My friend Sandy is moving from Albuquerque to Ohio for her new job. She is the friend who helped us take care of our dogs while I was having chemotherapy. I’ll always be grateful for that. (My mother-in-law, Monica, cared for the dogs while we were in Boston getting my surgery, then Sandy helped us with them extensively during chemo, and now Serenity has them.)
Sandy bought a beautiful new house in Ohio with a backyard that is surrounded by woods and looks like a park. Wow!
She’s already been doing her new job for a few months now from Albuquerque, and is very happy with the job. She says her new coworkers are super nice. It’s great that she doesn’t have to deal with the stress of the first few weeks on a new job at the exact same time as the move.
Another friend of ours, Sara, hosted a going-away party for Sandy, and John and I decided to delay our departure from Albuquerque in order to attend the party.
It turns out we ended up with a broken down van that John had to fix, so we would have been delayed either way! We had the second of our two exhaust manifolds break in half. The first one broke last year. Seems to be a thing with that van! At least we made it to Albuquerque this time, and didn’t end up stuck along the side of the road trying to wire it back together with found fencing scraps like last year! This year it was cracked almost through, hanging on by a tiny bit of metal – we could hear it get worse and worse during the final several hours of the trip. Ugh!
Sara and Tom also have a park-like backyard (which seems to be an unintended theme for today’s post). In Sandy’s case, that’s not too hard to find greenery in suburban Ohio. But how in the world does Sara have a yard that looks like this – right here in Albuquerque?
Sara’s on a ditch! Some of the older homes near the river in Albuquerque have historic irrigation rights from community acequias (also just called ditches) that were constructed a very long time ago to carry and distribute irrigation water. The acequias are managed locally by collectives, and everyone gets water on certain days for certain lengths of time. Each property has a flood gate that opens to allow the water to flow onto their property when it’s their turn.
Sara and Tom bought the house 40 years ago and planted fruit trees along the back edge of the property where the ditch water runs. She has apples, figs, nectarines, peaches, apricots, cherries, plums, blackberries, and grapes! It’s an amazing oasis in the desert. I wonder if they’d be interested in having a roommate or two? I could weed or something! Pick fruit? Mow? Lol!
That picture makes it look like no one came to the party, but at that moment everyone was just clustered around the food inside or sitting on the expansive deck along the back side of the house.
Seeing so many of my friends again in-person was also an amazing experience. My friends all believe in getting the vaccination, so I’m pretty sure every single one of them at the party was vaccinated. Plus we mostly stayed outside. Even so, it was a bit weird when we were crowded around the table, leaning with our heads together over the food, serving ourselves from all the excellent potluck offerings. I think it’s going to be awhile before we’re comfortable with close situations that we used to take for granted.
Here’s John, checking out how many of Sara’s plants he could identify as edible.
Here’s Sandy (on the right) with our friend Holly on the left, sharing an enormous hammock.
They took a picture of me too – from the hammock – not a flattering angle!
Here’s some more friends:
And the back of Sara’s wonderful house:
And a very traditional New Mexican painted gate, with grape vines on the fence.
It was such a fun evening! I’ll miss Sandy though.
I’ve been struggling with the concept of relearning pronouns for Serenity. The newest is the pronoun “thon” which I mentioned recently. One of my frustrations is that I don’t know how to conjugate it. So here, according to the internet, is some information about the origins of the term and how to conjugate it.
“Thon is believed to be a contraction of “that one” and was coined in 1858 by Charles Crozat Converse. Merriam-Webster has an article about it here. Thon pronouns were somewhat popular in their day. They attracted the attention of linguists and also appeared in crossword puzzles.” (https://neopronounfaq.tumblr.com/post/186909373209/thonthons-guide)
Complete Set:
Subjective: Thon
Objective: Thon
Possessive Adjective: Thons
Possessive Pronoun: Thons
Reflexive: Thonself
Examples:
He asked me → Thon asked me
I answered him → I answered thon
This was his request → This was thons request
That book is his → That book is thons
He loves himself → Thon loves thonself
This list came from a post by someone who uses the pronouns ey/em/eirs, so I looked those pronouns up too.
Here is that same blogger’s explanation of those pronouns:
“Background information: Ey/em and similar sets have been independently developed several times, as early as 1890 with James Rogers’s proposal of e/em/es, then ey/em/eirs in 1975 by Christine M. Elverson, and E/Em/Eirs in 1983 by mathematician Michael Spivak. This guide will focus on Elverson’s set, ey/em/eirs, with singular verbs.”
