Complaining about car repairs and not being poor

Yesterday I got the estimate for minivan repairs to the tune of $3500.

This isn't a repair for just one thing. We have a leak in our evaporator, which requires getting to it from inside the car. And they recommend replacing the heater core, too. My front brakes need replacing. The rack and pinion needs replacing.

Even if I said don't do the two cheapest things on the list of like six things that are part of this repair, it would shave off maybe $200.

And when the temperature is 90 degrees with humidity making it feel like 105, AND I have 3 kids in the vehicle, I really don't have the option of not fixing the AC.
Somehow not fixing the brakes seems irresponsible, too, as does allowing my steering to go out.

We have the money in the bank to fix it.
I hate to spend that money on fixing the car because I rather like to just have money sitting in the bank doing nothing, but it is there and as my mother likes to remind me, the reason a person saves money is to pay for such unexpected things like six minivan repairs that all happen at once.

Since getting this estimate, however, what I have been thinking a lot about are the people who don't have the money sitting in the bank.
All those who have jobs and don't have an emergency fund because it takes 98% of their pay to cover rent, food, utilities, and prescriptions or doctor visits.
All the people who are regularly subjected to unexpected things who have to worry that in paying for a repair, they have to figure out how to feed their children.

I don't have that worry.
My family will be fed even with this huge-ass expense.
We can pay our utilities even with this huge-ass expense.
We can pay for N's field hockey team fee in July even with this expense.
We can still go on our beach vacation even with this expense.

So it angers me to spend money on the money-pit of vehicle ownership, but it also depresses me because I think about those who don't have, and I worry what could be for us.
I think to myself, "What would it take to bring us to that point?"

I cannot live in the illusion that that could never happen to us.
While it might not be likely, it is possible.
I don't know if this is anxiety or the realistic view that a devastating medical condition could potentially financially cripple us.

I think because my brain "goes there" whenever an unexpected happens that I cannot always just live in my little bubble of upper middle classness.

Kinky Boots as church

I am not a fan of "go every week" church.

I go when I want to go and when I feel the desire to go which, for me, means I am going there with the right intentions and with an open mind.

In my many, many years of going to church at least two times a week, I can only recall one time in which I felt truly moved.

It was the Good Friday service when I was in eighth grade, and my class re-enacted the Passion. I remember hearing the sound of the mallet hit the wooden cross. It echoed through the rafters and pushed against my chest. It brought me to tears, a moment I still remember vividly. I felt for a brief moment the horror of what being nailed to a cross might be like.

Church has made me angry and it has made me think, but only once has it made me feel deeply.

Last night, my friend and I went to see Kinky Boots, and it felt to me like what I would want church to be....the overwhelming feeling of God's grace.

I am not a sentimental, syrupy-sweet person by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help but see what is truly the best of Jesus in that performance

---the stripping away of the "shoulds" to find simple people who just want to follow their hearts.
---the acceptance of others.....not in what they do or how they dress...but in who they are as fellow human beings.
---the ways in which asking people to fit into your system of life that works for you can render them miserable.

I realize that there are some people for whom cross-dressing or homosexuality or anything that is not a cut-and-dried version of boy/girl is anathema.

I get it, and I don't believe there is any point in trying to change their minds. There are many people who have a worldview that is very "this-or-that" with little understanding of complexity and gray. That is their mindset and where they feel most comfortable.

For I think an increasing majority of people, however, there is an understanding that life on every level, from the microscopic to the outer reaches of space, is highly complex in ways in which we cannot even begin to fathom.

Life is not simple and never has been. Humans have put restrictions on our world to simplify it, to manage it, to make it comprehensible, to make it feel like something we can handle.

I don't think you can be a parent of multiple children and not see every second of the day how complex and unruly life is, how little there is that fits into a black-and-white schema.

How is it that three children born of the same two parents brought up in the same un-fractured household can have different mindsets, habits, interests, personalities, physical traits, desires, beliefs, and goals?

How is it that attendance at a musical can make me feel a sense of grace, a washed over sense of love and acceptance and brotherhood amongst strangers that I have not ever felt at church?

Some might say I attend the wrong church, but I do not.
I like my church.
It is quiet and peaceful.
I have been to louder, bigger, MORE churches, and I felt fake. I didn't feel comfortable, and I didn't feel like I belonged.
I do not find God in songs about God. I do not find God in wordy praise of God.
Most of the time I find God in observing the quiet power of nature, or the sharing of time with my children, or the moments of deepest gratitude for the ways in which my life has been quietly blessed beyond anything I could ever possibly deserve.
Last night, I found God in a Broadway show about cross-dressers.

Deets on the Quebec trip

I could take a zillion pictures on the trips we take, and I would regret not taking more.

I think it is that I want the photos to capture the essence of the place we visit, and they simply cannot. Nothing can replace being there.

