Progress

This won't sound like a big deal to anyone, but it's a big deal to me...

Yesterday was a work day for Sam, and on work days, Sam takes the ADA bus - both to and from work. When Sam gets home, he calls me to check in, almost always at the same time, every day.

But not yesterday.

Yesterday, the time for his usual phone call came and went - and when it got to be a good forty minutes or so later, I called home to see how he was doing. No answer. Hmm. That's unusual, but maybe he was busy washing his hands.

I waited a minute or so, and then I texted his phone, asking him if he was still on the bus. Here’s the conversation…

If this had been, not even a year ago, Sam wouldn't have known what to do - and his anxiety would have overwhelmed him. But today, he not only kept it in check, he did exactly the right thing - he took it upon himself to call the bus company to see what was happening. I couldn't believe it.

A few minutes later, when he got home, he called me and I told him how proud I was of him.

And I told him again at dinner.

"Yeah," he said, "but I was feeling pretty concerned."

I didn't tell him that I was, too.

But I did tell him that anyone in the same position, including me, would have been concerned. And I told him (once again,) that it's not just the feelings that matter, what matters is what you do with those feelings. And what he did was perfect.

I'm thrilled.

Signs of Easter

There's a sign, now lying on the ground (through no fault of mine,) that, for the last few weeks or so, I drive past every morning on my way to work. When I first noticed it, I figured it had something to do with somebody running for office - so I ignored it. When I drove past it a few days ago, I caught a glimpse of what it said - or at least I thought I did. By the time I got to work, I figured that I must have read it wrong.

When I passed the sign again the following day, I drove a little slower. Turns out I had read it right the first time...

As you can also see, there's website listed at the bottom of the sign. I went to this site, not because I had any interest in attending, but because I wanted to know if this was for real or not.

Going to the website, I immediately ran into a problem. The problem was that, along with learning that this is an event sponsored by a church (no surprise there,) I was immediately met with a video. The video started with a close up shot of a very happy, very enthusiastic young lady, and since I don’t mix well with those kinds of people, I only watched about three seconds of the video before shutting it off.

Rather than watch the rest of the video, I decided that, much like Easter itself, some things are best left to my imagination.

Still, I wonder about the development of this idea.

Obviously, this idea is too impressive to have been thought up by just a single individual. This idea has "committee" written all over it - and probably not just any kind of committee, but most likely a volunteer committee - probably containing some amount of "parents," as well.

I imagine five or six of these people sitting around a table - in this case trying to come up with some fun, Easter-type activities “for the kids.” Like far too many meetings that I've attended, I picture this meeting rapidly spiraling out of control - ideas flying like shells over the trenches - as it devolves into a frenetic game of one-upmanship.

Before the shell shock subsides, what probably started off as something simple, like dying a few Easter Eggs, had now escalated into the completely awesome idea of hiring a helicopter and having either Jesus or the Easter Bunny throw eggs down at the kids below.

Any sane person sitting at that table would have agreed that this was a fantastic idea - if only to get the hell out of the meeting.

Anyway, it probably wasn’t quite like that, but I'll bet it was close.

Today's Brief Comment

Pretty flowers

I was going to write about where I was in dealing with SSI, etc., but after getting about five or six paragraphs into my rant, I realized that, a) I had only just begun, and b) neither of us would have the time, nor any interest, to read all of it.

And I don't have the energy.

Feel free to take the rest of the day off.

This Evening's Music Video

The Check Is Not In the Mail

A few years ago, I somehow found myself being a subscriber to Wired magazine. To this day, I have no idea how it happened. The subscription started well after a point where any of the kids were coming home with school fundraisers (like, by a decade or more.)

I like the magazine well enough. In fact, it's about the only magazine I read when I find myself in the waiting room on those nights that I bring Sam to speech. Of course, magazine-wise, the waiting room competition consists of some magazines about tennis, something or other about some family-type something, and Highlights magazine. Maybe this is why the magazine seems so much more appealing to me in the waiting room than it does at home.

Starting about a year ago, I began receiving renewal notices in the mail. I didn't bother opening any of these since I had no desire to renew. I figured that if I were interested in anything they had to say then I could continue to mooch off of the speech therapist's copy. But the notices kept coming and I kept tossing them into the recycling bin.

