Prelude

 

My weekday routine changes little from one day to the next. 

My alarm goes off at 5AM and I stagger to the bathroom where I brush my remaining teeth, get dressed and, after stopping by Sam's room and throwing an extra blanket on him, I head downstairs, put away the dishes from the night before, stage Sam's breakfast, then I sit down at the computer.

At the computer, I check my two email accounts (one of which matters, the other of which exists solely out of habit - much like my really-not-needed landline). Then I hit up the semi-local news, seeing if there's anything I should care about (usually not) and then I check the local newspaper's website - also to see if there is anything I should care about. 

Surprisingly, sometimes there might be an article of interest in the local "paper"- but I will often leave these stories for Sam to discover so he can read them to me in the evenings.

After breezing through the headlines, I'll also read the obituaries. 

I've come to the conclusion that I read the obituaries for one of three reasons. First, and maybe most importantly, to make sure I'm not in there. Second, to make sure there is nobody I know in there (in case they forgot to give me a head's up). And third, assuming the other two came up empty, to check out the various ages of those recently departed, and making a mental note of it so I can gauge how much time I have left.

Then, assuming I'm not in the obituaries (so far), when Sam's alarm goes off, I go upstairs and greet him with a hug, ask how he slept - and then usually mention the morning temperature. 

The temperature matters because Sam and I like to go on walks and assuming the temperature is in our "acceptable" range (between 25 ℉ and 85℉ - depending on wind, humidity and precipitation) we will walk to and from his work - at least on most days. (More on that later. Maybe.)

From there, I go back downstairs; Sam gets dressed, comes down, eats eats and, after various prompts which I've set on his phone (time to get snacks, use the bathroom before we leave, etc.), we head out to his job at the High School cafeteria. 

Sometime around 12:30 PM, I head back over to meet Sam for when he gets out at 1:00 (or so).

When I get to his work, I always stand at the end of a long fence and wait for him to come out, trying to stay out of the way of the occasional delivery and the other employees leaving. 

It's while standing at the end of this long fence, one sunny afternoon back in early April of 2025, that trouble began.

A (Not So) Brief Note

 

So, it's been a while (or so I'm told). 

My response to this has been that I have nothing to say that I haven't said before. After all, a) my exciting life is not exactly filled with excitement and b) it's also pretty much true. 

As of this "writing," I've been doing this since the end of August of 2010 (discounting a couple of one-offs in 2008). Using most of my fingers and toes, I figure this works out to be over fifteen years. That's a lot of time to write about pretty much nothing. That's a lot of posts (1,650 including this one) to not say a whole lot.

But even though all of this is true, it hasn't felt quite right. Or more accurately, it hasn't felt complete.

As the fog has thinned over these past many, many months (which is not to say, "lifted"), I've been able to get enough distance and clarity to recognize the obvious - which is, this past year has not been the greatest (I am restraining myself from saying "awful"). It has been very draining time-wise and extremely draining emotionally - probably the worst prolonged period of time since Sam went through his initial traumas.

And like his initial trauma, this came out of the blue. 

My last post prior to this one was on April 19th, 2025. Not coincidentally, this saga started on April 8th, 2025 - a little over a week before. And it snowballed from there.

After giving it a lot of (inconsistent) thought, I may (or may not) write a little bit about it.

I've toyed with this for awhile but there are a few things that I need to figure out: 

-- Do I use real names or make up fake ones? I don't want to get sued - though everything I say will be true. And nobody comes here anyway. The real names are so fitting (obviously) and fake names don't feel right - plus it's one more thing to keep track of. But I'm inclined to go the fake route.

 - -This is pretty convoluted and if I start retracing all of this, invariably I'll get to a point where I'll think, "Oh yeah, I should have said X,Y and Z before this." Do I add it in? Do I go back and revise? Do I stop wasting my time go back to trying to stay awake on the couch? How do I handle this?

 -- If I were to write about this, it's going to take a while. And as I said, it was emotionally exhausting to go through it. It likely will be at least somewhat emotionally exhausting to go through it all again. Do I bother? Do I start and then give up? 

 --And, if I do go forward, how do I organize all of this? Do I do chapters? It's not that clean. Where does one chapter begin and another one end?

--During all of this time, other, unrelated, things happened. How do I handle all of this - do I ignore these other, probably not relevant things? Do I intersperse these unrelated gems between chapters (named as such or not) or do I save them for the inevitable anti-climax somewhere down the road.

--And maybe most importantly, I'm not at the end of this road. Am I in the middle? Are things winding down? I have absolutely no idea. I do know that if things flare up, it will likely be another long, long break before I come back here - if at all.

 I think, on all of the above, I'll just figure it out as I go.

 If I go at all.

We'll see. 

Back for More

Back again, for the second year in a row, to grab some of the wool that Mom left behind...

Old Friends (Part 2)*

Sam had show-and-tell at the Arc yesterday and chose to bring his old friend, Brownie (or as Sam referred to him in his Instagram post, his "little night time pal").

Brownie has been at Sam's side in times of joy and in times of fear and trauma. Through it all, Brownie has always listened, provided comfort and, most of all, loved Sam for who he is. 

We should all be so lucky.

*** 

At the Arc... 

And on the ride home..

 (*Part One appeared just over eleven years ago.)

Another Sign of Spring

Photo from my Instagram

 

I have vague memories from when I was a little kid, of a particular Easter morning. It was after one of the few times we had gone to church and I was walking down the narrow brick path that ran along the south side of our house. 

The crocuses were just starting to bloom and I remember thinking how pretty they looked and how, before they fully opened, it looked as if we were growing a garden of Easter eggs.

I somehow feel connected to that very brief moment every spring when the crocuses reappear. 

Perusing His Treasure

Sam has an incredible eye when it comes to spotting stray pennies along our walks. I don't have a lot to say about it, it just gives me an excuse to post these photos...

 

Signs of Spring

 Back to our canal walks and, even better, the creamie is now open.

 

(Also, I'm glad that Sam seems semi-tolerant of me basically documenting his life.)