Laura

Those who are familiar with Badge Magic are probably saying "oh no" based on that subject line. For those who are not: it is an adhesive used to attach Scout emblems and patches to uniform shirts. It's also designed to be fully removeable, leaving the shirt and patches reusable; as such, it's not as strong as sewing them on or using an iron on or fusing item, but it's much more convenient if your Scout outgrows the shirt but still needs those patches. And of course, it has its own arcane rules. (It's also more convenient because you can use it without any special tools but a pair of scissors, although access to a dryer is preferred - it heat-sets in the dryer, which is ideal, but it's pretty good at what it does even before that step.)

So, yesterday, I did a load of kids' laundry. I knew that Andrew's class-A Cub Scout shirt was in there, but I forgot, and just tossed it in the washer. Ooops. You should wash these things inside-out (even if you sew on the badges, it's probably a good idea; if you use Badge Magic you definitely should) so all the edges of all those patches don't catch on things and get pulled away.

I kind of got lucky - I spotted it post-wash and fixed it before the dryer, so at least they didn't continue to get pried off, and also none of them came all the way off (although one of the little segments came close).

So I dried it and figured that today I would try to reattach all the loose bits with more Badge Magic. ( If you know badge magic, you can guess the alternative and the details. If you don't, they're here, but probably still boring. )

Laura's monologue this morning:

• I hope Badge Magic can save me.
• Oh, this is going to be tedious.
• There, got one on! This is going to work. I love Badge Magic. Of course, that was one of the two easy ones because it peeled so far back, but still, this is going to work.
• Ugh, how big a piece do I need here?
• I hate Badge Magic. No, get OFF my FINGERS.
• There. Try again. Oh, that worked. Fiddly, but it worked. I love Badge Magic.
• This segment almost came off. I'll just take it off, rough-clean the area without solvent, and put it back on.
• Why could it not have been the Raingutter Regatta segment that came off? I wanted to replace that one with the other segment for that with the other color set, anyway.
• Oh, I hate Badge Magic. Good thing I'm not going to put my fingers in the dryer, but I'd like the use of my thumb back.
• Um, no, no, no. No gluing the scissors shut.
• Arrrgh, what was this pre-attached badge attached with? Well, it wasn't sewn and all the others were, so I'm hoping it was Badge Magic. Even if it wasn't, it should still work to do it now.
• Hey, it worked! Oh, argh, get OFF my FINGERS you stuff. There.

I showed Scott the results pre-heat-set and he agreed they looked good. Into the dryer for 10 minutes to heat-set it (an optional but highly recommended step) and lay it flat to settle after. I think it's all back to normal, and if not, I'll just have to tweak a few corners. Which is, um, when I'm most likely to temporarily stick my fingers together. At least it isn't superglue.

Given all this, I figure that next month Andrew will have a sudden growth spurt and outgrow the shirt, because that is just my luck. :P

Today, I re-shared on Facebook something I also shared three years ago - an image of someone giving a cup of coffee to a homeless person, with the statement, "The world is full of nice people. If you can't find one, be one." I added, as I shared it, "This. And if you can find one, be one anyway. The world is full of nice people, and that's something we want to keep going, please."

Yesterday, I needed to go get potting mix. Which meant I was at Home Depot on Memorial Day weekend, which is really not when I would prefer to go there. The parking lot was a zoo. I saw someone start backing up then look THEN stop...just before he would have collided with the woman who had been walking behind his car before he put it in reverse. He DID stop and wait until she wasn't behind him. She was about to return her cart to the corral; I was returning mine and offered to walk hers over, after that incident. She thanked me...and was partway across the same space when she had to backpedal hastily to avoid being hit by the flaming idiot who came into the aisle (it was about the fourth space in) and headed for the space at a decent clip, slowing only a little when they realized SOMEONE WAS WALKING THERE.

When I left the parking lot, I had trouble getting out because of the lines of cars, and someone cut me off when they could visibly see I'd been waiting longer.

All this is to say that I was grumpy, agitated, and very nervous about people in general as I left. And I made a conscious, deliberate decision to let people in. It's too easy when we're grumpy to just go auto-pilot through our day and not delay it any further. After all, I'd already been delayed and worried and bothered! It felt good to be kind instead.

This is not I'm a saint. I'm pretty cruddy at this, actually. But I still do it. Because that's the kind of world I want to live in. Because it feels good.

I'm not saying that being nice or kind or standing up is always easy. Nor that it's always safe; in some circumstances there may be objective risks that outweigh being nice in your circumstance.

