Rats and Apples Revisited

On Fridays at school, the routine is a bit different. I don't do my regular therapy per se (as if my therapy is "regular"). Instead, the music therapist, PE teacher, PE para and myself team up to do a group called MMARS (music, movement, art and rhythmic sensation). We have 3 1-hour long MMARS sessions in which we work with 3 or 4 classrooms at a time in the gym. We pick a theme and then come up with games and creative activities to go along with the theme. The general goal is to provide the kids with some socialization outside of their own classrooms and to work on team building, following directions, etc. Today's MMARS theme happened to be the Chinese New Year. Among other things, we read the kids the folk story of how the zodiac animals came to be in the order they are. Basically the emperor at the time had animals race across a fast flowing river to determine their order. I think I hate being a rat even more now after finding out that it did not depend on its own creativity, cleverness, or strength, but rode on the coattails of the ox (well, literally it rode on his back across the river). As it neared the shore, it pushed the cat off into the water and jumped to shore before the ox could make it. So, yes, the rat is the first of the animals, but got there through laziness and trickery. The poor puddy tat didn't even make the list:-( ....We ended our MMARS session by having the kids decorate some large paper dragons with streamers and then marched around the room in a kind of bizarre parade (I love our special needs kids, but imagine them trying to walk halfway in synch while having their heads stuck up under a huge piece of paper).

Speaking of apples, we ate lunch at one of our favorite places in town (I should say my favorite; I've burned everyone else out on it). You need some background info for this story, so rewind a few months. Last August, I was eating there with some co-workers. They had a wonderful new salad that I really liked and I asked the manager if I could buy some of the dressing. The tall, dashing assistant manager brought it out to me and through the course of the dinner, the girls noticed that he seemed to be circling the restaurant and glancing my way more than usual. Later he brought me a folded piece of paper that had the list of ingredients for the dressing. Well, we had to go back the next week. It's not often someone flirts with me in public. My friends tried to give me flirting tips, but none of them were really dating, so it was kinda weird to ask them for advice. Sure enough, the next week, he was still checking me out and I was making my lame attempts to increase eye contact and smile. So this went on for a few weeks (I know, you may think I'm a big chicken; I prefer to say that I'm a remedial flirter). Finally I psyched myself up to make my move. I left my name and number and email in an envelope with his name on it (and a nice little note). I was feeling very proud of myself. You may think this is not very direct, but hey....baby steps. It was a big step for me. Well, I never heard from him, so I wrote it off as he wasn't interested.

So a couple months went by before we went again. I was a little baffled to see he was still acting the same. My friends thought he probably didn't get the note and my overly optimistic side tended to wonder that too. Well today's events proved that wrong. We were eating when he came by to check on us. My friends commented at how he looked directly at me. They didn't catch that he actually winked at me. Then later, he came by, got my plate and said, "You finished with that, Tawnya?". I was shocked that he knew my name, proving he had to have received the note. So now I'm just baffled. Why is he still flirting when he had his chance? I'm kind of wondering if using my name was his way of checking to make sure that I'm Tawnya. I don't know. I obviously don't get men sometimes. If you have any insight let me know.

Well, I think I'll end this post with a version of "special needs kids say the darndest things"......

Overheard by my co-workers:
Kid 1: "You're a retard!"
Kid 2: "Hey, don't call me that! I am not!"
Kid 3: "Yes you are! We all are! That's why we're at this school, dummy!"

We were playing a game where the kids had to run around like different Zodiac animals and land on a rubber spot when they heard "Happy New Year". We were on the sheep/ram and one particular autistic girl was standing on a spot too soon. Staff said something to her and she replied, "I was being baa-aaaaa-aaaad (spoken like a sheep)". OK, that lost something in translation. You had to be there or know this girl to truly get a chuckle out of it. If nothing else, I'll look back at it later and laugh.