Stumbling Through Adulthood

So much of parenting is pushing your kid down the road on their bike, letting go, and watching, praying to a god you don't believe in that if/when the fall comes, it isn't too bad.

And so.

Anne-Chloe embodies, in many ways, the Instagram reels of 'eldest daughters traveling'. (Full disclosure: I think I do too.) She's competent, plans well, and has a good eye for evaluating risk.

She's out on the Olympic Peninsula, hiking and mostly camping for two weeks. Spotty internet, but she's sent us photos when she overnights at a BnB vs in a tent, LOL. I don't know if she's alone, but I do know she's the one driving.

Because yesterday, this was the family Discord exchange.

AC — Yesterday at 09:16
Just, quick gut check please, I'm a competent driver yes? Driving up to a lookout and forest service says "experienced back road drivers and vehicles with high clearance" and I'm second guessing myself. I've looked at reviews (and then snooped the accounts of the reviewers to see what else they reviewed) and the ones who complained or said it was very sketchy tended to have more...city reviews. And I think the fact I'm questioning it at all means I'll probably be fine, but I'm just second guessing myself I think
Steep, one way with turnouts. Conditions as of yesterday were favorable, no reported washouts.
Kloshe Nanitch Lookout

Me — Yesterday at 10:00
Ooof. You are probably well on your way now, lol. If the weather is OK you should be fine is my guess. Just take it slow, pray to anyone you can that you won't have to back up too far and if you feel insecure just stop. Send photos.

AC — Yesterday at 10:02
Will do, thank you!
Stopped at lake crescent because pretty


frotzthewizard — Yesterday at 10:08
Are you comfortable backing down a rutted steep downhill curve with a 1k foot dropoff on one side? If so, you're good. Take it slow and make sure you know what you're getting into a couple steps before you commit.


Me — Yesterday at 10:09
Marymere Falls. Do it. And remember toddling up it. 😀

frotzthewizard — Yesterday at 10:09
Be especially wary with muddiness though

Me — Yesterday at 10:10
Alternatively you do what I do. Get Papa to drive you up. #OMFGIceland

Linnea — Yesterday at 10:25
Reminds me of a lake I visited in Alaska. Pretty stuff

AC — Yesterday at 11:14
Made it up!

AC — Yesterday at 11:15
Yep that's exactly what I was doing when I was planning this morning
💜
I love that of all places, this has an accessible picnic table

AC — Yesterday at 11:23
Yep. So glad I drove an hour and a half for this incredible view
[image of a rock wall looking over..... clouds. LOL]
It's fkn snowing

Me — Yesterday at 11:29
I am so sorry. Shades of Applecross, right? You can see all the way to the Isle of Skye and even the Outer Hebrides.... riiiiiight...

AC — Yesterday at 11:37
Hahahaha yeah exactly that
Pretty, don't get me wrong, but like...

Me — Yesterday at 11:39
Wow it must be incredible on a nice day!

AC — Yesterday at 11:40
3000ft
Kloshe Nanitch Lookout
Btw
Next time in the area

Me — Yesterday at 11:41
If the snow line permits, some Feb day mebbe.

AC — Yesterday at 13:11
And made it down 🙂

FTR: Kloshe Nanitch Lookout. The building is no longer there. It was, then it was torn down, then people missed it so they rebuilt it, but it was vandalized so often it was removed again. I didn't know there was a road up there, but I did know there was a trail, but unless you're camping in the area, it's long enough and steep enough... OMG.💡!!! I could hike up and someone would drive me down. I wouldn't have to do the horrid down. OMG. Anyhow.

Also FTR: I don't drive roads like that, dh does. I cannot deal with backing up, I suck at it normally and it's one of those car things that if I get flustered at all I try to override by driving instincts with my brain and end up doing bad things. So one lane roads up mountains with pullouts and potential for back up? Not my forte. Could I do it if it was a crisis? Yes. Do I want do. NOPE. Anyhow.

Anyhow. despite my get someone else to drive quip, I didn't do want I wanted to do which was of course to tell her don't go, be careful, walk it, whatEVER. Dh detailed the decision points. Etc. But really, I just wanted her to stay on normal flat, straight, dry roads and certainly not to drive up a one lane road up a freaking mountain. But yeah. You watch them ride away, flying down the pavement, and you hope.

