I just discovered it.
Rut-roh.
This could be exceptionally bad for my productivity levels.
Double rut-roh.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Us versus the ballet
Well, that was interesting.
We went to the ballet yesterday; it started at 2 pm. As always, we were running a bit late. Its a long way to downtown Raleigh, I always misjudge how long it takes to get there and how long it takes to get all of us in the van. I forgot ten things and had to keep running back in the house to get or do things - the tickets, shut the bedroom door, fill up the dog's water, get gloves, get a pillow for Offspring (the temporary ramps are temporarily (hee hee) tied down under his seat and cut into his legs without padding there), get Offspring from his dad's. Also, neither Wheeler nor I had eaten at all yet - we woke up at noon and I had to hustle to get him vertical and presentable in his chair. Thankfully I had showered him the night before or there would have been no way I could have gotten him up even remotely on time.
We didn't have time to stop for anything to eat because a) we were running late; b) Wheeler can't feed himself on fast food on the way there since he has that minor problem called paralysis and c) Wheeler eats soooooooooooo slowly that at times I've been convinced he'll turn to stone if he chews any more slowly. So we decided to get snacky stuff at the ballet, they usually have a few things, cheese and stuff.
By the time we got there at 1:45, I decided to drop Wheeler off by the front door since the parking lots generally don't have enough space to bring the ramp down, and being that late they were probably full, so I figured it would save time to drop him off first. I stopped the van in the unloading zone, turned on the flashers, unhooked his chair from the van floor, let the ramp out and he tried to roll out. Tried is the operative word here.
He was stuck on something, his chair just wouldn't come out. Offspring looked and saw his wheels were all bungled up on the extra strap that my dad made for use on long trips to extra anchor down his chair. We had just came back from a trip to the true boondocks of southern VA and the roads to get there were unbelievably tiny, winding and scary in a big tall van, so we used that strap. However, I didn't take the extra strap out after we got back on Friday, so it was still there on Sunday. Offspring tried valiantly to untangle it but couldn't. So I hopped in and tried to do it. No luck. It was truly and completely stuck. Luckily, my dad long ago put a razor blade in the van console (deeply hidden and covered) for occasions such as this. I ended up cutting him out of the strap. So ten minutes after pulling up, he was finally on his way in. I found a spot nearby, booked it (in heels mind you) and we all went in.
All in total, we got in there just a hair before 2 pm. Phew!
At the bar area, I grabbed a couple of cookies, a soda and some chex mix type stuff, then found out you can't take it inside. So I stuffed it under Wheeler's poncho and figured no one would strip search a quad at the ballet for contraband chex mix. We then searched for our section, and was told it was upstairs.
Ruuuuh? (here, imagine me squinting my eyes, tilting my head and looking between confused and skeptical)
I pointed at Wheeler in his ginormous wheelchair and the guy said - those seats are not accessible. I was uber annoyed because when I bought the series, I spent a long, long time on the phone with the sales person to ensure we had accessible seats, and on the end, so we had room for his chair and Service Dog. And me. And a kid. The sales guy assured me we had those seats, and he even called me back to confirm after we got them. I never checked against the actual seating chart though; I believed him. Note to self: always check.
So I asked what we should do. He tells us to go ask at the box office. OK fine. Stood in a long line, with the bell dinging to signify the ballet was about to start. Lady at box office says sorry, no accessible seats are available.
Ruuuuh? (here, imagine me squinting my eyes, tilting my head and looking between confused and skeptical)
I found it hard to believe that there were no, none, nada, zip, zero wheelchair seats free - unless of course a bunch of people WHO DON'T NEED ACCESSIBLE SEATS were sitting in them. <-- my major pet peeve when accessible seats are limited. I wanted to go in and see if anyone would switch with us, which most people have no problem with when they get a look at Wheeler, but the ballet had now just started so that was out as an option. Went back to the house manager guy, who incidentally was a para, although that's really neither here nor there, other than I expected himn to have a bit more sympathy for our situation as a result. We asked what to do now. He was very annoyed at us (grrrr) and told us we'd have to sit in the "house seats". He said to go to the very front, in front of the very first row, go up the first aisle to the back of the first section and sit there.
