That's Better

After a few worrying moments when the hard drive appeared to be dead, the blue LEDs on the front lit up in a reassuring glow.  iTunes and my iPhone have been duly updated.  I'm digging the customizable home pages -- I already moved the "stocks" app and the calculator to a secondary page, and added a few web clips (a fancy way of saying bookmarks) to a few of my favorite sites.

Now to figure out a way to back it up in case it goes kaput again (that one drive holds six years' worth of photos -- around 10,000 at this point -- plus my entire iTunes library, which contains the not-results of the not-thousands-of-hours' worth of rendering my computer did not do while not ripping my DVDs).

On the school front, Bulldozer is still sick and was over it today.  Nothing bad -- a little grouchy, and he did pull M's hair (but she's been teasing him -- grabbing his stuff and giggling as he vocalizes his displeasure -- so it's been coming) and wouldn't go to PE.  Superhero wasn't too keen on that, but the worst thing he did was throw my glasses (which I stepped on -- d'oh! (they're okay now)) and push at his desk...though not for trying, I will say.

Meanwhile, M's label maker is broken.  I have tried all the troubleshooting things that Dymo suggests, so I mentioned today that I'd take it home and go at it with some rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip.

"I think we have some in the cupboard," Aide J said.

"Hmm...I'll look, but I only remember cotton balls," I replied.

Bulldozer came, interrupting my quest, and then I went back and foraged.  I found some old cotton cleansing pads from a student I had several years ago and an old toothbrush, but no Q-tips.

"I think we have some Q-tips in there," Aide J said, grumpily, giving me a look.

Flummoxed, I said, "I really only think we have cotton balls."

I was then the victim of dirty looks for quite some time, especially once I took advantage of Bulldozer working independently (hallelujah!) to add some Swiss Family Robinson vocabulary to his Mighty Mo, having learned my lesson when I asked Former Speech Aide A to add stuff for Charlie.

And then I realized...it's like the day I didn't want to get run over by a car.

Y'see, with a personality like that, you aren't allowed to know more or better unless they are actively sucking up to you.

When I was about five, I was walking with my grandma to the park near my house.  We were at a fairly large intersection.  We were on the southeast corner of the intersection.  On the northeast corner was a Catholic church and school; on the other corners were houses.

We had to cross from the southeast corner to the southwest corner.  My grandmother, for some inexplicable reason, was watching the light on the northeast corner by the school.  When that turned green, she proceeded to start crossing AGAINST A RED LIGHT AND TRAFFIC to the southwest corner.

I was five, but I knew the rules.  I protested.  I was ignored.  I was essentially dragged across the street.  Halfway through the intersection, with several cars honking at us, she realized what she did and froze, then continued to cross.

(Five is too young to be contemplating your doom by being squished by a car, by the way.)

Anyway, when we got home, my grandmother proceeded to tell the story to my dad.

I, foolishly, was expecting at least sympathy, if not outright praise for knowing that you didn't cross when the light was red.

(I was five, remember.)

I was, instead, sent to my room for being disrespectful, because I'd protested about crossing the street.  Because I hadn't wanted to be roadkill.

Had my grandmother been intending to show off how smart I was -- or, more to the point, what a great grandmother she was for teaching such good life skills to her granddaughter -- she would have told the story with pride.  Instead, because she wanted to be the Expert, I ended up in trouble.

Anyhow, you'd think I'd be able to escape the Martyr Complex personality type someday.  They seem to come by an awful lot though.

Ouch.

Here's a terrifying thought:  Maybe I attract them.

Eesh.

I Am a Nerd

(Pretend you're surprised.)

So, Apple announced some stuff today.

When I turned on my computer at school today to do attendance, I opened up macrumors.com and just let it be.  (They auto-refresh during important events.)  When I went back to it at snack time (after my whole class lined up to talk to Patrick on the phone...more on that later), several new things existed in Apple Land.

1.  The Macbook Air.  An odd name for a really, jaw-droppingly pretty computer.  If you're the kind of nerd that finds computers pretty, that is.  The nerd in me is channeling my inner Veruca Salt and demanding that I Win The Lottery Now and buy one...but the adult in me is saying, "No, your PowerBook is still chugging away; it's your desktop that will soon die, and you should be saving your money for that."

So, someday...though the fact that my seven-year-old iBook is also still chugging away as Patrick's portable DVD player makes me a little dismal about how long this one'll last. ;-)  Five hours of battery life is nifty, but I wonder what it would be under real conditions, like watching a movie (that you did not rip and encode yourself, of course...ahem).  Still, there's something about the idea of a computer that weighs three pounds and is narrower than a quarter that's just...cool.

2.  iTunes movie rentals.  Meh.  I'm a re-watcher (and a re-reader) so I prefer to own my media.  But it's something a lot of people were clamoring for, so hopefully they're happy.

3.  iPod touch update.  Meh.  I don't own one, but it seems to be things that most people expected in the touch in the first place -- they wanted an iPhone without the phone, and that's exactly what the touch is now.  Ironically enough, some posters on macrumors are now complaining that the touch is a phone without a phone.  (Every time there's a big Apple event, I tell myself I won't read the subsequent comments, which are a ridiculous mess of entitlement and whining.)

4.  iPhone update.  Now, that is cool.  Being an organizational freak (on the computer; in real life, I am hopelessly disorganized), I am overjoyed at the multiple home screens.  (I am a nerd, remember?)  I like the "locate me" feature in Google Maps (which, of course, happened shortly after I bought a GPS, but it's nice to have the backup).  I am really excited about being able to view lyrics (nerd, remember?) and navigate movies by chapters (nerd?) as well.

Unfortunately, the external hard drive that held my extensive iTunes library is the one whose power supply died, so I can't install the update until the new power supply comes (and hopefully works).  Boo.  :-(

5.  AppleTV update.  Oooh, I want one of those.  I have ever since it came out.  I have a ton of stuff in my iTunes library (I'm slowly -- oh, so slowly -- um...not-ripping all my DVDs so they can be safely stored away)...so much so that it doesn't all fit even on my shiny new iPod Classic.  So, while I can watch stuff on my TV that's on my iPod, I can't watch things that haven't been synced over -- and, in situations like this, where I can't access my external hard drive (and, thus my iTunes library) syncing is impossible.

The price came down; you can buy media directly on the device and it'll sync back to your iTunes library (rather like buying something from the iTunes wifi store on your iPhone) -- so in situations where I can't even open iTunes, I could still buy...whatever I wanted to buy.

Problem is, I don't have a TV it'll talk to -- my TV has only the old composite (I think that's the term for the yellow, white, and red things) and coax inputs.  I could buy an Apple TV, buy a Slingbox, plug the Apple TV into that, and the Slingbox into my TV...but that's a lot of expense.

(Now, if Sling comes out with an iPhone client, I might just do that, but at the moment, that's prohibitively expensive.)

And, it'll pull content from...ta-da...the piece de resistance (at least for me).

6.  Time Capsule.  Essentially, network attached storage plus a wireless router all in one.  Also, one terabyte is two hundred dollars less than what I paid for my current network attached storage device (also a terabyte, though an earlier generation of what's on the web page now).

(Ironically, I remember the Christmas that we bought for my dad a -- gasp! -- one gigabyte hard drive.  It was Something then, I tell ya.)

I want one of these so bad, I can touch it right now.

(I am lusting over a networked storage drive.  Kill me now...I am Steve Urkel.)

Anyway.

One of the main reasons I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet is the hassle of Time Machine.  The automated backup concept is awesome, particularly since I have something like fifty in-progress stories...some of which date back to the early 1990s.  (No, I'll probably never finish them, but still.)

The thing is, Time Machine won't work over wireless...the only hard drive I have big enough to tolerate the amount of space the backups would eat up is my terabyte of networked storage.

Until now.

Plus, and this is a huge plus for the Apple TV I don't have but desperately want: it'll pull content from Time Capsule.  So you can pay for the smallest amount of storage because the rest of your stuff is still available on the Time Capsule drive.

It's awesome.

