Happy Birthday, Son

Cover of The Aristocats (Special Edition)I am in a little bit better frame of mind tonight than I was last night.  To be perfectly honest, I was kind of moping around my office a little this morning.  I was still regretting it a little bit that I had not decided to take a vacation day to go visit my son at school to celebrate his 17th birthday.

My wife went out to the school today with some cupcakes, presents, and balloons for him so that he would have some special fun today.  She told me he was very excited to get the presents.  We had gotten him two Word Girl DVDs, a Spongebob Squarepants DVD, and Disney's The Aristocats.  He was particularly excited to get The Aristocats.  He had mentioned that he wanted it just before we took him back to school after his last break.

I was able to reach my wife on her cell phone shortly before she got to the school.  Usually, my son does not want to talk on the phone at all, but I told her that I wished I had taken off work to go out with her for his birthday and I wanted her to try to get him to talk on the phone so that I could wish him a happy birthday.  To my surprise and my delight, she was able to get him to talk on the phone for a little bit.

When he got on the phone, he didn't want to talk long, but he sounded very excited.  Usually, when he wants to tell you something, he phrases it as a question so that you will ask the question back to him.  The first words out of his mouth were, "Who is coming on the 19th?"  The 19th happens to be the day his spring break starts. I told him I did not know and asked who was coming on the 19th. He said, "Daddy is coming on the 19th."  So he is very excited and anticipating his next trip home.  Me too.

Borders Files for Bankruptcy

Image via WikipediaI have always loved books.  For as long as I can remember, I have had several bookshelves loaded with books.  A lot of them were from different mail order book clubs.  One of my favorite book clubs was a club that featured classic literature.  Depending on the type of book it was, the book came in a different colored binding. For example, classic American literature came in a navy blue cover and British novelist were green.  There were five different colors.

Most of the books that I bought in stores were from small stores at the local malls.  The stores themselves were small and didn't have a lot of variety.  The first big book store that I experienced was a Borders book store in Rockville, MD.  I was mesmerized.  There were bookshelves that went from floor to ceiling covering every conceivable subject.

On Monday of this week, I went up to the local Borders here in Bowie, MD. It is not as impressive as the first Border's that I went into.  I went to the Borders because we were going to be taking our son back to school and I wanted to pick up a couple DVDs for him to watch at school.  At the time, the clerk offered me an upgraded membership to their rewards card for $20.  It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Yesterday, Borders filed for bankruptcy.  My store in Bowie as well as that first store in Rockville happen to be two of the stores that are closing in my area.   There is another store nearby that also is scheduled to be closed.  Since I just bought the upgraded membership, I decided to see if I could get a refund.  I felt kind of bad about asking for a refund given their circumstance, but the clerk gladly gave me money back.  She said that today would be the last day they would be giving refunds.  

It is sad when a business that you have frequented is headed down this road.  Still, the combination of the economy and new technology has led to the decline of sales in places like Borders.  With the rise of eReaders like Kindle and Nook, combined with discount stores like Target and Walmart along with websites like Amazon.com have led to an atmosphere where stores like Borders will struggle.  

Related articles

• Borders Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (crenk.com)
• Borders files bankruptcy as it struggles to respond to changes in book market - Washington Post (news.google.com)
• Borders Books Bankruptcy: List Of Closing Stores (huffingtonpost.com)

A Bittersweet Day-Update

Image by sofafort via FlickrLast week, I posted about the efforts that my wife and I have been undertaking in trying to get our 16 year old son placed in a residential educational facility on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  After months of battling with the school system, they finally agreed that it would be the best place for our son. I talked about the mixed feelings that I had regarding that decision.

At the time, we were not sure when his start date at the new facility would be.  There were a few more forms that needed to be updated and filled out.  Yesterday, my wife called me to inform me that we now had his start date, Monday, November 8th.  I had just left the office and was on the beltway headed to my part time job.  I wished she had waited until I got home last night because my eyes immediately began to fill with tears.  Less than two weeks away.  My immediate thought was, "I'm not ready."

This morning, I woke up thinking about a lot of different things regarding the situation.  All of which made me tear up a bit.  At times, I wish I were stronger about these things.  There is the question of how to tell him what is going to happen, or whether to tell him anything at all.  If we tell him ahead of time that he is going to a new school, he will drop to the ground and refuse to budge.  I suppose we will take him and try our best to explain it to him when we drop him off.  He loves crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, so hopefully that will get him out the door.

While there is a huge part of me that isn't ready for this to happen, there are times when I want it to happen now.  Those times are when he angers me.  Earlier today was one of those moments.  He asked me if we could go to Borders in Annapolis Mall.  That in and of itself isn't bad, but we have had two bad incidents with him at Borders recently when he wanted me to order a DVD for him that you can not buy, usually it is a DVD of Wheel of Fortune or another game show.

He doesn't fully comprehend that you can not buy everything.  I have recently started downloading game shows for him off of YouTube and burning them on to DVD for him so that he will have them.  Still, he wanted to go to Borders.  He told me he wanted to go there so I could order him a Wheel of Fortune DVD.  I tried to explain that we could not get that there, and we were not going to go.

He immediately went into one of his meltdowns.  For those of you with experience with an autistic child, you know what those can be like.  For those of you who don't, you would think it is a temper tantrum, but it really is more than that. He dropped to the ground and started getting angry.  Anything near him, he picked up and threw across the room.  At one point, his glasses went flying.  Still it is better to have had the meltdown here than at Borders.  I wanted to drop him off to the school right then.

There is so much that needs to be done between now and then.  He is going to need a whole new wardrobe because the school has uniforms.  We will also need to supply him with a fresh supply of his own toiletries and such.  He usually share mine at home.  It would be nice to have a party for him before he left, but we already have plans for the next two weekends, so we won't be able to do that. 

The school usually has a rule that we won't be able to see him for 5 weeks, but with the timing of his start date and Thanksgiving, I think he will only be gone for two weeks before coming home for a long weekend.  When he goes back after Thanksgiving weekend, he would be back at school for four weeks before Christmas break.   Hopefully, the transition won't be too hard on any of us.