Little Things Addict

I realized the other day that I think the pandemic has made me (and to some degree the rest of my family) a "little things" addict.  During the pandemic, particularly in the first few months where we rarely left the house, we tried our best to improve our days with little things--a nice walk or run, time outside with the flowers, a video call, a new game (which always ended badly), a fun snack, etc.  I baked cookies and bagels, we sought out new but safe experiences, ordering food in was a much needed break, and eventually just getting a $1 frozen drink (Slurpee or Freeze) was my favorite "you survived something" treat.  We could justify it early on because we weren't spending much money on anything else, especially gas or workday lunches or travel.  It just brought a little extra joy into a tough time. 

But...three years later I think we're sort of addicted to the little dopamine boosts, because the Slurpees and snacks have become more regular, and--particularly for me--craving the little moments of adventure or beauty has become more of a desperate seeking out rather than merely a fear of missing out.  If that's the biggest price we have to pay from three years of various levels of mental distress and stress response, I suppose that's not too bad, but it has its share of downfalls.  Previously I would keep an eye out for cool opportunities and make an effort not to miss out.  Now I feel like if nothing crops up for a few days I go into desperation mode to find something to spice things up.  I get bummed if I realize I haven't taken any phone pictures for days in a row.  I get really bummed and frustrated if something exciting doesn't work out.  It's a much more urgent case of FOMO, so to speak.  Before it was just a bummer, and now it's something that will nag at me for a while.  It's why I was so desperate to hit up those spots in Oklahoma City and why I felt a little "meh" about the Missouri trip where we didn't do much.  COVID made me not take that stuff for granted, and now it's like I'm on a mission to make up for lost time and make the most of my opportunities moving forward.  It's not a bad thing, it just has the potential to make me a little more susceptible to life-induced mood swings than I would prefer.

Last weekend when we were getting ready to head to Buffalo, I was really wrestling with the wisdom of actually going.  With all we were going through with Jacob, part of it seemed unwise.  We should stay home, give him time to do his work and get good sleep.  But I knew he was eager for the change of scenery, and honestly so was I.  I didn't want to skip it, in part because a weekend at home battling screens and playing kid referee is such a downgrade from doing something different.  And yes, it was just Buffalo (admittedly I was hoping we'd play the Toronto Rock so we could swing a trip to Canada and maybe hit up an IKEA), but we were staying in a cool hotel and had a chance to check out a few neat things in the city.  When I threatened Jacob with having to stay home if he could not get his butt moving on Friday morning, I was really struggling with having to follow through on that one.  Thankfully he cooperated, but I felt like that would have had super negative mental consequences for me, even though I would have done it if it was beneficial for him.

Craig left earlier on Friday and got a ride with a colleague, and the boys and I got on the road in the early evening.  We stopped for dinner at Mighty Taco on the way into town, and got to the hotel just as the sun was setting.  Our room had giant windows and and insane view!

Lake Erie is on the left, Canada is straight ahead

We spent a little time in a banquet room with the team as they watched the other divisional matchup, but eventually retreated to the room and settled in.  It was a funky, modern room with wallpaper that looked like cassette tapes, a modern dividing wall between the bathroom area and living space, and a cool corner booth with a table.  The first night was not a great night of sleep for me for some reason, but good enough, I guess.  Yet I still managed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  We did have this view, though.