We snuck down to the front. The orchestra was playing and the flying leaping tight panted naked appearing guys were prancing around already. Great. I took Offspring by the hand, ducked our heads, walked right to the very center of the auditorium and headed up the middle aisle. Conspiciously. Wheeler had it worse. He is VERY conspicious no matter what, but particularly so in this situation. He can't duck, his chair makes noise (not much, but some), it was almost too wide for the aisle so he brushed against coats and legs, and his computer is lit up so he can see what mode he is in at all times. Normally it doesn't look like a beacon for ships in the night, but here it did. Oh yeah, and Dog was trailing behind him.
As we got to the top of the aisle, I turned left and walked alllll the way down to the house seats at the far end. That is when I discovered there was another aisle that led directly to those seats that was on the far side of the auditorium, which would have negated the need to waltz down the center aisle, then go across half the way again. Remember when I said my eyes don't adjust quickly to the dark? That's why I didn't see that aisle. Wheeler saw it, but he was following me and figured I knew what I was doing. I didn't.
Fine. We get to our seats - there are two regular seats free and one empty space where a wheelchair can fit. He turned around and backed into the space. But, he misjudged how far he could go back because the wall behind us had a lip on the top the stuck out and he got completely wedged under the lip, somewhere between the headgear and the top of his backrest. His chair lurched heavily and he was desperately trying to tell me of his conundrum. Quietly. I kept telling him to stop backing up, that he was too far already, but I couldn't tell that he was telling me he was stuck. He tried to manuveur a bit and then all hell broke loose.
You see, there are 'attendant controls' on the back of his chair. They are physical buttons that someone not in the chair can use to manually control the chair, everything other than drive. The attendant controls can raise and lower the seat, lean the backrest up and down, and best of all, raise the chair to a standing position and back down.
So guess which button got pushed.
Yes, his chair started to STAND UP. Oh my god. All the while I'm telling him to STOP and he is trying to tell me he's STUCK, and his chair is making very loud clicking NOISES as it cycles its way upwards. And the wood is being gouged and making noises behind him because he is wedged. I finally, belatedly realized what was going on and turned his chair off manually. That at least stopped the chair from trying to stand him up. But now he's half up, half down, wedged completely stuck, there are people behind us, and the ballet is ongoing. In the dark. And my friggin' eyes have still not adjusted so I can barely see.
At this point, I crawled onto the floor, under his chair and disengaged his chair, which allows me to move it manually. Meaning I have to pull it by brute force, all 500 pounds of it (the chair is unbelievably heavy as there is a 250 pound counter weight in the back for (get this) when he stands up (oh, the irony), plus its heavy beyond that plus Wheeler).
On the floor, under his chair, I pulled with all of my might.
Still stuck.
Pulled some mo'.
Stuck.
Pulled again .... chair rushes at me, I fall backwards onto my ass on the floor.
Meanwhile, ballet still is ongoing. Offspring is sitting quietly on his chair staring at us with idle curiousity. Nothing is weird in our family, this was quite par for the course for him to observe a disaster such as this. Of course, I feel like every eye in a 50 yard radius is on us. Service Dog is thankfully very obedient and was just sitting a few feet away, unleashed, as I had to unleash him to pull his chair. That was just about the only thing going right at that point.
I turned the chair back on, Wheeler goes backwards again (as I'd pulled him out quite a ways) - creeeeaak! Stuck again. I turn it off, I pulled it again - on the floor of course - and finally got it to heave ho out and I pushed it back to the right spot myself. At this point, I just sat on my butt on the floor and recovered for a moment. Got up, sat in my chair, and took a deep breath.
