itunes = good OT

When I was at the alzheimer's day center for two weeks, they did a lot of singing. Old song singing. I didn't know any of them. Clementines, silver moons, you name it. Well it's midnight at Grandma's and everyone is asleep. Well except me obviously. I'm surrounded by Grandma's CDs of old songs, that I'm burning into itunes, so that I can learn the popular ones and be all like, popular with the Alzheimer's patients.

I feel like I hit the jackpot at Grandma's, lol.

PS: im reading a weird book on autism and adoption and the parents give mad props to the OT for helping their son! Yay!

Update on CE article in OT Practice

ACLS youtube video

http://www.ot-advantage.com/ota/blogs.aspx?id=988&blogid=96

My friends Kerri and Allison are famous!

tiny update

Going through Dad's itunes library….going to The Fish market for dinner with family. Spent night at Grandma's last night. Kristina came in today. Having fun!

LAST CALL FOR AOTA CONFERENCE PAPERS!

Yo OT-related people!

AOTA Conference 2009 needs your papers in, ridiculously early! So this is your like, last call!! June 15th is the deadline! SEND AOTA YOUR STUFF!  If you don't, a man dressed like a chicken will come into your house and eat you while you sleep! Or maybe not that, but at the very least, you will not have your paper at conference.

http://www.aota.org/conference.aspx

booorrrrrinnngggg

I need to clean up my stuff and get it in order in preparation for Kristina showing up tomorrow since we have to share a room/bed! 🙁 And shower and pack for Grandma's! And do several Internet chores for OT-related things! :O Okay gonna go clean first!!

A rooster named Karen

I'm not famous in the OT world but I do have a rooster named after me….

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-716917.mp3

My awesomely crazy and generous friends Paul and Angela (anything weird in my house was almost certainly a present from them), were both on a recent WKNO radio show, “Local Food Movement Gains Momentum With Mid-Southerners“…….they are Slow Food Members (I have a gift membership from them), and they try hard to eat local and they even have their own chickens in their city backyard. One of which is named Karen. And Karen eventually turned out to be a rooster. 🙁

And that rooster named Karen gets mentioned in this broadcast..Paul is in the middle of the radio mp3 clip talking about being an introvert (cough) and getting to know the farmers, and Angela is near the end discussing the chickens. And rooster. AHAHAHAHAHAA.

Their website: http://squirrel-squad.blogspot.com/

All is well on the OT front? Almost ….

Today ended with an incredibly rich dinner at Osteria Restaurante, an Italian restaurant in downtown La Jolla. Near the end of the dinner my mother and father were discussing and drawing probability charts and how probability isn't always how it seems, based on some new book called the Drunkard's Walk or something, and how a drunkard near a light pole always ends up in the same place, and how that fact was used to like, I dunno, figure out some major astrophysics principle. I drew my own version of astrophysics using all sorts of crazy math symbols and got chided for not using integrals. Gosh, silly me.

Nothing to report on the OT front again, beyond that I got really irritated with the recent continuing education article in OT practice that was on blogs, wikis, and podcasts! Grr!! It praised the use of Web 2.0 technology to promote the centennial vision and OT community, then completely ignored the OT community that is already using these tools! It focused on generic examples, and when it did list two OT blogs, it listed one that was barely active with only a few posts, and one that isn't really a normal OT blog! Grr! I wrote the editor (the amazing Laura) and I was like, I'm biased of course, and it's not that I'm just sore I wasn't mentioned, but it's somewhat of a slap in the face to write a completely generic article on Web 2.0 tools in the OT community and then not actually note that a community exists! A large community! Grrr!! Grrr!!!

Okay, I guess that was actually a report on the OT front. Maybe tomorrow I'll respond to all my e-mails!! OT ones included, all my little OT luviedoves!!

lonely people

I just saw one of my neighbors of twenty years, go to check her mailbox. She is using a rolling walker, needing assistance for the first time…she was old twenty years ago so now she is REALLY OLD! She used her left foot to really walk and her right foot to kind of slide along. It made me feel sick to my stomach to see the walker…She isn't social anymore, but she used to be a lot nicer, and I think when her husband died a long time ago, she became a lonely disgruntled widow. I have memories of admiring her roses and eating her candy as a little girl. She is now obsessive about her mailbox and lives for her daily mail. I'm going to write down her address and start sending her postcards every once in a while…she didn't have any mail in the box today.

Ugh, things like this make me so sad!! Loneliness is such an unfair thing…like the Beatles Song..Eleanor Rigby…all the lonely people…where do they all come from.
I have a bunch of postcard stamps with me…time to buy some postcards and write to all the lonely elderly people I know! I go through a postcard blitz like this a few times a year when I see something that reminds me of how much small gestures of kindness can mean!! Like a single letter in an old woman's mailbox! Aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..

When I'm an OT, one of the art projects I'll always keep in mind for clients is making and sending postcards to loved ones, especially elderly people or lonely people….and if the client has no one, I always seem to have a list of people who could benefit from such a thing. Aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh loneliness 🙁

I challenge all of you who read this post today, to go buy some pretty and colorful postcards, stamp them all immediately, and send just a few words out to some people you know who might be a little lonely…even if you don't know the person that well. It can just be a “Thinking of you!”….it might be the single moment of joy that person gets that day. That act of kindness brings Karmic GOLD.

Give it a try…maybe your own life will improve as well. 🙂

Bed Bath and Beyond…a good place for grandma's care items

Letter I got from my friend! Bed Bath and Beyond goes above and beyond! ha ha ha!@

“Last November after Mom broke her leg, I had to get her several items, such as a raised commode seat, shower chair, and a tub rail.  I went all over town from Walgreen's to CVS to a medical equipment store.  Nobody had everything, if you get my meaning.  Selection was very limited and prices were high.

Yesterday for the first time in my life I went to a Bed, Bath and Beyond.  We went to look at stuff for Sarah's dorm room.  And on one really big end display in the bath section, there it all was.  Everything I had spent about 4 hours searching for all over town, plus some items that would have been helpful but were not necessary and I couldn't find them anyway. 

I have no vested interest in BB&B,and would have never thought them a source for accommodation items.  Selection and price (as compared to what I remember) were both good.

I was surprised.”