Pittsburgh - The Museum Part and The Aftermath

On Sunday we woke up at our leisure and once again made it down just in time for breakfast.  Our only plans for the day were to go to Wahlburger's for lunch at the mall nearby and drive home.  But we also wanted to eat a good breakfast and that meant we didn't want to eat lunch immediately after, so we started talking about other plans.  Deep down I wanted to go to the Museum of Illusions because it looks very much up Carter's and my alley and would probably be fun for everyone to see, but in the end we were leaning toward the Heinz History Center.  You may recall it from our trip to Pittsburgh when Jacob was two.  With the sports museum contained in it, we figured Craig's parents would enjoy it.  Carter had never been there, and Jacob obviously didn't remember much, if anything.  A lot looked familiar, but there were new parts, too.  It was a little crazy to think that the last time we were there, Jacob was this tiny little nugget and this time he was literally old enough to drive the bus.

Carter looking on with concern at the thought of Jacob driving

My favorite photo buddy helping me get the shot.

It is the Heinz History Center after all, so of course there is a lot of Heinz memorabilia.  Such a cool old wagon.  I liked that it listed a bunch of items from their product line right on it.

It felt extra appropriate to take a picture of Carter in this old train from the Racer at Kennywood.

There was an entire exhibit on impressive women - "A Woman's Place".  A lot of it was local women doing interesting things, from suffrage stuff to TV stars to athletes.  The boys were checking out this exhibit of a couple women basketball players.

It was around this point, as we weaved around the exhibit and appropriately passed a pierogy maker display, that Craig got a text from someone who had been on the trip: one couple had tested positive for COVID.  Well, crap.  As a reminder, Craig had been stuffed up since the prior day.  Out of curiosity I put my hand up to his forehead, and sure enough, he felt a little hot.  Hmmmm.  Well...not much we could do at that point since we'd been sleeping in the same room, riding in the same van, and spending a lot of time together, so we figured we were just going to push through and he'd mask for the ride home.  I guess this really interesting piece of artwork was perfectly timed for my mood...sigh.

This was spotted in a giant picture outside the exhibit showing a soap box derby race that a successful girl driver had participated in.  Frank Budwey was a famous grocer from my hometown.  I mostly remember his store as a Bells, but it's entirely possible it was a Super Duper before that.  It mentions Western New York, so it's definitely linked.  I just thought it was cool to see.
 

In the sports museum, there was a McCutchen sighting.

Their historical artifacts from the Pirates were quite interesting...

This entire baseball room was neat, from the Forbes Field mural to the statues to the mini model of Three Rivers Stadium.  

Upstairs was one of the activities we remembered from last time.  Jacob was a little better at this one than he was 14 years ago.

This hockey section was new.  I think they had a couple things last time, but this was a full-on Penguins section.  I'm guessing maybe the Penguins' Stanley Cup-winning years around the 2010s brought on enough new memorabilia to make it needed and much more interesting.  They even had a replica of the Stanley Cup.  

Of course I snapped a picture of this Les Binkley card, because I've always wondered if we're related.

All the pucks in this shot (gathered around a Mario Lemieux statue) represent his goals.  The white ones near the front are playoff goals.

They also had bubble hockey, and if you've been here a while, you know that my family cannot pass up a good bubble hockey machine.

We were getting hungry by this point so we tried to wrap up the rest of the museum relatively quickly.  We checked out this bear...

...and then the boys realized they were in the line of fire.

After going through some of the war history stuff, everyone else was ready to go.  But my favorite floor still hadn't been visited, so I quickly dragged Carter to the Heinz exhibit.

A giant bottle made out of bottles!

There's also a glass exhibit on that floor and I remembered that one of the coolest artsy pictures I ever took (debatable but it definitely held the title for a bit) was taken there.

I just could not get over the cracked glass at the time, and it's still in my wallpaper rotation.

I decided it needed an update...