Okay, now that I got my nerdiness taken care of, Patrick decided to walk to Subway for breakfast this morning.  I called him at our snack time, and then let Superhero, who has been having very good days, talk to him.  The next thing I knew, I had every kid in the class except Elastigirl lined up at my desk for their turn to talk to him.  It was very cute.

Superhero did have a minor breakdown today, but he'd been being teased during recess by PH (who then proceeded to squeal for fifteen minutes after recess for the express purpose of getting M to copy him), and he got over it.

Also?  Bulldozer has been put on different medicine.  His parents didn't tell me this, but they did tell our psychologist.

Aide J was out today, and we had a very, very good sub.  All around, a good day.

Volume Discounts

I always take online reviews, particularly of mundane things like external hard drives, with a grain of salt.  I mean, who's really going to write a glowing review of their wonderful new external hard drive?  But if you buy one and it explodes two days later, you're likely to write a review.

However.

All those reviews of Western Digital hard drive power supply issues?

Add mine to my list.

Starburst, we hardly knew ye.

(Also, I think the fact that the replacement costs only $10.00 suggests a certain volume of sales -- since it's a transformer, cord, and plug.  A power supply for an Apple laptop (granted, Apple tends to charge a premium for stuff like that) is around $90.)

In other news, Bulldozer and Superhero both had very good days.  M suffered, as she usually does, from the usual Monday issues -- plus, and it pains me that I've only just put two and two together, her bus is very loud, so she's often coming to school wound up.

Meanwhile, having Aide J out last Thursday and Friday allowed Aides S and T and I to rebuild some team camaraderie without the crazy.  She was...perturbed, shall we say, to find us all happily getting along today.  At least, I think that was it...her body language was pretty clear -- she turned so her back was to even Aide S.

I lived with my grandma's crazy for over twenty years...why, oh why, do I attract more?  Isn't one in anyone's life enough?

Finally, in the miraculous find category, Cat found her long-lost digital camera.  Maybe there's hope for my 5th gen iPod yet.

Priorities

So, I'm watching Mystery Diagnosis (hey, it's Sunday, and nothing else is on), and they're talking about this lady -- a mom -- who has a bleeding hemangioma on her spine for which she has to have surgery.

Being on her spine, it's a risky surgery -- there's a chance she will be paralyzed, and there's a chance that she will die.

(Being a feel-good type of "reality" show, neither happens, of course.)

What absolutely boggled me was her response to this.

Slightly paraphrased here, what she said was, "I wasn't so much worried about dying; I was scared that I might be paralyzed."

Bwuah?

I realize that because I have daily interaction with folks with a variety of disabilities, I have a slightly different point of view about paralysis and the dreaded Wheelchair.  

A wheelchair gets you from point A to point B.  You are not confined to a wheelchair -- if you have mobility issues, a wheelchair is liberating...it frees you from being stuck at home, in bed, on your couch, or wherever.

Or, in the case of a young man I once knew, being carried from room to room at school or riding from room to room in an old stroller.

In first grade.

(He adored his wheelchair, especially the sparkly front wheels.)

Now, obviously, paralysis comes with a variety of complications, depending on where the injury to the spinal cord is.

But all that aside -- this lady is a mom.  She has kids.  And she was less freaked about dying and leaving them alone than she was about possibly not being able to walk?

To channel my 80's Valley Girl child...gag me with a spoon.

Coming soon:  A rant about "security" at the happiest place on Earth.  

The short version: it's politically expedient bit of pointlessness that serves to both inconvenience and reassure mindless drones.

Me?  Bitter much?  Nah.

Book Review: Burning Dreams

Once upon a time, I read every Star Trek book published.

Then a funny thing happened.  The Bigwigs declared that, essentially, nothing could change from the beginning of the book to the end, so as to stay In Canon.

(Except, of course, that the books were never supposed to be canon, which is why Spock could have a kid, among other things.)

Well, when nothing important is allowed to happen, books become...boring.

But I have fond memories of those early books: if history writers could present history as vividly as Diane Duane did in Spock's World and The Romulan Way, more kids would love the subject.  Margaret Wander Bonanno's Dwellers in the Crucible is one of my favorite books -- note, not "Star Trek books" but one of my favorite books -- ever (though I gather it's controversial).  The Wounded Sky (because any book that invents something called "creative physics" is awesome), The Three-Minute Universe (because appearances can be deceiving), Uhura's Song (because "Eyebrow on stun, Mr. Spock!" still sends me into fits of hysterics).

Then, around the same time as the Edict From On High said that nothing important could happen in the novels, Margaret Wander Bonanno wrote a sequel to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one with the whales), but (according to her, to be fair) it was 95% re-written.   She and Pocket Books / Paramount / Star Trek parted ways.

Then, a while back, she announced that she'd written Catalyst of Sorrows, for the series of "Lost Era" books that covered the time after the end of the Star Trek movies.  I bought it, but for some reason never read it.  (I probably will find it and read it now.)

And after that, she wrote Burning Dreams, which is essentially The Christopher Pike book.

Christopher Pike was the captain in the unaired pilot of Star Trek called "The Cage;" he reappeared in a two-part episode called "The Menagerie," which used some of the unaired footage during a court martial.  Without going too much into the story (if you're reading this review, I assume you at least know who Chris Pike was), after giving up command of the Enterprise, Pike is grievously wounded -- paralyzed and able to communicate only by indicating "yes" or "no" -- but is eventually taken back to Talos IV, where he can live a life of illusion.

What always fascinated me about Pike was the depth the character was given in just the few minutes we saw him.  He's passionate, dedicated -- and tortured by the memories of the people who died under his command.  When I came across filk in the late 1990s, and found "The Price of Command," it immediately and irrevocably became my Christopher Pike song.  If I thought I could find enough footage, I'd do a vid with it.

In any event, Burning Dreams is the story of Chris Pike's life -- and the story of what he does with the life of illusion he's been given when he returns to Talos IV.

It's very different in both tone and style -- with the exception of flashback and present being heavily intertwined -- than Dwellers in the Crucible, but that befits Pike, I think.  Dwellers is about an archaeologist and a linguist -- not to mention a human and a Vulcan -- so the narration matches the characters.  Pike is many things, but he's not flowery.

The back story that Burning Dreams develops for Pike makes sense, though it seems to me to be a little melodramatic -- especially his very early years with his mother and stepfather.  The story of his horse Tango, though, was heartbreaking.

The story of his initial acclimation to Talos IV -- wondering where illusion ended and reality began, especially with Vina, rang true.  Despite his injuries, I can't imagine Pike -- especially the one developed in Burning Dreams -- just giving himself over entirely to fantasy easily.  That he's aware enough to wonder whether he's really with Vina or if he's with an illusion of Vina rings very true to character.

Pike's injuries themselves take on an even more horrific context than they did originally, given his past.  Pike is a tragic figure, who spends most of his life beating himself up for not being good enough, strong enough, to prevent the death of someone he cared about.  It makes his reaction to his crewmens' deaths that much more poignant.  But, it makes you wonder: how did someone with that predisposition to take everything so personally make it through the psychological testing you'd assume a Starfleet captain would be subject to?

The end -- the part of the story set in the "present" -- of course carries its own flashback, as it explains Spock's overwhelming loyalty to Pike (while still qualifying it with the proviso that it's Kirk who held the "top spot," so to speak, in the Spock-Loyalty-Hierarchy).  That part seemed...a bit off.  From Pike's perspective, the events were interesting and illuminating -- but why they translated into Loyalty Forever on Spock's part was...confusing.

Interesting to me was the lack of cameos; at least one character from Dwellers (generally Cleante, but with mention of T'Shael) appears, to my recollection, in all of Bonanno's early books; I'd have to read Catalyst of Sorrows to see if she appears there.  I wonder if they were expressly forbidden or if Bonanno has simply moved on from the characters?

I was surprisingly taken in by Burning Dreams.  I had some quibbles -- being the nascent disability rights activist that I am -- with the language used to describe Pike after his injury, but by and large I was able to engage my suspension of disbelief and just go with the story.

To me, Pike remains a sadly tragic character, but Bonanno was able to give him a worthy ending.

