He got up and used the bathroom at 6, then went back to sleep. He then woke up at 7:35. We read Shivers and help helm was the first word of the day. We both found the line “But the celebration lasted about as long as a balloon in a cactus store” really funny. He played piano, then went outside with Carly. He finally remembered Minecraft and we all played together. More piano, then he wanted a Ms. Safe game with autism. We hadn’t learned anything about autism yet though, and I was also in the process of making us pancakes, and he got a bit upset when I couldn’t do it right away. We talked about it, and then watched Temple Grandin’s TED Talk together:https://youtu.be/fn_9f5x0f1Q
. He sent messages to Cherie and I finished pancakes, then he watched Kurzgesagt’s “What if we nuke a city?” While we were eating he said, “This is amazing…your pancakes.”
We went up for a Ms. Safe game: a student who had experienced a nuclear explosion and was now deaf and blind. He chose the name Val from the gender-neutral name list. Switched to Blank, who is just blind. The kids were jealous that Blank could read dots. Just kidding, as August changed his mind and it was autism. August couldn’t really make up his mind, and the constant changing was giving me a headache. We ended up with Nico, who has autism. Brother became Nico’s friend after Ms. Safe sat them together. Then a student that was deaf and blind. Brother kept making mistakes, like thinking the student could hear him, etc. Then there was Scout, who was blind, then a student with asthma at the end. We went back downstairs at 11:15.
We watched the newest Grian video and had banana chips. I had the Preservation Jazz Band video on and he watched part of that. Carly came down and started working on a soup. I got August out on a recycling walk, but as usual he was first spooked by the dog from across the street, which was on the other side. We got past that, but then a minute into recycling, as he was eating his chocolate bar, it started to get a little windy and August got really upset. I managed to finish recycling, but he wasn’t happy about it.
Back at home he stayed out on the front porch for a minute. We then read Shivers outside on the swing. He played with the broom, and was figuring out how to twirl it around in a circle. We discussed imperial versus metric. As we were sitting there a family with, I think, three kids came along, and they were walking a white and orange dog. The black dog from across the street was there and popped up. They asked me about the dog and I assured them the dog was fine. They spoke good English though and I should have asked them if they lived in the area, as the kids were generally around August’s age.
Back to Ms. Safe games with Nord, a blind student. We then had the short and humorous “Tale of Rodney” who was a student that wanted to know what it was like to be blind and taped his eyes shut and then kept running into things until he fell into a bottomless pit. Ms. Safe threw a sandwich down to him.
Inside he did Supersonics Piano, then started a podcast and I went for a walk. He was finishing that up as I got back. He had had some apple and peanut butter and some sugar fruit, and now had the left over salmon, and I made him a tuna sandwich with what was left of that. He played piano, making up several new things. We played Minecraft in creative.
Carly cleaned out the fridge and it looked beautiful. We took care of some of the leftovers: August finished off the rest of his salmon and I made a grilled tuna sandwich with the rest of that. He played piano and then finished lunch. We talked about going back upstairs, and I was joking about something, to which August asked, “Have you been drinking mercury‽” We played the Ms. Safe game with Nord, who was blind and a student who had asthma. There would also randomly be a pirate in class, and Bar would change the code to delete the pirate.
We did Droplets, or at least started to, then he went outside with Carly. After a while they came in and watched a Mars documentary and had popcorn. There were a lot of new words: incontrovertible, impurity, basin, manipulation, suspended, perpetual.
He then played Minecraft with Vivian and Colin, in Colin’s world, and had soup for dinner. He was then sending messages to Vivian and talked about reading a book about a tusnami. When he was having a problem with something and looking for Carly I asked if I could help and he told me, “It’s not your business.” They read some book, and were watching videos of Zambia, which was somehow related.
I did some work and finished watching Orson Welle’s Chimes at Midnight. We went upstairs and August spent a long time on the toilet. He did a ton of talking, naming a color “vibrant black” (VB for short). He was talking about his crazy house, which started with the huge class. Moved on from there and seemed to include Minecraft. In the bedroom I let him talk it out, as he was pacing back and forth in the bedroom.
When he had calmed down we listened to “Turtle Island” on Circle Round and discussed the phrase “Making ends meet”. He asked, “What’s a geita?” I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he said it was from a folk tale. We finally had lights off at 10:30. He then asked, “What’s appealing?” “To me washing dishes isn’t really appealing.” We listened to Peace Out, then put on the Bach Cello Recomposed album and he was asleep at 10:50.
Jazz dancing:
Working on a song:
Playing for Vivian and Colin:
More melodica:
