Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
A Quarter or two for $15
Part of my job is just way too interesting to explain, so you would have to experience it for yourself to really get the scope of what I get to take part in every day. The men that I work with have limited understanding of this life and part of my job is going to them, understanding the world the way that they do and finding a way for them to exist in a world that takes advantage of their limited world view.
I had an excellent opportunity to learn about one of my guys the other day. It has come to my attention, that Alex, a man of 21 years, can't count, has no concept of what money is worth and further, doesn't know what the symbols on the bills mean exactly.
A little bit of a back story here. I'm basically the den mother in the guys house these days. I cook and clean, pick up after them, help them with their individual chores, and basically get them through each day while trying to teach them to be more self reliant than they were in the first place. Getting them to pick up after themselves has been one of the biggest chores for me. I spend a lot of time moving shoes and clothes out of the way, so finally I came up with a simple solution. Any clothing or shoes that are not put away properly become the property of the house, and they can buy them back for a quarter.
The other day, Alex left his shoes in the middle of the walkway, and not only are they a hazard to him, he has Cerebral Palsy, they are in the way of the other guys and therefore become property of the house. I don't go out of my way to take their things from them. The rule has been in effect for 3 weeks now and I've only collected about $2. He learned quickly to put his shoes away when he takes them off, but on this instance, he did not.
I took them and he could buy them back for 50 cents. I told him as much and he complained about not being able to go to the movie with the other guys because we were going to have all his money. This did not make sense to me and Joe looked as confused as I felt. Joe has taken over as the job coach for the guys when I moved to the daily living duties. My failure was thinking that Alex understood how much money he had and that the fine was not going to break his bank. He grumbled and stumbled upstairs and we could hear him fumbling around for a minute. He stomped down the stairs and walking into the kitchen to hand me his money.
I want to draw your attention to a previous paragraph. Remember how Alex can't read, now look at the title of this blog. By this point you probably have figured out that he handed me a $10 and a $5, thinking that this was the cost of getting his shoes back. It then made sense why he thought he was not going to have the money for the movie (we pay for that for him) and helped me realize that they think in a different fashion than I do.
Instead of taking the offered $15, I went upstairs with Alex and showed him what we meant by 50 cents, and it was a simple matter of quarters being the "silver" coins. Now I have to watch out for dimes and nickels being replaced with quarters as he doesn't know the difference, but at least I can see one thing that he thinks differently on. I need to simplify a lot of my thinking to connect with him, but at least I have a starting point.
I had an excellent opportunity to learn about one of my guys the other day. It has come to my attention, that Alex, a man of 21 years, can't count, has no concept of what money is worth and further, doesn't know what the symbols on the bills mean exactly.
A little bit of a back story here. I'm basically the den mother in the guys house these days. I cook and clean, pick up after them, help them with their individual chores, and basically get them through each day while trying to teach them to be more self reliant than they were in the first place. Getting them to pick up after themselves has been one of the biggest chores for me. I spend a lot of time moving shoes and clothes out of the way, so finally I came up with a simple solution. Any clothing or shoes that are not put away properly become the property of the house, and they can buy them back for a quarter.
The other day, Alex left his shoes in the middle of the walkway, and not only are they a hazard to him, he has Cerebral Palsy, they are in the way of the other guys and therefore become property of the house. I don't go out of my way to take their things from them. The rule has been in effect for 3 weeks now and I've only collected about $2. He learned quickly to put his shoes away when he takes them off, but on this instance, he did not.
I took them and he could buy them back for 50 cents. I told him as much and he complained about not being able to go to the movie with the other guys because we were going to have all his money. This did not make sense to me and Joe looked as confused as I felt. Joe has taken over as the job coach for the guys when I moved to the daily living duties. My failure was thinking that Alex understood how much money he had and that the fine was not going to break his bank. He grumbled and stumbled upstairs and we could hear him fumbling around for a minute. He stomped down the stairs and walking into the kitchen to hand me his money.
I want to draw your attention to a previous paragraph. Remember how Alex can't read, now look at the title of this blog. By this point you probably have figured out that he handed me a $10 and a $5, thinking that this was the cost of getting his shoes back. It then made sense why he thought he was not going to have the money for the movie (we pay for that for him) and helped me realize that they think in a different fashion than I do.
Instead of taking the offered $15, I went upstairs with Alex and showed him what we meant by 50 cents, and it was a simple matter of quarters being the "silver" coins. Now I have to watch out for dimes and nickels being replaced with quarters as he doesn't know the difference, but at least I can see one thing that he thinks differently on. I need to simplify a lot of my thinking to connect with him, but at least I have a starting point.
Feeling Gross feels so Good!
