Story of the Day 11/27/208 - Thanksgiving

Aaron worked at the movie theater, today.
His shift ended at 6 PM, so we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner at 6:30.

Over dinner, he regaled us with some of the things that happened there, today.

Some of the patrons, during the opening credits of one of the movies had their faces scrunched up in painful grimaces and their hands over their ears.
“What’s the matter” He asked.
“It’s way too loud!”

So, Aaron used his walkie-talkie and called up to the guy in the projection booth. “Hey, Martin, some of the people are complaining the volume is way too loud.”

”Do you think it is too loud?”

“No, uh…but I’m deaf.”

Story of the Day 11/25/2008

Yesterday, I had to pick Aaron up, after school.
Once each semester, he is required to read the news blurbs , on the air, of the student run radio station.
This is part f the requirement for his Radio and T.V. class.
He can do it , on additional occasions, for extra credit; but , until now, he hasn’t.

Driving to pick him up, I was lucky enough to catch one of his spots.
The news blurbs come every 30 minutes and last about 5 minutes , so, the odds were only so-so that I would catch him.

He was describing solar panels.
Apparently, a community is putting them up to generate electricity, and because of a lack of available space, the are using the cemetery.
Something or another about the previous generation serving the present one.

His other main feature , for the evening, was butt prints.
Someone has been leaving butt prints on windows of schools, churches, restaurants, in Nebraska. He , or she, was probably grateful to have been caught, since it will soon be butt-freezing cold.
At any rate, even though this elicited some interesting speculation like , “How did they know it was a butt print?” , “How did they identify who did it?” at our dinner table, Aaron’s teacher felt it wasn’t quite appropriate for on the air.

However, the rest of us are eagerly awaiting his next turn at the news desk, next Tuesday evening.

Story of the Day 11/21/2008

It gets more interesting.

I called the DOE , today, for clarification.
The Deaf School is saying we now have to convene a case conference to add the measurable transition goal(s).
I had thought that under the new regulations Sarah’s TOR (teacher of Record, a very reasonable guy named Gary) and I , and hopefully, Sarah, as well, could sit down and do it sans havinga full case conference committee.
Well, according to the DOE , we can.

But this is where it got interesting.
The man at the DOE was confused by what the Deaf School had sent me and why. So I read it to him. I offered to Fax it, sicne he was still confused.
I did , and he called me back.
It is “irregular”, what they are doing. Not against regulations, but “irregular”.
It is also not going to meet the new requirements.

Why?
Well, they collected the information about Sarah wanting to attend college and work for the CIA, but , in the section for “ Annual Goals” - and for “Transition Services and Activities” they left two big blank spaces.
In other words, they did not send me a measurable goal to approve or disapprove- despite what the cover letter said.

Now, the $64,000 question is, did they do this with all of the kids?
The betting odds will be….

Story of the Day 11/20/2008

I was surprised.
I asked Sarah, “You want to work for the CIA when you grow up?”
She looked….stunned. “Who told you that?”

“The school sent me a paper to add to your goals -and said that is your goal. To add to your IEP”
“Oh, I didn’t know they would use that for something important.”

“Well, do you want to work for the CIA?”
“I don’t’ know. Everything else they said sounded boring. How am I supposed to know what is involved with the different jobs? And I wasn‘t sure what the point of some of the jobs were.”

“So, do you really want to work for the CIA?”
“I don’t know. What other jobs are better?”

I am curious to see how the Deaf School plans to prepare her for this job.

Story of the Day 11/20/2008

I was surprised.
I asked Sarah, “You want to work for the CIA when you grow up?”
She looked….stunned. “Who told you that?”

“The school sent me a paper to add to your goals -and said that is your goal. To add to your IEP”
“Oh, I didn’t know they would use that for something important.”

“Well, do you want to work for the CIA?”
“I don’t’ know. Everything else they said sounded boring. How am I supposed to know what is involved with the different jobs? And I wasn‘t sure what the point of some of the jobs were.”

“So, do you really want to work for the CIA?”
“I don’t know. What other jobs are better?”

I am curious to see how the Deaf School plans to prepare her for this job.

Story of the Day 11/19/2008

I was cutting out “Box Tops for Education”. They are those cutesy little rectangles that schools collect to gets some “freebie” cash to spend on educational supplies.
Numerous things I buy have them on the package.
Cake mixes, cereal, Kleenex, toilet paper.
I had just loaded the bathrooms up with extra rolls of toilet paper, and emptied two four packs; so, I was cutting the little Box Top rectangles out of the plastics bag material that had covered the packages of toilet paper.
Something looked ”funny”.
I thought, “This is awfully light. Maybe I have the bag inside out.” It took me a full minute to realize that I didn’t and that the print was going the correct direction instead of backwards.
Ah, just another day in the life of a dyslexic mother.

