Things are just getting nuts. I'm having nervous breakdowns all the time. This is NOT the way to lose weight but I have. Steve is so angry he's filing a lawsuit. Has a lawyer now. If we just had a DATE for a return to school. But the principal waffles along and avoids answering questions, keeps it all open-ended. If they could just say 10 days I'd be okay with that (it's been 4). But now Steve has gotten pissed so badly he wants to sue no matter what they do, because Micah was taken out of school for a non-reason, for something he's already been punished for, which in itself was ridiculous, with no hope of an end in sight to this. Steve's now been in contact with the school board and ass't superintendent. He said he'd look into it Tuesday. Hey, all I want is a date but now Steve has seen what this is doing to us all and he's mad and once he starts he won't stop. I am willing for Micah to comply with any behavior plan or anything they want to do. Micah will go along with it. Steve is so angry right now at those 2 (principal and ass't principal). I could get over it IF they just gave me a date. I mean we've gone through the psychological testing now and they've been told Micah's not a risk for going postal. He's not one of those kids who gets on nazi websites and stacks guns around. He's so opposite. Very outgoing. Can't be a loner- always has to have someone around him. Good with animals and good with younger kids. Does that sound like the Unabomber? I have taught kids like the ones who do school shootings. I know this type very well. Micah is SO not like that and I can understand them wanting to be 100% sure but this woman is so weird and skittish and paranoid that she seems to make any excuse to just put this off. That has to be against some kind of law. Steve thinks they can't just exclude someone after 10 days unless there's a good reason and there is no good reason, even for the 10 days. Micah threatened no one, didn't get angry, is still not angry. He is on the downslope of adolescence now. Both my boys went through a stage at about age 11-12 where anything set them off, but their anger was unfocused, and I just knew those hormones were about to shoot off the charts. As Nathanael matured and just got so calm and mellow, I waited for Micah to do the same, and now he seems to be so calm as well. This kid just doesn't get too mad at anyone. The one mistake he made when he was still in 7th grade, making a list of people he hated, not even planning to show it to anyone, never even directly saying anything threatening to anyone, well a teacher found it and then he was expelled. It seems this is going to follow him everywhere. Meanwhile, some real nut job is lurking around waiting to shoot up a school and they are not going to catch him because people are wasting time focusing on Micah. There's a book called Columbine's Collateral Damage and that's what Micah is right now. He's getting most of his assignments but still we don't have the makeup work for Latin and biology. Luckily we can teach that stuff to him. Steve used to teach this biology and right now they're doing trees and all the various kinds of leaves. I overheard (shhhh, don't tell) the bio teacher questioning HRH the principal too and her waffling answers. This lady is haunting my every thought. The kids think she is 85 years old. I know she can't be that old but sometimes I wonder. She's IRRATIONAL.

On top of this, Micah broke his ARM tonight skating. We just got back from the hospital where they reset his bones. I got the call from work from a fireman who said my son had a fractured wrist from skating. It's not a HUGE fracture, but it is on the radius and there's another on the tip of the ulna. I asked if Micah heard his bone craaaaack and he said he did. He panicked when he got up and saw the weird shape of his arm- trying to find an adult who could get help- and they helped- ambulance was there in 2 minutes. I sat in the hospital while they put morphine in him (did little) and re-set the bone. Micah was in a lot of pain while they re-set the bone, but still barely winced. He watched them put needles and caine of some type in him, had sort of a Calvin & Hobbes approach to it all, like "This is cool, kind of interesting!" Kid's not afraid of blood. He said to one of the nurses, "How do you get used to seeing all these freaky injuries here?" His one regret? "Mom, I really hate that you and Dad had to miss the Bengals game for this."

Things are not good right now here.

Long story short: A few days ago Micah told a few kids at the school about what happened in 7th grade. Now before going back to school he had to have a psychiatric evaluation, etc. etc. etc. to prove he won't go postal. He's been to one. God answered my prayer and I was able to get an appointment with a great doc today. However, school has to "discuss" and all before he can return. In the meantime they are letting him keep up with his work but it's been short in coming. This is ridiculous. My nerves are shot and I won't tell you what I think of the administration. I think the teachers agree with me. I am tired of schools. He has to go for 2 hours of another evaluation later this week or Monday. I don't know if the school will pend for that or not. Could use some prayer. There are particular people whose competency I question. He is being punished for something in 7th grade all over again. They say he should have never mentioned this whole thing but since he did, rumors started about a kid who in 7th grade had a "hit list". And so on and so on and so on. It never ends. The whole year started great. Now I'm just sick.