( Side note about a good-samaritan case where two of them died, recently in the news )

...but often it _is_ simpler than that. What if you let someone turn out of a driveway during heavy traffic? Let someone with only a couple items go ahead of you in a grocery store? It's a small thing. Maybe all it does is brighten their day. Maybe it actually makes their life much easier than you realize. But if "all" it does is brighten their day, and _they_ go on to interact with the world more kindly....

Well. Many big things are built of lots and lots of small things. Not all. But many.

Mostly because I have one again. I've been on antibiotics since Tuesday night, though, and it's responsive to decongestants again. Progress!

(Crossposted with Facebook, yes.)

Good flamin' gravy.

Ian's entire preschool was indoors all day...reasonably...because first thing this morning a tree came down between the two buildings, missing both of them and also any people, but clearly setting the tone for the day.

Andrew got to do recess in his classroom today, for similar reasoning, minus the object demonstration by mother nature.

Trees along my work parking lot had dropped branches as big around as my wrist or bigger, and ten+ feet long. Our neighbor's (fortunately smallish) street tree is...rather more literal about the 'street' part than is normally the case.

And traffic is a mess.

But no significant property damage, unless you count the trees, anywhere I've been so far. And no injuries I'm aware of. Fingers crossed!

Some days I feel like I'm in a parenting comic.

On the way to pick up Andrew, Ian had a discussion with me about gender.

On the way home, Andrew out of the blue asked if we will have another baby...because we could play more games if we had another player in the family.

You know you have a gamer when they want a sibling to increase the gaming pool? Sigh.

---

Also? Be careful what you ask for and how you phrase it.

Me, some while ago: "Ian, sometimes you just come up and start talking, but I'm in the middle of something. You get frustrated when I don't listen; I get frustrated because I missed some of what you said. Instead, can you say 'Mom, can I tell you something?' and then wait until I say 'yes' and turn my attention to you, and then tell me?"

Ian, then: "Sure! Mom, can I tell you something?"

...

Ian, now: "Mom, can I tell you something?"

Me: "Yes."

Ian: (Tells me something.) "Mom, can I tell you something?"

Me: "...yes."

Ian: (Tells me the next sentence of the same thing.) "Mom, can I tell you something?"

Etc. This can go on for six or eight repeats.

I asked for this but this was not what I meant! Now to find a way to phrase the correction that will walk it back just enough but not too much. It's hard in the moment, because I'm just sitting there thinking, *don't reply with "can I stop you?", don't*....

I am not bailing on LiveJournal. I don't love where their servers are, but I also don't think that Russia is likely to have any interest in my parenting or my cats or whatever. :P

However, this weekend for a while, LJ had blocked all the Dreamwidth servers from accessing their site, which blocked the Dreamwidth integrated cross-posting.

Which is what I use to post on LJ. I read and comment directly there when I do, but I post from DW.

So, since we don't know if that might happen again - if you're on LJ but _also_ active on DW, and you haven't already, you should probably add me on DW since that's my "posting home" and the posts are guaranteed to show up there.

If you're not on DW, don't worry - I will still cross-post and read there, I'm not telling you to go to DW - I'm just letting you know that if cross-posting fails, some things may go missing for a little bit.

This is a thing that happens, and that I wish would not. Someone says "hey, write to your Congress critter about" or "I wrote to my Congress critter about" or "If you are writing to your Congress critter about things, here is a note of ways that make it more effective".

And then someone comes along and says "BUT you should call them to be effective."

This is true. It is a good response to "what is the best way to contact my Congress critter?" or _perhaps_ to "I am going to contact my Congress critter about X". And maybe with a "did you know?" to the first or second above, maybe. To the third it is not germane.

I mostly write my Congress critters. I save calling for the most urgent things because it's damnably inconvenient and takes time for me also. If I only call, then I will contact them about WAY fewer things.

And I'm very VERY TIRED of this to be frank. I have heard it several times. I know. And it comes across as criticism.

Which frankly?

If I didn't actually care as much as I do, and I took the "this is the Best Way to do it and you're wasting your time doing it that other way" message to heart, I might just _stop doing it_.

It is entirely possible that there are people you have told "should" be calling who have decided their writing isn't enough, but who lack the time, spoons, or willingness to call...and who are now thus doing neither.

I think my anti-sinus-infection measures are actually hitting it back. It got pretty bad yesterday and this morning, but...I'm doing better as of about noon. Morning will be worse again, it always is, but...maybe just maybe I don't need antibiotics here. That would make me happy.