Well. That was an exhausting week. A good week, but I am definitely glad this week lacks scheduled events for the first half. A bit of a reprieve built in is nice.
In rough chronological order...
However, I was presenting at the Annual Developmental Disabilities Conference as a self-advocate, and I wasn't about to be late. The registration fee for the conference was kindly covered by a partner organization to my advocacy board, so instead of presenting and then leaving, I was allowed to stick around and be a fish out of water for the whole day first day.
I'm being snarky about it, but I really did feel like a fish out of water, even though my apparent age and gender matched the "standard" for the conference. You see, this conference was pretty much exclusively for healthcare professionals, specifically ones that serve the developmentally disabled population. (That includes autism, but also cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, and vision impairments. It's kind of a diverse category.) The type of people in that kind of work is generally female, and often late 20s to late middle aged. So I more or less blended in, except perhaps for my mode of dress. I opted for comfortable, since I'd be presenting, rather than business casual.
I'm not sorry I opted for more comfortable clothes, given how utterly drained I was at the end. It's always a tradeoff, because I have to pay attention to details like that and it causes anxiety when I don't fit in, but I really do much better stability-wise if I'm comfortable and not concerned with how my shoes rub at my feet, or how I can't walk quite right in pants that aren't designed to be as easy to move in as jeans.
Anyway, the conference seems to have been a success. I handed out about 9 business cards to various professionals and presenters, and my part of the presentation went pretty well. I don't think presenting is my very favoritist thing to do, especially on a subject I'm not super-comfortable with, but I did okay and it's not like a ton of people showed up anyway. Of the several hundred who attended the conference, only six came to the presentation titled "The State of Self-Advocacy in Michigan" to listen to myself and two other self-advocates talk about Self Advocates of Michigan.
I've had the chance to get acquainted with back pain recently, sadly, due to some changes in my sleeping position that I made on recommendation of my chiropractor. I have since had much cause to regret my attempts to be healthier, as pretty much every change has been met with pain.
The original idea was to change the type of pillow I was using in order to have a better posture while sleeping. This was, I thought, probably the most minor and least difficult change I could make to my life, since everything else requires being conscious and having some self-monitoring going. I have no idea if my logic is sound, but it's absolutely astonishing how much difference a pillow makes.
I was going to give my chiropractor one more chance to get this sleep posture thing right, and then give up and just use my regular pillow. I'm willing to put in effort to improve my health, but not if the apparent results involve debilitating pain for half my day, every day. But when I went yesterday, the reaction was basically, "oh well, it was worth a try, switch back to your regular pillow." So I guess I'd best think of some other ways to promote my neck and back health that aren't too demanding...
Grandma's Birthday
On a happier note, my grandmother has just turned 91. Several of her children came out for the event, which included my mother, and we made a celebration of it. Events included a play at my old college, a very fancy dinner, and a trip to the local botanical gardens/art museum.
Plays and such aren't usually my event of choice, but I've had decent luck with them in the past at this college. My luck ran out this time. This particular play was a rendition of Nicholas Nickelby, by Charles Dickens, and it was unfortunately a rather depressing affair. I'm not super-familiar with that era and what reactions and tropes were expected, so I spent much of the play off-balance and trying to guess whether this was even going to have a tolerable ending, let alone a happy one. I would call the eventual ending "almost tolerable" since I just kind of felt bad for everyone, including the "bad guy" of the play, by the end. The actors were fantastic, however, and really brought the play to life, so at least there was that.
Fortunately that was only the start of the weekend and celebration. The next stop was to the Pokemon GO hotspot and botanical/sculpture park, Meijer Gardens. Chris and I actually bought a membership there, as we'd been meaning to do that last year, and hadn't managed it before winter hit. Much of the area and art is outside, and the vast majority of the Pokemon GO related stuff is as well, so it wasn't a really good winter thing. Now that spring has returned, it's much more pleasant to wander the paths, examining the art pieces and enjoying the horticultural excellence worked into every corner of the place.
