned from the lid of a tin can: cut, bent, and then embellished with markers.  The Shema itself I wrote in Hebrew on a piece of handmade paper, although I don't still remember the materials or process.  This thing I still have in the glass cabinet in my disaster of a living room.  I also went so far as to hold a private and secret Pesach Seder in that same refuge of a bedroom.
For 29 years I have wanted to add a Hannukah menorah to my collection and use it for the holiday, but every year I can't quite justify the purchase to myself. 

Today I spent a couple of hours moving furniture in the living room and cleaning up the discovered scourge, in an effort to create a cozy spot for our recently secured Christmas tree.  That mission was accomplished, although I do wish our tree were quite a bit larger.  As I finished up this process I was nearly in meltdown for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, and I dashed out on some errands.  While I was walking through the store wiggling my hands and muttering to myself under my breath (just try to imagine Don Weilerstein in Target) I very purposefully bought myself the long awaited cultural object.  It is now installed I my living room window.

Aged Cheddar

Aging has its benefits...

Whenever I have had the choice, I have opted for self-checkout at the store or the library, or used the ATM at the bank.  Although in principle I would prefer the old-fashioned community-connection way, I have recently articulated for myself that I do this to avoid the discomfort of having to talk, unscripted, to a person with a specific business agenda where I might not understand exactly what to say or do.  Lately, though, I have noticed myself gravitating to the human-checkout.  Maybe I have amassed enough data through a sufficient number of transactions to have a handle on all the possible script variations?  Also, I watch in wonder as my 8 year old, who is my stunt double in a whole host of other ways, fearlessly talks to librarians and cashiers and even asks them for help. Maybe her lack of concern is rubbing off on me.  Or maybe it's the studying I have done on collaborative problem solving vis a vis the work of Dr. Ross Greene.

The truly amazing moment this week, though, was at the end of my quick trip to Dick's Sporting Goods in search of a new tire pump Sunday evening.  I did not think I would like the store - the image of team sports atmosphere in my mind, coupled with the anticipation of loud music and sales people wanting to help me was vaguely concerning.  But I accidently walked by the camping section en route to the bike zone and had to hold myself back from price checking all the gear I can't fit in my tiny car.  And while I was annoyed at the amount of branded sporty clothing, there was not loud music, and no one asked me if I needed help.  (I appreciate the sentiment, of course, but I am not always confident in talking to strangers, so I have often been in the habit of answering queries with "no thank you" even when I don't know where to look for the item in question.)

So anyway, I found the tire pumps and compared prices (my concern) and durability (Jared's concern) and marched my selection to the check out.  The cashier rang it up and it was $20 more than I expected.  I had a moment's hesitation, but I did not panic...and I did not pay.  Much to my own surprise, I told her that price was more than I thought and I would go back and pick out a different pump.  Which I did, while confirming the price sticker on the shelf.  When I return, I experienced NO elevation of heart rate, NO shot of adrenaline, and NO fawn impulse, while explaining the list prices of both items to her.  She called her manager and got him to confirm I could purchase my first choice of pump at the sticker price rather than the more expensive price it rang up.  I don't know how to tell you what a refreshing experience this was from a social anxiety perspective!  (I think it must have helped, too, that the cashier was probably half my age.  And maybe my years of experience working through the personal challenges of truth-telling to students and their parents is starting to pay off!)

The one thing that annoyed me, is that in this store, they do not refer to you as the "customer".   Nor do they refer to you as a "guest" as they do at Target, which is a total and irritating misnomer; no one is there to enjoy Target's hospitality, but to participate in unbridled capitalism, or at least grab some needed items and get home.  No, at Dick's they refer to you as "athlete."  *Hello Manager, the athlete here at checkout is finding a different list price for this item.*  Why did the term bug me?  Was it patronizing?  Or fussy?  Or making assumptions?  I suppose the latter.  The assumption could be totally inaccurate.  Perhaps I was procuring the bike pump for the actual athlete.  Or suppose I hate sports and needed a portable way to pump up my car tire... Ah, well.

Irritating terminology aside, it was a great and unplanned personal victory at the cashier's desk.

[When I relayed this story to Jared, he seemed slightly confused, and said this is how it is supposed to work, which, of course, is right.]

Now if age would only improve my insomnia.... Alas.  The brain is racing with so many thoughts.  The opening of the Act II of The Nutcracker is cycling endlessly and delightfully in my inner ear. (It's in E major).  Fingers and toes want to wiggle.  My hair keeps touching my skin.  I can smell the cat, because he insists on lounging on my pillow.  And I am trying really hard to ignore the fact that my sleeping pants make my legs feel endlessly itchy.  (Taking them off would make my legs cold, and I don't really want the skin of one leg touching the skin of the other either.)  No matter.  I will conk out eventually while enjoying Tchaikovsky's sumptuous lullaby.