I do trust her though. When she was in HS, she went on her school's mandatory Outdoor Education backpacking trip. Thus came one of my proudest parenting moments, when I chatted with the Outdoor Ed prof after the fact. It was a late fall backpacking trip in the North Cascades Wilderness, so not small stakes. The group got to a good potential camping spot some time before dark. However, the best spot was a few miles ahead and some of them wanted to push on. Kent, the prof, left the decision up to the kids, since it was a controlled choice. There were the 'let's get to the better spot' kids and then there was Anne-Chloe who spoke up for staying, pointing out that they knew (light) snow was expected, that they'd get to the other camp well after dark, and that everyone in the group was not experienced at setting up tents at all, let alone in the dark. She argued that while the other spot might be nicer, considering the group, the time, the weather, making camp where they were was the better decision. The group ended up siding with her, and they stayed. My moment of pride came when Kent told me that this was the decision he hoped they'd come to because he thought pushing on would be safe but miserable. He was thrilled that Anne-Chloe had evaluated the situation and laid out her arguments and convinced the others, even the push-oners that this was the better choice. This is what we tried to teach her to do when we took them camping and hiking all through their lives, to weigh risk decisions carefully. All that to say that I knew, even as I cringed at the thought of her driving up that road, that we'd tried to give her the ability to evaluate her skills and the situation and make the best decision.

Anyhow.

1. Dh and Anne-Chloe are going to Reading PA for a weekend in February, to go on a ride on a train being pulled by a steam locomotive on the main line. This is a major deal, LOL. I'm so happy Anne-Chloe was willing and able to go with him: I'd have gone, of course, and probably had a great time, but I don't really-really want to go. They should have a great time!

2. I need a new bra (or two) but I don't want to go bra shopping, sigh. But I have to. I think I'll take light rail or a bus from work to dt Seattle and then get a bus back to dt Redmond. It's stupid that I can get from the uni to dt Bellevue, but not easily the 4 miles from dt Bellevue to dt Redmond. Can't wait for the light rail to go all the way there, rather than stopping at Microsoft.

3. My shoes, after spending almost a month going back and forth over the Tampa Bay bridge were finally returned to me, 2.5 months after I mailed them out. Since it was for a warranty claim, I'm going to try to see if the gal I've been chatting with on twitter will help me out. Because at this point, it looks like I had the shoes for five months and am complaining that they're trashed, but no, they were dead within three months! I just really have no idea why, at some point, in Redmond, they covered up the "to" address and shipping the package diagonally across the country. Make that make sense, USPS!

Anne-Chloe is 27 today.

How?

How did my sweet little baby grow up so freaking fast? Wasn't it just a few years ago that she was a baby?

Time does such strange things.

I am so very proud of her!

Maybe it'll be three things. Maybe it'll be more. I don't know.

1. This past week was... interesting. Worked the full week, mostly doing training. From only mentioning "neuronal cell culturing" I'm now finding out there is a lot of mouse work (*), something he'd mentioned during the second interview, but implied was a lot less than it's going to be, and some work with -no I am not kidding- monkey brains. 😐 (*) Basically, the implication was that I'd have to do some mouse euthanasia. I interviewed for a job that required that a while back and read up a bit on it. I didn't feel totally happy with the idea, but I figured I could euthanize mice with CO2, which seemed to be, from my reading, a common method. Well, no. It's mouse pups with scissors, and yes, I'll have to be trained but I'm not sure even then I've got the guts. So this job may go not further than me crying in front of a case of mouse pups. We shall see. And tbh, I don't think he was trying to hide the info. It's just that he was really enthusiastic about another aspect of the job, as was I, and we were both focused on that. So.

2. White fonted for weight loss Well. Alas, this is bad data collection. First full week on Zepbound, I was up 1lb. Second week, this past week? Down almost 3. Is it the meds, or is it the in a lab all day with only the food I've brought it? It's going to be hard to tell. I think I'm dealing with less "food noise" but is that data or placebo? I probably won't know. But I'll take the weight loss and hope for more!

3. Linnea and team were at a regatta yesterday, she was bow in the Varsity 8, yay her! They came in second, which is fine, and the boat looked really good.

Here are the last 30 seconds or so of the race.

4. Seems like Anne-Chloe is the youngest or one of the youngest lab directors they've ever had at Fred Hutch. Yay, but she still really needs to get a freaking PhD or MD. I've only spent a week at UW and I'm already feeling strangely uneducated and dumb.

5. As if things weren't bad enough... My sister brings my mom up on 14 Mar. She leaves 16 Mar, comes back 30 Mar. 31 Mar is Easter Sunday. We leave Friday 5 Apr for Louisiana before we drive to TX to attempt to see the 8 April Eclipse. This was all going to be a bit stressful what with me being gone all day, but then the folks helping my aunt in Vancouver BC decided that... they want to put the house on the market early April and JoAnn agrees. That's nice. When we suggested those dates, they all said no, we can wait until late spring or early summer. Now it's a crisis to go through everything she has left there and figure out what we want -a lot of her stuff is -thank goodness- at the assisted living place with her, but the last two or three times we were up, everyone (including me) agreed that no, we should wait, it wasn't like the house was going on the market right away. My sister was the only one who'd initially pushed for an earlier time to market and to go through JoAnn's stuff. Now I have no idea what we're going to do. I guess dh and I will have to go up at some point, leave my mom at the assisted living place, and start to weed stuff now. Tbf, the folks up there promised to box of anything we wanted/thought we'd want and store it for us in one of their garages, but really, just fucking no. Sigh.