It only take a mile. Sometimes not even that much and I start to sweat. I think I should head back and talk about the history of my life up to this spectacular moment. I am a runner. I run miles and miles, and sometimes I don't run miles at all. In my day, the ones that I was a track star, I ran hurdles, and a quarter mile was about all that I ever ran. Thinking back on that glorious moment of my life, I enjoyed so much the feeling of being utterly spent and just laying on the ground... just done.
Just done... that is such an odd way to feel. Not often in your life will you feel this way and be completely happy about your inability to move even the smallest of your muscles. The decathalon was the hardest thing I ever accomplished, and I did it the best that I could. Today, I realize things that I could have done different and it's unfortunate, but I can't go back and change them, all I can do is go forward.
The other day, I went for a run. Running never bothered me, I can run. And I can run for a long time, even after a long absence from the activitiy. 3 miles is just a good stretch of the legs, and unfortunately, I picked a day that the temp had climbed into the 90's. When you are a little out of shape and you go running on a hot day, you are going to sweat.
When I got done I felt gross. That feeling you get when you've been working all day and you can feel the grime between your toes, on your back, just chilling out, and then the worst of all, you feel gross in your mouth because you started to sweat in places that you didn't think you could sweat in. I fell great.
In my life I have pushed my body to the outer limit of it's endurance. I have tried to break it in so many ways, but I have been up to task on all of them. What I am usually left with is that feeling when you have sweat just a little too much and want to shower in the worst way. It feels great, I can't get enough and I must run more, I must push myself more, and I have to feel that moment, when I am utterly spent and my body is crying out, "quit" and I tell it to shut the hell up because I love this.
Just done... that is such an odd way to feel. Not often in your life will you feel this way and be completely happy about your inability to move even the smallest of your muscles. The decathalon was the hardest thing I ever accomplished, and I did it the best that I could. Today, I realize things that I could have done different and it's unfortunate, but I can't go back and change them, all I can do is go forward.
The other day, I went for a run. Running never bothered me, I can run. And I can run for a long time, even after a long absence from the activitiy. 3 miles is just a good stretch of the legs, and unfortunately, I picked a day that the temp had climbed into the 90's. When you are a little out of shape and you go running on a hot day, you are going to sweat.
When I got done I felt gross. That feeling you get when you've been working all day and you can feel the grime between your toes, on your back, just chilling out, and then the worst of all, you feel gross in your mouth because you started to sweat in places that you didn't think you could sweat in. I fell great.
In my life I have pushed my body to the outer limit of it's endurance. I have tried to break it in so many ways, but I have been up to task on all of them. What I am usually left with is that feeling when you have sweat just a little too much and want to shower in the worst way. It feels great, I can't get enough and I must run more, I must push myself more, and I have to feel that moment, when I am utterly spent and my body is crying out, "quit" and I tell it to shut the hell up because I love this.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Mark 2 Outing
It's Tuesday. I had a hard time rolling out of bed this morning because every muscle in my body is screaming in agony because of it's over-use yesterday. Ok, so not every muscle, but my back, shoulders, and arms are all about useless. I'm finding in hard to do simple things like wash my hair in the shower or even pick up a fork to eat. They are simply done.
You must be asking yourself why? We went rafting. In any normal group of people, I would make sure that I got to sit in the front of the boat, but on this trip, I didn't get a choice. We had 3 people on the paddles, plus the guide. It was a boat big enough for 8, we had 6, and 2 of them weren't eaven rowing.
To the river we go. It started out pleasent enough, it was some slow moving water, not much of a current and we were learning the commands so we would know what to do if we got into a situation that required a bunch of commands in a row. The other boats and ours got into some splash fights and we got a small cooling down from the mild spray that was bounced into our raft.
Then the fun began. For a little over 3 hours we had slow currents, fast rapids, some swimmers (both volunteer and not), waves pouring over the side and a complete drenching of everything that you had on. I didn't bother taking off my shirt when I climbed into the water at one point because it was soaking wet anyway.
A visiting volunteer was accompanying us because of extra spots that we had in the boats. Alan was taking great joy in watching every wave that came over the front of the boat land right in my lap. He was damp, but nothing compared to the complete dousing that I had taken... until... Coming into the biggest rapid on the trip, our boat took a sudden lurch to the left. A wall of water, like Moses parting the red sea, dove over the front of the boat and I was convinced I was going swimming. At the last second, the current caught the boat and we lurched to the left, throwing Alan from his seat, almost throwing Robby from the boat, and landing the full force of the wave right into... not my chest. I was missed by almost the full wave of water. Alan however, was not so lucky. He could not have been more completely soaked by the wave that washed over him. There was nothing dry on him left to be found.