I probably would have done a few different variations but we were in a rush.  There were still a lot of my same favorites--some that I remembered and some that I didn't.  I didn't remember this chunk of scrap glass (but I do have a picture from last time), but isn't it pretty?

The Mister Rogers section is always cool, but maybe even more so after recently watching the Mr. Dressup documentary (the Mister Rogers of Canada, for anyone who didn't grow up along the border) that explained the close ties between the two.  The castle and the tree bring back so many memories.

Pretty sure I never caught as a kid that it was King Friday XIII (the 13th)!

In another section, Carter saw this instrument and instantly knew it was a viola.  For a kid who sometimes seems a little dazed and distracted, sometimes he just amazes me with what he picks up on.  

We wrapped up our quick run through that entire floor and joined everyone else in the gift shop.  They had a lot of cool stuff, including the coolest artistic print of the pierogy race.  Maybe someday.  

Outside, I had to get a picture of one of the coolest new additions to the museum, this giant ketchup bottle that came from the former Heinz Field where the Steelers play (that changed its name and no longer needed this one--they kept another for a separate Heinz sponsorship).  It's huge!

We headed back to the area where our hotel was because the mall nearby had a Wahlburger's.  After getting shut out in Toronto with the one that recently closed, this needed to happen.  It was in a slowly dying mall--the mall wasn't bad but is clearly on the decline with some empty spaces.  It was oddly comforting to be seated at a table on a patio-type area that was out in the mall food court--felt less closed in, which was better given Craig's situation.  It was a pretty low-key meal, to be honest, but we were all probably just tired, a little worried, and hungry.  The food was good--I think everyone was pretty happy with their choice.  I had a really good chicken sandwich with a side of my ideal onion strings, and Jacob loved his burger.  I snapped a picture of the boys outside the restaurant (you should see the outtakes) and then we made a pitstop at the sports store for more Pirates stuff, and finally headed out.

We got on the road much later than planned, but it was fine.  We did run into some pretty hard rain and generally sketchy weather.  A tornado warning came on the radio over the Pirates game, in fact, but it was far to the south of us by then.  Craig drove until just before Erie when we stopped for a bathroom break and snacks (yay for Sheetz having a Wawa-style soft pretzel), and then I took over for the rest of the trip.  It honestly wasn't that bad, all things considered.  Normally I'd hate a three-plus hour drive, but we had a stop to drop Craig's parents and I think the urgency to just get home was motivating.  We didn't have any COVID tests at home so Craig was able to snag one from his parents.  He tested the moment we got home, and sure enough...positive.  Darn it.  So down to the basement he went.  I immediately ran to Wegmans and got more tests.  Carter and his cold were negative.  Jacob and I were going to wait.

I obviously decided to work from home early in the week.  It was the end of my fiscal year at work and I was hoping to go in for some festivities Wednesday, but it seemed wise to stay home for now, test Wednesday regardless, and see how things went.  We found out late Sunday night that Carter had a playoff baseball game Monday (which I think I mentioned the injustices of a few posts ago), so Jacob and I went and kept Craig posted. I thought I might be having a COVID headache that night so I took Zicam and felt better Tuesday.  I probably had a little extra congestion, but nothing worse than an iffy allergy day.  That made me hopeful I might make it through, that maybe I was exposed but my body was fighting it off.  The boys seemed okay, too, although Jacob was a little grumpy and extra lazy, so I think we tested him Tuesday, but he was fine.  Wednesday morning I woke up and tested myself before my shower, in preparation for hoping to go into work for the day.  Imagine my surprise when a faint positive showed up.  It wasn't as faint as, say, my super faint one that needed good lighting to see the day before we left for Disney last year, but it was light.  UGH.  I was hoping that maybe I just had a mild case, but as the day went on I was definitely feeling it more.  I had masked all day trying to get through my workday, but eventually retreated to my room when my big monitor was no longer needed for the tasks I had left.  I was able to do most of my work from my room for the rest of the week, though by Thursday afternoon I had to quit and take a nap.  The worst had come on by then--bad congestion, lots of pressure, low fever, and just general blahs.  By Friday I had turned the corner, and on Sunday (which I was counting as my Day 5), I tested negative and felt pretty decent.  By around Tuesday I started feeling a little cruddy again--mostly just a bunch of mucus stuck in my problematic right sinus.  I finally managed to blow some thick stuff out and felt better, but the last couple days I've still been dealing with a little more congestion than I'd like.  I'm hoping it clears soon.

