Awareness

Place:  Fenway Park

Event:  Singing of the national anthem prior to a baseball game.

Singer:  An autistic man who stumbles then stutters over the words on Disability Awareness Day.

What happens:  see for yourself:


(copy and paste this into your browser)

http://www.godvine.com/Autistic-Man-Singing-National-Anthem-Gets-Some-Help-407.html

Should I be worried yet?

I recently had a medical checkup, during which my primary care physician asked about my short term memory.  The doctor was the first to suspect Alzheimer’s disease in my husband and he was with us for the entire journey.    He knows well how gun shy I am about that disease.

“Well, I think it’s okay,” I answered.  “Though sometimes I can’t find the word I want.”  Short answer, maybe not entirely true given what I left out.

A few years ago I read about a test to determine the difference in memory failure between AD and non-AD short term memory.  

Simply put:  You lose your keys and then find them.

1) If you remember putting them there, you’re okay, probably just not paying attention.

2) If you don’t recall how they got there, mmmmm….   Not okay. 

I’m not sure if the neurologists and neurophychs sign off on that test, but you can see some validity in it if you’ve ever known anyone with AD.

So, this is a picture of me after I’d just located my reading glasses--the ones I'd spent a half hour  searching EVERYWHERE for them.

Should I be worried?

Tuesday I drove the seven miles into Moose Pass to the post office.  As I pulled into the parking lot, I remembered that I didn’t have my box key with me.  I have two keys to that box and I leave one in each vehicle, except this time the key was in the pocket of whatever jacket I’d last worn to the post office.

Now, forgetting the key usually isn’t a problem because Marcia, the postmaster, will retrieve your mail for you, as long as this doesn’t become a habit and/or nuisance.  I didn’t, however, get my mail hand-delivered to me that day because I was there in the middle of the postmaster’s lunch hour and the window was closed.

So, I went back the next day.  Again, I still hadn’t found the key.   Again I arrived right after the lunch hour started.

 Should I be worried?

I spent last weekend working on a project that I should have been doing instead of playing all summer.  This is the front of my carport:

 I needed to sand what's left of the finish off the log siding and refinish it.  So, I strung a couple extension cords from the garage to the carport:

See the nice orange cord?   I used a 4-1/2 inch grinder with a sanding disc to remove the finish, and a palm sander to finish the corners.  I decided to sand the two front posts also.  Not until I was on the very last part of the second post, after I had carefully sanded around that brown thing, did I realize that was the electric receptacle we'd recently installed in case I ever needed electric in the carport.

And for my final exhibit, this is where I found the camera I'd been looking for for five minutes yesterday.

Yes.  It was in my left hand.

To quote Alfred E. Neuman, "What?  Me worry?"

Those Moose Pass Kids

Rainbow today at one end of Moose Pass.

I was sitting in an auto repair shop in Seward this morning, playing a word game on my Kindle.  In Bay 3, Kevin the mechanic was whispering sweet nothings to my truck. 

My truck loves Kevin.  My truck especially loves the words Kevin says to it, unlike the words I say to it.  My truck responds favorably to Kevin’s words.  This time, the little Dodge Durango shop queen had an idiot light glowing constantly.

Anyway, a fellow came into the office where I was trying to make a seven letter word out of “u, e, d, l, s, e, o” and 33 other words of less than seven letters.  He started talking with Sue, who runs the shop.   I wasn’t eavesdropping, really.  I couldn’t help but hear most of what they said because they were talking over me.

As most conversations do these days, the talk turned to weather and the comparative weather in various towns on the Kenai Peninsula.  They both agreed it rained more in Seward than Moose Pass or Homer.  Well, we don’t call it “Soggy Seward” for nothing.

They compared temperatures, and the man said his bus broke down once a few miles from where I live.  “It was 20 above in Seward and five below in Moose Pass.”  Works that way.  Moose Pass is in the mountains and at a higher elevation; Seward gets the maritime influence—warmer and wetter.

Then he remarked that he liked Moose Pass and said the Moose Pass kids were the nicest bunch that have ever been on his school bus.  He said he’s driven school buses many places, and he’s never had any problems with the kids from Moose Pass.

I smiled.  I thought about the kids around here I know.  I frequently hear about rewards they receive for their accomplishments.  I follow some of their comments on Facebook, how they’re out running or skiing or climbing mountains after school rather than slouched on a couch watching TV or gaming.

I thought about their parents—hard-working, dedicated, salt of the earth people, the kind you always see volunteering for local activities.

All the high school students have to go to Seward for school.  For some it’s 36 miles one way.  A lot of middle school kids go too.  For students kindergarten through 8^th grade, Moose Pass has a two-room school.

That’s a long bus ride for kids.  Nonetheless, what I was hearing was reaffirming that Moose Pass must be a fine place for raising kids.

Then the bus driver, after recounting how he had to write up kids in other towns, said, “I’ve never had to write up a kid from Moose Pass.  They get on the bus, say ‘Good morning,’ and go to sleep.”

Yep.  Even for teenagers, it's hard to get into trouble when you're sound asleep.

And another rainbow near the other end of Moose Pass.

Things you learn reading the letters to the editor...

Denise Corcoran of Anchorage had a few words for the Anchorage Daily News, so she sent them to the paper.  The ADN printed her letter in the Letters to the Editor column Saturday.

Under the letter's headline, "A newspaper filled with words might use new ones now and then,"   she goosed the paper for using the word "flock" when referring to some Canada geese, noting the correct collective noun is "gaggle."

Well, "flock"  also is a recognized term for geese, but "gaggle" is ever so much more fun.

She continued, "A group of geese in flight is called a 'skein."

And when they're flying in a "V" formation, it's called a "wedge,"  she wrote.

Love those collective nouns--a murder of crows, unkindness of ravens, tidings of magpies.   Sometimes you wonder about their origin and suspect there's a personal element involved.

I made up one of my own after watching baby mountain goats bouncing and bounding around the steep rocky mountains:  Gambol.  A gambol of goats.

"Tidings" of magpies?  How about "mischief" of magpies or "trouble" of magpies?  Or, "chatter" or squirrels?  A "screech" of sulpher-crested cockatoos?  If you've ever been around one, you'll understand that one.


Denise asked the newspaper to throw us some new words once in a while.

The day after letter appeared, she might have got her wish.  Not a new word, but surely a word seldom used in this application:   "The day began in crystalline sunlight and endlessly blue skies but soon whipsawed into a decade of war, economic meltdown and deep political division."*

The italics and underlining are mine, intended to point out the word "whipsawed."  That's a fine use of the word in that particular sentence.

And once again, I am reminded of the astonishing and imaginative use of words in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.





*The quote was written by David Goldstein of McClatchy Newspapers.

Sept. 11, 2001

NEVER FORGET

 (click, then click again to enlarge the photos below)

Enlarge this photo and then look to the left of the stars.

It isn't exactly like they're watching out for us--I know they're "doing" lunch, but it's a comfort to know they are there.

A Saturday Song for the Sandhill Cranes

So long, farewell,

Auf Wiedersehen, 

adieu,

adieu, adieu,

To you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you......

Wait a minute.  "You" can be plural, too.

Bye, guys. See you next year.

Celebration of Life

Their time is nigh, 

their span complete,

their scattered seeds will hibernate.

They do not grieve,

nor mourn their fate,

but celebrate a life well-lived.