When in doubt, it may help to conjugate the sentence you want to say with they/them in your head, then drop the ‘th’ and change the verbs to singular forms (i.e. are → is, were → was, etc.)
Be careful with contractions – I’ve seen people use “eir” in place of “[person] is” because it sounds like “they’re.” “Eir” does not correspond to “they’re,” it corresponds to “their,” which is a possessive, not a contraction.
Additionally, when using singular verbs, use “ey is / ey’s” not “ey are / ey’re.”
What is interesting to me is that the attempt to institute gender neutral pronouns is not new.
Merriam-Webster says, “‘Thon’, short for “that one,” appeared in our Unabridged dictionary from 1934-1961. Though the word was dropped for lack of use…”
They go on to point out that there have apparently been lots and lots of attempts to fix the lack of singular gender neutral pronouns over the past couple hundred years at least.
“In her Master’s thesis from 1991 (Solving the Great Pronoun Problem), Kelly Ann Sippell provided an extensive list of gender-neutral third-person singular pronouns that had been proposed over the previous hundred and fifty years. This list included, but was not limited to, hes, hiser, hem, ons, e, heer, he’er, hesh, se, heesh, herim, co, tey, per, na, en, herm, em, hir, and shey. Sippell estimated that there had been approximately 80 suggested ways of saying “him or her” or “his or hers” in a single word that was not they or theirs. For those who are interested in a spectacularly comprehensive list of gender-neutral pronouns which never quite caught on readers may turn to Dennis Baron’s magisterial treatment of the subject in American Speech in 1981 (“The Epicene Pronoun: The Word That Failed”), in which he documents over 100 proposed lexical items, dating in use back to the middle of the 19th century (nim, talis, iro and ver are some of his findings).”
So there we have it, more information about pronouns! I spoke to Serenity on Thursday and they explained that it’s fine if I want to continue using they/them pronouns for them. The reason they included the “thon” option was to provide an alternative for those who are uncomfortable with using “they” for a singular person. They’re not asking us to switch to “thon” if we’re comfortable with using “they.” So for now I’m going to continue to use “they/them” for their pronouns.
There is already precedent in our language to use “they” when gender is unknown, such as in this example, “Oh look, someone left their umbrella under the table. I wonder if they remember where they left it and if they’re going to come back for it themselves soon? Or maybe we should take their umbrella to the lost and found for them?”
If we can use “they” for singular gender-unknown, we can use “they” for singular gender-neutral!
It’s a broken exhaust manifold. Well, it turns out the van has two of those things, one on each side. And apparently Nissan didn’t do a very good job of making them strong enough for a camper van.
On Sunday we were on our way to Albuquerque in the van when we realized it was making that same noise again. Last time we broke a manifold it started making noise in about Hatch, New Mexico, and we made it to just south of Socorro before it gave out completely. This time it started making noise in about Hatch again. Déjà vu! We imagined being stuck along the side of the freeway just south of Socorro. Again!
And the weather was miserable. It was hot with extremely strong headwinds and crosswinds, with dust and smoke in the air despite occasional sheeting rain. We just held on tight and kept driving, the noise from the engine growing louder and louder every minute. Would it hold together until we reached Albuquerque, or would suddenly give way, drop to the ground and drag, leaving us stranded along the side of the road again? It was very stressful. We were so relieved to make it to Albuquerque!
Here we are driving towards our neighborhood, having just left the freeway. Our engine was gleefully announcing our arrival.
Here we are backing up into our driveway, sounding like a fleet of motorcycles, vroom, vroom! I’m sure our neighbors were impressed (not). But the lizard on the wall was surprisingly unfazed.
So yes, we’re in Albuquerque again. And stuck here until we can get the van fixed.
After a year and a half of John mostly working from home, the project he’s leading is now in a stage where he needs to be onsite a lot. It really doesn’t have much (or anything) to do with the state of the pandemic. It just has to do with equipment he needs in this stage of his project.
We’re guessing this particular stage of his project will be done this summer. Then going forward he expects approximately 2-3 periods of about six weeks each when he needs to be onsite in either Albuquerque or the CA Bay Area.
Earlier this month he flew out for a week and a half without me, but he didn’t enjoy the flight at all. There’s not a direct flight, so it practically takes as long as it does to drive. And air travel is a bit of a mess right now. The industry hasn’t caught up with the sudden increased demand. Flights are late and people are grumpy and everything is under-staffed. So we’ve decided to go back to driving.