Craig had to head out relatively early, but I let the kids sleep in so Jacob especially could rest up.  But by the time I tried to get everyone moving and was met with resistance, it took forever to get out of the room.  We had to go out for breakfast, which isn't easy with Jacob, but it took an eternity just to get to the point of getting out of the room because Jacob was doing his usual morning sloth impersonation.  Finally, just as we were ready to get out of the room, we realized the thermostat was off in the room. U turned it back on and adjusted it, as the room had gotten a little warm.  Carter didn't really understand how it worked so he saw the current room temperature and thought he needed to adjust it further, and Jacob was being a jerk about it since the night before and kept talking about it needing to be at 64, which was clearly too cold.  As both kids were reaching for it to fight over it, I went to swat Jacob's hand away and accidentally scratched him.  I momentarily realized there was something under my fingernail, which happened to be HIS SKIN.  I caught him just wrong, apparently, and left him with a pretty good scratch across the top of his hand.  He was clearly unhappy and felt terrible, but that turned into a whole thing of trying to clean it out and find a bandaid.  By the time we got down to the parking ramp, I was so frazzled I went the wrong way (it was two-way at least, but ended up at a dead end), and then when we tried to get out at the gate, the key that Craig said should work did not, and I was honestly not in the mood to pay some ridiculous amount for parking.  And with everything else that was happening, I was just OVER IT.  I turned around and went back to park.  We called Craig and he said he was done so if we came we could pick him up and go get breakfast.  By this point it was nearly lunch time (for him in particular) so that frustrated me, too, because our whole day would be off now.  He said he'd expense the parking, but when I finally went through it, I realized I never got a receipt, which frustrated me even worse.  We picked up Craig but got detoured twice by some motorcycle event.  We finally worked our way back and found a Starbucks, which was good for Jacob but Carter and I wanted Tim Hortons down the road.  We parked so the big boys could go in, and as I sat there annoyed by my morning, SOMEONE REAR ENDED ME.  I mean, you can't make this stuff up.  It was just ridiculous.  I was insisting it was not my day and that was absolute, 100% proof.  Oh, and then they drove away.  I got out to check for damage and thankfully there was a mere scuff, nothing worse than the rest of normal car wear-and-tear, so at least that was good, but what.the.heck.

We continued on to Tim Hortons but I was just done by that point.  I got an iced coffee, bagel sandwich, and a misery donut, and we all sat and ate.  I guess the rest of the day got better after that.  I worked out for a bit with Craig and Jacob, and then Carter and I swam in the pool for about 30-45 minutes.  The pool was a bit cooler than would have been ideal but it had the original tile work from when it was the Buffalo Christian Center (which I only found out after the fact--I remember going on a field trip there to play mini golf when I was a kid) so it felt sort of neat.  It was tolerable, though, and we had a good time swimming and racing, even if I was already beat from a decent workout!  

We headed back upstairs just as Craig and Jacob were leaving for the game.  Jacob was going to sit with Craig in the press box.  I cleaned up and Carter and I left a little while after to take the trip down Main St. to the arena.  I was really looking forward to this mini adventure with him--one of the "little things" I would have really regretted missing out on had we not gone.  First we had to walk a block up and over to get to Main.  We saw this cool old ad on the side of a building as we popped out into the Theatre District.

We walked past Shea's and up toward the Fountain Plaza Metro station.  Our plan was originally to ride the Metro all the way up, but we were trying to grab dinner and the easiest option appeared to be a Subway a couple stops up.  So we rode from Fountain Plaza to Lafayette Square, only to find out that the Subway closed earlier than Google said.  So not only couldn't we eat there, but we were now off the Metro schedule, so we had to walk for a bit.  It was fine--nothing too long, and the weather was perfect.  We saw a Tesla statue...

Note the lightning bolt in his hand

...a Pulaski statue, and a bunch of cool architecture, including the elaborate columns of the Ellicott Square Building.

I was probably most eager to make our way to Canalside, which I had never really gotten to explore since it had been put in.  This is the area adjacent to the existing naval park (which I have been to) that sits mostly in the footprint of my beloved Aud.  The Sabres' former home, and my absolute favorite place to be for most of my teenage years, sat on this site.  It took years for it to be torn down, and then years for development.  But what's there now is cool.  They put the original canal route back in (now it ends in North Tonawanda, but it used to go here), which turns into a rink in the winter.  There are bridges, a children's museum, a carousel, and some other cool stuff.

I had never gotten to see Shark Girl up close, and we both took a turn sitting with her!

Carter is sadly a bit old for the Explore and More Museum, so hopefully it's around through grandparenthood...haha.

The museum is on the left--note the bike up top.