It's not Dwellers or Spock's World or The Romulan Way -- or even Chain of Attack or The IDIC Epidemic -- but it's been a very long time since I was sucked into a Trek book the way I was with Burning Dreams.

I'm Still Here

To recap all the drama that occurred this week would be ridiculous, so I'll concentrate on the positives.

1.  It's 6:30 and I'm not falling asleep.  (The time zone change killed me dead...and that's unusual for me.)

2.  It's 6:30 and I'm not so tired my eyes hurt.  (See #1.)

3.  It's 6:30 and I might actually be awake at 8:30 tonight.  (Even on school nights, I'm rarely asleep before midnight.  You can see where this week has been unusual.)

4.  It's Friday.

5.  Superhero made it through the week without a major outburst.  It's too early to jump to conclusions, but it's possible that he's working through whatever has been bothering him lately, or learning to regulate himself.  Either way, I'll take it.

5a.  This is correlated with the one time he did hit Bulldozer...but in a massive display of "duh" one of my aides sent him and Bulldozer into the bathroom together.

6.  Bulldozer made it through the week without a major meltdown.  He hit Aide J a couple of times on...Tuesday, I think...but he's discovered being hit is her Thing -- and as any of you who have been near kids in the terrible twos knows, if you show which button to push, a child will push it.  Repeatedly and relentlessly.

...actually, that's probably true of most teenagers, too.

7.  Aide S worked VERY well this week with just about everybody, even taking the whole class for a while while I dealt with Superhero's one medium outburst.  (See 5a.)

8.  Principal SDF called Aide J a "lunatic."

9.  Elastigirl had an AWESOME morning.  Aide J was out Thursday and Friday, so this morning, I was attempting to give a spelling test.  Aide S was busy with Bulldozer and M, and Aide T was not there yet.  The kids had their anti-cheating-devices up, and I couldn't find Elastigirl's.

So Elastigirl -- the girl who is supposed to be oblivious to everything around her -- looked around, saw that everyone was working, handed me one of the pictures from her spelling test, and SET UP ONE OF HER FILE FOLDER GAMES AS AN ANTI-CHEATING-DEVICE.  On her own.  Because the others were doing it.  I was so excited, I hardly knew what to do.

10.  Aide S made the kids in her group today do their graphing the hard -- right -- way.  :-)

11.  Aide S also dealt with Superhero's increasing agitation in exactly the right manner, and simmered him down.  Yay!

In summary, I discovered something yesterday -- Aide T, Aide S, and I make a good team.  The kids pull together and work hard when not affected by the rampaging drama stress that is Aide J.  Thursday was actually rather refreshing.

Meanwhile, Speech Person DFT spent most of Monday nitpicking at me, but Program Specialist SBS shot her down at every turn.  Yay.

Hopefully, as I manage to be awake for more than an hour or two after dinner each day, I'll be able to post more.

Oh!

I forgot awesome thing number 12.

Bulldozer has a communication device called a Mighty Mo.  His Mighty Mo is programmed with a ridiculous amount of extraneous, superfluous, useless-to-him vocabulary that is drilled ad nauseum by Speech Person DFT, despite my suggesting that maybe he'd use it more if it actually contained things he'd want to say.  Also, unlike other models in the same line, it does not allow Bulldozer to type out his own messages -- he CAN read and spell -- and makes him dependent on the vocabulary that's in there.

So getting him to use it in class is sometimes a challenge -- particularly since my requests that vocabulary relevant to what we're doing in class (e.g. characters from Charlie) be added.

But this week, whenever we did News-2-You, I asked him a question and he answered it with his Mighty Mo.  One day, I asked him, "Is the hockey player we're reading about a girl?"

And Bulldozer, instead of saying or signing "no," went right to his Mighty Mo and constructed the following three-word phrase:  "Not girl.  Boy."

All on his own.  It was absolutely AWESOME.

Aaaah, Baggage Claim

It Was Open!

Spaceship Earth -- a.k.a. The Big Ball -- has been undergoing an
extensive refurbishment since before our trip in August. Just before
Christmas, they began to have soft openings -- trial runs, if you
will, before it officially reopens in February.

Well, it was running today! Even better, Patrick adores it...we got
off and right back on, and be asked to ride again later but didn't
want to walk all the way back.

I'll post a real review layer, when I can link to info about the
changes, but I liked it a lot, especially the interactive ending.

Also accomplished today: Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, MGM
Backlot Tour (got a pucutr of the Dinosaurs fridge and Tim's lawn
mower), a fun bus misadventure, and Figment.

I overheard a LOT of people talking about flights tomorrow, so
hopefully the crowds will go down as the temperature goes up.

The View from Our Room

Unexpected Souvenirs

We knew it would be cold. We knew it would be VERY cold. We each had
three layers on.

And yet, we each got gloves and a hat, and actively looked for both
indoor attractions and things with long lines, as long as they were
inside.

Brrrrr.

We Made It

After much deliberation, Patrick decided to start off at MG--excuse
me...at Disney's Hollywood Studios...where we promptly ended up at
Guest Services because they couldn't read Patrick's card but all is
well now.

(Down season this ain't...at least not yet.)

On Our Way

This is not our plane, but Patrick has been fascinated watching them
prepare it for a flight...it's helped calm his nerves some.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part Two

The Good:  My hair is back in the "style with your fingers" phase.  The top is finally almost the right length, though of course it doesn't lay quite the way it did at Fantastic Sam's.  I still had to endure the stylist asking me fifteen times if I really wanted my hair that short...I don't know how else to say, "If it were longer, it'd be pulled back into a severe ponytail.  No matter how short you cut it, it'll actually look like more hair than it used to be."  Sigh.

The Bad:  Haircuts are among my least favorite things in the universe.  Imagine being hypersensitive to touch, disliking touch from behind (especially if you don't know it's coming), being hypersensitive about your personal space, and disliking immensely hair touching your ears.

Also?  Flipping onto New Year's Rockin' Eve in the middle of "Before He Cheats," and having the chorus -- and the chorus only -- stuck in my head for the following...well...it's still there....

The Ugly:  Watching someone get their eyebrows plucked with string.  Yuck!  (I have the SpooWriter's-Surname Family Eyebrows, though not as bad as Patrick...I don't quite have the unibrow he does, but my eyebrows are definitely thick...but nothing would convince me to do that.)

Patrick and I are off to the airport in two hours for our Christmas trip...we won't have Internet access, but I may post from my iPhone.

Why You Should Sit in the Back

In college, a few friends and I went to see some of the Whose Line is it Anyway people in a live show.  We sat in the nosebleed seats.  I remember thinking, at the time, that it was probably for the best...we were a whole level above any of the poor unfortunate people who might be picked from the audience to participate.

My TiVo grabbed an episode of Whose Line on Christmas Eve.  Imagine my surprise when Drew sauntered into the audience and grabbed my aunt's hand, thus proving my theory that you should sit far, far away.

For the record, the game was "Sound Effects."

Apologies for the lousy quality of the screencaps; my TiVo records suggestions at the lowest possible quality.

Notice also the fiendish glee in my uncle's eyes.

You can just imagine what my aunt is thinking here.  (Also, again with the fiendish glee.)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:  BofA finally credited my account with the missing $1200.  The affidavit is duly signed and faxed back, though there wasn't a box to check that exactly fit the circumstances, so I wrote a little note saying that though my wallet was out of my possession for half an hour, it is not physically possible to get from Santa Clarita to Fresno and back in half an hour.  (To say nothing of finding and paying for $1200 of building supplies.)  Hopefully that's the end of it, though who really knows.

The Bad:  The stomach flu that was rampaging through school before Christmas break?  I finally succumbed, while spending my Christmas money from Grandpa on some very nice pants at the Catherine's outlet in Vegas.  (And, let me tell you, a five hour drive with the stomach flu is fun.)

The Ugly:  The shirt that looked really pretty on the rack at Catherine's, but made me look like a walking Pepto Bismol bottle.  (There was a blue one too, but it looked like a beach coverup.)  Fortunately, I was trying clothes on as I'd never bought jeans from Catherine's, and it's better to be safe than sorry, given that I wear a different size at just about every place I buy pants.