Wacky Wednesday - Mad Monday

The two little kids have been cackling over a Dr. Seuss book Laurel picked out at the library called Wacky Wednesday - shoes on the ceiling, strollers without wheels, a three-footed policeman, a telephone plugged into a potted plant...  And Anne has recently been letting me read to her, which I have missed for the last year or so, being as fond of kid's chapter books as I am.  We have read two Nancy Drews from the library, and having finished one of those at 1:00 am when she was up with a stomach bug a few days ago, we pulled Alice in Wonderland off the shelf in my glass cabinet with the use of a headlamp and started in.  I was rather amused on this reading by the mad tea party.

We had a bit of a mad Monday yesterday ourselves.

Sunday night was quite warm, such that I opened the window at the head of my bed so as to not overheat.  It was also very windy; the curtain flapped noisily and let in light pollution all night.  Not the best sleep, especially since I planned to be up on the earlier side for a walk before other events of the day.  The walk was quite warm - in the 60s and *windy.*  (At various points in my life, I have been extremely bothered by wind - either feeling I can't breathe or overwhelmed by my hair or ears, but at the moment, it is not so troublesome to me.)

At 10:00 am, the two fellows with the solar-panel-on-roof company came by to talk with us, as planned.  [The kids chose this morning to sleep very late.]  Jared and I got out the ladder and climbed up on the roof with the two gentleman and we all avoided being blown off in gale-force winds.  After a while outside, they suggested we sit in the living room to talk through the hypothetical details of installation and price and tax rebates, etc.  We hadn't planned on the inside bit, and the living room was not at its *finest* but also, it could have been worse; thankfully both gentlemen liked cats.  

After a while, it was suggested that they really should have a look at our breaker box, which was a wee bit complicated, as we usually access it by sitting on Lazarus' bottom bunk and sticking our hands through the railing to fix whatever circuit is flipped.  This wasn't going to do, given the situation, so we went in, opened the curtains, and moved the cat tower, the small bookshelf, and the bunkbed.  Mind you, Anne was asleep up top.  Of course, she woke up, and later she told me if she'd had her head about her she would have growled at the solar guys.  Lazarus, it seemed, had just missed the melee by waking up a few minutes before and sneaking into the kitchen where I found him when I noticed his sleeping bag empty, and immediately started the stove for his chocolate pancakes.  Anne climbed out of bed and installed herself in the rocking chair with a video on her hand-me-down lap top, giant accidental dreadlocks in her adorable dyed-orange hair flapping in the breeze.  I started working on the would-be-good-to-eat-something-before-Tae-Kwon-Do project, and she started working on the I'm-not-taking-my-class-today project, but we both knew that she was testing for her yellow stripe after class, so...

And after a longer while, it was suggested that the gentlemen really needed a look at the structure inside the attic.  Which involved moving furniture in my bedroom and taking things out of the top of the closet, bringing the ladder inside, and unscrewing the tiny attic access on the closet ceiling.  Mind you, Laurel was asleep in my bed, and naturally, this commotion woke her up.  It so happened, that she and the bed were mysteriously soaked, and she needed changing.  

By the skin of our teeth, I got Anne (and Laurel) out the door to Tae Kwon Do in the wind, which had now added pouring rain.  Anne took her class AND earned her white belt with yellow stripe to her immense delight, and we made it home.  

It was now after 1:00 pm, and I had not yet managed to eat breakfast, but Jared had saved me a large bowl of steel cut oats and apples, although sadly, the oats had burned a bit in the mayhem of the morning.  No matter, I poured on some almond milk and downed it, while checking my emails of the afternoon.  

Close to 2:00 there was a popping noise, and our internet went down.  A few minutes later there was another popping noise, and our power went out.  The wind continued to blow wildly, although it had pushed the rain through, and it was now sunny; people started flying kites in the field at the park behind our house.  Anne ran in and made a small paper kite to try in the back yard.  She also drew Lazarus a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog, as he was feeling rather melty about the Sonic video he'd been watching online having vanished in a fit of electricity failure.  

