Story of the Day 9/26/2011

I was reading the newspaper.
Not the comics, I hadn’t gotten that far. I was on page 3 of the front section, and Aaron was standing over me, which is easy to do, even if we are both standing, since he is 10 inches taller than I am.
But in this case I was sitting, so he was looming. Looming over me. And reading something out loud. And I am doing my best to ignore him so that I can finish reading my article.
Then he asks me to cut it out for him.
What?

“I want you to cut it out for me, so I can save it. Because it is good for my self esteem!”

The ad says, “ You may think that hearing aids are still clunky, embarrassing objects that shout to the world, ‘Hey everybody! Something’s wrong with me!’”

And this is displayed in rather large letters, since the ad takes up more than half the page.

I look at my deaf son, and think, “ That isn’t what is wrong with you.”
But I didn’t’ say it.
After all, he wants this for self-esteem purposes.

Story of the Day 9/ 23/ 2011 #2

Theoretically we are sending Aaron off to Israel in just over a month.
This is very theoretical.

First, we have to get him packed.
This may not seem like a first to you, but that is because you have not recently experienced international air travel.

Aaron is allowed 50 lbs as his luggage.
His one piece of oversized luggage unpacked, empty weighs about 7 lbs.
Into this bag we need to fit a second pair of shoes, a set of sheets and towels, a flashing smoke alarm, a vibrating alarm clock, a case of hearing aid batteries, his allergy medicine, his hearing aid dehumidifier and care kit, his FM system for his hearing aids, lots of pants, and shirts, and pajamas, and undershirts and socks.

I took one look at the pile on his bed and yelped-, “Aaron, we have to buy you new underwear!”

“Why? There is nothing wrong with these.”

Except that the elastic on them was visibly worn out from 15 feet away in a not very well lit room.

In addition to the one piece of luggage, Aaron can bring a carry on that must fit a certain group of size restrictions. Since he will be flying on two airlines- American and El AL, we need to pay careful attention to both.

His carry-on is already spoken for. He will have, his cell phone, his laptop, his tefillin, and a clean pair of underwear for emergencies. He will also have several books, all of which weigh too much to be put in the checked luggage.

I have made a list of several essential items that he needs to take that we need to buy.

Underwear,
Underwear,
Underwear,
A smaller shrek doll.

Story of the Day 9/22/2011

I am trying to have a website for my real life.
This isn’t my real life. I mean it is, sometimes rather tragically so, but I am not a writer, I am a pornographer.
I mean, not a pornographer, but an artist.
Unfortunately, since I live in Indiana, the distinction is lost amongst numerous members of the public,
I am not joking. A couple of years ago, a law was passed that required the Art Museum and several college book stores to register as “adult entertainment” businesses, because they sold pornography. You know, picture books with illustrations of naked people, like Michelangelo’s sculpture of David.


The law was suspended or whatever it is they did to it after it was passed, when they realized that this would also apply to Wal-Mart and Target- because they sell Anne Geddes and knock-off Anne Geddes date books, note cards, calendars.
Never mess with Wal-Mart!

Actually, I am not sure it got that far. I mean it was passed, and it was suspended, but I am not sure that they had figured out that the sentimental naked baby stuff might also fall into the broadly defined “porno” category they had created.

But I do.

I draw naked people. People who are comfortable taking off there clothes in a room full of people who are comfortable with them taking off their clothes and then staring at the naked person for 25 minutes while cursing and fuming and chewing on the ends of their pencils trying to get the line or the shading just right. And occasionally singing along to the songs on the music system. Or , like me, talking to themselves.

So I was sitting at the computer, yesterday afternoon, trying to set up a website for my artwork, and Sarah comes home.
She takes a look at what I have spent the last 3 ½ hours struggling with and signs, “That is awful. That is really awful!”
Sadly, she was not telling me anything that I didn’t know.

And Ely emailed me, this morning, and said, “can you make it so that instead of scrolling down to see more images, people can click through (forward and back)? That might look a little nicer.

Also, you might want to change the colors of the background to complement your work a little better, so they don't appear white/washed out.

Finally, if you can get rid of the "sitemap" button on the left side, you don't need it.”

It only took me about 14 minutes to figure out what the sitemap button was. But I can’t figure out what to do with it- how to get rid of it.

I still haven’t figured out any of the rest of it, but I did manage to shrink the size of the images down to a more…viewable size.

And I didn’t include Sarah’s final comment to me, “Don’t worry, I will help you when I have some free time.”

Thank you, God!!!! I mean, kids!


( waiting to be improved : https://sites.google.com/site/acassiamargolis/home )

Story of the Day 9/20/2011 #2

I was sitting at the computer, and Sarah was sitting in the dining room and opening her mail. I hear a “What?” and a “No Way!” in her distinctive deaf voice, and I rush over to see what had elicited such a response.

She was holding a letter and a look of horror was on her face.
Luckily, I was wrong and it wasn’t a look of horror, although, it could have passed as one. It was really a look of confusion.
Sarah was…dumbstruck. And I mean that with all of its weird little secondary meanings- except, obviously, the deaf had spoken, so maybe I didn’t.

The letter was from the principal of her high school.

It informed her that she had been named student of the month
In physics.
By the physics teacher whose class she just dropped.
Because she was flunking it.
Okay, she wasn’t flunking it, but she was struggling….

And she didn’t drop it; she transferred to another section, taught by a different teacher.

The teacher she’d had, the one who named her for the award, was very nice, but he lectured at a rate that makes my speech look like I have a severe thyroid deficiency.
He speaks so quickly that neither the typist nor the interpreter could even try to keep up.
In fact, the entire time that the speech to text woman was using the mask to speak into, Sarah was petrified that the woman would suffer a heart attack from trying to keep up with the teacher.
The teacher would be lecturing and lecturing, and the speech-to-text lady would be gasping for breath and her face would have turned bright red.
This is the same lady that Sarah said appears to be about my age- so we know she is some sort of a haggard old coot who has one foot in the grave, and this, of course, upped Sarah’s concerns about her suffering a heart attack.

