The kids at St. John's enjoyed our presentation, thanks in large part to Jen and Nicole for getting us there!

Whitney and I were supposed to take a train to visit St. John’s School in Western Springs yesterday morning. Good thing we didn’t!

April 4, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Emergency crews responded to a track fire near Chicago’s Union Station Wednesday morning.
According to ABC7’s Roz Varon, traffic was jammed near Canal and Jackson because of the emergency activity in the 300-block of South Riverside.

No one was injured, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to put Whitney through all that mess. Not to mention…me.

Jennifer Cristina and Nicole Dotto (two lovely young women I met volunteering in a program for kids in the Chicago Public Schools) offered to pick Whitney and me up right in front of our apartment building. The suburban school we were visiting yesterday had nothing to do with the program we volunteer for, but Jennifer and Nicole took time out of their schedules to help us anyway. They drove us all the way to the suburban school, sat patiently through the presentation, took care of Whitney while I signed books, then drove us back home again.

Traffic was bad on the way back to Chicago. I took Whitney’s harness off so she could relax, then started asking Jennifer and Nicole how they’d found out about Sit Stay Read!, the literacy program we all volunteer for. Turns out neither of them are originally from Chicago. Jennifer left her home in Baton Rouge to live in a bigger city. Nicole is from Southern California and knew she could run her online business selling vintage clothing from anywhere. “I love seeing new places,” she said, doting on Whitney from the back seat. “I visited Chicago and liked it, so I decided to move here.” Volunteering was a great way to meet new people, and Sit Stay Read was a good fit: her hours are flexible enough to allow her to visit schools in the daytime.

Jennifer works as a nanny, and her charge is growing up. “I’m free during the day while she’s in school, and I love kids, and I love dogs,” she shrugged. “And you know, if you ever want to feel needed, all you have to do is volunteer. It’s good for you.”

Jennifer was absolutely right. In a story in the Nonprofit News about a study on the health benefits of volunteering, the executive director of the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard University referred to volunteering as the “new hybrid health club for the 21st century that’s free to join.”

The study finds a significant connection between volunteering and good health. The report shows that volunteers have greater longevity, higher functional ability, lower rates of depression and less incidence of heart disease.

And of course the recipients of the good deeds benefit, too. Whitney and I can vouch for that. Avoiding Union Station yesterday morning added dog years to our lives. Spending time with these two thoughtful and caring young women helped us function better during our presentation at St. John’s, and we avoided challenges at Union Station that might have brought us down. Thank you, Jennifer and Nicole. Your ad lib volunteer efforts yesterday warmed our hearts.

I didn’t buy a lottery ticket last week. I wasn’t afraid of the odds, I just knew money couldn’t make me happier than I am right now.

I know, I know. Too many pink Sweet ‘n’ Low packets. But hey, it’s not all saccharine. There really is evidence-based research on this lottery happiness thing.

Back in 1978, psychologists from Northwestern University right here in Chicago published a study called Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Our Illinois State Lottery had just begun back then, and the researchers asked 22 winners to rate their happiness months after the initial elation of winning the big bucks. In addition, they asked the winners how much pleasure they were taking in mundane activities like reading a magazine or meeting friends for coffee. Then they interviewed 58 people who had not won the lottery but lived in the same neighborhoods as the winners. The results showed that months after the winners were announced, the non-winners were just about as happy as the lottery winners, And by then the so-called losers were finding much more pleasure in everyday activities than the winners were.

As long as they were at it, the researchers decided to interview 29 people who were injured in accidents that same lottery year, too. In each case, the accident left the victim paralyzed. After initial sadness and depression, the newly-disabled people rated their pleasure in everyday activities slightly higher than that of the lottery winners, and their life satisfaction was nearly the same.

Interesting.

It’s Monday. After I finish the cup of coffee Mike made and poured for me after we woke up together this morning, I’ll flip on the radio and listen to some pop music while getting dressed. Ben Folds? Jackson Five? Warren Zevon? Stevie Wonder? From there I’ll head outside with Whitney. It’s a cool, sunny, spring morning in Chicago. Maybe we’ll take the long way home, listen for birds, smell the lilacs.

Back in the apartment, I’ll spend a few hours on my part-time job for Easter Seals and then give Flo a call. She’ll tell me about everyone who phoned her over the weekend. She’ll say how much she is looking forward to sitting outside today and let me know what she has planned for the rest of the week. Her credo is to do only one thing each day that takes her out of her apartment. No more, no less.

Flo is one happy woman.

Our call will end the way it always does. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too.” Flo turns 96 later this month.

Out with Whitney again. Maybe this time I’ll brush her, too. Mike is working from home today, so I might listen to a book while waiting for him to finish. I’m re-reading my favorite book from childhood, one my older brothers and sisters read aloud to me when they were teaching me to read: The Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.

After my trip to the 100 Acre Wood? Off to Costco! I’ll hang on to the back of the cart, eavesdrop on people from all walks of life, try to decipher the dozens of foreign languages I hear, all while Mike pulls us through the aisles. He’ll stop periodically, say “Feel this!” and drop an enormous oversized jar of some unknown substance into my hands. “Miracle Whip!” he’ll exclaim with glee. I always roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh, too. And I can’t help but relish, ahem, the $1.50 hot dog and pop we enjoy before we leave. Free refills, too!

After unloading the Land of the Giants groceries at home, we might slink over to Hackney’s to share some wine with friends: Mondays are half-price bottle nights.

Back in our apartment building, if our favorite maintenance man James is working, we’ll stop and talk baseball before stepping into the elevator. Opening day is coming up, Chicago! A dear old college friend emailed today to say he can’t make it to the White Sox home opener on April 13. He’s mailing us his tickets. For free. Who wouldn’t think they’d won the lottery after a day like today? And the thing that makes me the happiest: I didn’t even buy a ticket!

Since Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound is a picture book, some schools figure the older kids won’t be interested in what we can show them. But guess what? Older kids are as curious about what it’s like to be blind as the younger ones are. And hey, they like dogs, too!

Fourth graders (and up) were a great audience.

And so, talking with the 4th, 5th and 6th graders during our visit to St. Mary of the Lake School last week was a treat. During the Q&A part of our presentation to the older kids, one boy asked, “Is it boring, not being able to see TV?”

After giving the question some consideration, I told him I guess I’ve gotten used to it, and no, it isn’t boring. Not at all. “It’s kind of like reading a chapter book all the time,” I said. “Without any pictures, I always have to imagine what the stuff in my story looks like.”

A New York Times story I read after visiting St. Mary’s reported that in addition to stimulating the “classical” language regions of our brain, reading fiction also activates a whole bunch of other parts:

Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells.

The piece quoted similar research about the sense of touch – when people read descriptions involving texture, say, “hands like leather” or “hair like silk” the part of the brain responsible for perceiving texture through touch was activated. Another study explained that words describing motion activated the part of the brain that coordinates the body’s movements, but there was no mention of any study showing that vivid descriptions of visual images might activate the part of the brain that has, in my case, been dormant for so long. If it turns out that it does, I guess I have something new to worry about: my visual cortex might be over-stimulated!

Seems like anytime an employer goes out of the way to thank you, you can bet on it: you’re being let go. Last week I got an email from WBEZ thanking me for the essays I’ve recorded for them over the years. The note went on to say WBEZ is reorganizing their local programming to emphasize live shows. They hope their new formatting will encourage listeners to comment on social media or phone in live and in person. Translation: they will no longer be airing pre-recorded essays like the ones I used to write for them.

Let’s be honest. I’m pretty lucky that WBEZ took me on to write essays in the first place. It sure felt cool to jump into a cab with Hanni or Harper and ask the driver to take me to Chicago Public Radio. So many times the driver was listening to WBEZ as we drove — one of them even asked for my autograph!

And what a kick it was to have someone call or stop me on the street after one of my essays aired. “I heard you on NPR!” they’d say. Or, “I thought the voice sounded familiar, and when I, like, waited until the end, they said it was. It was, like, you!” It was a very, very good run, and I’m sorry to seehear it come to an end.

The WBEZ arts editor did write to ask me to come and meet with her personally to see what this shift might mean for me, so I’m heading over to the WBEZ studio with Whitney tomorrow. Will it be my very last trip there? I hope not. Gee, guess we’ll all have to, ahem, stay tuned to find out.

Whitney and I visited Hendricks and St. Mary of the Lake Elementary schools in Chicago this week, and the kids at both schools had tons of terrific questions.

Whit and I had a great time at St. Mary of the Lake (pictured here) and Hendricks.

For some reason the first and second graders at St. Mary’s seemed particularly interested in color blindness. When one of them asked me if it’s true that dogs can only see black and white, I explained that dogs do see some colors, but they can’t tell the difference between red and green. “If we’re at an intersection with a stoplight, it’s my job to judge when it might be safe to cross.” I described the way I stand up straight, concentrate, and listen for the rush of cars. When it sounds like the traffic is going the direction I want to go, I take a guess the light is green and command Whitney to go forward. Whitney’s ears perk up, she listens for traffic and looks left and right to confirm it’s safe before pulling me across.

The students seemed satisfied with that answer and went on with other questions. Are you blind all of the time? When you were at the Seeing Eye school, what was your teacher’s name? Does Whitney like to lick a lot? What do you and Whitney do to have fun? Their thoughts eventually returned to colors, though.

“Do you just see the color black?” one girl asked. “Or do you just see the color white?” Another girl told me that the school uniforms they wear are red. “But does Whitney think they’re green? I gave that question some thought, and realized I couldn’t answer it. I remember writing a story for Dog Fancy magazine years ago about dogs and vision, so when I got home I looked it up:

Dogs see colors, but not the same way humans do. People can see variations of violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Dogs can only see blue, violet, yellow, and some shades of gray.

I checked my source list, and the information for that Dog Fancy story came from an article in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association called Vision in Dogs, written by P.E. Miller and C.J. Murphy. A credible source, but not sure it answers this sweet first grader’s question. If dogs can’t see the color red, what do they see instead? Blue? Violet? Yellow? If any of you blog followers have an answer, by all means leave a comment. I’m curious to know now, too!