I met Jeremy, Nathanael's other roommate. Nice kid from Chicago who is studying Japanese. Talking to both him and his mother, it seemed they spoke with a very, very slight Haitian or Jamaican or some kind of West African lilt. But they say they are from just Chicago. I let it go at that. It was just distinct and, well, un-Chicago-sounding. So anyway. He had about 15 books of kanji, Japanese grammar, and kana. So next time I go there, I will let him use/have MY 15 or so books of kanji et al. The one other book he had is the Bible. :) Jay is from New Delhi and NOT a vegetarian. So if I send food with meaty stuff in it they can all have some. Across the hall is a boy from Hawaii of Japanese descent who was interested in why Jeremy wants to study Japanese. I think Jeremy is into the Japanese martial arts as well, far more than most Japanese are. Then there is Ben. I met Ben and his parents and they are a normal family from Colorado Springs with one exception: Ben is strikingly good-looking. So I said to his mom, "Well he's such a good-looking boy, I guess there must be a girlfriend back in Colorado Springs." "Ex," she said. "They didn't want a long-distance relationship." I said, "Well I'm sure it won't take the girls long to notice him." And I was right. I saw a little 90-pound girl orbiting around him in a lunch line. Have you ever picked up a bunch of paper clips with a magnet? Maybe he will major in theater and be the next Brad Pitt but smarter. Face it, most pretty boys in H-wood are total buffoons (see also Tom Cruise), so maybe Ben can change the image. But anyway, back to my OWN good-looking boy...who is making lots of friends, especially with the GOOP people he went to Wisconsin with. I met Dr. Savarese. I think it will be a good match for developing Nathanael's writing. Dr. S. remembered and has been corresponding with Irene. These connections are all good. We talked a little about autism. He talked to all of us parents about the tutorial. He isn't lax and he works the students well. If they are late he shakes them out of bed. He makes them go to the actual LIBRARY and not just the internet.

So then I drove back starting yesterday. I took another drive around Iowa City. It was a beautiful evening. I went through my park again. I thought I would be able to find the road I lived on. I know the house isn't there anymore. I went along the railroad tracks beside where the house once was. Well as I was driving a boy fell off his bike and I stopped and helped him. He seemed in a lot of pain and I helped him up as his friends jeered at him for falling. He pretty much had a scraped up hand and a very bruised ego. He was 13...I wanted to get him to a place where he could clean his hand but didn't know where to find such a place. Finally he and his friends rode off to a place down the street they knew, since they were several blocks from their home.

I also drove by a huge crowd of girls standing in front of a sorority house. New pledges were in black dresses, holding candles, posing for a picture. Probably 80 of them. They were stunning, breathtaking. I may actually be able to find this picture by googling them. I don't know what sorority it was but maybe I will dare myself to find this photo. :)

Since I left Wednesday, I decided to drive leisurely to Grinnell. I diverted at times to some backroads. The dry, brown drought of southwest Ohio (I must emphasize the southwest, since northeast Ohio has seen its worst flooding in 100 years) soon gave way to green, thriving vegetation. I stopped at a cafe near Peoria where I listened to some eight old men sit around and talk about, in order, food poisoning, laxatives ("prune juice always loosens me right up"), whichever war they fought in, social security benefits, and "some old sumbich" they all knew. They were just too cute.

In Northern Illinois, I drove right into storms, the same ones that hit Chicago and spawned many tornadoes (I looked but didn't see any of them). They were breathtaking storms. All the rest of last night (Thursday) I drove through intermittent driving rain. Lightning threw webs across the entire sky. I even left the interstate to park in a lot and watch the storms crawl over a small town while the crickets chirped and wind gusted through tall grass. The lightning in thiws storm looked so close, but it was still so far away, being cloud to cloud, that the thunder it created was barely audible, if at all. Just flashes and flashes in silence. That is the nature of these expansive storms. The storms across the vast midwest are visible for perhaps a hundred miles.

