The Next Few Days

Our truncated family will be leaving on a truncated vacation, starting tomorrow. It's been tough trying to fit anything in the summer. Sam's schedule is harder to work around than mine- between his three sessions of speech each week and meeting with a job coach twice a week. But summer is running out, so it's now or never.

The plan is we're going to go camping for one night, not far from where Jake is staying. This trip is due in no small part to the success of  the backyard camping excursion of a week or two back. As a result of that adventure, Sam and I put together a "stuff we'll need for camping" list over the last week or two. We used it today to load up the car in the ninety plus degree heat.

So, we' ll visit Jake  and hopefully we'll get a chance to go to the beach and maybe squeeze in a few other things before heading back home the following day.

From there, it's a quick turn around, with one night at home, and then off to visit Rachael in The Big City. Sam will be sitting this out leg of the trip - in the company of Helaina, but I hope the someday, we can head down to The City together- maybe even take the train.

It's good that we're doing something different for this vacation- not only because I want to visit Jake and Rachael, but also because the thought of going on a vacation to Cape Cod without the entire family is one of the most depressing things I can think of- and I've thought of it often.

So, we'll grap a few last things in the morning, check Sam's list one last time and then head out for our mini-adventure.

Lab Work

I had to go in for a blood lab this morning. In the year and a half or so that I’ve been going to my new doctor, this is maybe the second time that I’ve had to go into this lab - maybe the third time, if I count the time I brought Sam.

The one good thing about my old doctor’s office- maybe the only good thing - was that their lab opened at 6:00 am. This meant that I could actually schedule an appointment early and then be off to work. And I guess that makes two good things, because the old lab would actually schedule appointments.

This new lab doesn’t schedule appointments. It’s a “walk-in” lab. “Walk-in” doesn’t mean “first come, first served”, it means “every man for himself” - at least that's the way it is when it comes to getting into the lab, when you happen to arrive before its open.

This time though, I remembered the new lab opened later than what I was used to. But in my mind, I thought “later” meant 7 AM. It doesn’t. It means 8 AM. So, I got to the new lab, not my usual fifteen minutes too early but rather, an abnormal hour and fifteen minutes too early.

With all of this time to kill, I went back outside, sat in the car, waited and returned when it got closer to my more normal fifteen minutes too early.

When I came back in, there was a father sitting on a bench with his obviously mentally challenged daughter. He looked to be about my age and I’m guessing she was in her late teens. She sat there stoically, showing no emotion, and the dad had his arm around her shoulder. I walked past them, just around the corner, where I leaned against the wall, and waited for the lab to open.

As I stood there in the quiet hallway, I could hear the daughter occasionally talking to her dad, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. It was the kind of speaking where you really have to live with someone, and love someone, to understand what they’re trying to tell you. It was clear that the father understood. You could hear it in the tone of her dad’s voice, if not the words, that he was trying to comfort her and reassure her. I figured they were there for lab work, as well.

As I waited in the hall, more and more people showed up and waited along with me. Finally, when there were about a dozen of us, the lab door opened and we all filed in, gave our information at the window and found a seat in the small waiting room.

I sat along one wall, directly across from the door-less doorway that leads into the lab. The father and his daughter sat across from me. She still had the same stoic, emotionless expression on her face. He still had his arm around her, still rubbing her shoulder the entire time.

Eventually, when they finally started calling names, it was the girl and her dad who were called in first.

So the girl gets up and goes around the corner into the lab with her dad, and I can hear the hushed tones of the nurse talking to her and I can feel myself getting tense because I know what’s coming. Sure enough, seconds later, the girl starts crying, suddenly and loudly - and even though she appeared to be in her late teens, her cry sounds as if it's coming from someone much, much younger.

And her cry is a little bit like her speech - and a little bit not like her speech. Mostly it’s like the cry of any kid where, yeah, it hurts a little, but they’re scared a lot, and all of the fear that's been building up, all of the fear they've holding onto, for however long they’ve known about this, comes out with the prick of the needle.

She cried a good bit and over her cries, I could hear the nurse and her dad trying to encourage her and I could hear them trying to comfort her with words like, ”Almost done” and “Good job” and “It’s almost over”.

And while all of this is going on, some of the people in the waiting room start saying things like, “Wow, must be taking her whole arm off!” and “Sounds like she’s not going to have any blood left!”. And it gets louder and louder as each person tries to outdo the other.

And I’m looking at these people, some of which look like they could be grandparents - and they're all smiling -and it’s like it’s a big joke to them. And I’m just glaring at them.

Finally, almost as suddenly as it began, the crying stops. And then, the clever remarks in the waiting room stop as the girl and her dad come out of the lab and walk through the waiting room, and head to the exit.

The girl's face is back to her stoic expression and her dad, acting like he didn't hear a word of this, walks alongside his daughter - his arm still around her, still patting her shoulder. And as they leave, he offers the same comforting words of “good job” and “it’s all over”.

And I’m left thinking, My God, what is the matter with these people? How can you find any humor in this?

Every kid deserves to have their fears respected. And this poor girl - and even this dad, face more challenges than anyone in this room could ever dream of. And if you can’t muster even the smallest bit of respect - or what used to be called “common” decency - or, God forbid, have some small scrap of empathy for her, then at least have the good sense to shut the hell up.

