A New Name

Saturday I stopped in really briefly to say hi to the little Jones girls and found my granddaughters all have NEW names.

First, as Whitney came up and called me 'Cookie', the nickname she just loves to call me, I asked her what I can call HER.

She looked up at me with this big grin: "Brittney!"

"Oh, you are Brittney now?"

"Yep." Just then Courty-court came by.

"And what do I call you?"

"I'm Juliet," she said with a shy grin.

And from the other room I heard, "And I'm Cami."

Jamie came running in and showed me something she'd written her new name on, as proof.

Just then there was crying from the back bedroom and Aubrey said "Sounds like Addie-poop is ready to get up from her nap."

As I was picking her up out of her crib I told her,

"I'm thinking you didn't get much input into choosing YOUR new name!"

For more delightful photos, Aubrey has updated and her blog has pics of them jumping on the new trampoline. Even Mom and Dad. A Mother Heart

Brilliant Autism

I love that I have several autistic friends. They tend to teach the rest of us a variety of lessons, like patience, acceptance, and thinking outside of the box, to name a few. Most aren't socially 'normal' in their interactions with people, which comes across as unfriendly much of the time... the lack of eye contact, the poor interaction and difficulty in reading our facial expressions. For many, the world looks and sounds way too loud and fast for their senses. I think it's like their brain is taking in way more than the rest of us, but not able to process it, so they end up shutting out a lot of it.

But it's not that they are not smart or that they are unsocial; they just interpret, and interact with, the world differently than the rest of us 'normal' folks.

I met Anthony at the ARC when I started working there. He is a very handsome 30 yr old, and such an interesting person to be with. He might have some social skills he needs to polish, but he has an absolute genius for remembering everyone's age and birthday. Even if we haven't talked in over a year, he remembers not just MY age and birthday

("You just had your birthday, you are 57 now, right Robin?" "Yes, thanks so much for remembering, Ant.")

he also remembers Jim's birthday - and I don't think he's even met him.

Kathleen just remembers facts about people and thinks about them a lot, so she always has a whole passel of questions to pepper you with when she next sees you. Like when I went out of town - when I got back she immediately asked all the questions she'd thought about while I was away: Did I drive or did I fly? Did I take a van to the airport? Did I stay in a hotel? Did I get to go to the beach? Where did I eat? She will keep asking until you tell her that's enough questions for today. And sometimes she's not done, so it's painful for her to have to drop it. (She stayed a week with a friend of mine, who told me later, "Robin... she is just like RAINMAN!")

My friend Kraig remembers calendar items - he's got all the birthdays down and remembers what day of the week they will be on, as well as the whole Suns schedule for the season. He remembers details about the various players, too. But his way of telling these facts comes out randomly as the thoughts jet through his mind. I will hear about his father's softball team winning, then that his mother made cookies, then something about the new fellow just traded in from Boston, then about some singer who was on Ellen 'Generous.

I think the really amazing folks who've uncovered their true genius, whom we call savants, are just the most fascinating.

Like this fellow, Stephen Wiltshire, who can remember a WHOLE CITY as seen from the air, and then draw it all out in a huge, accurate, detailed mural. That is Rome, above. Our minds can't even comprehend the brilliance of it, it seems hard to accept that the human brain could even do such a thing, but he's a walking, talking example that can't be denied.

Today I watched this little vid - I think it is from 2010, a 60 Minutes report on Derek in England, who is an astounding musical prodigy. If you have 14 minutes to spare and watch it, you will come to appreciate what amazing creatures we humans can be. He's got the very best of certain things just incredibly concentrated and magnified. Derek Paravicini

And it's amazing all the more since he was born premature and extremely tiny, AND blind... yet he has amazing abilities and qualities we wish more humans had.
His dad offers in the piece,

"They say 'Good comes out of bad.' Well it certainly has in Derek's case. Without knowing it, he's done more good than any of us will ever do."
And while I know what he means in that little colloquialism, I don't think you could, in retrospect, find any bad here whatsoever.

"Y'all come back now, hear?"

I remember hearing that phrase at the end of every episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Jed and Granny and the rest of them hill folk spoke their hillbilly-speak and we just all thought it was so cute to be so hick. I wonder what folks from the south thought - like were they appalled that the rest of the country would think ALL southerners were that uneducated and unsophisticated. (or did they shrug and say, "I don't see what the big deal is?")

They never make it clear where the family came from, just some back hills in Missouri or Arkansas. They reference a lot of towns in Missouri, and that is where the producer is from. Lest you think I'm some Clampettphile, here is where I found all that out, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Beverly Hillbillies

It's the word Y'ALL that led me to thinking about the Clampetts and all them backwoods, illiterate hicks. The word just SOUNDS like all that to people who don't live in the south. But when we moved to Florida, it was the first thing we absorbed, because one hears it EVERYWHERE. You can't help but start saying it. It is convenient, your mouth has less to do... and for that matter, your brain has less to compose.

Instead of "How are all of you and your family doing?" you can simply ask "How're y'all today?" I've even heard, "How's y'all's dog?" which seemed an improper use. But hey, it got the point across quickly. And that's what language should do, I suppose.

So that leads to my TRUE original thought in all of this: Is it Ya'll or Y'all? I thought it HAD to only be y'all and was being misspelled the second way. Then I read this: Y'all or Ya'll

and had to rethink my initial conclusion. I'm thinking now that both spellings are correct. And since I no longer live in the south, I'll leave it to my friends to offer up opinions.

Which makes me wonder, in Texas do they say, "Adios, y'all?"