...I was supposed to start teaching at 2:30, and my first two students were online.  No internet, no power.  And also no phone.  So I had no way to contact them to let them know we would need to reschedule.  Instead of teaching, I sat on the edge of my bed next to the chair, sewing machine, Jared's sweaters, and the popcorn popper, all stacked there *not in the wet spot*, reading Alice in Wonderland, while Anne turned the ladder and my desk into a fort while dressing herself and Laurel up in blue and yellow respectively and inventing some type of family game where Laurel called her "mama".  After a bit, I went out tp the studio to practiced viola and piano.  Then I got ready for my 4:30 in-person lesson, which due to the time change was going to be getting rather dark.  We supplied the studio with the camping lantern, two head lamps, and three candles.  The lesson was a dress rehearsal for my student's upcoming book one recital, and was amusingly atmospheric.

The transition to group class at 5:15 was interesting.  The Zoom students, of course, had no way of knowing we couldn't get online. We had the 4:30 lesson family and Laurel in physical attendance, as well as another small student who had just arrived and whose mother was quite confused as to why we were attempting Dalcroze in the dark.  About 15 minutes into group, the power came back on, and I booted up our Zoom account.  Amazingly, we did have five of our six online constituents there on the screen waiting for us.  

The rest of the evening went as planned, and I only have two lessons to reschedule (during recital week - blargh). Jared didn't miss either of his lessons.

We got to bed a bit later than planned as de-forting the bedroom plus getting the bedclothes through the wash and dryer and back on the bed added time to what is normally already one of our later evenings...

It was still windy at bed time and the temperature had dropped into the 40s.  Tonight, we are supposed to get our first freeze of the season, finally.  It has been late in coming.

The End of October

The second-to-last weekend of October, I undertook a long needed project while it poured rain - cleaning up/cleaning out the kids' room.  It took approximately 5 hours, and NASA was quite confused to find himself able to walk on the actual floor.  Having a truly clean room for a few days made me feel like a real functional adult.

Then on Thursday the 28th, it was still pouring rain, and one of my teenage students who sits on the swing to read between her lesson and group class was going to need a drier spot for her 45-minute reverie.  So I cleaned the living room before I taught, and then I had two clean rooms.  I saw bits of floor which had been missing for a long time. 

And I felt even more like a functional adult.
 

(Lazarus demonstrates reading Sonic the Hedgehog comics from the library on the sofa with Black Bean.)

Sunday, the 31st - it was beautifully sunny; I felt solar powered, and I cleaned my room. I felt even more functional, like A Genuine Adult (TM).  I could see my floor and desk again.

I feel unusually on top of it right now.  I know it won't last, but I'm going to enjoy rolling with it for a bit.

Friday afternoon, the 29th, Anne wanted to go busking at the train station to earn money to buy a wig for her Halloween costume, which she did.  The wig was purchased, trimmed to the correct lengths, and portions of it dyed.  It was an involved and emotionally wrenching process.  In the end, she came in my room at bed time and shared her thoughts with me until after 1:00 am.  Actually, the whole weekend was wrenching for her.  There is no way to Plan C a date on the calendar, laden with so many internal expectations.

Saturday it was sunny and clear, so Jared and the two littler kids and I visited the Kubota Japanese garden, some five miles west of us, for the first time.  It was started by a Japanese immigrant in the 1920s, and is now a Seattle city park.  Anne was unable to join us, as she had had enough, but she and Linda went to another park where they enjoyed the zip line, views of Mt. Rainier across Lake Washington, and a hike in the woods. So glad they was able to get out of the house for a bit!

(Lazarus loved this pink tree, as pink is his favorite color, and repeatedly asked if we could bring it home.)

After dinner (in which Linda witness a more "normal" for us dinner and was potentially overwhelmed), we dragged everyone 30 miles east to a trail up into Olallie State Park where Linda's dark sky app indicated a band of dark green (not as good as light or dark blue, but far darker than the dark red indicating phenomenal light pollution at our house.)  Everyone hiked up the path in cold night air with the hopes of seeing the predicted aurora borealis, which none of us has ever had the chance to view.  It was indeed dark enough to see the Milky Way and some shooting stars, but the Seattle lights were glaring to our west.  After an hour of holding a small child and others complaining about the cold and the dark, we hauled ourselves back to the cars and headed home, while praying that no one would actually manage to murder anyone else in the back seat.  I'm only speaking somewhat metaphorically.  (I heard later that the aurora was visible from 5:30-6:00 am...  oh well.)

(Stirring the breakfast oats on Sunday morning)

(Participating in democracy)

On the day of Halloween, we were more prepared than usual.  We actually carved the jack o'lantern and had the costumes organized before dark, and although we did not have any candy for visitors yet, Linda was on the way with some... I was sort of impressed with our planning.  I was expecting to take pictures of the kids in costume just one at a time to avoid violence, although at the last minute they all showed up peaceably in one frame.

