This time it’s personal.

Dianne is doing better, actually much better then anticipated so well that I left her behind this morning and returned to work. Dianne was sleeping and would most likely rest away the morning. She has my cell so she could get me if I needed. I also took the van because I had a Utah Transit Authority (UTA)scheduled for this afternoon. I have not been actively involved with the Authority for over ten years and I felt good getting back to hard core transportation. Not that I was advocating as I used to: gloves off and come out fighting. We all have mellowed a bit since the old days and that is too bad. The Authority invited me to come to a presentation of the expansion of light rail into some new areas of Salt Lake County and specifically the Authority wants people with disabilities blessings on their new project. I have written in the past regarding the “mini-high blocks as a means or the only means of accessing the train. I have also confessed my part, as small as it may have been, to bringing this loading system about. I have cursed the high blocks, the packed front cars and myself every day I ride the system since.

The UTA currently,is using two different kinds cars on the train system one set of junk cars” the authority got at a steal and the better Siemens cars—both cars are “highriders” meaning these cars can only be accessed by the mini-high blocks. Now the Authority gong out to bid on a number o low-riders cars, cars which can be access by wheelchair users without the mini-high blocks. So now the authority wants to run these cars in strange configurations and basically they want our input, people with disabilities input on which configuration the authority should. Two options were set before us option one al cars would be low riders and only serve specific routes. The other option is to combine high rifer and low rider train together which would run on all the routes, of course each configuration has poitives and negatives and one configuration will cost the Authority more then the other configuration. I think answer is a no brainer: mix the cars. The people with disabilities will figure out how to get on. We always do, let us make the choice but give us a choice. The boys from the authority were really trying to stay middle of the road but I could hear them trying to sway the “kids” on which option to take. It made me nervous and what made me more nervous the people with disabilities were almost buying their argument. There were a couple of hedge sitters who wanted to be good “kid” and not offend Daddy UTA- but I think my argument was somewhat compelling. I ride the system almost every day of the week in winter and in the heat of summer—I know what the feeling of being stiffed when the train I am counting on pulls into the station and there is no where for me to board because the car is already stuffed with wheelchair riders and I have to wait for the next train. Know the angst but I am done doing my penitence. I want every train of every section of track to have at least one accessible car. This time it’s personal.

Yesterdays's Wait

Day two of Dianne's procedure just a update the procedure seems to have gone well. Dianne spent the night at the hospital and I finally the hospital a little after eight o clock. The was the end of a very long day for me.

The day started about 7:00 am, I actually was able to sleep in significantly compared to what time I usually get up so I was feeling OK. Dianne changed the dressing on my butt which continues to heal but ever so slowly. I just have to be careful I do not irritate wounds until she can get back on her feet and change dressings. We messed round the house, drying and folding clothes, washing dishes and killing before check in. We next drove over an filled my van with gas and finally ended up going over to Thrift Town, an interesting block of stores: second hand stores and close out deal stores. This place always amazes me—great prices for items I pay lots more for at traditional markets. I am going to return and purchase a couple of case of items I really enjoy like corn beef hash.

Dianne and I finally get to the hospital right at 12:00. Dianne gets some directions and we begin our wait. We are finally told that she will be called in about 1:00 and we are cool with that. 1:30 comes and nothing happens and then 2:00m and we are getting a little pissed. Dianne is trying to remain up beat and not freak out looking down the barrel of a real operation plus she has been NPO( with out food) since mid-night and this can make any one cranky. Plus we are able to hear all the goings on at the front desk, where a gaggle of less then professional nurses and CNAs keep chattering about the patients who are also patients of the same doc that we have seems to be getting services while we just sit there looking stupid. Finally at 2:30 pm still nothing happening I start doing the huff and puff and asking to speak with the head nurse about what the hell was going on. The nurse reports that our doctor has run into problems and is still working on an operation.

Not long after that brief confrontation we are approached by two lads in green—these guys are from the company which make the nerve blocker which is to be implanted. They’re sales geeks looking like and sounding like docs. They give me the song and dance about what will be happening in the operation and what will happen after the operation and when the device can be operated. Time now was about 3:00 pm and after visiting with the two corporate joy boys we felt these were going to start happening but nope…Dianne was finally taken in about 3:30. I was dismissed until when the operation is done. I was starving by this point so I booked across the street to Marie Calendars’. I ended up getting the same dinner I did a couple weeks ago: turkey and dressing. The dinner was great.