Meanwhile, the interpreter would be furiously signing away at such a rate that the interpreter had no idea what she was signing or if she was making sentences, and the interpreter herself described what she was doing as “gibberish”.

And still the teacher would keep on talking,

So Sarah sat in class, day after day, unable to get the lecture information.

After 4 weeks of this, and an actual D on a test (this from a girl who had straight As, last semester), and in order to spare the speech-to-text lady and the interpreter nervous breakdowns, the school allowed Sarah to transfer to the other section.

Well, they certainly didn’t allow her to transfer so that she would know what was being taught in class, since that has never before been a concern of theirs.
Oh, wait, maybe that is why they let her transfer, I keep forgetting that BH has been deposed and it is a kinder and gentler administration.

How could I have forgotten?

But, at any rate, two nervous breakdowns and a potential heart attack were averted, and, a week ago, Sarah was moved to the other section.



We are assuming that this award was set in motion before she changed sections, while she was still firmly ensconced in that class and flunking.
Which is why Sarah asked me how it was possible that she had been named for this in a class….

The only thing I can think of is that her D on the test may have been the highest grade in the class.

Story of the Day 9/20/2011

I was having lunch with a friend.
I do have a few of those, and on occasion, I even fake being sociable and have lunch with one of them.

Rarely, but it does happen.
And today I even managed to remember to use my napkin.

During lunch, she told me about the time that she went to have her hair cut and styled, and her 4 or 5-year-old son was in tow.

She is a dark-haired brunette and her son is a shining golden, towheaded blonde.
And he is blonde enough that, yes, her really does deserve the excessive adjectives.

The hairstylist remarked to her “Wow, where did your son’s blonde hair come from?”

”I have no idea,” my friend replied.
And then she realized that the rather awkward way in which this was received by the hairstylist meant that the hairstylist took this to mean that my friend must sleep around an awful lot, in order to not be sure.

And while my friend really does have no idea where her son’s blonde hair comes from, it is not because she….um, fill in the euphemism here, please…but because she has never met either of his biological parents.

Anyhow, as a result of her sharing this story with me, I got to learn two new words today, in sign language, for sleeping around (that being the more polite of the two).

I love learning new words.

Story of the Day 9/19/2011 #3

My son, Aaron, had a list of things he was supposed to do, today, while I was out.
He was supposed to call the dentist and make an appointment before he leaves for Israel.
He was supposed to call the Jewish Federation and find out if he could get some scholarship funds for his stay at the yeshivah in Israel.
And he was supposed to make a packing list for his trip to Israel.

You might have noticed a theme.

At any rate, I returned home, late this afternoon, to find Aaron taking nap number 2 or 3, for the day.
When he awoke, he showed me his packing list.
It wasn’t bad, as long as he didn’t plan on making any friends. He had forgotten to pack deodorant, or, at least, to put it on the list.
And he had called the dentist’s office, but no one answered. They have odd hours, especially since our dentist is away, right now, doing his tour of duty- he is in the Army Reserve, but due back very soon.
So, Aaron will call again, tomorrow.

And Aaron remembered to call the Federation. And he spoke with a very lovely person that we know from synagogue.
And he gave her his email address
He thinks.
Except, he realizes that maybe he is not sure how to spell his email address and he might possibly have given her someone else’s email address, but since she said she will email him, he will see if he gets an email from her tomorrow, and if not, he will call and explain to her that he can’t actually spell his email address.

I am certain, that if he has to do this, she will be rather concerned for this kid who will be traveling to Israel on his own. That and she will be wondering about what kind of a yeshivah he will be attending. And, perhaps, she will think that we are cruel to be sending our poor, not very bright child off on his own.

I will admit to having some interesting thoughts about all of this as he explained to me that he wasn’t sure how to spell his email address- which is composed of his first name and a word from a 4th or 5th grade spelling list.

One of my thoughts was that I hoped no one at the yeshivah will expect him to know which month follows September, or the alphabet, in order, or…….
And that I had better take a permanent marker and put his name in all of his clothes, and our home phone number, in case he gets lost.

Story of the Day 9/19/2011

My son came home from synagogue, from morning services. I was sitting at the computer, not quite ready to run out to work, because it is still only 8:05 AM.

He asked me if I have a conference at Sarah’s school.
He told me that he hoped I didn’t.


Then he apologized and said I looked very nice.
In fact, I look much nicer in the shirt than he used to.

Story of the Day 9/16/2011

I am the proud new owner of kitchen counters.
Or maybe the proud owner of new kitchen counters, or maybe something else.
At any rate, after 15 years of abuse, and there was a lot of abuse by Ely as he learned to cook and insisted that he had no need for things like cutting boards, I have fancy-shmancy countertop to go in my not very fancy-shmancy kitchen.

The guys arrived only 2 days and 1 hour late, this morning, and it was still morning, so it wasn’t 2 days and 2 hours late, and they worked and worked and griped and worked, in several different languages.
The griping that is.

They may have also worked in several different languages but since the only words I knew that they used in some of those languages were….colorful, I will assume that was griping.

They came in, they went out, they came in, they went out, less of them came in.
Now they were down to 2 languages, one was English.
I know because I recognized ALL of the expletives.

They went out.

They came in.

You can repeat this scenario at least 8 more times. At least.
I need to sweep and mop, and do it a few more times.

Hey, coming and going that much tracks in a lot of dirt!

And then the plumbing guy and his helper showed up and started to work on the sink.
I suppose it does have to be reattached to do this thing called dirty dishes.
Of course, I wouldn’t know since that is Aaron’s job, but let us assume…..

