summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2023-04-21 12:16 am
summercomfort) wrote2023-04-21 12:16 am
Spring break
My school is weird and had Spring break this week, instead of last week, which is when everyone else has spring break. The plus of that, I guess, is that lots of "touristy" locations were pretty empty. We flew down to LA to visit family, which was pretty fun, except that (a) Miss Rutabaga somehow acquired a 3rd illness just as she was recovering from her second one, so there was lots of coughing, fatigue, and conjunctivitis during this trip. (I feel like it may have been the new COVID "Arcturus" [x], since there was all the COVID symptoms, plus the pink-eye and the spike of fever that is new to Arcturus, except that it didn't show up on the COVID tests that we did.) Anyway, a lot of nights with poor/little sleep as Miss Rutabaga coughed through the night, and a lot of constant masking. (Sleeping with a mask - ugh).
That said, it was quite fun to fly in and visit family. The cousin-in-law is a very chill person. I really like visiting people when there's less formal "host/guest" relationship. Like, I prefer it if it's like "hey, welcome, here's a place to crash, avail yourself of whatever's in the kitchen cabinets, grocery store is 15 minute walk that way, and we can coordinate activities as befits our work schedule." So this was a pretty relaxed visit that way. Maybe we can do more in the future! Spouse went to a Blondie concert last night, and this morning he's hoarse, from both the concert and also coughing all night.
I think I've managed to escape the illness! But we woke up at 6:40am this morning for the airport, got back in around 11:30am... and then I turned around and left again at 2pm to go with my mom up to Point Reyes. We were planning to go as a family, but given that Miss Rutabaga is still recovering and Spouse is nebulously sick, it was better for me to remove myself from that equation. It's rare to get to have one-on-one time with mom, so we had a pleasant 2+ hour drive up, where we chatted about Dad's complicated relationship with China, her feelings about returning to China vs staying in America, and how taking the raads-r autism test (she got 24) has helped her understand and contextualize where dad is coming from (he refuses to take it, but given what we know about him, we're pretty sure it's pretty high.)
Oh! Speaking of the raads-r, I was tabling with a comics friend at the pop-up gallery 2 weekends ago and I told him about the test, and about how it turns out that I *do* have a system for socks, and then it turns out that *he* also has the exact same system for socks!!! That was super exciting, because I've always felt like the weird one for being extremely particular about left vs. right socks, and that folding in half is far superior to rolling, and making sure my socks of different duration of wear are lined up... and he's the same!! :D!!! (Also, he thought that *everyone* had left and right socks, and I got to tell him that that's not actually true (I'd discovered that myself only a few years ago), and he was like "no way" and I was like "let's go ask the other comickers" and we did a straw poll and the others were like "I guess I understand the concept of left vs right socks, but I don't really bother to distinguish") Anyway, yes, I now have a sock twin!
Did I talk about the pop-up gallery? Well, the past 2 weekends I was in various places selling my comics. The first is the semi-annual pop-up gallery that we host, and the second was at a library-hosted comicartsfest. They both went decently well, even if hosting the pop-up gallery was exhausting as usual. There was a lot of weekend logistics, made worse by the 2 weeks of different illnesses that Miss Rutabaga was experiencing. It's... been a full month.
Anyway, I'm now relaxing at Point Reyes, after a rather full... 3 weeks (or 3 months, lol). There's of course stuff that I had brought up with plans to do (update the Yum anthology print with the new images, grade at least 4 essays), but also, now that I've written this, I'm like, "yeah, I've had a long coupla, maybe I should let myself actually relax."
I recently read in a tumblr post that "if you're resting but feeling guilt about not being productive, then you're not actually resting," and I've been thinking about that a lot.
That said, it was quite fun to fly in and visit family. The cousin-in-law is a very chill person. I really like visiting people when there's less formal "host/guest" relationship. Like, I prefer it if it's like "hey, welcome, here's a place to crash, avail yourself of whatever's in the kitchen cabinets, grocery store is 15 minute walk that way, and we can coordinate activities as befits our work schedule." So this was a pretty relaxed visit that way. Maybe we can do more in the future! Spouse went to a Blondie concert last night, and this morning he's hoarse, from both the concert and also coughing all night.
I think I've managed to escape the illness! But we woke up at 6:40am this morning for the airport, got back in around 11:30am... and then I turned around and left again at 2pm to go with my mom up to Point Reyes. We were planning to go as a family, but given that Miss Rutabaga is still recovering and Spouse is nebulously sick, it was better for me to remove myself from that equation. It's rare to get to have one-on-one time with mom, so we had a pleasant 2+ hour drive up, where we chatted about Dad's complicated relationship with China, her feelings about returning to China vs staying in America, and how taking the raads-r autism test (she got 24) has helped her understand and contextualize where dad is coming from (he refuses to take it, but given what we know about him, we're pretty sure it's pretty high.)
Oh! Speaking of the raads-r, I was tabling with a comics friend at the pop-up gallery 2 weekends ago and I told him about the test, and about how it turns out that I *do* have a system for socks, and then it turns out that *he* also has the exact same system for socks!!! That was super exciting, because I've always felt like the weird one for being extremely particular about left vs. right socks, and that folding in half is far superior to rolling, and making sure my socks of different duration of wear are lined up... and he's the same!! :D!!! (Also, he thought that *everyone* had left and right socks, and I got to tell him that that's not actually true (I'd discovered that myself only a few years ago), and he was like "no way" and I was like "let's go ask the other comickers" and we did a straw poll and the others were like "I guess I understand the concept of left vs right socks, but I don't really bother to distinguish") Anyway, yes, I now have a sock twin!
Did I talk about the pop-up gallery? Well, the past 2 weekends I was in various places selling my comics. The first is the semi-annual pop-up gallery that we host, and the second was at a library-hosted comicartsfest. They both went decently well, even if hosting the pop-up gallery was exhausting as usual. There was a lot of weekend logistics, made worse by the 2 weeks of different illnesses that Miss Rutabaga was experiencing. It's... been a full month.
Anyway, I'm now relaxing at Point Reyes, after a rather full... 3 weeks (or 3 months, lol). There's of course stuff that I had brought up with plans to do (update the Yum anthology print with the new images, grade at least 4 essays), but also, now that I've written this, I'm like, "yeah, I've had a long coupla, maybe I should let myself actually relax."
I recently read in a tumblr post that "if you're resting but feeling guilt about not being productive, then you're not actually resting," and I've been thinking about that a lot.