I don't recommend having two parents down for the count at the same time, and in fact this marked the first time we'd had in-house transmission, as all of our previous six COVID cases had been singles.  It was a little extra awkward given that we were still managing both kids' medical mysteries.  Carter finished his antibiotics on Wednesday, and I swore by Friday or so that his face was swelled back up again.  It hadn't actually gone down fully, but it looked worse again.  But Craig was really just getting out of his isolation (he tested negative Thursday, I think), and I hated to have either of us taking the kids anywhere so soon so we checked in with the doctor and agreed to wait on it and watch.  It was pretty frustrating.  It has gone down a bit again since, not to my full liking, but I think it's better.  Jacob had a dentist appointment on Monday, and I figured I'd take Carter in case the dentist was curious how he'd progressed.  Sure enough, after Jacob's checkout he came out to see us and took a couple looks again.  He seemed content with the wait-and-see method at this point, but reinforced that if we needed anything, to not hesitate to call.  His insistence was really nice and very much appreciated given how wacky this has been.  Both boys have well visits (Carter's is way overdue, oops) next Friday, so I unless something gets crazy between now and then, we'll let the doctor have another look then and determine if more antibiotics are due.

I mostly kept my distance during my five days, though I did cook most days (except Thursday when I was so extra congested).  I once again watched a lot of TV.  I worked my way through a couple documentaries I'd been wanting to watch, watched an oldie but a goodie, Some Kind of Wonderful, which led me to track down Benny and Joon, which took on a whole new meaning in a modern world of autism.  Joon was considered "mentally ill" back in the early 90s when it came out, and while she did probably have schizophrenia, PTSD, and some sort of sensory processing disorder, she definitely seemed to be on the higher functioning autism spectrum.  I have a feeling Sam, Johnny Depp's character, probably was as well, along with maybe a learning disability since he has literacy issues.  It was all so vague back then, wondering what was wrong with them, but now it's like, oh yeah, her food texture issues are sensory processing, her preference for schedules and hyperfocus on painting are probably the autism, her meltdowns were a mix of both, and her complete wackadoodle stuff was probably the schizophrenia and maybe some PTSD thrown in.   We just didn't have names for a lot of it back then, and what we did know of autism was more in line with Rain Man--the halting speech, social awkwardness, and mind-boggling brain abilities.  This felt different, but it totally makes sense amid the media portrayals, a friend's experience with her son, and oodles of reading I've done since, in many cases sizing up my own kids.  Remember when Jacob's Kindergarten teacher and counselor thought he had Asperger's?  Good times. 

Eventually I moved on to my main mission: catching up on Young Sheldon.  The series ended this spring, and I felt almost completely out of the loop since I stopped watching it amidst the pandemic, although social media did drop some spoilers along the way.  Something happened during the pandemic--my TV habits changed completely, and remain changed pretty much to this day.  I guess it was because we were all stuck in the house all the time and it made it hard to use our main TV with the DVR where I had episodes saved.  I guess we just didn't have post-kid-bedtime TV time anymore, for whatever reason, and I just sort of stopped watching my own stuff.  I think there was some degree of overstimulation, too, from being in the house with people all the time.  My phone felt easier.  Then TV seasons got messed up by COVID precautions, and everything just felt messy for a while.  My old habits never really returned because Jacob stays up as late as we do now.  And then I think in the midst of it I had to turn in our DVR for a new one and lost all of those episodes anyway, and I never got back around to figuring out if one of our streaming services had all the older episodes.  So, now was the time.  I figured out approximately where I left off back in Season 3, picked it up there (with probably an episode or three overlap, as it turned out) and as of now I'm moving well through Season 6.  Just a season and a bit left.  It's a great show and I really do want to see it all because it's a great show on its own, but also an important story if you were ever a fan of The Big Bang Theory, which we were, because it explains a lot about why Sheldon is as he is.  There's also going to be a Young Sheldon spin-off about the older brother, so I guess it makes sense to be prepared if I want to watch that at some point.  Maybe next isolation I will finally finish off This is Us, which suffered the same pandemic fate, but that takes a lot more mental energy to binge watch than I think I will ever have.  So that might have to go in smaller bites.  

