Season 4 Step 1 Blog 2: Social Grace

Social Grace

A little over a year ago, I helped a blind man named Noah around the Kroger grocery store where I work. When we had finished shopping, he asked for my Facebook information, and we started hanging out shortly after that. I learned that he was a musician, and we started playing music together.

On the week of Christmas, I planned to go to Noah's house to practice a new song. Unfortunately, because everyone in my family (except me) got Covid that week, I couldn't see Noah until the 17th of January because he had to work out of town. Since the last time you, the audience, heard about Noah, a couple of things have changed. The first thing is Noah moved into a bigger apartment. It's a nice place, and there is a lot more room for us to goof around while we're practicing. The second thing is Noah started dating a girl named Lori.

I stopped hanging out with Noah for a little bit as he moved into his new apartment because too much was going on. The first time we hung out again, we had lunch, and Lori dropped him off at the restaurant. I don't count that as actually meeting her because the only thing we did was introduce ourselves. On the 17th, while we were practicing, I asked Noah when I was officially going to meet Lori. Later in the week, I got a voice memo from Noah explaining that Lori would be in town the next weekend, and we could go out to dinner on Saturday.

Lori and Noah picked me up because the Northstar restaurant we were going to was right up the street from my house, so they were already in the area. Around 6:00, Luke and Josh saw Noah and Lori on our doorbell camera, and they told me that they were here. Lori started driving us up the street, and then I realized I had forgotten my mask, so we had to go back to my house.

We finally arrived at Northstar, and after we placed our orders and sat down, I realized a sobering truth. Throughout my entire life, I have had trouble holding conversations with people I don't know, I attribute this to my autism. It hasn't been as much of a problem in my adult life because I'd built up social grace over my 22 and 1/2 years before Covid. Unfortunately, nearly a year into this thing, all of that social grace is gone! Now, this is not to say I was uncomfortable talking to Lori. On the contrary, she is the kind of person I would be friends with even if she weren't dating one of my established friends, and I can tell she's a perfect fit for Noah. It was a lot harder for me to talk to her than it should have been, and it blindsided me.

I'm just so glad that Noah was with me when I happened to come to this realization. Whenever the conversation would lag, Noah didn't let it get awkward. Instead, he would steer the conversation in a direction where he knew I could stand on my own, and the night went smoothly from then on.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 1: Cousin Simple Returns

 Cousin Simple Returns

As I've mentioned a few times, my brother Ryan is the lead guitarist in the band Cousin Simple. On February 29th, 2020, Ryan and his bandmates, Will (Frontman), Mitch (Pianist/Ukulele), and Joel (drummer) played their 100th show. Mom's college roommate was coming into town for the show. Shannon, and her husband, Tim, got to my house on Meadow Park Drive, at about 5:30.

Fifteen minutes later, my parents, Shannon and Tim, my other brothers Luke and Josh, and I drove to a pizza place in downtown Columbus. At the pizza place, we met up with Will's parents, Mitch's parents, a few people from Mom's side of the family, as well as Mom and Dad's college best friends, Ron and Anita Wallace. We ate dinner and talked until 8:00, an hour and a half before Cousin Simple was scheduled to play.

We walked into the A&R bar where Cousin Simple was playing and went to the very back and I put my coat behind the merch table. Mitch's sister, Tessa, and his cousin, Rachel, were running the merch table. I talked to them for a few minutes before my friend Marshall texted me and told me he was at the door because I had his ticket. I ran to the door, got Marshall in, and introduced him to the members of my family and friends that he had not met yet. After another hour, I got a text from a friend from grade school named Anna, who told me that she had arrived with her parents, and a friend.

Another friend joined our group, and we spent the next 30 minutes working our way through the crowd of fans to get as close to the stage as possible. At 9:29, I saw Luke and Josh on the stage where they put the last few things into position, and the band slowly walked on. Will's sister Helen turned on the lights, and the boys started playing.

Over the next hour, Cousin Simple played original songs such as "Song to Emma," "Strangers," "Honeybee," "Star Destroyers," and many others. The crowd danced to the music the whole time, mirroring the boys' energy on stage. A week later, on March 7th, Marshall, and I flew to Colorado to surprise my "sisters." immediately when we returned to Ohio, the governor shut down schools because of COVID-19. In other words, the last thing I did in my home state pre-covid (besides work) was go to that Cousin Simple show.

