Bye, Bye Mary

On Thursday, June 25, 2009, we bid farewell to Mary Clarke. Mary was a 25 year veteran at the Orientation Center. She taught sewing, traveling, braille and home ec.

Students, former students, staff and friends gathered in the rec room to celebrate Mary's retirement. People started to arrive at two o'clock and at times the crowd nearly exceeded capacity for the room. The well wishers hugged, reminisced, and thanked her, sometimes shedding a few tears. By the time the event ended well over one hundred friends of Mary had come to pay homage to the unforgettable teacher.

At the end of the party there were only a few peanuts, a small amount of punch and out of two large cakes only about a dozen pieces of cake left. It was an afternoon Mary will never forget.

We'll miss you, Mary Clarke.

More later.

Solo (sort of)

Today I went traveling and had two firsts. I walked alone for awhile, and I went up and down an escalator. During traveling class today the teacher and I walked in the Des Moines skywalk. We went to buy a corsage for a retiring teacher and then traveled up an escalator to a food court. To get on the escalator I had to feel around at the bottom of it, searching for the bottom step. I found it and grabbed hold of the railing to make sure it was the up escalator and positioned my foot on the bottom step. I held on to the railing all the way up, with my white cane about two steps in front of me. It didn't seem very weird; as a matter of fact it felt fairly safe holding on to the moving railing. At the top of the escalator the cane moved ahead of me until it stopped, and I knew that was the top of the escalator and I stepped off. Then we went to the food court and I got a diet coke and sat around talking to the teacher for a few minutes.

Then we had to go down the escalator. Going up kind of reminded me of a pilot taking off in an airplane, and taking the down escalator reminded me of a pilot landing the plane. It was a little scarier going down. My first step off the down escalator had to be more precise than the up escalator so I wouldn't lose my balance.

We started retracing our steps and the teacher told me that he had to get a retirement card for the same teacher we got the corsage for. He was going to go to the store by himself, so he told me to go back to the school by myself. I got a little nervous when he left and I had to navigate the skywalk solo. Everything went almost perfect. I used people's voices and footfalls to know when and where to turn. I used the sound of some stores to tell me where I was in the skywalk, and I pretty much shorelined all the corridors. "Shorelining" means you are close to one side and you kind of tap the wall. The only trouble I had was I went too far and missed the door to the street level. I was very close and went back twice but just couldn't locate the door. Lucky for me the teacher bought the first card he saw and he must have hurried back to join me and catch me in my dilemma. Maybe he was more nervous with me walking by myself than I was! After he directed me to the door, I had no problem descending the steps and then walking back on the sidewalk to the school. I'm ready to solo again. More later.

Cakewalk

When I arrived yesterday in cooking class I had a cake pan with ingredients in it, and beside the cake pan I had a tape recorder to listen to. Since I had my shades on and I don't read Braille, the only way to "read" a recipe is by listening to it. After listening to the recipe directions, I added the ingredients, mixed them up, folded them in, and put the cake in the oven at 350 degrees to bake. After about twenty minutes I tested the cake by putting my finger on the center to see if it would spring back. It did so I took it out and put it on top of the stove to cool. I didn't have time to put frosting on it, so another student put the frosting on this morning. We had it for dessert at our lunch today. One student had three pieces, and after lunch the pan was empty. It was the best thing I've made in cooking class so far!

Extracurricular

I've been telling you about school and what's it's like to be here in Des Moines. Let me tell you a little bit about last Friday night. It started off with a seven course meal made by one of the students. A seven course meal is kind of like a "final" in cooking. I'm still only cooking one course meals. The student who cooked the meal made tomato basil soup and breadsticks, along with fettucini alfredo, stir-fry vegetables, jello salad, a slushy drink, and a three layer cake. The soup was excellent, the fettucini was very tasty, and the cake was delicious. When the students eat the seven course meal, they have to eat with their shades on, even after school hours. That is the hardest thing I've done so far--eat with my shades on. I had only one mishap during the meal. Trying to pick up the cake I tipped over the pitcher of slush and it spilled on my lap and on the floor, but luckily there was only a little bit of the slush left in the pitcher.

After letting the meal set for awhile in my stomach, I had to work out. I ran on the treadmill, did a little bit of the EFX machine, and finished on the air dyne, the Antichrist of exercise machines. I was saturated with sweat, so I decided to go to the roof to cool off a bit. I took my tunes with me and was listening to them when a couple more students came up to the roof, too.

Soon there were six of us on the roof. We'd listen to the music, tell funny stories, and sometimes we would just sit and stare at the city lights. One student saw only darkness with his eyes, but I believed he grasped the mood of the city that night more than most. It was a little surreal with the night lights of Des Moines shining below and us on top of the building looking out.

At last we left the roof. A bunch of us congregated on the front steps at street level, when I finally went in to shower off. During my shower I started hearing some booms in the distance and knew somewhere close fireworks were being shot off. By the time I got to my window and looked out, the fireworks were finished. I learned later that the group on the steps had gone into the building about five minutes before the fireworks began, and they missed them, too. I thought that was funny. More later.

