Story of the Day 11/ 14/ 2012 #2

My son is coming home a few days before Thanksgiving, giving us an extra bit of time to visit.
Maybe.
He was coming home a few days early.
I think I may have scared him off, but it is his fault.
He mentioned that he doesn't have very many clothes.
So I told him I would take him clothes shopping, to my very favorite clothing store.
Goodwill.

Story of the Day 11/ 14/2012

Occasionally, it is a dry week and I wonder if I will ever write another Story of the Day. Usually, however, another one smacks me in the face , rather quickly.

My son sent me a link to an article from the New York Times.
I love the New York Times, but I do not subscribe.
Ely does. He is a good citizen.
He is paying , so that I can enjoy their wonderful articles.

So is Harriet.
Harriet pays to have the New York Times, that wonderful, elegant, and very , very heavy paper delivered to her door on Sundays.
Then, she carefully pulls out things she thinks I will be interested in, clips them and gives them to me at synagogue on Saturday, so I will have something to read.
Well, you don't' really expect someone like me to have enough of an attention span to pay attention to services, do you?
So, I have my own personal preview and clipping service, thanks to Harriet.

Today's article, ( the one emailed to me by Ely) brought up something that is near and dear to my heart.
Banking.


Okay, banking is not really near and dear to my heart.
In fact following the economic meltdown of a few years ago, which owes a large part of it's power to really bad banking policies by what I tend to now think of as really bad banks, those banks do not tend to be at all dear to my heart.
However, as a result, alternate forms of banking are.

I had always admired the concept of credit unions, but had largely been too lazy to ever move my money from the same bank I got started with when I started college in Philadelphia ( which is not to be confused with when I started college in Delaware, or New York, or Milwaukee, or a host of other places).

I was 18 and needed a bank that was in walking distance from campus and ....I have been with them ever since.

Incidentally, that was the only college for which I actually ever owned a t-shirt with the logo/name of the university.
Thank you, Lynne.

When I lived in Milwaukee, I did own a t-shirt that said
"Hooked on Oriental Drugs",
Oriental Drugs being the name of the hardware store that had started out as a pharmacy that was basically downstairs from the art studios and where I was always buying bandaids.
Oh , wait, I never did own one of those shirts, I just bought one for my sister,Kim, because I thought it would look good on a future physician.

Anyhow, back to banks.

I have grumbled, over the years, about how much I hate them, how they mess up the checking account balance on a regular basis, how the safe deposit box doesn't' work (no one working at the bank was able to open ours for a few years, no matter how many keys and neckties were tried) and the fact that after out house burnt down, we could not get emergency checks or access to our money because our bank branch happened to "temporarily" not have a branch manager.

Grumbling is one thing; actually getting around to close the account and move our money to a different place has taken my husband and me about 16 years.
That is how long ago I finally convinced him that we should do it. That was after my griping about them for several years and not convincing him.
You might notice that we are not impulsive.

So, we are actually in the process of closing that account and moving our money,a process we started a few months ago. We did this by opening an account at a different bank.
Now we just have to get around to closing the first account.

During the many years, getting back to the start of this story, or ,maybe not the start, but some point at which I was talking about credit unions, during the intervening years,
I realized there was this thing called a credit union.
And that they actually were a lot more user friendly than traditional banks, even the one on Ditch road that actually has brownies in the lobby. ( Mine has Dum Dum suckers, which will do in pinch.)

Apparently, instead of mollifying their clients with sugary treats, credit unions do this really odd thing called make the clients "members". Member meaning stakeholder or whatever the correct term is.

In case you hadn't realized it, we are all actually members of banks, even the ones we don't' bank at. At least, we are stakeholders.
That isn't' because Obama's administration did a bank bailout, most of which has since been repaid, although,not with the original dollars, since those went to pump water out of places that were underwater and to bonuses for boguses, which is what I call it when I am watching how many swear words i am using.

And I do not watch that very often.

We were all and are all stakeholders because there really is this thing about when they fail they drag us down with them and when they falter, many of us have a very hard time getting anther job.

Who knew?
I thought banking was for people in polyester suits and who wore nice quality name badges.
Then I found out that the people at the top were wearing suits that were made from only the finest cashmere from the back of a very rare critter , and that we were all working for them in one way or another, even those of us who were scrubbing dishes at the nursing home.

