Monday, May 31, 2010

Story of the Day 5/ 7/ 2010

The morning went well.
That explains everything. It must have been tempting fate to think it was going to be a smooth countdown to the weekend.
This morning, Sarah arrived at high school and had a good interpreter. Heather. Heather who can both sign ASL and can understand Sarah when Sarah signs ASL.
But Heather could only work half a day, so after lunch, a new interpreter came and introduced herself.
“My name is R-U-….” And she looked uncertain.
“R-U- “ she looked at her hand and tentatively continued “T- H” *

When Sarah came home, she told me the interpreter couldn’t’ spell her name. I though Sarah meant “her” name- Sarah’s. I mean, “Margolis- Greenbaum “can give a good finger speller a bit of a shock. But I never imagined this. And it was only 4 letters.
At the end of the school day, Ruth asked Sarah to sign a paper- something verifying that Ruth had been there. It may have been a standard thing from her agency, but Sarah told me she is suspicious that Ruth is on probation and it was a community service paper.
After her experiences at this high school, that is a reasonable assumption.

• The interpreter’s name has been changed. It was also a 4 letter name with the third letter being an R, so you are still getting an accurate representation of what happened.

Story of the Day 5/ 6/ 2010

My son has brought his heavy drinking habits home with him from college.
A half gallon a day of chocolate soy-milk and two pots of green tea- decaf, Celestial Seasons.
This is in addition to water at meals, and an occasional glass of milk.
Of course, this means he also spends a lot of time depositing the digested liquids in the toilet.

He did share with me that he attended his first Toga party, recently.
I assume they served beer, at the very least.
Even I have seen the movie “Animal House.”
But I didn’t’ ask.
I mean, he might have brought his own container of green tea with him- he does like it cold, but I thought……do I really want to know?
I didn’t.
Especially after he shared with me about the toga he wore.

I mean, you do have to wear a toga to a toga party. After all, Aaron has also seen Animal House. Several times.
So, Aaron took one of his extra sheets, and wrapped himself in it toga style.

It was one from his Spiderman set.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Story of the Day 5/5/2010

I have been unpacking Aaron. Well, not Aaron, but his things. Not all of his things.
He unpacked his clothes, and his books, and his posters.
I was left to unpack his dirty laundry and the two containers of bathroom things that he left in the front hallway.
Bathroom things means his allergy medicines, his Tylenol, his body wash and toothpaste, and a note that was tucked in next to an extra tube of toothpaste that was still in its cardboard box.
The note was a card that had been removed from its envelope and , supposedly, read.
It was from the Academic Advising Department.
‘Congratulations” and then it continued to notify him that he had made the Dean’s List for the fall semester.
At about this moment , he came walking through the hallway.
I held it out to him, “Aaron, you should have told us about this or showed us the note!”
He looks at me, then he looks at the note which he had carefully opened and tucked into his caddy, “What is that?”

Story of the Day 5/3/2010

Today is Pick Up Aaron from College day.
It is right up there with Giving Birth day, except that the pain is much shorter and you get to actually hug the oversized baby even before the pain- when he runs over your foot with the cart holding all of his things.
It is also less expensive, I think.
I haven’t gotten the total bill.
No, not for tuition, we paid that, already- remember, this is the END of the school year, I mean the muffler or the tailpipe or whatever it is.
The one that was on his car when he drove away from Ball State and towards home, but wasn’t on his car when he pulled into our driveway.

Story of the Day 4/26/2010

It was too much to hope for.
A decent interpreter.
We had rec’d an email from Sarah’s TOR ( resource teacher) on Friday that a permanent terp would be starting, today. A good terp.
But she didn’t’.
Instead, Sarah had two terps, each for part of the day.
The one wasn’t’ awful, but the other…
Well, Sarah corrected a number of her more interesting signs. And the terp has a slew of poorly mis-learnt grammar problems- which made watching her….un-educational.
But the thing that Sarah didn’t’ correct and that made her rather uncomfortable, is that every time the terp signed “Hitler” she added “Seig Heil” along with the sign.
As Sarah said, “that is a very powerful thing to sign, and it made me uncomfortable.”
No shit. It is amazing she doesn’t work at the Deaf School.

Story of the Day 4/ 25/2010

Sarah told me that the policeman was angry. Of course, she couldn’t’ hear his voice, after he came over and spoke to them through her window, but his face certainly showed it.
It was right after that stop sign.
The one at the school.
The one in the parking lot.
The one that Sarah did stop for.
On Sunday, when the school is closed and the parking lot is vacant and where we have taken our kids to practice driving – you know, starting the car, stopping the car, shifting from 1st to 2nd gear.
Apparently, that is illegal.
In order to practice in eth school parking lot on a day that there is no school and the lot is empty, you have to have your driver’s license. Or at least your learner’s permit.
He told Sarah that “he” ( he thought Sarah was a boy ) would not be able to get her license until she was 21, if he write her a ticket.
But he just gave her a warning.
According to Larry, it would be permanently on her record until she was 21.
Since Larry is the one who explained what the police officer said to Sarah, I will let them hash out which version is right.
Sheesh, and to think we have been breaking the law all of these years and never knew it.
A real shame.
If we’d known we’d been breaking the law, we’d at least have gotten a little thrill out of it.

Story of the Day 4/ 20/2010

Sarah’s resource teacher told her she had three options, she could go to the play on Thursday and the interpreter would interpret it to her ( from a script), they could give her a script to read along, or she could go off to the library and read.
Sarah immediately replied that she would go to the library.
The teacher said, “No, no, you have to think about it.”
No she didn’t.

I mean, how many more interpreter stories does she want to have to live through?