Cousin Simple did a few things over the quarantine. I orchestrated a zoom concert with Will and Sam's Fans in late April. The entire band did an Instagram live through WNCI, a local radio station, in support of the class of 2020. Lastly, the boys wrote new music and Joel left the band.

As I stated in the Christmas special, on the week of Christmas, everyone in my family except for myself, tested positive for Covid-19. I ended up in the attic, where I Isolated from my family.

At midnight on January 8th, 2021, Cousin Simple released their newest song, "We Know." As I listened to the song from the attic, I got excited! Suddenly the last big thing that happened for Cousin Simple didn't happen at the end of February; it was happening now, and I had to take that as a good sign! It's no secret that 2020 wasn't the best year, and I'm not expecting 2021 to bring its "A” game. The only thing I want from 2021 is to see some positive trends, and I genuinely believe that this is the start of one!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

You can listen to “We Know” and all of Cousin Simple’s other songs on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. You can find them on social media as Cousin Simple on Facebook, Instagram, and @cousinsimple_ on Twitter!

Christmas Special 2020: Bright Side Of Life

 Bright Side Of Life

I'm not going to lie; I had high hopes for Christmas and New Years this year. And while my New Years plans still seem to be intact, Christmas was not what I was expecting. My "sisters", August and Arden planned to come back from Pittsburgh and Colorado on Christmas Eve. I planned to spend as much time as possible with them since I've only seen August once since she moved, and I haven't seen Arden since early fall.

Every year we get together with Mom's side of the family to make my great grandma's Christmas cookie recipe. Because of the virus, the group was a lot smaller this year. We made our cookies the Sunday before Christmas, and we were all ready to enjoy the holiday. Unfortunately, 2020 did what 2020 does.

On the Monday before Christmas, I woke up only a few minutes before Mom left for work. I went downstairs, said goodbye to her, and started working on some final edits for the book I'm planning to publish next year. My brothers Luke and Josh came home around 3:00. Now the family nicknames for Luke and Josh are "Heckle and Jeckle" because they cause shenanigans. Knowing that I couldn't get any work done with them around, I retreated to my room. Around 5 p.m. I got a call from Kid, who asked me to come over. I went over to the house and spent the rest of the night with Kid, her parents, and Aspen. The next morning I went to Kroger, worked my shift, and Mom called me when I got home.

To make a long story short, my other brother Ryan, who made cookies with us, had tested positive for Covid. A few days later my entire family was tested, and I happened to be the only one who tested negative. Because I still wanted to see the girls, I had quarantined myself in the attic since I heard the news of Ryan’s positive test. The attic has its own heating unit and full bathroom, so I'm completely isolated from my family, except when they bring me food which they leave at the bottom of the steps.

On Christmas Eve, I attended Mass virtually and then called Dad's high school best friend's family, and I wished them a merry Christmas. On Christmas morning, I woke up to a tiny lit Christmas tree near the stairs and I got a group FaceTime call from my family downstairs. We prayed the Rosary, as we do every Christmas morning. After that, I watched them open presents, then they sanitized mine and set them on the stairs for me to gather and open.

The rest of the day consisted of texting, FaceTimes, and calling family and friends, and playing a lot of guitar! The night ended with a zoom call with Mom's side of the family. We talked and sang Christmas carols for nearly two hours before we went to bed. I'm not going to say it was the best Christmas I've ever had, but all things considered, it wasn't too bad. If 2020 has reinforced anything for me, It's the idea that everything can always get worse, so no matter how hard it is, you have to try your hardest to look on the bright side of life!

I hope you had a Greattastic Christmas! 

Stay safe. J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends: Finale Part 2: A Story About Friendship

 A Story About Friendship

Luckily, another coworker noticed that I was struggling with reorganizing the salads and helped me out. Despite the alleviation of that stress, however, the sadness that I felt about Lily was still very present by the time I got off work. As soon as I got into my house, I got a text from an old friend...

I first mentioned Max back in Season 1. I met him at Haugland Learning Center, a school for kids on the autism spectrum that we attended, and where I am employed in less “Covidy” times! He was in one of my classes, and we hit it off right away! Max is at the very beginning of most of my stories about where I am today. He is part of the reason my "sisters" and I became friends after years of fighting, and he also set me on the path to working at Haugland.

Because we are both autistic, it was effortless for us to connect as it is for most people I meet on the Spectrum. But the thing that brought us together was his nickname for me. One day Max was having a meltdown, and I intervened. He gave me the nickname Dr. Mitch, and I continued to help him help throughout our time as students at Haugland.

