Monthly Archives: November 2011

LB, the unlikely ethnographer

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I’ve mentioned Garfinkel before on this blog, in relation to old Chicken Bone Man and the extreme porn.  (And for the geeky among you, here is a lovely conference paper about Garfinkel, space and the achievement of the ordinary.)  I used to think having a dude like LB was like having a permanent little rule breacher.  Now I’m beginning to think a bit differently.

I’m starting to think of learning disabled/autistic peeps more as unlikely ethnographers than rule breachers. Unlikely ethnographers of normality.

Here’s an example.

LB said he’d wait in the car when I needed to get some milk the other day. I rushed into the shop, bought the milk and walked  back across the car park towards the car. I could see LB in the back of the car looking my way. I waved to him. Nothing. I did an even bigger wave. Nothing.  I waved like I was in the audience greeting the return of Nelson Mandela from Robben Island. Not a movement. He just watched me.

“LB, next time I wave at you, can you wave back at me?” I asked, exasperated, when I opened the car door.
“Why Mum?” he asked.

Buying kroner

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“Can I buy some kroner please?”
“Danish kroner, Miss?”
“Yes please. I’m off to Copenhagen for a couple of days.”
“It’s going to be very cold then.”
“Blimey! In Copenhagen? Are you sure?”
“Well you’re the one wearing the thick woolley hat, Miss.”

Sleazyjet and the balance problem

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My recent sleazyjet experience cropped up during a fireworks do last night and I mentioned how on both outward and return flights, rows of seats were ‘shut’ to passengers.  There was no seat allocation but cabin crew directed us to particular rows.  They said we needed to spread around the plane to maintain balance because there were only 60 passengers. They’d put down the table things so we couldn’t sit in certain seats.

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The T word

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I’m seriously starting to hate the T word. Trans-fucking-ition. Professionals (teachers, social workers, clinicians) drip it into conversations with big nods and concerned faces.

“We need to talk about transition,” they say, before disappearing out the door.
“How old is LB now? Mmmm… nearly in transition then.”
“I’ll make an appointment around seven months before his 18th birthday, so we can really start to discuss transition. But you should be thinking about it now.”

OK. I’m thinking. Think think thinkety think.  Er. I’m struggling a bit here. What am I actually supposed to be thinking about?

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Sleazyjet and the boarding pass

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OK. Cutting a long story short here as my tales of travel woe are boring me now, I lost my boarding pass at Gatwick on Sunday afternoon.  A boarding pass the size of a house and bright orange. I unpacked my bag, retraced my steps but nothing. It was gone. Continue reading →

Richy Rich and Halloween

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Richy Rich is the numero uno Halloween fan. He takes it very, very seriously.  Each year decorations and false teeth are sourced, pumpkins stockpiled, horror films and books watched and read. When the kids were younger, there would be parties with snot and vomit party food and ‘scary’ games like The Box of Horrors… Now they’re older, the focus has gone more on decorating the house, carving fancier pumpkins and overfilling the bowl of treats for the trick or treaters.

Last year was the year of the smoke machine. A surprise purchase from some dodgy internet site. The afternoon was spent testing it and angling it so the smoke would go down the path to spook the treaters. By early evening, after a strong smell of burning, it stopped working. But that year we had no trick or treaters anyway.

This year I was away for the day but before I left on Sunday, the flashing skeleton, masks and cobwebs were already being brought down from the loft, pumpkins were piled up and the bowl of treats was by the front door.

 

I got off the bus at midnight last night and saw someone walking jerkily along the road towards me. It was zombie Richy.  Wearing a ripped jacket covered in blood and mud. Very authentic face paint and fangs.

“How you doing?” I asked, cream crackered after a long old trip.

“Fine,” he replied, taking my bag.

“Any trick or treaters?”

“Only little Hannah, with her mum.”

“Blimey. She must have been scared. Did you give her some sweets?”

“Well she didn’t hang around to be honest.”