Category: Adulting

Since we’ve asked people to share memories of my parents, I’ve been thinking about what I would share if asked for the same thing. Here’s a spattering of items about each of them.

I can’t recall going to a movie theater with Mom after elementary school; I think the last movie we saw together in a theater was E.T.. (If I had to guess, it was either because she didn’t like sitting still, possibly because of her arthritis, or not being allowed to talk. “No, Mom, I don’t know what’s going to happen in this new episode of Star Trek. I haven’t seen it before.”) We didn’t see a lot of movies in theaters in elementary school, so it was fairly memorable.

In middle school, my sister and I established a fairly solid movie habit; one of the two single-screen theaters in Antigua had double-showings at the weekend, so we could spend all of either Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching somewhat recent movies. (I will note that the pairings were not always appropriate, such as a He-Man movie followed by Revenge of the Nerds. Kids movies were dubbed; everything else had subtitles.) At some point before that, while staying with a local family in a neighborhood with many kids our age, we decided to convince Mom to pay for 5 or 6 of us to see Jaws. We weren’t dragging her along, we were just hitting her up for the money, which at the time was probably $3 or $4 for the entire group. As the second-youngest member of that group, I spent a decent amount of the movie peeking out from behind the chair in front of me, along with the youngest member. (I have since rewatched it with less hiding, as well as reading the book in English and Spanish.)

Dad, on the other hand, enjoyed movies in theaters, but was fairly selective about what movies he saw. As an example of something worth seeing on the big screen, we saw Dances with Wolves together once I was back in Miami for school. He saw The Crying Game before I did, I think while we were hosting my sister’s bachelorette party at the house. Near the beginning of middle school, I recall there was a movie he and I both wanted to see – Amadeus – but my sister wasn’t interested, so we compromised and saw something else at that opportunity. A month later, we were all in Guatemala and looked for somewhere we could see it. (Back when you checked movie times in the newspaper!) With only two single-screen theaters in town, it wasn’t playing where we could walk to it, so we caught a bus to Guatemala City, then another bus to the appropriate zone of the city for a theater with multiple screens that was still showing it. And then had to reverse that process to get home in time for dinner.

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned playing yarn chicken with multiple crochet projects, including a historical temperature blanket project.

Umm… that blanket was for my mother.

And wasn’t done yet… I was partway into month nine when she passed.

The decision not to finish it was an easy one. After all, who else would need a historical temperature blanket tracking the high for the day in her city of birth, starting at her birthdate?

The real question was whether to frog (that means undo) the seven or eight days in month nine that were already done – leaving me with awkwardly small sections of yarn for each – or finish off that row. As it happens, the row I was working on already included the date she died, so it seemed logical to finish just that row. I also decided to mark that chain with something extra, in this case a gradient white to gray yarn, to make it stand out.

And now we have another crocheted blanket in the living room, of different styles and weights for all our blankety needs.

Sarah (Edelson) Rodgers, age 79, passed away in Guatemala after a brief illness including anemia, fluid in the lungs, and, unshockingly (to anybody who believes in science), extensive scarring in her lungs after decades of smoking.

She was born in Portland, Oregon on December 14, 1946 to Elizabeth Ruth Thompson (Stevely) & (absent) Harold (Hal) Miller, immediately adopted by Zan & Mary (Lonergan) Edelson, and further raised by Bunny Edelson.

She met her husband, Frank, while attending Portland State University, quitting her role as Student Body President and the related protests at faculty events that she was now invited to after marrying the Director of Libraries.  They moved with their young daughters to Miami, Florida in 1979, just in time for Hurricane David to turn around off the coast, leaving them with boxes of avocados rapidly harvested before the storm and a desperate quest to use them all, thus introducing avocado lime pie as a family favorite. 

She fell in love with Antigua Guatemala on her first visit in the 1980s, following with subsequent visits, enrolling her daughters in middle school, and ultimately buying and renovating a house that became known as Sunshinetenango, merging her personal sun logo with the “tenango” suffix from many Guatemalan towns.  (Oddly, “tenango” arrived from the Nahuatl people in Mexico with the European conquistadors, rather than from the Maya people of Guatemala.) 

