THE NOT SO DAILY DUMP #14

Temple Grandin

About a couple of months ago, the subject of autism came up between my wife and kids and me. It reminded me of an HBO movie, Temple Grandin, I had watched several years prior. The movie came out in 2010, so it was around then that I saw it. I thought this movie was well done, and it also introduced me to autism in a way that I had never experienced. That I knew of, I had never known or had been around an autistic person. The best part about this movie is that its main character and story are based upon a real person with autism who has accomplished great things. The movie is both informative and inspiring. We watched it that same afternoon, not terribly long after our discussion began.

About a month later, my daughter, age nine, asked if she could watch TV. She stated that she'd like to watch Temple Grandin. I don't know that I would have let her watch any TV at that time, but her mentioning she was interested in watching Temple Grandin certainly made me more at ease with it. Before I knew it, her brothers were in the living room with their faces glued to the TV. She wasn't able to finish the movie that night—we had dinner and kids’ activities or “whatever” going on as families tend to have—but she continued to watch the movie piece by piece throughout the week. And, for the most part, there her brothers were sitting and watching along.

All told, I don't know how many times she/they watched it. It made me smile that I was not only able to introduce them to something they enjoyed but also something that was educational beyond facts and figures. They were experiencing another way of being human, understanding the larger world and its inhabitants. Maybe, they were growing within their own compassion and empathy for others, to be more accepting and helpful and loving. Or, it's just a good movie. Time will tell. I doubt the two-year-old got any of that. I'm sure he just liked the cows.

Check out this trailer for the movie. (And clickety-clickety here if you want to go to the page where I got this video. Or, if the video player isn't showing. You know the drill.)




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New Posts To Consume

Kiss My Grass, Part 4: Let The Children Play
It should be easy to tell that this recent post is the fourth installment in the "Kiss My Grass" series. How many of these parts will there be? Good question. Maybe, infinity? I have ideas so far for a couple more, but I haven't gotten very far on them yet. Inspiration generally drives what I work on and what I get finished, but I make sure I'm writing SOMETHING regularly, regardless. Must. Keep. Moving. Read this post for insight on what we've done for the wee ones in the back yard since we moved into our home. wee ones = children

Don’t Call Me A Runner
This year is the first year in many years that I've gotten fired up about physical fitness. It started small just to get me headed in a direction, and it's blossomed ever since then. It really doesn't take much to get started, and one is only limited by the barriers they place before them. Doing five minutes of anything I could consider exercise each day has lead to me literally moving as much as I can each day. Going to the chiro regularly since February has been an unexpected necessity as well. My misaligned body had made exercising undesirable  over the years. I can thank my wife for setting me up that first appointment without warning. Read more about how my year has developed in this unintended update to the physical fitness aspect of my 2018 goals. (Don't tell my wife that I probably AM a bit of a runner now.)


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Bulls On Parade

This year, just last week, my son and I participated in our first parade. My wife, daughter, and toddler son have been marching with the Girl Scouts since my daughter became a scout. Actually, my toddler son has never attended our city's parade without being in it, whether my wife was pregnant with him or he was being towed along. My older son and I, however, didn't really have a group to join in the parade, so we'd just sit and wave and collect any goodies that came our way.

Our friends over at Marvel Sewer and Drain, Ben and Emily, decided to be in the parade again this year after taking a year off. They put out the call to friends and family to see who would want to support them and march in the parade. I was intrigued at the prospect of being in a parade for the first time, and I wanted to throw my support behind Marvel. I did need to convince my older son, only a little bit, because he gets more out of watching the parade than I do. And when I say "gets more," I mostly mean candy and swag. This WAS the first thing he brought up (as did my daughter), and luckily for me, I had already thought about it. I told them that if we all were in the parade, we would buy our own bag of candy and that we could pick whatever we wanted. We didn't have to accept whatever was thrown at us. They liked this idea; so did my wife.

It was a fun experience. And even though there was a lot of waiting for the parade to begin, and the route lasted an hour and a half, and we spent a little time with the Marvel crew afterward, the time went fast. It was amazing how easy it was to fall back in the parade line-up when I was passing out temporary tattoos, crayons, a coloring page, and letting the parade goers know about Marvel’s drawing on their Facebook page. Throw all of that in with me knowing people along the route and saying a quick “hello” to them as we went, and there was hardly time to soak up the experience. I just had to make sure I stayed in front of the dang inflatable mosquito.

In the past, I never really “got out” much and kept to myself for the most part. There was a period of time where I paid a lot of attention to politics but more so on the national level and not so much at the local level. Since my wife and kids have come along and I've both physically and mentally established roots in the city I live in, I've become more aware and invested with my city, the people in it, and the businesses calling it home. If I weren't marching with Marvel, I could just as easily have marched with the Girl Scouts, too, or even with SLP Chiropractic. It was nice having a chance to talk to Dr. Dave on our way to Marvel’s spot in the parade line-up.

In the bigger picture, it's very interesting to see how much my life is different now than it was six years ago. However, my life didn't change by mistake or happenstance, even if most of the details couldn't have been foreseen. It's all been in a direction that I've been steering towards—a metaphorical call to the void and then the void answered back. I called out to be more involved and interactive; the void answered with a parade. I decided mere weeks ago to wave at everyone in my neighborhood, even if I didn't know them, because that's the kind of ‘hood I want to live in. Guess what? They all wave back.


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Shine That Spotlight, You Crazy Diamond

In this issue, I shine the Spotlight on a fellow blogger. While she does more than blog (visual artist, for example), I would like to introduce you to that part of her sphere of being. Jessica Silver is a huge anime fan and she likes to write about it. She has thoroughly immersed herself within the culture as much as she can. One such example is her attendance at cons, where she not only enjoys the event dressed up in character or in her favorite Lolita-style fashion, but she also speaks on panels as well. At her blog, she reviews as many anime shows as she possibly can, while also giving a little taste of her life, process, and larger views. She self-describes her blog as an “anime-and-more blog.” I would agree.

Oh, and I love her blog’s name, Season 1, Episode 1.

About Jessica   |   About her website   |   S1E1.com


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Mantra

I almost put another motivational/educational video in this spot of THE NOT SO DAILY DUMP, but I decided to break it up so as not to show too many of those in a row, from issue to issue. I like to keep this feature fresh and not TOO predictable. Do expect some more of those videos in the future, though.

In this particular issue, I thought you might be interested in experiencing this video I found a couple of weeks ago. Maybe you knew it existed, but I didn't. I like this instrumental tune, and I like the musicians that came together to make it. Regardless of what you think about them personally or of their individual music releases, these three men are each top-of-class creatives, and I've enjoyed their work together, here and elsewhere, and also as separate artists. The song is called Mantra and was created for the movie, Sound City, by Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and Trent Reznor.

Without further blabbery-bloop, give the video a play. Click. Look. Listen. (Direct link to video.)





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