See .

I wish this was just a joke....

Funny I thought about you too - still drive past your old street on a regular basis - we have a kid on that block now.

life is stressful. It is even sort of on topic.

I have discovered what happens when a funding source for an entitlement does when there is no money.

They tell the health professional to prescribe what they want to pay for, even though they know and I know that is not going to be enough to make the difference. In fact, it is a total waste of money to do what they want me to prescribe. Research says that is no better than doing nothing.

So I tell the families what the research says and figure it is their call to make an informed decision.

So the the funding sources (the health insurance companies, the state disabilities people etc, ) simply do not refer. At all. And they lower our rates and raise the amount of things we have to do for free.

And they do this at our best year ever as far as kids go - we have a record percentage of kids this year going to regular education without any support and doing fine - they have every chance of leading a NON-handicapped life now. But of course that does not matter to the money people. (It will later - want to make big bucks in California? Buy a bunch of group homes and wait five years - but by then the politicians will be out of office and it will not be their problem.)

So lately it is looking like time to call it a day and go do something else for a while.... maybe head back east where I have family and we can get out of here and do something where I can actually spend some time with our own kids while they still are children.

Hope you are doing well - how is Deb? Do you remember the carrot and rabbit thing? Twins are getting big - in fourth grade now....everyone else grown and gone.

Take care,

Audrey

Deb is mostly good. . tho often frustrated about working in TV in an age when that's not such a great thing. . . and she had Lyme's disease last summer, luckily caught early and treated. . . not so luckily she had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, and that knocked her on the kiester for another few weeks. She claims she had no summer to speak of.

I should have sent you guys our "two year christmas newsletter". Here's a link. . . http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/Christmas2009.pdf

Yeah. . . I still subscribe to sacbee.com, visit semi-often, and get their email alerts. My wife always did, but these days even I think more in terms of having "escaped" California at the right time. . . .Where "back east" for you?

Best. Geo

What a neat letter!

Massachusetts sounds about right but this is still in the thin air department- it is a long process to do this and there are literally over a hundred people that could be affected so we need to try to do what I can to keep the transition as smooth as I can for all the kids I treat and the people who work for me (though they know layoffs are coming) ...and some VERY large dogs who will not appreciate this ...and I would VASTLY prefer it is not in the middle of the school year so summer 2011 is looking like the earliest to be actually gone - just so long as is NOT Ca....

Yeah, we've been thru a 2,000 mile reverse migration. . . I know. I think we moved four times in less than a year to make it all work out. And we didn't have the small business owner thing that you guys do.

Actually, I could count it as 6 times in about 14 months. . .

1). Moved about 1/2 the house into storage over several months, focusing on the library (you guys probably have the same issue) to de-clutter the house in Elk Grove for sale.

2). Sold the house, moved more into storage, and a bare minimum livable rest into an apartment in Elk Grove.

3). Deb left for Minnesota with one SUV, two cats, and a uhual trailer with enuf stuff to maintain a household, arrived on the other end and found a townhouse to rent and moved that stuff in.

4). Deb flew back to CA a month later, we loaded up a big drivable uhaul with the rest of what was in storage, and she drove it back to Minnesota and unloaded (with help from family/friends) at the new townhouse, packing the garage to the roof.

5). I moved another two months later (she had a job in MN by then) with a new SUV (sold my Mustang in the interim), a cat, and another uhaul trailer with what was left.

6). Two months after that we bought a house here and moved everything from the townhouse to that.

It was a pretty tiring and intense experience.