Spending an overnight with my 96-year-old mother is like staying at a spa. Flo keeps the thermostat in her apartment at sauna-high temperatures. She rarely drinks coffee or alcohol and offers green tea to guests. She doesn’t have a computer or wi-fi at her place, and there’s no T.V. in the living room. She creates a peaceful atmosphere by stacking traditional jazz and Christmas music on her record changer, sitting back in her favorite comfy chair and encouraging guests to take in the sounds of her console hi-fi with her. And then, when night comes, the slow, deliberate moves Flo makes to get ready for bed allows her guests plenty of quiet time to sit on the couch and meditate.

Whitney and I had a slumber party with Flo last Thursday night, and I was still in my nightgown finishing the traditional Spa Flo heart-healthy oatmeal breakfast when Chauffeur Cheryl showed up yesterday morning to deliver me to her granddaughter’s school.

That’s AnnMarie helping me to field questions from her classmates.

My great-niece AnnMarie Florence Czerwinski is the only offspring in our entire family to be blessed with my mom’s beautiful name. Her birthday was yesterday, and although she’s a big seven years old now, I still refer to her as “Baby Flo.” Baby Flo’s elementary school is relatively close to Spa Flo, and Whitney and I visited Westmore Elementary School yesterday in honor of AnnMarie’s birthday.

Realizing I wouldn’t be able to see when her schoolfriends raised their hands, the birthday girl volunteered to accompany me to all three first-grade classrooms. “Questions?” she’d ask. “Anyone have questions?” AnnMarie is not a shy child. Allowing her the opportunity to stand in front of class and choose who got to go next was the best birthday gift ever.

The first-graders had all read Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound before we arrived, which meant they had time to come up with some pretty thoughtful questions. Examples:

• “What happens if you go to the library and the book you want isn’t there in Braille?
• Why do you need a dog instead of a white stick?
• What if you go to the library and they told you no dogs allowed?
• What if you ate food and it wasn’t what you wanted and you asked for your money back?
• What if the dog is blind and the person can see?
• How do you know what your dog looks like?
• What was the last color you could see before you went blind?

Whitney was as spirited as the students we visited, sneaking out from under me to lick a first-grader in the front row, and somehow managing to roll over – even with her harness on — to beg the kids for a belly rub. We had a ball celebrating Baby Flo’s birthday at Westmore School, but I’ll be honest: two-and-a-half hours with first graders left me yearning for one more night at Spa Flo.

If you read my husband Mike Knezovich’s guest post earlier this month you know how excited we were that our friends Keith (aka Pick) and Hank would be joining us in New Orleans. Now here’s a guest post by Hank about our time together. I agree with him – it’s always too short!

Right back in the groove

by Hank Londner

From left to right: Hank, Mike, Pick and moi

Beth and Mike, who live in Chicago, and Keith and I, who live in Virginia, communicate regularly by mailing cassette tapes back and forth. The tapes are always a treat, especially when Beth and Mike bring the recorder along on a trip to New Orleans, a city they visit with some regularity and apparently know quite well.

I was determined to get invited the next time they planned a trip there and, fortunately, they agreed to let us join them for a few days this past week. Our timing couldn’t have been better. We hit a great streak of weather that made it easy to walk everywhere. Still, keeping up with Beth and her guide dog, Whitney, can be challenging. I think their normal pace is about a fifteen-minute mile, which is a lot faster than I am used to walking, that’s for sure. Beth insists that Whitney sets the pace and has only one speed setting, but I’m not totally convinced.

This was the first time I met Whitney and I was smitten the second I laid eyes on her. She really is a beauty — and I’m not even a dog person. I never did get to pet her because whenever we saw her she had her harness on and was working, which I knew meant “hands off!” Next time we’re together I’ll have to set up a play date, I guess.

It seems that Beth and Mike know all the cool places to go to in New Orleans. We ate at wonderful restaurants, enjoyed a few adult beverages at various watering holes around town and heard quite a bit of local jazz too, including a wonderful concert by the Ellis Marsalis Quartet at Snug Harbor and Jeremy Davenport with his jazz combo at the Ritz Carlton bar, where there was no cover charge and we were treated like royalty. We managed to avoid most of the tourist traps, although Keith and I (OK, I) couldn’t resist a visit to the Café Du Monde for some beignets and café-au-lait.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a little outing Beth, Whitney, and I went on to do some shopping for Christmas gifts for Mike. I think it may have been the first time Beth and I were out together alone. I’ve been volunteering as a reader/helper to blind people here in Virginia for at least five years and it just seems very natural to me to be in this role. Still I realized that slight adjustments are needed to accommodate each individual I work with. Some examples:

• When credit cards are involved, one person I work with in Virginia likes to sign the charge slips himself. His wife, who is also blind, hands me her credit card and lets me do all the work. Care to guess which Beth prefers?
• Talk about signing — One person likes me to provide a straight edge below where he needs to sign, another likes me to put the guide above.
• When we go grocery shopping, one person likes to hold onto the shopping cart like a sighted person would, with me pulling it from the front. Another likes to stand next to me so we both push the cart together.

Minor adjustments, but I understand that respecting their preferences allows each person to have some measure of control of their environment. I guess the moral of this story is that I have to stay on my toes so that I don’t step on anyone else’s.

Beth and Mike and Keith and I go back together about thirty years now and it seems that no matter how much time passes between our visits, we are right back in the groove by the time we are done saying hello. Sadly, we have to say goodbye again all too soon. Still, now we have great memories of our time together in New Orleans, and we have our next visit to look forward to.

That’s Whitney and me from a previous visit to New Orleans. Kids love us in the Big Easy.

As it always goes with school visits, the questions students at the Waldorf School of New Orleans asked after our presentation last Wednesday were the best part of the show. One of the younger girls wondered, “If you can’t see your dog, how can you tell when she’s telling you what she needs?” and an older boy asked “Do you ever get stressed, you know, being blind and everything?” but my favorite question came from a boy who sounded to be ten or eleven years old. “Do you break a lot of stuff?”

I answered that last question with a hearty laugh and an emphatic, ”Yes!” I acknowledged that I should probably only use plastic cups and plates. “But I don’t like the way they feel in my hands, or the way they taste.” This boy’s honest question made me smile, and it gave me an opportunity to share some blind tricks of the trade:

• I use a placemat, and Mike and I are consistent about where we place things on it when setting the table
• I keep my hand on the table top and kind of “spider” my way to a drink rather than reaching across the table for it (and knocking it over)
• I try to always put dirty dishes right in the sink or dishwasher rather than leaving them on the counter where I might knock them over
• I feel inside the cupboard to determine what’s there already before putting clean dishes away
• I have one certain place in my office and the kitchen where I set my coffee cup so I know where to “look” for it again
• If I’m sitting down at a party I’ll often sandwich a drink tightly between my feet rather than risk reaching for it (and spilling it) on an end table

Friends and family accommodate me by setting drinks down loudly enough for me to hear where they are, my Sunday morning book club rings my cup with a spoon so I’ll know where my coffee is, and the bartenders at Hackney’s always serve my drink in a solid pint glass so I’ll know what to expect when I reach for it. I had to admit to the kids that even with all these tricks I still manage to break a lot of stuff. “It makes me sad sometimes, but then I to stop and think, “I shrugged. “It’s just stuff.”

The kids were listening. A few days later a package from the Waldorf School of New Orleans was hand-delivered to thank me for our visit. The kids had bundled an assortment of tiny tubes of fragranced creams and emollients inside, guess what? A new coffee cup. “Just in case…”.

You will no doubt remember the poignant guest post that Hava Hegenbarth wrote about her assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda. This second guest post by Hava demonstrates just how wide and varied her life experiences are –it’s about a puppy named Spinner she raised for Leader Dogs in Rochester, Michigan.

Well, done, Spinner

by Hava Hegenbarth

Spinner as a pup, with a big harness to fill.

It’s hard (very hard!) to raise a pup from the time its seven weeks old to a year and then take it back and say goodbye. You invest a lot of time and love in that pup, but in some ways it’s like sending a child off to college. You know the pup has the potential to be so much more than just a pet.

I’m raising my sixth puppy for Leader Dogs now and feel I have a gut feeling about which ones have the “right stuff” — the ability to make it all the way through the rigorous training and graduate. That was the case with Spinner, pup #3.

Spinner was special. I just knew she would make it. I had visions of her breezing through the training, being matched with a blind partner and then proudly accompanying her new partner wherever he or she went. But then came the phone call. Spinner was not to be a guide dog. Leader Dogs wanted her for their breeding program instead. The Leader rep on the phone could tell I was upset. She told me I shouldn’t be disappointed. “You should be very proud. They only take the best to be breeders.”

According to Samantha Ziegenmeyer, Breeding program manager at Leader dogs, trainers help decide which dogs to use as breeders by reading the monthly reports we volunteers fill out about the pups we’re raising. Breeders are selected based on behavior and temperament. They are looking for dogs who are naturally relaxed in new environments, so, really, the dogs themselves help the experts at Leader Dogs decide by how they act when they arrive at the school for training. Breeding managers saw the same traits in Spinner that I did, but they saw them in a different way. They wanted a hundred more Spinners!

Extensive health screening makes sure that each dog entering the breeding program has sound hips and elbows. Potential breeders also get chest X-rays, heart and eye exams and screenings for genetic health concerns. At Leader, the dogs who are selected to become breeders live with host families, just like the pups do. A volunteer named Paula hosted Spinner’s mom Zyla, who recently retired as a breeder. Paula wanted to host another dog to carry on this important work, and she recognized Spinner as one of Zyla’s pups when Spinner returned for training. Paula put in a bid to host Spinner as a breeder, and she won the bid!

After a couple of initial breeding attempts, Spinner finally came through and produced eight future Leaders. Check out this video link to see Spinner and her eight gorgeous pups.

Eight potential future Leader dogs? Well done, Spinner. Good girl!

Whitney and I are giving a presentation at the Waldorf School of New Orleans this Wednesday, and I’ve asked a few guest bloggers to fill in for me while we’re away. This first guest post is by my husband Mike Knezovich, who’ll be coming along with us to NOLA with some other dear friends, too.

I lived in Arlington, Va., in the early 1980s, and after coming home to Illinois for 
the holidays one year I headed back with three friends who were up for a
 road trip and a visit to D.C. We took turns driving and made it straight 
through.

On the left that’s Pick (a.k.a. Keith Pickerel) and on the right Hank (a.k.a. Henry Londner while touring Turkey on a recent trip. (They get around.) We’re lucky to count them as friends.

We were a little tired but swinging open the apartment door woke us right up again.  Dance music was blaring from the stereo, the living room was full of people, and my roommate Pick — all lanky 6’3″ of him — was right there in the center in the midst of a move. He looked like a figure skater, posted on one straight leg, the other leg raised parallel to the floor, and starting to whirl like a helicopter. He yelled “SQUAT!” to his dance partner, a diminutive woman friend who did as instructed, thankfully, and Pick’s propeller leg cleared her head comfortably and made a full rotation. She sprung upright, they completed their disco number, and I said to my Illinois friends, “This is Pick.” We weren’t tired anymore.

Today, with everyone videotaping and photographing everything, I imagine there’d be a YouTube of the whole thing. But back then, we focused on living life in real time and I can tell you, there isn’t a video on the net that’s as good as my memories of that night. Back then I was a green college graduate from the Midwest, wide-eyed, an eager worker at my first real job, but a little lost and a little lonely. Luckily, I’d met Pick through a colleague at work and we stayed in touch. He generously invited me to parties he’d throw with his old William and Mary college pals. They weren’t like other parties I’d been to. Playing and singing show tunes (and sometimes hymns) on the piano, doing helicopter dance moves, Pick occasionally donning the tap shoes for a number, and usually, there was the deliberate and artful telling of an off-color joke. (Pick came by it honestly, from his father Cecil, who could keep you spellbound and then deliver a punchline like nobody else.)

At some point both our leases came up and by then we were confident we wouldn’t drive one another crazy and we stood to save some money, so we got a two-bedroom place in a euphemistically named building called Country Club Towers. It was no country club, but we had a blast for a couple of years. I got to meet Pick’s family—including his beloved grandmother, who made the best damn fried chicken I’ve ever had during a visit to her Danville, Va., home. We motorcycled the Skyline Drive with some friends. Thick as thieves, as the saying goes.

Eventually, I decided what I’d never imagined I would: I wanted to move back to the Midwest. So I packed my stuff and headed back, thinking I’d settle in Chicago, but then I was re-acquainted with Beth, and I came to roost in Urbana, Ill.

After Beth and I decided we were going to get married, we made a trip out East to meet my Pittsburgh area relatives and to meet Pick. I think Beth was as anxious about meeting Pick as she was about meeting my extended family. And why not? Pick’s as close to a brother as I’ll ever have.

Pick and Beth hit it off immediately. To this day they sometimes entertain themselves by ganging up on me. We had a marvelous time and we got a bonus: We met Henry (Hank) Londner. Pick and Hank had met about the same time Beth and I got together. Hank sports a Long Island accent, a total contrast to Pick’s Virginia drawl. Hank’s Jewish—born in Belgium to parents who narrowly survived the Holocaust. After Hank’s mother died, Hank moved with his father to the United States to be near family who had emigrated. Pick grew up in rural Virginia a Southern Baptist. Hank’s a burly bear, Pick’s a lanky type.

Opposites attract. They’ve been together ever since. They live in Alexandria, Va., in a dee-luxe apartment in the sky. Pick works as a massage therapist, Hank has managed to retire, but stays busy volunteering for—among other things—a couple of blind people who need a little assistance with shopping, reading, etc.

I always savor trips to New Orleans—but none more than next week’s, when Pick and Hank will join Beth and me. Lately—perhaps it’s a stage-of-life-thing—I’ve been prone to reminiscing. And so it is with this upcoming visit. I grew up in the thick of what was called the New Math. You know: sets, subsets, bundles of pencils, and the best thing ever—Venn diagrams. In my mind’s eye, I see a Venn diagram. Each of us—Pick, Hank, me and Beth—a circle. And like in all Venn diagrams, the most interesting parts are where they overlap—the overlaps are a slightly different color, denser, and richer for the blending.

And I marvel that in the crescent city next week, we can share time and these four very different circles will overlap.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!