Her fascination with Guatemalan textiles involved buying many used clothing items and repurposing some of the fabric into pillows, bag holders, and other common use items.  On one occasion in the late ‘80s, she and housekeeper Salvador took an overnight trip home to a remote village with someone they met on the street to buy the clothes off his back.  In addition to the clothes for her collection, she brought home a twisted ankle, acquired descending a slope to the outhouse in the middle of the night.

She is, as best we know, the oldest of her siblings: Syl, Charles, Rich, and Andrea (all surviving) from Zan; Betsy, Janet, and Doug (only Janet surviving) from Elizabeth; and Stephanie, Karen, and Christine (unknown status) from Hal. 

She was preceded in death by her adoptive parents, birth parents, and husband, Frank.

She is survived by her amazingly resilient stepmother, Bunny; daughters Hilda and Frances; grandchildren Jesi, Alex, and Cassandra; and a fabulous array of nieces and nephews. 

Due to the unfortunate circumstances, her planned 80th birthday party will be repurposed as a celebration of life. Whether you can attend or not, we would appreciate if you share some memories – and photos, if you have them – of both her and our father, Frank, so we can assemble a combined memory book.

Back in April, I decided I was ready to transition to a sit/stand desk – sitting all day isn’t particularly healthy, but neither is standing, so I wanted a desk that would do both. I found one I liked and decided the discount (10% or so) was worth ordering the repackaged one that had been returned. After all, they guarantee that it has been checked for damage and all of the parts are included.

Narrator voice: This was not the case.

Due, among other things, to slightly delayed delivery and my work travel, the box sat unopened for over a month. That was my fault. When I finally opened the box, the first problem I noticed was some damage on a couple corners of the desk pieces. I could have worked with that.

The second problem I noticed was the absence of assembly instructions. Fortunately my order email included a link to a PDF for those… except that part letters and numbers on the PDF didn’t match the pieces I received. It did get me to the point where I could at least check for all the parts, which led to the third problem… they weren’t all in the box. Specifically, I was missing the wheels and the metal bar (in 2 parts) that connects the motor to the legs in order to switch the height.

After some back and forth with Customer Service (a couple people, the AI chatbot couldn’t help me because of the 30-day window), where I made it clear that I only needed the missing parts and accurate instructions… they issued a full refund and said I could dispose of or keep the desk. By that point, the desk was assembled – the damaged corners notwithstanding – so I tried reaching out to the manufacturer to order replacement parts. Alas, I received no response.

So I ordered the same desk again. I skipped the repackaged option this time, and made sure to open the box the day after it arrived.

Assembly instructions: included! And with part labels that matched the stickers! (And for the record, that metal bar… was one piece, not two, making the mismatched instructions for the first build that much more frustrating.)

But… why aren’t there wheels? Not in the box, and not on the instructions, but the desk is listed on the website as having wheels.

Back to the website, then, where the AI chatbot apologized for the inconvenience and placed a replacement parts order.

Several days later, I received an email stating that the replacement parts order had been cancelled (no explanation of why), and they were sending me another “unit” instead. Yes, really, they were sending me a third desk.

By this point, I made the assumption that the third desk would be packaged identically to the second – without wheels. I went elsewhere and ordered a dozen wheels, which is enough for all three identical desks. The wheels and third desk arrived the same day.

I am happily relocated to my new desk, am working on clearing out my old one, which is destined to become our garage workbench. The two spare desks – one slightly damaged, and one unopened in its box – are going home with a friend soon to his new apartment. With wheels. All for the cost of one desk and some extra wheels.

Or did you, like me, reluctantly hobble forward in this seemingly pointless semiannual ritual where we change the clocks and hope our circadian rhythm catches up to the change quickly?

I was oddly lucky this morning in not realizing the change had hit when I woke up to feed the cats. Had the clock in my bedroom automatically changed, I might have wondered at the cats letting me sleep in; they do not partake of time changes lightly. In fact, I didn’t remember about it until nearly an hour later, after they had been fed and I had showered, which is when I felt like I had lost an hour of my day, preparing and eating breakfast at a time – according to the clock – when I have normally finished those and moved onto either chores or work.