Story of the Day 11/16/2008

Lunchtime.
Aaron is telling us about the party, last night. One of the servers asked him, “Are you Shomer Shabbat ( observed the laws of the Sabbath.) “
Aaron replied, sheepishly , “ I sometimes break a rule.”
“Hey, nobody’s perfect. So open this wine bottle for me.”

I told Aaron, “ Friday night, when you were at shul, Sarah followed me into the laundry room, and turned on the light- out of habit. Then, she realized it was Shabbat, and was crushed.
“I told her,” Everyone makes mistakes like that! I do, Daddy does.’ “
“Not Daddy!”
“ I said, ‘Yes he does.’
“ And she asked, ‘Did you see him?’ (Because she still couldn’t’ believe that.)
“And I said , ‘No.” So, I am sure she doesn’t believe that he does.”

Aaron then shared that he had been researching the number of minority students at Ball State.
“There are actually a fair number of Asian and black students.”
“More than 15%?” , said his mother, the skeptic.
“Yeah. And that is good, because it would be really scary if it were all white people. I wouldn’t want to go to a place like that. Really scary.”

Story of the Evening 11/15/2008

After Havdallah- our short service to mark the end of our Sabbath- Aaron asks me if it will be alright if he changes into a short sleeved button up white shirt, for the party.
He is going to go and videotape it for the family- who are friends of ours.
I tell him ,”Yes.” And then I think a moment and say, “But we don’t’ know what the attire for the party is!”
Aaron looks at me quizzically.
“Well, on the invitations , it usually says, but we didn’t’ get one.”
Aaron says, “Oh. It is a masquerade party.”
My husband immediately adds, “I know, you can pretend you’re a deaf guy!”

Story of the Day 11/15/2008 #2- Yesterday evening

We are sitting at the table.
It is Shabbat and we are enjoying slightly too much food. A normal Friday evening, in other words.
As I ask everyone if they want tea, Sarah says, “You know Aaron wants green tea.”
I had thought, from the multiple cup of it that he drinks, everyday, that he had developed a sudden fondness for the taste of it.
He is constantly asking me to buy more. I think I bought two boxes of it for him, last week.
But, I found I was wrong.
He hasn‘t developed a taste for it. He has read that drinking green tea can help prevent Alzheimer’s.

He is probably the only 17 year old in Indiana who has made it part of his daily health regimen to drink several cups of it for this purpose, but ….he was, probably, also the only child in kindergarten, who asked his mother, “Mom, if I grow up and become a teacher, will I earn enough money to support a family?”

Story of teh Day 11/15/2008

I told Larry, “I am so glad that we are alike!”

I am afraid to ask if the look on his face is curiosity,amazement or disgust....
I hastened to add, “Oh, I didn’t’ mean to insult you by implying that you are an airhead, can’t spell and can’t type. I meant we are both relieved we didn’t’ get invited to…(a party).
“Could you imagine being married to someone who says(excited tone),’Come on, let’s get going to the party!’
“ Being alike on this quality is much more essential.”

Larry is quiet for a second, “Come on, we like to go to family parties.”
A pause.
“Well, close family parties……”
Another pause.
“Okay, maybe not.”

I have left him happily reading in the dining room.
Another fun and exciting evening at the Margolis-Greenbaum household.

Story of the Day 11/14/2008 Before Shabbat

Last week, I wore my black hat with the funky cameo pin that holds one side of the large brim up against the crown of the hat.
Even Ms. Esther likes this hat.
I received a few compliments on it, at shul, and one woman asked me, ”Where did you get that hat? It is so unusual.”
“From the thrift store.”“Oh that is so smart with eth economy the way it is.”
Yes, except I bought this hat 3 years ago,.
So, apparently, now I am in vogue…….

Scary, isn’t it?

Story of the Day 11/14/2008

I was at Michael's. The arts and crafts store, not someone’s house.
I like Michael's, they carry decent paintbrushes at half price.
Unfortunately, they also carry beads- and I really don’t need to buy anymore- even though I have promised necklaces to a few people.
They also carry fake flowers.
I think the nicer term is “artificial”, but, let’s call a spade a spade- they are fake.
And I like them.
No pollen, no mold. Perfect.

And , even better when they are 80% off ,post holiday.

Well, not my post holiday, post Halloween, but , gee, I use those flowers for Thanksgiving décor, so I haven’t figured out why they are on clearance, but I am also not complaining.