"WIFE!" says Wheeler in a loud stage whisper since I couldn't hear him over the music and my chair was much lower than his seat, making it even harder to hear him. "My blood sugar is through the floor, I'm light headed, I need some food!". I fish out the food from under his poncho, and while I'm at it, surreptiously take his poncho off, which after all of that was practically unnoticeable as I'm good at taking that off in stealth mode. But to get to the food, I have to open the plastic take out type box. I tried and tried and tried to do it silently. Finally 'pop'! it opened. Heads turn again. And we're not supposed to even have food in there. I feed it to him slowly. He muches werry werry quietly - remember that crunch crunch business in the movie theatre? Yeah, that's what it was like, I could hear him crunching - I can only imagine what it must have sounded like in his head. Finished feeding him.
Suddenly Offspring appears beside me, standing behind Wheeler's chair. I'm hungry mom! I fish out the cookie, unwrap it from saran wrap, which was easier to open silently. He eats it quietly. Wheeler notices that Offspring can't really see the ballet too well as Offspring has been standing up throughout, so he asks if the doomahickies-thingies down the stairs in the hallway are booster seats. Yes, they are. OK, so I crouch down, walk out, go get one, put it in Offspring's seat, place him on it and sit back down.
By this point, I have spent at least 25% of the performance standing up, sitting down, feeding people, undressing Wheeler, pulling chairs, fetching booster seats, and surely annoyoing people around us. Once I finally sat down, I was mentally calculating what part of my ticket I had used in monetary terms and the reduction in enjoyment we'd caused for those around us. During the intermission, I walked around to everyone around us and profusely apologized. The really lovely part of the day came when everyone I spoke to assured us that it was not a problem, and that they were glad we were finally able to get into our seats to enjoy the ballet as well. People were so kind, it made our experience go from a total frickin' disaster to a rather funny total frickin' disaster that I'm posting on my blog.
But I shoulda known it was gonna be a disaster when I had to cut him out of the van with a razor blade. Just sayin'.
We went to the ballet yesterday; it started at 2 pm. As always, we were running a bit late. Its a long way to downtown Raleigh, I always misjudge how long it takes to get there and how long it takes to get all of us in the van. I forgot ten things and had to keep running back in the house to get or do things - the tickets, shut the bedroom door, fill up the dog's water, get gloves, get a pillow for Offspring (the temporary ramps are temporarily (hee hee) tied down under his seat and cut into his legs without padding there), get Offspring from his dad's. Also, neither Wheeler nor I had eaten at all yet - we woke up at noon and I had to hustle to get him vertical and presentable in his chair. Thankfully I had showered him the night before or there would have been no way I could have gotten him up even remotely on time.
We didn't have time to stop for anything to eat because a) we were running late; b) Wheeler can't feed himself on fast food on the way there since he has that minor problem called paralysis and c) Wheeler eats soooooooooooo slowly that at times I've been convinced he'll turn to stone if he chews any more slowly. So we decided to get snacky stuff at the ballet, they usually have a few things, cheese and stuff.
By the time we got there at 1:45, I decided to drop Wheeler off by the front door since the parking lots generally don't have enough space to bring the ramp down, and being that late they were probably full, so I figured it would save time to drop him off first. I stopped the van in the unloading zone, turned on the flashers, unhooked his chair from the van floor, let the ramp out and he tried to roll out. Tried is the operative word here.
He was stuck on something, his chair just wouldn't come out. Offspring looked and saw his wheels were all bungled up on the extra strap that my dad made for use on long trips to extra anchor down his chair. We had just came back from a trip to the true boondocks of southern VA and the roads to get there were unbelievably tiny, winding and scary in a big tall van, so we used that strap. However, I didn't take the extra strap out after we got back on Friday, so it was still there on Sunday. Offspring tried valiantly to untangle it but couldn't. So I hopped in and tried to do it. No luck. It was truly and completely stuck. Luckily, my dad long ago put a razor blade in the van console (deeply hidden and covered) for occasions such as this. I ended up cutting him out of the strap. So ten minutes after pulling up, he was finally on his way in. I found a spot nearby, booked it (in heels mind you) and we all went in.
All in total, we got in there just a hair before 2 pm. Phew!