And when they were done,(not the plumbers, because they had just started, but the countertop crew of two,) the one who looked like he isn’t old enough to drink handed me a copy of the invoice.

I had gotten a copy of the invoice when I paid the deposit, and don’t need extra copies of things, since I am a paper-saving-pack-rat who really does not mean ill towards earth’s forests; so I told him, thanks, but I had already gotten the invoice from the office.

And they went out,
but they didn’t’ come back in.

And, about 2 minutes after they went out, I finally realized that they were not coming back in again.
And I hadn’t paid them.

Oh crap- and I only said that in one language.

They thought I meant that I had paid…and I hadn’t, I had just gotten the invoice…..

So I immediately called the phone number on the bottom of the top of the invoice- to have them paged or called or texted to come back to get paid…and it rang, and it rang, and it rang, and then the fax machine answered.

Oh double crap.

So I called the phone number one line up from the fax number(at the bottom of the top of the invoice).

And this time, the phone was picked up promptly by Betsy.
And I explained about the miscommunication.
And , after hanging up with me, she called them.

And then she called me back, and said they didn’t want to come back, because they were at lunch.

And she can’t take my charge card number over the phone.

And even though the plumber is on their invoice, and he is still here, he doesn’t actually work for them and I can’t pay him...and….

Well, someone will have to come back, or wait until next week, because they are not open on Sunday, and soon it will be Shabbat.

But in the meanwhile, I have fancy-shmancy countertops.

And I feel like an idiot.

Story of the Day 9/ 14/ 2011

My son came home rather late, late enough that it is questionably still the 14th.

He was out at Morty’s- a comedy bar in Carmel, Indiana doing a standup gig.
He came home and told me that he was glad he has stopped telling sexually explicit jokes.

Okay, he didn’t call them “sexually explicit”, he called them dirty.

Why?
Because that is what all the other comedians were telling.
His telling “clean” jokes made him stand out from the crowd.

Of course, there is a limit to how many knock-knock jokes the audience wanted to hear.
That and his series of puns….really bad puns.
Okay, they were not knock-knock jokes.
But there were some puns.


He also told me that he struggles with following polite etiquette procedures with other comedians.

This is because it is very hard to congratulate them and shake hands when they have just finished telling a series of masturbation jokes.

Story of the Day 9/12/2011- An Addendum to 9/9

I have a meeting with my daughter’s resource teacher.
I am going to explain to her about videos and caption..

I am a little worried she might put her head down on the table and cry.

I have the easy job.

After I explain it to her, she will get to go speak with Sarah’s Hebrew teacher, and explain to him that the captions need to be in English, or maybe even in Hebrew. Just not in Korean.

Story of the Day 9/11/2011 #2

My brother works for Wal-Mart.

This caused consternation among some members of the family, when he first let us know that was where he would be working.
Some of us like to think that a couple of college degrees should be worth more than wearing one of those blue “vests” and pushing shopping carts. But, hey, work is work and the economy sucks.

And he is actually employed at their corporate headquarters- a fact that looks much more promising when you introduce yourself to eligible young ladies.

I should explain that I am referring to my younger brother. My older brother is happily married. I have no idea how many years now, but long enough that his middle school aged daughter was born well after anyone had to count the months back to figure out if she was “ premature”.
At any rate, my older brother doesn’t have to worry about eligible ladies. My younger brother, a bachelor, does.

So, there he is, living and working in beautiful Rogers, Arkansas. Apparently, it is a good place to work, and possibly a nice, settled sort of place to raise a family.
But what do you when you are young and single?… Well, apparently, my brother has been doing things like attending monster truck rallies.
This may be fine where you come from, but it is not something we can readily mention at synagogue. Okay, maybe we can at our synagogue, but since he is not looking to hook up with a girl from our synagogue….. (and I didn’t’ mean “ hook up” that way!)

And where oh where is he going to meet a nice young lady?
Apparently, everyone there works at Wal-Mart, so I suppose it will have to be at work.

My husband is actually rather taken with this idea.
After all, he met me at work.
In the cafeteria.

He also thinks that he knows just what the wedding invitations should say,
“ Look what I got at Wal-Mart”. Either that or “Save money, Live better.”

Story of the Day 9/9/2011

the second part of the Story of the Day from 9/2 (#4)




I need to make two things perfectly clear before you read the actual story.

First of all, I am neither making any of this up, nor exaggerating it- although I do not expect you to believe either of those assertions.

Second, the teacher involved happens to be a wonderful, kind person. He is even a good teacher. He is, just like most of us, maybe not totally “with it” about everything. So, please do not judge him based on this thing, because it really would be unfair.

And now for the story:

At dinner, my daughter announced, “Oh, have I got a Story of the Day for you!”

Some days, hearing this, well, seeing this, since she signs, makes me break out in a cold sweat over what awful thing must have befallen my child, that day, but since Sarah said this to me with a smile on her face, I had no such trepidation.
She then told me about her Hebrew class.

Once again, her Hebrew teacher had a video to show.
A video of a Hebrew song.
He had found it on Youtube and he excitedly told Sarah that it was captioned.

Then he told her, “But you can’t read it!”

Sarah’s face showed her confusion over this.

So her teacher explained, “You can’t read it because it is in Korean!”

He started the video playing, and the choral group sang, and sang, and sang.

And there were no captions.

He told Sarah “Wait….wait!”

And, there, on the bottom of the screen, the printed message scrolled across and then no more captions, until, a bit later, the same printed message scrolled across a second time.


And Sarah didn’t have the heart to break it to the teacher that, although she cannot read Korean, she believes (because of the format) that what was actually scrolling across the bottom of the screen was not captions for the song, it was a weather alert/update.