Still, I tried on our trip to Quebec to take photos of the little things I noticed. Sure, we took plenty of pictures of the big things---the basilicas, the huge statues and the big hotels--but sometimes what makes a place unique are those small things that you notice.

When we arrived in Montreal, it was around 7 pm so all we had time for was to grab a bite to eat and wander around briefly. The city is celebrating its 375th anniversary this year. 

There were images flashed onto the sides of buildings that told a story about the history. 

This was the view of the street from our hotel the first night in Montreal. 

Definitely old word feel (except for the car).

We grabbed some dinner at the bar at this restaurant.

The VIA Rail station in Montreal had these on the walls. It was a rather large station or large in comparison to the one in QC. 

Our hotel in Quebec City. 

Loved the unique window-boxes, not just here but at other places as well.

La Grande Dame aux bleuets by Rose-Aimee Belanger in Chateau Frontenac. 

A stop sign in QC.

An actual phone booth. 

What can I say? I thought the mailboxes were cool.

This winter, QC got 12 feet of snow. 

Signs abound about the danger of falling snow/ice. 

There are guard rails at the tops of many buildings to keep people from having snow dumped on them.

When we left via the back door of our auberge, we walked past this. 

It was weird.

I liked it.

 Our auberge in QC connected to Hotel 71. 

At the entrance were two sculptures. 

This is one.

 The license plates in Quebec read "Je me souviens," which means "I remember." 

I can't help but like this.

During our walking tour in QC, the guide pointed out a church that has been

converted to a library. As a book lover, I can't help but

adore a place called "House of the books."

When D and I wandered through QC on our way through the nouveau section (with breweries and more modern stuff), I saw this.

This is a small fountain outside Auberge Sainte-Antoine, 

right now the block from where we stayed.

There are three passable gates surrounding QC--Kent, Louis, and Jean. 

Architecturally beautiful, in my opinion.

A water sculpture in a small park right outside the VIA Rail station in QC.

The FAO (Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN) sculpture which is right now the block from our hotel. I artistically loved and vestibularly disliked the wavy pattern on the sidewalk and road.

Taking Flight sculpture in the City Hall gardens.

A smooth whiskey/maple syrup concoction that D and I tried 

while cruising on the St. Lawrence.

Back in Montreal, the place we ate lunch. Just lovely.

So lovely that we bought a photo of the outside 

of the cafe from a local artist to commemorate our Montreal visit.

At a corner near Rue Saint Paul in Montreal, another

Rose-Aimee Belanger sculpture.

Macarons at Marche de la Vieux Port in QC.

Back in Montreal, D noticed that John the Baptist looks like he's taking a selfie.

A small chocolate shop right around the way from our hotel in Montreal.

We laughed every time we walked by this place because in our heads we pronounced it, "Couch-tard," a derogatory statement for couch potatoes.

In French, it is pronounced "kush-tar" and means "night owl."

It is a convenience store for those late night needs.

A piece of the Berlin Wall on the site where Montreal's boundary wall once stood. 

Now in the World Trade Centre of Montreal.

Critter summer

We are only a few weeks into summer break, but I am dubbing it "Summer of Critters."

First, we discovered a nest of baby robins in our smoke tree.

Then, my MIL's neighbor and my friend let me watch her tend her beehive.

There was the day at the creek, watching butterflies, catching minnows and crayfish, and seeing  a snake (EEK!).

There was the evening I donned the special suit and got to see and hear the hive up close.

There was the zoo with lorikeets and butterflies....

The nature center, where the kids saw a captive turtle....

AND a hike in the woods resulted in this...

The critter-fest continues with a whole slew of rabbits in our backyard.

The cats have even gotten in on the action...

OT free

After 3.5 years of once-a-week occupational therapy and probably close to $10,000 in cost, G has been released from care.

G and Miss Jenny, his OT

When we began his OT, he didn't yet have an OCD diagnosis so we were dealing with a lot of unknowns without any tools to help him. I didn't understand how one issue fed into the other and how difficult it would be to understand, at times, what was sensory/balance and what was OCD/anxiety. That continues to be a challenge.

I stuck with OT every week and doing the at-home assignments as much for myself as for G. Of course, it was always for his benefit, but I didn't (and don't) want to ever look back and think to myself, "I let x, y and z go. Maybe if I had stuck with them longer, he would...."

I haven't gleaned as much wisdom in 43 years as I would like, but I have learned that I don't regret anything I did although I do regret not doing things. When it comes to G, or any of my kids, I don't want to think that I didn't do everything I could, in the way of professionally-recommended things, to help them.

That is a funny line....the professionally-recommended things, but there is a very big difference between a parent doing "everything they could for a child" and doing "everything that is professionally recommended for a child."