This has been bothering me all day. I feel bad for that girl. And I feel bad for that dad. But I’m glad they have each other, and I'm glad she has someone who comforts her and understands her.

And I find myself hoping that she sleeps well tonight. I hope that when her dad tucks her in and kisses her goodnight, I hope she goes to bed feeling safe, and feeling loved.

And I hope that after she falls asleep - I hope that her dad doesn’t go downstairs and begin to cry.

Mid-Week Video

Sam and I didn't see any of the shooting stars last night. Like always, I was just too tired and had to get up for work the next day.

I went online today to look for something about them and found this instead.



Cool, but I would rather have been standing in the yard with the kids and looking up at the sky.

Maybe I'll look for a video on chasing fireflies.

Today's (and Tomorrow's) Question

Why does the house feel so empty when we have so much stuff?

Backyard Adventure

Sam and I had our first camping adventure on Friday night. It was in the wilds of our postage stamp- sized back yard. The planning for this started several weeks ago- on my part, that is.

I started by dropping a few hints that camping might be fun to try. These hints were met with deafening silence. It slowly worked up to the point of getting actual responses, starting with “Maybe”. Then “Maybe” started to give way to, “We’ll see”, and I felt like I was making progress. Finally, Sam started with his, “That sounds interesting” response, which can sometimes mean “I have no interest in this whatsoever”, but sometimes it doesn’t- so that was good enough for me.

I set a date. I told him we would aim for an upcoming Friday night, about three weeks away. Sam’s only concern was whether we would still have our traditional “Monk Night”, which of course, we would, so we were on our way.

Over the weeks, I scavenged together some items from the basement- a lantern, a travel clock, a radio and an air mattress.

When I got home from work on Thursday, I cleared away some stuff on a patch of our so-called lawn out back, making way for a place to set up the tent. Sam gently relocated a slug or two that he found after I had moved the other junk, then we laid out some plastic and began to set up the tent.

Sam’s pretty good at assembling things, so we got the tent up in good shape, which is to say, the door was facing the right way and it looked like an actual tent.

 On Friday, I stopped at the store on my way home from work and I bought a couple of sleeping bags. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one sleeping bag up in our attic, but finding it wasn’t going to happen. Not his week anyway. But that’s a whole other story.

Anyway, after getting Sam some dinner, we took turns pumping up the air mattresses using a foot pump and then we dragged the mattresses out to the tent and squeezed them inside. We brought out the travel clock and set up the lantern and our sleeping bags and then we went inside to take our showers, make popcorn and watch “Monk”.

After Monk was over, we got ready for bed, Sam grabbed an armful of his favorite “guys” and, flashlight in hand, we headed into the wilderness- fifteen feet from the back porch. Heading out the door, the motion detector clicked on and the flood lights filled lit up both the yard and the tent for the next ten minutes or so. The air outside was cool but the tent felt stuffy as Sam and I got situated. 

After a spell, the light clicked off and Sam and I lay there and looked at the shadows on the tent cast from some distant light shining through the trees. And we talked about how the noises from far away cars seemed so much louder out there. And then Sam decided that it might be a good idea if he went to the bathroom one more time.

He grabbed the flashlight and his slippers and I followed him into the house, the flood lights clicking back on as we headed toward the back porch. A few minutes later, with the lights still on, we climbed back into the tent and got situated once again. The lights clicked off and we resumed our conversation. And then Sam decided that perhaps going to the bathroom just one more time would be a good idea. This time, he wanted to head into the house alone.

Back at the ten, he lay down and we said “goodnight”, again. He patted the top of the travel clock over the next several minutes, lighting it up to see the time. I reached over and patted his hand, telling him if he needed anything-anything, to wake me up, that it was no problem. He patted my hand in return and we both drifted off to sleep.

I awoke somewhere around 3:30 to find that the earlier stuffiness in the tent was long gone and it was now pretty cool. I zipped the window panels closed as quietly as I could, and reached over to Sam, finding he was partly on top of the extra blanket we had taken along. I slid it out slowly and covered him up and lay back down to hear a whispered, “Thanks”.

Around 5:00 AM,  the tent was lit up bright with the almost dawn. From the small patch of woods at the end of the road, a bird was singing loudly, happy, I’m assuming, that he made it through the night. I blinked and looked over at Sam to find he was looking back at me. I asked him, “Do you want to go back inside and use the bathroom? Then you can climb back in your bed.” It sounded good to him.

We climbed out of you tent. I looked down at the heavy dew beneath my feet and Sam looked up at the sky and said, “Oh look! The moon’s still out!”. We watched for a second or two and listened to the bird singing, then we headed back inside.

Once upstairs, I covered Sam in his bed and he rolled over and slept for another three hours. Our adventure was over, for this night, at least.

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Today, we  took down the tent. We packed it away along with the air mattresses and the sleeping bags, the travel clock and the lantern and we put it in a tub and we're making a list of everything we'll need- for when we go camping the next time.

Afternoon Update

Since it was so nice today, Sam and I made blueberry muffins with the blueberries he picked earlier in the week.

And we went on a walk later with Helaina, up to the tower. The first time since last year.

Morning Report

Today is supposed to be in the mid eighties and tomorrow, near ninety. But this morning it was sixty degrees when I came downstairs-- cool enough for me trick myself into believing that fall is just around the corner.