Safe & Sound blog

It’s official. Hanni and I are dogblog maivens. Another dogblogger blogged about us today.
Here’s the skinny: A woman named Mary Ellen was at the presentation Hanni and I gave earlier today at the Old Orchard Barnes & Noble in Skokie, Illinois.
Turns out Mary Ellen is the Executive Director and co-founder of “Sit Stay Read! Inc.” SIT STAY READ is a Chicago-based volunteer literacy organization that brings dogs and kids together to make reading fun. Mary Ellen’s dog Shandy is one of Chicago’s first Sit Stay Read dogs, and they dogblog about their experiences on the Shandy at Work dogblog.
The Sit Stay Read web site explains the program like this: “Reading aloud is a critical component of early childhood literacy. Children who have difficulty reading have an especially hard time reading aloud in front of peers and adults. SIT STAY READ programs allow children to read aloud to specially trained therapy dogs. The dogs increase confidence and generate excitement.”
After our presentation this afternoon, Mary Ellen asked if Hanni and I might want to be Guest Readers/Listeners at a Sit Stay Read school program in Chicagoland sometime. “Our kids would be thrilled to hear you,” Mary Ellen said. They’ve had opera singers, firefighters, poets and other professionals as guests. “You and Hanni would be a wonderful addition.”
Hanni and I would love to give this a try. It was great to meet Mary Ellen at the bookstore today, and we look forward to meeting Shandy in the future. In the meantime, we’ll keep track of them by reading their dogblog.

Every semester I give a guest lecture for a disability awareness class at DePaul University in Chicago. This semester, though, the class decided to come to me.
Twenty or so students piled into our apartment this afternoon to see where I live, how I manage in the house, and what my talking computer sounds like.
As an added bonus, they got to pet and play with a Seeing Eye dog. Hanni doesn’t wear her harness in the house – I know my way around, so I don’t need her to guide me. And when Hanni’s harness is off, she’s fair game – you can pet her, play with her, talk to her. The second her harness goes on again, though, she’s working. I ask people not to pet her or talk to her while she’s at work. Quoting Hanni from Safe & Sound:
“I like people, but they shouldn’t pet or talk to me while I’m working. That way, I can pay close attention to Beth. That way, we’ll be safe.”
Back to the DePaul students. I enjoyed having them over – they had lots of good questions. “How do you deal with trust? You have to trust a lot of people!” “Here’s a whimsical question: do you and other blind people dream differently than we do?”
A few students arrived early – one was thinking of majoring in journalism. It was fun to talk to her about writing, and her interest in journalism provides a segue to my next subject: my nephew Brian Miller is a writer, and he got a story published in an on-line magazine today!
Brian teaches English as a second language in South Korea –he has lots of interesting stories about life in Jeju. One of them was published today in World Hum. Brian and I found out about World Hum through my writer friend Tara Swords, her story “An Island in Costa Rica” was published there last year.
Obviously the editors at World Hum have good taste – congrats, Brian. Your aunt is very proud of you.
And now, it’s time to put Hanni’s harness on to take her out. Back to work –