Rolling in the Rain

Do you ever get the feeling you are being set up? I recently have felt all my Spidy sensors going off in meetings I have attended in the community. You know, animated conversations suddenly cease as you roll in the room, you feel more aggression in in comments made toward my program and I am beginning to feel invisible—folks talk about me in the third person even whn I might be in the room . In someways people are too nice, I cath them looking at me like I was dead. “Shields-up!” Things could get grim.

I have known my program has been in jeopardy for a couple of years due to funding loses at the State level and some of the have voiced concern at the quality of information they have been getting. Lately, though, the whispers have been more forth coming and more difficult to iignore. I should be more concerned especially for my own well being but I have kicked round long enough to know these kind of things have a way of working them selves out. I am keeping my ear to the ground though and keeping an eye on the EXIT signs.

Actually, if I wanted to play the “Denial Game” I could just tell my self this is not about me or my program, it's about a feud going on with th office my program is housed in. My boss is under gun ` by people in the community. She has made some great but unpopular decisions of late. Decisions, I totally feel are in the best interest of the consumers we serve and tend to meld with my basic philosophy of Independent Living. So, I could say I am just in the cross-fire and if I get dinged it's just acceptable losses. But the truth, I feel, is that my numbers are down, information has not been updated in a timely manner and our presence in the community has diminished. I could make any one of a number of excuses but that's what they would be excuses. So, I eed to roll-up and take the heat and work to make the program better if we survive, I survive. Until then the office has entered “battle mode” we are circling the wagons and watching our backs.

So with all this in mind I took off at lunch yesterday. I had my hours in for the week at noon, with the evening time I put in with the russians. I needed to clear my head I needed time to myself. I roll in the city—the wet cold city. The rain should have cleared out by noon but a new wave of clouds had just rolled in and the sprinkles had started. I scurried round to a couple of shops but took some of images then caught the train for home. And get this, I drove my van to the train station in the morning because of the rain. I was so lost in thought on my return that I totally spaced the fact the van was in the parking lot. I got a third of the way home before I remembered THE VAN! I turned round and powered all the way back to the train station.