Take one harried single mother with her own translation business plus a second job, one artistically and sarcastically precocious and academically gifted sixteen-year-old, a deaf teenager (and adult) with a heady mix of hormones and autism in play (and her full roster of in-home extras), extended family scattered across the globe and the anxiety-disorder spectrum, a cast of friends always ready to share over a glass of pinot gris or a pasta concoction, and villains galore in the school and state services systems for disabled kids – all wrung through with attempts at humor and a head held high (or at least a good pair of shoes): That is life in the spin cycle.