Story of the Day 9/8/2011

( background stories from 8/17 and 8/24)


I had a wonderful email , this afternoon, from Cindie.
Cindie, who is my partner in crime, had spent the better part of the morning with me at a case conference.

Better as in quality not quantity.

After one of those, you might think that the two of us would be out drinking in a bar, but, unlike the multitudinous conferences we have been suffering through for months, this one was actually pleasant.
Pleasant- and , yes, you can quote me.

And , no, we had neither been drinking nor smoking pot prior to the start of the conference, so that is not why we thought it was pleasant. At least, I don’t remember doing that…..

It was pleasant because of the absence of Darth Vader. Whoops sorry, I meant BH.

So, I was surprised when I received the following email from Cindie:

How did we get so lucky not to have her??


Her being BH.

When I saw the email I thought, “Shit, what have I not been telling her?”
Since I lead my life rather publicly ( doesn’t blogging everything that happens count as publicly?) and I email or call Cindie an average of twice a day, how could I have somehow not told her the big news?

You see, after the BH fiasco,
- and I am accepting suggestions for a good , catchy name for the item that finally drew BH’s unprofessional and unethical behavior to the attention of her boss -

after the BH fiasco, her boss, Dr. F told me that in order to re-establish credibility BH would no longer be the person running the show- I mean the case conferences. In other words, she could no longer refuse to discuss items on the agenda, call Sarah a liar, prevent the staff from bringing up any problems, not provide assessments and services, etc.

Well, gee, somehow I had managed to not tell this bit of news to Cindie- which elicited the next two email responses from her:

Wait. What???? Is she not allowed to come to your cc any more???


And
No!!! You told me none of that!!

Oh gosh, now I suspect I will have to find someone else to help me bury the bodies in the backyard…I mean go drinking with…I mean….or hope she accepts this very belated explanation of what has happened- that BH has been deposed as the queen ( read: tyrant) of the case conferences and peace and common sense will reign!

Although, we didn’t do a very good job of keeping the peace, today, since one innocent remark on the part of the interpreter, set us off laughing- to the puzzled looks of most of the rest of the group- well, and the pained expression of the TOR( the resource teacher) who was tethered to BH during what went on.

But that is a story for another day.

In the meanwhile, I had better quickly explain all to Cindie, or I might have to go hunting for another buddy to help me bury the bodies……figural bodies, of course.

Story of the day 9/7/2011 #2

In English class, this morning, just before they were dismissed by the bell, Sarah had a moment of glee.
Unfortunately, it was short lived.

The teacher was explaining about what the students had to do for homework to wrap up the chapter on which they were working.
Sarah was watching the speech to text and the teacher’s words were: “ Chapter for Christians”.
Which, of course, would mean that Sarah wouldn’t need to do it, since she is Jewish, but then she realized that this was just another error of the fancy speech to text system they are using.
Sigh.

Story of the Day 9/7/2011

It was 3:50 PM and my daughter’s bus went streaking past our house and on down the street.

Oh no….I knew what that meant, from the incident during the first week of school. A sub driver.

A sub driver is bad enough if you are on a tight schedule and you are waiting for child number three to arrive home so that you can all rush out the door to the piano lessons or soccer practice or even the dentist- who feels rather sad being in last place on this list.
But, when you child is deaf- as in deaf and doesn’t’ hear and doesn’t’ talk, and the bus driver misses the stop, you have to hope that the bus driver actually stops at the next stop, which is only 2 blocks away. In the rain.
Because your daughter cannot yell out, “Hey, you missed my stop!”, but has to make her way to the front of the moving bus, and get the bus driver’s eye, and try to gesture to him or her what ahs happened- which translates into” the bus will already be at the next stop , so she might as well just get off there.”

But, to my surprise, less than 2 minutes later, my daughter comes walking through the door. She has mysteriously materialized. Maybe the bus driver backed the bus up, just for her?

No, it turns out that he bus driver missed a stop before our house. Although not by a lot, because that kid isn’t deaf and did yell out, “Hey, you missed my stop!” So, the driver stopped a couple of houses late about 2 blocks before our house. And before getting off, the kid pointed at Sarah and told the driver something to the effect that her stop was next. So, Sarah made her way up to the front of the bus and the driver looked at her expectantly, and then horrified, when she gestured that she couldn’t’ hear or talk. Horrified, even though she has never been known to bite anyone.

That I know of.

So with her up near him, he drove down our street, keeping one eye on the road and one eye on her or at least ready for her to gesture to him- which isn’t as dangerous as it might seem because there tends to be almost no traffic on our long rambling street, and she, worried he would both drive past her stop and have a nervous breakdown as he kept one eye on the road and one eye on her and worried about being bitten, gestured for him to drop her off a couple of houses early.

When he stopped the bus, Sarah gave him a “thumbs up” and a big smile, and he gave her what can best be described as the look of a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding semi.

So, when I spotted the bus speeding past our house, it was the very relieved driver hustling out of here as fast as possible and away from the dangerous deaf kid…….

Story of the Day 9/5/2011 - Addendum

This is the photo that Ely sent me to send with the holiday letter.

Story of the Day 9/5/2011

It is that time of year, again.
My husband and children cringe at every email I send them, at every suggestion.
I am trying to get our holiday letter- the one that goes out with the Rosh Hashanah cards to the out of town friends and family- together.
That and a photo.

When the children were little- littler than I am- that kind of little, I wrote the letter, showed it to my husband, he tweaked it a bit, and it was ready to send.
That and a cute picture of the three children smiling.

Then they got bigger.
It was hard to get them to do more than grimace for the photo.
They started to tell me not to mention things in the holiday letter.
They rolled their eyes.
Then they started making faces for the holiday photos. Not the pleasant kind.
One year, I told them to each write their own paragraph and get it to me.
My husband did.
Period.
It was a very short holiday letter.

