Silent Like 1914

The phones have mysteriously fallen silent here at 211 this cold, and snowy Christmas eve—I am one of the few operators working this, cold gray afternoon. The was an unseasonably warm wind blowing as I left the house for work this morning—a storm was blowing in. I left the house a couple of later than usual since I had to stop at Alpine Medical to get the control box on my chair checked out before I went on into work. My chair mysteriously stopped working on me last Friday in the bathroom and this morning was the earliest I could get in to have the chair checked out.


My power chair checked out fine—which just means the tech could find anything glaringly wrong with the device. Dianne is gone all this week visiting Brooks—I am home alone and I wanted to be sure I am not stranded anywhere in my chair. My chair is aging and I understand systems with I systems will fail and that is what is happening all I can do is strive to be proactive and limit the amount of issues to as few as possible. I am sensing the control is going and that is pricey easily 1000.00 plus I just have to accept this and I am still a good two years before I will be eligible for another power chair. We have already started planning hope we might find the resources for my next chair. Last Friday when I went to pick up my latte I miss judged and spilt the liquid all over my control unit—the joy stick I use to drive my chair—easily the most affordable part of my chair and to make matters worse earlier in the week I had to pick pad cover—a rubberized sheet which protect buttons I use to operate functions of my chair. The tech told me I was luck cause if any of the coffee had indeed found its way into my joy stick control then my whole unit would be toast—so I may have dodge a bullet there. So now I am rolling on a time bomb. I don’t know when or where but somewhere at times my joystick controller is going to fail and I will be stranded I just hope when the that moment occurs it will be on a working day and I will have access to my cell.

I am alone this holiday—my family has gone to visit Brooks in Washington—Mark A is round as well as brother and cousins an one ancient aunt—whom I love dearly- I love them all dearly but some times it is just easier to just be alone. So there is snow falling right now as I type and I know the ride home will be long and cold—I thought bout making a turkey breast for dinner tomorrow but I don’t know now. The more I think about the effort I just might pass—maybe some red boxes and some wine or even a spot of Christmas gin and wait for visits from Christmas Past.