This particular trip was to try to catch the last blooming of a particular section of the garden. Meijer Gardens contains a relatively new section fashioned after the gardens of Japan. In Japanese culture, one of the events of the year is the blooming of the sakura, the cherry blossoms. These are both beautiful and very, very fleeting. The trees bloom for a couple weeks, and sometimes people will go out and sit beneath the trees whilst they're in bloom, contemplating their beauty and the ephemeral nature of life. If you do that, you can watch the petals fall, one at a time. So one section of the garden here had that species of cherry tree, and we took a trip through the area. It was, as promised, gorgeous. Have some pictures:
The last big event was a trip to a local Very Fancy steakhouse called the Chop House. My uncle and aunt kindly footed the bill as a present to Grandma, or I would have been very anxious indeed at such a place. Chris and I managed to forget the correct time for dinner, and so arrived about an hour early. We spent the time chatting and walking downtown while playing Pokemon GO, so it wasn't a huge tragedy. Once everyone else had arrived, we went in. I was promptly entertained by the appearance of something I'd only theorized would eventually occur: electronic menus. Specifically, menus that were tablets like the one I carry around. They had a single usable app, which was the menu, and you could look through the various categories of foods and drinks, or tap on items to read more about them.
The other entertaining aspect was the presentation of the various foods. Usually when someone says "presentation" in regard to food, they're referring to the aesthetically pleasing placement of food and decorations on the plate when it's served to you. In this case, I am referring to how the serving staff gives you the food when it's ready. The usual standard, in a restaurant, is to bring all the food out on a serving tray and give it to everyone one at a time. If there's six, like there was at our table, you might get a friend to help serve and carry, because that's a lot of places to fit on one tray and the food is getting cold.
This restaurant did not believe in serving trays. This restaurant decided that the most appropriate way to serve the food was to literally have a server for each plate. Which was six people, if you recall. And not only did they need six people, they had to coordinate putting the places down in synchronization, because Fancy Restaurant, I guess. I think I mostly restrained my amusement from showing, which was good because it might've come off as mocking the restaurant and their efforts. I did think it was utterly ridiculous, though. Perhaps that's because I'm an uncultured plebeian?
Anyway, the food was good. They had a venison offering, which was excellent because I usually can't find much to eat at steakhouses beyond a salad. It's awkward being that one person that just gets a salad at a steakhouse, and I can pretty much assume it'd make my relatives feel bad about their choice of restaurant, which would have dampened the mood of the outing. I don't really like to preach about my conditional vegetarianism, so it's sometimes forgotten. It ended up being an excellent meal with good company, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too much.
And now to relax a bit before the next exertion, which will be a trip to Connecticut for Chris' family.
In rough chronological order...
Conference
Last Tuesday, instead of staying home and doing my usual chores/book reading/writing, I got up at 5:30am and drove myself to Lansing, which is about an hour's drive from where I live. This was highly unpleasant, because I strongly dislike mornings and believe that having to be awake at any time before 9am is barbaric.
However, I was presenting at the Annual Developmental Disabilities Conference as a self-advocate, and I wasn't about to be late. The registration fee for the conference was kindly covered by a partner organization to my advocacy board, so instead of presenting and then leaving, I was allowed to stick around and be a fish out of water for the whole day first day.
I'm being snarky about it, but I really did feel like a fish out of water, even though my apparent age and gender matched the "standard" for the conference. You see, this conference was pretty much exclusively for healthcare professionals, specifically ones that serve the developmentally disabled population. (That includes autism, but also cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, and vision impairments. It's kind of a diverse category.) The type of people in that kind of work is generally female, and often late 20s to late middle aged. So I more or less blended in, except perhaps for my mode of dress. I opted for comfortable, since I'd be presenting, rather than business casual.
I'm not sorry I opted for more comfortable clothes, given how utterly drained I was at the end. It's always a tradeoff, because I have to pay attention to details like that and it causes anxiety when I don't fit in, but I really do much better stability-wise if I'm comfortable and not concerned with how my shoes rub at my feet, or how I can't walk quite right in pants that aren't designed to be as easy to move in as jeans.
Anyway, the conference seems to have been a success. I handed out about 9 business cards to various professionals and presenters, and my part of the presentation went pretty well. I don't think presenting is my very favoritist thing to do, especially on a subject I'm not super-comfortable with, but I did okay and it's not like a ton of people showed up anyway. Of the several hundred who attended the conference, only six came to the presentation titled "The State of Self-Advocacy in Michigan" to listen to myself and two other self-advocates talk about Self Advocates of Michigan.
Backs are Persnickety Things
As my more seasoned readers are doubtless aware, back pain is a very frustrating, wearing condition. It affects pretty much all gross (major) movement, so pretty much every time you shift in your chair, try to walk around, go to use the bathroom, etc.
I've had the chance to get acquainted with back pain recently, sadly, due to some changes in my sleeping position that I made on recommendation of my chiropractor. I have since had much cause to regret my attempts to be healthier, as pretty much every change has been met with pain.