All five of us plus Linda went trick-or-treating with our neighbors who moved a couple miles north.  It was a lot of fun - first time for Laurel and Jared and me (well, since 1992 anyway), and second time for the older two.  Lazarus was not comfortable wearing the costume Anne constructed for him or going up to doors on foot, but we worked it out to where I carried him, and Linda carried his helmet as a candy bucket.  At self-serve doors he very carefully leaned down from my arms and took the one piece we told him he could, and at resident-distribution-doors, he felt confused and concerned if he was offered more than one piece.  Laurel, on the other hand, was offered double or triple candy frequently, AND nabbed more than her fair share at self-serve doors.  (And the following day managed to down at least eight packages of candy while I was teaching and was inconsolable about not getting more that evening.)

After trick-or-treating, we had the most peaceful evening of a long time.  Lazarus quietly played some video games, while Anne and Laurel had a party in the living room, dancing to Ghost Busters music and playing trick-or-treat with me, and offering Linda's candy to those stragglers knocking on our door.  I sort of wish every evening could be that calm and fun!

Now it's November.

Lefties in a Right-Handed World

Image by Pixabay

This is a synthesis of some things I have gleaned in my obsessive reading about neurodiversity in the last year.  I have primarily focused on autism and ADHD, and I have read lots and lots of first-hand experiences.  There is so much more I want to learn, and I am enjoying my obsession.

Neuroscience is absolutely in its infancy.  It is centuries behind chemistry and biology and physics. A lot of what we think we know about neurodiversity is probably going to be shown to be completely wrong in the coming decades.

Autism and ADHD, in that they have been studied at all, have been looked at through the lenses of the medical-deficit model and with the diagnostic perspective of how they might appear in white, middle-class,  elementary boys in a Western, industrialist, colonialist, patriarchal culture, which coincidentally,  is the culture of psychology.  Western researchers are just beginning to realize that what autism and ADHD might look like is much broader and more diverse than previously understood.

No one knows precisely what genes are behind these neurotypes, but it is clear that they are genetic due to how they travel in families.  Prior to the DSM-V, it was not acknowledged that these two different brain styles could occur in the same person, but now researchers believe that between 20 and 60 percent of autistic people also have ADHD.  From the lived experiences I have read of people with both, sometimes the two interact in such a way as to make signs of neurodivergency more obvious, and sometimes they sort of cancel each other out, making signs of neurodivergency less obvious.  ADHD and autism often co-occur in families: if you have an autistic sibling, you have a higher chance of autism and of ADHD yourself.

To be clear,  autism and ADHD, among a whole set of hereditary neurodivergencies, are not mental illnesses, but more like being left-handed in a right-handed world. It's a genetic and less-common option.  The medical-deficit model really falls down, as these are not medical conditions, nor do people grow out of them, nor are they "curable".   Autistic and ADHD people continue to grow and change and learn throughout their lives, just as neurotypical people do.  The social-disability model provides a framework for seeing that many of the true challenges faced by people with neurodivergent brains are caused by not fitting into the dominant culture, created over time, largely by decisions of neurotypical people, and in the West, by a patriarchal, racist, colonialist, conformist, "progress"-driven culture.  This even boils down to how we perceived parent-child relationships should look and our grand 100-year-old experiment with public school for all, and often these conventions are not a solid fit for neurodivergent children.

A few words about the DSM-V...

First of all, the DSM is designed to describe mental disorders, and in the past has included homosexuality.  Of course, now homosexuality is not understood as mental or disorder, and I think that autism may some day wind up no longer being classified this way either.  I hope....

Autism is a synthesis of three previous diagnoses: Kanner's syndrome (which is the stereotyped non-speaking, repetitive movement flavor, assumed in the past to always co-occur with intellectual disability), Asperger's syndrome (which is stereotypically associated with obsessions in the areas of math, science,  and technology,  sometimes resulting in prodigious abilities, paired with social awkwardness/gaffes - the whole absentminded professor trope), and PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, often given to a child developing typically who has suddenly lost skills, such as the ability to communicate through verbal language.)  All of these are now seen as flavors of the same thing, and the DSM -V supplements the ASD diagnosis with levels 1, 2, and 3 to denote the amount of support that individual needs.  There is some consternation over support levels in the autistic community, as the numbers are assigned by an outside observer who has known you for only a few days at best. Support needs can vary dramatically over time; those listed as level 1 who are considered "high-functioning" or "almost normal" can have very high hidden support needs.  Also level 3 is sometimes used to write off people as less intelligent or valuable.  Researchers are discovering that while some autistic people do have severe intellectual disabilities, many non-speaking autistics actually have an immense grasp of language and either don't have the physical coordination to pull off talking or there is an emotional block between the words in their mind and their body's ability to spit them out.  This is especially true for typically verbal people who occasionally have mute episodes.  There is a whole field of AAC opening up the windows of communication for those who cannot, either occasionally, or always, use mouth words.  

