(no subject)
Whew...it's finally Friday.
Yesterday was kind of a crazy day. I took my mom to the DMV to get her licensed renewed. Because she's 71, she needed to take the written test again. She already failed a few weeks ago, and so she has two more tries. I dropped her off at the DMV, and went to work. She called me an hour later saying she's waiting for the test to be graded. I got there to find out she failed again. So she took it again, and I drove back to work again. Another hour passed and she called again, this time finally passing. Whew! So I drove back to the DMV to pick her up to head back home. It turned out that when she gave the test to be graded to the clerk, he took a look and put the test away and handed her a new one. My mom asked WTF (politely) and the idiot said that a corner of the paper was torn off (there's nothing on it) so she has to take it again! So my mom blew up at him. The corner was already ripped when the last clerk handed to her. After much ranting the idiot gave up and gave her a passing grade.
I guess people who work in DMV have ego problems and want power trips over little old ladies until they are firmly put in their place.
Also yesterday Christine, her parents, and Alex went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. As usual Alex was a complete wreck. I didn't get to see how bad but Christine was depressed and morose all night long. I know that it's a phase he's growing through. Whenever he shows improvement in one area (he's been talking very well lately and starts to spell lots of words), another area suffers. I think it has to do with the theory that autistics do a lot of thought processing in perceptive areas in the brain (visual and auditory centers) (see this article) so these areas get overstimulated when Alex is learning and his coping mechanism is to avoid as much change (aka stimuli) as possible. We need to be patient as he needs time to assimilate all the new stuff he's learning, but sometimes it's very difficult to watch him in public compared against so-called "normal" kids.
Anyway, onto nicer things. Tomorrow a bunch of high school friends are coming over for lunch. Too bad more can't make it, but at least Alex won't be as frantic. As usual we're probably making way too much food. The menu thus far is strawberry gazpacho, baby green salad with goat cheese, some kind of hand-made pizza, grilled skirt or flank steak, and Brittany rum cake. Sounds ambitious but actually most of the stuff will be made ahead or at least prepared. But mostly it'll be nice to have adult conversation. We cut ourselves off too much from friends because of Alex, even other friends with kids of the same age because Alex just can't handle them.
OK, I'm getting morose again. Time to get back to work.
Yesterday was kind of a crazy day. I took my mom to the DMV to get her licensed renewed. Because she's 71, she needed to take the written test again. She already failed a few weeks ago, and so she has two more tries. I dropped her off at the DMV, and went to work. She called me an hour later saying she's waiting for the test to be graded. I got there to find out she failed again. So she took it again, and I drove back to work again. Another hour passed and she called again, this time finally passing. Whew! So I drove back to the DMV to pick her up to head back home. It turned out that when she gave the test to be graded to the clerk, he took a look and put the test away and handed her a new one. My mom asked WTF (politely) and the idiot said that a corner of the paper was torn off (there's nothing on it) so she has to take it again! So my mom blew up at him. The corner was already ripped when the last clerk handed to her. After much ranting the idiot gave up and gave her a passing grade.
I guess people who work in DMV have ego problems and want power trips over little old ladies until they are firmly put in their place.
Also yesterday Christine, her parents, and Alex went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. As usual Alex was a complete wreck. I didn't get to see how bad but Christine was depressed and morose all night long. I know that it's a phase he's growing through. Whenever he shows improvement in one area (he's been talking very well lately and starts to spell lots of words), another area suffers. I think it has to do with the theory that autistics do a lot of thought processing in perceptive areas in the brain (visual and auditory centers) (see this article) so these areas get overstimulated when Alex is learning and his coping mechanism is to avoid as much change (aka stimuli) as possible. We need to be patient as he needs time to assimilate all the new stuff he's learning, but sometimes it's very difficult to watch him in public compared against so-called "normal" kids.
Anyway, onto nicer things. Tomorrow a bunch of high school friends are coming over for lunch. Too bad more can't make it, but at least Alex won't be as frantic. As usual we're probably making way too much food. The menu thus far is strawberry gazpacho, baby green salad with goat cheese, some kind of hand-made pizza, grilled skirt or flank steak, and Brittany rum cake. Sounds ambitious but actually most of the stuff will be made ahead or at least prepared. But mostly it'll be nice to have adult conversation. We cut ourselves off too much from friends because of Alex, even other friends with kids of the same age because Alex just can't handle them.
OK, I'm getting morose again. Time to get back to work.