There have, on multiple occasions, been bills put forth in the US Congress to end the time change. In recent years, it seems one will pass either the House or Senate, and then get ignored by the other body until the resurgence of complaints – now or in November – brings the issue to light again.

I am aware that the issue is not as simple as “stop doing it.” Back in 2007, with about two years warning, the start date changed, extending daylight savings by four or five weeks. From an IT perspective, this was a borderline disaster for the bank I was working at: PCs ended up on one time and servers on another, due to a mismatch in software updates. I see a bit of that now, as I have co-workers in other countries who don’t change their clocks, which means recurring meetings will shift for someone… which way depends on who originally scheduled it.

I do hope we do away with the time change, like so many other countries have, at some point in the near future.

When I had my MRI in November, other than the arthritis, the results turned up something odd about my thyroid. After a discussion with my primary doctor in December, I scheduled a thyroid ultrasound, which confirmed that I have “nodules” on and around my thyroid. This resulted in a specialist visit to see an otolaryngologist, also known as an ENT (Ears Nose Throat).

After an initial meet & greet – which I question the need for when the ultrasound results recommended an “FNA” – Fine Needle Aspiration – I scheduled the FNA, or thyroid biopsy, to pull some tissue from the nodules. Alas, our medical system is weighed down by bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy aside, the doctor’s bedside manner was good, talking me through the process before starting and throughout. I was warned that the local numbing agent would burn going in – it did. After that, I only felt pressure as each needle went in, and then got poked around a few times. I’m not sure the poking around part was really mentioned, though I suppose it still just counts as pressure. It reminded me a little of a root canal, when the dentist is poking into the tooth repeatedly to make sure they got all of the root and you only feel the pressure of the poking.

I was warned that the results could take up to 7 business days; they took 5, and I am relieved to say my thyroid nodules are benign.

What are Side Quests, you ask? Well, I used to refer to them as Goals, but really, “Quest” is more fun as a concept, at least for us gamers. I don’t accomplish every quest I give myself, and sometimes I add quests during the year based on circumstances. For example, the year I got laid off, getting a new job became my highest priority quest.

For the most part, I try to spread my quests across various categories that I’ve deemed important, such as Garden, Fitness, and Finance (among others). Obviously, these will vary by person… one of my categories is “Garden,” which may be entirely irrelevant to you. An important factor is always making sure these quests are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. The SMART aspects helps in planning for achievable goals rather than setting your sights on something that may not be feasible in the time period you’re looking at. To use martial arts as an example, a white belt working towards a black belt in an achievable quest, but setting a deadline of a single year is not likely to be attainable.

I find that tracking my quests is also useful, so at the beginning of the year, I set up a document on my Google Drive listing them. Over the course of the year, I pop back into the document to make notes and mark when I complete items. Then at the end of the year, I copy that document for the layout as my base for the next year’s quests. In some cases, quests that I didn’t get to may be carried over to the next year, like some of the sorting and furniture rearranging that I didn’t get to in 2025. I’m kind of in a house organizing phase at the moment, so if I keep it up, I may complete that quest early this year.

What do you want to accomplish in 2026 and how do you track it?

In college, I spent a year abroad at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, which was a fabulous experience is so many ways, including my first Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) adventures. That’s not what comes to mind this time of year though. As the dorms closed over break, I went with the guy I was dating to his parents’ home near Edinburgh for most of the month we had off (with a fun-filled week in Paris for New Year’s). His parents were amazingly welcoming to this strange American he dragged home, including me in the family Christmas traditions.

On Christmas morning, I woke to find a stocking lying at the foot of my bed – rather than hung by a fireplace (not that we did that in Miami either) – and was amazed to find that every gift inside that stocking was individually wrapped! I recall being delighted as I unwrapped each gift, many of which were small Lego sets. (Oddly, I owned no Lego at all until that year. I certainly made up for it over the next few years.)

This year, in the midst of dealing with the delightful homeownership issues that I mentioned, I decided to do the same for my daughter… wrapping all of the stocking stuffers, that is, not the Lego sets part. (Don’t worry, we have plenty of Lego in the house.) I’ve thought about it in the past and never got around to it. After wrapping all of them, I realized that she’s the same age I was when I woke up to a stocking full of wrapped gifts, so I guess this was the perfect year to do it.