We’ve been doing the Tucson-to-Albuquerque commute in the camper van. During the pandemic the van was handy because we have our own sink and toilet and didn’t need to use public restrooms. It doesn’t matter as much now. The van is comfortable, but it doesn’t get very good gas milage. And we don’t like putting so much wear and tear on the van, which is supposed to be for vacationing, not interstate commuting.
So…drumroll…we’re thinking of getting another car. When I met John back in 2005 he had three cars. I remember wondering what kind of guy thinks he needs three cars, LOL. But they all had different purposes; a 4WD Jeep for the backroads, an old AWD Subaru for commuting from Placitas into Albuquerque in snowy conditions, and a sports car because, well, I guess you don’t need a reason to have a sports car.
We don’t have any of those cars anymore, but we still have plenty of cars. I have an older Mini Cooper in Tucson. Then there’s the camper van of course, which you hear so much about. We also have an old pickup we use for upkeep of the rentals, and moving, and landscaping, and remodeling. It’s currently in Tucson. The day before we left for Albuquerque this week, John came home from Home Depot with an impulse buy of 5 big cement planters, each weighing some ridiculous amount.
They were a good price and our backyard in Tucson is barren. We’re going to put them between the pool and the wall, where there isn’t really room to put anything into the ground – it is paved almost to the wall.
In addition to the Mini Cooper, the camper van and the pickup (all older and purchased used), we also have a fairly new Toyota 4Runner. I believe John had high hopes of exploring wilderness areas in it, but since we bought it I have not felt well enough to do any tent camping, much less actual backpacking. So we’ve just been van camping instead.
Hopefully someday we can get back to the more extreme (and less comfortable) wilderness trips. We’ve been pushing the van too hard I think, taking it on extremely rough back roads – it’s just too big and heavy for that. And it’s rewarding us with cracked manifolds! It’s really the 4Runner we ought to be taking camping out in the middle of nowhere. We could commute in the 4Runner too, but it doesn’t get very good gas mileage.
Speaking of gas mileage, I had hoped that our next vehicle would be fully electric. But it is 458 miles house-to-house, which is too far for a fully electric vehicle. It’s not an easy 458 miles either. Elevation and weather, especially wind, can decimate our milage, and sometimes we face fairly extreme winds on the trip. And we don’t want to worry about having to recharge.
It’s not a great time to buy a car (it’s not a great time to buy anything right now except maybe masks). But John says that used hybrids are a reasonable price, because many people who previously were in the hybrid market are now opting for fully electric vehicles instead. With a commute of nearly 500 miles, a hybrid would be perfect for us.
I told John he could get anything he wanted. I just have two criteria. It needs to have good visibility and it needs to be reliable!
Laura came out to Tucson to visit and we had so much fun! I was worried it would be too hot for her, but it wasn’t at all. It’s pool season!
The way I see it, Tucson has a cool season and a pool season. Cool season runs from November to April. Pool season runs from May to October. Neither are clearly best or worst – it just depends on what you want to do!
If you are coming to see the sights; the amazing desert museum (which is mostly outdoors), the missions, the space museum, biosphere, etc., and to shop for southwest-themed merchandise, and sit outside enjoying brunch at cafés…then come during the cool season. If you truly hate the heat, or you’re coming specifically to hike, then come during the coldest part of cool season – December, January, February. But if you want to use the pool, then come during pool season! Just be aware that it’s going to be too hot to hike during pool season.
We did use the pool in April when Emily came and and it worked out great. We got really lucky with some early-season hot weather! Plus, pool season for little kids is pretty much year-round, lol. Blue little popsicle kids love the pool! But adults, not so much. We used our pool heater, but I still wasn’t in the pool much myself in April. I like the air temps to be really hot before I enjoy the pool. I wasn’t even in the pool all that much in May – it was windy in early May and I was in Albuquerque in later May. Well, now it’s June and it’s absolutely hot enough, whew! Temps regularly clearing 110°. Now this is pool weather!
Here’s a picture Laura took of me skimming the pool. The wind regularly blows leaves from the neighboring trees into our pool. It’s easiest to remove them while they’re still floating, although we have an underwater vacuum robot to get them off the bottom of the pool.
Some days, when the weather is calm, I don’t have to skim at all. But on windy days, it’s a hopeless battle. So far I enjoy skimming the pool – it’s meditative. But this is why I never wanted to have a pool until I retired. Skimming the pool all the time would be annoying if I had to rush through it. It’s best done slowly.
