More family news

Vincent went to work Friday in a new uniform – his own black pants and an orange Halloween Express T-shirt that they gave him – and a new task. No longer would he be unloading boxes and setting up displays. Instead, he would be doing customer service and essentially security-guarding – patrolling the store, seeing if people needed help and watching out for shoplifting. Apparently for now, he won’t be cashiering – or getting to wear any of the costumes. He also is working from 10 to 4 – and got a ride home from his colleagues. A shift of kids getting out of high school starts at 4. With those hours – and working just on weekdays – it won’t be easy for us to see Vincent at work. He was told he needed to wear a belt. Even though he’s gained a little weight lately, he may have been wearing Stephanie’s black pants, and these were droopy drawers for Vincent.

While contemplating buying – or trying to persuade our landlord to buy – a new dishwasher – perhaps with aid from a new “cash for (home appliance) clunkers” – a new dishwasher, we have been waiting for the return of the same appliance repair person who had come out earlier in the summer to try to fix our old dishwasher – on a Saturday when Stephanie could work with them. Unfortunately, we’ve spent several hundred dollars over the past four years fixing the dishwasher (plus more on the washer or dryer) and – although we’d gotten the appliance repair person to come out two or three times on one bill, this time we had to pay again. We’d figured he would tell us that this dishwasher was doomed and give us replacement advice, and then we’d have to start the complex strategy of negotiating with our landlord. Instead, the repair person found a piece of wood – originally from our turtle terrarium – apparently lodged in the dishwasher since his previous visit – and pulled it out and convinced Stephanie that the dishwasher was working fine again. Apparently our several weeks of Stephanie hand washing and drying dishes – and our several months of frustration with the dishwasher – may now be over.

An interesting footnote to the Vincent story: One of the requests with the sleep medication that Vincent is now taking – especially in the early weeks – is he can sleep walk. Because his room is on the 2nd floor and there is no door, the psychiatrist agreed with Stephanie’s suggestion that Vincent build a kind of doggie door – really, just moving the fan in his way. If he were to start sleepwalking, confronting the fan in his way would probably wake him up – so he wouldn’t try walking down the somewhat narrow and steep staircase – and wouldn’t fall down. So for the third night in a row, Saturday evening Vincent moved the fan over and we hoped for no sleepwalking.

-- Perry