The next year, I wrote a letter and told them that unless they got corrections/re-writes back to me in a timely fashion, I was sending it “ as is”. Oddly, this got a much better response than the year before. Of course, I stacked the odds in my favor by filling it with all sorts of things I knew they did not want shared.

Of course, that still leaves us with the problem of the photo.

Heck, I can’t even get all three of them I the same state!

So, it looks like it may be two photos. One of two of them, and one of the kid that isn’t in the photo with the other two.
I have been going through pictures and so have they, and Ely sends me the photo of him that he likes the best……

I immediately emailed him back, “ Please, we don’t want to scare any small children!”

To which Ely replied, “ Why, is our holiday letter now supposed to be G rated?”

Story of the Day 9/3/2011

I was sitting I synagogue, this morning, which makes me sound a lot more religious than I am.

That is because I wasn’t sitting in the sanctuary, where the service was being held, I was sitting on a bench in the “book room” with my friend Shawn and we were schmoozing.
Shmoozing is when you talk about all sorts of things, which in this case had simply gotten started because one of us had asked the other how things were going.
And I was wearing these G-d awful, uncomfortable shoes, so I couldn’t even stand for the 2 minutes it should have taken, I had to sit. Shawn, being polite had to sit, and once we were sitting, we really started schmoozing.
So anything that happened after this point was the fault of those G-d awful, uncomfortable shoes.

Shawn is one of the Carmel contingent.
Carmel is this fancy shmancy suburban enclave north of Indianapolis. I live in Indianapolis,, That is why I refer to Carmel as fancy shmancy.
In sign language, the sign for Carmel is the handshape for the letter C in the motion for “stuck up”.
Shawn is not stuck up, but she is definitely a lot of levels up from my abysmally low level of fancy and sophisticated, and that is on top of being gorgeous. I don’t mean me being gorgeous, I mean her being gorgeous.
In fact, she is the sort of gorgeous where heads turn when she walks into the room.
As Carol once said, “half the men at our synagogue are in love with her.” The other half being either gay or legally blind.

I would hate her, except that she also happens to be nice. Drat.

At any rate, we were sitting in the book area and SR came in and exclaimed to Shawn that he hadn’t seen her in a while and he thought that maybe she had gone over to the “Dark Side”.

Shawn asked, “And what is the Dark Side?”

“You know, Christians.”
Shawn replied, “I don’t consider that the Dark Side.”

And I added, “I thought you meant she had started going to the synagogue across the street.”

As he started to leave, Shawn added, “Or maybe you thought I was sleeping with a black guy.”


To which he had no reply.

Possibly, because Shawn is black.

Story of the Day 9/2/2011 #4

Sarah has two language classes, at the high school. She has her unofficial ASL class, in the hallway during lunch period, and she has Hebrew class…oh yes, and she also has her other foreign language class, English.

The first two of these language classes seemed to be connected.

Today, her Hebrew teacher asked her if she was familiar with a song. He gave her the title. She had never heard of it. He was sure she was wrong.

“But you must be familiar with this song!”
“I don’t really listen to any music.”

“But you must know this song!” He argued that she’d had a Bat Mitzvah, and she had been to other Bar and Bat Mitzvah and certainly it had been played at them!

“No, sorry,” Sarah explained, “I have no idea what they played at the other Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties, because I never heard what they played.”

Again, he insisted that she must know this song.
Again, she said, “I don’t’ really listen to music.”
Listen to music? She f***ing can’t hear any music.

The teacher still didn’t get it. He asked her if she knew who Bob Dylan was.
She did.
“Well,” the teacher explained, “He was Jewish and he sang it.” And the teacher played a video of Bob Dylan (from Youtube) singing the song. And then he played one of Danny Kaye, signing the song.
The teacher apologized to Sarah, there were no captions, and did she want a power point display of the words?

”No.”

Oddly, not seeing the words captioned on it in no way lessened her enjoyment of listening to the music.
Which she couldn’t’ hear.

Like I said, this and her ASL class seem to be connected. At least, today.

Story of the Day 9/2/2011 #3

Sarah was sitting in the cafeteria in the half of the lunch period that is reserved for eating lunch and not for the ASL class.
She was sitting and eating, and then she realized that everyone, and I do mean everyone, had turned suddenly to stare to her right. Sarah turned and looked and realized that one of the “special needs” students had a bad moment and had thrown his lunch tray against one of the columns. It must have made quite a loud crash, but, of course, Sarah was the only student unable to hear it.

In case you were wondering, this is not a normal, everyday occurrence at her " new" school. At the small school that Sarah used to attend, where the high school had about 100 students, as compared to this school’s 3,500, there would be incidents when students would overturn entire tables. Of course, at Sarah’s previous school there were a number of kids who had major secondary disabilities- some of which were either caused by or contributed to by the fact that they had been left mostly language-less when they were young. As a result, they sometimes had no good ways to express frustration. At any rate, Sarah realized it was just a tray, and no one had been hit or hurt by it, and she went back to eating her apple.

A few minutes later, after her apple was nothing more than a core, she got up to leave.
As she walked out of the cafeteria, her well developed peripheral vision – something that tends to be incredibly well developed in the deaf because they rely on it for many things- told her that now everyone in the cafeteria was staring at her…as she walked out of the room.

She related this to me, after she came home. And she asked, “Why, today, did everyone stare” at her?

Well, I asked, “Had anyone else gotten up in the few minutes since that boy threw his tray?”

Suddenly, Sarah realized that no one had. In a cafeteria that is usually busy and where people are always getting up and down, the incident had shocked people into not doing anything like getting up and walking through the area in which the boy had thrown the tray…only Sarah, out of the 700 students in the cafeteria, had not been affected in this way, and what the kids were staring at was this brave person who was going to be the first person who walk through the “combat zone.”

She’d better be careful or she will develop a reputation as a “tough” kid.