As much joy as I took in watching him get drenched, I later took the full force of a wave right in my face and came through sputtering incoherently. Robby road through a rapid on the outside of the boat, on purpose, and Mike seemed to enjoy just being out on the water.
Sunburned and with a story to tell, we had lunch at the Imperial Restraunt in Maupin, then headed home. My food sitting heavy in my stomach, my eyes barely remained open to get us home and there was little complaint from anyone when it became time for lights out. They/We were exhausted.
You must be asking yourself why? We went rafting. In any normal group of people, I would make sure that I got to sit in the front of the boat, but on this trip, I didn't get a choice. We had 3 people on the paddles, plus the guide. It was a boat big enough for 8, we had 6, and 2 of them weren't eaven rowing.
To the river we go. It started out pleasent enough, it was some slow moving water, not much of a current and we were learning the commands so we would know what to do if we got into a situation that required a bunch of commands in a row. The other boats and ours got into some splash fights and we got a small cooling down from the mild spray that was bounced into our raft.
Then the fun began. For a little over 3 hours we had slow currents, fast rapids, some swimmers (both volunteer and not), waves pouring over the side and a complete drenching of everything that you had on. I didn't bother taking off my shirt when I climbed into the water at one point because it was soaking wet anyway.
A visiting volunteer was accompanying us because of extra spots that we had in the boats. Alan was taking great joy in watching every wave that came over the front of the boat land right in my lap. He was damp, but nothing compared to the complete dousing that I had taken... until... Coming into the biggest rapid on the trip, our boat took a sudden lurch to the left. A wall of water, like Moses parting the red sea, dove over the front of the boat and I was convinced I was going swimming. At the last second, the current caught the boat and we lurched to the left, throwing Alan from his seat, almost throwing Robby from the boat, and landing the full force of the wave right into... not my chest. I was missed by almost the full wave of water. Alan however, was not so lucky. He could not have been more completely soaked by the wave that washed over him. There was nothing dry on him left to be found.
As much joy as I took in watching him get drenched, I later took the full force of a wave right in my face and came through sputtering incoherently. Robby road through a rapid on the outside of the boat, on purpose, and Mike seemed to enjoy just being out on the water.
Sunburned and with a story to tell, we had lunch at the Imperial Restraunt in Maupin, then headed home. My food sitting heavy in my stomach, my eyes barely remained open to get us home and there was little complaint from anyone when it became time for lights out. They/We were exhausted.
Friday, July 8, 2011
In a Mood
Occasionally, I get in a funky mood and I really have no answer to any of the feelings that are running around through me. Tonight is one of those nights. I hold out hope for a future and sometimes believe that I can see that future, but then, sometimes it's so clouded that I don't understand how I can see anything at all.
I live in a desert. I've mentioned the desert many times to many different people, but I'm starting to see that it's a place to grow. In the book "Dune", one character says, God made Arrakis to train the faithful. "Arrakis" is a desert planet. Very little lives on it and the way of life for the people of the planet is a scratched out exhistance among desert cliffs and a few sinks that keep away the sweltering heat.
The desert, in this book, is always a place of learning, of growing. The desert? I seem to see a lot of desert lately. There are many places in the bible that mention the desert. Sometimes it is a group of people wandering (Israel, Abraham), sometimes you have someone headed out for 40 days, which seems to be significant. All in all, the desert is a place of learning, but I don't want to learn, I want to live and to experience.
Now here I am. I want to be so much further ahead than where God has me right now, but I must wait. It's why I'm in this mood tonight, I believe. There are a hundred scenarios that are going to make me thrilled to be me, but there are just as many that are hammering on me that I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with them. But there is nothing that I can do. I must trust that God is going to take care of me, no matter how much pain I seem to go through at the time.
I live in a desert. I've mentioned the desert many times to many different people, but I'm starting to see that it's a place to grow. In the book "Dune", one character says, God made Arrakis to train the faithful. "Arrakis" is a desert planet. Very little lives on it and the way of life for the people of the planet is a scratched out exhistance among desert cliffs and a few sinks that keep away the sweltering heat.
The desert, in this book, is always a place of learning, of growing. The desert? I seem to see a lot of desert lately. There are many places in the bible that mention the desert. Sometimes it is a group of people wandering (Israel, Abraham), sometimes you have someone headed out for 40 days, which seems to be significant. All in all, the desert is a place of learning, but I don't want to learn, I want to live and to experience.
Now here I am. I want to be so much further ahead than where God has me right now, but I must wait. It's why I'm in this mood tonight, I believe. There are a hundred scenarios that are going to make me thrilled to be me, but there are just as many that are hammering on me that I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with them. But there is nothing that I can do. I must trust that God is going to take care of me, no matter how much pain I seem to go through at the time.
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