Strange things happen to me all the time. But they are usually a good kinda strange. My husband has gotten used to it, sorta, but there are still moments when he looks at me with wide eyes of disbelief, and I share in his disbelief, as I'm usually more shocked than he is.

While driving up to Boston for the Cannfest which is a legalize-pot rally (neither of us smoke pot, but we both agree it should be legalized), to see the bands Beyond the Embrace and Waltham, I was reading the magazine The Libertarian Comminicator (yes, I am a dork and read during long drives). I came across a picture of Amanda Phillips and excitedly showed it to my husband. I reach over to the volume for the cd player and lower it down.

"Babe, this is her, this is her! See? This chick right here, she is the head chick at the Free State Project. Amanda Phillips. I have got to meet her one day. In my lifetime. Remember those radio interviews I was listening to online last year? The chick is bright as all heck and so funny and so cool. Check out the hot tshirt she's wearing, woo hoo, cleavage shot!" Kenny laughed. "She's hot, she's cute," he said and continued driving. I worried he'd missed the whole point of why I wanted to meet her, so I kept babbling about her for another five minutes. "Babe, babe, the guy that came up with the idea, the plan for the Free State Project, instead of running it all with himself as the boss, he goes and selects this chick. I mean, obviously the chick got some heavy duty intelligence for a guy to pick her, outta all the people out there, ya know? Plus, you should hear her radio interviews, you would agree with how she thinks and what she has to say. I gotta meet her one day, Kenny. I just gotta. She's my hero. I respect and admire her even a little more than I do Ayn Rand." Kenny nodded "Yep, I know, you told me that last year," and turned up the music. I lowered it back down and he laughed. "Kenny, this chick is going to change the world for the better. Remember that name, Amanda Phillips. She's going to be president someday probably!" He nodded at me again and turned back up the music. "I'm gonna meet her one day, maybe next year, go up to New Hampshire for a day or a weekend or something," I said loudly. Kenny laughed again and said "sounds like a plan."

Keep in mind, Kenny wasn't being rude to keep turning back up the music, this is one of those private joke moments that some married couples have... I was the one who started it, by turning the volume down, and back and forth we go. It's not done with the intent of being rude, it's become one of our playful power plays with each other. Besides, Kenny does listen to what I say... I know this for a fact, because he registered to vote this year as an independent.


So I continue reading the magazine and we arrive at the festival. We see a bunch of people we know, and the boys pester me to take them to the booths selling merchandise. KC wants a studded belt (he needs a belt anyways) and Winter wants an army hat. The boys also want to meet the guys from Waltham, but they are too shy... they are literally standing right next to the lead singer, but can't seem to get over their nervousness to shake hands or say hello. Their Uncle Kevin tries to talk them into it, but they seem content just to have seen the guy in person, as well as other members of the band, and don't need any introductions.

So as I'm walking the booths with the boys, picking out spiked bracelts, belts and hats, I see a booth that looks familiar. It's the booth with the World's Smallest Political Quiz. I recognized the guy in the booth... he was the guy from the picture in the magazine I was reading. The guy that had been standing right next to Amanda Phillips. I told my boys to come with me for a second while I asked the guy in the booth if by any chance Amanda was with him today.

Imagine my shock when he pointed to the next booth over and said "she's one booth over, right there," as he handed me a pamphlet. Nearly shocked to the point I could not breathe, I turned my head and there she was. A mixture of intense respect and walking on the ground of this reality as if in a dream filtered into me with a few blinks of my eyelashes to clear my vision and to make sure I didn't end up coming across as a crying goofball. "Are you Amanda Phillips?" I asked, and I've no idea why I asked that, because I knew it was her, I guess my ears just needed to make sure. "Yes, I am," she said, and she got up and shook my hand and I said "Amanda, I have listened to all of your radio interviews online and I just gotta say I respect you so much for what you are doing. You are just great!" And with that, she walked over to me and hugged me!

Oh, my gosh... I was blown away by the moment. Completely. But that didn't stop me from yapping some more about the project, Jason Sorens, New Hampshire, and how inspiring the whole thing was. I also told her I'd tried to get to a few gatherings up in New Hampshire, but stuff just kept coming up, with three kids and all... it can get complicated to make plans. I told her that next year I hoped to find the time and resources to finally make my journey up to the state of New Hampshire to at least one of the events.

