Our Mini-Vacation

We're back from our abbreviated vacation - all rested and relaxed (well...rested anyway. Well.. actually...)

We were lucky to have had such nice weather and even luckier to have had such good company. The entire family (minus Jake) drove to Rhode Island on Thursday, where we pitched our tents in Jake's backyard and spent two nights before returning back home on Saturday morning. In between, we went to the beach a couple of times, did a lot of walking (for me, anyway) and managed to eat out a few of times. We also had a campfire, made from brush and branches which Jake had been gathering up throughout the summer.

Home Sweet Home - for two nights.

Through some mishap, which I can only blame on myself (unfortunately), I ended up without an air mattress on the first night. Instead, I spent the night on a doubled up sleeping bag, which separated me from the approximately forty-seven tree roots of various sizes, in the ground below.

This was quickly rectified the next day when we stopped at a local store where we bought a new air mattress. Due to it being the end of the season, the air mattress turned out to be on discount - thus making the entire trip worthwhile (that is, if the pleasant weather and pleasant company hadn't worked out.) As an even bigger bonus, the new air mattress conveniently freed up the sleeping bag so that I could use it properly on the next night - which turned out to be freezing.

Along with the beach-going and the walking and the eating, we also managed to play some mini-golf. This was largely for Sam's benefit. The theory is (or was), if the trip is fun enough for Sam, it will be easier for him to make the long car ride the next time. I'm not sure how well this theory will work out. Eighteen holes of mini-golf under the blazing hot sun, seemed a little much. I think we would have been fine with only the first nine holes.

Taken before the heat stroke had fully set in.

Somewhere during the second nine holes, it became obvious that the fun quotient was heading into negative territory. The first sign was that, rather than argue about it, people started to not care about the number of strokes that someone else had. From there, it rapidly devolved into a "God, just let this end" type of attitude.

But we made it through the game. And I think, someday, off in the distant future, we might look back on it and think that we actually had a good time.

The fire is dying down.

On Friday night, Jake made a fire in the backyard fire pit - a fire that was somewhere between a campfire and a bonfire. It was nice to sit around in the cool (soon too be freezing) evening air and relax in front of a warm fire.

As it got dark, a friend of Jake's brought out a ukulele, and we listened as Rachael and Jake took turns playing it, and as they and Helaina, sang a few songs - before little by little, we went back to the tents for a freezing night's semi-sleep.

We got up early on Saturday morning, took down the tents and somehow managed to stuff everything back into the car. We said our goodbyes to Jake - twice, as it turns out - we had to turn around when Jake let us know that we had forgotten something. And then, we headed home.

It was hard to leave Jake, but I guess it's better to leave when you've had a good visit and you're going to miss someone - as opposed to the alternative. At least, that's what I tell myself.

Back at home, we unpacked - enough to get everything out of the over-stuffed car. We'll worry about getting it all put away some other time, meaning sometime before the next trip - possibly in another year or two.

Since it was only noontime, Sam and I managed to run our usual Saturday errands. With both Helaina and Rachael around, we squeezed in a cook-out on Sunday and on Monday, Rachael and I managed to spend some time together. On Monday night we all went to the Creamy before Rachael headed back to the Big City on Tuesday.

Now, it's back to Life As Usual. The dust has settled and things have turned quiet again - nothing but the sounds of the clocks as they tick away on the shelf and on the wall - which I guess is kind of nice. After all, everybody needs some time to relax. Everybody needs some time to enjoy the quiet moments.

At least, that's what I tell myself.

Another Old Photo

Speaking of vacations, here’s another favorite old photo from one of our earliest vacations at Cape Cod. As should be obvious, it’s a picture of Helaina and Rachael bravely fighting against the currents of the nearly knee-deep Atlantic Ocean.

Judging from the looks of the girls, I’m thinking that this photo was probably taken in either 1992 or 1993. This would make it either the second or maybe the third time that the family went away on a vacation to Cape Cod.

Before that point, our vacations, when I was able to take one, would consist of hanging around locally, and maybe taking one or two day trips. Once we started going away for the week, it became an annual event, which would continue unbroken over the next fifteen years or so.

Those were such great times. But then again, these are pretty good times too. Most of the time, anyway.

Onward

You’ll be happy to know (so that I’ll stop talking about it for more than five minutes) that the ADA transportation form is complete and has been submitted. Now, it’s all in the hands of a higher authority (i.e.: the bus company.)

Before we go onto the next challenge, we’re going to get ready to take an abbreviated family vacation. Helaina has taken a couple of days off from work, and Rachael is able to come home for a few days(!). So, in some fashion or another, we’re going to drive to Rhode Island and visit Jake (and yes, he knows about it.)

This will be the first vacation the family has been able to take together since the last, slightly less abbreviated vacation, five years ago (I looked it up. This is a real “five years ago,” not my standard answer of “five years ago”- which could mean any time within the last twenty-five years or so.)

As for our plans, I don’t know much beyond the fact that we’re driving to Rhode Island. I’m not sure whether we’ll all be driving down in the same car or not, or whether Helaina and Rachael will drive separately - maybe a day or two later. If that’s the case, hopefully it won’t be much later than that because if things go as planned (even though there’s no reason to expect that they will), we will be heading back home on Day Three - and it would be nice to do more than just pass them on the highway.

I don’t know what we’re going to do once we get there, either. Jake has talked about going to Point Judith - a place he likes to go to sit and read and relax - and collect rocks. I’ve looked into mini-golf places in the area, so that Sam will hopefully have enough fun that he’ll want to go back. But beyond that, we’ll have to figure it out - which to me, is the best kind of vacation - the kind where every minute isn’t pre-planned and overly scheduled.

So, we’ll see. It’ll be good to get away for a little bit, and it will be better still, to be able to spend a little bit of time together - no matter what we end up doing.

In the meantime, I need to shift gears and think about what to pack…

Today's Brief Update

As mentioned in the previous post, today's the day we meet with Sam's physician to hopefully get the ADA transportation form filled out. I have no idea how this is going to go. I hope it goes a lot better than the initial meeting. I'm not good at these kinds of things. I can't always tell someone why something is hard for Sam, only that it is hard or that I know  it will be hard (and by "hard," I don't mean "challenging," I mean "impossible.")

This, plus I'm now already struggling with issues from the IEP meeting - things that shouldn't be issues at all. Argh.

For now, let's just think happy thoughts and look at the pretty flowers from our walk instead...

Same Song

From the broken record department...

Posting will be pretty light around here (if at all), for at least the next several days.

What's going on? Well, it starts with a two hour meeting with Sam's Job Coach on Monday (productive), a two hour plus meeting with Sam's IEP team yesterday (hopefully productive - we'll see moving forward) and then I am trying to get ready for another meeting with Sam's new physician next Monday - which is another attempt to get an ADA transportation form filled out (hopefully productive, but based on the previous meeting... we'll see.)

In between, we'll try to squeeze in some of the loose ends and followup needed as a result of the IEP meeting, as well as hopefully squeezing in some other aspects of life - such as eating, grocery shopping, and hopefully going for a walk or two - maybe even with his metal detector.

In the mean time, I hope that wherever you are, the sun is shining (unless of course, it's nighttime.)

The Picnic Area - Revisited

At the beginning of the bike path – or at least where Sam and I start our walks, there’s a small picnic area which sits between the river and the dirt and gravel parking lot where we park. Usually, there are one or maybe two groups of people sitting at these picnic tables - leaving another four or five of the picnic areas empty. But the other evening, when we went on our walk, the place was full.

Apparently, Sam took note of this because last night, as I was fixing him dinner, he suggested that after he finishes eating, maybe we could go back to this picnic area - as well as the nearby playground - and he could bring his metal detector. This, of course, was fine by me.

I don’t have a lot to say about last night, but I did notice two things. First, I noticed that Sam didn’t bring his little garden shovel along. It turns out that this was because a) he couldn’t find it, and b) anyway, he says, almost all of the money he ends up finding, he finds on top of the ground, not buried.

I told him that I thought that maybe we need to get him another shovel, one that we could leave in the car.

I kind of like the idea of Sam digging a little bit for his treasure. I don’t want him to get too discouraged about going out and finding stuff - which would kind of defeat the reason he was given the metal detector in the first place - but I also don’t want him to get to the point where he expects to find stuff with a minimum amount of effort.

