Good Monday Morning.

Yesterday KidOne and I got KidThree's bed moved and my oh my what a difference it makes in that room. The room is so big, relatively speaking, but back when it contained both this queen-sized bed and KidFour's full-sized bed and four bureaus, it was a bit cramped for space. We got the bed moved and two of the bureaus moved. I still have to get a set of shelves now to go next to the bed for KidThree's lamp, fan, and personal items, but that can wait a little bit. I have a small cabinet there now that is borrowed from the living room.

Another problem got addressed yesterday, too. KidThree has been wanting a volunteer activity where she could develop workaday habits, but where to volunteer? Doing meal prep for the local Meals on Wheels program was out; the counters in their kitchen were too high. There are no more candystripers because of confidentiality issues; hospital volunteers must be adults. Even our local food co-op doesn't allow volunteers who are under age 18. Two weeks ago, I saw an article in the local paper about a business group partnership with the local county office of education and their joint program to help young people enter the workforce. I sent an email to the person cited in the article but got no response. Even though there was no response, the article at least got me thinking about approaching business people directly. Rotary came immediately to mind. Back when I was sixteen and working at my first job, my boss was an active Rotarian, then over the past ten years I've worked with a retired Rotarian as a pollworker; because of these two wonderful men, I knew of Rotary and its goals of making a difference in the local and global communities. Yesterday I looked up the website of the local club, sent off an explanatory email, and got a response within a few hours. That contact person is going to present my dilemma to the club at their meeting today, to see if there are members who have accessible worksites and need some volunteer office help. KidThree used to come to work with me sometimes and especially loved working the shredder and stuffing envelopes for me. My hope is that someone will jump at the chance to help a motivated disabled kid and get some mundane office chores done at the same time. Who knows, maybe it could even develop into a paying job someday.

One of our seniors at the Saturday program is not cognitively impaired, as are most of the other participants; instead, he is incapacitated from a stroke and is visually impaired. The visual impairment is especially difficult for him, as he was an educator and reader but now cannot read. He doesn't care much for books on tape but loves to be read to. The director of our program brought in several books but they were not a sort that could be got into in just the few hours we had. That got me to thinking. Goodness knows I have enough books here at home that there should be some that would be appropriate--interesting, but with short, self-contained items that could be read through in a short time. I talked to the client about it and he was very happy to hear that I would bring him a collection of short stories by one of my favorite authors (Fredric Brown) for the next session. Yesterday I went poking around on my bookshelves for the book I had in mind and came across some of my collections of essays by E. B. White, another favorite, then had a wonderful hour going through their books to look for writings of a suitable length. I found many; the client is going to enjoy them. When I explained what I was doing to KidOne, she reminded me that many students need to earn credits by doing volunteer work and that reading to this man was something a student could to do. I'll suggest this to his wife, that she contact the local schools when they are back in session. Maybe the local scouting groups could help, too. The thought of that lovely, lively man being without the printed word is heartbreaking.

Jobs for today including sorting paperwork and cleaning the living room a bit--I let it go over the weekend and it shows. KidOne starts her college summer session this afternoon. I think that makes it a good time to start doing projects with KidThree. She wants to work on doing some educational projects this summer, both to get some things to turn in in the fall for credit and to develop better study habits, as this past year those habits were somewhat lacking. It will take a lot of work to get her going but eventually we will get on track with that. It'll just take a while to get back into the studying mode. She doesn't know I'm still working on finding her volunteer work as I didn't want her to be disappointed if the efforts didn't pan out; that surprise can come later once we have more information from that wonderful Rotarian.


Also on the calendar for today: go to the county administrative building at five o'clock to celebrate Love and Joy and Family. Gay Marriages start in California today at one minute past five. KidThree and I are going just to be there. We want to show support for those who love and to help provide a counterpoint to any protesters who might show up.


We haven't heard from KidFour since she left. Time to send her an email to see how things are going.

Now off to turn on the tv for company while I do some housework.

A