Randomness...

Lessee, what lately...

• I donated blood again Friday. When I pulled up to the park, the police helicopter was hovering directly overhead and shining its floodlights on the front door of one of the apartments in the complex across the street. It was really low, and people were standing outside the complex and the park building, shading their eyes in a "WTH?!" manner. There were no police cars on the ground or in the vicinity as far as I could tell. runsamuck tells me they will often focus the lights on one thing as a distraction while they are using the heat sensors (or whatever the hell they have) on something else.
  
  
  
  Lake Park
  Huntington Beach CA
  Casio EX-Z80A
  27 February 2009
  
  
  
  Another man and I were the last people there; although all the staff were polite and still trying to joke around, you could tell they were tired and anxious to get out of there. The nurse cleaning my arm was scrubbing so hard with the iodine swab it felt like she was using sandpaper. Then the jab seemed quick enough but my elbow felt sore for the rest of the evening. Equipment was being broken down and packed while we were lying there being drained. However, after we were done and had sat sipping juice for our requisite 10 minutes, they told us we could take as many snacks along as we liked as perqs for being last of the day. I grabbed a package of cookies for each of the kids. I wound up going to sleep much earlier than usual just because my arm was achy and I could not make it comfortable. I still have a bruise.



• Avalon came home from school last weekend with a temperature, and not really any other symptoms last weekend. It faded over the weekend, but then she started complaining of sore legs, so much so that she was barely able to walk. She thought she felt well enough to go to Dismalland Sunday evening, but after two rides she did not want to walk anymore, and kept wanting to sit down. runsamuck took her to the doctor again, and they couldn't find anything wrong, but had her bring back a urine sample to make sure of anything else. She couldn't manage it herself and he wasn't allowed to go in the restroom with her (this presaged a whole rant from him once home, on how if he were a single parent he wouldn't be allowed to help his daughter buy clothes - father's rights really being one of his sore points). Anyhow, she was nearly in tears walking to class the next couple of days; it finally faded but we're at a loss to figure out exactly what caused it - she swears she hadn't done any exercise to make her legs that sore. And really she's the most active and athletic of our kids, so stuff like that usually wouldn't bother her.



• I went by myself to Angus's IEP, because one of us had to get the other two fry ready for school - I wish we could both go, because runsamuck is much better at coming up with questions than I am. However, I take better notes than he does. Angus has been making progress on all of his goals, although he's still behind in math, which is frustrating because it used to be one of his better subjects. His writing has improved dramatically, which I noticed on a social studies project on Native Americans he had done (which really he only got marked down on because he didn't label some of his illustrations). One of the goals, using cartoon bubbles to describe what characters in a story were feeling, was not made by the teacher who was supposed to be applying it and she didn't really understand how she was to go about it, so that one was going to be modified. I know he reads better than he lets on; I know this because he knows all kinds of random facts on his favorite topics (notably Bionicles), which I know he's read off one website or other. However, at home he'll come and ask me to read something to him, when I know darn well he can read it himself; then he makes frustrated noises when I have him read it to me. Also, he often spends recess in the library (so he doesn't have to interact, so it's quieter?) and they are trying to get him to interact more - which makes me think of this blog entry by an autistic person and this one as well. I don't know that the same thing is occuring with him, but I know I sometimes feel like I'm slogging through syrup when I'm expected to be a part of a conversation - either things don't occur to me or some one else will get to it just before I open my mouth to say the same thing. It's better just to listen, sometimes. In any case, there is supposed to be another IEP before the end of the year to meet with his upcoming middle school teachers, since he'll be in sixth grade. I think it'll be nice that he'll be closer to home, and that there will be people from his old school that he knows, that he's missed, may make some things a bit easier for him.



• Been seeing Western bluebirds around the office again; I think this is the third year in a row. I didn't even realize we had them in this area before I saw them here, but I'm told they always have been. There were two great blue herons on the lawn as well, hunting gophers. One of them must have been a juvenile, as his plumage didn't look quite so sharply defined between gray and white.



• I have really got to get to work in the yard...(and the house, and our room, etc. ad nauseum...)

...returning you to your regularly scheduled ELJaying...

