Travels with Plink and Cthulhu: Home again, home again

From the moment we met and hugged in the baggage claim area of the Sea-Tac airport late Friday afternoon, our only plan for the weekend was to enjoy our weekend visit to the Big Green Monster and its inhabitants: acrobatty, cflute, jenkitty, pocketnaomi, and the two kids. We did, in spades. Thank you, folks, for an absolutely wonderful visit.

Not having a plan wasn't a matter of lowering expectations but of simple necessity: in a household of that size anything can happen, and usually does. Equipment malfunctions, meltdowns, power failures, medical emergencies, missed connections, schedule overruns, household drama,... the possibilities for disaster are endless, and you can't always count on avoiding them, as we did. So are the possibilities in the other direction: good friends, good conversation, good food, music, people, joy, beauty, love, hugs (especially little-kid hugs)... We got all of those.

Sunday's part of the visit began and ended with potential disasters. The morning started with a sudden shortage both of bread and of conscious adult household members for kid-watch duty: this was easily averted by me making a trip down the hill to Albertson's, the location of which I remembered from a side-trip Friday.

The afternoon ended with a household project: "We have a third person, let's move the new music-room carpet into position!" Followed by "OMFG, how much did you say that piano weighs?" -- but by that time the rest of the furniture had been moved, and it would have been hard to turn back. We did it: by the time we left the carpet and pad were down in their new position, the piano (actual weight over a ton) had been tilted back to slide carpet and pad under the front legs, and by the time we left cflute and jenkitty were trimming the pad on the side by the window.

In between were brunch out at Barlee's with cflute and pocketnaomi (I picked up the tab and declared it a business expense, since the conversation was mostly about CD and music planning), more conversation and music. I concentrated on songs that pocketnaomi hadn't heard (she'd gone to bed early on Saturday night). The interaction between C and N is a joy to watch.

My back and left shoulder didn't start hurting until we were well on our way to the airport, probably due to a too-heavy backpack rather than any of the weekend's activities.

We got to the airport with time to spare, though a combination of a second round of raw oysters at the restaurant and the fact that they were nearly finished boarding the plane by the time printed on our boarding passes as the start time made things a little more hectic than I like.

We came home, finally, to a clean house and a happy, proud super_star_girl, and woke up to the sound of a running clothes dryer and fresh pots of coffee and iced tea. Wow!

Thanks again. We had a blast.

Rollycat: Travel notes

Just a couple of random notes for folks traveling with wheelchairs:

• Carry a couple of bungee cords where you can get at them - rental cars aren't properly equipped. Get the kind with wire hooks; you can't always count on finding a big enough space for a plastic one.
• A PT Cruiser has enough room for a wheelchair -- just barely. You have to stand it up in the back. A suitcase that tapers from bottom to top makes an adequate substitute for a bungee cord.
• Avis, and presumably other car rental agencies, will drive you from the car-return place to the departure area. I wish they'd mentioned that before we got completely unloaded.
• You can get three people, some luggage, a walker, and a wheelchair into a PT Cruiser, by piling most of it into the back seat. I wouldn't want to try it with four people.
• A wheelchair fits comfortably in the trunk of a Honda Civic, but not in the trunk of a Lincoln towncar. Go figure.
• A walker can be handy. Take a cheap one that folds reasonably flat.
• It's possible to manage one rolling item while pushing a wheelchair. If you have two checked bags, make sure they stack, either vertically or horizontally, so that you can roll them as a unit.

... and a couple for home-owners contemplating guests -- or family members -- with limited mobility.