The DSM, in addition to having a list of traits for autism, specifies that those traits must impact the autistic person's life at a certain level, which is again subjective, and may differ greatly at different points in a person's life.  This leads to a group of fairly "functional" people who could be said to have a sub-clinical presentation or be part of the "greater autism phenotype".  The DSM-V has included a new diagnosis for those who miss the cut-off in terms of numbers of points assigned by the clinician for "proper autism" in a given week: social pragmatic communication disorder, aka "autism lite."

No one knows what creates the vast spectrum of different shades and flavors of autism, but it is estimated that between 2 and 5 percent of the world's population have this sort of brain, again, not evenly distributed, as it runs in families.  Many, many adults are now learning more about autism and realizing it applies to them, and many, many of them are finding relief in that understanding.  It's an aha! moment: "This explains why I never fit in.  This explains why I felt like everyone else had a blueprint for life that I could never find."  Many adults are discovering this identity for themselves after their children are diagnosed.  Conversely, some adults do not see their own autism or the autism of of their loved ones, due to perceptions of autism as a negative mental issue or a medical problem or due to common misperceptions like "Autism means lack of eye contact," or "Autism means you don't know how to tell jokes," or "Autism means you are into math," or "Autism means you can't talk."  As a culture we have a lot of internalized ableism around neurodivergence.  Many autistic females are either unidentified or wrongly diagnosed with bipolar, borderline personality disorder, or merely with anxiety or depression.  There are also many unidentified autistic people around who have no idea that they are and couldn't care less, and that is, of course, perfectly fine.  

There has been panic from some quarters that the amount of autism is rising, and this is often paired with a search for a "cure" and invasive, traumatic neuronormative "conversion" therapies.  From what I understand, a rise in autism is not likely.   What is more likely is that autistic minds have been with us for a very long time and we are getting better at identifying and understanding them.  Some famous male cultural icons in the West who it is believed would likely be identified as autistic today include Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Washington,  Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein.   This is not to say all autistic people are brilliant.   There is the full range of intellectual ability present on the autism spectrum, and many autistic people find themselves barely able to cope in their cultural situations. 

DSM language around autism is, in fact, quite negative.  Words like "deficits" and "symptoms" abound.  Many prefer to think of "traits" instead.... Here are a few re-language-ing options:

*Different priorities in focus and social communication from neurotypical minds

*Internal or external discomfort with neurotypical emotional expression 

*Deep interest or attention surrounding details and patterns

*Inner need to create patterns or rituals

*Long-term deep interests in topics or objects

*Possible high intensity and/or low intensity of physical senses

These traits are life-long but can look dramatically different in various stages of life.

Here's the place for a word about "masking".  Most humans do this on some level - changing our outward behavior from what feels natural at various levels to fit the circumstance.  This can be things like having a certain persona or tone at work, then relaxing at home.  Or it could be taking on the accent or grammar of the person you are speaking with. It could be swaggering and swearing when you're out with "the guys".  Some autistic people learn to mask their quirks such that they are not easily detectable by society around them.  Others do not, or cannot, and they are often the ones who are seen as "less than".  Some masking is natural, some might be fun, some might be painful.  In the last category, imagine a person with very sensitive ears who goes into a store with loud music, and the music makes it very difficult for that person to think well enough to find what they are looking for.  They feel like screaming and covering their ears at the auditory assault, but instead they grin and bear it, saving their big reaction for a private place or perhaps internalizing it and perhaps questioning their sanity.  Masking plays a large and burdensome role in some autistic people's lives, but on the other extreme, some people don't do any and are sort of "unfiltered", and some enjoy the mental gymnastics of being a chameleon and "channeling " various personae.

ADHD in the DSM-V  is a combination of two previous diagnoses: ADHD and ADD.  Again, the diagnostic criteria are skewed toward the white, middle-class,  elementary-aged males, leaving many people, especially females, unidentified.  There are a number of overlaps between autism and ADHD, making it easy for clinicians to see the ADHD and overlook the autism (or visa versa) when they occur in the same person.  The criteria for ADHD are simpler than for ASD, although it can impact a wide number of areas in life.  There are three diagnosable types: hyperactive, which refers to a body (and sometime speaking) that needs to be in constant motion; inattentive, which refers to a "Ferrari brain", as one adult ADHD-er affectionately described it (one that is going fast and furious, devouring and working with thoughts at a level not accessible to mere mortals, thus not lingering in one expected place for very long), and the combined type, which is both at once,  and is the most common. These various traits can be dialed up or down at different levels.  ADHD is often associated with creative thinking, and some famous people who could be identified now as ADHD are Abraham Lincoln,  Thomas Eddison, Ansel Adams, Scott Fitzgerald, and Vincent van Gogh. 

