Latest posts
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Guitar Interlude
You may be able to tell from the tone of the last couple of posts that I’m pretty fed-up with the status quo. I’ve never been the kind of person who can handle sameness for long…even when its good. So this has been a true stretch in patience for my personality. Without going into…
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Maintenance Pt 2
When I wrote about maintenance (part 1) in last night’s blog, I was mostly referring to our general household. But of course there is another very different level of maintenance going on over in Vernon’s world. Sometimes it feels that is all that is going on…people just moving around him, trying to keep…
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Maintenance
Maki asked me what I do all day. “It’s not like you have a job,” he added. I shook my head and realized I had no nutshell of an answer for him….so I said, ” I just go back to bed after school drop off and tune out till its time to pick you up again.…
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Hello, Kids!
https://vimeo.com/125009533
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Seattle
Maki and I got home tonight from our little spring-break stint to Seattle. Its a city I’ve long been fond of, with two different sisters and their families living there (though one moved Chicago some years back.) It’s an easy trip from the OC, and pretty inexpensive, if I play my cards right. Usually I…
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The Work of Childhood
“Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers As we experienced the other day, sometimes its best just to relax and play around Vernon, keeping him out of attention’s center, but letting him hear the family chatter and children’s laughter. Today the kids played Chinese Whispers (with Dad), Tag, and Hide-and-Seek around the…
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A Happy Easter
We had a wonderful Easter afternoon with Vernon. I can’t think of a better way to have spent it, under the circumstances. My parents accompanied the kids and I to the Care Home, and we brought Vernon out to the courtyard for a light lunch in the sunshine. It was one of those perfect spring…
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A New Friend
“It’s not what you like but what you are like that’s important.” —Nick Horby, High Fidelity Vernon may not have much music in his life at the moment, but apparently there are other kinds of music therapy, such as talking about it to someone who is interested in music too. Carlos is one of the…
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Scarecrow
Though Vernon’s communication is getting noticeably better, it still doesn’t seem that he knows where he is and why he is there. As I’ve said before, it must be like a dream to him. An un-lucid dream. I asked him yesterday how he felt in this place. It didn’t take long for him to answer:…
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The Mayor of Mesa Verde
It has been so nice getting Vernon out in the courtyard again after his last run in isolation. Today Maila came to give him a haircut, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Something about haircuts make him so relaxed. It was a beautiful spring day and the courtyard was buzzing. Of course this area is the only…