• Hand rails go a long way toward making your porch steps navigable.
• The Big Green Monster has very wide porch steps -- wide enough for a small walker. Win. If only we'd remembered on the way out...
• You can make a good wheelchair ramp out of 3/4-inch plywood. Screw 2x4 cleats to the bottom to hold it in place on the stairs. Use a water-based polyurethane varnish; deck finish if you can find it. Don't bother sanding -- you want it rough for traction.
• There are high toilets suitable for tall people and people with arthritis. Much easier to get off of. (Also more expensive. There are things you can use to raise the seat, but they don't look as good and I'm not inclined to trust them much. Might be worthwhile for hotels that you're driving to, though.
• Grab bars within reach of the toilet and bathtub are extremely helpful, especially if you can't afford the more expensive accessible versions.
• In new construction, remember that interior doors should be wide enough to accomodate a wheelchair or walker -- at least 30" and preferably 36". Wish we'd thought of that 20-odd years ago...

River: On snapdragons

This came out of an incident toward the end of this weekend's trip.

Snapdragons:

The snapdragon is a pretty flower with a fierce-sounding name. It looks as though it's set up to eat insects, but in fact all it wants to do is hold on to them long enough to deposit some pollen on them to send to the next snapdragon they visit. But sex by proxy is an entirely different story.

The snapdragon effect

It turns out that cflute, who we were visiting over the weekend, is even more sensitive than I am to what she calls "crosstalk". If she's trying to talk or write, words directed at her will break her concentration. We were engaged in a rather complex and stressful project when pocketnaomi derailed C's train of thought and got "snapped at". She was, understandably, hurt and upset, and said so. This got C angry in turn; N left the room rather than let it escalate. (edited 0719t1535 in response to a correction in comments.)

It turns out that N is at least as sensitive as Colleen is to phrasing and tone of voice. It's a hypergolic mixture. And C doesn't have the benefit of 30-odd years' experience with this problem.

When it happens between me and Colleen the usual result is Colleen bursting into tears, but it's the same thing. I wrote this up back in February in this post, where I attributed the phenomenon to the confusion of being yanked out of a state of flow, but it seems to be a lot more general than that.

Whether you're a geek or non-geek, whether you're in flow or just concentrating on something tricky, there's that moment of confusion when you're jolted out of your concentration by a chance remark, an innocent question, or even a vitally important but ill-timed message. During that moment, if you say something, there's going to be stress in your voice. You're going to snap at the source of the interruption.

And, especially if they love you, the source of the interruption is going to interpret your tone of voice as angry. Both effects, the snap and the reaction to it, are near-instantaneous and totally automatic. It's all over before either person has a chance to collect their wits and think about what they're saying or hearing.

In most cases, you didn't even notice. What you said and how you said it didn't even register on a conscious level -- you were thinking about something else, after all. The first thing you notice is the reaction.

All you can think to do, once you get that totally unexpected and, to you, totally unfair and unwarranted reaction, is explain what you think happened. All your poor partner/spouse/lover/friend/kid can think is that you're still angry and giving them a dressing-down. Don't go there: you're making things worse. Apologize as quickly as you can, and shut up.

The snapdragon solution

I'm suggesting the code-word "snapdragon" for this -- it's memorable, and somewhat descriptive. "Are you being a snapdragon?" "Sorry; I was a snapdragon there." Actually, just "snapdragon" works fine if you both know the code-word; Colleen has already used it that way this evening, less than an hour after I introduced it.

It'll work in both directions: the first one to notice a snapdragon interaction gets to tag it. Once you've confirmed that it was a snapdragon, you can -- and should -- drop the subject and move on. Preferably move on to something like a kiss or a hug, along with pride at having successfully averted a serious breakdown of communication.

I've already mentioned "Basingstoke" in a similar function, but it doesn't seem to have stuck in this context, perhaps because it's neither as memorable nor as specific. I think I'l save that one for use in the rather different situation where my disagreeing with something Colleen says comes across as not listening.

Just as a linguistic aside, my reaction at being accused of snapping at Colleen used to be something like "I didn't snap at you; you startled me and I couldn't control my voice." Rubbish. I snapped at her. I might not have been angry when I snapped, but "snapping" is the correct word for what I did. Sorry about that, Love.