Plans galore!!!

The New Year is here! Another one! I plan to not make resolutions this year, I prefer to call them plans. I hope they materialize.

One goal is to start reading more books. I have been reading them but not as many as I would like to. I plan more trips to the library this year, and hope to find a good book club that recommends some fine books. Alternately, I could download books on the ipad, but I am not sure how that will work for me. As of now, I like the good old print on paper medium. (Notice I have left the option open for me to turn around and say... ooooh... reading books on the ipad is super cool!!!)

I have a great walking buddy, we just need to get the act going once again, now that she is back from her month long vacation. Shedding the unwanted and unsightly pounds is the goal here, in case you missed the obvious!

Getting some good plans in place for the kiddo is a mammoth task and I hope to accomplish more in the area of independence in the self help category. Wish me luck, guys!

To be more organized is another big challenge. I am not bad in this area, but the need to unclutter is the daunting challenge. The new rule should be to throw out two things if you buy one!

Well, that's it for now! Hello 2011...

Another end of the year...

I had promised myself I would write something before the year ended. Its now down to the last two days, and if I have to keep my promise to myself, I have to put something down today. There is no dearth of material. A time to introspect will be right at the present time. How did the year measure up?

I guess it was a mediocre year by some standards and really exceptional if you look at it through another angle. I had the opportunity to plan and execute a plan for the kiddo, which did not always go as I had hoped it would, but the experience taught me a lot, and continues to do so. I am amazed at how well some people can work with special needs kids and how some just cannot!

Regarding the teenager I am dealing with lately, he tries every ploy in the book to get away with doing meaningful stuff and expects that I go with the plan. Too bad I am the mom and have to put my foot down.
Just yesterday, to have a conversation, I asked him what he likes to do in his leisure time, he started listing all his favorite things, listening to the ipod, playing with the boom box, recording voices ( he is so obsessed with that), so I interrupted and asked if he should be reading books sometimes! Pat comes his reply... "Good idea"! I laughed so hard, and he did too. That confirms my theory that autistic kids do have a sense of humor!
Then came the speech therapist to work with him, and he said to her, "I feel ill and need to rest", so she glanced over at me. I coolly said I was taking away the boom box, the ipods and the rest of the paraphernalia so he could rest. He suddenly sat up straight and said he was feeling much better! The therapist could not stop laughing. So yes, I am now learning to be a mom to an autistic teenager.
I was trying to tell him the story of the boy who cried wolf. I realized that such stories are really a waste of time, unless one day it is suddenly going to dawn on him! I have done my bit, now the cosmos has to act in the strange way it always does, and make him see what the story means!

I continue to be amazed at the technological advances Steve Jobs and his men are making. The apple store is definitely a fabulous place to visit while strolling at the mall. May they continue with their successes and more and more people will be compelled to sit at one spot and get addicted to their gadgets. Seriously, their gadgets are really really cool! And seriously, more people need to move it and exercise!

Christmas has come and gone. The final week of the year is here. In retrospect, I realized how much one can miss a person and how the realization of the importance of that person in one's life hits after the person is gone. I often wonder if she ever knew how much she meant to me. This year was mostly about learning to cope without a very loved person being around.

A little break and a trip to the past!

We were on a short vacation last week. One that was needed but I did not realize it till we were actually flying to our destination. It was a vacation planned in a way where we would be out of the hustle bustle of cities and where we could go on small hikes and enjoy the countryside. We managed to do just that. Rental car at our service and stocking up on water and snacks, we would set out each morning, and enjoy the landscape of a new region, so different from what we got to see everyday. The mountains are so beautiful, and though I am a beach person, I do feel the second best thing are the mountains. On a two mile hike on the very first day, we saw this waterfall that had three different heights, they called it the little, the medium and the big falls. The quiet and serene atmosphere was just beautiful!

The fall season is here, and the whole region seemed to have these wonderful colors splashed all over the place. Little streams ran almost around every corner, and the place seems perfect for a movie setting. There are scenic spots all over and special parking areas are made so the roads do not get blocked. On one such stop, we parked our car, and the car beside us was the same color as ours. None of the cars were locked, because all of us were right there. Suddenly we heard laughter that did not seem to stop. An older lady was laughing  hard and she and her husband seemed really embarrassed. They had both gotten into our car to drive away until she noticed the jacket on the seat wasn't hers. The guy got out saying, "Soon I will be getting into other people's homes and pretending it was mine". They quickly got into their own car and drove away. It was hilarious!

