A Long Distance Coffee Date with Stefan (and everyone else who can't be here)

Witness this artistic sight! The dream grind of an un-medicated ADHD adult. The Bunn brand coffee pot, speaking volumes to our Midwestern sensibilities. The 'natural wood' Formica counter top... Thank you Stefan for this terrific picture, I wish we were enjoying this morning together! There is so much to talk about!

For all of you who can't be here to enjoy a cup of coffee with me, here are the highlights/lowlights of the past three days;

• The metaphor I was trying to figure out in the last post. Here is what it has meant for me. "I have the power, but I am not letting my light shine." I have not been letting my inner spiritual light shine as much as I should. I've been covering it with fear and a dose of chaos. After that realization, I uncovered it and put on a purple coat. I went into Safeway just to buy a piece of gum. I saw another mother friend of mine and she said, "You look spiffy! Are you just getting out of an IEP meeting or something?" What did I spontaneously learn? That my friends son (also with IEP) is also getting an F in the same class that DeeJay was getting an F in and that his IEP modifications were not being met either. Power in numbers. I am meditating on keeping my inner light shining.
• After five years of succeeding in her battle against ovarian cancer, our dear friend from our Saipan days, K.S. has been overtaken by the disease. For those of you unfamiliar with the story it is she who adopted DeeJay and Willie's sister, and it is she who asked me to keep an eye on these 'tiny boys' whose home life was not the best. At her request, as a family we have shifted gears. I will now be attempting to take the older boys to LA instead of the littles to Hawaii.
• Cousin Chuck is back home in Seward. He will leave for Cleveland in a week where he will undergo the next phase of brain cancer surgery; The Gamma Knife. All week I've been talking about it as if I have a clue what that means, what it does, how it helps. It sounds so Star Trek, doesn't it?
• The kind and helpful special education staff at the high school has completely turned DeeJays academic life around. Well, lets just say that they've they've pulled him out of the ditch and are now waiting to see if he can get some traction on the newly sanded road.
• That Irene did not trust me that I knew a thing or two about men. In fact, she said to herself in her head, "That Alana, she's such a know-it-all!" I felt a terrific glee in having been proved right, AGAIN...
• The camera is fixable! I'm waiting for a new battery to arrive.
• Falcom got off the school bus at the church in tears last Wednesday. Falcom got picked on the entire way to town. (Some boy was trying to rub deodorant onto Marina, but she didn't really cry about it. She's not that way.) I immediately was on the phone to my friends at the bus barn who are putting a camera on the bus. I spoke with the bus driver who is going to keep an eye on Fal. I talked with the principal. I was ready to pull them and home school, but...not really. I will say that making Falcom spend 30 minutes in a torture tube is not going to fly with me.
• It is now storming, blowing, and pouring down rain. For those of you wondering if we should have waited for the snow to melt to dig the potatoes the answer is a resounding NO! This would have been much worse.
• Had a helpful conversation with the folks at the Disability Law Office. We have a strong position for a case. The main point that I will share with you here is that because he has to spend so much of his day, everyday, working on math and English, (with the gap between he and his peers only growing larger) we have never had the opportunity to see where his light shines. Could he be good in ceramics or carpentry? Could he be an ace under the hood of the car? Underwater welding? We don't get to learn because he has to spend all day, everyday, working in a system that is only focusing on forcing him to pass tests (for No Child Left Behind?).
• Falcom + McNeil Canyon Drama Club = Happy Falcom

Thank you Stefan for sharing your coffee with me today. Lets enjoy a cup or two together when you get back... Alana