Posts by Peggy
JoC’s Strawberry Punch, freely interpreted
For Sam’s graduation party, I put out a devil’s food cake (from Rosso and Lukins’ New Basics Cookbook), chili-lime peanuts (from epicurious), butter mints (from Albertsons) and a double-batch of strawberry punch, based on the recipe from Joy of Cooking.
A few people asked for the recipe. The original is good just the way it is and I’ve made it that way many times, but Sam doesn’t like carbonated beverages, so I had to fake it a little bit.
The Original
Boil for 5 minutes:
4 cups water
4 cups sugar
Cool the syrup. Combine:
2 quarts hulled strawberries
1 cup slice canned or fresh pineapple
1 cup mixed fruit juice — pineapple, apricot, raspberry, etc.
Juice of 5 large oranges
Juice of 5 large lemons
(3 sliced bananas)
Add the syrup, or as much of it as is palatable. Chill these ingredients. Immediately before serving, add:
2 quarts carbonated water
3 cups or more of crushed ice.
The basic mix is concentrated, to offset the dilution that happens with the icing. Water can be added, as desired.
JoC Strawberry Punch, Sam Style
Boil for 5 minutes
4 cups water
4 cups sugar
As the syrup is cooling, hull and slice the strawberries into the syrup (helps the infusion)
When ready to mix, I added one bottle of TexSun Orange-Pineapple Juice (a favorite from his childhood) and 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice, and a small can of pineapple slices, drained.
Chill.
To serve, I added three trays of ice cubes.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #100
Sam (as water heater gets repaired, again): Well, it looks like we’re going to have to wash up in the sink.
Peggy: You’re right. I’ll start boiling some water.
Sam: Yep. We’re going to have to do it like the cowboys did.
Graduation
Sam got a 100 on his final final.
He has to do about 12 more hours to finish his internship.
He watched a video class on job-seeking two or three times last weekend, then wrote a paper about what he learned.
Another cliff is coming, right around the corner.
Making Pesto
We picked our first batch of basil from the garden tonight. My mother says the more you harvest, the more you get.
Thai basil (the purple-stalked type) volunteers in my garden now. That makes a nice, sharp pesto. But we picked the genovese basil tonight.
I asked Sam if he wanted to help make the pesto, since it’s about his favorite way to dress pasta. I said first, you have to pick all these leaves off the stems. I told him, “it’s kind of a job.”
He shot back, “I think that’s an easy job.”
And I remembered why the man can build computers over and over, and build sound sets for his old-school midi on Sibelius, and why other young adults like him can do the same exacting job over and over again
Daniel Shackleford, who’s about Sam’s age and moved from Krum to live at Marbridge in Austin, works at a hospital sterilizing medical equipment and packing it in bags. You can’t get bored and make mistakes at that kind of job. People would get sick. Daniel loves the exacting, repetitive nature of the work. The same kind of thing that would put me to sleep.
About 30 minutes later, Sam was ready to pulse the leaves with the rest of the ingredients: pine nuts, garlic, salt, olive oil. When I added the parmesean cheese and the butter, he complained about having to push the pulse button on the blender over and over.
“I thought this had an automatic pulse cycle,” he said.
Well, maybe not all the repetitive tasks ….
Saturday in Richardson
I will be talking to parents at Education Service Center Region 10 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.
The meeting will be in the Mockingbird Room in the Abrams Building, 904 Abrams Road, Richardson.
I will be sharing information about Texas Parent-to-Parent and People First language for the first half of the meeting — talks that have been developed and refined by the good people at Texas Parent-to-Parent
During the second half of the meeting, we’ll discuss ethics in treatment decisions, why it’s important, and how to be successful with it. This talk was developed first by Shahla Ala’i-Rosales, a professor of behavior analysis at the University of North Texas, and an expert with years of clinical experience treating children with autism.
I’ll bring a book or two to give away.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #99
Sam: Which song is it that you just played?
Peggy: Someone to Watch Over Me.
Sam: You’re getting really good at it.
Peggy: Well, thank you, Sam.
Sam: I don’t think any midi device could play it that well.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #98
Peggy (through the bathroom door): I can’t talk right now. I’m sick.
Sam: I’m feeling queasy too. (to himself). Both Mom and I are sick at the same time. It’s a fungus.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #97
Sam: Sorry to send you to the store before you came home.
Peggy (handing over the new color print cartridge): But I did it.
Sam: And it’s wonderful.
Slippery slope
One of my big fears, as I slowly let go and let Sam have his adult life, is that someone will come into his life and take advantage of him. Sam has pretty good defenses. But they aren’t impervious.
I learned today of a scenario I never considered — he needs more than a defense against a manipulating co-worker, a neighborhood con artist, or a really bad girlfriend, but a solid radar when someone close to him has crossed the line, too.
Even us without autism have a tough time going against someone who purportedly loves us and “wants the best for us,” but is an expert at justifications and rationalizations when it comes to taking care of their needs first.
Oh, new things to think about.
Getting distracted
I didn’t think it possible we’d get through April, autism awareness month, without at least one discussion of “it.”
Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine and autism.
Oh, I am so weary of “it.” But The New York Times ran a nice long one for us on Easter Sunday. All about the parents who irrationally defend the doctor who can’t even practice medicine anymore. He still believes. So do they.
His one legacy may be his identification of the need to research bowel problems, and to that I say, amen. That needs to happen.
But my goodness people, don’t go experimenting on our children based on some half-baked theory. First, do no harm. Even when we vow to be conservative and gentle, we can find there dozens of ways to get after problems that need to be solved.
I believe the rest of this battle is a distraction for parents who need support in their grief work, and support in dealing with this role of caregiver that can be unbelievably demanding. Don’t stand on a balcony in Austin, Texas, and pretend you are in Tuscany. You’re wasting our time.