The original idea was to change the type of pillow I was using in order to have a better posture while sleeping. This was, I thought, probably the most minor and least difficult change I could make to my life, since everything else requires being conscious and having some self-monitoring going. I have no idea if my logic is sound, but it's absolutely astonishing how much difference a pillow makes.
I was going to give my chiropractor one more chance to get this sleep posture thing right, and then give up and just use my regular pillow. I'm willing to put in effort to improve my health, but not if the apparent results involve debilitating pain for half my day, every day. But when I went yesterday, the reaction was basically, "oh well, it was worth a try, switch back to your regular pillow." So I guess I'd best think of some other ways to promote my neck and back health that aren't too demanding...
Grandma's Birthday
On a happier note, my grandmother has just turned 91. Several of her children came out for the event, which included my mother, and we made a celebration of it. Events included a play at my old college, a very fancy dinner, and a trip to the local botanical gardens/art museum.
Plays and such aren't usually my event of choice, but I've had decent luck with them in the past at this college. My luck ran out this time. This particular play was a rendition of Nicholas Nickelby, by Charles Dickens, and it was unfortunately a rather depressing affair. I'm not super-familiar with that era and what reactions and tropes were expected, so I spent much of the play off-balance and trying to guess whether this was even going to have a tolerable ending, let alone a happy one. I would call the eventual ending "almost tolerable" since I just kind of felt bad for everyone, including the "bad guy" of the play, by the end. The actors were fantastic, however, and really brought the play to life, so at least there was that.
Fortunately that was only the start of the weekend and celebration. The next stop was to the Pokemon GO hotspot and botanical/sculpture park, Meijer Gardens. Chris and I actually bought a membership there, as we'd been meaning to do that last year, and hadn't managed it before winter hit. Much of the area and art is outside, and the vast majority of the Pokemon GO related stuff is as well, so it wasn't a really good winter thing. Now that spring has returned, it's much more pleasant to wander the paths, examining the art pieces and enjoying the horticultural excellence worked into every corner of the place.
This particular trip was to try to catch the last blooming of a particular section of the garden. Meijer Gardens contains a relatively new section fashioned after the gardens of Japan. In Japanese culture, one of the events of the year is the blooming of the sakura, the cherry blossoms. These are both beautiful and very, very fleeting. The trees bloom for a couple weeks, and sometimes people will go out and sit beneath the trees whilst they're in bloom, contemplating their beauty and the ephemeral nature of life. If you do that, you can watch the petals fall, one at a time. So one section of the garden here had that species of cherry tree, and we took a trip through the area. It was, as promised, gorgeous. Have some pictures:
The last big event was a trip to a local Very Fancy steakhouse called the Chop House. My uncle and aunt kindly footed the bill as a present to Grandma, or I would have been very anxious indeed at such a place. Chris and I managed to forget the correct time for dinner, and so arrived about an hour early. We spent the time chatting and walking downtown while playing Pokemon GO, so it wasn't a huge tragedy. Once everyone else had arrived, we went in. I was promptly entertained by the appearance of something I'd only theorized would eventually occur: electronic menus. Specifically, menus that were tablets like the one I carry around. They had a single usable app, which was the menu, and you could look through the various categories of foods and drinks, or tap on items to read more about them.
The other entertaining aspect was the presentation of the various foods. Usually when someone says "presentation" in regard to food, they're referring to the aesthetically pleasing placement of food and decorations on the plate when it's served to you. In this case, I am referring to how the serving staff gives you the food when it's ready. The usual standard, in a restaurant, is to bring all the food out on a serving tray and give it to everyone one at a time. If there's six, like there was at our table, you might get a friend to help serve and carry, because that's a lot of places to fit on one tray and the food is getting cold.
This restaurant did not believe in serving trays. This restaurant decided that the most appropriate way to serve the food was to literally have a server for each plate. Which was six people, if you recall. And not only did they need six people, they had to coordinate putting the places down in synchronization, because Fancy Restaurant, I guess. I think I mostly restrained my amusement from showing, which was good because it might've come off as mocking the restaurant and their efforts. I did think it was utterly ridiculous, though. Perhaps that's because I'm an uncultured plebeian?
Anyway, the food was good. They had a venison offering, which was excellent because I usually can't find much to eat at steakhouses beyond a salad. It's awkward being that one person that just gets a salad at a steakhouse, and I can pretty much assume it'd make my relatives feel bad about their choice of restaurant, which would have dampened the mood of the outing. I don't really like to preach about my conditional vegetarianism, so it's sometimes forgotten. It ended up being an excellent meal with good company, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too much.
And now to relax a bit before the next exertion, which will be a trip to Connecticut for Chris' family.
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