The first day of the WorkShop

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I'm still in St. Louis. My momma just drove out here a few days ago to help my sister with the workshop she's been working on presenting for about year now. Last night, my mom, sister, bro-in -law and I collated 150, 28-page programs after chinese food. My bro-in-law and I put together 400 CDs from scratch assembly line style and I did 50 DVDs (putting the case together and the covers, back covers and contents. What I did was only about 5% of all the work she's been doing for this workshop about technology for special needs children all over the US. We had people flyin' in from everywhere! I've met so many people! Including a 17 year old boy who couldn't speak or use his hands, but could not stop staring at me, a very nice large man who worked at Office Depot who let my sister and I staple those 150 programs together on the store's giant copy machine, a girl who reminded me of my ex-bestfriend and a robot named Rex that could fart, burp and say "hey baby". That last one was probably the stragnest one. Oh! And I saw someone riding a horse through the small green patch between a Holiday Inn and a Gas station off of an exit on route 64 (yes the same 64 that goes all the way to good ole' VA). My job for the workshop is to video record each special needs child that goes up to work with all of the technology so that everyone in the audience can see what's going on with their hands and faces. It's been really inspirational to see people who you don't think have any control over their bodies or minds to complete simple tasks on a computer. I almost cried several times. We keep thinking they have so much to learn, but we have so much to learn from them. They force you to think outside the box on how to communicate with them. Most of them have never known what communicating is. It's a barrier that is slowly being torn down by inventors, techies, parents, therapists and young people. There were some people there who had Rett's Syndrome like my neice but were 27 instead of 5, like Sarah is. It was so incredible. Most of them don't live that long. Out of the three Rett's girls there too, Sarah was lightyears ahead. She can control her hands way better, pay attention longer, make better eye contact, she doesn't rock and laughs and smiles a lot more. My sister's convinced she will get Sarah to walk one day. I think she can do it! She already can walk being held up by her shoulders!

Anywho, I'm rambling now. Thanks for being my journal.

Oh wow, before I draw this manuscript to a close, I have to tell you how much I want to go to the WholeFoods market here everyday. 1. There are free samples everywhere. 2. They had GELATO. 3. The lady who bagged our stuff was hilarious. 4. They have these machines that you pour peanuts in and anything else you want like apples or chocolate, and you turn a lever a few tens of times and out come peanut butter!!! 5. The list of ingrediants on the side of their strawberry lemonade says "Lemons, strawberrys, little bit of sugar"



I just got home from MN, WI, Chicago, St. Louis and Asheville, NC. Just got in an hour ago from that last leg of driving which was 13 hours!! But I could NOT have been happier to see signs for the Garden State Parkway. I mean, I'm usually really happy, but tonight I was exuberantly happy. Don't even know if that's how you use that word, but heck, I felt like it just then and I'm still loopy from that long drive.

Visiting my Grandma was a real hoot. She is 91, and living in an assisted living kind of place, not quite a nursing home, but close. It's up in the Blue Ridge Mountains in NC, so it's pretty sweet. She's been there for about 6 years, but just recently met a young buck named Jesse, who is 92. They are now dating. They are the cutest thing I've seen in quite a length of time. They hold hands and smooch a whole lot and are thinking of getting married. Adorable. They take such good care of each other and BOY does he make a mean French Toast!!!. My mom and I met his son and his son's wife and we all went out to dinner last night to an Asian Grill where Jesse could just say "the usual" and they knew he and my Grandma were gonna be splitting. He always orders "The Drunked Fisherman" aparrently.

At first, I was dreading spending time with this son and this son's wife, in their late 50's, very drab. Then all the sudden the information starts coming out. Our conversations ranged from this son actually being the inventor and creator of night-vision. Designed the goggles and telescopes that the army uses today. We talked about colonoscopies, the "Fantasy Towers" in Las Vegas where they spent their second honeymoon, their 4 year old grandson who wants to grow up to be a paleontologist and their 2 year old granddaughter who wants to grow up to be a tomato plant, how people invented tapioka pudding, and how this dude now works as a computer hacker for banks to test their security. rediculous. did not see any of that coming, except for maybe the colonoscopy. I also tried caviar for the first time! it's pretty damn good! Jesse paid for everything and kept giving me a hard time that I wasn't drinking alcohol at dinner. Some other story came up where Jesse's son was telling about some crazy thing Jesse did and asking him why he did it. he just sat there calmly and said "Oh, I must have been drunk." These were the coolest 90 year olds I've ever met. Not that I've met a lot of them. What a hoot!

The drive home was pretty crazy. My mom and I got so silly at about hour 11 that we were histarically laughing about names of towns we were passing in West Virginia and things we were coming up with in the alphabet game.

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