2007
January 3
Karaoke with Steve, I used to go to the Rex and downtown to sing and hangout.
It was weird and funny, since my family would never talk about these things and I still don’t “get it” but Paul and I ran into uncle Fred, who wanted to be called aunt Keri in their older years. I called out “ uncle Fred” and he didn't respond, then Paul asked what his female name was and I happened to have heard it, but I wasn’t positive. We tried anyway, when Paul called Keri, he and his buddies all ran over in their sun dresses and chatted for a few.
*2026 reflection: I’m not sure I could have a conversation with a trans person and have it make sense at this point in my life. Since I know how being drugged makes me feel different and I’m aware that how I perceive myself and the world around me can change, so I wouldn’t go and say I’m in the wrong body, when I don’t have a baseline for what the right body is. I have a body, but it seems to malfunction more than other humans, so I wouldn’t trust what it’s telling me without data to back it up.*
Was hanging out with Mary Wallbridge and her friends from the 99 restaurant and going downtown a lot. It was somewhere around this point in my life I adopted the idea that I was just going to say yes every time some one asked me to do something. There are times I noticed I just felt super depressed I would just stay home and do nothing, so I wanted to make sure I broke that horrible habit.
March 8
Snow Storm video messing with Dom out front like we did with my dad as kids.
https://youtu.be/JgoRera70Dc
Westfield Wildwater Canoe race
April 21st I raced the Westfield Wildwater Canoe race for the first time. I was super pumped, after watching Shawn Battles race years ago, I was ready to kick some ass and see what I was made of, unfortunately my partner more interested in a relaxing down the river, while drinking beer. lol
my brother raced with Joe Ferrero, they came in second place at one hour two minutes and 24 seconds, and I raised with Dennis Olisky, we came in 4th place at an hour and six minutes and 27 seconds
My nephew's dad Kirk. he has a scar on his face. I don't think you could see it. he told me he got it in a knife fight.
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2007 Donat E Soucy died 1-20 born 1-30-1929 married to Agnes father to Robert Soucy, grandfather to Robert and Eric Soucy
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2007?
Sullivan and associates- So I got let go from Sullivan Associates because I filed too many complaints against employees who were not doing their jobs or abusing people with disabilities. They even tried transferring me to other houses but I improved those other houses when I worked there as well and I was making everyone look bad just by having fun and being a normal human being while doing it.
When I first started working first Sullivan and Associates the house they gave me was a complete disaster. This was my first experience as a manager of anything. It took me like two months to get that house in working order and after I was done it ran so smoothly that I made everyone else in the company look bad and because of that I started to make a lot of enemies.
First off I created a standard form for medication to bring to the doctors so that there would be no more confusion. I don’t understand why the state doesn't have a standard form for every company to use, instead they all pick and choose. The manager was allowed to create whatever type of form they wanted when bringing clients to the doctors and i thought that was stupid. At first doctors gave me crap because I forced them to use my paperwork, but eventually they preferred doing things my way, agreeing that it prevented confusion and made it easy for everyone for medical professionals and house staff to follow.
Unlike other houses I started making staff interact with the clients and bring them places. We started going to the gym every single day and people around the company complained, not the clients but other staff. I used to take the clients to the gym by myself and then we'd go to big Y or Stop and Shop to buy whatever they would like for dinner, then we would grill it.
Before I started, all the guys ate was pasta and hotdogs every night, I thought that was the most disgusting thing I had ever heard in my entire life. After work with me for a couple of months these guys were in the best shape of their lives, we went to the casino a couple of times, we went to the mall all the time, we went hiking all the time, and 1 of the guys had leg problems it was supposed to wear leg braces but stopped wearing them because he loved walking without them, it got to the point where doctors said he didn't need them. I also started filing a lot of complaints about the abuse and neglect I was witnessing in other homes and by staff members that worked in the house that I managed.
I was causing so many problems by fixing things that my program manager figured he’d try to stress me out and started pressuring me to work at other locations and purposely gave me kids that they considered troubled, but didn’t give me enough information to really understand what was going on and left me in situations where I’m positive they were hoping I’d fail.
Towards the end of my time there they sent me to work at a house in Hadley. I assume that thought that I would get upset having to deal with this one guy that was a known runner, but they were in for a rude awakening because as soon as that guy took off out the door I took off after him but I didn't yell, I just jogged behind him.
It was like three miles up the road where this autistic adult male, who was like 23, maybe 25 years old at the time, stopped running, turned around and indicated he had to go to the bathroom. lol We were too far away from the house at that point, so I had him pee in the woods. I think this guy was shocked that I even offered that idea, but also relieved that he didn’t have to go anymore.
We walked back to the house and he didn't talk or try to communicate anymore. When we got back to the house we went into the backyard and I asked him if he wanted to play catch, he indicated he did and then all of a sudden he looked like the happiest guy in the world. We hangout kicking a ball and playing catch for the next three hours of my shift. The other employee there just sat in the house watching BET the entire time, and didn't interact with this client at all. No wonder these people like to run; they're constantly neglected. That's probably the only attention this kid ever got from the staff was when he ran. Lol
I was laid off not that long after this, I had received a phone call that one of the clients was “destroying the house” and I needed to show up at the home right away, this was like 8:00 o'clock in the morning.
When I got to the house the living room and kitchen were all smashed, the microwave and toaster were the floor, the TV had a crack across the screen. lol Dishes were everywhere, it was hilarious because I was not used to anything like that at all. The female staff member had to leave at that point saying she was late for something and I stayed and spoke with the client who decided to smash the house.
Turns out he had quite the story. He told me that he wasn't feeling well, and didn’t feel like going to work that day. He said that when he told the other coworker that, she wasn’t having and then grabbed his leg, yanked him out of bed and he fell on the floor.