The Extra:  Our cable was out for most of yesterday, except for Headline News on the TV in the living room, and the Weather Channel (and, sort of, Sci-Fi) on mine.  Thus, any Internet surfing I did was on my iPhone.  Thus my not replying to anyone's email.

A Tale of Two Delis

My family has always been a Brent's family.

For any out of state readers, Brent's is a family-run deli in a nondescript strip mall in Southern California.  It's surrounded by a bar on one side -- they used to do their cooking, and would pass orders through a hole in their wall you could see from the counter -- and a carpet store on the other.  The parking lot is perpetually full.

Brent's has been a staple in my family for many years.  It was my first outing as a child, as it was Patrick's.  My dad put the alarm in the deli, the owners' house, and their kids' houses as they got married.  He used to trade alarm service for food.  In fact, I remember going with him on a service call during the summer; it was 2:00 on a weekday, and still full.

I remember when Brent's was a tiny deli; the restaurant itself was two rows wide and stopped at the end of the counter.  Behind that was storage and restrooms.  It's expanded twice since then -- once to turn the storage and restrooms into more seating (a relatively modest expansion) and then when they bought the store next to them (a bakery, I think) and doubled the size of the restaurant.

If anything, the lines got longer.

We stopped going for a while after my dad died, and then again when one of the waitresses teased Patrick beyond his limit to tolerate it.  (Not "teased" as in "haw-haw," teased as in, "hey, maybe I'll take one of these action figures home!" -- she thought she was being friendly, but Patrick hated it.)

Once the new location opened in Westlake Village, we've been going there, generally on trips to the Costco in Ventura, which is the farthest south you can get Splash Cafe clam chowder.

Anyhow, aside from a few trips with a friend to a Weiler's Deli in high school (meh) because it was on the way to her house, and the godawful Country Deli with my grandparents (why they liked that place, I'll never know; I have noticed that grandpa hasn't gone since grandma died), it's been Brent's or no deli food.

Patrick threw a monkey wrench into that on Christmas.

The last few years, we've been left without anywhere to go on Christmas Day; my grandpa has been on trips with his girlfriend, generally, while my cousins are with their in-laws, and my other aunt and uncle are Jewish.

So, of course, Patrick generally wants to go to Disneyland.

That was the plan this year until about noon on Christmas Day, when he decided he wanted to stay home.

Okay, fine...except that there was nothing really to cook; I had been planning on making these until Patrick came up with the Disneyland Plan, but they require being rubbed the night before and several hours to braise...not something I could do on short notice like that.

So, around 7:00, we piled into the car on an expedition to find an open restaurant.  We tried the likely places first -- restaurants near movie theaters (oh, my God, were they packed!) but they were all closed.  So I suggested driving down Ventura, haven of all restaurants in the valley.

Lo and behold, there were quite a few open -- several delis, in fact.  The only one I recognized was Jerry's Famous Deli, so we pulled in and decided to try it.

At this point, it was about 8:00.  The restaurant was packed, and there was a 20 minute wait.  They were showing whichever Pirates movie was on ABC (with closed captioning on, thankfully), and then we were seated.

The menu is a big plus.  It's varied but has recognizable deli food everywhere, along with some surprising additions (like gyros...yum!).  Observing the tables around us, the service seems to be generally good.

(Now, understand, at Brent's, the service is impeccable.  You order quickly, your food is served quickly, bus boys are paid extra and do things like refill your drinks before they're even empty, etc. etc. etc.  But that's rare, at any restaurant...however....)

Our waiter clearly had ADD.

As in, Bulldozer has a longer attention span than this guy.  As in -- oh, look, a dust mote just flew by!

By the time he actually took our drink orders, he'd stopped by the table at least four times, started to ask what we wanted, saw something else that needed doing, and flitted away.

By the time we finished our -- very good -- meal, Pirates was nearly over, it was 10 minutes to 11:00, and it had passed the point of annoyance right into morbid gallows humor.

The plus side is that it seemed from watching the other tables that it was only our section that suffered thusly, and the food was very, very good, though a tad more expensive than Brent's.  Their eggs in particular were cooked just the way I like them (to be fair, that's drier than most people) and they were seasoned beautifully.  The bagels, while not Western Bagels, were also very good, and were served with a healthy amount of cream cheese -- so that I didn't have to beg, borrow, or steal some from other people.

All in all, I actually plan to go back -- among all the other pluses, they serve my favorite kind of ranch -- but nothing will ever be Brent's.  Nothing ever can be Brent's.

(I am now so craving a special steak and eggs...Brent's marinates or rubs or something their steaks with something that is unique and wonderful, and I'm gonna stop now before I drool on my keyboard.)

In totally unrelated news, Sci-Fi was showing a Christmas Stargate marathon, and aside from picking up the Canadian "ow" pronunciation from listening to Canadians talk for far too many hours straight, I was reminded of the following hilarious exchange:

Vala:  Blah blah blah, so we shall blah blah blah.

(Note:  She does not say "blah blah blah," although it sounds like something she would say, but I can't remember what she and Daniel were talking about.)

Daniel (firmly):  No, we shalln't.

Shalln't.

Hee hee.

(What?  I'm easily amused by word play.  So shoot me.)

Shalln't.

Heh.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everybody, from a happy but frustrated nerd.

(I got a nifty new gadget for Christmas -- thus the happy -- but a power blip at the wrong time has rendered the accompanying software...messed up -- thus the frustrated.)

Small Update

Sage is now part of the pot roast recipe forever.

Yum.

Surprisingly Easy

I did my Christmas shopping for Patrick this morning (I was waiting for the promised funds to reappear in my checking account by, alas, they haven't yet...I sense another string of phone calls is in my future on Wednesday).  I'm not buying him much since we're taking our trip together, but I got the usual: a shirt, a couple of DVDs, paper (he's the King of Lists), and scotch tape.  I went around 10:00 this morning and made it in and out of both Wal-Mart (clothes and paper) and Best Buy in just over an hour.

The last thing Patrick really needs is more shirts, but it's a Routine, and one he'd be very upset if I didn't stick with.  I began buying him an outfit for Christmas and his birthday when he hit 12 or 13 and our mom was still buying him little boy clothes.  I believe that kids with disabilities have enough disadvantages in making good impressions with people, and that one thing I can do to help smooth the road is ensure his clothes are nice and stylish.

As he got older, as most people do, Patrick developed his own style.  He loves Hawaiian shirts -- the brighter and bolder, the better -- as well as button-down shirts and 80s style polo shirts.  So what did I find for him today?

Well, I can't find a picture online, but it's a dark purple fake-silk button down short sleeved shirt with a bold, bright swirly pattern of lighter purple and other complimentary colors on it.  It's loud and bold and perfect for Patrick.

Meanwhile, I'm taking advantage of the lull in activity to make one of my favorite meals for a long, slow, non-school day: Alton Brown's pot roast.

With, of course, minor variations.

Alton suggests using bone-in chuck -- 7 blade steaks, as I recall -- but I prefer brisket.  I've made it with chuck and just didn't like the texture of the meat.  Brisket is a bit more expensive, but it's worth it.

I use a bit more tomato juice in the braising liquid than he suggests, as well.  (Be aware that the acid in both the tomato juice and balsamic vinegar is strong when you're reducing the braising liquid -- you'll tear up as much as you do when you chop onions...or, at least, I do.)

Finally, this time, I added some torn sage leaves to the braising liquid, as well as a chiffonade of three more sage leaves.  When I rubbed the meat, I added some paprika and dried sage to the cumin.

Yum.  :-)

Also -- if you make a roux (mix together equal parts butter and flour) and then pour the liquid (only the liquid) left over after cooking, and bring it to a boil, you'll have a yummy sauce.  It's even better if you add just a little whole milk to cut the acidity.

What Writer's Block Means to Me

I've started another video. It  all happened while driving -- my iPod was on random (as usual) and I heard "Don't You Need," and before I knew it, I had the insane idea to try to pull enough clips from "Blood Fever" to make a Voyager video.