There are stereotypes and misunderstandings about ADHD.  Some ADHD-ers are surrounded by chaos. Others are extremely organized to keep the chaos at bay.  Some have had trouble accessing education.  Others have found that their ADHD traits help them broaden their education daily.  Some find it difficult to hold down a traditional job.  Others have found that their ADHD makes them a perfect fit for their job. Some find that they may have trouble holding it together until there is an emergency or deadline looming, and then they are able to focus and do their best work. Many people live their lives not knowing they have an ADHD brain, some happily, and some weighed down by negative labels - "not living up to potential," "distracted," "naughty."

The DSM-V, again, uses very negative language to describe traits: "difficulty" with *insert Western cultural expectation*.  

There is a lot of new learning about brain response in the area of polyvagal theory and more holistic understandings of behavior as communication of what is going on inside, which makes the future look a bit brighter for neurodivergent people as they navigate their own path through a sometimes uncomfortable or hostile system and environment.  I can't help but think over and again how these kinds of brains might manifest with a whole different set of strengths and weaknesses in a more traditional hunter-gatherer society.

While some people wish their neurodivergency away, or at least balk at the challenges that come with being a "lefty" in a right-handed world,  many, many autistic and ADHD adults rather like the quirks and strengths  of their brains and wouldn't want to be any other way.

Here are some different opinions:

https://jessemeadows.medium.com/youre-using-the-word-neurodiversity-wrong-e579ffa816a8

Why the neurodiversity movement has become harmful | Aeon Essays

Rendezvous. Dysfunction.

Last week Tuesday a little after 11:00 pm we were shuttin' 'er down for bed time.  There was a puddle of blood on the living room floor.  I immediately thought of Black Bean who had seemed quieter that evening.  Jared held him and I inspected.  He had an ugly, irregular gash under his jaw.  It looked nasty, but not life threatening.  Thankfully Laurel had gone to bed early so Jared would only have to get the older two to bed.  I bid everyone goodnight and started calling emergency vets.  (I feel very anxious about making "business" phone calls and put them off for weeks or months, but when there is a true emergency, I am overtaken by calm and clarity and can do all the hard things.)  The third place I called, in waaay north Seattle, had an opening... with a proposed 3 hour wait upon arrival.  So off the little patient and I went, arriving a bit after midnight.  Ahead of schedule they got him cleaned up and thoroughly antibiotic-ed so we wouldn't have to medicate him at home, while I alternately watched the goings on the street from my car, read a chapter or two of The Education of Little Tree (an incredible first-person account I highly recommend) and paced in place on the sidewalk looking somewhat mentally unstable.  When we got home a little after 2 am, and I hopped online to order him a soft collar for protecting the injury, as per instructed, for same-day delivery.  

Speaking of hospital, my violin had returned from hospital in way north Seattle just the day before for a cracked top - surprisingly, my own fault. I dropped a metronome in a lesson. Rafael Carrabba and our instrument insurance took care of it beautifully.  While he was at it, this magician of a Luthier did some other long-needed adjustments to the instrument, and it sounds and feels distinctly different.  

(There still appears to be rice inside from my lemon-water-dumped-on-the-violin-in-a-lesson of more than a decade ago.  I dropped in dry rice to absorb the moisture, and I keep finding more kernels over the years.  But they had stopped coming loose, and I thought that was the end of it.  Apparently not.)

We had our last camping trip of the season (unless we can squeeze in one more?) scheduled for the Friday.  As my eldest was feeling strongly demand avoidant of the idea, I tentatively asked Jeff and Linda if they wanted to join us, since I knew that would change the narrative for her.  They thought they might come, which made what seemed an impossible endeavor seem more tenable.  

Thursday evening, as Jared was teaching another hour and a half after I had finished with my students, I cleaned out the car (it was bad!) and even vacuumed a bit with our new, functional machine, then piled all our camping gear and luggage up.  I planned to let Jared do the loading, as his Tetris skills are far superior.  

I had wanted to visit the Ginko Petrified Forest east of Ellensburg, but the camping was all reserved, so we headed out to another new-to-us spot: Staircase at Olympic NP, which has a first-come first-serve campground with running water during the non-winter months, and happens to be the closest ONP spot to our house.