 

I filled the rest of my time with finally catching up on all of these blogs, getting some fresh air in the yard and on a couple walks, and making some earrings with the cheap but effective earring-making supplies I bought in my Amazon order before our trip.  Sometimes it's nice to have forced relaxation when you're a mom.  It's hard to do self-care, and even then it tends to be a lot of "busy" stuff, so pretty much having no choice but to lay in bed and "Netflix and chill" is good, forced rest.  It's also, to some degree, a forced break from the mental load because you can't really do all of those tasks when you're not spending significant time out in the house and can't drive anyone anywhere.  You can try to contribute, but you really have to rely on someone else to do most of the heavy lifting for a couple days.  Even still, it was definitely a relief to test negative and get back to normal life.  That came just in time to do a couple days of work this week--but after vacation and a few days of reduced capacity due to my illness, the day and a half I did was fine and pretty low-key.  I was hoping to do more but the files I needed didn't come through, but then I did have to hop on for a couple hours Wednesday because my big boss was being asked for a couple things and needed my help.  I am taking some significant vacation time this holiday week since it's the one week I can usually do it without guilt or getting myself behind since we're waiting for our books to close.  Apparently not even this week is safe now, though.  Ugh.  I tried to create a to-do list for the extra-long weekend so I could stay on task and not get overwhelmed or too lazy, but between my extra congestion, the unexpected work time, and extra hot weather, my first two days got pretty badly derailed.  I didn't even get dressed until dinner time Wednesday, but made a decent recovery that night with dinner and a bike ride.  I'm hoping today will be better, and maybe some cooler weather over the weekend will let me get to my outside work and more bike riding.

So, as I think about the past few weeks, it's all a lot to process.  It's hard to believe we went from craziness to paradise to fun to COVID and back in the span of less than three weeks.  I can't believe it's been almost three weeks since we left, for that matter.  It stinks that I couldn't bask in the glow of a tropical getaway a bit more.  I felt so good when I came home (aside from the crappy travel stuff) and I would have liked to be able to go to work, all tan and happy with my refreshed pre-trip haircut (which I still love), and tell everyone about the trip.  I loved being able to come back and go right into the fun of Pittsburgh, but obviously that crapped out, too.  It's like I can't have a fun trip without some kind of bummer attached.  First Cedar Point and Disney, and now this.  I guess it could go back to the hurricane trip to Asheville, our first family Disney trip, or even our honeymoon when we got stuck in Chicago.  Like our honeymoon, I really wanted to transfer the lovey-dovey fun time to a more pleasant existence at home, but this time we ended up not sleeping in the same bed for more than a week, and by then the de-stressing had definitely faded.  It's just a bummer, but I'm still so thankful for the tropical getaway experience.  It was so beautiful and really fun to have that time.  Now I'm hoping this extra holiday break is a good reset button to get back on track before a very busy few months at work (even if it's slow now because everyone's out, and I still have a summer bucket list to work on so more time off is coming).  I'm a little worried about residual COVID stuff because I never seem to make it through without some brain fog and headaches, and I definitely do not have time for that right now.  But suddenly we have been launched into the thick of summer--and in fact, today is the unofficial peak, the 4th of July--so I'm hoping we can settle back into a reasonable, enjoyable, uncrazy stretch for now.