I stopped for some time in Iowa City. I went to MY old park. MY PARK. The city park where I have some of my first memories ever. As a baby. Unbelievably, the carnival rides are still there. Yes, everything on them has probably been replaced in the last FORTY years, but they are in the exact same place. I sat on a swing and watched the cars go by and imagined them the way I saw them as a baby. A busy road runs behind a bunch of trees, so as a baby I thought they were actually little cars, in trees. Of course long ago I realized that memory was actually due to not knowing how to perceive size and distance accurately yet. A baby learns it early.

It's one of those things that a person has been blind for life, upon seeing for the first time, has to learn cognitively. When Jesus healed a blind man by mixing spit and dirt and touching the man's eyes with it (something like scales fell from the eyes, so perhaps it was what we now know as cataracts), he then asked the man what people looked like. "They look like trees walking" said the man. Jesus touched his eyes with a second pat of spittle and dirt, and that brought the actual interpretation of what the man was seeing. Had Jesus not touched him a second time, this man would have had to learn completely how to perceive size, distance, where one thing ends and another begins, the meaning of shadows, light, human facial expression, movement, colors, everything. What an alien a human must look like to an adult seeing one for the first time! For that matter, a baby! I remember when Nathanael was just born, how he just spent so much time LOOKING on the first day of his life. Just looking and quietly, intently, focusing on sources of light. Micah spent his first moments just looking at my face and Steve's face, rolling his tongue the whole time.

Iowa City was so flooded that a "puddle" in the middle of the park had become a large pond. About a dozen college students were throwing frisbees around in it, diving and sloshing in it and having a great old time. I thought of the lack of rain back in Cincinnati, the curled up leaves around my house, the grass that everywhere has just given up. No way to even anything out.

Today I had some time before Nathanael returned from his GORP trip, so I drove up to Tama. I bought him some corn tortillas at the Mexican store. I was going to go look at the old farm but I decided to do that some other time.

Nathanael's room is a triple. I still have not met either roommate though I briefly talked to one of them, Jay from New Delhi. Jeremy has still not arrived. The room is a big room with 2 smaller rooms adjoining. Nathanael and Jay each took an adjoining room. Jeremy gets the big room, though he has no privacy, because Jay and Nathanael have to walk through Jeremy's room to leave.

I'm here at Super 8 and the students and parents are pouring in for orientation tomorrow. There are still a few things I have to check on. Most of his orientation and all of his moving in is done, but I need to attend some things and so does he. He has gotten really involved in GORP, the Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program....(I think that's what GORP stands for). He had a great time in Wisconsin. I'm sure he will detail everything on his blog tonight.

I bought him a few creature comforts neither he nor his dad thought of and got him started on laundry, which was badly needed. His shoes REEK and they are still unwashed. I hope he didn't forget his laundry...I better call and remind him....he forgets things like that.

I almost forgot to mention that I was SO happy to see Nathanael. I already missed him terribly. I have great grief taking my baby and dropping him off in a cornfield in the middle of Iowa. But then I am also happy he's a grown man now and is where he is supposed to be. I pray for him all the time. I will never stop doing that.

Micah LOVED his first day at school. He already has some friends who share his interests of skating and RPG's (in particular Runescape...I don't get the huge appeal...it's a game that thousands of people play at a time online. You create a character. You walk around in this virtual world that has lots of levels learning "skills" in woodcarving, arrow making, etc. etc. etc. You never actually win the game- you just advance in levels.) He came home and did his homework right away, and another comment: "Already 5 girls have a crush on me." Me: "How can you tell?" Micah: "You just know. You just know it." Aren't we Mr. Cool. Sloooooow down. He actually did get back together with his "girlfriend" in Texas...she's a person he met doing what...you guessed it...Runescape.

Micah says of freshman orientation, "It was BOOOOOORing...." typical. But as I watched him watch the program, I saw him connect with a few kids right away. He was already sitting with some kids and talking and having fun. Later he and Brandon went to the skate park. Now he is reading his summer assignment, Lord of the Flies. Steve chided ME that Micah had only read 40 pages while he was gone in Iowa. Well now I've gone and gotten some study guides online and I chided Steve that HIS discourse doesn't work when tutoring Micah. Same old same old. We'll work it out.