Every year Haugland has a talent show. In my first year at the school, Max sang “We Are The Champions”, and everybody loved it. The second-year, he did "Ghostbusters," and while It was still excellent, it wasn't as bombastic as before. So for the third year, he and I teamed up and did a stand-up act. We practiced for hours and hours on these jokes, and while now I have to admit that they weren't as funny as I thought they were, we still had fun doing it!

When I left Haugland, Max and I grew apart. We didn't reconnect until February of 2019, at his birthday party. While I promised myself that I would stay in contact with him, between that February meeting and the beginning of the lockdown, I only saw him twice.

Weeks before the ball dropped, marking the start of 2020, I knew what my New Year's resolution was: by December, I would have a new friend group. At that time, August was preparing to do an internship in Utah, Arden had just recently moved to Colorado indefinitely, and Aspen was going to school in Miami, Florida. The only person from my childhood friend group left was Kid, who was just about to turn 16. I love Kid to death, but it was very obvious to me that I couldn't just have her as a friend.

I had a good start at building my "Empire of Friends." I had Marshall to begin with, and my now bandmate Noah, and a girl I went to grade school with named Anna. I planned to build my relationship with those three and through them meet new people and make new friends. But then Covid came and ruined those plans.

As I looked at Max's text, I thought about all the people I haven't seen since March. I realized at that moment that I was wrong about building a new friend group- I didn't need to. This "Empire of Friends" I've been searching for has been right in front of me the whole time!

 Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri.

Rules For A Greattastic Life will return for Christmas!

Season 3: The Empire of Friends: Finale Part 1: Ghost Lily

 Ghost Lily

It's been a few months since I talked about my former coworker Lily. I met her at the Kroger grocery store where I currently work. During the two and a half years before Lily started working at a different Kroger, she and I became very close due to our very similar sense of humor. After we got off work on the last night we worked together, Lily, her best friend Maya, and I went skateboarding. While skateboarding, their other friend, Owen, met up with us. Shortly after that night, Owen started working at my Kroger, and he started dating Lily.

About two weeks after Owen and Lily started dating; I was out getting carts on my Thursday night shift. I saw a car pull up and park, then Owen and Lily got out of the vehicle. They were too far away for me to catch them, but they saw me when they came out of the store. We only talked for about a minute because I had to get back to work. As they went to the car, Lily called back to me, "Now don't you go and fade out on me, ya hear?" I promised her I wouldn't, but while I intended to keep that promise, I didn't.

On 1/3/2021, I will have worked at Kroger for three years. Over that time, my schedule had only changed three times, and only when my availability changed. As a result, I got into the bad habit of not checking my schedule every time my boss updated it! I usually work on Tuesday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon. So I showed up for my shift and tried to clock in. The time clock informed me that I wasn't scheduled for that day, but I went to one of my bosses and asked him if he could override the time clock because I still wanted to work.

"Who switched you?" He asked as he helped me clock in.

"No one?" I replied, confused. "I always work Tuesday mornings."

"No. yesterday you worked 8-12." He explained.

Because I was completely unaware of this schedule change, and I explained it to another boss that night over text, there were no repercussions on my job as a whole. The big issue was that at 10:00, the people who were scheduled for that day started showing up, and they didn't need me in the front end. My boss sent me to the produce department to help restock salads. A woman in her mid-twenties named Jamie took me to the back where we keep the new shipments. She pointed to a blue trolley and said, "We're going to take these boxes and put them on the trolley and then you can start restocking!"

We stacked the boxes on the trolley so high that they towered over me! When I got back to the produce department, I realized that some salad brands had been completely stocked, but others had not been. Just by sheer coincidence, most of the boxes that I had on the trolley happened to have the salad brands that were completely stocked!

To top it all off, customers started asking me where to find things because the produce department had been recently rearranged. Because I typically work in the front end, I wasn’t much help. Whenever a customer asked me a question, all the other people who work in the produce department were in the back getting more new product. The sudden responsibility of being the sole employee in the produce department, and the trolley situation stress, induced an autism meltdown!

I tried to cope with this meltdown by doing something I do a lot: imagine myself in the future telling someone about what is happening now in a joking way; unfortunately, because I was at Kroger, out of habit, the first person I thought of telling the story to was Lily! As soon as she crept into my mind, I flashed back to all of the adventures Lily and I had while working together. Her "ghost" filled my memory, and a wave of sadness fell over me.