Friday morning I had Anne up early for her annual doctor's appointment while Jared loaded the car.  We managed to leave home well before noon. Poor Anne was off kilter for the rest of the day on account of reduced sleep and having taken her flu shot, but I am happy to report that despite all the difficulties that caused for her, we all made it to bedtime in the national park without any major injuries or property damage.

To get there, we mercifully exited I-5 in Tacoma and headed west on various smaller highways, skirting around the south end of the Hood Canal, and approaching Staircase on a 25 mph dirt road in the Olympic National Forest.  That road follows the edge of Lake Cushman, a section of the wild Skokomish River dammed by Tacoma Power.  At the NP boundary the lake stops and the river runs freely through a wide, twisted rocky bed at the bottom of a valley.  Also, the road narrows to a lane-and-a-half and is paved again, with a 15 mph limit.  

When we reached this section, there was a lot of continued unhappiness in the back seat which required continued adult aural and emotional presence.  And the road was much smoother.  And I sort of missed the 15 mph sign.  And I had a park ranger following me.  And he pulled me over.  I apologized for speeding.  He asked for the usual license, registration, and proof of insurance.  License was easy.  Then we opened the glove box, which was a riot or random papers... We managed to find a decade's worth of expired annual registrations, as well as a current registration paper for the wrong vehicle.  We also found most of a decade's worth of twice-a-year insurance cards, but weirdly nothing recent.  We know that we have recently payed our insurance, and kept our registrations up to date.  The ranger gave us his cell phone number and said if we could text him the current papers by that night, he'd let me off with a warning.  Jared, mercifully spoke up saying that we were not expecting to have any cell phone coverage until Monday.  Fellow said he'd give me until Tuesday morning to send him the documents.

Anyway, we found a lovely campsite with an old-growth tree and just enough flat space for our tent. 

 After setting up, we spent the rest of the daylight hours variously hiking some of the nearby trails and playing by the river, while fielding myriad questions from Anne about when Jeff and Linda would be arriving.

After cooking and eating dinner, washing dishes, brushing teeth, and searching the campground for Jeff and Linda's car, all in the dark, we mercifully all fell asleep early in our sleeping bags.  (Except I forgot Lazarus' sleeping bag at home, as he uses it in his bed and was still asleep when Jared was loading the car.  So Laurel slept in a pile of our winter coats and Lazarus took Laurel's bag.  Fortunately this was decided upon without much of a fight at all.)  

Lazarus was up and down several times in the night, keeping his night-guardian (Jared) quite busy.  And when he woke up in the morning, he said he didn't feel well and kept himself curled up in a ball at the picnic table for several hours.  Anne popped up and asked where Jeff and Linda were, and we spent quite a bit of time rehearsing all the reasons they may not have been able to come (cat sick?  flat tire?  forgot they had to play music for church?  too tired?  couldn't get a cat sitter?) but we did a thorough search of the campground in case they had arrived late at night.  Late morning, she came close to accepting they were not there.  Lazarus stayed at the table, as previously mentioned, and the others of us took turns hiking/running/wandering.  

By the late 1:00's he was stabilized, so, despite Anne's sudden desire to spend all day at the campsite, we headed off just around 2:00 to nearby Mt. Ellinor, which I had seen in the guidebook and really wanted to summit.  Although it was quite close as the crow flies, we spent a long time driving on the gravel road, aforementioned, plus another, and another, to reach the upper trail head from the completely opposite cardinal direction.

{Unbeknownst to us Jeff and Linda arrived at our campsite maybe 20 minutes after we left it.}

When we arrived at the trail head, we had cell reception, and I had a message from Jeff saying they thought they would drive over after church and wanted to meet up.  I couldn't say for sure, but estimated that this text had been sent seven hours prior.  So we talked out loud with Anne about how it was likely they were not coming, due to the fact that they had not heard back from us.  Or maybe they had set up at the campsite and we would see them when we returned.  Without much hope, I texted them our location and the details of our activities between then and dark.

Jared hung out with the kids while I hike the 3.4 mile round trip.  There were naps, snacks, audio books, short hikes, art projects near the car for all of them.  The trail was only 3.4 miles round trip, yes, but it also advertised intense elevation gain.  It took me around three hours, and I could still feel my calves five days later.  The hiking guide rated it a 4 out of 5 for difficulty.  Without a doubt, it was one of the most scenic hikes of my life, and I can't wait to do it again.  My photos do not begin to do it justice.  It went through forest and out onto a boulder field.  

I saw four of Washington's active stratovolcanoes plus one or two in British Columbia, the Hood Canal, Seattle and Tacoma, the Skokomish River (sadly not Mt. Hood, due to haze in that direction), and over the back side, the entire crenellated Olympic mountain range marching off toward the sinking sun, with rocky peaks and glaciers, and forested hills.  