About twenty years ago, there was a guy living next door to us who had a metal detector. His name was Charlie. A couple of times a month, Charlie and his metal detector used to head out for the day, returning home after dusk - often, but not always, with some pretty cool stuff – maybe an old coin or two, or sometimes some other remnants from an earlier age – things like a fancy old belt buckle or the occasional piece of now antique jewelry. It took him a lot of time and a lot of perseverance over what I assume to be years, but Charlie had built up quite a collection.

I wish Charlie was still around so I could ask him where he went looking, but he moved away more than twenty years ago. Charlie was the kind of guy who wouldn’t have minded sharing that kind of information, and I suspect that he may have even enjoyed having a little bit of company when he went on his solitary adventures.

Maybe Sam doesn’t care so much about finding old artifacts. Maybe he would be happier just finding the occasional nickel and quarter. But then again, maybe not. I think that once we get through this latest blast of seemingly endless paperwork, and once we get past - or at least well into - the issues of transitioning into a job, maybe I’ll look into this a little bit more.

But, I digress…

As I was saying, when we went out last night, I noticed two things - the first being Sam’s lack of a shovel. The other thing I noticed was the trash cans – or actually, the trash can lids. While Sam was exploring the area around one of the picnic tables, I glanced over at a nearby trash can and I noticed that the lid was chained to a pole.

This seemed kind of strange. Who wants to steal a trash can lid? Well, apparently it's the same people who want steal the trash cans. When I went over for a closer look, I saw that not only was the lid chained to the pole, but the trash can was chained to the pole, as well. As I looked around at this family friendly picnic area, I saw that each and every one of the other trash cans were also chained to poles.

I'm not sure why, but there’s something vaguely disturbing to me to think that, in this otherwise bucolic setting, there are people roaming around here, looking to steal trash cans.

That would be one more reason why we should be armed with a shovel.

A Peaceful Stroll

Sam and I went on our usual walk last night - this time, once again along the bike path by the canal. We like walking the bike path because we don’t have to deal with any traffic, at least we don’t have to once we walk from where we park. And because we’re away from traffic, it’s a lot quieter and more peaceful than, say, walking around town. This is true of walking around the college as well, but the bike path is a little bit longer and it can be a little more interesting - especially if we haven’t walked it in awhile.

So last night, we walked along and it was pretty much like usual. Nothing but the steady sound of the water as it rushed through the canal along side us.

We walked down the path until we came to a point where there's a rickety foot bridge that crosses the canal on the right side of us, and a path leading up a small hill and through a small garden, is on the left.

Whenever we walk here, this is the point where we sometimes decide to continue on straight down the bike path, and sometimes we decide to walk up the small hill. We’ve never decided to cross the rickety footbridge, and last night was no exception.

Rather than go straight, Sam and I turned and we walked up the small hill, passing through a small garden area where we stopped and briefly looked, first at the flowers and then further ahead, at the berries on the juniper trees.

Continuing on, we walked downhill along the side of a road, where we reconnected with the far end of the bike path.

Turning back onto the bike path, we walked once again along side of the canal - nothing but the sounds of the flowing water and the occasional sounds of me trying to elicit conversation from Sam.

Up ahead of us, coming off of the rickety footbridge, was a woman with her dog. As we got closer, I could see that she had what appeared to be either a very determined or a very angry expression on her face. But what really caught my attention was that she had a cigarette clenched firmly between her tightly pursed lips - and it appeared that while she was walking, she was taking one long, continuous inhale the entire time.

As she crossed our path and headed up the hill, I thought for a brief second about how unusual it was to see someone smoking around here. But as I was thinking about it, the woman, now behind us, suddenly screams out, “Get over here or I’m going to Kick. Your. Ass!” I stopped and looked back. Sam kept walking, seemingly oblivious.

Over on the other side of the footbridge was a young girl, maybe twelve years old or so, who was just starting to cross the bridge and head over to our side. I assumed that this "lucky" young girl was unfortunately that woman’s daughter. I stood there processing all of this, first looking over at the girl, then turning to glare at "Mom. "Mom" glanced down at me, then she turned away and, taking her dog with her, continued on her way.

I caught up with Sam and we continued our walk in the usual silence.

When we went a little further along, I said to Sam, “Boy, I feel bad for that girl. I’m glad I don’t have to listen to something like that every day.” Sam, without looking up, continued walking. He flicked his hand up, pointing back over his shoulder, and said matter-of-factly, “Yeah. She sounds just like the Bubble Boy.”

He was exactly right.

 ***

P.S. If you’re unfamiliar with the Seinfeld “Bubble Boy” episode, here’s a few excerpts. The relevant quote is at about 2:43, but you may as well watch the entire thing...

Today's Brief Comment

Sam had his first real job interview yesterday...
and I'm exhausted.

Our Sunday Outing

In between our weekend errands and reviewing paperwork for Sam, Sam, Helaina and I managed to squeeze in a walk at the train yard and the adjoining bike path. It was the first time we had been there this year.

After we parked, we walked over and hung around the train yard a little bit - hoping (one of us was, anyway), to see a train go by. Off in the distance were the sounds of an engine idling, occasionally increasing, as if getting ready to leave - but nothing happened, at least not as long as we were standing there. So, we headed over to the bike path.

As we were walking over, I noticed a pair of broken sunglasses lying between a couple of the train tracks - and I commented to Sam how they must be all that’s left of someone who got hit by a train. I consider comments like these to be part of my obligation as a parent to put a spotlight on the dangers of ignoring common sense safety rules - especially at railroad yards.

Naturally, Sam has long since learned to ignore me when I say stuff like this, so we continued to the bike path where we also passed a tattered glove and then a flip flop - both of which obviously belonged to this same unsafe train observer. Sam ignored my comments about these as well.

The three of us walked down the bike path. Helaina lingered behind, snapping photos along the way. As Sam and I approached the iron foot bridge, we discussed whether we should attempt to cross over the bridge or not. Last year, we both agreed that something like that was nothing either one of us were interested in. For some bizarre reason, this year, we were actually considering it.

Technically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with the footbridge (that we know of). After all, it used to be a train bridge (back when it was built in 1880). The problem is that it’s, well, a bridge, and it’s a bridge that’s way up over the water and neither Sam nor I are a fan of heights or of water - though I suspect that if and when we fell from the bridge, we wouldn’t need to worry too much about the water.

But anyway, Sam said he was willing to try crossing it if I was, which, needless to say, kind of put me on the spot. I pretended like this was no problem, but I warned Sam that if I froze in the middle of the bridge, it would be up to him to run back and get Helaina and the two of them would have to find a crane that could lift me off. This, I felt, was teaching him the value of trust and of being responsible. As with my comments about the broken sunglasses, the glove and the flip flops, he ignored me.

I am happy to report that we made it across the bridge without any visible incidents, I kept my eyes focused dead straight ahead the entire time, while mentally reviewing my extremely brief obituary. Sam, for some god unknown reason, casually looked around as we went, even noticing stuff down in the water.

Safely on the other side, I told Sam that now all that we had to do was make it back - and if that seemed like a problem, I could send him back across the bridge with my car keys and he could have Helaina get my car and then drive to wherever it was that this bridge came out, and pick me up. This time he was listening, but he thought I was kidding.

We waited while Helaina snapped pictures as she strolled across the bridge - acting as if she was unaffected by the fact that she was walking on an old iron bridge which was built over 130 years ago.

Once she caught up, we briefly regrouped, some of us regained our composure, and then we all bravely headed back across the bridge together - which was slightly (very slightly) less uncomfortable than when we had crossed it moments earlier.

It was so slightly less uncomfortable that at one point, I even managed to divert my eyes long enough to look over the side of the 130 year old bridge, where I saw a couple of people foolishly “relaxing” by the side of the river. I made some comment about it to Helaina, which I can’t remember, but it was enough to indicate to her that crossing this potential death trap was no big deal to me.

Back on the other side, Sam and I headed up the path, towards the train yard. Helaina continued along behind us, snapping pictures the entire way.

Safely back at the car, we made a brief stop at the grocery store, then we all headed home.

Later, I fell asleep on the couch.