I figure it’s only a matter of time before I end up falling in the pool while I’m cleaning it. I walk along the very edge (which has cracked and crumbled over the years), with my attention focused on the floating debris far out in the middle of the pool. One of these days I’m going to trip, or maybe even just walk right off the edge. It’s inevitable! That’s why I make sure I don’t have my cell phone in my pocket when I clean the pool!
Laura used the pool twice a day when she was visiting. She did exercises in the pool before work in the morning.
Then we would both sit around the pool and swim lazy laps in the afternoon when she was off work.
She worked part-time while visiting, which worked out great. I liked having the time to get my own stuff done, and we still had plenty of time to get out and do fun stuff.
Laura looks very glamorous in her big hat!
I usually don’t use the pool until late afternoon, when the sun goes behind the neighbor’s eucalyptus trees.
On Friday morning Laura and I bought plants at a nursery we have very close by.
John had set up a drip system and some empty plant pots ready for me to install plants. June is not the time to be doing gardening in Arizona, but we are getting very tired of the lack of landscaping in the backyard.
My goal was 5 flowering perennials or small shrubs for under $15 apiece. That pretty much ruled out this big guy, but wow, would it have looked nice in our backyard! This is a type of desert willow that does very well in the heat and low water conditions.
It also has beautiful blooms.
But I’m not ready to buy anything big yet. I would need a really big hole, and irrigation run to the really big hole, and before any of that happens, we have a wall we want to expand to enclose more of our side property as backyard. And we may remove all or part of the wall that currently bisects our backyard. Building and removing walls is going to completely mess up what little landscaping we have in that quarter of the yard. When landscaping, the plants are the last step. Unfortunately, all the difficult and expensive hardscape has to happen first.
So instead of an enormous and expensive desert willow, I bought this box of little plants for pots – which can always be moved around to accommodate our eventual landscape plans.
By the time Laura and I made it home with our modest box of little plants, I was hot and exhausted. I left the box in the cool of the house to plant the next morning. But the next morning we had other plans – a farmer’s market! So by the time I planted the new plants, it was in the heat of the day. I’m not sure who was suffering the most, me or my plants. It was at least 100°. Every day for awhile now has cleared 100.
Here’s what they looked like when planted. Since then, they’ve been going downhill 🙁
We’ll have to see which ones survive. In this heat, I’m not expecting 100% survival. Truly, June is not the time when locals plant things!
That morning we had gone to what we thought would be a farmer’s market hoping to buy some fresh fruits and vegetables. But it turned out to not have produce, just art and junk.
There was also some guy playing live country music on a guitar. Not my favorite genre to start with – and then he made a weird comment about Laura’s enormous hat over his loudspeaker system. I’m sure he was trying to be funny and engage the crowd. Except there was no crowd – just Laura and I walking alone through a very sad and sorry market! We had already turned around and started heading the other way when we belatedly realized he was talking to/about us. So he didn’t get the enthusiastic reaction he must have been hoping for.
Luckily Laura located a coffee shop with shady plaza seating less than a block away, thus salvaging the outing. We enjoyed the morning, chatting in the shade with our coffees, watching people walk by, and reading a local freebie paper.
LOL, in this next picture I’m all hat. That’s one way to hide from the camera.
We also went to brunch a couple of times. The first time we sat outside, but the second time it was too hot by the time the shop opened up, plus their outside options were poor. That may have been my first time eating indoors in a café since getting vaccinated. I think so? I can’t remember.
Laura is gluten-free and everything at this bakery & brunch place was entirely gluten-free. Laura was very impressed, which is hard for me to pull off. I live in dusty towns out in the middle of the vast desert southwest – how am I going to compete with the offerings of the San Francisco Bay Area?
Not only can I not compete on a culinary basis, I also still can’t seem to figure out how to take a selfie! My face is twisted in concentration while Laura is wearing a patient, fond expression, clearly humoring her poor old mom.
Candid shot! (probably accidental, lol)
Now Laura’s like, “Here, just give me the phone. I’ll do it.” This is how it’s done! (I still look dubious.)
We went to brunch a couple of times, as well as getting take-out for dinner once or twice, but mostly we just stayed home. Here we are making gluten-free scones. I think ours were as good as anything at the bakery.
Laura also helped me learn some new stretches for my back and my neck. Here she is demonstrating:
I’m glad she was able to come spend an entire week in Tucson, thanks to being able to work from home – wherever home may be that week.
After Laura flew back home she had to stop by at her office to get something. The offices aren’t open yet, and they are only allowing people in occasionally for a specific reason with a reserved time slot.