 To Be Continued…

 

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 22: The Kid Kronicles #1-Jimothy

 The Kid Kronicles #1-Jimothy

I have always loved Dr. Seuss, and my favorite story of his is "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I am so in a love with the character because the Jim Carrey Grinch movie was the first form of media that I saw, which took a pre-established story and added to it. While I was always a storyteller, that movie opened my eyes to the art of storytelling. My love for the character got so intense that for the last Christmas piano recital I ever performed in, I played "You're a Mean One" while dressed up as the Grinch!

Before the Andersons (my "sisters") moved into their house, the previous owner built a cabin in the backyard to watch Ohio State football games. One Saturday in early 2019, while I was working at Kroger, I got a strange text in a group chat with Kid and her friend Chelsea. Kid was having a sleepover with Chelsea, their longtime friend Ronny, and two other girls that I had never met before.  Kid and Chelsea had convinced the other three that an elf named Jimothy was living in the cabin. They wanted me to wait by the cabin and give their friends a jump-scare.

When reading the text, my thought process was as follows: Jimothy=Jim, Elf=mythical Christmas creature, Jim+mythical Christmas Creature=The Grinch… I have a Grinch costume... I should do this as the Grinch.

I waited for it to get dark, and I hopped the fence into the backyard, completely ”Grinched” out. I snuck to the cabin, waited for all four girls to come out, and I scared them. It was amusing because I hadn't walked Kid Or Chelsea through my thought process and plan, so they were pretty confused!

Last December I went to an ugly sweater party with my family. I didn't want to wear a sweater because that's what everyone does! So I kicked it up a notch and went in the Grinch costume. I shared a picture on my Instagram story, and Chelsea replied, begging me to do this installment. That was the entire reason I wrote this- originally.

As those who follow me on social media know, the weekend, a new installment comes out; I post a video of myself at the installment location, announcing that I have new content. This week I decided to dress up as the Grinch and go to the cabin to do the video.

I entered the Anderson's kitchen, and Kid's mom, Barbara, saw me with the Grinch costume. "Are you going to scare Chelsea?" she asked.

"No, I'm doing a video because both the blog and podcast I'm doing this week are about Jimothy."

"You know Arlo (Kid) is having Chelsea over today after school, right?" She replied.

Without a second of hesitation, I ran to the basement to change into the Grinch costume. When they got home, I continued the tradition and scared both of them. Even though initially I didn't have a reason to write this installment, I eventually found a reason. Always be ready because awesome adventures happen, especially when you least expect them!

Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri.

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Thanksgiving Special: The Man Who Saved Thanksgiving

 The Man Who Saved Thanksgiving

I talked about my Aunt Eva, my fairly new Uncle Zach, and their wedding in the very first installment of this season. Well, every Thanksgiving since she was three, Eva (and since their dating years, Zach) and my grandpa, who we call Pop-Pop, have come from Florida to Ohio. My parents, my three brothers, Ryan, Luke, and Josh, and I look forward to their Thanksgiving visit every year. Yet another thing this stupid virus has ruined!

The day before Thanksgiving, Luke complained about how much this Thanksgiving was going to stink. Not only were Pop-Pop, Eva, and Zach not coming, but our entire extended family would not be coming, we usually host 20-25 for dinner at our house. I was getting annoyed because he said everything I was thinking, but that I was trying to ignore. Luckily for us, there was one other person who could still come.

My cousin Austin was born and raised in Florida, and following in my dad's footsteps; he went to college in Ohio. Shortly after his graduation, he got a job in Columbus. He stayed with my family until he found his apartment. Saying Austin is eccentric is putting it lightly. He is the most quotable person I've ever met because he has a real knack for taking everyday situations and twisting them into pure comedic gold!

The last time we saw Austin was back in January for Ryan's birthday. After that, Austin got busy with work, and then you know, the world ended. At dinner the day before Thanksgiving, Josh texted Austin and asked him if he wanted to come over for Thanksgiving dinner.

"Mitchell-Maannn!" Austin exclaimed when he saw me.

"Austy-Aust!" I replied, mirroring his tone.

After a little more catching up, it was time for dinner. We said grace, served ourselves, and started to eat. I don't think I have laughed this hard for this long since early April, and I think my family would agree! Austin was exactly the boost we needed to start the holiday season!

Hope You Had A Greattastic Thanksgiving! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri