The Brookston Family Blog
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PART I saved the best for last, of course. These are some of my favorite photos of Karen that I came upon during my search down memory lane.

Don’t change a thing. That look is … perfect.

And a happy new year to you too.

Dancing with me ….

Just to get close to Sarah.

But I’ll let Karen have the last word. Happy birthday, Karen. Thanks for all the great memories. I wouldn’t change a one of them.

Today at Porter’s O.T., he played king of the giant pillow mountain and then jumped into the lycra hammock-like thing that hands from the ceiling. All in all, a good session.

King of the giant pillow mountain.

In the lycra.

PART

Oh, no. We’re not done yet. Not by a mile, we’re not. Several years ago, more than eleven to be sure, we took a couple of trips to visit Sally at her parent’s beachhouse near Cayucos.

Karen works on the giant sand shark we made. That’s our friend Sally in the foreground shortly before she left for Mali and the Peace Corps.

Kristine and Karen.

Karen at sunset.

PART

Hard to believe it was fourteen, fifteen years ago that Karen and I set out to visit every single bar in Santa Clara County. Over the course of several months, we visited over 500 bars. Some real gems, of course, but some scary dives, too and at least a couple where we felt in actual physical danger. But we perservered and at the end of it all we wrote up our findings in a book, The Bars of Santa Clara County: A Beer Drinker’s Guide to Silicon Valley. In preparing to promote the book, we took several rolls of film of the two of us at a couple of locations. We were trying to get some promo shots we could use in press releases. Unbeknownst to Karen, however, I still have all of the photographs from those photo sessions. And some of them are pretty funny. So here’s a sampling of them below. Enjoy. Maybe have a beer as you look at them.

I think this may be the one we ended up using.

Oh, nice smile Karen.

“Do I know you?”

“Are you touching me?!?”

“Did you drink half of your beer?”

“Yes. Yes, you did. And by the looks of things it wasn’t your first.”

Classic uncomfortable smiling.

More classic uncomfortable smiling.

The perfect look.

Today’s IEP Meeting went relatively okay, with us agreeing to his move to the new classroom formally. The main sticking point about it was that summer school would be only four weeks instead of seven. Their main philosophy seems to be that since he’s done so well with his learning so far, let’s give him less since he doesn’t need it any more. We have deep disagreements with that philosophy and believe that if a certain level of training has brought about positive changes, the last thing you want to do is reduce it. We are adamant that the intensity and time Porter is in school should remain the same or increase. These are the critical years when the most benefit can be realized from special schooling. So the last thing we want to do is give him less schooling. To us, the ultimate goal will be if he can start kindergarten at age six without the need for special assistance. So we feel we must do as much as possible between now and then to give the best shot at succeeding in life. After much haggling we finally compromised that he’s spend the first four weeks in his regular summer school class and when that was over, he’d then be in his old classroom for the remaining three weeks, but with some responsibility so that he can continue to be challenged.

The other main disagreement is that the school teachers and administrators are chracterizing Porter as no longer severely handicapped. This is worrisome because it implies that services he may need later could be withheld by invoking this designation and saying he’s no longer entitled to them. It’s very difficult to know if we can trust anything they tell us, and that’s a big problem. His teacher’s certainly seem sincere and appear to want what’s best for Porter, but we also know that they’re under certain pressures for the future of their careers not to be too enthusiastic when it conflicts with budgetary and other similar concerns that the administration has. So do they tell us what they really think in these meetings with their bosses in attendance? It’s hard to believe they do when we’ve had at least one instance when what they told us privately was different from what was said (and not said) in a previous IEP meeting.

They claim that based on his current behavior in class that he’s no longer severely handicapped and you would think that would be cause of rejoicing. The problem is that when we observe Porter with typical kids his age, his handicap is still very much apparent to us, even though he has made enormous progress. So for now, we’ve agreed to disagree about that one.

There was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle last weekend where the reporter basically blamed rich parents suing school districts as the problem with special needs kids and the overall cause of budget problem schools face today. The reporter came out and said that these rich parents were forcing school districts to spend more on their kids at the expense of the general population of school children. The only problem is that it was complete and utter rubbish, a one-sided screed that completely ignored many of the facts. For example, just last year a school district’s law firm in Fresno was sanctioned for using “‘misguided advocacy’ over four years of opposing services for a special-education student in the Bret Harte Union School District, southeast of Sacramento.” “Maureen Graves, the Orange County attorney who fought [this law firm] in court, estimated that the Bret Harte school district, east of Stockton, spent nearly $500,000 on a case that she once had been willing to settle for $8,000.” The ethical violations were so egregious that the judge “ordered every one of the firm’s 80 lawyers in seven cities to undergo six hours of ethics training and ordered [the lead attorney] to take 20 hours.”

So this is the sort of thing we’re potentially up against. We don’t like to think our own school district is this bad, but the reality is you never know. We know people have been forced to sue our county’s school districts over these very issues. We know that the County Controller, the third-highest elected official in the county, moved his family to Sacramento because the care for his autistic child was so bad. So these sort of facts do not exactly fill us with confidence.

PART Karen could often be found at a party, with a drink in her hand or worse.

The two snuggleheads: Christi and Karen.

Little black dress day. From left: Katherine, Sarah, Karen and Shmare.

Nikki and Karen. What’s that in your hand, Karen?

Caught chewing at a Giants’ tailgating party with Shmare.

I’ve always liked this photo of Karen, taken from inside Shmare’s beastly Suburban. Peace out, dawg!

Karen and Michelle at a rainy Giants’ tailgating party.

A frequent sight of Karen on the floor. “Can’t … hold … head … up … any … more.“

This morning there is another follow-up I.E.P. meeting at Porter’s school to formally discuss Porter’s switch to the new class he moved to a few weeks ago. We visited the class and gave the move our okay, but since he’s in a new class, the goals will have changed, as well, so a new IEP makes sense in that regard. Also, the last one was a bit contentious and we refused to sign the form, which I think made them nervous. Apparently, we were the first parents not to sign the form. I guess they’d gotten so good at bullying parents that we took them by surprise. Anyway, this morning’s meeting promises to be more of the same.

Day 22 the FlyLady ponders the question “have you been procrastinating about building your Control Journal?” How did she know? It’s uncanny. That, or she’s just playing the odds. Anyway, it will have to wait as we’re off for Las Vegas tomorrow for a long weekend away.

Karen is the second of the Pisces birthdays and also one of our dearest friends. I originally met Karen through another good friend of mine, though we’ve remained close friends long after they parted. We wrote a book together fourteen years ago (more on that later) and Karen and her husband and Sarah and me have been camping buddies for years on end. The kids have made that a little more difficult of late, but we still manage it every once in a while. Karen is one of the most deliciously cynical and sarcastic people I know, which is undoubtely why we get along so well.

Karen in her once ubiquitous high tops at the Duncan house for holiday gift exchange.

Barely awake at a party. From left: Nikki, Pat, Karen and Mike (Karen’s husband now, but not when this was taken).

Karen and Kristine at a New Year’s Eve Party at Lord John’s Inn, a Santa Clara bar that’s no longer there.

Karen at a St. Patrick’s Day Party. What’s with all the hats?

Hungover or asleep? You decide.

Snuggling with Shmare and Christi.

The classic high school graduation photo.

Don’t worry, there’s much more fun to ocome.