Living in Northern Exposure

My friend in Delaware, who has seen 4 feet of snow in the past week or so, tells me that her dog now has to jump to go out to do his business. It's making him cranky.

I told her that things are a bit tense up here too. I spent the week dealing with power outages and a falling tree. In between the flickering lights and the decreasing temperatures in the house, I heard a cracking sound and a large thud.

When I looked outside, I saw that a pine tree had fallen over onto the porch. It was blocking the ramp, although, realistically speaking, I wasn't going anywhere in the blizzard.

There was a comical scene the next morning after the snow stopped. I stuck my head outside, my wheelchair caught in the branches of the pine tree. I could move - maybe a foot. The porch was covered with snow drifts.

My neighbor looked over, leaning on her shovel, and asked "Is everything alright?"

I think maybe that could win a caption contest.

All of this snow is doing something to everyone. The Winter Olympics isn't helping. That's just looking at more snow, even if it's shipped in.

I remembered this episode of Northern Exposure. It shows what happens when people get cooped up too long in the snow. They do things that are - funny. And that's good.

Because there's more snow on the way.

Things Heard From A Wheelchair & Assumptions About Disability

Dave writes a beautiful post about how loving parents challenge their son's assumption that a person in a wheelchair must be sad. Dave is not sad.

A friend, tells me she overheard a young boy ask his mom what "was wrong with her" and his mother said "She was in an accident". My friend has been disabled from birth.

"We are giving these people too much money if they can afford Starbucks," a woman said as my friend, who is a wheelchair user, went through the line. My friend works as a physician.

There is only one way to be blind, some people think in Iowa, interfering with a blind woman's right to mobility with her guide dog because they think a cane is the 'correct way' for blind people to get around.

Transcripts are the same as closed captioning for HOH and Deaf people, the government believes over at change.gov Transcripts are worthless. A speech, an address, a video appeal to the American People is not meant to be an article or the written word. They are different formats. A transcript is devoid of a good 45% of meaning for Deaf people. We rely as heavily on facial expressions and the pacing of words as most people rely on tone of voice. We read a person’s face as we read the closed captioning, alternating between lipreading and text. Between your words and your expressions.

A cool leaf blower

It's that season- leaves are rapidly falling off of trees.

As I went through fallen leaves on the sidewalk the other day, my power chair crunched and munched through them. Leaves flew from the side when I hit one spot.

A young boy passing by said "You've got a cool leaf blower!" and turned to his mother and said "We should get one of those."

Yeah, that's what curbcuts are for....

The college students are back and as I go around town, I see evidence of more ped-texters than ever. You know, the Walking While Texting issue. It was so bad on one street in London that they padded the street lights to protect the texters from injuring themselves, as seen in this video, where texters are shown bouncing off of cushioned poles, never removing their eyes from their gadgets.



I came up behind one of these texters last week. She was standing sideways, but didn't see me, so I said "Excuse me". Sometimes when I say that I then see the small white ipod earbuds and know it's to no avail to speak - I have to turn my wheelchair so they see a flash of color. Unfortunately, this student was texting and had earbuds in.

She was virtually unaware of her surroundings- so I thought well at least she's standing still. Suddenly she began to walk and headed toward the street. I followed behind, moving slowly in my power chair. Her eyes were still on her phone, the earbuds in, and she was oblivious to the fact that she was approaching a busy street. She tripped down a high curb, ran into a bicyclist, bounced off someone's suitcase and tripped up the curb on the opposite side of the street.

I caught up to her. She looked at me sheepishly and said "I guess I should use the curbcuts. Would be safer."

Things Heard From A Wheelchair

Two female Ivy League students stand near me by a traffic light, waiting to cross. Student A looks toward me and says to Student B "We should never underestimate people in wheelchairs. After all, wasn't there a president who was in a wheelchair? What was his name? Teddy Roosevelt?"

Student B says "No, that was Franklin Roosevelt. You know, the one who was married to Eleanor Roosevelt. Teddy was his cousin or something."

"Oh."

"I know he thought very highly of Franklin Roosevelt. Even though he was in a wheelchair."

"Yeah and Teddy rode a horse."