Day 2 of my Indiana trip

11/07/2012

Saturday 11-03-2012

I woke up about 8AM after going to sleep about 4ish. I was on fb for a while and wrote about some of the first day in here. I email-texted Karen to let her know that I was awake. Then I went into the bathroom and got ready for the day. She had called me when she was out with Moagie. She had her “I just woke up” voice and I’m sorry, but it’s cute to me. She said she would call me when she was on the way and that she was going to get ready for the day and to look up some things to do. I was on fb and saw that she was on about 20 minutes later, she said that she found something that is free, indoors and I would enjoy but that it’s a secret. She got to the hotel about 11. I gave her a hug and we were on our way. She asked me if I wanted breakfast or something. I said something like a bagel. I have to share this story… funny… I don’t know why I started this, maybe just being silly, but I held three fingers in front of my face and said
J: hmm I’m holding up 3 fingers.
K: laughed.
I then held up 2 fingers in front of my face
J: aaah, I don’t knoooow.
K: Hold your hand closer to your face
J: hmm I think it’s 2.
K: (laughed) let me try. How many fingers am I holding up (as we are parking)
J: 4. (dead silence)
J: am I write?
K: of course you are.
J: I know.
K: no, seriously, I was holding up 4 fingers.
J: It’s a miracle! I can see!
K: laughed)
J: When people do that to me, 9 out of 10times people hold up 4 fingers. I don’t know why. So…what do I win?
K: a free breakfast, now get out of the car. (she laughs)

So we went to a super Walmart and picked up a half dozen blue berry bagels. We were going to eat in her car so I also got an apple juice. She picked up a few other things too.

We were heading to the surprise
J: you know, it’s kinda funny, you can surprise me with going places but I won’t know until you tell me. We could be in the building and I still won’t know.
K: laughed.
K: “I’ll tell you when we get to the parking lot.”
J: no, I don’t want to know till we’re inside.
K: alright.

We pull up and go in. We check in at a desk and the lady says “Ray Charles’ Piano is here. We got in about 6 weeks ago.” (hmm ok? Now I’m really confused) we get into the elevator and she asks me if I have any idea where we are. And I said no. she said in a soft voice, The American Printing House for the Blind. I was shocked-excited-surprised. She saw the expression on my face and giggled and I could hear that grin on her face.

We got up to the floor with the museum. There was a lady name Katie who greeted us and told us a little about the place and said we could go explore and if we had any questions, she would be around.

So explore we did. She read about the different versions of reading for the blind, the evolution really. From raised letters to eventually Braille as we know it today. There was various games they made for the blind by putting Braille on it. There was a map with Braille and the abacus, and other old time technology for the blind.
She said they have talking books. "is that what you used?" "yup, tht's why I suck at spelling" she laughed.

(although we did these next two things far apart, they are similar things so I’ll tell them one after another.)
There is this writing Braille devise they used way back in the day called a Braille Slate and stylist. It was a meddle tray that hmm if you can picture a muffin baking pan, but make the muffin indents rectangular, 1-3rd inch and there is about 10 rows of 25 of them… each muffin indent is a Braille cell. Each cell having 6 dots, 2 columns of 3. Then you put a piece of paper in there and then there is a meddle panel that goes over it, to lock the paper in, so it doesn’t move… and you write in Braille like that. However, since you are punching the holes forward to make the Braille on the opposite side of the paper, you have to write backwards. Well, there was two of these side by side with a “cheat cheat” of Braille on the wall.

Karen tried to write something to me. She realized she messed up and started again. When she was done she gave it to me to read. It said “Karen Jonathan” She asked me if she got it right. I said yep. She was all giggly and I was just grinning. We then wandered some more but She wanted to write one more thing to me, she said “I got something to write.” I had a feeling what it might be… and I was correct “I love you” I grinned, she giggled at my grin and I said
J: “I knew it I knew you were going to write that.
K: you did not.
J: yes I did.