As me and the boys walked back over to where Kenny and his brother were hanging out, the boys yelling "Look, mom got me a belt!" and "Dad, I got a spiked bracelet!", I danced up to Kenny and said "Guess who I just met?" He looked at me not expecting what I said next. "Amanda Phillips."

His eyes got huge and his brain immediately knew who I meant, as I'd been talking about her only an hour before. "You did not."

"Oh, yes, I did. And she hugged me. Swear to gosh."

"You serious?" Kenny was looking at me like I'd gotten a contact high from the faint smell drifting over from the wooded areas of the park.

"Oh, I'm serious. Yep. She's right over there. Can you believe it?"

Kenny stared at me with the same look on his face that he had the day I saved the fish.

"I want you to meet her and get a picture of me and her together for my blog," I said. My brother-in-law stayed with the boys as we went over. We forgot that first visit to get the picture taken, so a few hours later, after the show before we left, we went back and got this shot:




The quality isn't that good because it was taken with a cell phone. But, I'm so happy we got a picture of a moment that will stay with me for my lifetime. It was an honor and a moment of incredible joy to meet the woman I have so much faith in, so much hope for, and so much respect and awe in all she does, says and thinks. That meeting her was so nice, so human, and so unexpected and almost a strange coincidence (I really should have logically figured out that the Free State Project would have a booth at a rally of this kind!) just made my heart and mind so content. I'll be floating along for weeks, maybe months, perhaps years (!!!) with a sunshiney little bounce to my step because of this meeting. :)


And it couldn't have happened at a better time (another case of great timing in my life... like meeting Kenny!) With this week just so full of political and beaurocratic bullcrap, meeting Amanda put me into a frame of mind that is even more focussed and resolved to do what is right. I have been so stressed out about so many things going on... after some mental reflection yesterday (after a phonecall and a visit that pretty much pushed the reflecting to happen), I am now actually ok with all we have gone through to get to where we are at. Before, I was so angry about it. Now, I'm at a point where I recognize that which somebody told me last month is absolutely right. Things are going exactly as they should, in spite of how unfair they are, because if anybody can do something about it, it could be us. I knew our family was strong, but I just wanted to live life. Now I know; we are living life and we are doing exactly what we should be doing. Every single thing we've gone through will end up making a positive impact (and in many ways, already has... just not as directed and as focussed as we'd like it to be.) Things take time, and when you're in the daily grind of things, when you're focussed so much on today and the days to come, you can forget to look back and see how far you've come.

I took a moment to look back... and now this week doesn't seem as stressful as it felt it was going to be last week when my anger at incompetence was at its height (I thought I'd hit the height months ago... boy, was I wrong.) I let go of my stress, mainly because it was so easy to see with looking back that everything I kept saying now was in bold 24 font all-caps black and white. The stress was pretty easy to let go of, the anger, though... I'm still working on it. I tend to chain smoke when I'm angry, or I try to do projects like housework or painting ceilings and walls. Today, for a change of pace, I'm going to take my doctor's advice and not paint the walls of the house or take my anger out on the floors with a mop and instead just take off for a few hours while the kids are at school and go bump around the thrift store and visit some friends just to say hello.

I have a funny blog post coming up about a wedding I went to last month, but I wanted to post this blog post first... because it had such a great impact on me and because I just wanted to write about it while it's all fresh in my mind and heart.

Will hopefully be doing more weekly blog posts... to keep everyone up to date. For any details on things, feel free to email me. For now, the details can only be shared with close friends and family, who have been an incredible support system for us during our past year, which has been just mind-boggling but at least it has been productive. Not the kind of productive we expected to find ourselves in the middle of, but, again... maybe it was all just meant to be, and we've certainly proven ourselves to be more than capable of handling it. :)

Things have been interesting and busy the past few weeks. I'm exhausted, but at the same time... very hopeful, enlightened and very, very strong of spirit and mind. For now, I will only say this:

The Massachusetts Department of Mental Health is a lot like FEMA. There are definitely flaws within the whole system (from state to federal) when it comes to Massachusett's 'human services', but DMH certainly takes the cake.

I'll have an all out rant at some point soon, with links. It's been a long year, but on a positive note... things are certainly having a major effect and a lot of changes are to come, thank gosh.

One thing is for sure... the truth always, always, always prevails.