This place is famous for bear sightings. Black bears call this area their home.Campsites everywhere had signs that said "Is your camp bear proof?" I wonder how one did that. We did not camp outdoors so I guess I will never find out!

The whole region had cabins that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. People who lived there who had started a sugar mill, built a church, and this was the early start of civilization here.

This little place used to store corn. There were homes too, like in the next picture.

 It all looks so lovely and quaint now. I can only imagine how it must have been, in harsh winters, and hot summers, with bears and other wildlife around. They probably had their share of headaches back then.
We have come a long way in the past couple of hundred years!

Just checking out ...

Google keeps inventing ways to keep up with the times, some changes are welcome as they are for the better, while some have us wishing for the old stuff . The new template design which has been around for a few weeks now has me excited, but I do miss the flexibility of some of the other design elements. Some of the fonts have been eliminated, but the color themes are a lot better. This is just a check on some of the settings.

Firsts in our lives- 1

We experience so many different things in a lifetime. There is always a first time for each experience. Some of these firsts become memorable and stay with a person forever.

One of the first stories I had heard in this regard was the one involving my sister. She was a baby, just a few months old, when a doctor paid a home visit to give her the DPT shot. It hurt and she remembered that first experience with the bearded doctor. The next month, he came again for the next shot. The moment she lay eyes on him, she started to bawl. He was so surprised that she had remembered his beard and associated an unpleasant experience with it.

My first roller coaster ride was an experience I will never forget. It was the Steel Eel, at the Sea World. I had insisted I wanted to go for it. And what an experience it was! It was the worst feeling one can have at the last minute when the car began the descent after slowly climbing up to a height of about 150 feet. The feeling of doom at the sheer hopelessness of having gotten into a situation that only time can get you out of, is not a pleasant one. The strong straps holding you in place will not let you go anywhere. Believe me, I tried to jump off when I saw impending doom ahead of me.

Let me narrate a pleasant experience in the midst of these unpleasant ones. There is a theme park nearby here, which is located near the sea, so the sea breeze is always there to add to the beautiful ambience. There is a ride there called the Aviator, which has seats at the end of a huge circle, that gets lifted up to a height of about 60 feet and goes round and round several times before the seats are lowered back to the ground. That was such an awesome experience. I had seen some people leave their footwear on the ground before the ride began. I followed suit. That was the good decision. To feel the breeze through the toes on bare feet and the hair was just divine. It was as close as I could get, to flying.

Recently, a friend wrote about the first drink he had and how it was memorable for him because it was offered to him in the presence of his parents. That reminded me of a time when I was about 17. It was Christmas time. We were visiting our neighbors who celebrated Christmas. We had had a good dinner, and my father had a bottle of chocolate mint liquor that he had just gotten from one of his trips abroad. It was decided to open that bottle and have it with dessert. Our neighbor opened his cabinet and got the dessert wine glasses out. One was poured for me too. My mother was not happy even with her own glass (she never liked alcohol), and absolutely not happy that one was poured for me. She was assured it was only dessert wine and not a problem at all. A toast was raised and everyone took a sip and praised the liquor. I thought my throat was on fire. I managed a couple of sips, and then all of us teenagers decided to go to the adjacent terrace to chat. On getting there, I slowly poured out the contents of my glass on to the parapet below. I was good at pouring things out of windows anyways. I used to pour out the glass of milk that I was forced to drink every morning which I hated. A neighbor told on me and I was given a long talk about how people did not get milk and how I should not abuse the things I got. I had stopped doing it, but the experience was with me. Nobody suspected anything and I got away with it. That was my first brush with wines. I am not fond of them to this day, except for the chocolate mint liquor kind. :)

End of the first Half of the Year!

It is already six months into the year. I had not made resolutions for this year. The year started on a kind of sombre note and I was not exactly in a mood for resolutions back then. I am not in that mood even today, not that the middle of the year is a popular time for making resolutions. What I just want me to do is make good decisions and spend my time wisely so that at the end of the day I do not end up feeling like I wasted my day doing things that were unnecessary. Believe me, I feel like that many a times.

We come across so many things in the span of a day, what someone said, what someone wrote, and there are a always a few things that stick with you for a while and make you think. I do not have a schedule that keeps me on my toes all the time where I am rushing from one point to another on any given day in my life. I have a fairly busy day, with a few deadlines, that I manage to keep, with time on hand for afterthoughts. For me, afterthoughts are very compelling. I might say something now, but at a later time, a better thought comes to me and I always prefer to have time where I can decide which is the better option.

I also have this habit of working like a horse when people are not looking and then relaxing when they are actually taking notice. The funny thing is even when tons of work is done, people have this annoying habit of making judgments on the basis of what they see. I might have moved the furniture around the whole room single handed and changed the set up for the better. But if I have done it like I usually do, when no one is looking, chances are that the person will think it happened in a snap, even if it took me three hours of sweating it out. When I have to have things ready for meetings, I usually have them going round in my head for quite a while, and then I sit down and put it down on paper in maybe 15 minutes. What people do not see is that the thoughts have been in my head when I am cooking, cleaning, even right before going to bed when my mind seems to be at its creative best. My better half has this ability to look really busy all the time, even if he is going from one room to the next to get something, he hurries to and fro and one feels like something very important is going on. Me, on the other hand, takes longer strides, which takes me the same amount of time to retrieve the thing from the exact same place, but it feels like I am not in a hurry. Okay, before anyone misunderstands, this is not a 'spiritual scratching post' (phrase courtesy- Charles Schulz) for me to complain about my spouse, it is just a place where I put down precious thoughts.

Continuing with my musings, it is just the way you do a certain thing. When I drive and know that my exit is coming up, I make the necessary lane changes well ahead of time so I do not have to rush at the last minute. Well, when I am the navigator, I am expected to stay cool even when the exit is just half a mile away and we still have two lanes to cross before we get there. I wonder if it is a guy thing, because I have heard this from some other friends as well.

What I have written draws a picture of me like I am some meticulous, very orderly person who does things nearly perfectly all the time. I am not like that. I goof up. It takes eons to do things between knowing I have do them and me actually doing them. The nice part is that I am pretty organized and hope to stay that way by making a few mental resolutions and keeping them as I trudge along through the latter part of the year.

Summer Break

The school year is done! Schools are out for summer. By the time the year draws to a close, on one hand, you feel like the year just sped past, and on the other hand, you are so ready for the break. A break from all the routine chores like waking up at early hours of the morning, packing lunches and snacks, getting the kiddo dressed, and fed, and making sure all this is done before the bus is at the door.

Then the driving around for classes begins in the evening, cooking dinner, keeping things ready for the next day, and back to the grind all over again. So the summer break is a nice break from most of these things, except the driving around for classes. That does not feel so bad when the rest of the day has been relatively easy. So, I am not complaining.

Every year, I have a whole list of things I plan to do during summer. I make schedules, chalk out all the stuff to do, and then the laziness starts to set in. I don't end up doing much of what I had in mind. Before I know it, August comes knocking and it is time to start getting the act together to head back to school. A lot of my plans have materialized and I am proud of those achievements, but the others that don't get done as meticulously as I planned them also stare back at me from my schedules. I wonder how this year is going to turn out. As usual, my plans are made, I am excited about the next couple of months.

Baseball

We are done with the baseball season this year. We had our last day party and it had to be moved to a school cafeteria because the final game was a washout. We had major storms pass through on two consecutive days, leaving behind a soggy mess in the fields. The party was good, the pizza, cupcakes and soda were devoured by the young team, and trophies were handed out. The team gifted the coaches autographed bats and balls and pictures were taken. End of season!

Half our team knows a little of what baseball is all about. They know that fielding is about going after the ball and getting a batter out. They know that pitching is an important part of the game and that a 'home run' is a big deal. The other half of the team just knows that you hit the ball with the bat, run to first base, then second, then third and then you romp home.

We have a pitcher for at least the past two years who is an incredible young man from a nearby High School. He has a sibling who has special needs. He comes out there for every game and changes his pitching according to the need of the player. We have a player who has very poor vision, but loves to play. The pitch to him is with loud verbal cues and ones that go close to his bat, another player is a hard hitter, to him the pitch is more like a regular pitch. He calls out to the batter by name and pitches, so the batter feels special and takes an interest in hitting the ball. I truly appreciate the spirit of young people like this who have their head on straight even in their teens.

The coaches do a wonderful job too. They are usually dads who have taken the job of coaching the team and make every effort to get each player to practice catching, throwing and batting well. We have been on the same team for four years now, and have seen the kids grow year after year and watch how far along they have come. It is just amazing to see how some dedicated individuals go out of their way to make these special kids have a good baseball season year after year. Their spirit is truly appreciated!

Half A Year!

Six months! That is half of the year! It is a pretty long time, but sometimes, you feel like you batted an eyelid and that period just flitted by. The last six months are kind of like that. Yes, I felt them pass by, yet it feels like it was all too quick. In no time, it will be a year, and just like that, we will be counting years. Life goes on!