I ran into someone I know from the Deaf School, she was also buying flowers.
It was a, ”Surprised to see you here!” moment.
Casually, she picked up a flower and said, “$6.99, I wonder how much that would be?”
And I replied, “$1.39.”
“How did you know that? Did you just figure that out?”
“Well, yes , it is really $1.40, but they always give you the penny off, because it makes it sound like a better deal. But with money, you always round up from the fraction.”
“How did you do that?”
And she asks me for a different one.
And I quickly answer.
Unfortunately, it takes me about 4 minutes to figure out how to explain how to do it.
“ It is 80% off, so it is 20% . And it is .2times 7, because $6.99 is really $7, except for the fraction of the penny that will round you up, except that they mark it down. And .2 times 7 is 1.40. Just remember to take off the penny.”“Oh, so that is how you do it!”
“Yes, except, you can see how good I am with numbers, but how inept I am with the language to explain anything.”

And this is all just a preamble to a different story.

My father , Matthew, was a math whiz.
I remember my Aunt Charlotte, his older sister, telling me how when he was 2 ½ , he would sit on the floor under the piano, when Grandpa had company over, and he would ask his son math problems.
“Matthew, what is 70 divided by 5?”
“What is 240 times 60?”
But the one they all loved to ask him was, “What is 100 divided by 3?”
Because my father would answer, “33 and 1/3 of 1.”
The problems got harder, as he aged, but that remained the all time favorite.
Because of the 1/3 of 1.

Story of the Day 11/13/2008

I need to make an eye doctor appointment.
I realized that when I noticed that they had made the print on the medicine bottle too small to read.
I contemplated contacting the manufacturer, to let them know of their mistake, but I realized that large companies don’t like to deal with their errors, as evidenced by the American car manufacturer’s current fiscal crisis, and it would be simpler for me to just get glasses.

Story of the Day 11/11/2008

I have trained my children.
Nothing as useful as to pick up after themselves, or as impressive as table manners, but to perform.

It started with Esther.
It would have started sooner, but Esther spent the first few years of her life wholeheartedly objecting to doing something as mundane as speaking.
However, when she finally did decide to take that step, I started the training.
I would ask my 4 year old daughter ( in front of people, of course, all performers need an audience), “Where did I get you?
To which she would reply, “Kmart- blue light special!”

With Aaron, it was Happy Birthday.
I trained him to sing happy birthday, which took a huge number of cupcakes, and us celebrating someone’s birthday everyday for 11 months- but we got there.
You see, Aaron is deaf.
Oh yeah, I think I mentioned that.
And when he left the Deaf School, he started having to sing Happy Birthday in class for all of the birthdays, and getting invited to all these birthday parties, and having to sing it there, as well.
It was a social skill, and I decided that, since it is the most often sung song, we would do a dog-trick and teach it to him.
A dog trick….that is when you teach someone to do something that doesn‘t demonstrate intelligence or even skill, it just fools people into thinking the performer is either smart or skilled.
So, Aaron really had no sense of music, or of what he was doing, he had just repeated it often enough that he could do it, when the occasion arose.
And, he wouldn’t‘ even know anyone else was singing Happy Birthday, unless you told him that is what they were singing- so you can see why this counts as a dog trick. I won’t’ give more examples, now, but I also want to explain that s the kids have gotten older, they have taught one another dog-tricks, and they have even taught themselves some.

Aaron in particular. It has something to do with his off-center sense of humor.
I think.
One of the things that he does is answering “Baruch HaShem” to teachers in school, when they ask how he is. He says, “I’m fine, Baruch HaShem.”
If you are not in the loop, tat means “Thank G-d.”
This is a dog trick, since , Aaron doesn’t’ always pronounce things correctly, and teachers are usually loath to embarrass him in a situation like that, so they won’t ask “what did you say?” They will just nod and smile. Even though they have no idea what he said.
Another is that he has a phrase he says with great rapidity, I forget the first par of it, but it goes “….My brother from another mother.”
This is something he has picked up from some of this friends, and it is always unexpected from hi, because, unlike his friends, he is considered “white” and he says it so rapidly that you have to think a second to catch it. Especially when it is attached to the first part of the phrase.
All of this is truly amazing, if you understand what he took for him to learn how to do that, but it takes us off the strange path I was taking towards tonight’s’ Story of the Day.

You see, Ms. Esther, my 20 year old, is planning on moving “off campus”, next fall. She is looking around at rental houses with a group of 4 other girls.
We have heard of various places and the ups and downs and stresses of the hunt. We have also listened as the group of girls got whittled down from 7 to 5, and may now end up getting whittled down, again. But there might also be a dog, so what does that do to the count?