Problem is, all the relevant clips from that episode are dark -- lit by the actors' handheld flashlights -- and they are filled with talky-face.  I may end up making slight exception, despite the generally accepted vidder's rule that talky-face is bad.

So now I'm left borrowing clips from other episodes -- mostly in the third season, when the producers randomly decided to go the Tom/B'Elanna route instead of the Harry/B'Elanna route -- while still trying to make the narrative make sense.

(The main narrative is, of course, the story of B'Elanna's increasing desperation as the pon farr makes her more and more...err...feverish.)

I don't have the series on DVD but of course it's -- cough -- available in other venues -- cough -- not that I would ever -- cough -- acquire the series that way.  I am, of course, simply -- cough -- story-boarding at this point.

Cough.

What was I saying?

Oh, yeah.  Writer's block.

So the other night, just for fun, I opened most of my active stories in Word and just cycled through them.  Lots of words.  Some in script format, some in narrative format, and some half-and-half.

Dialogue remains my weakness, as does my tendency be very straightforward and information-dump-like in my descriptions, so I have a few stories I'm working on specifically to force myself to describe things better -- in particular stories that force me to work within certain limitations (for instance, a Blood Ties story from Vicki's point of view in near-darkness (she has night blindness, or a Sue Thomas story where I can't rely on Sue picking up on tone of voice).

One thing I've learned over the past few years is that different things draw me to different stories, characters, and even shows.

For instance, the large majority of my Farscape stories are centered around a few isolated moments.

Like, say, Aeryn in "Till the Blood Runs Clear," because I find the interplay between her fierce desire to be independent despite her temporary blindness and her wide grin when Crichton compliments her ingenuity to be fascinating.  I saw a brief snippet of that episode when it first aired, and for years after -- even though I didn't yet watch the show -- my memory of Aeryn was her abrupt "Don't help me, Crichton!"  In fact, my first Farscape story was based off that moment.

Most of my other stories are centered around the following: Aeryn's breakdown in "The Way We Weren't," the aftermath of Moya!John's death (which is one of only two stories written from anyone other than Aeryn's point of view), the aftermath of Aeryn's torture, and the aftermath of John's collapse in The Peacekeeper Wars.

With other shows, of course, it's other moments -- but that's why I tend to write missing scenes and episode tags.  I'm drawn to the moments and want to explore them more.

So, anyhow, when a bout of writer's block comes along, the first thing that begins to happen is that I watch these moments themselves, or I'm reading something, or listening to a song, and start thinking: "Wow, if only I had that gift with language."

Which brings me back to the beginning of this.  I realize song writing is an entirely different thing than fiction writing or prose writing.  But when I read the lyrics to "Don't You Need," I'm invariably struck by the powerful imagery -- and it's something that always seems like it's beyond my reach.

In fact, imagery is one reason I've always been drawn to Melissa Etheridge's songs, ever since a friend gave me a copy of her self-titled album because it didn't fit on her CD case and I liked the song "Come to My Window."

(That song was immediately over-played and is probably one of my least favorite of her songs now, but whatever.)

So I've got these open files, especially the ones that are in script format, and I wonder: Can I come up with words to bring the images in my head into being on paper?  Lately, it seems like the answer is no.  The images themselves are as clear as ever -- I generally picture it like a movie in my head -- but when I try to describe them, it ends up sounding like an instruction manual.

Writer's block, for me, is not a lack of ideas.  It's not a lack of story lines, of plots, even of dialogue.  Writer's block is self-censoring.  It's me stopping myself from writing something because I know -- I know -- it's not up to snuff.

It's times like this that I have to remember what I did during the Summer of Drama, when I finished my first long story -- write a little, every day, on every story -- even if it's just a word, just a sentence.

Even if it sucks...because I can always go back and change it later.

Today's lesson in self pity was brought to you by the letters W and B and the number 47.

(W and B for writer's block, of course, and the number 47 just 'cause.)

The Ongoing Saga

Absent-Minded Professor Update:  We went to my grandpa's last night to get our Christmas cards and take food (he's going on a trip, and clearly frozen food can't be kept in a freezer for a week!  Hmph.).  He gave us our Christmas cards but we weren't allowed to open them.

So, having waited patiently for my affidavit to come from BofA regarding the $1200 charge on my account that I didn't make, I called today to check why it still wasn't in the mail.

I tried four numbers, all of which had been given to me in this process as "faster" and "more direct."  None of them worked.  One even took me to an Apple credit account I had written a letter to close something like three years ago.

What I finally did was call their general "lost or stolen" line, and then had them transfer me through three more people, where I was asked repeatedly, "So you've never done business with this merchant before?"

"No," I said (repeatedly).

"It says here your card was swiped."

"I know," I said.  "That's what everyone else told me too.  But I don't know what to tell you other than: I didn't do it; and, it's not physically possible to get from Santa Clarita's Borders to Fresno, where the charge was made (not to mention collecting $1200 of building supplies to pay FOR) in half an hour."

So, he read me an affidavit over the phone, which I agreed to, and then said the money would be back in my account tonight.  They will send me the paper affidavit, plus possibly requests for other information, and if I don't send it back, the money comes back out.

But at least it's kinda solved, though I'm peeved that this was a "we can mostly take care of this over the phone" kind of thing that took nearly 3 weeks to resolve.

This Is Not A Spoiler

Absent Minded Professorism strikes again.  Over an hour of very-difficult-for-me small talk with my grandpa's girlfriend (who, truly, is a very nice person, but I find her difficult to talk to -- for one thing, because her body language is subtly different (she's from Estonia) and difficult for me to read) and he apparently forgot the cards.

Anyhow, I bought The Simpsons Movie tonight -- which I wanted to see but missed in theaters -- and although I won't list my two favorite moments here, I had to share something I noticed while fast-forwarding through the credits to make sure there were no more little asides.

"Filmed on location in Springfield."

Heh heh.

Cool

I'm about to go out to dinner to get my Christmas present from my grandpa (this will be either a check for $60 or some random amount of cash near $60 -- last year, I got $57 dollars).

However, this makes my monorail-fiend brother very, very happy.

Revision

Aide T is not a fink.  She is made of awesomeness, and emailed Principal SDF to ask that our sit down be rescheduled to when she can come.

(Now, I'm not gonna put words in her mouth, and I suspect that at least part of this is train wreck syndrome in which she wants to see what Aides S and J say, but it'll be nice to be able to look at someone who doesn't want to kill me.)

Closer and Closer

Tomorrow is the day when classroom staff will be in general disarray. I have backup activities planned, so we'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, Swiss Family Robinson is all done except for the book report. It's done -- chapters, questions, sequencing, true/false, Bingo, simplified version for Elastigirl...it's all done except for the book report. That's 12 weeks of planning. Yippee!

In other news, Speech Person DFT would not meet my eyes today when she came in to observe Elastigirl (apparently, 15 minutes of direct services a week means "watch Elastigirl do the same thing at the same time daily"). Principal SDF says she got a fake-innocent email that was, in her words, trying to dig herself out of her hole. She also says that Program Specialist SBS basically said, "What????" when she got the email.

So that's nice. I'm still miffed about the whole thing. And the fact that our day is likely to go...well...not smoothly from now until break is not encouraging...although Thursday is Principal's recess, plus the OTs are doing a lesson at some point, plus, we're watching the other version of Charlie.

And, just in case, I have a bunch of bowls and a box of corn starch. Plus a few tubs of bubbles if it doesn't rain, and a High School Musical 2 CD to dance to if it does.

Please wish Aide T a safe flight to and from South Carolina. The fink is missing out on the sit down with my staff on Thursday where I get to play Good Cop to SDF's Bad Cop...which is happening roughly 4 1/2 years since I began asking Principal SW to do something similar.

The Moral of the Story

About a month ago, our principal wrote a...poorly-received weekly bulletin.

A few weeks ago, our principal wrote a...poorly-received suggestion to play Secret Elfs.

She called me today after reading my response to her email and said that all her questions for me were really for herself.  Bwuah?

Plus, the "other people" that have been gossiping are none other than Aide J, and Aide S, and Speech Person DFT.