The weather is still ridiculous here. DRY. Yesterday lightning split the thirsting southern sky a few times, but the rain only continued its tantalizing flirt with the far edges of the city. Meanwhile all grass has turned brown. The long, shrill cicada chirp pierces the heavy sunshine. Plants from the north have no hope here. Some plants in my inherited garden, some small little things with large, veiny, deciduous leaves, have just given up. The leaf edges are brown and the stems withering, wilting hopelessly even if I use the hose on them. It just is not enough. They have literally been cooked alive. The earth is cracking like millions of fault lines. Plants of southern origin have flourished in the heat but are now beginning to tire of the lack of water as even their roots dehydrate. The magnificent magnolia tree thrives but its leaves are turned upward in hope. Meanwhile Texas drowns under its diluvian surge, and Dean has menaced St. Lucia. His plans for the coast are unknown but to him. Yucatan? Houston? San Antonio? New Orleans? We can only guess while Cancun genuflects and whispers please....no....not again....

Nathanael has moved into Grinnell. He then goes on to his outdoor orientation activity, in which about 25 students chose to participate. I will go up to visit him next weekend- parents' weekend. You can get on his blog. Currently he and his friend BJ are discussing Thoreau and some essays written by, well I don't remember his name, on the merits of agriculturalism...so feel free to jump into that one...BJ goes to Brandeis and the knot in my stomach twists ever more as he details how Finneytown did not prepare him for Brandeis. They didn't offer enough calculus and he didn't feel challenged in any of his classes, even the AP classes. For the first time at Brandeis he had to really study and think HARD and things aren't coming as easily. Sounds exactly like what Nathanael had to say, from correcting his trig teacher jr. year (you can go back and read it in his blog)...maybe it's just academic standards in general...he got five 5's in his AP classes this year. That's like, 20 hours he does not have to take at Grinnell. 20 hours of something more advanced. So he learned well enough at Finneytown to get 5 5's (and a 3 his jr. year in an AP class). A 34 on ACT. And extremely high SAT's. OK OK we know he's smart. Now we have just moved to a school district and this public school system is rated (Newsweek, I think) #12 in the whole US. That is #12 from, what, a hundred thousand school systems...? I could kick myself that Nathanael didn't go to this school, though I didn't want him to leave his friends at Finneytown. He and Matt R. and BJ and the rest seemed to muddle through and make great strides despite the mediocrity around them. The median ACT here was 23, and the median at F-town was 21.5, though, so what difference would it have made? He'd have been unchallenged even here. NOW I have Micah coming up in these schools, and I hope he makes every effort. He is such a younger brother in this whole thing. He has lately become the anti-Nathanael. Everything Nathanael likes, he doesn't. If Nathanael doesn't like it, he does. Music, sports, books, friends, games, EVERYTHIING. Now that they are not in such proximity, I HOPE Micah develops into what he wants to do, regardless of Nathanael's opinions. He continues to say "I'm not smart like Nathanael...." Well, he ISN'T smart like Nathanael. He's smart like Micah. I'm not going to get all touchy-feely and say we're all so suuuuper special. But Micah thinks that because he's not like Nathanael, he's just average. Um, he is pretty high functioning. Extremely creative and can do anything with his hands. Not to mention his ability with math and science. He has a lot of ability, actually, but in his attempt to be the anti-Nathanael, he stifled some of it. Now I hope that emerges again. I would buy into his "I'm just average so lemme alone" bit, but his achievement tests and even final exams tell a different story. No, he's not interested in spelling and fonts. He's interested in skating and video games. What's NOT smart about that? Now maybe he can get more into his art and the talents he has (fixing anything...like dozens of bikes...mechanical ability...likes doing this because, well, his brother doesn't do it...and the truth is Nathanael could have done THAT had he been interested in it, but he wasn't nearly to the extent Micah was.). OK OK I just want him to develop his skills and his talents and do the BEST he can. We're 2 miles from where we lived. But sometimes it seems like 200. Other times like we haven't moved. Wyoming and Finneytown share a border. Every day I want to kick myself again for not having moved to Wyoming earlier. The truth is, when we moved to F-town, it was renouned for its schools. It had achieved some "excellence" ratings which they proudly displayed on their marquees. They still have the "school of excellence in 1987" marquee stored in the school warehouse somewhere. I was pleased with the elementary school- the gifted program- Gail Siefert and Tom Gugeon and the other teachers there- what they did with Nathanael and then Micah. It was so wonderful. Nathanael was out of the mainstream class for half the day. I didn't think everything they did was perfect. Both had their moments. And both had bullies. Nathanael had bullies and then something happened. He won his first school spelling bee. He kept competing in spelling bees. He was written up in the papers. Then, when he went to DC, it was a highlight. He rose to the top of the peer heap. He never had another problem from that moment on. Micah has had no such defining moment. He is not interested in learning a lot about spelling. He's just a different person. He's a pretty good speller but it's just not his hobby. So he's trying to make his mark like the rest of us do. Most of us don't have a defining moment of fame which we ride for years. I'm hoping Micah will leave an indelible fingerprint on his Wyoming years in a different way. I just offer encouragement and want him to leap at the chance.