So, in these intervening years, I have become rather interested in credit unions, and all of that, so if you are looking for a new place to save or to check or to take out mortgage......

you can go to Costco.

That is what the article said.
Costco.
Or Sams or Walmart.

Brilliant, although, I am still more enamored of the credit union idea, even though I actually am a member of Costco.
Which does not mean I get to vote of their board, but does mean that I can buy my gas for 12 cents less than at the next lowest place in the neighborhood, and I can get my oversized bags of organic carrots and my mega sized bottle of allegra 180 for a good price.

I must admit , though, that this new foray into the banking business by the big box retailers and by the biggest box retailer ( Wally-mart) does have certain attractions that the credit union may not.
Apparently, one of them is also selling life insurance.

Life insurance.

I stumbled as I read this. At first, I thought, "What a good idea!", but then I realized it ws being offered by Wal-Mart and I just cannot think of going to Wal-Mart to buy life insurance without shuddering.
And I never thought of myself as a consumer -snob until now.

Story of the Day 11/ 8/2012

My son's aunt Lynne is here visiting and he was telling her about what he has been doing.

"Last week I put in an application."

"Oh, where at?", Aunt Lynne asked.

"At a program that provides services to developmentally delayed adults."

There was a pause in the conversation.
" I mean, I applied for a job, not for services!"

"Well, how did it go?"

"Pretty well, " my son replied, " they asked me what kinds of experiences I have and I said, "well, just look at my family....'"

Story of the Day 11/ 6/ 2012

Today's Story of the Day was written by a guest contributor- my daughter, Sarah:




Today, during lunch period, I was eating my tuna sandwich and a sub teacher walked by the table where I was sitting. She babbled something to a staff member. The sub teacher is an exceptional woman who loves wearing bright red lipstick…every single day.


The sub teacher abruptly terminated her conversation with the staff member and bent her body toward the dirty floor where kids often litter their food. She was so close to the floor that if I were her, I would be able to see pixels in the picture on the ID that had been dropped there and which had caught her attention.



Finally, she stood up and asked me, “Is that your ID?” I looked down to see the ID lying on the floor.



I nearly choked.



I shook my head. The sub teacher apologized and said, “Oh sorry. I thought it was your ID. It looked like you. I guess it is not your ID.”



I smiled.



The sub teacher left. The staff person frantically tried to cover her mouth with her hand before laughing.



Unfortunately, the person in the ID did not look like me because the kid in the picture was an Africa-American…and a boy.

Story of the Day 11/ 02/ 2012

I was on the phone, today, with my oldest son, Ely.
We were talking about the movie that Sarah just finished shooting.
Not the one that she is timing two more scenes for, today; not the one that she recently finished and handed in, this afternoon.
This one has been " shot", but is still without special effects and music.


Ely said, " I still find it strange that Aaron does the sound for Sarah's videos."


Sarah, after all , is deaf.
For some reason, this makes it hard for her to do her own sound, to fit in background sounds, to find appropriate music.


Of course, her brother, Aaron, who does it for her , is also deaf.


Then Ely added," There is no way that I could ever explain my family to anyone. You are just all so odd, except for Sarah."


I was trying to figure out what makes Sarah so much less odd than the rest of us.
In fact, I think she may be running neck and neck with any and all for the title of oddest.
I asked, "Why do you think she is less strange than the rest of us?"


"Because she is so predictable."


I started to list some of the things about Sarah that make her "unique".

"Oh, yeah, I guess she is just as odd," my son replied.

Story of the Day 10/ 20/ 2012

Tomorrow, at 12:30 PM, Aaron and Sarah will start filming another video.
This one has some advantages over other recent videos.
First of all, I do not expect to spend the next month repairing holes in the walls, repainting the hole repairs and fixing the floor.
I also do not expect to have to watch any of my children being hit by cars, no matter how slow moving.
I will, however, be required to dress as a nun.


I have spent numerous years , every time a move took me to a new city and a new synagogue answering the same questions, usually asked in the same order.
"Are you Jewish?"
"Were you born Jewish?"
"Are both of your parents Jewish?"
"Were you adopted?"


