Aspie Dad

Amanda posted this yesterday, but my server was not cooperating with me earlier when I tried to echo her post. I have contributed to Kassiane as I value her posts and contributions to the community surrounding the Hub. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Kassiane needs help
Kassiane, a.k.a. Rett Devil, has been an online friend and advocate for a long time. She is in a lot of trouble at the moment. This video explains it. It’s basically an emergency situation and she needs money for meds to keep her from going into status epilepticus among other things (edited to add: status epilepticus means having seizures back to back without regaining consciousness): <…>
If you have money to spare, please give to Kassiane for lifesaving medicine and living expenses.

Her Paypal name is kassiane_alexandra at yahoo dot com [edited by me to avoid spam crap]

It’s a much better use of your money than giving it to Autism Speaks or a similar hate group.

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ABFH tagged me (thanks!) with the 8 Random Things Meme which is, as they say, going around.

The rules: (again with the rules!)

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves. [this tantamount to asking an Aspie to "go be spontaneous!" --ed.]
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

This should be interesting to all involved!

1. I am allergic to oranges.

2. I learned to swim when I was very young, too young to have any memory of not being able to swim.

3. I have been way too interested in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien for far too long. Besides multiple copies of nearly everything JRRT put out and a great deal of the commentary associated with Middle Earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien himself, I have all of the books his son Christopher has put out concerning his father’s works. And I’ve read them all. That’s a muscle you don’t get to flex much…

4. I never know how to answer those coworkers and NT friends of friends that make some supposedly funny or ribald comment and then ask me, “You know what I mean?” I never know what they mean. I seldom know what to say, but I often know what to write.

5. By choice, I lived out of my 1961 VW Beetle in a tent and sleeping bag from 1981 to 1985. I was a field archaeologist and it was just easier to be a nomad.

6. I don’t miss the high humidity and mosquitoes I remember from the Mid-western summers in Kansas, Missouri or Illinois. I do, however, miss fireflies like crazy.

7. Few things are better on a hot summer’s day than sitting under a shade tree drinking iced tea in a mason jar. Add chilled ripe tomatoes picked off the vine this morning and it goes to 11.

8. I really dislike wearing long pants. With the exception of a stint from 2000-2004, I have been able to wear shorts to work since 1991.

I’ll tag eight other people, uh, soon.

Autism Diva has been blogging the proceedings of the Omnibus Hearing.

We (and she) are up to Day 10, it is well worth a look, folks.

If you would like, here are individual links to the daily digital audio files and transcripts of the proceedings:

United States Court of Federal Claims
Vaccine Program/Office of Special Masters
Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services
Case No. 98-916V

Today is Autistic Pride Day, wherein we celebrate each other. Many people celebrate privately, but there are also numerous public events.

We will be celebrating by getting overstimulated and talking at great length to people who don’t want to listen about subjects they don’t care about. Then we will wander off in mid-sentence. Later, we will communicate between ourselves by reciting passages from movies and books that appear to be non sequiturs.

Trust me, they’re not. It’s like the underground railroad for Autistics, the NTs never even suspect we’re talking about them right in front of them. They think we’re stupid and weird. Heh. They’ll never see it coming.

Thirty years ago today, the movie Star Wars (AKA: Star Wars: A New Hope) opened in theaters across the country and set the record for the largest grossing film to date. Several million people, some (perhaps many) of them on the spectrum, rejoice.

In my mind, which seldom accounts for much, there are only three *real* Star Wars movies, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. None of them have the “Star Wars:” prefix. Now, having made that rather absolutist statement, let me strategically redeploy. I have come to really enjoy all six films, even Phantom Menace, because I have now viewed them with a small boy. I see the six movies more as two separate but linked trilogies set in the same universe rather than a series of six. If that makes sense…

Thus far, our young padawan has seen four of the six movies. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith will come later. All in good time.