Another thing for kids with autism AND siblings.

www.campbarnabas.org

Dave I think someday your kids might love this. There is a week they deal with just autism. Another week= visual disabilities, another = kids who have difficulty moving or are amputees, another = mental delays (sorry, I don't know the current euphemism for everything.... but you get my gist). This was featured on Extreme Home Makeover a couple of years ago. Nondemoninational Christian camp and I have heard nothing but extremely positive stuff about this place. It's a total haven for everyone. They also group them by age. It would be a fun thing to do sometime. I would love to volunteer sometime there.

We went today to a quarry in Indiana for the first day of Micah's final certification tests in scuba. He did pretty well. Steve and Nathanael dove as well. Tomorrow Micah finishes up. Weather was 98 degrees at one point depsite the predicion of a "cool" 90. Tomorrow was supposed to be 98 so I suppose now it may be, as some days have been, over 100. You zonies out there are used to it but over here it's no dry heat. :) I am just fine with it. We were going to camp but Steve and I had had a fight and he didn't want to camp in the heat so we conceded. Our house is SO comfortable. Tomorrow I won't go with them but rather continue to clean the old house. I need Dan to inspect and say when he can put a sign up. The old AC from this house is at that one. Dan I already have a couple of people who may be interested. They are both parents of people who already own houses. One is a recent widower who owns the house 2 doors from us, and the other is James' grandmother. The door in the living room is JUST RIGHT for an older person who has difficulty getting around. Get into your car, come home, open the garage, put your car in the garage, close it, and get out right at your door. No going around anything. No cold air or anything.

My parents are in England right now so I'm sure they are a little cooler though a few years back I remember them getting hit with a heat wave that, though typical for us, sent them in fits.

Couple of updates:

MICAH will be going into the 9th grade, not the 8th. I was kind of overruled by several people who thought he was ready for 9th. I have mixed feelings. I don't want him bored in the 8th but since 9th is so important, if he goes into 9th, he has to be very mature. I feel the immaturity is still an issue.

This was a recommendation by the counselors. Final decision was up to us, I guess, but we are deferring to them. At this point it would take extra effort to keep him in 8th. I guess they looked at test scores and those proficiency tests and said well, since he knew his stuff it might not be good to repeat. And that being around high schoolers in a serious school would help him mature. My thing is that when I see him with his peers, he is pretty goofy and immature. When he is around younger kids (Kross, for example) he's a totally different person. He acts like a leader and is very responsible.

It was just one of those "blink" feelings of mine. I can't explain it. It just seemed right. I know it but I don't know why I know it.

(Here's a digression- feel free to skip my diatribe if you're bored by my observations, etc.)

If you have never read Blink, read it. It tells you why you should trust your guts on some things even if you don't know why, and when not to. For example, if you're prejudiced and don't want to be, it will show you exercises on how to train your brain not to prejudge.

It's pretty cool and since there is some sort of unwarranted prejudice anywhere you should at least be aware of how this happens and how to overcome it. It is nothing if not profitable because prejudice in business is a huge money loser.

In our culture, for example, US Caucasians and Blacks should both read it. There is an ingrown prejudice each has toward that other that has really caused the sufferer OF the prejudice more harm than the person being prejudiced against.

Most Caucasians have had a prejudice, and most wish they did NOT. They cannot verbalize it, but were it verbalized, it would go like this: Black people are dangerous and want to steal from or harm me.

