Mo's Birthday

I've gotten a bit behind on my blogging, I know. Don't dock my pay, alright? It's not as if this endeavor is a revenue generator for me.

But I've had lots to blog about lately. So much, in fact, that just getting in front of the 'puter and sorting through the thousand or so pictures and tons of video is a daunting task.

Mo turned 14, and aside from the usual card and cake, I made her a banner. And got her some headphones.



The original idea came because she cranks YouTube so excessively. I have little room to criticize, I'm blasting the Flobots right now against sleep deprivation and pent-up self-expression/self-absorption. But while Japanese or Finnish translations of Disney are annoying with repetition, they are doubly so when she cranks them to where she can here them as she wanders the house.

But, I rationalized, the autism probably inspires this excess volume because it blots out other stimuli. She can't here me and her sister's media, voices, phone conversations, the incessant traffic of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway that runs through our backyard, the furnace, etc.



So headphones. She uses them at school. She can immerse herself without drowning the rest of us. Originally, I thought wireless ones, like an employee who used to pretend to work while I pretended to supervise him had. The guy was adept if not talented, but as confrontational as Joe Hill with about as much in the way of genuine grievance as Ricky from Silver Spoons.

This employee followed a band called Govt. Mule around as if they were the Grateful Dead, except they hadn't died off/broken up yet and they'd let him plug into their board. Once or twice an hour he'd have to walk thirty feet to get a printout and rather than be deprived of Govt. Mule's restorative powers for upwards of a minute, he bought these headphones with a broadcasting base.



Best Buy had them, except they were sold out and I'd have to drive all over hell's half acre to procure a pair not already bought by a Govt. Mule freak. And they were $120, and no guarantee could be made that Mo wouldn't flush them down the toilet or make a letter-bomb out of them.



So Mo shunned the 'phones but so far is willing to not crank up the speakers too loud with the threat of headphones taking the place of those speakers.



Meaning, I guess, that my 'gift' served its purpose if it didn't seem like much of a gift to Mo...



I think I made up for it with the birthday dinner, though. Fried chicken and Brussels Sprouts, both faves...