The running from one deadline to the next continues! It is now accompanied by slight whimperings and the occasional whine, but we have not yet descended into full-throated screams. I'm hopeful that I'll manage Friday's entry before Thursday evening this week, but between the various last minute shopping, house-hunting, and the government consulting job, I'm feeling a bit pulled in all directions.
I'm almost done with my shopping list, which is excellent because we leave for CT on Saturday and that kind of makes a hard deadline for finishing that. At this point I have just two presents left to buy, I think, and one of them I have no idea what to get, and the other needs to be bought about a day before it's actually given for best results. I also have two sets of presents to drop off at their new homes, and another couple will politely send themselves when it gets closer to Christmas proper.
Maybe next year I should make a spreadsheet of people I'm giving gifts to, to help track them and make sure I don't forget anyone. I keep having minor heart attacks when I remember someone I haven't shopped for yet and really need to to be socially appropriate.
I mentioned house hunting in the first paragraph. We (Chris and I) are finally buckling down and doing some of that, with hopes to get out of this crap apartment complex and into a house or condo by the end of January. Normally you'd take weeks or months doing this, but houses in my particular area tend to get snapped up in less than a week, even in winter. We just got the letter of pre-approval on Monday, after the mortgage person literally went on vacation, dragging our application out across five days when it could have been handled in a couple hours. Suffice it to say I am extremely unimpressed with our realtor's recommendation for this person...
The main reason I'm so annoyed about the whole thing, though, is that we actually visited a really nice two story house with a rather unique design and a sunroom. It was built in the mid-80s, and basically featured an upstairs specifically designed to be a private lounge and bedroom, with lots of indoor storage and built in bookshelves. The downstairs had high ceilings, another couple bedrooms, the expected kitchen, laundry room, dining room, etc. It didn't have a basement, which was weird, but it was reasonably priced and quite comfy and inviting. Before we could put an offer in, though, we thought we needed that letter of pre-approval. Turns out you don't, but we didn't know that. By the time we got the letter of pre-approval, the owner of the house had stopped accepting offers. We're on the "very interested in these offers fall through" list, but realistically speaking, I think we're out of luck.
I am, despite myself, crushingly disappointed. There's nothing to do but go see more and hope we can find something just as nice, though. If anyone's interested, we (mostly I) made a complicated spreadsheet for house hunting based on something Chris' brother had made. I'm willing to bet it's not ideal, but it covers a lot of what we're looking for, and generalizes across condos and houses.
It's probably confusing to just look at, so I'll explain. The top has some basic statistics about the residence and a picture. Below that on the right is a checklist of things to ask about during the showings we attend. On the left is a long list of criteria we have for a house or condo, broken into two categories: scored and unscored. Scored criteria get a rating out of 5, and that rating is then multiplied by how important we think that particular criterion is. All those multiplied scores are added up and tracked at the bottom. The unscored criteria are basically just yes/no questions, which are multiplied by 1, 2, or 3 depending on how valuable we consider that criterion. And then, again, all those scores are added together and divided by the total possible score.
The scored criteria number is doubled, then added to the unscored criteria. Finally, the whole number is divided by three to get a total out of 100. Anything about a 60%, when all the information is filled out, seems to be a more promising choice. But in the end, Chris and I are also following my mother's advice, which was to imagine yourself in the home, doing laundry, getting home from grocery shopping, etc, and see how well the place seems to suit those things.
In other news, yesterday I finished putting together a furniture thing, which should help with organizing my tea (already shown) and my craft supplies (not shown).
The blue things are those little square cloth boxes, and the shelf-thing here is literally designed specifically for them. This was actually originally on my wedding registry, but it didn't get bought at the time. So it got onto my Christmas list this year, and my mother-in-law kindly opted to purchase it for us this year. Putting this thing together actually took longer than I thought it was going to, but it was kind of fun, so I guess that evens out.
In other-other news, I went to a little Christmas party for the adult autistic group, and we did a cookie exchange and watched the first episode of The Good Doctor. For anyone who, like me, really doesn't watch TV, it's a medical drama type TV show, but featuring an autistic person as one of the main characters. I'd heard it'd gotten good reviews and mostly positive support from the autistic community, so I was curious about the precise content. Most depictions of autism I've seen haven't really been positive or particularly endearing. I would probably call that first episode "somewhat heavy-handed," but "very promising." In retrospect, I think it was also being very symbolic in a number of ways...
For instance, near the end of the episode, the autistic character is barred from entering the hospital after trying to go help a very badly injured person is a non-socially-acceptable way. He tries very hard, finding every entrance to the hospital there is, but is always barred from entering. In the end, someone from inside the hospital has to come get him, to get his help. Kind of strikes me as how the real world deals with autistic people overall. We can try very very hard and do our very best, and it's still sometimes not enough. Sometimes someone on the inside (neurotypicals) have to open the way for you, even though the way shouldn't have been barred in the first place.
I'm sure dozens of people have picked apart this TV show in much more detail and with better background, but I, at least, think it seems promising. If somewhat hard to watch. As an autistic person with a lot of empathy and years of skills for reading people... I spent a good portion of the episode wincing over the autistic character's complete lack of social understanding, while knowing exactly why he did what he did. I was also somewhat surprised by their choice of "functioning level" for the character. They didn't really lean toward either extreme of autism. The character was not like me- he couldn't pass for neurotypical for long, if at all. But neither was he unable to communicate or do things for himself. He was, more or less, right in the middle of the spectrum.
