I flew down to California to visit my family four weeks ago, and flew back to Portland a few days later with a completely different life! I already knew I’d be heading down with no tattoos and coming back with one; I didn’t know I’d be heading down with a job and coming back without one. So here I am a few weeks after it all went down, figuring out my new life now, and ready to start sharing here on the blog, where I plan to be posting a lot more frequently now!
We went down to my parents’ house on Wednesday July 10th; the next day we went to Universal Studios with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, nieces, and other two brothers to join later in the day. Sometime around late morning, I learned that I no longer had a job! Company reorg meant several of my coworkers learned their positions were cut, and the timing was just a bit unlucky for me!
The rest of that day felt a lot like a dream, being at this theme park, going over everything in head, what my new life would look like, the things I needed to do once I got back home. Knowing I wouldn’t be back until the following week so I just had to kind of sit on everything and enjoy my trip and family time as much as possible because there was no point in letting that be ruined. It definitely wasn’t ruined, it was just made very weird. Having this massive life change happen at a moment when nothing had really actually happened yet, I was still on my vacation, it was just kind of looming.
Anyway, the next day we got up in the morning and my 10-year-old niece Nico asked if I could teach her how to knit!!!! Best question ever. I spent a few hours learning that she’s a complete genius (I already knew she was a smarty but holy moly)—after like 2 hours she knew knit stitch, bind-off, long tail cast on (!!), and magic loop method! And she kept wanting to learn more and more so I explained to her the difference between knit & purl, in the round & flat, stockinette & garter, and what ribbing is, etc etc. She was so excited to learn. We took a trip to the nearest craft store and I got her some yarn and needles to keep her going, and printed out the learn-to booklet tutorials I made for my old job, and she says she’s continued knitting after that day! This was a big highlight of the trip of course!
Then we had a picnic and got to meet my new sister-in-law’s family, and then my parents took us to Amoeba, yay! Love that place. Then the next day we hung out with my parents around Burbank and then, the reason for the trip, my brother’s wedding party was that night. They technically (legally) got hitched last December, but this was the big party, families and friends coming together to celebrate.
Their dress code for guests was: pick a color and wear all that color (no black or white). I started my outfit planning by shopping for shoes, and I scored yellow Dr Martens on ebay, never worn perfect condition, yessssss. I got yellow shoelaces too for extra yellow. So then I went fabric shopping at Bolt and picked a solid and a print, even though I know for the dress code I should’ve just stuck with a solid only, but I didn’t want to make a solid-color dress, to be quite honest, because I just like prints best. So I planned to pair the solid with the print. I just needed to pick a pattern! After searching around and sewing a couple of sample dresses, I landed on the Crepe wraparound dress by Colette (or Seamwork). Here’s the test one I made with some fun cotton fabric I got free from work, and then the official one in the Bolt linen-blend fabrics.
And then I made a matching hat and mask cover with the fabric leftovers, and grabbed my yellow glasses, some vintage yellow earrings, and I even bought some new yellow socks from Sock Dreams. I also bought a yellow keffiyeh that I thought I might wear but it was too hot (duh) so I turned it in my purse instead. The morning of the party, I impulsively decided to paint my nails, which I hadn’t done since high school, and I also found this fun bracelet at a little craft fair we stopped at that day.
A pretty rad thing Matt & Renee did for the wedding party was to pick an official wedding tattoo and have tattoo artists at the party! I got to 42-years-old with no tattoos but I always kinda thought I’d get some eventually, so here was my chance to break the seal!
Surprisingly, our dad also decided to go for it! Also his first. So it was the two of us first timers, and my other brothers Ben and Paul who already have about a thousand tattoos between them, all getting them together at the same time. Such a fun family activity!
The tattoo is the empathy symbol, which was created in 1973 by an anti-war activist. I wanted mine somewhere a little discreet since it’s my only tattoo for now, but I do plan to get more! Probably in places less painful than on the spine!
The party also had a great live band playing 90s cover songs, a fun digital photo booth, and a Palestinian food cart which matched my keffiyeh! Plus temporary tattoos for anyone who didn’t want a real one.
Just in case things didn’t feel hectic and eventful enough already, the party happened a couple of hours after Trump was shot! Pete and I learned about it while getting ready to head out the door and told my parents in the car, and then everyone did a good job of not talking about it at all during the actual party so that was good! What a week!!
The next day, we headed down to San Diego to stay in a hotel with Pete’s parents who were there to be close to the hospital where his dad had just had surgery while recovering. Again, very weird and eventful vacation. We first met going to school in San Diego (we met at the college radio station, then reconnected a few years later, post college), so we had fun revisiting some of our old neighborhoods and fave restaurants during our couple of days down there.
That day, while out for dinner and to grab a few things, I cut my arm really badly on a dirty sharp metal edge at a store. The next day we found a pharmacy after lunch and I got a fresh new tetanus shot since I wasn’t up to date on that. Fun vacation activities!
And then that morning I got news that the thing I’d been most scared of happening for the past 4.5 years finally happened: my immunocompromised mom tested positive for covid. It was a huge kick in the stomach and I was terrified about what would happen, but my parents had just gotten the most up-to-date booster a month earlier so that timing was pretty ideal, and she was able to get on paxlovid immediately. Also, we’d been extra super-safe with Pete’s parents and always worn masks in the hotel room with them and eaten meals separately, so we were extremely relieved that we’d made the choice to be that safe once we learned the bad news. In the end, my mom did get very sick (still is, three weeks later) but never had to go to the hospital, I’m sure thanks to the vax & pax. My dad tested positive the following day, and also was quite sick but is recovering.
Pete and I never got it (I tested twice), due to some combination of luck, masking indoors everywhere except for in the house, using a CPC mouthwash every night, sleeping with the window open and a fan on, and having gotten the Novavax shot last November. Of course, having stayed in the same house, I think luck was probably the largest factor of them all. Thank the universe that we didn’t have to deal with having covid again on top of everything else going on!
So there were the many highlights/lowlights of this short little trip to see my family. What a time. As soon as I got back, I dealt with returning my laptop and getting my stuff from the office, and some paperwork, and I’m in the process of getting on unemployment (my plan is actually to try to get on Oregon’s self-employment assistance since that’s more in line with my goals now), and then a week after returning I volunteered at TypeCon for four days. So the whirlwind continued. Finally this week I’ve been settling into a new routine (kinda not really but yeah), coming down from the chaotic state of mind I was in for those couple of weeks. Phew!
More to come about the future for sure, but for now… I’ve removed all mentions (I think, I hope) of sales being donated to mutual aid, since now I need sales for boring things like groceries and bills. I’ll be putting a lot of my time towards mutual aid stuff though, and some money too, so buying patterns from me does still support mutual aid work in some way. Anyway, I plan to start updating old patterns, and to start putting some new things into the world too, so this blog will be put to more use now! See you soon!
Lee Does Stuff 