I'm still very upset, particularly at Speech Person DFT, and I still wish people would ASK ME QUESTIONS.

It's nice to have it resolved, kinda, but I'm still dreading seeing Speech Person DFT -- though, as I told our principal on the phone, I'd like to see HER do any better.  (Also, our principal said she figured DFT would ignore us completely.)

Also?  The moral of the story?

Apparently, our principal should never write emails, ever.

Ironic, given that I vastly prefer written communication to face-to-face communication, especially with adults.

:-(

As far as kids go, today was a fairly good day, though we were very short-staffed (for a total of an hour and a half today, it was me and an aide and eight kids).

Then, predictably, the other shoe dropped.

The other day, Superhero pushed PH, and then imitated a Bulldozer meltdown -- even in the intonation of the wailing.

So Speech Person DFT wrote an email to our principal and my program specialist...I'm not sure about what, but the implication was that the class was going you-know-where in a handbasket because I'm a bad teacher.

Speaking to our principal after school, she seemed fairly supportive.  She was very upset with Speech Person DFT for going over my head -- and hers.

But then I got an email basically attacking everything I do -- in the guise of asking me to "think about it" this weekend.  From a principal I thought had my back.

The class has been hard this year, and there are moments that it feels like I'm barely holding on -- but if there's one thing no one has ever questioned, it's what and how I teach the kids.

So now I have to go to the Christmas party knowing that DFT will be there, and now wondering where I stand with the principal.

There was more, but even thinking about it is making me feel sick to my stomach.

Vindicated!

(Aide J and Aide S were both out today; fortunately, we had mostly okay subs...the morning went well...the afternoon went to you-know-where in a handbasket, but the subs played Sequence with the kids that were doing well, so that went okay.)

Right on the heels of Elastigirl's triumph yesterday, I got some interesting news today.

(I'm gonna be even more vague than usual in order to preserve anonymity, but I imagine at least Cat will know who I'm talking about.)

There's a student in the class who we'll call...Jane.  Jane has Down syndrome.  Jane has significant cognitive delays and some behavior issues.

My program specialist, as well as the psychologist who did her last tri, insisted that her cognitive level was six to nine months.

Now, this girl has severe cognitive delays -- no one is disupting that.

But six to nine months?

Nu-uh.  No way, no how.

While talking to Speech Person DFT (who, predictably, wants to exit her from speech without a reliable communication system) about her, she mentioned that Jane's cognitive level came out to about 2 years.

THANK you.

Now, I don't put much store by cognitive levels -- especially in kids who may have what people used to call "splinter skills" (but if you don't have disabilities, they're called talents) -- but a ballpark is nice.

Six to nine months is ridiculous.  Two years, I can live with.  That's been my guess all along.

E = MC2

I could easily vent about the happenings at school (again with the, "Why can't you just come to work and do your job like the rest of the grown-ups in the world?" with a dose of "Writing With Symbols, please cooperate just this once), and Aide T has been kindly comisserating with me over email -- a fact that, I fear, would not go over well if other people knew about it...

...whoops...

I got distracted there.

What I wanted to say was that this was all overshadowed by one of those tiny shining moments that make your heart swell with pride and go "Yeeee-haw!"

Elastigirl, as you may have guessed from reading this blog, has some pretty significant delays. She has some challenging behaviors and a lot of obstacles to overcome.

That said, I adore the girl.

Anyway, she spent several years of her education either left to her own devices or forcibly moved to "quiet areas" and left alone. It took my staff -- chiefly Aide T -- and myself about 6 weeks last year just to convince her that we wanted her to sit with us, and that she should sit with the rest of the group.

Today, though....

Today, we were doing a group lesson -- our whole school uses the Second Step program, and I've been doing modified versions of the fourth grade lessons. However, with this group, I've had to mix it up a bit.

First, I have PECs pictures of feelings and we go through them in a sort of game-like format. Every kid gets four "Turn" cards -- four chances to be right, then they can't answer any more -- and I'll hold up a feeling. Anyone who knows can raise their hand, then I pick someone to answer (usually via eenie-meenie-miney-moe).

So, today, I hold up "frustrated."

Seven hands go up.

I start eenie-meenie-miney-moing, intending to...ahem...accidentally land on Superhero, because I know he knows that one, when, lo and behold...

...wait for it...

ELASTIGIRL'S HAND SHOOTS UP WITH THE REST OF THEM.

I stare at her.

She's not really following natural cues and imitating her classmates, is she?

That would be too huge. No way. It was a fluke.

Still, I go over, present "frustrated" and the blank back of a card as a distracter, and say, "Elastigirl, where's 'frustrated'?"

She picks it. The class claps for her. She preens.

We go on, me still thinking it was a happy fluke that I had the chance to reinforce.

A few turns later, I hold up "excited."

Seven hands go up.

THEN, LO AND BEHOLD, UP GOES ONE MORE!

That's twice, in one day.

I go over to Elastigirl, who had since put her hand down, and look at her. I raise my hand. The rest of my monkey-see-monkey-do kiddos follow me.

Elastigirl does not look at me. She looks at Superhero and Angel. She thinks. She looks at Superhero again.

AND HER HAND GOES UP AGAIN!

I realize that for those of you wno do not deal with kids with severe cognitive impairments, the idea of a 10-year-old girl looking at her classmates and copying them is not a big thing.

For Elastigirl, this is like figuring out the Theory of Relativity.

It still may have been a fluke...but it was THREE times...and if she can do it three times today, she'll be able to do it again...on her own timetable, of course.

Oy Vey

I am trying very hard to restrain myself from a prolonged rant about today -- including such titillating topics as Important Things to Tell Your Child's Teacher, Why the Frell Can't You Just Be a Grown-Up and Do Your Job, and even Stupid Reproductive System, Why Now -- but suffice it to say, I'm not a happy camper.

However, my aching left wrist (I don't even remember what I did to it, but it's more than Baby Carpal Tunnel Aggravated By Wacky Weather) is forcing me to just say:

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Yay

Barring book report projects and the Bingo game, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is done. Questions and all. Yippee!

Oh, and Swiss Family Robinson is all typed; I just need to make questions and such.

Meh

I think that sums up the last two days: Meh. Things haven't been great, nor have they been awful. Bulldozer had one medium-sized meltdown in the morning today and one incidence of hitting and such but he was redirectable...but, man, the kid must've had a gallon of Mountain Dew for breakfast, 'cause he was running at thirty-five thousand miles an hour all day.

We had to send Superhero home sick yesterday 'cause he coughed up phlegm. Yuck. He was out today and has a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Angel was also out today, and Sleeping Beauty (formerly known as Princess) was asking to go home (!?!) so she must not have been feeling well.

I realized today when I looked at our Charlie schedule that I actually make a big mistake this week...this was the week we were supposed to go to one chapter per day in order to finish on time (we were scheduled to be done reading next Thursday and to spend the next few days doing catch-up work, book reports, bingo, etc.)...but we were still trundling along at two chapters per day!

However, if I nix our weekly poem both this week and next week, we'll make it. Just.

Thank goodness I was avoiding giving M eye contact at that one point today!

Just...No

"Haltingly familiar."

...

Haltingly familiar?

HALTingly familiar?

Good grief.  You meant, perhaps, hauntingly familiar?

Bulldozer was better today, despite the principal telling him he had to stay behind from the field trip...poor Aide T missed former-student-C (of the 3 hour long screamfests) again.  A minor meltdown in the afternoon (a few swings but mostly wailing like a stuck pig).

Personally, I think it was just a couple of bad days.  But I think at this point, even the principal doesn't believe me that he's doing better -- because all she's seen is him being a brat.  I should pull all my Bulldozer comments out of here and make them like pretty (as in, a data-type spreadsheet or something) to prove it.

Our sub for Aide J, who we've had before -- though granted not during the Drama Fest that is this year -- was muttering all afternoon about how it was "ridiculous" that Bulldozer could "do whatever he wants."  Perhaps she missed the part where he missed the field trip, had to work before he earned a break, and then wailed for half an hour because he had to work again?