Botany, Barbecue, Buses

Today I went on my first field trip. We went to the Reiman Gardens in Ames. Brother-in-law Dean, you have to get over there. It was fantastic! I was disappointed at first when they said we had to wear our shades in the first hour while there, but I was badly mistaken. Seeing nothing visually really opens your other senses to your surroundings. I never knew the different textures of different flowers and plants could be so varied. It was really a whole new experience at "seeing" my environment. Some flowers felt velvety, some felt spiney, and even some felt serrated. Some smelled like black licorice, some smelled lemony, and some didn't smell at all. We found sage, rosemary, and thyme, but struck out finding parsley. I really was amazed that my other senses could visualize so much. I was a little disappointed taking off my shades and even put them back on for a little while longer. The butterfly house was amazing there. All sorts of butterflies in different sizes and colors. Plus the vegetation there seems like out of prehistoric times.

Following the museum, we stopped at Hickory Park for some barbecue. Luckily for me we didn't have to wear our shades as I find eating with shades on is the most difficult task of all. We got back to the Center (home) and had a retirement celebration for one of our teachers. I will write more about her next week.

My final class of the day was my Travel class. We walked up to the bus stop, me with my shades off because we were crunched for time. That tells you how fast I travel with my shades on. The other guy had no choice because he is totally blind. We jumped on the bus and went out to Wal-Mart again. Stepping out of the air-conditioned bus, the hot air felt like a furnace, and I then put my shades back on. We followed our same path as we did a week ago, and it seemed a bit easier this time. We walked in to the service desk and then sat on a bench in the store while our teacher purchased some batteries. We had a conversation with another guy sitting on the bench who I did not know was there until I jabbed him in his arm with my hand, feeling for a place to sit down. The other guy with me hit him on the leg with his cane. The man on the bench repeated, "That's ok, that's ok."

We retraced our steps and cautiously stepped on the stairs to the bus, felt for the coin deposit, and found a seat. The first two seats in the Des Moines buses are always reserved for people with special needs. It's really amazing the conversations you hear on the bus when your shades are on and you can't see a thing. Instead of only using one sense, your eyesight, you use your other senses, and it just seems like you are aware of more of your surroundings than when you use just your eyesight. That seems really funny to me. We were dropped off two blocks from the Center. The last two blocks went very smoothly because I'd been on the terrain several times before and finally walked into the school 30 minutes after school was dismissed. Chris says I already had to stay after school! More later.

Walkin in the Rain and Minute Steaks

For Traveling I had to walk in the rain around the block on Tuesday. Carrying an umbrella with a white cane and trying to stay dry is not the easiest thing to do. Half of me was soaking wet, the other half was dry, and my arm holding the umbrella was very tired. The reason the teacher said it was necessary to go out in the rain was because every day sounds are different in the rain than when it's dry. I think I only walked off the sidewalk once or twice, and since it was raining, the guy on the bottom step was not there and I didn't run into him.

During Cooking Class I made minute steaks with cream of mushroom soup. I dropped one steak on the floor but quickly retrieved it and doused it with water. While frying them up my very patient cooking teacher told me to touch each steak, and if they were soggy to keep cooking them until they firmed up. I then placed them in a casserole pan without incident and drenched them with cream of mushroom soup. Today, Wednesday, the students came to the cooking class for lunch, and my minute steak recipe was one of their entree choices. No one got sick, and I heard no complaints.

On Wednesday I continued on the computer learning a few more keystrokes using the JAWS program. This evening I was up on the computer but must have forgotten a few key strokes because I couldn't find the document I was working on this morning.

For Braille, I worked on the letters k, l, and m. They are very similar to a, b, and c--just another dot added to each letter. Not only did I work Braille in Braille class, I worked Braille in cooking class too. Maybe my teacher's patience did wear a bit thin.

On Thursday we're going to Ames to visit the butterfly museum and then to Hickory Park to eat. With the hot weather, I can wear shorts. More later.

Radial Saw and Cinnamon Rolls

The cinnamon rolls I told you about earlier made it into the oven today. We got the dough out and flattened it out with a rolling pin, only I didn't use the rolling pin until after I had kneaded it with my hands and finally figured out what the rolling pin was for. So after I finally used the rolling pin, I rolled out a half inch thick rectangle. Then I rolled it up like carpet and sliced it two fingers width. You always have to have something to gauge the distance because you're not using your vision. As soon as they started to smell, people started popping their heads into the Home Ec room. It didn't take long to have the platter gone. They turned out delicious, and everyone who had one agreed with me that they were delicious.

In shop class I used a radial arm saw for the first time. I had to measure a piece of wood to a certain length, and then line it up with the saw. After careful scrutiny with my fingers and hands, I got to finally turn the saw on. I cut a length of wood three different times, two times it was too short, and the last time it was too long. BUT I left there with all ten fingers! The instructor stressed the 3 M's: Machine, Material, and Me. The machine is checked for the guards to be on and the blade in back position. Then you check the table for chips of wood or some of your tools by sweeping your fingers across the table, to make sure nothing gets chucked by the saw. In the ME, make sure that you are holding on to the piece of wood at least a hand's length away from the saw blade. And you crank that puppy on and you let 'er rip!

The last class of the day was Traveling, and I walked around the block. I had to get the rhythm right with the cane and my feet, and the height of how high high I lift the cane with each step. For a time there it looked like a silly walk from Monty Python. I ran off the curb a couple of times, ran into one parking meter, and struck a person who was sitting on the bottom step in front of his apartment.

I want to thank everybody for reading the blog, and I really enjoy hearing comments from people, whether on the blog or by email. More later.