We spent some time in the town of Dennis on Sunday, looking for a cache that was within a 4 foot radius of where we were standing. With four of us there, KC and his friend who found the first travel bug inside the first cache, and Kenny and I, we had the best team to spread out and look around. Twenty minutes went by, nobody had found it, and we were wondering about a clue that mentioned a 'fallen tree'... there were about 6 fallen trees in this area alone.

It had been a long walk to this spot, as we missed the trail and turned a 1.5 star terrain into a 4 star hard terrain, our ankles covered in pricker cuts and my shoes even ripped up the side by a bunch of branches that seemed intent on tripping me into a patch of thorny weeds. Kenny found the actual trail three-fourths of the way into our excursion, roughly twelve feet to our right, which gave all of us a huge sigh of relief.

Now here we were, at the right spot, knowing the cache was somewhere around us, and after forty five minutes of looking, we were beginning to give up. "Maybe somebody moved it as a practical joke?" I asked as I sat on the hill and looked out over the great pond this location gave view to. If you're going to get stuck looking for a cache, this place is a great place to get stuck at, I thought, as I layed my head back into my hands and closed my eyes for a little rest.

"Maybe the person who put it here didn't put anything here but has a good view of here and is watching us and laughing." Kenny quipped in a frustrated tone.

"Maybe we should just give up," the boys said. They'd had enough of the looking, the searching. We'd found all the other caches so easily, this one was proving to be quite a challenge, close to an hour of searching and they believed they had checked every possible place a cache could be hidden.

I sat up. "We could give up for today, but we'll be coming back here to look again before we move on to any other caches," I said, determined to at some point find the ammo box, but willing to take a break from walking around in the circles we'd been doing for the better part of the last thirty minutes. Rechecking areas we'd already scoured, rechecking the gps unit, rechecking and rechecking again.

Kenny lifted up a small paddle boat that was located at the pond's edge, and with a giant splash as he let the boat back down stated "Well, it's not under the boat."

Now we were getting desperate, I thought, checking under paddle boats for a cache that was only a 2 out of 4 stars in difficulty level to find and a 1.5 in terrain that we'd turned into a brutal whipping to our own legs.

As I sat there, watching some guys out on a paddle boat in the middle of the pond, and some ducks and geese flapping around in the water, I figured coming back to a nice place like this to look again was going to be a decent alternative to looking around some more. I had cacoila in a crock pot at the house, waiting for our arrival home, and as we'd left the house 2 hours ago, and the boys were tired as all heck, I hoped that everyone else would be ok with just heading back out.

The boys were all for leaving and coming back the next day to look again. Kenny, though, wanted to give it one last shot.

We watched as he headed out to start from the edge of the path we'd missed. He started from the point in which the view came into sight, held the gps unit and monitored his closeness to the cache from every single angle possible. Then, he disappeared into a side of the path that made us all sit down to just enjoy the sounds of bullfrogs as we waited for his impending defeat. Instead, he yelled out, only minutes later, "Found it."

"Wow," I thought as I rose up from my sitting position, walking towards Kenny as he held up the ammo box and opened it up victoriously. He looked so beautiful, sitting there on the side of a fallen tree, explaining how the ammo box had been hidden under some leaves and pine needles, which made it a bit harder to find. He let the boys do an exchange of items, and we logged in our visit and noticed that somebody else had been to the cache this same day. I wondered if they'd had as hard a time as we'd had finding it, and I wondered if they had a Kenny in their group. Every group needs a Kenny. He didn't look smug, he looked like a man who had achieved what he'd set out to do. He looked like a guy who was intent to pick up when the team had let go outta exhaustion. He was, and always had been, and always will be, the person who just keeps moving ahead or even moving back again, starting over from scratch if needed, to figure out the best way to attain a goal. As I'm usually the one who rarely gives up (see my old fish story blog post), it was nice to know (again) that on those days when I am really incapable of searching anymore, when the scenery of a pond from a hill is enough and I no longer have the energy to carry on and would rather just try to make the best of things in spite of the unachieved and unsettled, Kenny will stand up and try a bit more.

I know the boys felt the same way about it; now whenever we get to a hard to find cache, they will remember Kenny's move to the starting point, and I bet they do the same thing. It's ok to go back if it will move you forward to a destination and goal. It's good to start all over sometimes. Sometimes you have to or you'll just wander around in circles.

We came home and ate cacoila on Portuguese rolls, and as it had cooked an extra hour and a half on simmer, the marinated meat was incredibly tender. Washing the crock pot and wiping down the counters after we were through, I thought about the pond again. I thought about the duck that was washing its wings and the bullfrog that was casually calling out contentment with its surroundings. I thought about how moments like this are building blocks to strong-foundationed futures for all of us, and I surfed the geocaching site to print out some more destinations.

Life really is a journey. And it really is just a matter of "Don't Panic." And it really is about having days when it's you that picks up the slack, and other days when you can only look out in front of you and watch ducks. Sometimes all you can do is watch the ducks and listen to the frogs. When you know you just aren't capable on that day, at that moment, it's ok to just remain calm and sit back and just look out there at what is in front of you instead of focussing too hard or too long on things you personally aren't able to do at that time.

Needless to say, I found a lot of solace in this particular geocaching adventure.

Here's a picture of me taken this weekend, which shows the peace of mind and clarity obtained on something as simple as a geocaching treasure hunt:




I thought I was falling apart last week... I wasn't. I was just watching ducks and listening to frogs. I was doing all I could, but knowing I'd gotten to a point where there was nothing more I could do. And I knew that everybody else was trying as hard as they could, too, and I knew that, for now, it was just a matter of hoping for the best and being ok with coming back to it another day. I got tired of being concerned and I got tired of wishing and hoping and I got tired of finding myself in the position of having to figure it all out. I think being the one to figure out a 'clinical cache' of troubled-tummy with the chick was the straw on the camel's back. It shouldn't have had to be me to figure out what had been the cause of her months-long nausea. I was, at first, livid that it was so easy to figure out but upset with myself that I didn't figure it out earlier, because she was the one suffering through it, but I was even angrier that it wasn't somebody else on the team with far more capability and knowledge than me to have figured it out first and much earlier than I did. The whole experience had me teetering on the edge of a paddle boat out in the middle of a pond.

So, I just remained calm, which I thought at first wasn't the right reaction as I kept thinking there had to be some action taken. But there was no action for me to take, and nothing more I could personally do. Aside from just clearing up the nausea, which was done, so simply which both gave me a sense of relief and a sense of "sometimes it is going to have to be you who figures stuff out." And it was with the same pattern that Kenny used days later to figure out where the cache was... he started from the start.

Now, I just take each moment like this. I have stopped going into each day with it all on my shoulders, as my own responsibility, and have made it a point to just bring as many ducks and frogs and pretty ponds into the situation as possible. My strength has strengthened, but in a quieter and calmer fashion than usual. Recognizing my own abilities and incapabilities, in regards to where things are at, and where they are going, and knowing that others on the team are going to have to recognize that there are going to be times when I can no longer be of any assistance except as the bringer of hilltops and ducks on a pond. It came to a point, this week, where I refuse to be the doctor, the advocate, the therapist, the specialist, the teacher, the things that I am not and can not be all of the time at the level expected of me. At the level clearly needed, which is far beyond my own abilities on a 24 hour a day basis, 7 days a week.

I'm reclaiming myself as just a mother here. They either do their jobs and let me rest when I need to, when clearly this entire family has gone out of their way to do more than we should have ever been put in a position to do. We may have achieved more because of it, and perhaps we paved an easier path with no pricker bushes, but at the expense of our own ankles and knees because we didn't see paths that others clearly have as their resources, it's time for others on the team to be the Kenny. It's like we've gone to the same spot for years, each time not finding the cache. We're coming to the conclusion that we, personally, are not going to find it, but we're hoping somebody on the team will.

It's time for our family to just be a family again. We're a family who is sitting on top of a hill now, having done all we could, and either the other team members come along or we will literally just sit here on top of this hill watching ducks and listening to frogs. We're done looking, we're done searching, we're done trying, and we're all ok with that. There's not a person in this house who doesn't recognize how hard we have all tried. But none of us are capable of finding the cache, to use the analogy once more, and it's now time for things to move on with the help and resources of other members of the team, as we can't go another step.

We've been back to the start, we've searched and searched again. We can't do it alone, and need somebody with a better gps unit, so to speak. We need somebody to get us to the destination, as we ourselves have gotten as close to the destination as we can, and although we're here feeling like we've done everything we can, we know there's a bit more to go, that things aren't complete. And we know it won't be ours to accomplish, but as part of the team, we know we at the very least got things as decent as they could get. As close to 'situated' as they could be.

The scenery is ok. I'm resting. We're all resting. Teetering paddle boats here and there, but we're all just hoping somebody picks up the slack now. And I hope they do, because there's so much more to see and do in this lifetime, and the sooner things get situated, the sooner life can move on to other wonderful views and interesting adventures.

We've not given up... we've given in.

We've had a rough couple of days here, but things seem to be simmering down a little. The chick is having a rough batch of confusion, but we're doing all we can. Had planned to pick up my sister for a couple of days summer visit here on Cape Cod, but with the chick having such a hard time we figured that might not be a good idea. Not knowing what, when, how makes planning things difficult at times. We're making the best of the situation, and next week she'll start a weekday set of groups and courses that might help strengthen her ability to address each complication in ways that work for her.

Had a back to back 2 hour meeting yesterday with two incredibly dedicated members of the team we've put together to get things as situated as they can be. The saddest part of all of this is knowing that everyone involved is trying as hard as they can to do as much as they can to help and knowing that there are still barriers that get in the way of doing what is needed. The system, in a multitude of ways, is set up in a fashion that is geared to wait for complete collapse instead of prevention. It's a system that is willing to take too many risks, and when fallout occurs, it's a system that has the perfect setup for nobody being responsible, as so many facets of the system failed that nobody can be fully responsible. Sadly, that is pretty much how the USA is set up in every way, from business to medical to social to public. It's so Atlas Shrugged it makes me laugh (and cry) sometimes.

The timeline of things that can go wrong is extended year after year, as child after child is misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed some more, and then tossed on this, taken off that, and when nothing helps, rediagnosed with a new misdiagnosis, and the cycle can just go on for so long before anything can make a difference. Even a correct diagnosis can still lead to years of struggle. I'm beginning to understand that sometimes even knowing exactly what is causing a situation can still take a long, long time to take care of. I thought that once you knew what was wrong with any given problem in life that the course would be easier and get better day by day... but as we've taken some time lately to do a 'focus on the positives' we are frustrated to find that not all that much has changed and in some ways things continue to get harder. We do believe, though, that in time things will smooth out and get less complicated and frustrating. While you're in it, though, on a day to day basis, it's sometimes excrutiatingly exhausting. Most of all, for the chick.

We're still waiting to read up on the FDA site about its findings with a product out of Canada called EMPowerplus. I found this website last year, after reading a long and interesting article in Discover magazine. We've considered this to be a last resort if nothing else helps with the situation, but we want to wait to see what the FDA findings are, just to be safe. Not that I hold that much respect for the FDA, but the studies they are doing on it currently in conjunction with the studies they have already done on it would make it something we could try with the chick's doctor if it does get FDA approval. I used to think anything vitamin/mineral/diet was a crock of hopeful nonsense, almost too basic a reason for such complicated conditions, but the more I've read up on this, the more sense it makes. Our foods really are overprocessed and the stuff that's put into them (preservatives, additives, chemicals) could very well be the cause for the increase in mental conditions that have baffled doctors for decades. Soil isn't replenished and cared for as it was in the past, which definitely plays a role in the food that grows there. Overworked farms that are pushed to meet demands for certain crops could be putting out the equivalent of plastic fruits and vegetables that look great to the eye in their visual perfection but have far less of the vitamins and minerals we got from them in decades gone by. If all that has caused the mental health crisis over the years is a vitamin/mineral deficiency, it could so easily be rectified and would also result in a bit of financial loss for the pharmeceutical companies that have created pills to mask over the symptoms but not the address the origin at all (which is why the pharmeceutical companies are going to be EMPowerplus's strongest opponents.) It's just a waiting game now, to see what the results of the double-blind studies are. Oddly, I can't find anything about EMPowerplus on the FDA site, but I do know it's in the process of being evaluated by the FDA or at the very least the studies have begun.

For now, we go along with most of everything taken care of from last year's horrible misdiagnosis by the most incompetent and sadistic doctor we've ever met. With a bad taste still lingering in our mouths from that incident, we've still somehow managed to sort out that doctor's critical mistakes, and are at the very least now working with a doctor who backs up everything he says with facts, test results and a more clinical evaluation. But the road to here was bumpy, and continues to have its own set of small detours.

We continue to do geocaching, and most likely will head to the beach later on today depending on how things are going. Hopefully the rest of the week is a little less tense. We have another (!!!) travel bug we found at the 3rd cache we went to and we've got to place him somewhere with a lot of tourists in the hope that some Canadian geocacher finds him... the travel bug's name is Nanuk and he came with a piece of paper that requested he somehow get up to Canada and Alaska. Here's a picture of Nanuk:




He's sitting on my desk right now, waiting for a new cache to climb into. We have a few printed out to find tomorrow. We've also got to get together some more small items to exchange with each cache, which I've come up with some pretty good ideas for.

All in all, I think this summer will be remembered by the kids mostly as the summer we started geocaching and the cool places we found the caches at. At least that's what I'm hoping for, because in the midst of all of these rough moments for the chick, there have been some great times that she was a part of and I figure that if we just keep going along here trying to do the best we can in spite of the circumstances and make some good, happy memories along the way, perhaps the fun times will make more of a difference for the hard times. It's either that or just sit around and worry what's going to happen next, and I just can't go that route. I want the 'what is going to happen next' to be something positive and interesting, and the kids have selected some really great caches to find. It's been even more fun than I anticipated it would be, and I already had a feeling before we even started doing it that it would be incredibly fun. :)

In closing, a poem by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings for Hoopy Frood, who has been so helpful to me the past few days as I send him emails that read more like chapter books:

I have found
a find
in you
and me

The we
can do it
we can get
through it

the never giveuppers
the computer geeks
with painted mouses
and glowing keyboards

the pool swimmers
and skimmers
and algae shockers
we make things clear

we are a cache
we exchange with each other
travel bugs and stories
our waypoint's the same

This is how it is
so this is how we go
we coordinated our gps
and just take it slow

First geocaching expidition today, FOUND BUG IN FIRST CACHE!

www.geocaching.com


So the first geocache we decide to go to is at a place we've been to many times. Never knew a cache was there. So we get the coordinates, and off we went, with many small things to put inside the cache.

We're looking everywhere, reading the pages we printed out from the website about the spot. My daughter keeps saying "what does virtual mean?" I say "I think it means pretend?" But, it doesn't dawn on me, until twenty minutes later, twenty minutes being bitten by horseflies and cutting up our legs on pricker bushes while my daughter keeps telling us from the van "you guys... I think the cache is the view!", virtual means that there IS NO cache at this place!

We're laughing about it on the ride home, but now we really want to go to a cache. So, we get some new coordinates, for a place that isn't just a 'virtual cache' (they are listed as 'virtual cache' or 'regular cache'), and off we go again.

After a great hike up a great wooded path, we come to our very first cache. I saw it and just yelled "there it is, yeh! There it IS!" I let the boys (my son and his friend, my chick decided not to go with us for the 2nd try) get it, because I know their excitement about this was something they'd been looking forward to and something KC had worked so hard on (he learned the GPS and was our leader for the excursion.)

We open up the cache, it's shoebox sized and plastic so that it's weather-tight, and we're amazed at how much stuff is in it. The boys pick up something and I immediately see the silver tag on it. My heart leaps up to my throat. I'm thinking, what are the odds of finding a travel bug in the first cache you ever find?

I'm either the luckiest person alive, or some type of universal God decided to really make our day, because I read the tag and sure enough, it's a travel bug!

So, we log into the small plastic-bagged notebook, and take the bug with us to bring an hour's drive away this week. My dad is both shocked and thrilled we found the bug, and is going with us to replant it in a cache he knows about in his town. We put a cool toy car and some post note tabs and a bracelet inside the cache.

We went out for icecream cones to celebrate. It was a lot of fun, and we can't wait to go out again tomorrow to find another cache. We'd planned to do this once a week or once every other week, but we had so much fun today, we're going to go again tomorrow, and with an even bigger group.

If you're looking for a fun thing to do with your kids this summer, or even as an adult with some friends, the geocaching is fun, cheap and interesting! :) It's geeky good fun!

My sister just sent me this old photograph (1991) this morning, which led to us having a very long, cool discussion about the family and everything that has happened within our family structure. Isn't it pretty cool how photographs can sometimes lead to so much clarity? The only person missing from this photo is our oldest brother, and although it may never been that all 5 of us children are in the same place to have a picture taken, I'm going to ask him if I can photoshop him into the picture at some point. Or, because my photoshop skills aren't so good, I may ask a friend to do it, but I think I'd like to try to do it myself to learn how to do photoshopping better than I have in the past.

The Long Over-Due Washington Square Park Blog Post

Holy smokes... I can add pictures to my blog posts. Dunno when that option became available, it sure as heck wasn't an option when I got this blog some time ago. It definitely will save me time putting pictures on the imagedump.com site I usually use... from now on, I'll just put the pictures right here in the blog. Like this view from the Scrabble area of Washington Square Park in New York:



We left Cape Cod at 5:00 a.m. and arrived at Washington Square Park around 9:30 a.m., which was great driving time as we did make a 20 minute stop at a rest area to gas up, stretch and pee.

There were a lot of Chess players when we arrived at the park, but no Scrabble players to be found. The local park people let us know that the Scrabble players usually start filtering in around 11:00 a.m. or so, which is around the time they did start showing up, one right after another.

We'd come to this park because we'd read about it in the Stefan Fatsis book "Word Freak" as well as hearing about the park from various Scrabble players at the Boston Area yearly tournament (some of the parkies, regular players at the Washington Square Park Scrabble area, attend the Boston area tournament.) The movie Word Wars, though, made our desire to visit this park "at some point in our lifetimes" swiftly turn into "we must go there this year." Mainly because of one player... Aldo.

Aldo is a calm, quiet and sincere Scrabble player who did something pretty remarkable. He beat Joe Edley, who'd come to the park for the same reason we did (to meet and play Aldo), during their first game together. Joe Edley is the only expert tournament player to have won the National Scrabble Championship an astounding 3 times in his life (so far), but Aldo does not play in tournaments... only at the park.

I wish I'd been there to see Aldo beat Mr. Edley, the energy and mutual intelligence-respect between them must have been just phenomenal. Two of the world's most powerful Scrabble players going head-to-head must have been like the flutter of a million butterfly wings, creating a positive pulse of sportsmanship, critical thinking and all that can be achieved through dedication and utilizing logic to its fullest. To know both of these men are so in tune with the epicenter of their Scrabble minds... wow, this is reading like I just smoked a huge joint, isn't it though? HAHAHA! Just 2 cups of coffee, I swear... and a few Parliment lights. But anyways... Joe eventually went back to the park to do a 'best out of 7' day with Aldo. In the end, it was tied 3-3, and Joe Edley won the fourth and final game. Most of this, with the exception of that infamous first game between them, is in the movie Word Wars, which even if you aren't a Scrabble player is a fascinating movie to see. Ironically, not many parkies knew about the first game... odds are they didn't recognize Joe Edley, as most parkies do not pay much attention to the tournament circuit. They are there to game, and to, hmmmm... how should I put this so as not to draw any unneeded attention... well, to honor each other when a win is established. Thankfully, Kenny and I knew enough about these players to not partake of the sideline stuff, we'd have left the park broke if we had. What really impressed me is that nobody tried to hustle us, although I think that's mainly due in part to their ability to see right through my 'innocent tourist' act. No matter how much I try to coverup my street smarts, sometimes just my smile and laugh is a giveaway. It also could be, though, that these players are smart enough to just wait to be asked instead of doing the asking, which is the best way to do things... ask any street hooker in New York how they never got arrested and they'll tell ya that patience and never saying anything out loud is key.

A wonderful man with a flat-cap came by and noticed Kenny and I playing a game of Scrabble. He struck up conversation and we told him we were here to meet Aldo if at all possible. He let us know that Aldo would be there soon, and then Kenny and I told him about the Boston Area tournament, how we'd met many parkies but never been to the park, that it was our 12 year anniversary, short-version life story stuff, and he told us his name was Joe.

Joe let us know that he'd taught Aldo everything he knows about the game. This made me want to play head-to-head with Joe, but I could tell by his smile that he was just joshing with us.

So we anxiously awaited Aldo's arrival... as he walked towards the picnic tables, my heart nearly leapt into my throat. I literally put my hands on my chest near my heart, to calm it down. His tall, strong demeanor was just breathtaking, and I am pretty sure my knees buckled at the sight of him, but that didn't stop me from walking right up to him and saying "Aldo, I would love to have your autograph for my Scrabble bathroom, we loved you in the movie Word Wars. That's just incredible, what happened with Joe Edley, we play the Boston area tournament and have watched Joe win so many of them, wow, you are just great." I said probably some more stuff, but can't remember verbatim because once I started talking with Aldo and the way he kept glancing at this strange Yankee-accented chick as he set up his Scrabble board, his eyes had a hint of laughter in them, I could not stop my mouth from just saying everything I'd thought of in the weeks before coming to New York. I kept both of my hands pressed to my heart to stop myself from just reaching up and touching Aldo's cheek, which is something I kept wanting to do the entire time, but I'm a weirdo like that. I'm a contained goofball with self-control. Sorta.