I just keep getting this overpowering feeling every once in a while now, that what happened was forever. There are no second chances. I remember some arguments that I had, and wish I had not had them. I wish I had been more compassionate, more understanding and more available. Then I tell myself to even think about all the good times, when I guess I was all those things.

Today, I read a little poem on somebody's profile, and it touched me in an odd sort of way. It went like this-
                                
                                How far you go in life

                     depends on your being tender with the young, 

                           compassionate with the aged, 

                            sympathetic with the striving, 

                      and tolerant of the weak and strong. 

    Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

                           - George Washington Carver

I wonder if I did what I was supposed to do when the need was there. I know it is no use crying over spilt milk. I just feel that one cannot let the past go by without it teaching you anything. Thriving to be a better person is a quest for me. There was once a poem about a man in the mirror that had stirred up something like this in me. When I was in school, my dad would get hundreds of cards for Diwali, Christmas and New year. My hobby was to collect them, not all of them, but the nice ones. I had them in categories, the lovely lamp ones, the landscapes, the winter feel, and so on. This card was a very simple one and had this poem inside. It made such an impact on me that I cut it out and put it in my diary. That little thing stayed with me all these years. That poem is here, posted on the internet in a lot of places giving credit to an anonymous poet, but a few places list the poet as Dale Wimbrow who wrote it in 1934.

The man in the glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass.
The fellow whose verdict counts most in you life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum
And think you’re a wonderful guy.
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

He’s the fellow to please-never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear to the end.
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

This post has gotten very serious, but am in that kind of a mood today. I am not someone who has sayings and thoughts written all over my desk and diaries, but a tiny handful of them mean a lot to me. Finally, none of this means anything if your conscience says things are fine.

This is to the future, where I hopefully will make good choices, and will be able to face the man in the glass.

Good people!

It was the 15th of August a few years ago. My son was about 8 years old. His favorite toy was the two wheeled scooter with which you can whiz past people in no time. It was a hot afternoon, and people were out in their front yards washing cars, mowing lawns, and carrying out weekend tasks. Children were playing. I had just washed my hair. Junior wanted to ride his scooter outside. I asked dad to keep an eye, dad said he needed a nap after mowing the lawn. So I mumbled under my breath and walked out on the driveway to look for kiddo who was probably at the end of the street taking a turn.

Nope, I did not see him. I went further down into the street, and yet no sign of him. I ran to the end of the street and asked my friend there if he had seen the little guy. He said yes, he was here riding the scooter! A chill ran down my spine. Where was he? I ran down to the cul-de-sac, from where a hike and bike trail goes around the whole subdivision and looked around, no sign of him at all. I ran back home, and told my husband. He was recovering from a knee surgery, and was not the best runner at that point of time. I ran the other way down the main road, into the adjacent street........... but he was nowhere to be seen! Tears were streaming down my face now, and I decided to put on something on my feet, it was not a good idea running all over bare foot.

Meanwhile, the people in my street realized what had happened. My husband, and four other neighbors set out on bikes to scour the bike trails. There was a brother and sister pair who lived on our street, and they both set out on their bikes, walkie talkie in hand, with the other handset with their mom. Everyone was really worried because everyone knew my son was almost non verbal, and were not sure if he knew how to go around the place.

That was one thing I was not worried about, because, in spite of very limited language, he is always very good with directions. Autistic people are like that. They have some strong features. I ran into other streets where other people asked me what he was wearing and started looking. Soon there were a few cars driving slowly all over the place. Twenty minutes passed, I was beside myself with worry. I picked up the phone and called 911. The cop was at the door in no time. He asked me the details and drove away.

I was running helter-skelter again trying to look for my baby. Then one person asked me if he could swim. My heart sank. There were lakes on the trails, but he always kept away from the banks.  The worst thoughts go through your mind at such times! What if someone ran him over? What if someone just picked him up and drove away?
Just then, the mom with the walkie talkie ran up to me and said, "my kids called, they found him at .........."! I looked at her in disbelief and ran to get the car keys, I was so relieved that I could not figure out where the cross street was! I got there in two minutes and hugged him, and the two kids who found him, they were both just a couple of years older than my son. I saw the cop drive by, I told him I had found my boy. I also saw several cars take a u-turn and head back home.

So many people I did not even know were looking for my son. I thanked as many of them as I could. They all said the same thing, 'would you have not looked if my child was missing?' It was a good lesson that day, about how good people exist everywhere, and how they are out helping you even you have not asked them to. I will never forget that Indian Independence day party we had that night, where people asked me if I had a fight and had cried a lot. My story was one big conversation piece that evening!