Bridget called round 7:30 and Dianne had just been moved to recovery and was still a bit goofy but coming round fast. They assigned a room to her and I went up to the fifth floor to wait. Dianne finally showed up. I had spoken with Dr. Pingree who assured me everything was OK. In fact when I was united with Dianne she actually was up and walkng. We ended up walking a lot round the unit for the remainder of the time I was there. Dianne seems to be doing great. I was exhausted but OK. I went home and watched the news and went to bed. Hopefully I can bring Dianne home today

NPO

Tomorrow is Dianne’s surgery an I am getting a little bit nervous. I should not because I am not going under the knife, Dianne is. St mark’s just called, a call which should have gone to Dianne but defaulted to my cell and to me. Something about having to get a social history on Dianne; the little things before the big things, but the hospital could not get Dianne to pick up the phone. Dianne seldom picks up the phone rather letting the call go to the answering machine or at least checking the numbers on Caller I.D.) and answering those calls she want or needs to.

I am crossing my fingers and hoping all goes well and that this surgery will be helpful in reducing Dianne’s pain awareness. The trials were successful so every indication suggests the implant will be successful as well. One night’s stay in the hospital and I should be able to bring Dianne home on Wednesday and hopefully the recuperation process will be low key. I have arranged to take off Tomorrow and Wednesday to be the good husband/partner.

So tomorrow at 12:00 Dianne needs to be at St Marks and from there ride begins. I wish I could write more but honestly my mind is a blank.

Story Corps Trip

I did it ! On Friday I made the trek North to Logan for my Story Corps interview. I took the posters with me so I could count the time as outreach. I know, this is a nasty little bureocrat trick but the trick work and I did some work but I also got some of my needs met by spending time with my Buddy Marty and being interviewed by an NPR program.
The trip up to Logan went OK, lots of traffic but no real stopping, some close calls but really not long frustrating stops. I actually got to Logan in great time, suprising me and Marty. Before I made contact with Marty I actually found the Story Corps
Airstream and scoped the vehicle out. I was surprised to see there was a table out front with a volunteer sitting there just like the image on the NPR website. I wondered if these were actors who went with the trailer. The volunteer really did look like yard art. I looked over the trailer and pondered how these guys were going to get me in or maybe they were not and would do the interview somewhere else—like reasonable accommodations. I finally introduced myself informing the volunteer I was their “2:30”—she smiled looking like a phone volunteer at a public radio telethon and looked down at her clip board and sparkled “Yes, here you are. Be here a little before to do the paperwork. ” I smiled back with much less sparkle and fished out my cell and called Marty who informed me he was already on hi way to meet me.
Logan looks like the set to Footloose” . Logan is a academic/relgious town. I know this sounds a conterdiction of terms but Logan is. Utah State University calls Logan it’s home. Logan is about an hour and half North of salt Lake through the mountains—to get there a person has to drive through Sardine Canyon which is deadly in the winter time. I guess what I am saying is Logan is geographically isolated from the rest of the state and maybe the world and I think that Logan’s residents like it that way. However, USU is a little think tank or maybe better described as a mother vat to a lot of smaller think tanks. My buddy Marty works at one of these thinks tanks, actually Marty runs this think tank. He and other egg heads from Logan commute to Salt Lake usually a couple of time a week depending on the season, the political season. I wish I had taken more images but if you look around the edges of the images I have included you will see part of the town.
Marty and I had a long leisurely lunch at what used to be the town soda fountain. I had a great Rueben with great conversation. I was going to take tons of images but I was so engaged with Marty that I spaced the camera until I got to the interview. It was then I when I tried to take a movie of me going up the ramp that the camera was out of juice. The extra batteries I had did not work so I just got a few. Here there are enjoy.