"Scrabble bathroom?" he said with a slightly cocked eyebrow.

"Yeh, it's a bathroom at my house that I wallpapered with dictionary pages. To study from while I pee or anything. I've got a bunch of autographs from my favorite Scrabble players framed and on the walls. Can I have yours? You are great!"

Aldo was staring at me with eyes wide, which I know I come across as a bit loopy, so I wasn't offended or anything, and the look wasn't offensive anyways... he shook his head yes and said "I'll give you my autograph for your bathroom, hold on a second." There's only a few Scrabble tables, and we later learned that those who set up their boards usually remain in place for the entire day, which meant getting your spot situated before you did anything else... like signing autographs for Scrabble bathrooms.

As nervous as I was, I still found the courage to ask Aldo for a game. I don't usually get nervous, but for some reason I was intent on beating Aldo, even though common sense told me I was nuts for thinking it possible. Joe with the flat-cap offered to assist me in a game against Aldo. Two minds against one still felt like it would leave Joe and I six brains short of enough mind-power to tackle Aldo. But I underestimated Joe... the guy perhaps did teach Aldo everything he knows!~ In an amazing case of Joe and I getting every single good tile in the bag and Aldo getting stuck with racks that must have looked like sounds you make when you've been whacked upside the head with a paintcan, the game ended with a final score of ... YIKES! I don't have the final score, it's in Joe's ledger! I just looked inside my Scrabble bag, and it dawned on me that Joe is the one who kept score... so he has the exact results in numbers. But, I do know this... the exact result without numbers is Joe and I somehow managed to win the game. Kenny and I are going back to the park in September, so when we do, I'll get the score in numbers from Joe, who will most likely be there... as all parkies are usually there on nice days without rain to warp the Scrabble boards (a few boards look like they had been caught in downpours, which really made me realize the kinds of Scrabble players these people are... dedicated!)

Here's a picture of me and Aldo:









and the picture of me and Joe with the flat-cap!


There are also some pictures of the orange-tailed squirrels and funky chess art pieces on my mobog area.


Kenny and I walked around the park numerous times during our day there. We saw a great magician show and I got to sit and listen to this young, beautiful short-blonde haired chick sing some songs while playing guitar. We brought a lot of dollar bills to the park. I saw a guy walking around in a viking helmet. We saw a few people passed out in the wooded sections, the orange-tailed squirrels walking around them looking for food in their pockets. We saw hundreds of dogs, as the park has a fenced in dog-run area where the leashes come off and dogs and owners of all shapes and sizes play, socialize and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Kenny got asked if he wanted some pot about 3 times (which, of course, he just said he didn't smoke.) I didn't get approached for drugs... I guess because I have the kind of demeanor that says I'm high enough with a mild case of insanity and hyperactivity.

So, the autographs from the parkies got framed and put in the Scrabble bathroom, and every morning when I wake up I get to remember one of the best days Kenny and I have had in 2005.




Initially, we had planned to make a visit to the Washington Square Park a yearly event for our wedding anniversary, but June's visit was so much fun we made tenative verbal plans to go back in September of this year.

After we'd won the game against Aldo, I'd asked Joe for a game but he said I was looking too tough to play... in September, I plan to request a little side-action with Joe to get that head-to-head game. Even though I may lose, it will be worth it. I'm going to study up before we hit the park, and will play as hard as I try to in tournaments. Hopefully I get a little lucky on the draws, as we did with Aldo, because I know that is the only reason we were able to do what I'd dreamed of doing at Washington Square Park.

Kenny and I also had a game against Larry Sherman (who signed his autograph with a question mark after it, which cracked me up). Larry Sherman beat the living stink out of me and Kenny, but we pretty much expected it so it wasn't too brutal to our Scrabble egos. I guess I'll also have to admit, in closing this huge blog post, that Kenny beat me in our first Washington Square Park game of Scrabble, but I then beat him back... we're now tied in our park games, and plan to play the rubber match in September.

If you don't play Scrabble or Chess, Washington Square Park is still a very fascinating and vibrant place to spend a day... for people watching, dog watching, and just the activity of it all is very good for the heart and mind. We plan at some point to take the kids there, because we know they'd love it. I give the Washington Square Park two thumbs up, a 10 out of 10, and a huge silver star. :)