Shopping

It takes 2 of us to give Jasper his medicine twice a day – one to hold him, one to do the syringe into his mouth (and his pill too in the evening). So, for the next week, I have to get up the same time as Jim. I usually go to bed at the same time, but get up an hour later – since it takes me a while to fall asleep, I compensate by sleeping extra in the morning. This coming week I might try to go to bed earlier, but then when Jim goes to bed I’ll wake up, so it’s almost self- defeating. I think what’s going to happen is that for the next week, I’m going to get 1 – 1 ½ hours less sleep a night than I want, going to bed and getting up at the same time as Jim. I wish I could fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow like he can!

The good news is that my new electric blanket arrived today, so at least I’ll be warm as I try to fall asleep.

What’s been troubling me today, and no doubt will be the source of my brain chatter tonight (as it was last night while I couldn’t sleep) is that bank check problem. I’m still not convinced it was fraud. I have people’s names and phone numbers that match legitimate businesses and info on their websites. This morning I found that Jim has some new lost funds being held by the CA Treasury under his misspelled name and from that same old employer! So, either that’s how the scammers got our info, or his employer had his name misspelled for some fund, which is why things got lost in the first place. Tomorrow morning I am going to get someone from the banks on the check to help resolve this once and for all.

Cats are doing well. Jasper must have been in a lot of pain. I’m sure his jaw still hurts, but it must be better in comparison to before. He came back for 3rds at dinnertime today, so at least he’s eating again. Fforde hasn’t forgiven us yet for taking him to the vet. He won’t let me pet him, though he has jumped on my lap. The minute my hands come out he shoots away, needless to say I don’t have his collar on him yet. And he’s even worse with Jim, won’t get within 3 feet of Jim!

No word yet when my chair will arrive. I may find out next week an estimated ETA.

I have been enjoying reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson, and if I could I’d just read it all the way through! But there’s no hurry. I love to read, and I think it’s a form of therapy for me too. If I don’t get an hour a day of reading, or sometimes watching a DVD, to escape into some fantasy world, then I get cranky. Other people need their exercise. I suspect my son, Stephen, gets cranky when he goes a few days without riding his bike. Jim needs time to himself to play games on his computer, especially an online chess game. Both of these are more healthy than my reading I’m sure. Stephen gets a very good physical workout, Jim get’s a good mental one. Me? I’m just relaxing and escaping.

I occasionally read in bed, like this past week with no electric blanket it helped to warm up the bed and elevate my legs to get the blood flowing for an hour before attempting to sleep. It’s not as comfortable to do as it used to be though. My neck will hurt after a while, and I have to use full reading glasses and not my bifocals. I’m very protective of my neck now so that the vertigo problems don’t come back.

I had PT today, and we suspect that my new pillow is not quite as good as I thought – just a tad too high. My neck was tight on the right, probably from the pillow pushing my head up a little too much. But overall she thought I was doing well, so I don’t have to go back for 3 weeks. Yay! I like her a lot, but would rather spend my time in other ways.

A project I’ve been spending a lot of time on is getting some photos framed. Jim and I looked through all the photos of all our trips in the past few years (which took a couple of evenings) and picked out about 30 of our favorite photos to enlarge. We’ve been to Canada (Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver), France (Paris and the Loire Valley), Italy (Milan, Venice, Tuscany and Florence, Bellagio), Switzerland (our honeymoon - ahhh, Lugano, Zurich, Interlachen, Lucerne), a couple of US trips (northern CA, Oregon) and 4 cruises (Alaska, Panama Canal/ Mexico/ Central America and Antarctica) and I almost forgot – Argentina twice. So, it was a lot of photos, and hard to get it down to 30! I had 8 x 10s made of all of them, and some came out really nice. One of Hawaii (I forgot to add Hawaii) taken from a helicopter of lava going into the ocean is very cool, and I want to make it poster size. One more I’ll do again in 11 x 14. But most are perfect as 8 x 10s. So the past few days in between appointments, since I’ve been in the right neighborhood, I’ve been frame shopping. It’s nice to spiff up the house.

This kind of shopping brings to mind one topic I thought worth mentioning, related to my disability - Carrying stuff to the car for you. I’ve noticed that in the past few years the supermarkets all ask everyone, no matter who they are, if they need help out to the car. I’m sure this is to avoid any suggestion of profiling. Probably someone someplace was offended that they were asked specifically because of their appearance, or else someone who needed help found it hard to get because they don’t look disabled. I think it’s a good policy, and harms no one, to ask everyone, so I applaud the change. If I’m only getting 2 bags worth I say no, otherwise I usually take the help. At home I have to carry the bags into the house one at a time, but I’m not in a hurry. Most times if it’s a large grocery run Jim goes too.

At Aaron Bros today I bought a pile of frames, and they were very willing to help carry them out, no problem. In fact, I rarely have a problem, except for one store – my neighborhood Target store. I don’t know what it is, because it seems like there are employees everywhere in that store. I get to checkout with a cart of stuff, and I’m ok pushing a cart inside on smooth floors. But there’s never anyone around who will push the cart out to the parking lot . Grocery stores have baggers. In other stores, like Aaron Bros or even shops at larger malls, the checker themselves just gets up and takes stuff out. But at Target, the checker isn’t allowed to do this. They push the call light and get on their phone to the loudspeaker that customer assistance is needed for carry out, and then they get on with the next person in line. And I sit and wait, and wait. Often it takes 2 or 3 requests over the loud speaker. One time the wait was 15 minutes. In fact usually the person who eventually helps me is a supervisor who is taking pity on me sitting there so long, and most often they say they are happy they get to go outside for a few minutes, being generally very gracious about it all. The next time I go into Target though, my plan is to start with saying hi to the manager and telling them that I’m buying large items (toilet paper, laundry detergent and paper towels) and will need help out, and then say that if someone doesn’t come when signaled within 3 minutes then I’ll just return the whole pile. What is reasonable – 3 minutes? If you sit at a traffic light, one you think is really slow and taking forever, and then you time it – you’ll find it’s less than 3 minutes. In fact I did some minimal online research and most people can’t stand more than 2 minutes. There was one site for bikers, whose bikes aren’t heavy enough to trigger light changes, asking how long it’s reasonable to sit there before going through.

I don’t have a problem asking for help, at least for simple things like carrying packages and holding doors. I will carry everything if I can, and only ask when I’m buying more than that, so I’m not abusing the service. And I don’t buy so much that I have to rely on neighbors at home. Either I carry it all in, slowly, or wait for Jim to be home. I once had trouble with asking for help though. I think it’s a stage you go through for a while right after injury, as you are learning your limitations. You get this “damned if I’m going to change my whole life just because of this stupid wheelchair” kind of attitude. And though it seems ridiculous to put yourself through that, in retrospect, that attitude is probably needed. It’s how you learn your limitations, through failure – when you drop that grocery bag in the parking lot and break a bottle of olive oil or wine or a dozen eggs (I’ve done all three).