I Really Am Lucky :-)

I am fortunate all things considered to live in a neighborhood that has many great services all of which can be accessed readily by me in my power wheelchair. That means I can take off on Saturday morning and get to State Street and catch a bus in a direction as long as I am patient. Sure, Saturday service, all weekend service is a bit slower than weekday service. The times between buses can be as much as an hour. I can wait the hour if I know when that hour is going to over. Especially if the time to wait is it an area where I can be busy doing something productive even if only reading. A number of months ago during the summer I downloaded the local bus companies app for cell phone and this greatly made a difference.Now I just enter the point where my bus originates from in the point where I want to be picked up and the app will show when the next two buses will be at that bus stop. I am anticipating this app will be greatly beneficial during the cold months of winter. I could stay in places like Starbucks, 711 or even wait around the house take off when I know the buses will be at my bus stop. I would just have to make sure I build in enough time to cross the intersection.

As I indicated we have a 7-Eleven convenience store, our credit union, to ShopKo a number of fast food joints i.e. KFC, Arby's and some Asian fast food. Granted, we had really be lucky if there was a movie theater, real movie theater and real food market. We have a very small health-food type of market that sells homegrown produce but it's just not the same it's catch as catch can and their prices are superhigh. But the fact that in our neighborhood the 711 convenience store and the McDonald's has a Red Box. At the 7-Eleven the red box is on the outside of the store making it terribly difficult if a person is in a wheelchair to be able to use the red box independently whereas at the McDonald's, across the street the red boxes inside very convenient to use. McDonald's is currently undergoing some sort of modification and even though the restaurant remains open they are not accessible at all right literally there's no way for a wheelchair person to get into McDonald's by themselves and from what I can see from the outside they no longer have a red box. Recently I have been forcing myself to use the red box at the 7-Eleven. So yesterday I rented a couple films, I actually ordered them online which is great when it works. Yesterday the reserve movie system did not work. When I went to pick up the movies I ignored her red box not read by credit card. I came back called red box central they agreed that there was a problem with that red box in the credits for two movies later that afternoon Dianne and I were out shopping and I got the movies I was more than surprised this morning when I returned the DVDs to the 7-Eleven and machine still would not accept any directions – – Dianne drove me to another McDonald's not far south of our house.

It's not perfect, my neighborhood, but it almost is. I love zooming back and forth from my house to State Street usually a couple times a day. I think all the neighbors watch out for me especially when they drive since I'm often in the road in my power chair. It looks as if I will have pristine weather for the week. I really am lucky.