At the bar area, I grabbed a couple of cookies, a soda and some chex mix type stuff, then found out you can't take it inside. So I stuffed it under Wheeler's poncho and figured no one would strip search a quad at the ballet for contraband chex mix. We then searched for our section, and was told it was upstairs.
Ruuuuh? (here, imagine me squinting my eyes, tilting my head and looking between confused and skeptical)
I pointed at Wheeler in his ginormous wheelchair and the guy said - those seats are not accessible. I was uber annoyed because when I bought the series, I spent a long, long time on the phone with the sales person to ensure we had accessible seats, and on the end, so we had room for his chair and Service Dog. And me. And a kid. The sales guy assured me we had those seats, and he even called me back to confirm after we got them. I never checked against the actual seating chart though; I believed him. Note to self: always check.
So I asked what we should do. He tells us to go ask at the box office. OK fine. Stood in a long line, with the bell dinging to signify the ballet was about to start. Lady at box office says sorry, no accessible seats are available.
Ruuuuh? (here, imagine me squinting my eyes, tilting my head and looking between confused and skeptical)
I found it hard to believe that there were no, none, nada, zip, zero wheelchair seats free - unless of course a bunch of people WHO DON'T NEED ACCESSIBLE SEATS were sitting in them. <-- my major pet peeve when accessible seats are limited. I wanted to go in and see if anyone would switch with us, which most people have no problem with when they get a look at Wheeler, but the ballet had now just started so that was out as an option. Went back to the house manager guy, who incidentally was a para, although that's really neither here nor there, other than I expected himn to have a bit more sympathy for our situation as a result. We asked what to do now. He was very annoyed at us (grrrr) and told us we'd have to sit in the "house seats". He said to go to the very front, in front of the very first row, go up the first aisle to the back of the first section and sit there.
We snuck down to the front. The orchestra was playing and the flying leaping tight panted naked appearing guys were prancing around already. Great. I took Offspring by the hand, ducked our heads, walked right to the very center of the auditorium and headed up the middle aisle. Conspiciously. Wheeler had it worse. He is VERY conspicious no matter what, but particularly so in this situation. He can't duck, his chair makes noise (not much, but some), it was almost too wide for the aisle so he brushed against coats and legs, and his computer is lit up so he can see what mode he is in at all times. Normally it doesn't look like a beacon for ships in the night, but here it did. Oh yeah, and Dog was trailing behind him.
As we got to the top of the aisle, I turned left and walked alllll the way down to the house seats at the far end. That is when I discovered there was another aisle that led directly to those seats that was on the far side of the auditorium, which would have negated the need to waltz down the center aisle, then go across half the way again. Remember when I said my eyes don't adjust quickly to the dark? That's why I didn't see that aisle. Wheeler saw it, but he was following me and figured I knew what I was doing. I didn't.
Fine. We get to our seats - there are two regular seats free and one empty space where a wheelchair can fit. He turned around and backed into the space. But, he misjudged how far he could go back because the wall behind us had a lip on the top the stuck out and he got completely wedged under the lip, somewhere between the headgear and the top of his backrest. His chair lurched heavily and he was desperately trying to tell me of his conundrum. Quietly. I kept telling him to stop backing up, that he was too far already, but I couldn't tell that he was telling me he was stuck. He tried to manuveur a bit and then all hell broke loose.
You see, there are 'attendant controls' on the back of his chair. They are physical buttons that someone not in the chair can use to manually control the chair, everything other than drive. The attendant controls can raise and lower the seat, lean the backrest up and down, and best of all, raise the chair to a standing position and back down.
So guess which button got pushed.
Yes, his chair started to STAND UP. Oh my god. All the while I'm telling him to STOP and he is trying to tell me he's STUCK, and his chair is making very loud clicking NOISES as it cycles its way upwards. And the wood is being gouged and making noises behind him because he is wedged. I finally, belatedly realized what was going on and turned his chair off manually. That at least stopped the chair from trying to stand him up. But now he's half up, half down, wedged completely stuck, there are people behind us, and the ballet is ongoing. In the dark. And my friggin' eyes have still not adjusted so I can barely see.
