Seriously though, it was a hell of a good time, and the Boy had a super good time with only a couple of full blown meltdowns towards the end of the day, and even then they were pretty mild. He's been talking about the zoo pretty much nonstop for the last couple of days, rattling off lists of all of the animals he was going to see and working himself up into a state of bouncing excitement over it all.
Bit of background to give you an idea of why this is so awesome for me; my son has a mild form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and it's primary symptom has been a serious speech delay. Up until recently he's been communicating at about the level of a bright one year old. He's a smart kid, and there's nothing wrong with his ability to think or reason, but getting the hang of talking has been a real struggle for him. Now he's chattering away constantly, talking clear as a bell, and making up songs and stories for us and his own amusement. This is huge, and I'm sure that any parent with a child with a developmental delay understands just how huge this is for his mother and me. The best way I can describe it is "heartbreakingly awesome". The feeling of relief coupled with a huge damn burst of sadness and worry that's been hiding in the back of your head when you realize "Holy crap, he's actually going to be able to talk like a normal person after all, and he can ask for things and talk about the future and all of the things we were both told to expect he'd never be able to do... I have to lie down and weep with relief and happiness."
We always knew he was a smart kid, despite his language problems (his problem solving skills are kind of scary at times), and now that he's talking other people are beginning to comment on it as well. He's got an Occupational Therapist who comes in and works with him every day, and she's blown away by how quickly he's burning through the curriculum she's laid out for him. Last week her supervisor came to the house to work on his program, and the therapist had to keep telling her boss "No, this isn't challenging enough for him, he'll have all this done in an hour. It needs to be more advanced."
So my mother's curse seems to be coming into it's own. :)
(When I was younger she said to me "I hope when you have kids, they're smart like you, so you know what I'm going through!" It wasn't until later I realized she didn't mean it in an entirely positive way. I wish she was still alive to laugh herself sick over the Boy's antics.)
Highlight of his day? Riding the camel with his mom (I'm way to big to ride the camel, as it turns out). I think if he could he would have done it a dozen times. As it was, his big meltdown came when we went back to the camels and they were done for the day, and he couldnt' ride them again. Poor little guy.
Today also marked me finally giving up on trying to talk sense into a producer I've been dealing with for over a year now. Back in October I got tapped to write a script for him on a film I was doing the makeup for when it turned out the script they had was unfilmable. Since it was a week before we were going to camera, I bashed something out and get a contract to me as soon as you can.
Well, it's been almost a year, and the guy refuses to do it. I've tried explaining to him as many different ways I can think of that he needs to secure the rights to the script on paper before he can sell it. I've hired a lawyer to >draft< a contract for him, for Bob's sake. He seems to think I'm being some sort of idea stealing douchebag, and has completely lost his mind over this. Long insulting email rants to me (I've now just dropped him in my killfile and told him to contact my lawyer), and a refusal to listen to me when I try to explain.
For those of you who aren't familiar with film production, I'll explain. There's a whole bunch of laws around screenwriting (or any writing for that matter) that doesn't exist in other industries. Because of this, for a producer to sell or distribute a film, they have to be able to prove they have the rights to the script they've shot. Now, if I didn't care about seeing the film actually get sold (no one gets paid until it does, and frankly, I wrote it and I want to see the damn thing), I'd just walk away and watch as he goes down in flames trying to sell it.
Of course, now that I've spent so much time and money trying to get him to actually do the right thing and save him from himself (we were friends, once upon a time), and he's sent me another abuse filled email that sounds like a drunken rant, I've decided it's time for him to learn the hard way. If you ever read this
My random thought about gadgets involves this commercial I've been seeing a lot lately for some sort of electronic gadget for monitoring you tire pressure. It involves screwing a little key tag like sensor to you tire valve, and then sticking a phone sized monitor to your dash. Now here's the question: What the hell? In the commercial, the woman in the van gets a flat tire. How would having a gadget on her tire that monitors the pressure have helped? Beep beep beep! Flat tire! Why yes I do beeping gadget! Thanks a pantload!
Is this for people who can't figure out they have a flat? Could it have prevented the flat somehow? Is it for people who have a flat but can't figure out which tire it is by simple examination alone? People who have too much money and space on the their dashboard? The mind boggles.
1 comment:
My mother laid the same curse upon me & it backfired terrifically: I did have a child just like me & he was a pleasure to raise. Any time we had to deal w/some sort of issue, I would say to myself, Self, what would mom do? & then I'd choose the complete opposite. It must have worked, because he's a great guy, as you know & he speaks to me voluntarily on a regular basis.
N
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