Heading North for NPR

Tomorrow I am driving up to Logan to get my small space of time on NPR. I am going to be interviewed on NPR’s StoryCorps. I am going to drive almost two hours on a sore butt to get my recognition. I am so disappointing I do not see how my family can stand me. I am going to leave my office a little after 11:00 and link up with my buddy Marty about 1:00 pm and then we head over to the Story Corps airstream for the 2:30 pm interview and I hope to be back in the city by 4:30 check my calls and head home for the weekend. I hope my butt can take the stress of my driving the van—I am sure I will be just vine. In fact Dianne got the last prescription the new doc wrote for me. This is the whoopee Doozee healer green medicated salve. She smeared all over my bum tonight before she went to bed. I wanted to stay up and post. I am getting s little concerned that my posts are be coming shorter and shorter, almost posts at all some days/nights. I am even sinking so low as to post historic film clips. I know this is cheap behavior and I will try to do better. Now that Board meeting is and I have pretty much done the Minutes to the meeting the office is slowing down a little. We have had a multi-state regional conference going all week and this too has been keeping me busy. I am also sort of focused on “cleaning” up the short film I did with the Freedom our ( see my You Tube account). Things are just always busy now.
No word on my wheelchair part. I figure then wait will belong and drawn out. I have rigged a very weird safety belt out of a bike inner tube I had laying round. The tube looks strange but is functional. I gotta go and get off my butt. Oh Shelly called on her way home from work. Shelly and the fetus/baby are doing fine. Shelly has had enough of the medical (OB) professional telling her what to do. Go Girl!! The medicos are trying to get the maximum amount from her insurance provider by scheduling a skidillion (well baby) appointments and Shelly said (No!) If something seems strange she will certainly see her provider but if everything seems OK then why? Goodnight!

Short Post but a Song

Today was tough. I gimped through the day with just one are and I am a little sore but OK. I did call Magic rest and had the guy order in the bolt I need to repair my chair by Overnight mail so hopefully I will get the chair going tomorrow.
Board meeting went off better then I thought the meeting as going to go. I went in early this morning and got my stat sheets printed out and some other hand outs. The meeting was poor attended but I now have the meeting out of the way and I have the minutes three fourths of the way typed. I slept poorly: jitters from the medical appointment yesterday. I dream t all night that I had these weird sandals made from really broad banded rubber band which crisscrossed my lower legs like roman sandals. I am sure this is my body’s way of wearing me down so I’ll wear ted hose—really though I cannot see me wearing them. Hell, I would not even be able to get the darn things on by myself.
Here is a song I love hope you enjoy…

Help Me, Save Me from the Medical Model!!!

One of the *techs at the rehabilitation unit broke the arm to my wheelchair, my power chair, my primary means of transportation. This really messes me up especially with my Board meeting tomorrow morning. Luckily it was the bolt which holds on the arm of my chair on the left side which is the side I transfer on. I a sure I have written this all before from the last time the arm broke but I am not going back to find it now. The are was up from when I transferred onto the examination and when the tech moved my chair out of the way( with the power on) she backed my chair into the wall with the arm extended back like it was the bolt connecting the arm to the chair sheered and that was that. Calls were made and pleas were made but as yet no fix is coming and I think I shall have to “limp” into work and my board meeting without the arm on my chair. I can do this, I don’t like doing this but I can.
As I have said before, I hate having to re-enter the medical model. The nurse practition is great, comes highly recommended and seems through. But she wants to run tests! Horrible tests, recommends I wear tent hose and basically upset the apple cart I have worked forty years to establish. I really believe deep down in my heart and soul doing some of the things this practitioner wants to subject me to will start the process that kills me. I know I am sounding the boob, but that is what has always happened to be before, once I see a doc for anything requiring tests and a stuff its all over. So beginning in September I will start my PT—but I will be getting blood drawn and all kinds of tests done. I will do two session of PT per week for about ten weeks or until my insurance is depleted. New cushion, maybe new muscles and over all evaluation, I’m scared to death.
The first of the day I spent worrying about the Board meeting, trying to print some hand outs which showed enough data for our operation to look good as well take up enough of the board members time to feel they had attended a good meeting. I took calls and helped with the general Monday chaos. This Monday was a bit different the usual Monday since our parent office is hosting a five state Self advocate conference. So staff was hustling back and forth to the airport picking up attendees, last minute coping, compiling and messaging and somewhere in the milieu I got invited to lunch with my boss and the Keynote speaker. What was even better I had been working with a “walk-in” customer. An old guy braced up in some sort of exoskelton wanting to buy his soon( who also has some sort of disability) into the social security system. I spent time with the old guy and at the end he thrust a twenty at me. When I tried to decline he turned and walked away. I advised my boss and tried to give her the twenty who looked at me like I had thee eyes. So I kept it and joined boss for lunch. The keynote( I don’t know her name yet) seemed really cool and is a real writer. She listened very well as we ate asian cuisine and I talked.