Story of the Day 9/ 2/ 2011 #2

Sarah was in ASL class- the sign language class she has after lunch.
Oh wait, North Central High School doesn’t offer any ASL classes? But this was her ASL class. The one she “teaches”.
You see, every day, half way through the lunch period, a group of girls who have hurried through what is already a rather abbreviated lunch period, sit together in the hall and learn new signs and practice the ones they know.
One girl has been at this for over a semester, and she often has to “interpret” things for some of the newer “ students”.

Today, one of the newer students, Kate, asked Sarah, “You read Braille, right?”

Sarah, who has heard things like this, before, was not nearly as startled as Erin, the young lady doing the “interpreting.”

“What? What? She is able to see just fine!” spurted Erin. “Deaf people can see to read!”

Kate was taken aback…. “Oh, uh, sorry, I got confused between deaf and blind people….”

This is not something Sarah, nor I, nor Sarah’s deaf brother, nor my husband has not “heard” before. Several times, my husband and I have been asked, when Sarah and Aaron were young, if they would need to learn Braille to be able to read.
But my all time favorite moment of confusion over what “deafness” could possibly mean was when a very kind older man gave Aaron and Sarah presents that he had specially ordered for the, so that they would be able to tell what time it was. He had bought special “ talking watches” for them.

Story of the Day 9/ 2/ 2011

I received an urgent email today.
I mean, it was marked urgent. No, it was marked “ URGENT”.

Since it was from the new rabbi at our synagogue I had a moment of concern. Perhaps one of our octo or nonagenarian members had fallen and broken a hip and was in the hospital and needed an immediate delivery of food for Shabbat. Or, G-d forbid, had died and there was a need to let people know, before Shabbat, that there would be a funeral on Sunday-
although, since there will be a healthy minyan ( quorum) at synagogue tomorrow,(lured, not by the internal religious need to connect through services but through the deep inner need to partake of the excellent food , afterwards,) an announcement of that sort could wait.

Or maybe some family was traveling through and was stranded because of a cancelled plane or a flat tire, and needed a place to stay, and could we find room for a family of 9, needing a crib and a high chair and a wheelchair ramp and ……

Okay, I do tend to worry a bit much.

Anyhow, I opened up the missive.
It was a reminder that this Sunday, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend , is the Annual Etz Chaim ( synagogue) cook out and it will be followed by a special “movie”.

This was urgent?

I emailed the rabbi.
Maybe I was missing some vital piece of information.

Hey, even I know I am an airhead.

Moments later, a reply was sitting in my inbox.


“sometimes you need to go through a person's stomach to get to their soul.”



I am still not sure I get the “URGENT part, but I must admit, our community’s rather….passive and lukewarm “rush” to religious programs might be getting a much needed “boost”. We also, obviously, have not seemed to have cooled his enthusiasm…now we will just have to see if he is a good cook.

Story of the Day 8/30/2011

Last night was Back-to-school night. Back –to-school-night is when the parents of the kids who are passing show up, so that they can find out what the rules are in their kids’ classes and what is going on, get a copy of the teacher hand outs and the teacher’s email address; and the parents whose kids are on the honor roll can introduce themselves to the teachers by saying” I am so-an-so’s mother/father” and it is usually both parents and the forst one says, “I am so-and-so’s father” and the second one says “ I am so-and-so’s mother” although, on rare occasion the order is reversed, and then they stand there and glare at the teacher with over-amplified smiles waiting to be told how wonderful their kid is; and the parents of the kids who are having some self-esteem issues or struggling a bit show up and hope the teacher says one nice thing or that they can figure out which evil parent has the son or daughter who is bullying their child or maybe even find the parent of the one kid who is being very friendly to theirs; and the parents of the kids who are in special ed can show up and try to figure out why their kids are having trouble with a specific class; and the parents of the kids with heavy duty special needs come in to try to figure out what their kids have been telling them about school, or to thank a teacher for making an extra effort, or even just to visualize what the class would look like with their child sitting in it.


On occasion, you see nice things- things that inspire, like the parents who have been divorced who are going from class to class and sitting together so they can talk about what their kid needs, or a parent who obviously came straight from a hard day at work and who is taking copious notes about what their kid can do for extra credit and what class their kid needs so that their kid can go to college, and be the first person in their family to do so. Or when there are two parents and a student (when students are not really supposed to be there) and maybe a little brother or sister, and the student is going with the parents from class to class and patiently interpreting everything, so that the parents will know what the teacher has said- and the parents are not only not discouraged by the language barrier, but the kid is not ashamed.

And I fall into a couple of the categories, if you want to know.

I am the parent who really wanted to see who in the heck was the Jdahmr wanna be’s parent(s), and also wanted to tell a teacher that Sarah was really happy he hadn’t excused her for a project, yesterday, that had to do with sound- rather, he set it up so that she could actually do it. And, I wanted to see where Sarah sat, in a couple of classes, and what some of these teachers were like, from her funky descriptions.

Of course, when Aaron was in school there, I had to pray his teachers found him amusing and didn’t want to have us string him from the chandelier by his thumbs for constantly disrupting the class with comments he thought were funny…. Going around as Sarah’s mother is infinitely easier.

Sorry, Aaron.

And I learned a few things, too. Which is what parents are supposed to do, at Back-to-school-night.

I learned that the Lesbian was a thespian.

I have no idea if she is also a lesbian or not, and if she is corrupt, corrupted or corrupting or not , but I did learn the vocabulary word that Sarah missed learning. “Thespian”. Okay.
But I still have no idea how that ties in with cybersex, or with Hamas in Detroit.

I also found out that Sarah can’t read Hebrew.
This was news to me, since Sarah has been able to read Hebrew for a while.
The teacher, however, carefully explained that he had transliterations just for Sarah, in his class. Just for her because she can’t read the Hebrew.

Of course, why a transliteration ( phonetics) would help a deaf kid who cannot hear or speak, or why he thinks it could….
No, Sarah can read the Hebrew. She needs the transliterations because of Megan.

When Megan was the interpreter, more than a year ago, she was given a paper to study over the summer .
She had all summer to learn the Hebrew alphabet.
Actually, she didn’t even need to learn it, she just had to learn the Israeli Sign Language fingerspelling handshapes. And, since 80% of them match up to the ASL handshapes for the alphabet, and make the same sounds, it would have been very easy.
This would have also meant that Megan wouldn’t’ need to understand any of the Hebrew being used in the classroom, she could just sound out what Sarah spelled to her on the occasion that he teacher wanted a “verbal response from Sarah..
Except that Megan immediately lost the paper, and didn’t bother to ask for another copy.

Of course, it was summer- but she was at school every day of both summer sessions, that summer, since she was interpreting for Sarah, so she could have easily asked for another copy.
But she didn’t.
And the first day of Hebrew class, there was a problem, because Sarah was all set and ready to read the Hebrew off to her , and Megan hadn’t prepared. So Megan told the teacher that Sarah needed it all transliterated- written out in “English” phonetics, so she – Sarah, the deaf kid, could read the Hebrew.

Now, after she left, which was into the second quarter, there was a string of sub interpreters who were not going to be able to walk in that day and use the Hebrew fingerspelling, but Megan had set it up so that the teacher thought Sarah couldn’t read the Hebrew without it- not that it was to help the interpreter- and he has persisted in that belief , ever since.

And he has made a point of telling her classmates that she needs it, a couple of times a week, ever since then.

And he made a point of telling the parents this at Back-to-school-night.
It is an accommodation he is making for the poor-dumb-deaf-kid who can’t read Hebrew. When, in reality, he is making it for the unprofessional, dumb ex-interpreter who was simply covering up the fact that she was lazy.

Megan- the gift that keeps on giving.

And as for the Jdahmr wanna be’s parents? They didn’t come. Which was okay, because I am not sure if I would feel sorry for them or if they would spook me as he has spooked Sarah , and I am not sure I really want to find out.

Story of the Day 8/ 26/ 2011 #3- not a story, just an addendum of things

According to the daily reports I have been receiving from Sarah, the speech to text has been a bit better. It was almost good for one class, this past week. Of course, the next day, the clarity of what it typed up was mud…or worse.

For example, in one of Sarah’s classes, she was taught about cremation.

Of course, since that class is with the J-D-W-B (JdahmrWanaBe*) student, she thought, at first, that maybe they were actually talking about cremation. Fortunately, the interpreter is good, so Sarah realized that the correct vocabulary word was “claymation”, but it did wake her up.

That student, the J-D-W-B, has impacted a lot of what Sarah gets and doesn’t get in her classes.

He has so revolted the woman in charge of the speech-to-text service, that she will not repeat his words into the microphone, nor type them. In this case, unfortunately, the interpreter is good, and Sarah still has to “hear” them.


* Which is as close as we can get to his name without google sending people looking for stuff about him to this site

Story of the Day 8/26/2011 #2

Apparently, there are several people at North Central High School who think that Sarah can talk

Sarah is often treated to people who believe she can speech read what they are saying, and sometimes she can, but I promise you that she cannot talk. At least, not with her voice.

This evening, Sarah asked me why people think she can. She demonstrated how, when they ask her questions, she mouths what the words are. She can do that, she can move her lips and face around to mimic what the Hearing people do to communicate; she just can’t do the sound part of it.

I thought a moment.
I asked, “Sarah, is this happening in the cafeteria?”
Sarah was astounded at my deductive skills. She said I should get a Sherlock Holmes badge.
I will have to see which cereal box has them.
Okay, I am joking about the badge.
But she was amazed.

I explained, “It is loud in the cafeteria. It is so loud that the Hearing people would not be able to hear your voice if you were actually using it. Well, at least, not unless you were screaming. So, they think you are using it, and, like everything else, they just can’t hear it above the din.”

Of course, for Sarah, the cafeteria is totally quiet.

Sarah is enjoying the fact that she can keep them fooled, at least until they run into her outside of lunchtime.

Story of the Day 8/ 26/2011

Yesterday, in Hebrew class, Mr. Cohen asked Sarah what was new- as in new and in the news.
She said, “I don’t know of anything.”
So, he went and asked the next student.

Apparently, he asks this question with some frequency, and Sarah never has anything to add. I wouldn’t have known this; in fact, I knew nothing at all about it until Sarah told me of this custom, yesterday afternoon. The reason she told me is that, afterwards, the teacher asked her to make sure to have something to tell, tomorrow. Tomorrow being today.

So Sarah gave me an assignment, I was to find something interesting in the morning newspaper for her to share.

Oh, Sarah reads the newspaper, every day. Actually, that is why we subscribe. Long ago, I figured that any time my kids expressed an interest in reading something, I would buy it.
This might sound spendthrift, but it is really quite the opposite.
Very few deaf adults read well. The average deaf high school graduate reads at below a 4th grade level.
I figured that books, magazines, newspapers and comic books were a lot cheaper (and therefore a better investment) than tutoring.
So far, I have been right. Both Aaron and Sarah read at an adult level.
At any rate, Sarah reads the newspaper, every day. But what she reads, which is why we subscribe, is the sports section.

I bet you thought we only got it so that I could read the comics and do the puzzles, but I really only look at that as a fringe benefit. Like the bubble gum you get with the baseball cards, although the bubble gum was so inedible that even the baseball cards ceased including it.

At any rate, after I have read the comics, I actually read the rest of the paper.

Okay, I am lying.