I wanted to know if they had the original Braille writer that I have. (which is this chunky 20lbs box of meddle lol) so we asked Katie and she showed it to us. I explained how it works and once again, Karen was all giggly. I showed her how to put the paper in, how to lock it in, how to move the margins, what the different keys do…she was just drinking it all in.

She wrote something and I had this idea and using the dots in Braille, I wrote “I love you” in the shape of the English language. I told her while making it that she would be able to read it. She said she can’t read Braille, I said I know.
She was so impressed with it.
I was trying to think of something else, and I had a great idea… I made a Zelda sword. I asked her if she knew what it was. She said “is it a rocket ship?” I told her no, it’s a Zelda sword. And pointed out the triangle. She was all giggle and in awe over that. However, later on, she did admit that wasn’t the first thing that came to her mind…lol

Louisville slugger museum and factory
She put the address to the Louisville slugger museum and factory into her GPS and we were on our way. We got to the place with no problems but the parking was a bit of an issue. It didn’t help that it was raining out. There was a huge bat out front she told me that when we come out, if it’s not raining, we’ll get a picture in front of it. So we go in, buy tickets. (she wanted to buy her own, and I let her) We found a bench to sit on while we wait for the tour to start. She looked up and said there’s a banner above up, guess which one? I said, the redsox. She said no, I said hopefully not the Yankees. She giggled and said no, it is the Red sox one. I said that she did it on purpose, she said that she did not. She didn’t realize it till she just looked up. We headed into the theater where the tour would begin.

She found us two seats near the front. The movie started soon after and I was bored by it…it was just mostly players talking and clips from baseball games with the narration voice guy talking a little bit about the Louisville slugger bat, but not much.

Our tour guide guy, who was this older gentleman who tried to be funny and he was for the most part. He was very good at speaking and telling people about the history as we went along the tour and what each room was about. He explained they have a humidifier in the entire building so the wood doesn’t dry, so the workers and the visitors don’t get sick from the dry sawdust and to prevent fires from starting.

(each section of the guide had both the tour guide explaining and then a video to show and explain exactly what he just said.)
It started with the forest where the trees were grown which is PA and southern NY. It talked about the production of them, how many (1.8m bats a year) how they are chopped into wood then put through a machine that cuts and shaves the bat down to the player’s specification of 1-100th of an inch. A player takes the first batch to spring training and if they like it, the company will make more if not, they’ll try to get it right. I drank in all the facts and numbers. Karen was asking me baseball q’s that came to her head. …ok, here’s a cool part. So on each bat, there are two pegs that help turn the bat as it’s being shaved down. In the part they talk about this process, there are a bunch of buckets filled with these pegs. The tour guide guy said that we could take one and to tell our friends and family that it’s from our favorite player. No one would know the difference. *grin* I’ve been telling people that it’s from Dustin Pedroia, the superstar second Baseman for my Red Sox. The guy said all the sawdust is shipped to a farmer to use as bedding for the animals. … about 40-50 LBS a day.
He talked about various types of bats and the player who is associated with it. I think there is 8 types.
Hmm there is a lot more to the projection but I’d bore you lol.
On the way out of the tour they handed out minnie bats for free. I thought that was pretty cool. We walked around the shop they have and Karen was pointing out everything that was either Red Sox or Yankee. Lol she’s starting to get the Red Sox Yankee thing.
I then went and made a personalized bat. On the first line it said
“GO RED SOX”
“11-3-12 KJ”
It takes about 2 weeks to have it shipped so I did that. I didn’t want to take it on the plane plus we didn’t have to wait around 30 minutes to have it done. We went outside and it was not raining so I got a picture in front of the world biggest bat…it was 120 ft tall, weighed 8400 lbs and was an exact scaled up model of a real bat.

From there we were both tired so we went back to her place to play with the dog and just relax a bit.
I sat in a chair in her living room playing with her dog for a solid hour. I pet her, I played tug-a-war with her, I played go fetch with her. All the while Karen was sitting a few feet away at a desk just smiling, giggling, and saying “aww you two are so cute” “she loves you” “You have a new best friend” she even took a few pictures of the dog and me.
*I even had a thought that I will share with you later when it comes to me telling Karen. Just know that I thought something pretty, hmm futuristic during this time*

Karen’s mom called and Karen talked for a few minutes and told her “hold on mom, I want you to say hi to Jonathan” I said hi, she said hi, asked me how I was enjoying Indiana. She thanked me for keeping her daughter sane when Karen came to Boston for a couple of hours. I don’t remember what else was said but it was nice and made me feel special that Karen wanted me to talk to her mom.

We were then swapping our war stories of how we got all of our scars. She has a lot of them and some are not the prettiest stories. I told her about the 3 separate times I had cut my chin and later I remembered a cut I had on my knee from when I was just 4 years old and of course the ones from when I was in a car accident.

I wanted to show her my necklace and finally did. I explained each charm on my necklace. She was interested. She showed-told me about the ones she had and took out her jewelry box and showed me more of them. Some had a funny story and some, like the clatter she got from… Ireland, was pretty amazing. She had 3 separate ones that were saints and she explained the significant of each to her life.

Karen wanted to make me a meal. She was determined she, an Irish Catholic girl was going to make this Jewish boy Matzo ball soup.

She asked me if I wanted to stay with the dog or go with her to the store. I was here to be with Karen, as much as I was having fun with Moagie, I didn’t have to think of the answer and got up and we drove to the store.

We got to the store and she picked up a basket to put things in.
J: I’ll take it.
K: no, I got it.
J: *grinning* I’ll take it.
K: ok, you say so.

We went around finding where everything was. She asked me what I wanted to drink. I wanted ice tea so we got me an ice tea. We got in line to check out and I said "Want to hold the basket?" (I kept a few fingers on it as she took it and she said I could have it back) "and you wanted to carry it. (she poked me) She paid for it and we went back to the house for her to cook.

I was playing with the dog but Edward was also telling me about his coin collection that I pretended to care about. Lol and they were telling me they have a little garden on the front stairs with various roots and one thing that Edward said “have him try this, see if he can figure it out” so I took it from Karen and put it in my mouth. My first thought was mint, but I love mint so I assumed it was just my imagination but sure enough, it was a leaf from a mint plant.

When dinner was ready, Karen lead me into their bedroom and explained that they don’t have a table but they have a box that I could eat off of. They were on their bed eating. It was a bit strange to me. Although it was a bit different since she used a vegetable broth instead of chicken soup broth, it was very good. I was impressed. I was hoping to chill out with Karen at the hotel but when we got done with dinner, it was already 10pm. They cleaned up while I played with Moagie. Whenever Edward wasn’t in the room, Karen would take my hands and squeeze it gently wearing a smile. This wasn’t the first time she did that or she put my hand on her knee, and it wasn’t the last time either when Edward was not looking.
I was mostly patting Moagie but Karen brought over Moagie’s favorite blanket and put it on my lap so now Moagie loved me that much more. Edward was telling me some story about his father writing a book about a crazy man. It sounded …hmm. Weird. Some reason Karen said to him “you should see Jonathan’s muscle” I was like…what? Why? But I flexed and he put his hands on my arm and said “wholly shit you got guns” lol never heard another guy call my muscles guns and mean it. I brushed it off and Karen goes “Jonathan, it’s like you have a big apple under your skin” umm ok. You say so. Eventually the hours passed and it was after midnight. Edward drifted off to sleep and Karen brought me back to the hotel.

When she brought me to my room, hugged and she kissed me on the lips. I had a shocked look I’m sure. She giggled and I kissed her lips again before parting our hug. We said our good nights and she would call me in the morning. She wanted to take me for a Sunday brunch.
I was thinking and thought that I didn’t tell her that I loved her. So I called her cell a minute later
K: hi
J: hi
K: what’s up? Did I forget something?
J: no, I just wanted to call to tell you that I forgot to say that I love you.
K: I love you too Jonathan.
J: *grin* good night
K: Good night