It takes me back…way , way back, to my first off-campus place.
I , my last year at Penn, moved off campus into an apartment that was the second floor of a converted Victorian house with a friend who wasn’t yet a friend.
She also wasn’t yet a relative, but time - the months we lived there, altered that.
It was not an especially auspicious beginning.

Her father drove her up to the Perry palace ( it hadn’t yet been named for the Perry’s who were our landlords, an elderly woman and her 50 ish son who would also be honored at the building’s annual Perry picnic, to which we did not invite them.)
Her father, on seeing the steps that weren’t quite attached to the house, and my brother, who was quite visibly stoned and standing out in front of it…actually, in the street, said, “Oh my G-d.” And it wasn’t in a positive way, either.

At this point, Lynne adds :
“ and you might want to point out that my father 1) did not believe in a deity and 2) had never uttered that phrase before or since and 3) didn't say anything else the entire 30 minutes he stayed “

Lynne and I had been matched up by her boyfriend, who was a friend of mine.
We were both looking to save some money- and , each year, the dorms kept going up and up in price- like the rest of the college’s expenses.
I was there for three years. The first year, tuition was $4,000.
This was in the Dark Ages of man, about 1978- and that was a normal price for an Ivy League school. My third year, tuition had risen to $9,000 a year- and I was glad to be graduating and not needing to see what the cost would be for the following year. Actually, I was paying grad school tuition, my last two years there, so , it may have been a little higher than undergrad, but not by a lot.
At any rate, moving off campus meant saving some money- and both of us were desperate to do that.

An unforeseen complication occurred just as we became roommates, that fall. Lynne broke up with Howie- who had fixed us up, so he was no longer a fixture eat the apartment.

I must mention here, though, that he did me a great favor. You see, I never knew that I had a relative named Lynne, and wouldn’t’ have, if not for his matchmaking. Lynen and I quickly took to calling one another “Mom”, since we were basically providing the care and nurturing the other required, and we later expanded our relationship to being sisters. This became necessary for us to have a logical relationship with one another’s children- since , obviously, her son is my nephew.
At any rate, Lynne is my sister from another mother- even though neither of us has exactly ever phrased it that way….well, except in her ASL homework project.

So, as Esther fast and furiously emails us about 19 times a day, I wonder what relatives she will discover in this off-campus odyssey.

I should possibly also warn her about neighbors. Our upstairs one who tied his girlfriend up on the porch before beating her….or the drug dealer, who was really the best of the lot, and then there were the downstairs neighbors with the mice.
Well, they soon became our mice, too- but they couldn’t’ understand why the little creatures liked to run all over the last 2 mos worth of dirty dishes that they had laying over every inch of their kitchen.

Of course, according to the landlady, Mrs. Perry, it was the fault of the upstairs neighbor- since he had a cat. Well, as she informed us, everyone knows that having a cat attracts mice…..

Story of the Day 11/10/2008

I am old enough to remember the expression, “Uh oh, your (the) rabbit died!” To mean, you were pregnant.
This was linked to some free floating bit of info that there used to be a pregnancy test in which, if the woman was pregnant, the rabbit died after being injected with her blood.

Since I live in the information age, I used Google to find out that it was originally mice, and that the rabbit (or mouse) died whether or not you were pregnant, because they had to examine its ovaries to see if there were hormones in the woman’s blood that would create changes in the poor little rabbit.

No, I am not pregnant, which is not why I looked this up. It was inspired by Aaron’s question to me, this morning.
“Mom, when you are pregnant, does it feel the same as when you are constipated?”
I am sure that all of you are asked questions like this by your children.

The next thing I will be looking up is peeing on Drano. I vaguely remember that being some sort of pregnancy test…..
And, in case you want to know, my answer was , “No.”

Story of teh Day 11/06/2008

I had lunch with my cousin, Charlotte, yesterday.
She asked me who was the disciplinarian in our house, I or Larry. I told her that it has been so long since we’ve had to do that, I am not sure. I mean,. what is the worst things my kids do, nowadays? Wear my pantyhose? Overspend at the grocery store?

Okay, they give me headaches, but outside of things that you discipline for. At least, at this point.

Then, she made a comment, that I found hard to understand. She told me that trouble followed her son.
I told her I didn’t’ get her meaning, and she told me the following story.

Her son was a teenager, 16 or 17, and he had gone off to a coffee house in Broad Ripple to meet some friends. It was past bed time and she and her husband were worried about their son…..and the worry intensified until they were frantic. And then he came home.
Of course, they wanted to know where he was.
He had been arrested and down at the police station.
After sitting with his friends for quite a while, the police came into the restaurant, and despite assurances from several people , that eh had been there for a long while, they hauled him off to downtown. They didn’t’ let him call his parents or anything, but held him for hours.
All this because his car looked like one that was reported to have been used in a robbery.

