Season 4 Blog 34: Step 1 Part 4: Goodbye Meadow Park (Season Finale)

Step 1 Part 4: Goodbye Meadow Park (Season Finale)

Over my last few months at Kroger Shane and I got to know each other even better. I found out that not only did we go to the same high school, but we went to the same preschool and he grew up two streets away from Meadow Park Drive, where I grew up. On top of that, Shane lives a quarter mile away from my friend Noah!

I knew that Shane needed a roommate, but at first, I was originally planning to move in with our former coworker Izzy (Step 1 Part 1) and when that fell through I planned to try to buy a house with Ryan and our Cousin Alex (Thanksgiving Special: Step 1 Part 2). While all that was going on Woody and Shane decided to move in together.

Last summer I had a girlfriend named Ishana. I haven't gone into details of how we broke up, other than saying that “things got pretty nasty.” After we broke up she started stalking me and I had to take drastic measures…the first of which was to change my number.

The Thursday before Christmas break while I was working at New Story my phone stopped responding when I would touch the screen. That Saturday Dad and I went to an Apple Store located at the mall. Dad and I walked around the mall while they tried to fix my phone. When we returned, an employee told me that they were going to give me a replacement phone and asked if I had an iCloud backup. Luckily I did.

The employee had me sign into my Apple ID on a laptop. To access my Apple ID, Apple sent a verification code to the phone number that I had registered on the ID. The problem was that I didn't know that I needed to update my phone number on my apple ID manually after I changed it. Basically what happened was the verification code got sent to my old number and Apple had to verify that it was me through another method. Unfortunately, this method apparently takes 27 days! This would have been partially okay if I would have been able to use the replacement phone during that time But, the employee had failed to activate my new phone, so for a month my phone was just an expensive paperweight. I relied solely on Facebook for communicating with people.

Now, during this month we decided that it probably wasn't a good idea for me Ryan, and Alex to buy a house. While that was probably the best decision, I wasn't too happy about it because I was once again back to square one. As soon as we made the decision I happened to check my voicemail, and by sheer grace, I had a new message from Shane.

It turned out that things with Woody becoming his roommate had not panned out and he still needed a roommate. A few weeks later my parents and I went to his house, met his parents, and after some discussion, I decided to move in. At the end of The Kid Kronicles # 2 I said, “and, next week I will be moving on to the next part of my life…” The bureaucracy of getting approved delayed my plans by a week, but yesterday (2/19/2022) was the big day!

After my parents and I finished setting my room up we drove back to my parent's house so I could pick up my car. After we said goodbye, I got in my car turned the key, and started driving. “Goodbye Meadow Park,” I said, “It's been fun!”

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri 

Season 4 Blog 33: Step 1 Part 3: Wait You Went To Graham

 Step 1 Part 3: Wait, You Went To Graham

I know that I just made a very big deal about quitting Kroger so it feels a little weird to write this installment, but it is oh so necessary. While I haven't mentioned this there are actually two Kroger grocery stores in Clintonville where I live. One of them is just a Kroger and the other is a Kroger Marketplace. Kroger Marketplaces are the Kroger Corporation’s equivalent of the Target Corporation’s Super Target (it's just a bigger store). I worked at the Kroger Marketplace.

One night in early September of 2021, I went to work my Kroger shift. Almost as soon as I clocked in, I was called to the service desk. One of my bosses told me to help a new co-worker who has Down Syndrome with “go-backs,” which is when you take items that were either forgotten or were not wanted and put them back on the shelves. I was never good at go-backs, but I was excited to make a new friend.

The co-worker's name was Shane and we immediately started bonding over our respective disabilities. When I felt like I had gotten to know him a little bit, I asked how long he had been working at the store. He told me that a few months before he had started working at the other Kroger in Clintonville, but then they cut his hours, so he came to the Kroger Marketplace at the end of August.

A couple of weeks passed and while I was working another Kroger shift, the same boss told Shane and I to go out on carts. When we had collected a few carts, we started talking before pushing them in. Mom and Dad coincidentally came to the store and when he saw us, Dad jokingly told us to get to work. As soon as I told Shane that they were my parents, he struck up a conversation with Dad as we all entered the store. Mom and Dad went to start shopping and Shane and I went back outside.

