When I said fun with spectrums, that was just a preview of more to come!  I’m not going to go into it, it’s complicated dynamics between SQ and KS, resolved for now.  Suffice it to say, the former will spend tonight with J&C, to ease tensions.  (I’d include a key to initials, but that would defeat the purpose of preserving their anonymity.)

After sorting out the above, I took my med and slept through the rest of the night.  I had familiar dream themes, only darker, of complex labyrinths, being stalked, and having nowhere to go home to.  Also relying on the kindness of strangers.  I remember there being a loud t-storm and extremely heavy rain early in the morning.  It’s water world out there, but cooler.

Moving on, this current world is a very difficult one for any kids to grow up in, let alone kids on the various spectrums (neurodivergent, gender identity, orientation, etc.).  It’s particularly dangerous and insecure for them with these psychos in power.  It takes a lot of awareness and vigilance on the part of parents to provide all the therapies, meds, doctors who have the guts to defy the cruel laws (often out-of-state), and most of all support and security in the home.

These kids themselves don’t necessarily realize or appreciate all the exhaustive work that goes into keeping them safe and providing appropriate medical and mental care.  But I see it, and feel privileged on their account, and one day they will see it in retrospect.  It’s so much better than when I was a kid, when these neuro-disorders and gender affirming care were not even recognized, let alone addressed properly.  You would just be punished for being weird and uncooperative.  Or worse.

Check out the rainforest!  Note the hanging gardens of squash/pumpkins/?.

Avdi is away in Knoxville for a week.  This is my first overnight of the week, alternating with Jess.

A rainstorm is brewing which means today was obnoxiously humid, with mosquitos.   Not to say that I didn’t take some fun flower photos.  But I had plenty to keep me busy inside.

Everyone slept in ’til late, teen-style, or they weren’t even here.  I didn’t know if Y was even alive in there.  Update: turns out he’s not even home, he’s at a friend’s overnight.  Good to know!

K/S (K is now S, so I’ll use KS.  S is SQ, keep up.) is cooking an Asian meal with tofu and lots of Asian other stuff, including garden veggies and herbs.  SQ, who used to be very neuro-fussy about meals, loves KS’s sophisticated culinary cooking.  Are you following?  KS loves to cook, and SQ loves to eat.  So it works out.

As for the election, it went pretty well, ATC.  Our favored progressive, Cori Bush, unfortunately did not win against Wesley Bell, a not very progressive dem.  But we defeated two evil repug amendments trying to fool us with deceptive language, as usual.  Of course STL Co and City are pretty liberal, compared to the outliers, so this is not the whole picture.  But still encouraging.

Today we voted in our Missouri primary election.  I’m cautiously optimistic, as they say.  More on that when I know more.

I discovered how to mark colorful circles around stuff!  The bird is a hummer, just sitting on a branch for a while!  The bunny was grazing on grass right in front of me.  My cam, not unlike my eyes, sucks, but you get the idea.

This elegant green and white plant is Euphorbia marginata, a native annual of prairies and plains, and it just popped up out of nowhere in a couple of places so far.  Apparently it can take tough, disturbed conditions, so it must like our garden.  It’s toxic, but I love it.

The big fluffy pink plant along the woods area is Joe Pye weed, a wetland native.  Next to it is Liatris spicata, between blooms.  I’m hoping to succeed in growing more gorgeous natives along that edge this coming year..

Note the yellow mushrooms/fungi that keep coming up in the rock garden.  ‘shrooms always indicate the soil is improving and forming networks underground.

I didn’t do a lot outside, due to the humidity, but I voted, and I shopped for the house, and did other chores, so I earned my beer.

Today, besides making shopping lists and carts for tomorrow, I did more garden work.

I laid down more cardboard on the paths in the veg garden.  I transplanted a red and a white achillea (yarrow) from the front garden to the back raised bed, where they’ll get more sun.  Then I worked on cleaning up the whole front entrance garden.  I weeded, pulled out strangling vines, removed the wire edging along the new section so it can be mowed, and other cleaning up.  I’m still figuring out my ultimate goal there.

I’ve see at least one hummer, more pollinators and butterflies, and some dragonfly-looking things, all good signs.

Later, I cleaned up part of the outer flower border of the veg garden.

Tomorrow is the primary for a crucial election, with many progressive candidates running against the racist fascists.  There are many props and amendments trying to deceive voters as usual into voting against their interests.  Some of the polls I’ve seen are close but encouraging.  Lots of mixed feelings, trepidation with a dash of hope.

Everything about Y’s party was festive–except Y.  I’m not sure what’s going on, beyond the usual teenage stuff.  To look at him, you’d think he was in existential emptiness and despair.  Which, to be honest, is exactly how I was as a kid and teen, so it should be familiar.  It just worries me, knowing some of his history.  And there’s nothing I can do.

Anyway the party was a success.  Jess, Stacey, and J joined us, as well as a friend of Y’s, who spent the night.  The raspberry pie by E and the raspberry cheesecake by Stacey were wonderful.  Stacey and I and S hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  We got Wingstop chicken for everyone.  Then Stacey took S home.  Avdi left for the night and I slept over.  I took some traz and slept all night.

This morning was perfect out–cool, sunny, and breezy.  E harvested a pile of veggies, which had doubled in size overnight from all the rain.  He also picked elderberries and made jam.  I got a lot of garden jobs done.