At this point, I crawled onto the floor, under his chair and disengaged his chair, which allows me to move it manually. Meaning I have to pull it by brute force, all 500 pounds of it (the chair is unbelievably heavy as there is a 250 pound counter weight in the back for (get this) when he stands up (oh, the irony), plus its heavy beyond that plus Wheeler).
On the floor, under his chair, I pulled with all of my might.
Still stuck.
Pulled some mo'.
Stuck.
Pulled again .... chair rushes at me, I fall backwards onto my ass on the floor.
Meanwhile, ballet still is ongoing. Offspring is sitting quietly on his chair staring at us with idle curiousity. Nothing is weird in our family, this was quite par for the course for him to observe a disaster such as this. Of course, I feel like every eye in a 50 yard radius is on us. Service Dog is thankfully very obedient and was just sitting a few feet away, unleashed, as I had to unleash him to pull his chair. That was just about the only thing going right at that point.
I turned the chair back on, Wheeler goes backwards again (as I'd pulled him out quite a ways) - creeeeaak! Stuck again. I turn it off, I pulled it again - on the floor of course - and finally got it to heave ho out and I pushed it back to the right spot myself. At this point, I just sat on my butt on the floor and recovered for a moment. Got up, sat in my chair, and took a deep breath.
"WIFE!" says Wheeler in a loud stage whisper since I couldn't hear him over the music and my chair was much lower than his seat, making it even harder to hear him. "My blood sugar is through the floor, I'm light headed, I need some food!". I fish out the food from under his poncho, and while I'm at it, surreptiously take his poncho off, which after all of that was practically unnoticeable as I'm good at taking that off in stealth mode. But to get to the food, I have to open the plastic take out type box. I tried and tried and tried to do it silently. Finally 'pop'! it opened. Heads turn again. And we're not supposed to even have food in there. I feed it to him slowly. He muches werry werry quietly - remember that crunch crunch business in the movie theatre? Yeah, that's what it was like, I could hear him crunching - I can only imagine what it must have sounded like in his head. Finished feeding him.
Suddenly Offspring appears beside me, standing behind Wheeler's chair. I'm hungry mom! I fish out the cookie, unwrap it from saran wrap, which was easier to open silently. He eats it quietly. Wheeler notices that Offspring can't really see the ballet too well as Offspring has been standing up throughout, so he asks if the doomahickies-thingies down the stairs in the hallway are booster seats. Yes, they are. OK, so I crouch down, walk out, go get one, put it in Offspring's seat, place him on it and sit back down.
By this point, I have spent at least 25% of the performance standing up, sitting down, feeding people, undressing Wheeler, pulling chairs, fetching booster seats, and surely annoyoing people around us. Once I finally sat down, I was mentally calculating what part of my ticket I had used in monetary terms and the reduction in enjoyment we'd caused for those around us. During the intermission, I walked around to everyone around us and profusely apologized. The really lovely part of the day came when everyone I spoke to assured us that it was not a problem, and that they were glad we were finally able to get into our seats to enjoy the ballet as well. People were so kind, it made our experience go from a total frickin' disaster to a rather funny total frickin' disaster that I'm posting on my blog.
But I shoulda known it was gonna be a disaster when I had to cut him out of the van with a razor blade. Just sayin'.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Fishin'
Offspring has been after me to go fishing for quite awhile now. Being too cheap to buy a rod & reel (as I know he would lose interest after 1-2 trips), I signed up for a local park's free tackle gear program. Two months later, they finally mailed me my card so off we went to go fishing on Saturday.
We bought nightcrawlers, 12 for $3.50 and the teenage clerk said "you know you have to put them on the hook, right?". Uh yes, what do you take me for? A GIRL? With that, duly went down to the dock to catch our dinner.
We pulled the worms out and they were absolutely enormous.