I actually read the comics last. That is because I need to work up to the best part. I read the front section of national and international news, first, and then the metro and state section, and then the obituaries, and then, and only then, the comics.
Except that this is Indiana, so the front section is also almost entirely local news.
On the rare occasion that I find something interesting, I hand it to Sarah, so basically, she was just asking me to make sure that I found something interesting, this morning.

The problem is that there wasn’t. Oh, there is the hurricane, but that was talked about yesterday. And no little additional details about the grocery stores being emptied is going to make quite the right impression since it is “old” news.
But, then, I realized that here was a fascinating piece of news that none of her classmates nor her teacher would already have heard about. You see, the BBC, which is famous for its news broadcasts, just fired Leslie Grange.
They fired her for embellishing and fabricating the news. Apparently, when the earthquake rocked Japan and they had a leaking nuclear reactor, instead of just conveying the facts, Ms. Grange told of how radioactive zombies were roaming the area around the nuclear plant. And that Rebecca Brooks (and I have no idea who that is) raped a monkey, and a variety of other interesting “news” items.

And why have none of her classmates nor her teacher heard a word about this? Because it only affected Deaf viewers of the BBC. You see, Leslie Grange is an interpreter who has been interpreting the BBC news for 7 years. She is shown in the lower corner of their broadcasts interpreting what the newscasters say into BSL – British Sign Language.

Apparently, she started revising the news about 6 months ago. Deaf viewers sent in complaints, but, because they were deaf, no one at he BBC paid any attention to them and didn’t’ investigate.

When it was finally discovered and Ms. Grange was fired, she had this to say:

“I would like to apologise to everyone in the deaf community,” Grange told reporters today, “though when I had Cameron tell Obama “your statesmen-like profile leaves my willy plump” – well, frankly I don’t think that is so very far from the truth.”

Source: http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/08/17/bbc-sign-language-interpreter-sacked-for-changing-the-news/

Sarah has decided to tell about this without mentioning anyone’s willy.

Story of the Day 8/24/2011 #2

Today, in music class, the teacher offered to provide Sarah with copies of the song lyrics. Perhaps even having them projected in real-time, although, since the speech to text system isn’t working very well, that could be dangerous.

Sarah was a bit surprised. You see, she hadn’t signed up for a music class.

It turns out that she is in one, or, at least, in a musical one. Apparently, the physics teacher plays music in the background during class.

She assured him that he needed give her the lyrics or have them provided in real-time, since it will not affect her grade or what she does or doesn’t learn with regard to physics.

She didn’t tell him that, if he hadn’t mentioned this, she could have sat in class, all year, and never known there was any music in the background.

I wish her teachers would be so accommodating for the things she really does need to access the classroom information.

The theme for the Stories of the Day, today, seems to be related to music and lyrics.
Since the two children currently at home are both deaf, and each of them has provided me with one, it definitely is alluding to their being some mysterious musical karma surrounding today.

Story of the Day 8/ 24/ 2011

My son is working on his next rap song.
He said to me, “Sexy and prestige rhyme.”

I had to stop for a moment to take a deep breath. “Um, Aaron, they don’t.”

“Yes they do!”

“Aaron, you are deaf. Maybe they rhyme to a deaf person, but they do not rhyme if you are hearing.”

I don’t think my words made an impact.
I can still hear him repeating the words over and over with different intonation- getting them to rhyme.

Story of the Day 8/ 17/ 2011 – Addendum

Story of the Day 8/ 17/ 2011 – Addendum

I’ve had several emails from people who absolutely couldn’t believe that BH, the administrator in charge of Special Education at my daughter’s school ( North Central High School) could possibly have tried to do what I said she did, in the Story of the Day from 8/17/2011.

Well, she did.
I tried to scan the report that she presented to me as the “Assessment” that was required to have been completed, but was stymied because I couldn’t figure out how to upload the scan to this blog….but that is why G-d invented the digital camera, so, instead, I took a lovely photo of the first page, and if you read the 2nd paragraph , you can see where it says that no assessment was done. The recommendations, which I have not completely photographed (because they include a second page), tell how to do an assessment.


I also took a photo of the email from the TOR/teacher of record- special education teacher telling me to come in and have the “Assessment” reviewed.

This is why I have the phrase “ Real life is stranger than any fiction I could compose.” Under the title of my Blog.

Story of the Day 8/ 23 2011 #2

Sarah’s mission in life is to teach sign language. She didn’t choose it, but there is this plethora of over-eager Hearing people who seek her out- sometimes individually and sometimes in groups.

I have explained to her that this is the penalty of being the only deaf student in a large public high school, and at a time when a popular TV show, Switched at Birth, has brought attention to deafness and sign language via a “hot” young actor. Sarah, who knows him, will argue about the “hot” part, but she actually has hearing friends who think that. I have told Sarah not to roll her eyes too loudly.

So, Sarah was out there among the natives, today, and one of them approached her to show her the 4 signs that someone else had taught her. There was the sign for work, and the one for hot chocolate, and the one for…except that every single one of them was a vulgar sign.

While the excited youngster was demonstrating her sign vocabulary for Sarah, Sarah’s interpreter was cringing. Sarah, however, was not. She has learned these signs and many worse ones from previous interpreters who also thought they were just normal educational vocabulary or proper terms. I don’t mean that she learned these signs from them, but she was exposed to the true extent of idiocy- and in the case of the interpreters, from people who were supposed to know the correct signs. In this case, it was from a kid who had, obviously, been hoodwinked by someone who is not very nice.

This happened right at the start of Sarah’s Animation/ Film Production class.

Later, during the same class, another student came up, also excited to share the few sign language words she had learned from somewhere. Amazingly, these were also …not the right words. And again, the interpreter cringed , while Sarah just gave the student the correct signs for what the girl thought she had been saying.
And this was all just during one class.

I give the interpreter a few more weeks, and she will be used to this.