I sighed a little when we got to this spot.  Not long ago they shared plans for new residential to go into the last plot of land on the property.  But that wall in the distance was part of the Aud's foundation.  The Metro goes right by where the Auditorium stop used to be (right side of the photo), and the Aud entrance was right there.  I could still picture it as we drove by.  The main entrance was on the left, and I couldn't help but wonder where center ice might have been.  It was bittersweet--I could still picture it, but that won't be the case for much longer once this gets built up.  Progress is good, but I still miss it.

Across from the no-longer-new arena that replaced the Aud is a statue of Tim Horton, who started the donut shops, played for the Sabres, and tragically died after a couple years with the team.  I had to tell Carter the stories about how Grandma and Grandpa were season ticket holders back then.

Across the street is a Tim Hortons location that is very heavily themed with him and the Sabres' blue and gold.  I suggested we get pretzel bagels toasted with butter, but alas, they only had one so I let Carter have it.  I'd eat at the game.

He loved it!  And fear not, I got one the next morning.

The game itself was...rough.  We met up with Craig's parents and ended up sitting in the fifth row in a sea of rabid Bandits fans.  At least they were respectable, especially since we had to sit through 20 goals and losing by 12.  A loss would have been one thing...but that kind of a loss?  Yuck.  I had sworn off that arena years ago for that exact reason and only went because a) it was a nice change of scenery for the weekend; and b) losing wasn't the worst thing in the world if it meant Craig would be free to take the St. Louis trip.  Yes, playoff runs are fun, but they are now super long (most of the championships we celebrated were this time of year--now it goes to June).  In this specific case it meant more to have Craig free to travel (and not book absurdly expensive and scarce hotel rooms for this weekend in the midst of a half dozen college commencements and the upcoming PGA Championship).  So I figured even if being there was still bad luck, at least there was a benefit.  But going out that way was not fun.

We attempted to find food postgame but failed, so the three of us settled back into the room while Craig joined the coaches at a nearby bar.  He had a rather late night.  But, we were up and out at a reasonable time nonethless so we could grab brunch (another Starbucks/Timmy's run) and head to the outlets in Niagara Falls.  Carter was looking for cleats but decided he liked the ones at Dick's better.  But Jacob got some clothes, Carter got some pants, and I got a new pair of very cheap Nike sneakers!  We grabbed lunch at Andersons and then stopped at my parents on the way out of town.  We just visited for a bit on what ended up being a very rainy day despite the forecast only calling for a couple showers.  We headed home in the late afternoon and settled in for another week of homework, sleep, and morning battles.

Fortunately, we had another nice "little thing" to break up the week a bit.  Carter had his first orchestra concert!  I wasn't sure what to expect, especially listening to him practice in the days prior, but in the end, it was amazing!  A lot of what he played made a lot more sense in the context of the full orchestra, and he really seemed to do well.  He was noted in the program as the "Section Leader", which I assume is sort of like first chair?  It's a little different than sports where there's an element of individual performance and this was more of an ensemble, but it was so neat to see him up there and doing his thing.

In the first video, Carter's favorite note is around the 40 second mark.  He loves doing that one!

This was a longer song and I really thought it was impressive.

I wasn't sure how this music thing would go, but he really does seem to like it, enough that I think we need to keep his viola over the summer and get in some lessons. 

At the end!

His first soccer practice was actually the night of the concert (luckily his buddy Ben was in band so he missed too), and Thursday's ended up getting canceled, so soccer is on hold until next week, I guess.  But he's excited for that too.  

Jacob's team has a local tournament this Saturday so he and Craig will probably go spectate while I stay home and work on the yard a bit while the weather is cooperative.  He's starting to shoot the ball a bit now since he's jumping more in therapy, so we'll see what next week's follow-up looks like and whether or not he gets cleared.  Sunday is Mother's Day and it looks like we'll do a Buffalo swing to both moms.  And from there on out we will be in St. Louis mode--preparing for the trip and then leaving Thursday after school.  I'm getting nervous about it--weather, packing, the long drive, managing missed school--but if it works out the upside could be awesome.  Mentally I just do not want to miss out on this opportunity, so of course my anxiety is rearing up a bit just thinking about it.  It's definitely going to be an interesting week...interspersed with as many little things as possible to keep me sane, no doubt.