Tales from the Shark Tank

Y’know, I’m actually kind of proud of myself at the moment. Back on Thursday, I found out that a form to apply for a pre-grant that gets the Small Business Administration to pay me for grant-writing had not been submitted. Someone else had said he was taking care of it, and hadn’t. On Friday, I actually got the url to download the form. The deadline, of course, was today. Even the preliminary application is a 10 page assemblage of information. And it’s done and in, and prelimnary review got a somewhat startled phone call that began “I thought you hadn’t known about this, but it’s obvious how much work you’ve put in.” And if it looks like that to someone else, then I guess I must be doing something right.

I gave myself a bit of a giggle today. A friend sent me an e-mail containing an unattributed quotation that I really liked. When I wrote back, I asked her for the source. Her response? “Check your computer. You wrote it yourself.” Gee, I guess I can turn a decent phrase now and again.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love kids. It’s generally mutual as well; kids gravitate to me for reasons known only to themselves. We never intended to stop with one, but nature was not cooperative. Indeed, it took a series of events that would strain the credulity of a professional creator of fiction for us to get the child we have. And until recently, I hadn’t quite given up on the idea of adopting another. My age is a concern, yes, but not enough of one to stop me.

But a couple of friends recently gave me some insight into what it’s like being the sibling of an autistic child. They weren’t double-teaming me, either; they’ve never met. One came from a generally dysfunctional family; the other from one that’s off the norm but very close and very loving. One was older than the sibling; one was younger. One is ten years older than I, the other a bit more than that younger. And yet what they had to say was essentially the same. Each of them felt that they had to be “the good kid”; each worried that their parents would send them away if they were too much work, because the autistic child demanded – and required – so much energy, time and attention. Each of them has decided not to have children, in part because they aren’t sure of their ability to deal with a child like their sibling and there are no guarantees they won’t get one. The litanies, and their similarities, go on.

So I’ve been observing myself in reference to my son, attending to my own interactions with him, to the amount of my energy that is focused on him, on thinking about what he will need, not just to grow, but to learn, as one friend put it, to function with a “Mac brain in a PC world”. My son functions fairly well, but he still needs a lot of focused attention, encouragement and help, and I don’t see that changing. And my friends are right. I’m a good mother. We’re good parents, both of us. We work at it; we care about it. And it wouldn’t be fair to bring a second child into the family if we can’t give that child what it will need. I don’t want a child of mine to grow up to tell his or her friends, as an adult, that we did our best but she still felt she had to be hyper-responsible and that she was essentially on her own because her older brother needed their parents so much more than she did, or worse, that she didn’t “deserve” our time and attention. So I am no longer looking for another child. And I am coming to understand why so many autistic kids, if they aren’t the only child in their family, are the youngest.

The race is over, and we are the winners. The Saturn lasted long enough. In fact, it’s still capable of running (sort of), so I’ve got two more trips to make with it. One is to the mechanic to swap my new front tires for my foster daughter’s old and rather bald rear tires. The next will be to the salvage yard. I have until March 15 to accomplish both. That’s when the license plate expires. It should be plenty of time.

I am pleased to report that Wick likes the new car very much indeed, which is a good thing since I had to choose it for him. Joseph thinks it looks cool, but his first words to his father on returning home with Daddy’s new wheels Friday evening was “Now can we have Dragon Frankie back?” Not hello, no hug, just the request for the minivan. By the time I retrieved the groceries from the trunk and followed the kidling into the house, Wick was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes.

I just found a quotation that I like. “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.” Seems to me that the essence of being an adult is realizing that the world is Not Fair, and that the unfairness is no reflection on you as a person.

M., rather plaintively: I guess I didn’t really accomplish anything except to vent. But venting is important.

D.: You’re kind of like a teakettle - every so often you have to whistle.

My housemate just came up with a term for a housecat with an attitude that thinks it’s a sabre tooth tiger: “geometric proportion dysphoria.”

There is a salesman in the office today. He is trying to persuade the scientists I work with of the merits of some kind of package assembly system. The spiel itself is unexceptional, but the man is fascinating. His gestures and movements look as if they have been rehearsed carefully for weeks. If the foot comes forward in emphasis, the hand moves just so. I can just see him working with a choreographer, asking anxiously “is the arm more effective extended or moved through an arc?” I half want to ask him who starred with him in his last pas de deux. My first thought was martial arts training, but it isn’t that pattern of movement. I’m not sure quite what it is. I am certain only that it is carefully created and studied. I wonder – would he would implode if he were forced to improvise or act spontaneously?

It’s a race. I’ve found a replacement for my husband’s Saturn, and will be committing the act of car Friday afternoon. I’ve got a ride arranged to the rendevous, so that I don’t find myself with one body and two cars to drive. I’m in the process of arranging for someone to stay with His Big Boy-ness, on the theory that it will be easier without him, but that the worst that will happen is a small boy in the backseat. (Of course, She Who Will Be Driving may tell me otherwise.) For the insatiably curious, we are getting a 2000 Ford Taurus that our mechanic, lovely man that he is, found for us. It has all the bells and whistles I want, and only a few I don’t. I could live without the automatic alarm/ lock system. Cars that honk when you lock or unlock them irritate me; why would I want one? But just because it’s there doesn’t mean I have to use it, and I must admit there is a point to an alarm. Something about the car stereo stolen out of our driveway….

The real question, though, is whether the Saturn will actually last until Friday. It’s getting more crochety by the day. This morning it stalled as usual, but then declined to restart for long enough to give me pause. It’s getting steadily louder and getting worse oil milage, and just in general indicating its desire to go to a well-earned retirement. It’s done yeoman service. Wick bought it new in 1993, and it’s got 178,000 miles on it. But still and all, I need it until Friday afternoon. Stay tuned for the winner of the Great House Entropy Car Replacement Race!

My son just brought home his new library book from the school library. He has brought it to show me very proudly. The title? The School Nurse from the Black Lagoon. Really. Could I make something like that up?