As the months went by, the pace of the renewal notices picked up - to a point where I was receiving two or three of them per week. At some point, for some unknown reason, I found myself opening one up. Instead of finding the expected enticements of valuable gifts being thrown my way, along with offers of deep, deep renewal discounts, what I instead found was a letter threatening to turn my account over to a collection agency if I didn't pay up on my well overdue bill - and pay it up promptly.

Apparently, I not only didn't remember subscribing to this magazine in the first place, but I also didn't remember signing up for their automatic subscription renewal. The problem, aside from not remembering any of this, was that the subscription payment was tied to one of the credit cards I had to cancel.

Not wanting to be declared a deadbeat (at least, not publicly) I took the conveniently, though threateningly, supplied information - and I went online to pay my overdue account - all twenty dollars of it - and to also uncheck the "automatic renewal" box.

Now, I'm starting to get letters again. This time though, the tone is different. Not only is all forgiven, but they now consider me a "Special Subscriber," someone who deserves some(more) "special treatment."

I'm touched.

Tonight's Brief Update

Sam just completed his second full week of part time employment - a job which will last at least until the end of this school year. Endless appointments and endless paperwork and endless phone calls continue, but thankfully, today I got an email from (one of) his job coach(es), who, among other things, had this to say:

Sam is doing very well with his employment ... He is following and understanding his tasks exceedingly well, he is working hard and continues to show an enthusiasm for his job. Cindy, Sam’s direct supervisor is very pleased with the great progress Sam has achieved. Furthermore, Sam is social with his peers and exhibits an appropriate professional demeanor.

I can't begin to describe what a great relief this is to me.

Speaking of Mr. Bean...

...Here's one of many great videos - this one being the first episode from the first season of the show...



When Sam was very young, particularly in the years following his operation, I spent a lot of time trying to find things that would interest him - things that played to his visual strengths and minimized his struggles with language.

This was how his interest in comic books came about (which is a story for another day - one which I've probably told before.) But in terms of videos, Mr. Bean, along with Looney Tunes and Wallace & Gromit were his favorites.

We spent a lot of time together, watching Mr. Bean.

Thank goodness.

The Great Escape

What you're looking at is a photo of an empty Havahart trap lying on the floor of my car. You might be wondering why I'm driving around with an empty Havahart trap. Excellent question. The answer is that it wasn’t empty when I started my drive.

For those that don't know, a Havahart trap is a trap that allows you to catch an animal alive so that you can release it, theoretically into the wild. It's for people who have a thing against killing animals, and it’s for people who are totally repulsed by having to deal with a squished animal caught in a more “traditional” trap. I happen to fall into both of those categories.

These traps came in various sizes. This particular size is fairly small and is made to catch mice. When the weather turns cold, I set this trap down in my basement. Typically, I catch several mice at the beginning of the season (on successive nights - they don’t all pile in as a group.) Gradually, over the following weeks, the flow tapers off until all of the mice are presumably caught and relocated far, far away. This was the case again this year.

A few weeks back, Helaina asked to borrow the trap and since we had been essentially mouse-less by this point, I said, “Sure.” The other day, she returned the trap after catching just one measly mouse, (which, in the mouse catching world is referred to as “chump change”) - so I figured, what the heck, I might as well set it up again in the basement- even though I was pretty sure that all of the mice were long gone.

Over the next few days, I checked the trap. Nothing - which wasn’t surprising.

This morning though, before leaving for work, I went down the basement to throw a load of laundry in the dryer, and much to my surprise, there was a mouse in the trap. Since there had been yet another snow storm last night, I debated about what to do with the thing. It didn’t seem fair to let the thing out in the snow, but I didn’t want it to die a slow, peanut butter-less death in the trap. At least in the snow, I figured, it would have a slim (though admittedly small) chance of surviving - but I justified this to myself by noting that if I had used a more “traditional” trap, it would have had no chance at all.

So, I took the trap upstairs and put it in my car. I figured I would let the thing out somewhere along my ride to work - which is exactly what happened - though not in the way I intended.

About five minutes into my fifty-five minute drive, I turned the corner to take the ramp onto the highway - and the trap tipped over. Instantly, the mouse bolted out of the trap and disappeared somewhere on the passenger front floor. What now? It wasn’t like I was going to be able to grab the thing while I was driving - or grab it, even if I stopped.

Something all too similar to this had happened to me about ten years ago and back then, the only way I got the mouse out of the car was to park and leave the doors open, until the thing escaped on it's own. Since this could take the better part of the day, I decided that the only thing I could do at this point was to continue my drive to work and leave the doors open once I got there. With no better alternative, I continued uncomfortably on my way.

The next thirty minutes of my drive were spent glancing over at the trap and debating whether or not I should attempt to tuck my pant legs into my socks while I was driving. Since I didn’t want to have to explain to the ambulance driver why I crashed, I decided to forget the pant leg idea, and just kept glancing over at the general area of the trap.

When I was about twenty minutes away from work, I saw the mouse bolt out across the passenger side floor, under the passenger seat, to somewhere presumably behind me.

About ten minutes away from work, I looked in my rear view window, and there it was, sitting on top of one of the rear seat headrests. For the next ten minutes, it just sat there, casually looking around as I drove. In light of how the past week had been going, it made some weird kind of sense that I now found myself being a chauffeur to a mouse.

When I arrived at work, the mouse quickly hopped down and it disappeared once again below the passenger seat. I got out of the car and went to my trunk and found a package of peanut butter and cheese crackers. Gingerly (just in case the mouse was ready to attack), I reached down and picked up the trap, resetting it with the new bait, and placing it back down on the passenger side floor - this time in an upright position- and I opened up all of the car doors.

Then, I went inside, hoping that nobody would ask me why my car doors were open. The last thing I wanted was to have to explain all of this to someone at work.

After about a half an hour had passed, I went back outside and looked over at the trap. Nothing. I did a slow walk around the car. Also nothing. Then I noticed, in the fresh snow, just below one of the rear doors, there was a set of small tracks leading away from my car to the underside of one of the other vehicles. I closed all my car doors and I went back inside.

Throughout the day, I glanced outside, and once or twice, I saw the mouse dashing around the other cars out front.

At the end of the day, I gathered up my stuff and I went outside to go home. As I was about to get into my car, my boss came out to catch me before I left. He started talking to me, but as he did, he kept glancing over my shoulder at the snowbank behind me. After a few minutes of this, I asked him what he was looking at and he says, “Look at that. There’s a mouse walking around on top of that snowbank. I wonder where he came from?”

This Evenings Semi-Brief Comment

Sam's IEP meeting went well. He'll continue getting services from the district through the school year - until exactly a year from today. Somehow, there is a hand-off to the MRC and DDS, which I don't fully understand - even though reps from both attended the meeting. The reps from both also talked about how little (if anything) they can now do, because funding has been slashed so severely. Apparently, this is a part of how we make this country great again.

We'll have another IEP meeting in the fall to try and coordinate. In the meantime, the first step is that I need to re-open Sam's case with SSI. I don't know how difficult that will be, but it would help if SSI would at least answer the phone or return my calls.

This Morning's Brief Comment

Off to the IEP meeting this morning. Not sure if this will be the last one or not... or what to expect. We shall see. We shall see.

Ripped From Today's Headlines

I hope you're sitting down.

I see that something called Footwear News, has an article under the headline, "Only Sarah Jessica Parker Could Pull Off Hot Pink Socks With Matching Pointy Pumps." If for some insane reason you want to know the details, you can read all about it here.

I don't know what to say about articles like this. Look, I know my writing is far from great (really, really far.) But my writing is, for lack of a better definition, just for "the fun" of it. This article though, is somebody's actual profession.

How does somebody end up writing an article like this? Is writing about footwear something that someone strives for? In this particular case, is it the writing about the footwear that attracted them or are they just a fan of  Sarah Jessica Parker's feet?  How did they end up doing this?

I wonder if they ask themselves these same questions.

A Brief Update

This has been a busy week... and it's not over yet. Still, as busy as it's been, you would think I would have something interesting to write about. But I don't.

Between various doctors appointments (mine, for a change) and the larger than usual amount of driving for my job, I must have added over five hundred miles to my car over these last few days. With all of that, about the most interesting thing I can say is that I didn't get hit by the step ladder that flew off the speeding pickup truck that passed me on the highway. If it had, I might have had an interesting story to tell.

Oh well, just my luck.