“So as I was saying…” I asked, “do you like this Kroger better than your old one?”

“It's about the same, but I have a few friends here,” Shane replied.

“Oh, who do you know?” I asked.

“Well, I went to high school with Connor Woodland.” He answered.

“Wait…You went to Graham with ‘Woody’?” I exclaimed.

Now Woody had worked at Kroger for two years before I even got the job. As I was getting to know him he told me that he got his nickname in high school, for his last name and the Toy Story character. I asked him what school he went to, and Woody said The Graham School. This is important because I also went to Graham. I came in as a freshman the school year after Woody and Shane graduated. Shane and I started talking about our respective times at Graham, and that was the beginning of our friendship.

To Be Continued…

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 32: The Kid Kronicles #2- Greattastic Adventures Arlo Vs. R4AGL Arlo

 The Kid Kronicles #2- Greattastic Adventures Arlo Vs. R4AGL Arlo

For any of this to make sense I need to state the obvious. Anything I write about my life is more like an artistic representation of what happened and not necessarily what happened beat for beat. Most of this comes down to the characters because to fit them into the short Rules for a Greattastic Life (R4AGL) installments, some characteristics need to be left on the cutting room floor. In other words the real-life versions of characters in my work are obviously superior to their R4AGL counterparts.

I prefer the characterizations of most of my “sisters” in “The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child” to R4AGL since that is a book so I had more space and less had to be left on the cutting room floor. However, for my youngest “sister” Arlo (Lo-lo/Kid) I prefer her R4AGL characterization over The Greattastic Adventures. Let me explain: In real life, while there was a time when all four girls hated me, I only ever hated the older three. I didn't necessarily like Lo-lo, as she was called then but because she was so young, it was more of guilt by association as opposed to real hatred.

At the beginning of “The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child,” Lo-lo is only six years old and by the end, she's seven. Because of her age in real life, she wasn't a major part of the events of that story. The only way to translate this into the book was to have Lo-lo in it, but have no real contribution to the story. What I'm saying is the only reason she is in Miracle Child is continuity! But because I never completely disliked her and I know how close we are in the present, “book Lo-lo” feels like a disservice to the real-life Arlo.

Throughout the rest of our childhood, while Arlo would become more relevant in the group, she wouldn't start developing her own agency (narratively speaking at least) until she was 13 years old when she asked to stop being called Lo-lo (and I gave her the nickname Kid). This agency wouldn’t be fully on display until Kid was about to turn 16 back in Season 2 of R4AGL. This was because August, Arden, and Aspen had all moved out.

When I discovered this to make up for how Kid’s Greattastic Adventures incarnation was turning out, I decided to make a mini-series within R4AGL called “The Kid Kronicles” to document our friendship isolated from the other girls. Covid obviously forced my plans for The Kid Kronicles back since August and Aspen moved back to Columbus for a while as result. I actually did write the first installment of The Kid Kronicles in December of 2020, because at the time August had moved and Aspen was supposed to go into the army in January, but that fell through, which is why this sequel is coming a year later.

There is one more reason I decided to do The Kid Kronicles. There are only two differences between “young Mitchell’s” characterization and Lo-lo's. 1. There is virtually no age gap between me and the older three girls, making the gap between them and Lo-lo seem bigger by comparison. 2. Miracle Child is told from my perspective, not Lo-lo’s. These two things together gave the illusion that I had agency in the story. I did fun things with the older three, but most of the stuff was their idea; I was just along for the ride. What I'm saying is even though I was more central to the story, Kid and I developed our narrative agency at approximately the same time.

While we are in different places in our lives we have had the same story ark throughout R4AGL. Season 1: We had to cope with the inevitability of the girls leaving. Season 2: We started to find ourselves after they moved. Season 3: Covid forced August and Aspen back to Columbus, placing Kid and me back to where we were in season 1. Season 4: With all of the girls gone again Kid and I picked up right where we left off and continued to move forward. Kid is a senior in high school, but she's taking college credit plus classes at Columbus State. And, next week I will be moving on to the next part of my life…

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri