August–September After booking my flights and hotel (the latter with a nice Sony corporate discount), the next four weeks were a blur of boning up on my weak areas. Studying for Jeopardy! is bizarre; it’s not remotely like studying for an exam because the topics are so wide-ranging and yet surface-level; a knowledge pool that’s …
Category Archive: Family Life
Dec
27
Dec
24
The Call
August In my office in front of the computer. Jon had been back from overnight camp for about half a week and was still a happy, Chatty Cathy, sitting beside me at his computer. The phone rang and I picked it up. I didn’t quite make out what the guy on the other line was …
Dec
23
Audition
June The Jeopardy! auditions are held once a year in five US cities, for a week. Mine was on a Thursday morning in June, one of three sessions that day. The auditions took place in a small, plain conference room in a swishy midtown hotel. A battered little foam-core sign on an easel outside the …
Dec
21
Online Fun & Games
February I never used to watch Jeopardy! much. It was just that game show hosted by that genial Canadian guy with the silly moustache. However, ever since Jon discovered a few years ago that he liked game shows (mainly because of the sound effects, music and the host’s “ooohhh” when someone gets a question wrong), …
Dec
18
Another Milestone
All through his school career Jon’s always been at (public) schools dedicated solely to kids with special needs, both physical and developmental. The two years where the school board decided to put him in a special needs class in a regular school, by contrast, was a low point. But at no point has a traditional …
Dec
15
The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
…aka The Royal Winter Fair, aka The Royal. After missing it due to one person or another being sick both weeks last year, Jon anticipated that he wanted to go even before Halloween came! My farming ancestors (including all of my great-uncles on my Mom’s side, and my great-grandparents on the Cook side) would be …
Nov
05
Halloween 2012: The Big Shift
The actor gets into character. While Jon’s been doing the trick-or-treating thing since he was two or three, we didn’t seriously start decking out both him and his entire wheelchair until about eight years ago. (We made up for the late start with some pretty decent costumes). But this year was the next big Halloween …