Offspring promptly chickened out of putting them on the hook because they were so, well, alive. Muttering "circle of life, circle of life" to myself, I stabbed the hook through him. He bled. As in red blood! Ok, so maybe I am a girl. That kinda squeamed me out. Being my first time, I just stuck the hook through the worm in one place, threw it in .... oh wait, back up. Once it was hooked on, I stared at the reel trying to figure out what to do next. There was a button and a reel. Figured that I should push the button to get it to cast out. Tried that, didn't work. Tried throwing it really hard, nothing. Eventually I had to give up and ask a guy down the dock how to cast. He looked at me as if I were from the planet Mars, but he showed us how to use the reel. After which I cast it with our worm dangling down in the water.
Reeled it back in shortly after and the worm was gone .... but no fish. Hrumph. Repeated this several times, never catching a fish but feeling all the tugs when the fish ate the (dangling down) worm but not the hook. In the meantime, we also had to change out our rod and reel 2 times because it didn't work. Eventually I gave up and the guy down the dock fixed it for us, the something or other inside, a bell maybe? wasn't tightened properly or some such thing. After he fixed it, it worked just fine. Except we didn't catch any fish. Then I figured out that I should probably hook up the worm several times so that a fish would have to eat the hook to eat the worm. Viola - I then caught a fish! I'm a genuis. My fish:
Shortly after, Offspring caught a fish too and he was so tickled. His fish:
As it was his first fish ever (actually, mine too), he named it "First Caught". I had suggested we call it Dinner, but he demurred. I threw mine back, which irritated him to no end but he kept his and we brought it home in the worm box. I let him keep it in the box for a few hours, after which I threw it in the trash. However, he made me take pictures of it from every angle before I did. He was so sad that I was throwing it out, I swear, it made me almost tear up - he was so sad. (circle of life, circle of life, ....). I must be losing it - crying over a dead 3 inch fish?!?! Kids do that to ya.
We bought nightcrawlers, 12 for $3.50 and the teenage clerk said "you know you have to put them on the hook, right?". Uh yes, what do you take me for? A GIRL? With that, duly went down to the dock to catch our dinner.
We pulled the worms out and they were absolutely enormous.
Offspring promptly chickened out of putting them on the hook because they were so, well, alive. Muttering "circle of life, circle of life" to myself, I stabbed the hook through him. He bled. As in red blood! Ok, so maybe I am a girl. That kinda squeamed me out. Being my first time, I just stuck the hook through the worm in one place, threw it in .... oh wait, back up. Once it was hooked on, I stared at the reel trying to figure out what to do next. There was a button and a reel. Figured that I should push the button to get it to cast out. Tried that, didn't work. Tried throwing it really hard, nothing. Eventually I had to give up and ask a guy down the dock how to cast. He looked at me as if I were from the planet Mars, but he showed us how to use the reel. After which I cast it with our worm dangling down in the water.
Reeled it back in shortly after and the worm was gone .... but no fish. Hrumph. Repeated this several times, never catching a fish but feeling all the tugs when the fish ate the (dangling down) worm but not the hook. In the meantime, we also had to change out our rod and reel 2 times because it didn't work. Eventually I gave up and the guy down the dock fixed it for us, the something or other inside, a bell maybe? wasn't tightened properly or some such thing. After he fixed it, it worked just fine. Except we didn't catch any fish. Then I figured out that I should probably hook up the worm several times so that a fish would have to eat the hook to eat the worm. Viola - I then caught a fish! I'm a genuis. My fish:
Shortly after, Offspring caught a fish too and he was so tickled. His fish:
As it was his first fish ever (actually, mine too), he named it "First Caught". I had suggested we call it Dinner, but he demurred. I threw mine back, which irritated him to no end but he kept his and we brought it home in the worm box. I let him keep it in the box for a few hours, after which I threw it in the trash. However, he made me take pictures of it from every angle before I did. He was so sad that I was throwing it out, I swear, it made me almost tear up - he was so sad. (circle of life, circle of life, ....). I must be losing it - crying over a dead 3 inch fish?!?! Kids do that to ya.
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