(Boy, it's tempting, though.  Imagine how happy Bulldozer would be if he could do whatever he wanted?)

Meanwhile, I'm still sick.  Walking to Target about did me in today, so I'm hopeful that just a...ahem...regular school day tomorrow will be more manageable.  (I must have looked bad today; I was in the office after the kids got on the bus, and the principal sent me home!)

Edited to add:  this is so sad....

The Plot Thickens

Turns out it wasn't a Countrywide Mortgage Building -- it was Country Wide Building Supplies or something like that in Fresno.

And, it turns out, whoever bought $1200 of building supplies in Fresno used an actual card.  If I can't get them to stop the payment themselves, then I have to call B of A back and file another type of claim.

Of course, it should be fairly easy to figure out that it wasn't me, based on the time stamps between my Borders transaction and my Target transaction...Google Maps says it takes 2 hours to get from Santa Clarita to Fresno, and to get FROM Borders to the hardware store and BACK to Target is impossible.

Let's just hope B of A understands that.

Meanwhile, I have to wait for my new ATM card to arrive.

Oh, and I guess today was just INSANE at school...I took my first sick day of the year in an attempt to recover from my cold enough to manage the field trip tomorrow.

What a Difference a Pan Makes

B of A update:  Their offices were not open when I called, so I'm just going to stop by a branch tomorrow.  Hopefully, it will be a relatively simple matter of checking with Countrywide to verify that I don't have a mortgage with them, in Fresno or otherwise.

Anyhow, my immune system has finally given up the ghost.  The culprit was a fairly mild (for me) allergy attack last night that I couldn't stop with drugs in time.  So I'm dragging today, trying to sleep it off before going back into the lion's den.

(I should have known yesterday when I stood fully dressed, literally shuddering from cold while Patrick was sitting on the couch in a flimsy undershirt without a problem.)

However, because it's times like this that you want comfort food, so I took a nap to build back my strength (grocery shopping's killer, ya know ;-)) and made Alton Brown's baked macaroni and cheese.  It's very, very good, though of course I've tweaked the recipe a bit.  Instead of 12 ounces of cheese, I use 16 -- a mixture of sharp cheddar and mozzarella.  I top it with the mozzarella and a handful of parmesan (parmiggiano reggiano if I'm feeling particularly indulgent).

I've yet to see what it would do to the texture of the sauce to add some ricotta, but that's on the to-do list of possible tweaks.

In any event, I've tried to make this several times before and was never totally happy with it.  It took almost twice as long as it was supposed to, for one thing, for the sauce to thicken, and I was constantly switching between a whisk and a spoon to get flour out of the corners of the pot when I was cooking the roux.

So I finally bit the bullet and bought an honest to goodness saucier -- a pan dedicated to sauce making (which is really what mac and cheese is -- it's macaroni folded into a bechamel sauce with cheese and then baked).  It's not quite professional quality -- real, truly professional cookware is expensive (cooking, writing, and photography...why are two of my hobbies so expensive?) -- but it's not bargain basement either.  It's decently heavy, with a distinct thickness of the bottom to even out the heat.

This is the second time I've used the pan for this recipe, and it's amazing the difference it makes. Yay.  :-)

Also?  Slightly warmed up leftovers smushed between two pieces of toast makes a yummy sandwich.

Because Life is Never Easy

I did some Hanukkah shopping today, and bought a few books for myself at Borders.  

Stopped for a cookie at the Tollhouse cookie place and *gasp* forgot my purse.  20 minutes later, I went back, and it was behind the counter.

Then I went to Target to buy a really pretty sweater, and Target said there was a problem with my ATM card.

Got home and had an email from B of A saying there was suspicious activity on my account, so I logged in, and lo and behold, there was a $1200 charge to a Countrywide branch in Fresno.  Bwuah?

So, I called the number in the email and went through the identify verification junk, and was reviewing purchases with the guy on the line.  After a few, he said, "Well, that seems like everything's okay, then."

So I pointed out the Countrywide charge.  He was a touch confused, saying it had been "approved."  Well, yeah, I had enough funds to cover it, but there's the slight problem wherein I wasn't in Fresno today and I don't have a mortgage -- with Countrywide or anyone else.

So he turned off my ATM card and gave me another number I have to call tomorrow.  Then they will mail me an affidavit to sign, so that they can put the funds back in my account.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out if I have any other automatic payments due in the interim -- luckily, the cell phone, TiVo, and Netflix all went through yesterday...but I have to check about my car insurance.

Alas, Poor Sparky Junior

Once upon a time, while I was in college, I had a computer named Sparky.  Sparky was a 166 MHz Pentium with something like 32 megabytes of RAM.  (I imagine my iPhone runs faster than 166 MHz).  It was in a monstrously large tower and came with a 17" CRT monitor that weighed as much as Patrick at the time.

During my senior year of college, Sparky, who had been slowly limping along, suddenly panicked and the next thing I knew, I had a mostly empty hard drive.  Strangely enough, there was no apparent rhyme or reason to what, exactly, was sacrificed in the Great Hard Drive Suicide of 1999, but it was certainly traumatic.

So, after the semester I took off to look after Patrick and help to run and then sell my dad's alarm company and monitoring station after he died, I bought Sparky Junior, a 1.7 GHz (10 times faster than Sparky; I was ecstatic) PC with 256 MB of RAM and a 15" LCD monitor.  It ran Windows Me (yeah, I know), which I eventually upgraded to XP.

The sticking point here is the RAM.  It is a random kind of RAM that only existed for a brief time before SDRAM appeared and took over the world, and not even Crucial carries it.

Being a fairly well-informed computer user (translation = uber nerd), I am careful to protect my computer from spyware and viruses and only visit a few trusted sites when using the PC (as opposed to my laptop).  I have virus programs and spyware checkers, and have both a software and hardware firewall.

So I don't think the way my computer randomly slows to a crawl and complains of being out of memory is a virus or spyware issue.

I think Sparky Junior is dying.

Or, rather, I think Sparky Junior's memory is dying, and seeing as how it's virtually impossible to replace, I will soon be in the market for a desktop.  Having become a Mac fan in the interim -- especially now that you can also run Windows for those few applications that require it (Boardmaker and Writing With Symbols being the main suspects) -- it will likely be an iMac.  I wish I could afford the utter powerhouse that is the Mac Pro, but because that would require me to buy a monitor as well, I just won't be able to swing that.  For the price I'd pay on the Mac Pro and the monitor, I could get a very nice iMac as well as Final Cut Studio.

Alas, Poor Sparky Junior; I knew him, Horatio....

Wake Me Up When December Ends

So, I have this song stuck in my head, as it was playing just as I got home today...and it ocurred to me that if I just tweaked

There's a lot of chaos on the school front. Speech Aide A is refusing to work with Bulldozer because he hit her on Tuesday. I got a lovely email from Speech Person DFT when I asked if Speech Aide A was all right -- she'd come into the speech session with guns blazing ("Okay, Bulldozer, it's time for speech...NOW, NO HITTING, OKAY?") and a bad attitude.

The response I got began with something along the lines of, "I'd have to say that no she is not okay" and went on to passively aggressively chastise me for not being at her beck and call at all times ("she came to see you after school and so did I, but you were not available" -- which she knew, because she knew I was translating conferences all afternoon) and then proceeded to explain to me that, OMG, SPEECH AIDE A FILLED OUT AN ACCIDENT REPORT AND IT IS NOW ON PRINCIPAL S's DESK!

(Yeeeah, that's where they all go. Also? They're so not a big deal. My first year of teaching, I did like three a week because I had a fourth grader with some very difficult behavior.)

What bugged me the most is that she assumed his behavior was like that all the time. Long term readers of this blog know that Bulldozer can have his moments, and had many of them at the beginning of the year. However, they will also recall that as the year has gone by, his meltdowns have gotten less frequent and less intense.

(Of course, articulating that to Principal S was the dumbest thing I have ever done, as you would have thought it was a Monday in early September today...it wasn't until 5 minutes before lunch that I got him through a transition from a break back to work without triggering another meltdown.)