Perhaps, in my copious free time, I'll watch a few more episodes and write you a Friday post with a better breakdown of the characters and the portrayal of autism. The show seems to be free to watch (but not ad-free, of course) on ABC.
I'm almost done with my shopping list, which is excellent because we leave for CT on Saturday and that kind of makes a hard deadline for finishing that. At this point I have just two presents left to buy, I think, and one of them I have no idea what to get, and the other needs to be bought about a day before it's actually given for best results. I also have two sets of presents to drop off at their new homes, and another couple will politely send themselves when it gets closer to Christmas proper.
Maybe next year I should make a spreadsheet of people I'm giving gifts to, to help track them and make sure I don't forget anyone. I keep having minor heart attacks when I remember someone I haven't shopped for yet and really need to to be socially appropriate.
I mentioned house hunting in the first paragraph. We (Chris and I) are finally buckling down and doing some of that, with hopes to get out of this crap apartment complex and into a house or condo by the end of January. Normally you'd take weeks or months doing this, but houses in my particular area tend to get snapped up in less than a week, even in winter. We just got the letter of pre-approval on Monday, after the mortgage person literally went on vacation, dragging our application out across five days when it could have been handled in a couple hours. Suffice it to say I am extremely unimpressed with our realtor's recommendation for this person...
The main reason I'm so annoyed about the whole thing, though, is that we actually visited a really nice two story house with a rather unique design and a sunroom. It was built in the mid-80s, and basically featured an upstairs specifically designed to be a private lounge and bedroom, with lots of indoor storage and built in bookshelves. The downstairs had high ceilings, another couple bedrooms, the expected kitchen, laundry room, dining room, etc. It didn't have a basement, which was weird, but it was reasonably priced and quite comfy and inviting. Before we could put an offer in, though, we thought we needed that letter of pre-approval. Turns out you don't, but we didn't know that. By the time we got the letter of pre-approval, the owner of the house had stopped accepting offers. We're on the "very interested in these offers fall through" list, but realistically speaking, I think we're out of luck.
I am, despite myself, crushingly disappointed. There's nothing to do but go see more and hope we can find something just as nice, though. If anyone's interested, we (mostly I) made a complicated spreadsheet for house hunting based on something Chris' brother had made. I'm willing to bet it's not ideal, but it covers a lot of what we're looking for, and generalizes across condos and houses.
It's probably confusing to just look at, so I'll explain. The top has some basic statistics about the residence and a picture. Below that on the right is a checklist of things to ask about during the showings we attend. On the left is a long list of criteria we have for a house or condo, broken into two categories: scored and unscored. Scored criteria get a rating out of 5, and that rating is then multiplied by how important we think that particular criterion is. All those multiplied scores are added up and tracked at the bottom. The unscored criteria are basically just yes/no questions, which are multiplied by 1, 2, or 3 depending on how valuable we consider that criterion. And then, again, all those scores are added together and divided by the total possible score.
The scored criteria number is doubled, then added to the unscored criteria. Finally, the whole number is divided by three to get a total out of 100. Anything about a 60%, when all the information is filled out, seems to be a more promising choice. But in the end, Chris and I are also following my mother's advice, which was to imagine yourself in the home, doing laundry, getting home from grocery shopping, etc, and see how well the place seems to suit those things.
In other news, yesterday I finished putting together a furniture thing, which should help with organizing my tea (already shown) and my craft supplies (not shown).
The blue things are those little square cloth boxes, and the shelf-thing here is literally designed specifically for them. This was actually originally on my wedding registry, but it didn't get bought at the time. So it got onto my Christmas list this year, and my mother-in-law kindly opted to purchase it for us this year. Putting this thing together actually took longer than I thought it was going to, but it was kind of fun, so I guess that evens out.
In other-other news, I went to a little Christmas party for the adult autistic group, and we did a cookie exchange and watched the first episode of The Good Doctor. For anyone who, like me, really doesn't watch TV, it's a medical drama type TV show, but featuring an autistic person as one of the main characters. I'd heard it'd gotten good reviews and mostly positive support from the autistic community, so I was curious about the precise content. Most depictions of autism I've seen haven't really been positive or particularly endearing. I would probably call that first episode "somewhat heavy-handed," but "very promising." In retrospect, I think it was also being very symbolic in a number of ways...
For instance, near the end of the episode, the autistic character is barred from entering the hospital after trying to go help a very badly injured person is a non-socially-acceptable way. He tries very hard, finding every entrance to the hospital there is, but is always barred from entering. In the end, someone from inside the hospital has to come get him, to get his help. Kind of strikes me as how the real world deals with autistic people overall. We can try very very hard and do our very best, and it's still sometimes not enough. Sometimes someone on the inside (neurotypicals) have to open the way for you, even though the way shouldn't have been barred in the first place.
I'm sure dozens of people have picked apart this TV show in much more detail and with better background, but I, at least, think it seems promising. If somewhat hard to watch. As an autistic person with a lot of empathy and years of skills for reading people... I spent a good portion of the episode wincing over the autistic character's complete lack of social understanding, while knowing exactly why he did what he did. I was also somewhat surprised by their choice of "functioning level" for the character. They didn't really lean toward either extreme of autism. The character was not like me- he couldn't pass for neurotypical for long, if at all. But neither was he unable to communicate or do things for himself. He was, more or less, right in the middle of the spectrum.
Perhaps, in my copious free time, I'll watch a few more episodes and write you a Friday post with a better breakdown of the characters and the portrayal of autism. The show seems to be free to watch (but not ad-free, of course) on ABC.
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