holyoutlaw

Yesterday morning I hung out with R---- so Anita could rest from her second chemo. I was a little tired, so basically I watched him play with his wooden train; the toy store in Wallingford Center was going out of business, and they had a series of dashes (well, the other letters in his name) to go along with the R that Anita had already found. After a while, we went to the park.

It was a cloudy day, so there were plenty of parents and kids there. It's a very international park; there were Chinese, Polish, Russian, Indian kids and parents there. At the Wallingford playfield, the only child of non Euro-American (white, basically) that I recall descent was a mixed race child.

You know, I think it's an example of privilege and prejudice that until I typed in that sentence I'd assumed the girl was adopted. In another park (in a neighborhood of a different socioeconomic level than Wallingford), I'd have assumed she was the biological child of the woman she interacted with. (See? Now I can't even say "her mother." Hah!) At the Redmond park, I'd have also assumed adoptive rather than biological parentage.

Um, anyway, at the Wallingford playfield, I didn't notice any accents to English, or languages other than English being spoken. At the Redmond park, I heard Polish, Hindu, and Chinese, at least.

Again, basically I followed him around and watched him play. I took him home, we had lunch, Anita put him down for his nap after Jack came home from work.

Back at the slidey puzzle, we worked some more on the basement after dinner (Szechuan Bistro, to which we have not been in quite a while -- Jane was a little embarassed by how eagerly I agreed to the idea of going out). One of the things I've learned, over the years, is that when you rearrange things, during most of the project everything slowly expands. Then, the reconfiguration is achieved and everything rapidly recondenses. In other words, we're still at the "everything slowly expands" part of the project, but we should achieve "everything rapidly recondenses" soon.

In my area, I've cleared off some bathroom counter and cabinet space and emptied a closet. Most of the bathroom stuff got tossed or given to Jane, but the closet just um, let us say, expanded. Hah!

Today: Mostly Vanguard prep (which is at CascadiaCon), not that we have elaborate plans or anything. Some basement work, I'm sure. Tomorrow: If Jane has Sam, I'll work on stuff up here. If not, more basement work.

Friday, I head off to Oak Park, IL. Monday (12th), I take the bus up to Madison. Thursday (15th) (according to current projections), Julie and I hit the road in our zoom across the continent. Five or so days later, we arrive in Seattle. It took me and Jane five days (Minneapolis to Seattle), but North Dakota featured thunderstorms, tornadoes, diagonal headwinds, and we started out Montana by spending a half day repacking the truck so it didn't fishtail at speeds above 55 mph. With even regular over $3.50 gallon in Madison (according to