In any event, my reply wasn't -- I admit -- a stalwart example of courtesy, though of course you never know how something will appear in email. I won't get into it here, but I pointed out that Bulldozer's behavior has never been wonderful, and that part of the current behavior regarding speech as opposed to just about anything else is that it worked at the beginning of the year when we were fighting battles about just about everything.

Meanwhile, the teachers are up in arms about a mysterious comment or twelve in this week's bulletin that I hope wasn't prompted at least in part by this drama.

The only reasons we survived today is that Student M was out and that it was a Thursday, so Aide Mrs. B came at 11:30, because Aide S left sick at 9:30.

Oh!

Yeah, duh, the reason for the post.

We determined why the existence of November is such a problem for Bulldozer. He wants Christmas, but bad. He wants it now, now, now, now, now, now, NOW.

Now.

So I'd just as soon have it be the end of December, thanks.

Oh, and I finally decided on Swiss Family Robinson for our next book. It's available pre-adapted to a first grade reading level and the version I bought includes a professionally narrated CD for the kids to listen to for the "listening comprehension" day for each chapter, so all I have to do is retype it verbatim with Writing with Symbols and make comprehension questions. Yippee. I'm hoping to have the whole book done before Christmas so that I have a few weeks to breathe before I have to worry about adapting Matilda.

Of Lee Press-On Nails

I forgot to add below that I -- really, truly -- forgot to write the "please clip Elastigirl's fingernails" note today. Of course, I had a kid melting down today before he even got on the bus, so hopefully I'm forgiven.

However, that brought up an excellent point.

Elastigirl has been fairly regularly melting down at about 11:30 each day. I suspect it has to do with Aide J getting tired and stressed, and Elastigirl reacting to that, but I'm too smart to say that.

So, today, I pulled her, along with her News-2-You work, some different work, and just me, with the express intention of doing a few scientific experiments to determine if it's (1) the time, (2) the work, (3) Aide J (didn't say that one aloud), or (4) some combination of the three.

I was all set up, when the psychologist called and reminded us that she wanted to do a few more tests on Elastigirl.

Dang.

A Voice is Crying, "Your Doom is Near at Hand"

(Can ya tell I'm a quote person?)

Anyhow, remember a while back when I said I felt disaster lurking around the bend?

Disaster, thy name is December 18.

Why December 18th, do you ask?

On December 18th, of the total four staff that I have (one morning, one PM, two all day), three -- three -- will be out.

All three morning folks -- Aides S, T, and J -- will be out.

I have already asked the office if I can borrow aide #4 -- Aide Mrs. B -- in the morning and give my sub to her morning position just to have somebody who knows the kids.

And yet, I keep thinking: ALL THREE OF THEM WILL BE GONE.

Whattaya wanna bet that's the morning I wake up to a stolen transmission, four flat tires, and a dead battery?

(Meanwhile, having for the first time spent extensive time with Teacher R, a second grade teacher at our school, and her son L, I have discovered yet someone else with Down syndrome who chews their thumb. I am intrigued. Also? While I'm sure that L can be a royal hell raiser (you should hear his giggle!) he is absolutely utterly adorable, and I have decided that should anything happen to R, I will happily adopt him.)

Sometimes I Amuse Myself Too Much

Must be part of the writing thing.  Sometimes, the phrases that come out of my head just amuse me...especially when they appear on my computer screen without any advance warning.

Right now, I am tickled pink that my brain came up with this:

Tara shook her head in exasperation. “They’re the FBI’s real life Mulder and Scully.” She shrugged defensively at the looks she was getting. “X-Files? If they kissed, the world would stop turning?” She shook her head. “Forget it.”

The joke here, of course, is that the "real life" Mulder and Scully are just as fictional as...

...hey, it was funny to me!  :-)

Of Fingernail Clippers

The good news is that it was a Monday and Bulldozer only had two minor meltdowns -- one of which was semi-provoked. Yay. :-)

The better news is that against all expectations, Aide S's working for a certain psych care services place has only made her better at her job instead of turning her into a discrete trial drone. Yay. :-)

However.

(You knew there was a however, didn't you?)

However, our current drama is that Aide J is just incensed because Elastigirl's parents must clip her fingernails right this second!!!!!

She has asked me to write a note requesting that they do this, but I replied that I was not comfortable doing that because they know that Elastigirl's fingernails should be cut.

(And, also, 'cause you wouldn't get the bejeezus scratched out of you if you only actually did what I told you to for more than 10 minutes at a time, and 'cause the girl could find a way to scratch if all of her fingernails were ripped off in a tragic Velcro accident. Seriously.)

In any event, she has now decided that Elastigirl's scratching is OMG A HEALTH HAZARD because she touches places that shouldn't be touched without washing your hand.

And she is, apparently, telling everybody this...according to our principal.

So I chatted with our principal after school, who grinned knowingly when I said that Aide J had been asked repeatedly to just step away when Elastigirl is scratching ('cause, you know, if you move away, she won't get attention, and -- get this! -- she'll stop scratching) and said that she would tell her the same.

But she did ask me to write the note asking that Elastigirl's fingernails be clipped.

I'm chafing at that (I've worked hard to maintain a good relationship with them, because they had some run-ins with school staff before), but our principal has been very nice and very supportive, so, hey, don't rock the boat, you know?

But this is my blog, and I'll have my say here. (So there.)

1. Elastigirl's parents know her fingernails need to be cut. Her behavior is the same at home as it is at school.

2. Elastigirl's parents have been working very hard to provide for her and do right by her, in the face of enormous challenges and obstacles. She has even done homework sometimes.

3. Elastigirl cringes and flails away from washing her hands. Can you imagine the production that is required to actually clip her fingernails?

4. Seriously. They know her fingernails should be cut. They also know she should have a bath every day, but with a kid with intense needs who has a dad on daily dialysis...sometimes things have to give -- and feeding her dinner is more important than washing her hair.

4a. Don't get all snippy with me. I know kids should have baths. But I have also been the harried sixteen-year-old sister whose dad is in the hospital and who is trying to study for midterms, pick her kid brother up from school, cook dinner, take midterms, hold together a tutoring program while the official tutor's brother is in a hospice dying of cancer, and waiting to see if her dad will wake up from his coma. Guess what? Patrick didn't get a bath that week. So sue me.

4b. Seriously? They know. Get over it and implement her behavior support plan and stop worrying about trivial things like fingernails. If you're worried they're so dirty, wash her hands. Or, you know, your cuts. That you wouldn't have (or, at least, 90% of which you wouldn't have) if you actually absorbed what I tol dyou.

4c. Seriously? They know. They're trying.

4d. While Elastigirl's "mental functioning" is in question, she unquestionably has severe delays. My brother -- my 20-year-old, mostly high-functioning brother -- would, to this day, rather chew off his fingernails than allow fingernail clippers within 50 feet of him. He would rather his toenails rip off in his socks than allow toenail clippers within 100 feet of him. Don't assume it's a matter of, "Oh, c'mere, Elastigirl, let me cut your fingernails, honey."

4e. Seriously? They know.

4f. THEY KNOW AND PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME TICK THEM OFF OVER THIS; LET ME SAVE IT FOR WHEN SHE IS BRUISING HER OWN JAW BY HITTING IT BECAUSE ANOTHER TOOTH IS ROTTING OUT OF HER HEAD, OKAY?

Allow me to rephrase that: If I have only so much good will with this family, I'd rather use it on the thing that is causing such severe pain that hitting herself is the only thing that will make it feel better than on something they know should be done anyway.

Hmph.

Amusing bookmark to this story. I, I admit, whined at one point, "Oooh, she's such a thorn in my side sometimes."

The principal looked askance at me. "Aide J, not Elastigirl," I said.

She looked dubious.

"Seriously. I adore Elastigirl (I do). I'd take Elastigirl home with me in a second...though I might have to fight Aide T for the privelege."

She grinned and at that point wondered if perhaps Aide J is angling for a disability leave from us (with pay, of course) so she only has to work the one job but is paid for both.

Welcome to another week!

(However, my writer's block un-blocked. Or, rather, the dam burst. I have about 4 stories almost done and two videos totally vidded in my head. Squee!)