That was strange enough story, but the oddity was that when Aaron came home from school, just a couple of hours later, he told me this tale- which is kind of a slightly twisted through a mirror re-telling.

One of his friends from school had registered to help at the polls, election day. Aaron tried to do this also, at the urging of the same teacher, but was turned away, since they all ready had enough poll workers.
This young man was asked to take a stack of absentee ballots from one location to another. After he got into a cab, and was en-route, he found the cab stopped and surrounded by a SWAT team- all pointing their guns at him. He was taken from the cab, and handcuffed, without knowing why. Meanwhile, some of the ballots started floating away on eth wind- and ended up scattered in eth streets.
Luckily, at some point, the SWAT team members realized that this high school student was not the bank robber they were looking for, and they released him to go gather the scattered ballots.
Apparently, someone had wrongly reported the bank robber as having jumped into a cab near the location the young man had- when in fact, he had fled into the woods.

I am left wondering a few things. How do I end up being told these two tales only a couple of hours apart? Are these two young men somehow related? Gosh, maybe they have the same birth date or something…and is this young man’s mother going to be telling a similar story to someone about 27 years later, as a similar incident is being played out…….

I am also expecting a message to flash across the screen, at any moment, saying “Stay tuned for the next part of our story…”

Story of the Evening 11/04/2008

My son just asked me if there is a lot of background noise , right now. He needs to know because he is doing sound effect and other background noise recording for the movie he is working on. And, he can’t hear , if there is.

He is playing a musical instrument , to add to the end of the movie.
He thinks it will be okay , even though he doesn’t know how to play it.
I nodded.

Was I supposed to agree or disagree?
Sometimes, I wish this parenting job came with instructions.

Story of the Day 11/04/2008

Larry came home, as Sarah was eating her breakfast.

He had left the house a little early, hoping to be in line and able to vote , when the polls opened. Dire predictions of heavy voter turnout had him worried about being late to work.

When he arrived, before the polls opened, there was a decent sized line.
Unlike years when he has been able to walk right up , this took an entire 15 minutes of waiting.
In this era of “who in the Fuck are you?” We now have to show a valid photo ID to vote. Either a driver‘s license , or a State issued ID.
And we have to do this twice, in order to vote (, once when we walk in and once when we sign the book , even though the two workers are seated almost next to one another, and they can’t have missed the fact that you showed the ID already to the first worker. )

When Larry handed the young woman his ID, she said,” Are you related to Aaron Margolis-Greenbaum?”
“I am his father.”
“Oh, I love Aaron!”

Needless to say, Larry felt the 15 minute wait was worthwhile.

I was a bit torn.
I couldn’t’ go to vote at 6, since I was getting Sarah ready to go off to school.
The newspaper advised voting between 9 and 3 - the quietest time.
Larry hadn’t experienced a long wait…so maybe earlier was better? But, maybe it would be deluged with people headed into work……
Should I wait?

But I was dressed and very ready, so I left the house shortly after her bus did.

I had to walk through hordes of canvassers- two young kids- maybe 8 or 9, outside, and 8 more ( all adults) in the entryway and lobby at the JCC. Then, down the hall to the voting area.
Where, there was no one in line.
There were two people standing at the voting booths - 2 of the 4 voting booths, but not even one body standing at the table to check in , in front of me.

I handed in my ID, and the young man said to me, “Are you related to Aaron Margolis-Greenbaum?”
And I said, “Yes.”
And he said, “Oh, I love Aaron.”

So, my entire 45 second wait was worth it!

Story of teh Day 11/03/2008

I have been practicing to vote.

This largely involves knowing where my wallet is, since a picture ID is now required.
If you have ever seen me desperately hunting for my car keys, as I try to get out of my house in time to get somewhere, you will understand the importance of my practicing.

Anyhow, wish me luck. The good type.
So that I don’t’ remember my ID, but lock myself out of the house.
Definitely a possibility.

Story of the Day 11/02/2008

My husband came back from his walk and remarked that there couldn’t’t be a nicer day in November. It s sunny, and warm. Warm. Warm enough to not need a sweater.
And the leaves are gold and orange and red, and some still green.
The calendar goofed. It must not really be November, yet.

And I am certain my son is glad for the kind weather.
Pantyhose can be a bit chilly, if that is all you are wearing.
He was also rather amazed by the man’s remark, “You look good in your mom’s pantyhose!”
“How did he know they were my mom’s?”
Needless to say, some of us are most anxiously awaiting his newest film.