Randomness...

Lessee, what lately...

• I donated blood again Friday. When I pulled up to the park, the police helicopter was hovering directly overhead and shining its floodlights on the front door of one of the apartments in the complex across the street. It was really low, and people were standing outside the complex and the park building, shading their eyes in a "WTH?!" manner. There were no police cars on the ground or in the vicinity as far as I could tell. runsamuck tells me they will often focus the lights on one thing as a distraction while they are using the heat sensors (or whatever the hell they have) on something else.
  
  
  
  Lake Park
  Huntington Beach CA
  Casio EX-Z80A
  27 February 2009
  
  
  
  Another man and I were the last people there; although all the staff were polite and still trying to joke around, you could tell they were tired and anxious to get out of there. The nurse cleaning my arm was scrubbing so hard with the iodine swab it felt like she was using sandpaper. Then the jab seemed quick enough but my elbow felt sore for the rest of the evening. Equipment was being broken down and packed while we were lying there being drained. However, after we were done and had sat sipping juice for our requisite 10 minutes, they told us we could take as many snacks along as we liked as perqs for being last of the day. I grabbed a package of cookies for each of the kids. I wound up going to sleep much earlier than usual just because my arm was achy and I could not make it comfortable. I still have a bruise.



• Avalon came home from school last weekend with a temperature, and not really any other symptoms last weekend. It faded over the weekend, but then she started complaining of sore legs, so much so that she was barely able to walk. She thought she felt well enough to go to Dismalland Sunday evening, but after two rides she did not want to walk anymore, and kept wanting to sit down. runsamuck took her to the doctor again, and they couldn't find anything wrong, but had her bring back a urine sample to make sure of anything else. She couldn't manage it herself and he wasn't allowed to go in the restroom with her (this presaged a whole rant from him once home, on how if he were a single parent he wouldn't be allowed to help his daughter buy clothes - father's rights really being one of his sore points). Anyhow, she was nearly in tears walking to class the next couple of days; it finally faded but we're at a loss to figure out exactly what caused it - she swears she hadn't done any exercise to make her legs that sore. And really she's the most active and athletic of our kids, so stuff like that usually wouldn't bother her.



• I went by myself to Angus's IEP, because one of us had to get the other two fry ready for school - I wish we could both go, because runsamuck is much better at coming up with questions than I am. However, I take better notes than he does. Angus has been making progress on all of his goals, although he's still behind in math, which is frustrating because it used to be one of his better subjects. His writing has improved dramatically, which I noticed on a social studies project on Native Americans he had done (which really he only got marked down on because he didn't label some of his illustrations). One of the goals, using cartoon bubbles to describe what characters in a story were feeling, was not made by the teacher who was supposed to be applying it and she didn't really understand how she was to go about it, so that one was going to be modified. I know he reads better than he lets on; I know this because he knows all kinds of random facts on his favorite topics (notably Bionicles), which I know he's read off one website or other. However, at home he'll come and ask me to read something to him, when I know darn well he can read it himself; then he makes frustrated noises when I have him read it to me. Also, he often spends recess in the library (so he doesn't have to interact, so it's quieter?) and they are trying to get him to interact more - which makes me think of this blog entry by an autistic person and this one as well. I don't know that the same thing is occuring with him, but I know I sometimes feel like I'm slogging through syrup when I'm expected to be a part of a conversation - either things don't occur to me or some one else will get to it just before I open my mouth to say the same thing. It's better just to listen, sometimes. In any case, there is supposed to be another IEP before the end of the year to meet with his upcoming middle school teachers, since he'll be in sixth grade. I think it'll be nice that he'll be closer to home, and that there will be people from his old school that he knows, that he's missed, may make some things a bit easier for him.



• Been seeing Western bluebirds around the office again; I think this is the third year in a row. I didn't even realize we had them in this area before I saw them here, but I'm told they always have been. There were two great blue herons on the lawn as well, hunting gophers. One of them must have been a juvenile, as his plumage didn't look quite so sharply defined between gray and white.



• I have really got to get to work in the yard...(and the house, and our room, etc. ad nauseum...)

...returning you to your regularly scheduled ELJaying...