6. Drove Linnea up to Bellingham today and then went on a hike at the Stimsom Family Nature Preserve. About 3.5 miles on well maintained and graded hiking trail.... in the pouring rain! We looked like drowned rats at the end, but smiling drowned rats! Only iffy moment: tree over the trail. No way to go off trail easier to go around, it was too high for me to get easily over and too long for me to easily get under. I had to do under. At one point, I was essentially in a plank trying to move sideways. At least it was dh, and not the kids... they would have taken video, I'm sure, not to post on Instagram but to show either sibling not present.

Oh yay, Anne-Chloe has a request for Christmas! It's expensive so collective gift!!! I think it's the first time since she was like 3 and said she wanted a ribbon for Christmas that she has made a request!

She wants a stroke coach. Perry agrees it's a good idea.

All three of my kids are ending up as rowers. Weird how that stuff works. And 2/3 coach or coached regularly. Linnea did a little bit but not driving kinda made that hard. Anne-Chloe has a standing offer at the gym if she wants it and still is in demand for private lessons.

I have to add that Perry coaches Anne-Chloe's rowing group!

Anne-Chloe is leaving for a week in Dublin tonight. I'm jealous. She has a friend who ditched the US (Irish grandparent) the second she graduated from HS, and has been living there so a place to stay. Lucky her. That means she and Linnea will have seen the Book of Kells, and Perry, dh, and I have not yet, grrr. Trip needed.

A neighbor is logging their lot. It's about 1 acre, there was about 1/2 acre cleared years ago, but I guess they decided they needed to clear the lot entirely. The sound of chainsaws is making me sick to my stomach. Then comes the thud of another 100+ year old tree hitting the ground. Then a brief pause before the chainsaws pick back up. It's been several days of this, most of last week as well. 😭😭😭😭😭

Most of last week and yesterday, I kept my headphones on. But my mom had a bad night, up at 4am (Perry who was about to leave, got her to go back to bed), then again at about 6am, when I suggested she sleep a bit more, then up for the day at 8am. As she often is after a bad's night sleep, she's distressed, keeps asking about my dad, and is not always clear in each conversation if I am her daughter or her sister, so when I tell her, she isn't sure if I mean her husband or her father. But not consistently, so it's hard to know what info to give (if I remind her I'm her daughter, she gets pissy on top of distressed). Anyhow, that means she's been talking pretty much nonstop about this since she got up so... no headphones to mute the sound of saws.

I've managed, while not eating anything out of the ordinary, to gain 5lbs since Thursday. I just want to cry. The weight comes on easily with no explanation, and it's going to be as rough to get it off again as it was the first time. Basically, I've not lost anything since early September and it's fucking hard to be hungry all the time AND not lose weight.

I hate that I am not a good caregiver.

I just desperately need a few days without my mom, and that's not happening until Christmas at best, and even then, my sister will be here (but staying at a hotel) and I'll still be responsible. Sister still thinks her construction will be done by December, but lol, I saw the status last month, and considering how slow they've been progressing? Not happening unless they've managed to sic lawyers on their contractors.

Bluetooth is a fucking POS protocol.

There. Where's my rock? I need a rock to crawl under.

OMG, such a good day.

Found a parking spot, found a viewing spot, got a short walk in and...

Saw Perry weave his way through a bunch of Women's masters 8s, barely missing one (*), row by us, and head out into Lake Washington where he eventually crossed the finish line...

... and ended up with a second place finish! I don't know if there will be a medal (he had to deal with boats for a regatta next weekend so he didn't go hunting one down), but eh, second place!



After Perry's race we had a bit over an hour before Anne-Chloe's so I'd planned on a walk. My MIL insisted on coming with us, so not enough steps were done, and we went slowly, AND had to deal with her complaining about something the whole way, but we did get to take a nice short time on the Arboretum trail by the side of the lake. I was hoping to get as far as Fox Point, but we had to get back. Got some good, if very different from our usual, views of the race course.

So Anne-Chloe. She came down the course in their 4, and they actually looked pretty good! They ended up placing 4th!



A few photos Linnea took, and one of AC's boat taken from the Montlake Bridge.







(*) Coming through the cut, the men's singles caught up with the women's Masters 8s. Note that this isn't unexpected, a men's single should be about as fast as an equivalent's women's four or quad. The boat being passed needs to yield. What we had: Perry trying to pass an 8, while he was already working on passing another single, and that single was passing another 8. So on a diagonal, with Perry having the right of way, there were two singles and two 8s. Perry, lucky for him, is very deft with his boat and was able to avoid clashing oars with one of the 8s who couldn't really yield any further because of the traffic from the other direction, boats headed back to the start line and the single and the other 8 didn't have much room either. It was very tight, but they all made it through, but it truly was only luck that got them all out without any oars tapping.