Sometimes doing what you think is best for the child is actually not in the child's best interests. Sometimes, with a parental bias, it is difficult to parse out what is best for the child and what is best for the parent. There is a lot of ego involved in parenting. I know all too many people whose children's physicians or counselors or teachers or administrators recommended counseling or some kind of therapy and whose pleas fall on deaf ears. I get why this happens, but I also don't get it, especially when a parent simply cannot admit that their child has a problem.

OT was a headache for me, for us, in all kinds of ways. Driving to and from. Scheduling every week around his appointment. Taking him out of class. Paying all that money.

But the alternative of not doing it, of not following through, was not and is not acceptable to me.

For my own piece of mind, I need to know that I tried.

And I did try, and I did what needed to be done based on my own feeling and the professional recommendations of others who have far more knowledge than me and a larger frame of reference of what is "normal" behavior for children.

So G's "graduation" is, of course, a celebration of the work he has done in OT, an acknowledgment of how much he has improved for the better. We are proud of him and were happy to get him a cookie cake when we asked what he'd like to do to celebrate and he asked for this pretty simple thing.

But his "graduation" is also a celebration of what I have done, and what we have done, to help him.
An acknowledgment that from speech to OT to psychiatric evaluations to medication management appointments, we have done our best to use expert guidance to help us guide G to be his best self.

I will probably be fired

I have been tasked with an advertising project for the family of magazines I have written for since 2010.

It would not be hyperbole to say I am hating it a little bit.

It isn't the writing---that is fine. I can roll the writing out like a machine.

What is maddening beyond belief is the scheduling or, more specifically, the lack of scheduling on the part of the individuals I am supposed to be getting on the schedule for their interviews.

I, unfortunately, take deadlines pretty seriously, an affliction that no one but me seems to have.

My editor has linked me to a spreadsheet where I am supposed to note my progress--contact made, when the interview is done, when the article is submitted, etc.

My tolerance for scheduling frustration is quite low, so I am now posting these kinds of commentary in the spreadsheet:

--STILL playing phone tag with this lady
--I'm getting tired of calling this chick
--(sound of Carrie whistling)......no....really..that deadline is totally optional, people. Just ignore me.

I KNOW that a big part of my problem is me.

My deadline is a rolling one beginning June 20. I've got the intro and one of the articles written but not submitted because I had a question to which I am waiting for an answer.

I've got time.

But we've got camp in two weeks which will make me pretty much unavailable for five working days.  When I return home each day at 4 pm, I will be smelly and dead.

And I just hatehatehatehatehatehatehate the waiting for people to respond.  I always have....from the time I was a preteen.

I'm telling myself this is the continuation of character building in my 40-something self, but it just sucks, and I just suck at character building.

I worry that they may fire me (or stop hiring me) for articles due to my spreadsheet commentary.

Unless, of course, they give it to me because no one else wants to deal with this shit.

Public pain

In general, I think it is a good idea when people are honest and open about their experiences.

I talk about my GAD and OCD because they are part of who I am, and I have found that I have been able to offer comfort and support to others who also struggle with them. I talk about G's issues because of the support offered to others but also the support others have offered me. It helps to feel not-so-alone.

I did not talk about my GAD and OCD when I was in the thick of dealing with them, however.  For one, I was too emotionally effed up to discuss them publicly.  It was also the time before Facebook and my blog.  Maybe I would have blasted the social world with my struggle at the time, but I really hope I would not have. There was a small window of people who knew what I was experiencing.

It makes me feel hugely uncomfortable when I see people publicly going through whatever turmoil is hitting their lives in the very public arena of social media.  I feel like I have made that mistake at times, and it is not pretty.

Emotions are just too raw.  You cannot be rational while experiencing intense emotion.

I certainly understand the desire and need for support, for others to know that you are hurting. When D told me in the wee hours of the morning that his father had died in 2004, it was hard not to call my parents at that second and tell them the news. I'm not sure I understand why we often have this need for others to know our pain, but I understand that need.

But the throes of rage or grief are not our best moments.  We have to blend them with consideration and time to come to our better selves.

We can come across as jaded or thoughtless or flip in our times of intense pain when we go public.  Those are all real; we really do feel that way at the time, but they make everyone else uncomfortable.

I have inadvertently responded to posts on social media which I thought were jokes on the part of the poster, only to find out that they were not jokes. The sky really was falling in their world.

Sometimes I wish us regular folks would follow the lead of our celebrity neighbors and make blanket, non-emotional statements of fact to let everyone know what is going on regarding miscarriages or divorces or home sales falling through.

Because there is some need on the part of the social public to know what is going on.  I know people who did not ever publicly acknowledge something and then at a later time I ask about it, drudging up their pain because I didn't get the memo.

It is a weird balancing act between knowing what to share and knowing what is over-sharing on public media.