Dear Velma

As most of you know, I work at a paint-your-own-pottery studio.  And every Saturday afternoon, One Thirty to be exact, and woman named Velma comes in to paint. Now this is not just any woman. She is special indeed. Velma is legally blind and mentally handicapped. Now, whoever assigns her “therapies” or “activities” must be an interesting person indeed. I just cannot connect the two pieces together. Legally blind, and painting. But that’s besides the point.  She has loads of fun and that is all that matters.

Here is a look at a typical Saturday afternoon with Velma…Either a call-a-bus, or a taxi drops her off and she stumbles through the door. She slides her hand across the shelf. (This is how she picks out what she is going to paint that day.) While she is in the process of picking out her piece, all the others that have fallen under the unfortunate grasping of her hands lay in disarray. Hopefully none are broken. My co-workers and I sit and shudder…our eyes squeezed closed until she has made her choice.  We get her seated at a table, preferably one near a blow dryer so that she does not cause too much disruption. ( You have to paint your piece three times, and we recommend blow drying in between each layer. It speeds up the process. And seeing that Velma’s is legally blind, she sort of pushes her way through the studio in order to make her way to the blow dryer. She removes anything in her path…including chairs with people in them. This can prove dangerous when someone has a paintbrush in their hand.) So we get her seated and the first thing she wants is Coke. No diet, no sprite and definitely no water. Just Coke.  We then ask her what colors she would like. ( Normally we give you a sheet with all our colors on it, but she cant really see…so we help her out a bit.) “Velma, what colors would you like to use today.” “Well, what am I painting?” is usually her response. After all that trouble, and after endangering all those pieces, she has no idea what she even picked out! “Today you are painting a duck, Velma.” “Oh, then I’ll take red, and, (long, long pause) and ah…green.” She tends to pick colors that would you in no way associate with your typical yellow rubber ducky. Perhaps she has an abstract way of viewing things. She then proceeds to paint, which looks more like glopping on the paint. In the middle she will ask things like, “What part am I painting now?”  One of us responds with, “That is his head, dear Velma.” It takes the average American about an hour to paint a small piece, it takes Velma roughly fifteen to twenty minutes. And that would be fine except for the fact that her taxi, or her call-a-bus doesn’t come back for another 2 hours. So we are left with the remainder of the time to entertain ourselves…and her.

Oh, and we call her Velma Childs…you know…after Mackenzi Childs.  More stories soon to come!

Isaiah 40:8

“The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Car ride to Sea World~2008

In may I took a trip to Orlando Florida with some of my family. And one of the days we took a short ride to SEA WORLD! Woot woot! So we are in the van…Uncle Dave is driving, My Aunt kelly (and my best friend) is in the front passenger seat, I am in the middle row with makenzi (7) and Elias (2). Kyle (16) and Tyler ( 14) make up the back seats.

Elias is such a little character. He is always saying things that you would not expect from a two year old. Everything that comes out of his mouth always makes some one burst out in laughter…and everything that comes out of his mouth always becomes and inside joke with the family, and eventually all of our friends. It doesn’t end.

So Elias is in the middle and I am on his right. Earlier in the car ride he had mentioned, ” I like your bag”, and “I like your necklace.” Two things that you would normally not hear from a two-year old. But as we are nearing the entrance of SEA WORLD, he reaches down and puts his little hand on my knee. (WIcked cute) and then looks at me and says, ” I like your  knee!” I tell him that i like his knee too. He replies, ” I like your face!” I smile, then laugh and tell him that I like his face as well. ” I like your teeth!” is what he says next! Oh my gosh! I was in hysterics! He is so adorable, and who would have ever thought that those phrases would have came out of the mouth of a two year old!

More Elias updates to come. Maybe he sould get his own page!