She told me that since everyone was still working from home she got a “primo” parking spot. At first I pictured her cruising up to the front row of the parking lot, right next to all the handicap parking spots. But no, silly me, she works in downtown Palo Alto. There’s no parking lot! Nearby parking garages, yes, but no big, empty, sprawling parking lot.
When she said she got a primo parking spot in front of her building, she meant on the streets of downtown Palo Alto. Right exactly in front of her building!
It seems the entire Silicon Valley is still working from home.
Back in May I ordered dried elderberries to make elderberry syrup to put on my yogurt. I can’t remember why – it must have been recommended to me by a friend, or maybe I saw something on the internet about its health benefits.
Elderberries are a fairly classic medicinal used for immune health, pain relief, as a laxative, anti-inflammatory, etc. Maybe you have some elderberry syrup on your shelf with your cold medicines, or maybe if you’re young, your mom or your grandmother has it in their medicine cabinet 😉
Something probably made me think elderberries had some anti-cancer properties. I don’t remember. All I know is it sounded like a good idea at the time!
Elderberries can’t be eaten as-is. They need to be made into a tea, jelly or syrup. Instead of simply buying elderberry syrup, I thought it would be fun to make my own.
I followed an elderberry syrup recipe online, adding cinnamon, cloves and ginger to the elderberries and cooking it all in my instapot and then straining it when it was cooked. I thought I took pictures of the process but I can’t find them. Maybe that was back around the time my old iPhone took a walk in the swimming pool, taking everything I hadn’t downloaded into the watery depths. Or maybe I just forgot to take pictures!
My first batch of “elderberry syrup” turned out completely liquid, like dark purple water – I had wanted something a little bit thicker. I tried thickening it with corn starch, which worked perfectly while it was still hot, but it cooled into the consistency of jello, which then separated into jello and liquid as it sat in the refrigerator. I stirred it up and I ended up with bits of jello in liquid. It looks almost like there’s berries in there, but there’s not. It’s just jello bits.
Around that same time I had a week of unexplained migraines and I wondered if it was the cloves. I’ve suspected certain spices before. For example, I love this Good Earth tea but I think it sometimes gives me migraines. It could be one of the spices, or it could be the orange (another suspected food item), or it could be that this tea doesn’t cause migraines at all.
It’s hard to figure out what causes migraines – it’s never clear and consistent. Various items may increase the likelihood of getting a migraine, but the final result depends on so many other variables. And the lag times vary, making it even harder to pin anything down.
Anyway, I decided to leave out the spices on my second batch of elderberry syrup. And this time I thickened it with flour and butter (like you would a classic white sauce), hoping to not end up with lumpy jello. It came out smoother, but still firmer than I had in mind. I wanted something that would flow thick and smooth.
I was considering making a third batch, and wondering how to get a syrupy consistency, when I suddenly wondered if elderberry was a nightshade. I don’t know what made me think of it, but I was just all of a sudden, wait – is this a nightshade? I know that some nightshades can trigger my migraines.
Potatoes and tomatoes do for sure. I’m not sure about eggplant or bell peppers. Hot peppers do not seem to trigger migraines, although maybe I’m just not willing to believe they do!
I googled whether elderberries are a nightshade, and the internet didn’t seem to be in agreement with itself on that questions. It sounds like probably not. Plus, even if I’m sensitive to some nightshades, that doesn’t mean I’m sensitive to all of them. I don’t know the particular chemical – it could be a chemical in a variety of foods, including some nightshades. Who knows.
I don’t know how accurate this website is, but it’s a handy reference to what foods are related to other foods, which can be a clue to help guess allergies. This site has elderberries listed as not related to anything else.
https://maacallergy.com/food-families/
Regardless of food families, what I do know is that I had a rough week and a half while experimenting with elderberry syrup, even after I had moved on to the second batch with no spices. Since I no longer remember why I even thought elderberries were a thing to try, and I now suspect they cause migraines, I’m going to abandon the project. Anyone want an entire (expensive) bag of dried elderberries? Lol.
I was talking with Serenity today on Zoom and noticed their pronouns are now thon/they/them. And I had just gotten used to using “they”!
I had even finally, finally gotten around to updating my coaching website just yesterday, – JUST YESTERDAY – after putting it off for months, to read (in part), “…they graduated with a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering, earned their Professional Engineering License (PE)…” Etc. They, they, they.
So now I have to go back and try to convert it all to “thon” and I don’t even know how to use “thon” and oh, my goodness, the trials of being a parent never end 😉
Anyway, thon’s doing great.