Procrastinator

I should be hard at work on what I am going to present at my advisory board come Tuesday but I am finding I can think of to do not to do the work. I think because I know that I a not ready and not being ready is freaking me out. This morning I rose listed to Gospel Flight on NPR, made coffee got the paper and started doing the Sunday puzzles even the crosswords and I never do the cross words. Maybe I’ll play like I am helping Dianne but I bet I have spent three hours this morning working on the cross words. Now I am planning to climb into my power wheelchair and going next door to visit my neighbor. I am even going to cook a roast today to put off the board meeting prep.

NPR ?

This was the day I was going to put the push on developing materials for next weeks board meeting but last night was a loss as far as sleep goes and today I existed in a fog. I covered a meeting for my boss which took three hours out of the middle of the day and then there is the on going office crises :a key player injured her leg and everyone is jumping in to help make a conference scheduled for next week goes off as planned. I got the news that Monday morning I am to burn 10 CD-Rs for the conference and I think I start my P.T on Monday meaning I’ll be leaving the office about 2:30 or even 2:00. All of this biting into the last day I have to prepare for my board meeting. Tomorrow I have taken off to take Dianne to the hospital for her colonoscopy. I will most likely be needed to be round home the rest of the day. Maybe just maybe I’ll try to sneak into the office on Saturday or Sunday and try to get some work done then.
The callers I did service today were beyond strange and all necessitated I spend extra quality time with them; one caller coming in at twenty minutes to five and lasted till half past five. Seriously even if I did not have the day with weird calls I doubt I would have had the energy to have done much prep.
There was good news though; my buddy Marty from Logan called for the office person who had the accident. My Buddy Marty is the guy I have gone to Washington DC and helps me out in oh, so many professional ways. Marty actually lived in DC as is well connected on the Hill. Marty is a “go to kinda a guy. Anyway, when we were in Washington and Marty was pushing me all over the nations capitol, he promised to take me to NPR headquarters. I don’t know why but I have an unnatural desire to see NPR get my picture taken in front of the building. We never had a chance to get to the news agency. Meetings rang long, opportunities to meet with senators un expectedly popped up and soon our time was up and we were headed home. I good naturedly reminded Marty of this and we laughed. He informed me he had called to ask my injured work mated to me interviewed for a segment on the NPR show Morning Edition. But since my workmate was down for the count, Marty asked if I would consider being interviewed for the show. Sure! The only drawback is would I would have to drive up to Logan. I thought about the drive and then said “sure”. So I have an appointment to be interviewed in Logan at 1:00 o clock, a week from tomorrow I am fairly excited. I am sure I can justify the trip as Outreach and drop off a bunch of posters at Marty’s office. But NPR, me?

Advisory Board Blues

I have my quarterly meeting on Tuesday the 21^st. I am beginning to get nervous. Today I will start generating the stats and any data I feel might be needed for the event. The stats are the most intimidating for me since I always feel they are less then the could be but I rarely have any of the folks here at the meeting say anything negative about the them. This meeting I may have shot myself in the foot by producing the music video of the Road To Freedom Tour. There has been some talk about making another presentation with Power Point with more descriptors of what is going on in the scenes. This would be a lot of work, not necessarily hard but time consuming and frankly, boring. And at this point in time I do not think I have the time to do a decent job—worse case scenario I start the projects do a couple of panels with the images showing a good start and then rush into describing another project which is completed and up on the website. If you are interested in seeing the new multi-media our office is doing go to www.accessut.org and click on the “multi-media” tab on the bottom of the list. Now that we have this capability in place I really want to start producing these short features, I hope I shift the boards attention to the new “toy” and off the numbers for the time being.

And again, I would not really mind, the numbers so much if I had decent dependable software which would generate good data. As it is . Then there is the problem that I was not able to get the minutes to the last meeting generated. The meeting was short, and poorly attended. I was going into the major events which dominated my last quarter: the Road to Freedom Tour and the Russians. By the time I did sit down to do the Minutes I did not have any memory of the meeting nor did I have notes which told me anything. The few people I usually use to remind me of stuff either were not at the meeting or could not remember stuff either. I am sensing the lack of Minutes will not be a big deal since they rarely are but I never know. I still may have to try to put something together

I sense the data I am producing or trying to produce is very sketchy at best. Luckily people are already beginning to call and email their cancellations—even my boss has another meeting. I have gone through this cancellation thing before and one can never get a date which is good for everyone unless , of course, your information is so valuable that these participants will choose your event, meeting over another. I have yet to get to that level of data yet. Our budget is so small, smaller yet when divided by our four funders, that my organization is a small blimp on their radars. However that fact remains, and regardless of how much I would like to trivialize the event, this event is one of the big events in my quarter and I cannot get back to my comfortable life until I have this event behind me.

I am including footage I took this morning of my train station. This has nothing to do with the content o today’s post but thought you might enjoy.

Squeegee

I am debating on taking my lunch hour and rolling over to the local Office Depot and purchasing a squeegee to do the windows of my office. I have been trying to get the windows clean for weeks now. The water the building uses for the watering the lawn is hard water and over the suffer the hard water deposits build on the window till looking out the window is like looking through thick smoke. I ordered some of that stuff for breaking up hard water deposits in the bath tub and toilet. I used his stuff on my windows when my office was in the rear of the building and solution did a marvelous job.
Wouldn’t you think the maintenance people from the building owner would have a squeegee; in fact why are they doing ll the windows to the place regularly—I think the building owner should do the windows quarterly at the end or beginning of each season. But every time the head maintenance guy, Warren, is over here and I start rattling on about how I need my windows washed he just looks at me like I had three eyes. So obliviously I am not going to get my windows cleaned via building management.

Last week I kind a “guilted” Front Desk Marinanne into taking a stab at the windows. She sprayed the windows with the stuff and then attacked the windows with a rag which just smeared the hard water deposits all over the glass leaving a surface like someone had soaped my windows. My windows looked like our local A&W, in the old days when the A&W would close for the winter and they would soap the windows. I bet they have not done that since the early Sixties. And Marianne is off for the week. I could not stand it so grabbed one of my long sticks and a bottle of water and a cloth and doused my windows with water and tried to wipe the window down with a rag on the end of my stick. The process actually worked fairly well but I need a squeegee, the right tool for the job is a tied but true axiom for this situation. I got on line over lunch and found that Office Depot in the great mall across the street has squeegee starting at $14.00. This seems a little steep but I would own a real professional squeegee, the kind pros use and I best of all I will in control. If I want to wash my windows I’ll just go out and do it. I know I will look all pathetic out in front of my windows squeegeeing them down. I doubt I will apply the finesse shown my real window people on the big building downtown but I’ll probably develop a definite style.

A New Ramp

Gabe was over early Saturday morning and he built me or should I say built Dianne a ramp from the TV room to the main house. I have had a ramp before and the ramp has worked just fine for the fourteen years we have been in this place—but the first twelve years I used only a manual wheelchair but since I have gone to using a power wheelchair, a big old Jazzy the ramp has become spookier and spookier. I have only only rolled off he ramp once an the consequences were not really very bad at all—mostly terror. Dianne rescued me sure and swift but I have had a lot near misses especially when I have had trays balanced on my lamp or when I might be taking items to or from the deck to BBQ. Well, I guess I screamed, bitched or boobed one too many times and my Princess Dianne set things in motion and got Gabe over at 7:00 Saturday morning. I am usually the first in the family to ride but not Saturday. By the time I did get up about 8:00 a.m. Gabe was already out to Lowe’s for an parts and pieces run.

I feel I need to interject here the reason I seem to be placing the whole project on Dianne. I would never ask anyone to do this especially Gabriel especially for the remake of this ramp an even had I the money for such a project I would never tolerate money to be spent on me this way. So Dianne took the ball and ran with it. The project which was only to be one hour-two at the outside; ended up taking six hour in the relentless, end of the summer sun and Gabe did not complain. I eventually did rise and made a breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast with Dianne’s help. Gabe finished up on the ramp round 1:00 or 1:30 . He indicates he ramp still needs to be finished with some sort of wood treatment. I don’t know if well get round to treating the wood this year ever. The last ramp lasted fourteen years without treatment this ramp should as well. I am a little concerned with the ramp where the ramp meets the floor. Gabe was not able to get a gentle slope the edge is kind of abrupt. We may have to figure out a way to attach a smother slope. But the ramp is wide, hugely wide and I have to admit the ramps width is very welcome even if the bump on the bottom jars my teeth coming and going.

Today I am out of the office this morning. I have my last meeting with the Wound Clinic. I left the van home so Dianne can use it since the Audi is undependable right now. This is cool because with Dianne using the van I’ll have to rely on public transit to get to my appointment.