Now I'd work with this guy for some time at this point and think he was the sweetest older gentleman you could ever imagine working with, he was the nicest easiest guy and he never ever gave anyone a hard time, so I believed him when he said that this lady was a monster and grabbed her by the leg and yanked him onto the floor because she just wanted to leave and wanted him to go to work. I filed a complaint on his behalf, but nothing came of it, or I was labeled a big mouth. Lol
Don't forget about that guy I used to have to bring to Worcester for therapy sessions.
It was around this time that a 3rd client came to live in the house I managed. This was a totally different situation from the other two guys. This new guy was labeled a child predator.
They had me bring this new guy to Worcester in a van with a rejection sticker. (I only remember this because my jeep's rear end needed to be replaced at this time and they gave me crap, even though I was supposed to get a house van when I first started there.) I thought it was a joke and these doctors sounded stupid as hell. This piece of trash had the nerve to ask me if I’d be willing to bring this client to park and try to watch him around little kids. Which at the time I thought sounded totally deranged. I don’t know what made this doctor think I would be willing to put kids at risk just to “see what happens”. Lol
I complained to my manager Ron Eisner at the time, but he didn’t care. I always remember being creeped out by him and
I don’t know why I remember thinking that this guy lied about hurting a kid so that he could get out of a bad situation. He never talked about kids or acted inappropriately around me, and I think I would've picked up on it and taken offense to it, but I remember feeling sorry for him. He was well spoken and articulate, he seemed like a regular guy just trying to make it in a rough world and he was failing miserably.
Andrea Curtain? I think she became a program director and also knew Kirk, Dom’s dad.
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2007- Unemployment, I could have really pushed and looked for a job, but I was so disgusted that they fired or not fired me but let me go because I was doing a great job and they had to pay for it so I just took that time to spend time helping other people
*2026 reflection: knowing that these people can cover up their crimes, pay off employees and the bill all fall on to citizens' laps is disgusting. It’s clear the state is designed to do the bare minimum, while extracting top dollar. What a disgusting joke. I feel terrible for those incapable of speaking up for themselves.*
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June Texas Vacation
I thought I would be so cool to swim underneath these falls and man was I was in for a rude awakening because there were little rattlesnakes all up on the rocks underneath there and that was terrifying lol
The picture below is of Smiley, My cousin Roxanne's husband, J.R.'s brother. There are no pictures of me because I was the first person to go tubing that day and when we took a sharp turn and the tube flipped, I thought it'd be a great idea to hold on, and I ended up cracking myself in the right side of my ribs with my elbow and I either fractured or dislocated a rib, it was beyond painful, but we just started the day, so I stayed.
Every bump was misery, I lost my breathe every time. lol I was so grateful when we ended up heading to an area we people we all anchored together, listening to music and drinking. Even floating with a noodle was a disaster, a few people thought I was faking. lol Like I'm trying to avoid hanging out with sexy half naked women on the lake. lol
We went out to a restaurant on the lake and ate overlooking the water. As we were loading the boat up, Smiley thought it would be funny to punch me in the ribs, since he thought I was being a baby and I almost passed out. lol It was hilariously painful, and it hurt like that for almost a month. the flight home was physically miserable. lol but I've always enjoyed flying, I always see something beautiful or interesting out the window, even if it's just a quick glance.
I think it was around June that I invited my dad to karaoke and introduced him to a friend there, Mary Walbridge and they kind of hit things off and got into a relationship for a few years. I also met Darlene this year
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This was taken father's Day June 15th one of the last times that I remember seeing Kirk
July Vermot with mary dom
July 31 Forest Park
July 31 Forest Park
August 1st Took Dom to the zoo with some chick I met. Pretty sure she thought I was gay because I didn't make any moves on her. I still felt like a train wreck and didn't know what to do with my life, so I was not in the mood to put the moves on anyone. Who am I kidding, I've never put the moves on anyone anyway. Lol
*We had met at the bar behind the Fat Cat-
August Dom's first birthday party
From left to right it's me my grandma Stebbins, my dad, my sister And Dominic in the highchair.
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I met A.M. the girl with the white shirt sitting in the chair shortly after breaking up with SS. We used to go play pool at Pin2’s in West Springfield and then we went and sang karaoke at the Rex. She had gotten pregnant at one point and tried to say it was mine. lol I used to have the results but I had a blood test done just to prove that I wasn't the baby's daddy.
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2007 Watching that old guy 2007?
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2007 Flossie G Patrie Died 12-2-2007 Born Flossie Gero 5-3-1914 So many happy memories , Francis Gero sister
Aunt Flossie’s death marked the end of a generation for me. I’m not sure how other people remember this, but I feel like so much was lost with that last connection to the past. I had found it heart breaking that she had outlasted siblings she raised, she raised Francis and Norman after her mother died, also Pearl and Leo had also passed in recent years.
I think the thing stuck with me the most is how once again my uncle Chet arrives too late to say goodbye to someone while they’re coherent. By the time Chet showed up aunt Flossie couldn’t speak and was having trouble breathing.
Up until this point I had been visiting once a week for at least 15 minutes. I had spent more time there in the past, but her vision was going, she wasn’t able to get around as well, so she spent a lot of time in bed and I really didn’t know what else to do. Norman was such a crabby ass when I came and he was there all the time at this point, so I wasn't able to have friendly chats like I would have preferred.
I only mention Norman being crabby because on one of my visits aunt Flossie had been talking about living on the farm in upper state New York and was telling about how they used to chop wood all the time, then Norman chimed in and gruppily let us know that he doesn’t have time to do stuff like that. Lol This was while we were just sitting around the table doing nothing but trying to enjoy each others company.
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December 12 Playing ball with Dom
https://youtu.be/8RNVunJChZE
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