I organized the messy pile of pots and flats.  I put some (sycamore?) saplings in water.  I raked and cleaned up the front area along the fence, in prep for seeding in fall.  I laid down some more cardboard for paths in the veg garden, and weeded and straightened up some rows.  I weeded, trimmed, and cleaned up the whole herb garden.  I weeded some of the rock garden and transplanted a flower plant there.

Stacey dropped S off around noon on her way back to MI  for her last two weeks of field work and finals.

It’s been raining a lot, and it got much cooler.  Yesterday for erev I made roasted veggies mostly from the garden: zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, fresh basil and oregano, with sautéed beef, garlic, onions, red wine, served with pasta.  It was a packed house after all, like 9 people; we almost couldn’t fit everyone at the table.  Loucious did his challah tricks.  It was fun hanging out with the extended family.

Today almost everyone, plus Y’s friends, went to the zoo for his birthday.  E and Stacey are baking a raspberry pie and a raspberry cheesecake, respectively, as per Y’s request.  Later on we’ll have “festivities”.  I’ll sneak over while they’re gone and make it look more festive, and maybe play in the garden between rains.

Off I go.

It thunderstormed and rained buckets this morning, and got cooler.  Stacey is driving from Michigan to her new house with a boatload of the rest of her stuff, arriving any time now.  She’ll stay through Y’s birthday (everyone’s going to the zoo tomorrow), and then return to an airbnb to finish out her work for a couple of weeks, then here for good.

As the rain was tapering off, I took these photos, and was excited to figure out that these red flowers are in fact red lobelia!  So we now have red, white, and blue lobelia!  So patriotic.  Another find was an actual bean in the three sisters!  Note the corn, beans, and squash growing together.

We have peppers, tomatoes, a couple of eggplants, and little squash/gourds all over the place.  Not to mention all the okra and baby melons.  And new flowers, like the red amaranths, coming up.  The silphium forest is full of yellow blooms, like tall sunflowers.

In fact the whole place is turning into a jungly forest in the rain.

I’m prepping for erev as usual…it’s always a surprise who will and won’t show up, but I suspect we’ll have a full house!

Yesterday evening Avdi and I managed to squeeze in a “Mom date” ahead of his trip to Knoxville.  We checked out Side Project Brewery in Maplewood.  We had unique craft beers and casual food (burgers, etc.).  We got to talk.  He also agrees with my choice to go with distance vision, and just rely on glasses (as he does) for close up.

After that we went to the book store–“two floors, two cats, and we close at 8!”  The cat sitting on the desk was a gorgeous silky black and super-friendly; I just stood there and got my kitty fix.  Then I meandered through the windy passages of books to the ceiling, and Avdi got a book.  I love that bookstore.

Then we drove home in the beautiful sunset.  I can’t think of a better time: my son, beer and burger, cats, books, and a sunset.

All I’ve done all day is make arrangements for my upcoming surgeries.  I had to find rides, which may or may not be forthcoming, and fill out and submit volumes of medical history data online, which took hours.  This is the kind of stuff I had to do for my parents, and now it’s just me, but at least I’ve had plenty of practice!

But the hardest part is more subjective; worrying about if I made the right choice of distance vs close-up.  I only get one option with the basic, covered surgery, so I chose distance, because driving safely and effectively is more critical for our purposes than being able to read anything up close without serious prescription microscopes on me all the time.

It’s pretty sad that poor people can’t afford routine functional vision surgery because it’s considered an elective by insurance companies, same as in dentistry.  They can easily do all the procedures and more at the same time, if you have thousands of dollars to spend out-of-pocket.  Anyway, I think I made the right decision.  Being able to see to drive gkids around safely is more of a priority.

Anyway, I did as much as I could today, and hardly ventured outside.  Today’s photo theme is The Jungle.  The garden is jungling up admirably, and there are so many native trees hiding in there!  Redbud, catalpa, oaks, maples, sycamore, and mystery species, just waiting to be transplanted or left in place.  I have to stay alive to see next year’s forest with my own upgraded eyes.

Today was my surgery evaluation exam.  After many hi-tech gadgets, squirty stuff, flashy lights, and decisions, I’m scheduled for the most basic (cheapest) procedures, which will restore my distance sight to where I technically won’t need glasses for driving, but will still need prescription glasses for close up.  There will be separate surgeries for each eye, with recovery time and exams in between and after.  All this will take me into September.

It was hard to decide which is my priority, seeing better to drive, or being able to read print and screens, which I also do a lot of.  But as S sagely commented later, it’s better to be safe on the road.  I can always get better reading glasses.  You have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for the fancy elective upgrades, wherein you get all the vision.  Seems a little greedy at people’s expense, but that’s our capitalist system.

My eyes were super-sensitive to light without the dilation shade inserts they gave me, so I stopped home for a bit to recover.  The apprehension is a little overwhelming.  I felt really weird and tired, for some reason.  Partly it’s the nervousness.  All the other patients there were nervous, too.  We agreed it sucks to get old.  Also I suspect the numbing and dilating drops went to my brain.

But I made it over to Avdi’s, finally, and immediately had to lie down on his bed and rest.  Then I got up and did some stuff in the garden.  I harvested the zucchini and some tomatoes, found lots of little baby watermelons on the vines, more little pumpkin-looking gourds, and a growing eggplant.  S was swimming in the pool.

Here are a couple of photos I snuck of E’s party setup, and the obligatory garden shots, including a lurking dog, not posing.