If you think we look unusually happy it’s because when I took this screenshot Serenity had just found out that thon gets tomorrow off in celebration of Juneteenth on Saturday. Thon works for the State of Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, and I’m really surprised that the State of Idaho followed the Federal decision so rapidly. It all just happened today!
Talk about last minute messing with payroll, lol. Every payroll admin in the country is probably like, what the heck! It’s a good deal though. Lurching in the right direction.
Also last night I sent this picture to Serenity:
It was 109° F after sunset last night, and still at 106° at 8:15 PM. It’s sort of crazy!
Serenity replied, “I would say I pity you but you brought it on yourself and probably like it” LOL! Yes, guilty on both counts. Totally my choice to be here. And I don’t really mind the heat. My ideal temp would be more like 76°-85°, but whatever, still beats the winter! Oh, yes, I’ll take 111° over 38° and drizzly any day!
We’ve had highs of 105°-115° all week. And it’s been over 100° in Albuquerque too. At least I have a pool here. And real A/C. We just have an evaporative cooler in Albuquerque. I’ll be back in Albuquerque next week, but here or there, either way, it’s haaawt!
John was bummed that my Memorial Day post didn’t include a few pictures of me that had been on his phone. It is a common issue – I will work with the photos on my phone and not remember to include his.
In addition to going back and adding them to the original post, I’m going to put them here so those of you who get this post by email will get them.
So here’s a few more pictures of me (and the amazing scenery) at Mesa de Cuba:
Uh yeah, no, I am not going up that.
Also John mentioned that the video of thunder from the Memorial Day post didn’t work on his phone. It does work on the website, so you can always watch it there if you want. But seriously, it’s hardly worth it – it’s just the sounds of thunder, lol. I am working on winning a prize for most boring youtube videos of all time!
Laura works for a consulting company called Slalom. In addition to her regular duties as a data & analytics consultant, she is also one of the cofounders of Horizons, Slalom’s employee resource group for disability, neurodiversity, and mental health. She is a Horizon’s global co-lead, with her focuses being primarily around neurodiversity and intersectional allyship.
Neurodiversity refers to the fact that there is not just one ideal type of brain. Different people have different ways of thinking and that diversity can be useful. For example, there are many extremely valuable professionals on the autism spectrum who are making incredible contributions to their companies and communities. Autistic traits are beneficial in certain situations, and can actually be an advantage at times.
I asked Laura what intersectional allyship means and she said,
“It’s important to recognize the intersections within our community (so much overlap between disability, neurodiversity, and mental health, both in how people identify and comorbidities) and with other communities. The discrimination faced by a Black person is not the same as the discrimination faced by an autistic person, which is not the same as a black autistic person. We all have overlapping identities that create unique lives experiences. We cannot achieve Horizons’ vision of “Creating a world where the infinite variations in mind and body are represented, empowered, and celebrated” without recognizing intersectionality and being allies to everyone. So, I do a lot of partnering with people with different identities, and with other Slalom employee resource groups. Which is why I lead the event last March, “Women & Neurodiversity: Presentation, Representation, and Celebration.””
Earlier this week Laura and her supervisor got a notification that a coworker of hers had submitted a peer review of Laura. These reviews are encouraged to give employees and their managers feedback about their performance. Usually they are short thank-you notes, but this one was stunningly positive from a coworker who identifies as neurodiverse:
“Laura is beyond dedicated. Most of the people at Slalom are dedicated or we wouldn’t have brought them in to the family. Laura does not work toward inclusivity, she is a pure crusader. She is constantly thinking of new ways to reach people. Any obstacle is simply a mild deterrent and she treats it as such, moving above, below, around, or simply straight through it. Laura does all of this, and she has no direct “skin in this game”. She knows others who are neurodiverse and she herself is neurotypical. Advances for inclusivity in neurodiversity change the lives of those around her, not her personally. If a new policy were created to support those with these kinds of challenges, it would not be hers to use. It would only help those around her, and for her, that is enough to take up armor and shield and sword and march through a desert. The slalom family is worth that struggle for her.That is not devotion. That is not dedication. That is love. And, she knows that love is not an emotion, it is a selfless commitment, and she has made that commitment to me, to us, the neurodiverse who so need champions.“
Wow! Way to go, Laura!
She’s wearing her pride sunglasses because June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month!
Zane is showing his spirit too. He’s just happy to be home after a fun but exhausting Memorial Day Weekend backpacking trip.
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