Despite the fact that I have Jewish parents, one grandfather's immigration papers stated that he was a rug ( Oriental being the term used at the time) and a father who was not considered caucasian on his Akron, Ohio birth certificate, I happen to make a convincing nun.
Somehow that one very anemic looking red-headed grandfather who had no melanoma combines with the flat nose from the other grandfather ( the one who was a rug) and I ended up looking like the nice Irish Catholic girl from next door -
who grew up to become a nun and is now solidly middle aged.
I like to think the solidly has nothing to do with those extra pounds I have gained, but it probably does.


So, I was not totally surprised that my children asked me to don my nun outfit for tomorrow's video.

I am , however, not allowed to cross myself.

I was willing to do this.
Sarah wanted me to do it.
After all, I do a very minor "cross" every time I say the word Catholic...in sign language, because that is how you do it, on your forehead.
And it is only for a film.
But Aaron was worried and took his question to a couple of rabbis.

Well, he took it to one, who responded that he wasn't sure if it would be allowed for a video.
His sister and I thought that was was as good as a "Yes", but Aaron is more serious about this religion stuff than we are ( despite his wanting his mother to dress as a nun), so he asked a second rabbi who told him that it was not okay.

So, I will not be crossing myself.
I will however, need some wardrobe advice.

You see, along with my Irish looks, came light eyes which are very light sensitive.
And tomorrow is expected to be sunny.
Very sunny.
So I need to know which pair of my sunglasses will go best with the habit.

Story of the Day 10/ 19/ 2012

Sarah is still waiting to get her paper back . The one she wrote for Psychology AP.
The baby journal. The one that is in dialect.

I am rather certain that no matter how her teacher responds to this creative attempt on the part of her deaf student, the teacher will not fully appreciate where it is coming from- from Sarah's world where there are no sounds.
No regular , hick Hoosier speech, none-the-less a black southern dialect.

I am rather certain of this because Sarah is busily working on another project for this class.

Sarah is captioning some videos.

Fifteen of them.

They are short - one to five or six minutes in length.
And she is captioning them.

You see, Sarah's IEP ( Indvidual Education Plan which is the plan they provide for students in special education) states that all videos shown in her classes are to be captioned.

If they are not .... wait, it says "all" so how could they not....?
Yes, but in the years Sarah, and Aaron before her, have been at this school, you would be amazed how many times the videos have not been captioned....
So, if they are not, Sarah is to be provided with a transcript of the video, given time to read the transcript before viewing and then be able to view the video.

And if there is no transcript, then Sarah will be provided the opportunity to watch the video with the interpreter - who will be interpreting it.

Which is what happened.

It didn't work very well.

The videos , not all, but some, had poor sound quality which was made even harder to listen to because of assorted accents, and the fact that Sarah's interpreter is hard-of-hearing- as in wears hearing aids.
And a few of them were done at a hyped-up-on-a-heck-of-a-lot-of-caffeine rate.

After watching the videos, Sarah realized that the next deaf or hard-of-hearing student taking the class would have the same problems; so Sarah offered , to the teacher, to caption them.

Sarah started working on this a couple of weeks ago.
Over the week of fall break,which was last week, Sarah spent a few days having her old mother write down what was on the videos, because, after all, Sarah cannot hear them.
Then Sarah typed up all of the captions.
But, now, comes the next part of the problem, putting the captions on the video; because if you cannot hear the video, you cannot be sure you have put the captioning in the correct spot.
That is what she is currently trying to work on.

In the meanwhile, Sarah's old mother is very certain the the teacher has no idea what Sarah is doing to caption these, or what it means to have the deaf student do the captioning.

Which is why I can't imagine that the teacher is going to get the full import of what it means when Sarah writes a paper in dialect.

Story of the Day 10/ 11/ 2012

My beloved daughter is putting finishing touches on a paper for English class.
The teacher had them hand it to someone for peer editing.
Sarah made those changes, then she realized she needed to add something- the directions say that the kids need to use "descriptive qualities using at least three senses."

Sarah is deaf- completely deaf- no rustling of leaves, no alarm clocks going, no music, no trucks backfiring.

That leaves her 4 senses to choose from. Right?

Wrong.

We listed hers and we decided that deaf people must have one that Hearing people don't.
Sarah's five are:

1. sight
2. touch
3. smell
4. taste
5. humor