Mt. Rainier, elev. 14,411

Mt

Hazy... on the left Mt. Adams, elev. 12,281... on the right Mt. St. Helens, elev. 8363

There was, right below me, an inaccessible high valley with a small lake untouched by humans, and snow fields still standing in the late September shadows.  

There were also views of an incredible number of clear cuts, mowed down in violent rectangles, and when the sun hit Lake Cushman just right, I could see the original, natural rocky river bed winding through the deeps, with the steep valley walls and forests submerged.  

When I got back down to the car, it was only an hour til sunset, but I encouraged Jared to go up anyway, and he did probably the lower third or half, which was still plenty for incredible views.  I assisted with more snacks, and we listened to more of the current audiobook, which is the biography of Quaker Elizabeth Friedman, one of the pioneering codebreakers for the FBI, etc.  She and her Jewish husband were a team, and got their start during WW I.

Afterward we careened through the gravel roads in the dark to our campsite to cook dinner, etc.  There was more talk of finding Jeff and Linda there.  And when we arrived, they had left a clue.  There were a couple of Anne's possessions, left at their house, newly stowed in our tent.  Anne's name, spelled in pinecones, lay three-dimensional, on the table.  While Jared cooked dinner, the kids and I eagerly scoured every bit of the campground with a flashlight looking for their car.  It was not there.  They had come and gone.  Great disappointment again.

{But they escaped being exposed to the crud!}

The night was rough.  Both Lazarus and Laurel were up and down with fevers, and the coat pile Laurel was sleeping in got *mysteriously* soaked from the inside, rendering it unusable.  I changed her in the dark and stuffed her into my sleeping back on top of me.  We had two sick little kids, and their designated night guardians got less sleep than ideal.  In the morning we wandered around more on nearby trails (Laurel rode on my back, stating "I don't feel very good today."  Lazarus walked slowly and rested on logs - not his usual high energy self.)  

We packed up as the rain started, and stopped for a picnic by Lake Cushman as the rain really started. 

 ....And headed home.  

Once arrived, I attempted a small nap (Jared had attempted one in the car) and tried to track down the possibility of rapid covid testing for Lazarus, as he was slated for his well child check the following morning.  Nothing was available on a Sunday.  I did mount another irksome project as well.  I cleaned out the glove compartments of both cars, tossing years worth of car registrations and insurance cards and fliers from meetings we'd been to in Ohio and a hotel receipt from Wyoming dating to 2012...  I found that the Honda registration was in the Chevy, and the Chevy registration was in the Honda - an easy switch.  But NO recent insurance cards.  I went online to print some off, and discovered that I had never changed our address with the insurance company when we moved close to four years ago.  When I updated our information, it turns out our rate went down noticeably, and I wished I would have done that a long time ago!  I got the documents texted off to the park ranger who let me off the hook for a ticket - hallelujah!  The cars became legal again.  AND I processed a year's worth of junk/business mail that were still unopened.  I really have trouble keeping up with that stuff.

Monday morning I tried several times to call the doctor's office from both my phone and Jared's phone to find out if they wanted Lazarus to come in or stay home, and for some reason I could not dial out on either line.  So we drove over and I left him in the parking spot right outside the lobby while I went in,  masked, past the large signs asking you NOT to enter if you had any symptoms.  I asked the receptionist whether I should bring Lazarus in or if we should reschedule.  She was very grateful I had not brought him in and  said she would go back to talk with the medical assistant.  I walked back out to Lazarus.  In the four minutes I had been inside, someone had already reported an unattended child to the office, and someone was coming to reprimand me for leaving him and saying that they had to report all unattended children to management, yada yada...  Fortunately, they let me stay in the car with him and came out to me as they went back and forth talking to various people until they decided that they would like to see him for his appointment as his symptoms were indicative of a cold, not covid.

We moved all our teaching online for the day (which eventually became the whole week).  And late in the day, Jared and I came down with sore throats.

Tuesday morning we got the kids up for their dentist appointments, but then thought better of it and they rescheduled us for two weeks out.  The anticipation followed by the reschedule was very stressful for Anne, and she needed some adult ears for long chunks of time to help her process the frustration of her schedule being changed without her input on multiple occasions throughout the day.  As part of that, she decided she absolutely would not be going to Tae Kwon Do.  Jared was quite poorly on Tuesday, such that he actually took a nap before he taught.  (My illness has been quite mild, only a minor irritation.  Laurel has been feeling quite fragile and weepy, but Lazarus is pretty much back to normal.)

Wednesday Anne, who thus far had been quite fine, woke up the sickest of the whole crew.  Poor, poor girl.