I’m back and I made it!! I was a little late since I stopped and visited briefly with my buddy Larry—see images from the Russian visit. My butt is better!! I still have to watch it for a couple of weeks but my wound guy said I was done as far as he was concerned. My next trip up to Rehab is Monday next.

Thanks Sis--the book came today...I'm soo excited.

Comming Up

I just had the weirdest sensation. I am at the office, all alone everyone else is gone and I sit with my back to my office door looking out onto Third West—anyway I was on the phone and all the sudden I hear a rustling coming from behind me like out in the foyer of the office. I really did not think much about this at the time, since I was in the middle of a conversation and part of the staff who left early this morning for a funeral about two hours away should be coming back to the office at any time now so I assumed that it was just Claire or Marsha just settling back into the office or maybe when the staff who just left the office left without locking the door and that’ cool but un likely. Often we do have walk-ins so someone coming is not entirely unusual. So, ended my call and went out to the office to see who came in. I called out to Marsha…no answer..,Claire no answer..Marrianne and still no answer! The office is dead silent and I do the office roll round and I noticed at this point the front door to the office IS locked and I suddenly start to get “creeped out”. I finish the roll round, the front office, the meeting area even the two back offices. I am all alone.

The boss and the P.M. is out at a funeral, actually one our staff who worked out of Central Utah . She had cancer and eventually succumbed. She was a great person but I doubt she would return to the office to just to haunt round and spook me—or maybe when she realized I was not at her funeral she was upset and decided to find out why I did not come down to “see” her off. Anyway Marianne just returned from her lunch and a swim so I am no longer alone and now everything I was spooked about has vanished and I almost feel silly.

It’s so easy for me to get spooked, even in the middle of the day and maybe especially in the middle of the day, when one is alone, your area is quiet and your imagination tends to flee. But having said all this, I know what I heard and I know what or who was not here and I don’t think I was alone.

Retreat! Retreat!

Today was the office retreat A lost day on the phones but a pleasant break in the office routine. This years retreat was a bit more scaled down then in years past half day in the office doing classic retreat stuff the loading staff into vehicles then heading up to the national forest about 40 minutes east of the City. As much as I hate getting out in the great wild I have to admit we got some things accomplished some good office direction discussed and out of work easy.

I mean what’s up with the wild? We had a bad wind day; wind was blowing right off the out door toilets and the toilets were rank and of course no one smokes any more so we did not even have tobacco smoke to mask the air. In the wild there is never any flat spaces so I was just barely ably to transfer from the driver as set to the power chair. I finally did make the lift but looked like I had just got up. I have been looking undressed all week. The world would be so much easier if we just all went naked—maybe not as pretty but a lot easier.

Daily Struggle

Yesterday was the exit dinner for the Russians. The dinner was slated for 7:00 pm on Sunday evening and you know, I did not go. The reason I didn’t go was not because the meeting was slated for 7::0 pm the very tail end of my weekend and I hate having to keep reasonably together or worse have to get my self all together for just a couple of hours, nor was the fact the dinner was at a restaurant that I had no idea where the place was and the fact the mean was “no host” except for the Russians or the fact that I had been on my butt all day and I hurt. The reason I did not go was because I had had enough of going out, having to speak through interpreters and paying for as meal that I really did not need. Man I know that sounds cheap of me but I have had enough of going out for a while.

Wheeew! I just got back from the bathroom. I have been having a clothing malfunction all daylong. I usually do pretty good with keeping my pants on and some days are better then others. I usually appear passable, some days I may even look good but some days I am on he brink of being arrested for indecent exposure. Today was one of those days. I am usually OK when I leave the door of my house as I head for the train but I knew I was in trouble this morning. I just was not able to get much of a spasm going, which I need to push my butt off the cushion in order to pull my pants up over my hips. But I was able to get my pants up far enough and a shirt long enough to cover the exposure.

By the time I got to work however, the pants were sliding down, further and further. I was in the bathroom 20 minutes struggling with the pants but no spasm—by staff meting I was having to go everywhere with a clipboard on my lap and my shirt pulled way down on the sided but skin was showing if one looked hard enough. My arms were wearing pout too, from all the attempts to lift myself up. By lunch the pants were well off the hips and I was in serious jeopardy of exposure if anyone should notice. Twice during the day I have had unannounced visitors who I had to meet and visit with, smile and act sincere.

