The Wednesday HodgePodge (June 8, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Today I’m once again joining the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. “A daughter’s a daughter all her life, but a son’s a son til he takes a wife.” What say you? Elaborate.
In my personal life, the exact opposite is true, in that my parents were very clear that, once I was an adult (ie. once I’d turned eighteen), I had to fend for myself. My contact with them lessened even more once I got married. My husband, on the other hand, sees his parents almost on a weekly basis. I am honestly much closer with my in-laws now than with my own parents, to the point where I’ve appointed my mother-in-law as my informal representative should I become incapacitated.

2. Something you’ve seen recently that was “cuter than a June bug”?
Hmmm, I’m obviously supposed to say little Wolke, my baby niece, but to be honest I don’t really care for babies all that much. I don’t really like children in general, but I’m going with her older sister anyway. She will be three in September and talks up a storm already.

3. “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream and that’s pretty much the same thing.” Agree or disagree? Last time you had a serving of happiness ice cream? Dish-cone-milkshake-sundae…which one do you choose?
Disagree with the saying. Though I do like ice cream on occasion, it’s not at all my favorite treat. I don’t actually really have a sweet tooth since recovering from my overeating. Give me chips instead.

As for my favorite ice cream, it’s probably a cone, although I like sundaes and milkshakes too. I can’t remember when I last had ice cream. A milkshake though, yes, I do remember, but it was far from good. We got it with a paper straw, as plastic straws are banned in the EU, and it was too thick to drink with that but too thin to eat with a spoon.

4. What is one way/area in which you’re currently “swimming against the tide”?
I don’t do social media much at all. I mean, I do still have a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account, but I hardly ever use them.

5. Three things you’re looking forward to this summer?
My birthday at the end of this month. Other than that, I don’t really know. My husband and I originally thought of taking a few days out by train, since Lobith is close by the German border and Germany’s public transportation is nearly free during the summer months. However, he found out that trains are already so packed that the police had to come out to remove some of the people. Not my idea of a holiday.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I have been obsessing over crafty stuff again. I am really looking forward to doing some polymer clay work again, but can’t decide what to make, honestly. Yesterday, I tried my hand at another pair of earrings, but the slab was a true lint magnet and I was too lazy to get alcohol to remove it. I wasn’t too inspired as to what to make out of the slab anyway. Any ideas?

Riding the Train

Posted on by Astrid

Back when I still lived on my own in 2007, I would frequently ride the train. Or go to the train station planning to go on a train somewhere but melt down once at the platform. Then, people would often call the police.

I shared my experiences of riding the train, or wanting to do so, as an autistic and blind person on a public transportation users forum in 2008. I shared pretty much every little detail up till my crisis on November 2, which happened at a train station too. The person who had asked me to share, then pointed out that it might be a little TMI, but that’s how I am.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Story blog hop, for which the prompt this week is “Train”.

Things I Love About Raalte

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts this week is to share seven things you love about your hometown. When filling out my Facebook profile some years back, I was made aware that my “hometown” was supposed to be the place I was born in. That would be Rotterdam. Then my current city would be the place I now live. That is Raalte now.

For the purposes of this Writer’s Workshop, I am writing about things I love about Raalte. After all, it’s been over 25 years since I left Rotterdam. I don’t really consider Raalte my “home” place at this point yet, but then again there’s no other place I call home.

Raalte is a town of about 20,000 residents in the middle of the province of Overijssel in the eastern Netherlands. It is midway between the cities of Deventer, Zwolle and Almelo, but each of these is about 25-30 km away. Raalte, for this reason, relies mostly upon itself. There are neighboring villages that also belong to the municipality of Raalte but are quite rural. Anyway, here are the things I love about Raalte.

1. Its nature. Raalte is a relatively green town with its parks and the canal. My care facility, too, is close to the countryside.

2. My neighborhood. I live in a quiet neighborhood where I love to go on walks. Like I said above, it’s close to the countryside too.

3. Its restaurants. I love that Raalte has quite a few restaurants. Of course, now they’re mostly closed due to the lockdown, but they still deliver food.

4. The other facilities in town. Raalte has its own train station, though I’ve never used it. It also has several supermarkets, one of which is in my neighborhood. The town center has lots of little and not-so-little shops.

5. The fact that it has its own healthcare facilities. Okay, it doesn’t have a hospital, but there is an outpatient clinic from Deventer Hospital in my neighborhood. We also have a GP surgery in my neighborhood and the mental health agency is downtown. When I lived in the tiny village with my husband, I had to travel about 7km to get to the GP. Compared to that, Raalte’s healthcare facilities are pretty good.

6. The government-funded taxi service for the disabled. Raalte’s public transportation system is practically nonexistent, but thankfully I was able to get a taxi pass to get around the area. It can take me to Deventer and Zwolle, as well as within Raalte and to the neighboring villages. Unfortunately, the default budget isn’t as large as it was in my old village. Then again, right now, I don’t use the taxi service at all due to the lockdown and the fact that my staff usually take me places.

7. The dialect. When I was about to move here, my husband warned me that people in Raalte talk even weirder than those in my old village did. Indeed, most have quite a rural accent, but I really like it.

Overall, if I had the choice, I’d like to live in a town closer to large cities. That being said, I don’t want to ever live in a large city like Rotterdam again. Besides, compared to my old village, Raalte has exactly the right mix of town and rural area.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Weird or Creepy Interests

Posted on by Astrid

Today I have a lot on my mind, but not much I can put down into writing. To occupy you readers anyway, and to distract myself a bit, I’m participating in My Inner MishMash’s Question of the Day. The question is whether you have any interests most people consider weird or even creepy or gross.

Creepy or gross, no. I mean, yes, I’m interested in medicine, but not specifically in anatomy or bodily functions. I have some interest in genetic conditions, particularly rare ones, and of course I’m into psychiatry. Lately, I’ve been connecting the two and learning more about psychiatric aspects of genetic syndromes. I was fascinated when I was told one of my fellow clients has Christianson Syndrome, a form of X-linked intellectual disability that is similar in presentation to Angelman Syndrome. I at first felt weird googling the condition, but since the staff specifically told me about this client’s syndrome rather than me having overheard it, I felt okay in the end.

Weird, yes, definitely. I already commented on the original post that I’m into calendars and timekeeping. I still keep and cherish a twenty-year-old newspaper article explaining why the year 4000 shouldn’t be a leap year, among other things.

I also tend to get upset when people make calendar calculation mistakes, particularly when they do it on purpose. My husband likes to talk about 30th February, for example. As a teen, I used to calculate what day a given date fell on. I was particularly fascinated by dates before 1582, so that I could show people that I knew about the Julian/Gregorian calendar transition.

I also, when I still lived in Apeldoorn, loved riding random buses to memorize their route. Apeldoorn’s buses at least all used to go in an eight-shaped route, each time getting back to the station. That way, I’d never get lost even if I rode a bus I’d never been on before. Before I moved to Nijmegen, I had the bus schedule nearly memorized too.

Currently, I don’t have any weird or unusual interests that I’m particularly actively engaged in. However, when it comes to my “normal” interests, they do tend to be abnormally intense and detail-focused.

Do you have any weird interests?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (February 2, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s February, yay. I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare again, even though I’m not 100% sure I feel like writing. I had a lot of green tea and only one cup of coffee today. It’s interesting that, at my husband’s and in-laws’, I mostly drink green tea, whereas in the care facility I almost always drink coffee. Anyway, let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week was a hard one. I don’t even remember what I did on Monday. On Tuesday, I was in a near-constant panic at day activities. I eventually asked to go to the behavior specialist’s office to see if I could schedule an appointment with her to talk. However, the behavior specialist on my case wasn’t in the office. Another one was, but I couldn’t quite make it clear what I needed and so I went back downstairs.

That evening, I had another huge crying fit. I took a PRN lorazepam, but still didn’t sleep all night. In the morning, I kept crying. My assigned support worker informed me that the behavior specialist responsible for my care was on sick leave, but she called the one who’d been in the office on Tuesday.

She visited me at day activities at around 11AM and I talked for about an hour. I talked about all that I was overwhelmed by. Particularly, I felt that I need more support at day activities. This still needs some sorting out, but mostly I do now get an assigned staff member each day.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that from then on, I felt okay and haven’t had panic attacks or meltdowns. I do struggle with some level of overwhelm and anxiety, but it’s manageable.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that on Thursday, the family of a potential new client came for a visit. This stressed me out a little, because I thought another client coming to my home means less care for me. This isn’t the case, the staff said.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that I traveled by train to Arnhem yesterday. A transregional ParaTransit taxi drove me to Deventer station. There, a travel assistant was waiting to help me onto the train. She apparently needed to help someone in Arnhem next, so she actually traveled all the way to Arnhem with me rather than just helping me get on the train. My husband picked me up from the station at Arnhem again. It was a relatively comfortable way of getting eased into traveling by train again.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my husband and I had pizza at our in-laws’ yesterday. Then today my mother-in-law would be driving me back to the facility, so she picked me up at my husband’s at 4PM. We first went to my in-laws’ house again, where we walked the dog and ate fried potatoes, broccoli and chicken. I had a Magnum almond ice cream for dessert.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I finally brought some of my soaping supplies to the facility with me today. One of our home staff was leaving this week, so I had originally intended to make her a soap earlier. Thankfully, she will be working at another home with this facility, so when I do make the soap, I can bring it to her.

How has your week been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 19, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi and welcome to another installment of #WeekendCoffeeShare. I can have coffee again, as my flu is gone. It was gone already at the end of last week, but for some time, I still didn’t really enjoy coffee.

I also tried Optimel, which is a type of no-fat yoghurt drink, today. I initially thought it was based off buttermilk, the idea of which has me so disgusted that I don’t even want to try it. It is based off no-fat yoghurt though and it was good. If you want to try it too, I think we have some in the fridge.

If we were having coffee, Optimel or another drink, I’d share that this week has been eventful. I already wrote about it a lot during the week, as I seem to have gotten quite a bit of writing mojo back. That’s good! I also enjoy the comments on my blog and am trying to engage with you lovely readers more. I also love reading and commenting on other blogs and seeing people respond to my comments.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that the week-end was good overall. I had some nightmares again, but was able to keep them from interfering with my day for the most part. Still, I’m considering raising the issue of my vivid, bad dreams with my mental health treatment team.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my husband didn’t have time to collect all my soaping supplies yet, but we’re probably going to sort through them another time together. I think I may order some supplies online this coming week, but am not sure. My husband and I agreed on throwing out all the ingredients, as they’ve probably gone past their expiration date and aren’t too expensive. At least not if I only buy what I need and don’t end up ordering random stuff in large quantities.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that we succeeded at getting my photo taken at the photographer’s yesterday. This is for my public transportation pass. There are really strict rules on photos for IDs and passports, but mine isn’t due for renewal for another five years. I want the transportation pass so that I can travel to my husband by train. You can get an anonymous one too, but then you can’t load discount subscriptions or the like onto it. Now I will still need to digitally apply for the pass.

If we were having coffee, I would share that my husband and I ate out at La Place, a restaurant chain we often have lunch at, yesterday evening. It was okay, but rather expensive for the quantity and quality of the food. Lunch usually is much better.

If we were having coffee, I’d be sharing that I was an overachiever according to my Fitbit yesterday. It probably says so if I get over 12,500 steps a day. I got 12,700. Today I made up for it, as I sat on my ass almost all day.