Similarly, African Americans have an equally harmful prejudice, and most wish they did not. They cannot verbalize it, but were it verbalized, it would go like this: White people do not want me to succeed and think of ways to keep me down.

These prejudices over the years are responsible for riots, attacks, murders, and crimes against both those one's same group and the other. More often they are responsible for extreme FEAR, intimidation, avoidance, shame of having but not being able to get rid of this thought, and overall general rudeness. In business it costs millions of dollars. Savvy businesspeople have learned to overcome these prejudices. In terms of friendship and openness, the cost is priceless.

You CAN fix this. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is ONE resource one can use. Another exercise I've known people use for a long time is this: If you see people of the group you are not in, and you are feeling fear or intimidation, think: "Would I be afraid of these people if they were in my own ethnic group?" I have seriously seen people afraid of groups of children or teenaged boys riding bikes. Since I live around many Blacks and many Whites, I have seen this on both sides.

If you are Black, you are thinking, "Why would ANYONE think this about me? I am not dangerous. I'm not out trying to hurt anyone." If you're White, you are thinking, "I have no intention of keeping anyone down. Maybe I even try to help people succeed." Believe me, prejudice has no grounds in reality but is a very prevalent thought that is infused from moment one, very subtly, through messages around you. If you are in some other country, you can find two groups who have similar prejudices. How much does this cost everyone!

Use this exercise if you are a policeman, teacher, or just a neighbor. It eliminates the crime of Driving While Black, for example. Or like this: When I was in Oxford I worked for a few weeks at Odd Lots. They buy overstock and sell it at way discount prices. One day a Black lady came in and was looking for a doll. All of the overstock of this particular doll was the white version, and I tried but could not find the black one. "That just figures", she said, disgruntled and almost hurt. "I see how it is" and stormed off in a huff. Now it is just overstock but somehow to her the great white Powers that Be had conspired to keep little girls from having the dolls they wanted which matched their skin.

If you know this, you can recognize and reject those messages when you see them and go on about your business much more enlightened.

END OF DIGRESSION

Nathanael's roommates are Jay and Jeremy. Jay is from New Delhi and is going to play for the Grinnell soccer team. We have still not heard from Jeremy. But as far as Nathanael is going, he is still going from an east midwest mid-sized city to a central midwest tiny town. Jay is coming from half a day ahead, from a burgeoning Indian metropolis to a central midwest tiny town. OK, Nathanael says New Delhi isn't burgeoning - it's already burgeoned. Hm. I don't know about that.

Just wanted to let you all know that Nathanael will be studying under Dr. Savarese for his tutorial. Literature of Disability or something like that. But with regards to that, his real expertise is autism. So Dave, this guy is one of the foremost experts on reaching autistic people. Read his book "Reasonable People". I think Irene got you a copy. It's about the experience he's had developing a communication system with his autistic son, and understanding how autistic people put together thoughts, associations, and logic. He and his wife adopted the boy at age 6, and the little boy was shut up in his own world and had been abused, but he now fully communicates using the facilitated method. Savarese is probably the leading expert in the study and understanding of the autistic mind. This boy is a pretty smart kid and is doing well in the Grinnell schools. He doesn't talk much but types everything. Autists are smart and they remember EVERYTHING. I bet Hayden remembers stuff you don't realize.

First time visiting my blog in a while. Just got hooked up at the new house.

It's just a wee bit warm out there... every day almost 100F. The haze obscures the lumbering, lazy cumulus, which occasionally cough a dozen tiny beads of rain. The thunder tantalizes without giving. The plants strain upward and open in anticipation, but the sky withholds until everything green turns a sizzling, thirsty brown and collapses in dry, cracked, hopeless heaps.

Well, that's the way SEEMS, anyway. Ya think it's HOT?

No, just a nice, balmy, southern zephyr...

Time to go check out the web sites I've missed for about a week. They've firewalled just about everything at work, including blogspot...

Oh, and I have to find out WHO has been letting their dogs dump their stinkin' business on our lawns. Ours = ours and Mary's. Mary is our new neighbor. She's in her 70's and is a real gem. She said to Micah, "I'll pay you five dollars if you can tell me who's letting their dog do their business on my lawn without picking it up. I'll give you five more if you take a picture of the dog in action."