So. Anne-Chloe is doing a post-bac through Fred Hutch. She has a pretty major project, once her PI thinks could lead to a PhD. When she presented it a few weeks back, she got a lot of positive attention, and quite a few buy-ins on how important this data could be.

Today she found out that one of the head honchos at FH is now her second mentor on the project. It's kinda big deal. I mean, this is someone whose name I certainly know and that's pretty exciting. He picked her project up, so even more so. To give an idea... when Biden comes to Seattle to discuss his cancer moonshot? This dude is one of the people he meets with, LOL.

Poor kids is equally excited and terrified.

On Sunday, Perry and AC rowed in a mixed double in the Pink Ribbon Row, the current incarnation of Row for the Cure, dunno why the name change.

They rowed in a masters even, so despite having by far the fasted time, they came in third once the massive handicaps were applied. They're both pleased and it was nice to know they'd rowed together!

The phots aren't great, but here they are:







Anne-Chloe bemoaned her posture and Perry admitted that he was rushing to the catch.



Quick update here: my mom seems to be getting better quickly, dh not as far, and he's far more tired than I'd like. I'm actually worried about it. O2 levels are fine for both of them. My aunt, in Vancouver, is doing better as well, as is bro and family is Louisiana. Linnea is fine. Sis and BIL still fine.

Perry and I are still ok. He's sure he's escaped, I'm still waiting to get sick. Probably after everyone else is better, LOL.

I am still so sad about my camping trip. But eh.

Linnea is skipping off to B'ham tomorrow, leaving me with the sickies. I'm a bit irked at this. Not that I need a lot of help, but I can certainly use it, and Perry is rowing and coaching in the mornings, and coaching in the afternoons and evenings.

It was a great day, with one nasty spot.

First the hike. We got out early and made good time on the trail. The last 1/2 is where a good bit of the 1000ft elevation happens, it's done via stairs mostly. So stairs, then an up but less steep switchback series up with lots of roots and many many rocks. Then the falls. This is the 3rd of a series of four waterfalls, and the drop is about 100ft. With dh for scale.





It was really great to be out in the mountains, even if the weather wasn't perfect. I mean, I know I get to my wildland park, with trail and trees etc, but nothing is comparable to the painful scrambles of a real hiking trail!

The sour note. We were coming down the final bit of steep trail (before a trail intersection). At that point, the only place we could be coming from was the falls. We met two women, both thin and fit, and we moved aside to let them pass (uphill has priority!). One of them asked me "Did you get to see the falls?" Get. Get. I blurted something like, yes, they were great but OMG, the crash. If you are thin, maybe that comment sounds like a throw-away one, but as a fat woman, what she was asking implied that my failure to reach the end of the trail I was coming down was enough of a possibility that it merited asking about. That maybe I'd seen the stairs and decided to come back down with just a half mile to go? While wearing, I'd add, hiking boots that have seen many a mile of trail. It just fucking hurts, it's othering, because she'd never say that to a thin person, indeed the question was directed at me not dh. It's the same type of thing I constantly encountered while cycling, people would call out "good job!" when I was riding the goddamn same ride they were. Encourage the fatty, right? Anyhow, it left a sour sheen on an otherwise awesome hike.

In my dreams, I'd hike in an Escher world where the trails only go up and I never have to go fucking DOWN. I hate downhills with a passion. They hurt. Up is usually just a matter of setting my pace, but down is painful hips and knees, the fear of falling and the tension that creates. I've always hated downhills, and it's not gotten any better as I've aged, LOL.

After the hike, we headed home for a bit, then went into Seattle to meet Anne-Chloe and we went to a Kamelot concert. It was great! I love love love live music, and it's our first concert since probably 2019. We masked up, fingers crossed we don't catch Covid. The energy was great, the music wonderful and even my hike-weary knees couldn't stop me from some jumping, ugh. We didn't get there early enough to get up close, so we retreated to the elevated above the floor bar area. Didn't get seats, but Anne-Chloe and I managed to get to a spot where we could see. Why are most of the people who attend metal concerts 6ft plus tall burly men? (Usually with beards, but that's irrelevant to the fact that they aren't transparent!) We were standing behind a woman (seated) who clearly didn't want to be there, she spent most of the concert surfing Instagram and on her Band of America account, apparently checking out transactions. My one gripe? That the (three tall burly bearded drunk) guys to our right had chairs right up front of the bar wall and stood up most of the time anyhow, keeping the people behind them from seeing.

They played a few songs from their new album, but mostly older familiar ones, and people were clearly enjoying themselves, it was great.