I don’t know if I survived the scrutiny (I have not heard back anything yeti. I hope I just presented a sloppy appearance. A few minutes ago I slipped back into the bathroom committed to getting the pants at least to a presentable level. I found some non stick rubber mats and cut off a strip and put the piece on my foot plate to give my shoes some to grab of to push off of. This time the matting worked, giving me a great sustained spasm allowing me to stay aloft to pull the slacks over my right hip—which is my trouble hip. With much relief I pulled my shirt down and zipped back to the office. Looking the best I had all day long.

I made appointments this morning for the wound clinic and my P.T.—I am hoping these folks will help me regain some of my independence. It’s only Monday and already I am exhausted.!

Farmers Market

We went to bed early last night so we could get up early and do the Farmers Market. Strange folk hang out at the Farmers Market...mostly old farts who think they are getting a deal because they believe they are cutting out the middle man. Dogs on leashes and farm kids who look like there are a million places they would like to be then in a make believe farmers market outside of Salt Lake City. As always we bought way too much produce probably half will go into the garden as compost but we had a good time. check out our day.

Gimps In The Park

I had lunch with the Russians, today, day four or five of the visit( I loosing count and I am getting tired). More chicken and rice but not bad. The meal was sponsored by a local government agency, which services people with disabilities. The Russian dude with a disability, I wrote about the other day is really beginning to get under my. Today the guy rattled on about how people with disabilities in Utah need to be careful about being to militant or the power structure will take the advances made over the past three decades. Phfffft—this comrade knows not of what he speaks. I think he’s a sell out or someone who never has had the passion for freedom or real independence. I gotta go—tonight I am going to do Russians an Gimps in the park then one more meal on Sunday and the Ruskies are headed out.

I am surprised the Gimps in the Park seemed to be a success even though the tennis exhibition bombed because the local para's bailed but the hand bikes was a definite success. Heavy dark clouds threatened the event with gusting winds , a few drops of rain and some lightening flashes but everyone had a good time. I'll load images tomorrow or Saturday. Even Aundrey was in a good mood but he did not try the hand bikes. I am glad we went.

D-Cool VS D.Guche

I’m still reading Pattern Recognition . I know this has been forever, but I only rad the book, it seems , when I am on the train. The protagonist has this ability of predicting, “cool” by pattern recognition: ergo the books title. A number of years ago , not long after I came to Salt Lake, I tried to produce a radio show called Disability Cool a title I had ripped off from the old Disability Rag an column written by Mary Johnson. I found producing a volunteer radio show is a lot of work and hence the show never went very far: I never completed a single show. However, I sill, terribly believe in the concept of D-Cool and I do believe the coolness is there

I also believe there is a quality I refer to as Disability Gauche. D. Gauche is a quality I see when people with a disability are so caught up with themselves that everything seems to be about them. Case in point: I sit on a local board which awards funding to people with disabilities for assistive technology. I sit on the boar with an attorney who is also in a wheelchair. He is a para(paraplegic) and is so full of himself it’s nauseating. I have to admit the guy IS a high roller( excuse the pun). I think he really means to do good as well but he just rubs everyone the wrong way. I am sensitive to the notion that I might have a giant case of the

Jealousies. There are other example usually one form of super Crip or another.

It looks however, I am being given yet again another chance to develop this notion of Disability Cool. I got to talking with the boss this morning after I got in to work, it was just she and time, very early, talking about our visions. As we spoke I interjected my vision of Disability Cool and how I thought there should be some sort of a show case to highlight these folks or the concept o D-Cool.

So maybe the giant e\wheel of revolution has come round again and the technology of the age is right to put all these pieces together. With the ubiquity of the INTERNET and the ability to produce pod casts we are going to try our luck at popdcasts an I want to explore a number of podcast round the topic of D-Cool. What D-cool is, who has it and maybe who does not have it in the PWD community.

I am not D-Cool. I don’t pretend to be, I never have been nor do I think I will every be D-Cool. Example, this morning I was sitting in front of the train as I usually do. I confess I WAS trying to be cool. As I was perched o nop of the mini-high block waiting for the train, I was trying to place the “August” sticker on my transit pass—a pretty stupid thing for any quad to do-Just as the train came into the station my hand spasmed and I dropped the sticker and my pass. I searched all round and could not see it on the ground so the items had to be on my person somewhere. As soon as I accessed the train I rolled to the person sitting in the first seat…and asked her search me till she found these items and she did. If I was cool, disability cool, I would have looked vexed and just swallowed the price of my pass, $26.50 and got on with my life but 26.50 is 26.50.