I really want to write about how patient and compassionate I am, and I sure can be, but not easily and every day. And not on the day 3 weeks and two days after my last period when my period starts again. (Didn’t I just start noticing a regular pattern in the last couple of years?)

My daughter is an amazing artist; her drawings have really taken off, and the one pictured with this post took her two months, working off and on. She dresses with cutting edge savoir-faire and nonchalance (as They Might Be Giants wrote, there’s no word in English for her style), she writes songs and builds amazing Minecraft worlds.

But she can’t keep track of her own passwords, so that is my job, and it only ever matters when she needs to update applications on her iPad. Then it turns out that no matter what I have written down in my encrypted vault, I have to try every combination of hers and mine for oh, today, an hour of entering, re-entering, re-setting, trial, error, and frustration.

I am not frustrated at M., I am frustrated with Apple. Everyone likes to talk about their revolutionary design interface and why we love using their products so much, and I’m a complete Mac person these days, but I am not at all impressed with customer service that always seems to make me turn in circles.

I’ve been chasing my own tail for the past hour, and it has put several things (like a really good blog topic) completely out of my head. Let me try to recover some of them:

  • I had a beautiful walk in Seattle Blue Ridge neighborhood today with S., Leg 4 of our circumambulation of the city. If you’ve ever been to Blue Ridge, you’d know it’s designed a) not to be invaded by circumambulators and b) as a comfortable home for the middle class white folks we saw over and over. We walked through a park that had a big sign saying it was for the use of Blue Ridge residents and their guests, which we are not, but we fit the profile, so nobody stopped us.
  • Yesterday, I weeded for hours at my kids’ school, at times using my whole body to disinter long, healthy roots of what I knew not. The sun was mostly out, the little kids running around with sharp, heavy tools survived the day, and we even found gluten-free pizza at the local strip mall. A highly successful work party & community building effort.
  • Last night, we held the speediest and least kosher Passover dinner we’d ever gotten away with at my stepmother’s house. My older brother, nearing the end of his whirlwind visit and therefore the end of his rope (he usually sacrifices sleep on these visits, making him less good company over time, and this time, he only spent 3 nights in town), tried to pull me into some side conversation during the readings, but I stayed out. That is a huge win. Though I’m still curious about what he was thinking.
  • I have a nice warm bed, sufficient food, and good friends and acquaintances all around. I am grateful for today and yesterday and tomorrow, and quite frankly curious about what Perry Menopause and her sister will bring me. I would much rather be this age than any other I’ve been.

And just like that, a little therapeutic rant, and my goodwill restored. Now on to Sunday grocery store madness…