(no subject)

Ricky has been on plain old Ritalin for a while now, and it's been working out very well. The drug, I guess, slows down the crashing fragments of his mind enough that he can better navigate the little labyrinths of thought and speech. It's a lot easier to have a conversation with him now; he's less prone to go zooming down a dozen left-hand alleyways mid-phrase, or mid-word, frustrating himself.

He has started to listen to radio shows, practicing his regained ability to follow and connect sequences of events happening outside of his own head. He called just now to talk about Art Bell. I might make fun of him gently for liking that stuff but I can't press too hard, since it's so wonderful that he can not only pay attention and understand the flow of a single raido show, but he can follow changes in the state of the host and its regular callers between shows. He couldn't do this just a couple of years ago. So Art Bell is apparently moving to the Philippines to be with his new wife, and Ricky thinks that's great, and wanted to tell me about it.

Just realized that this winter, it will have been 20 years since his accident. How about that.

(no subject)

Lola@Cafe Rossini was trying to explain Easter and its role in America to a young foreign gentleman hanging out there, and, struggling to remember what its religious meaning was, got Good Friday mixed up with Passover. I remarked aloud at this impressive display of track-jumping. We have this kind of a relationship I suppose.

I have to do my taxes now. I am tickled that we New Englander get an extra day to do em coz the regional IRS office is in Boston, which is closed tomorrow due to the wacky Boston-only holiday of Patriot's Day.