Girl

The quadriplegic man, newly made the head of Advocacy for the local Center for Independent Living, tells me he will have the girl who took the notes at the last meeting e-mail them to me. 

I've called him five times trying to get information on the recently formed action group, that another of his colleagues had suggested I attend.

I had to ask for minutes of the meeting as he seemed unable to say what they discussed or were working on, other than assuring that curb cuts would be shoveled on Market Street, come winter. 

The girl? i repeat with a question in my voice, is she a teenager interning there? I ask. 

No, he says, i've known her for years.
Then I don't think she's a girl!, i say and sigh, 
and he repeats that he's known her for a long time as if this is either excuse or explanation. 

Embarrassed, he repeats everything he's just told me,
twice,but faster, brighter as if to erase the bad vibe he has left. 

Nevermind his postion, Advocacy, or that his organization just had a week-long retreat where everyone was trained in some sort of sensitivity or client outreach. 
Or, heaven forfend, that his own unique challenges might make him acutely aware of such diminutions. 

No, he was still a male and the female, who could both take notes and transmit the information 
was a "girl". 

Worse Than EVER

BUT, the great undoer.


I had to be lifted over a 2.5 inch step to enter my house.
My ramps at the front and back were both too steep for me to try alone.
I had been told that it only appeared that way in the pictures.
They both were too step in that NEITHER met ADA standards.

And inside, I could not get off my shower char... the slope downward in the shower
just enough for me to be unable to managage alone.

So back in my accessible home, I have new inaccessibilities and now
require help where I had not had and did not need any for two years....


It's been MONTHS of calls, cajolings, administrivia and the
salt in the wound of woundedness occurred today.


I called to double check on my transport for the doctor's tomorrow,
even though they told me to call the morning of, I hate to leave things until the last moment.

I chatted about the time... the doctor's appointment is for 11:15
and would the van be here at 10:30 later, sooner?

The doctor's office is over the bridge, across from the Museum,
5 minutes away.

They put me on hold then a woman came on and told me
that a mistake had been made, they don't do Dial a Ride in
Corning.

Now this is after a dozen phone calls to find them, call again to get the forms,
send in the forms, ascertain whether the forms where received, check on the progress
of the status of being certified, assuring that I was certified. making the reservation....

I started this process before even making the doctor's appointment and
the doctor's appoint was made the first week in March for May 2.

I had been annoyed that it was 8 dollars each way, regardless of distance,
now there are no door to door options for me.

The idiot apologized but i was apoplectic.

How how how how and then knowing she made this error why couldn't she
just provide me my ride to the doctor?


She could do a route deviation which will cost me $3--- my
barrier is that I still can't get in and out my house alone!!!!!

They are coming tomorrow to bolt down the warping boards but will not
extend the too steep front and won't fix the still hard to get off back ramp.

Anyway a million phone calls later, my aide has switched her time
and will be here to help me on the bus and I pray I'll be able to figure out a way to get back in the
house.
I'm very depressed and tired of arguing, calling and this kind of crass moronic incompetence
and cruelty.

Letters I Won't Send 3/3

I suddenly realized that i should post these here on my blog. The miscreants I write about won't read them, so why not?

This is the latest one:
dear bible study group,

i won't return. i should have left as soon as i realized that it was organized by the same self centered biddy who brought a baby to our thursday matinee and remained, right in front of me, who could not run away, with the screaming, restless, nosy armling throughout the whole movie.

And i should not have stayed after i was left to struggle in the door unassisted --- aid only being offered as i struggled to replace the chair i had to move to get in the door

and i should have left when i suggested the door be left open for bit, in case anyone else was looking for the meeting as neighbors in the other half of the community room were partying and not in the mood to direct anyone next door.

Because no, they did not tell me the meeting was on the other side of the divider and why make finding it hard?

And i won't come back, because no one asked my name nor told me their's
only aksing if i had a bible with me and if I had a piece of paper. And yes, I came with all of that.

And i won't come back because I was not asked what i migh know or want to know

And i won't come back because we actually read next to nothing, instead only glanced at verses while the old man spoke from another place and time

And i won't come back because i dropped my bible as i packed up and in so doing lost my tiny knitting needle.

and no one called me back for it, nor picked it up and so yes it was there the next day, a white arrow on the dark floor, pointing toward the door.
__________________

Saving Money I Don't Have

I'm just beginning to feel a bit better. Am reproing TONS of receipts to get my rent reduced.
I got a doctors letter, handed in list and receipts and it wasn't enough proof....
So now i've spent another day and a half, scouring and gathering and reproing....
After working on this about a month in winter.

I was about to throw my hands up on this--- she said my first pass had only yeilded $1930(!!!)
So I've got an immediate $600 with the outrageous cost of the lifeline service and another $600 with home health aides....
(sigh) it's some weird formula of more than 3% of income.

The only upside to this is perhaps being able to use this information on taxes as a deduction ( the tax lady will let me know, but now i have all the categories and receipts organized
_________________________________________________________

I went to VESID vocational and educational services for individuals with disabilities last Thursday,
I got there waaay too early-- i didn't realize it was about 6 blocks away. anyway there as a woman who kept entering my space. After the session, conducted by a woman painful to look at... rivulets of fat broke and pillowed every limb. She kept tugging on her green shirt to pull it down. Her stomach / pubis bulged as if she were naked because of all these lines of fat and yet... as overstuffed as her skin was with fat, she was not a "big" person,,,,, she just sat in front of us and spoke for about an hour.....

Anyway I had moved away from a woman twice.I fled to the building lobby to fill out the forms and await the bus. she came down to lobby and over to where i was sitting and dumped her bag in the chair nearest me and dug around for keys.

Then she said Hi my name is _____.
And i said have a good afternoon
and she said aren't you going to tell me your name.
So I stopped what i was doing, and looked up at her, looked at her for the first time in her face
and said NO
and then turned back to my form filling

and she stuttered o0ooo-kay.
What the?

I told my neighbor this story and how i realized this woman kept trying to crowd me - in the waiting room and then later in the orientation room and my neighbor told me I should watch out (semi joking) and that this VESID served a lot of the AA and exdruggie folks.

They offer a lot--- training, hand holding, house fixing, driver training... told a story about helping a guy learn to make neon signs, paying for license fees....ooo.. what can i think of to get a license doing?
I would love to learn to weld --- arc/ TiG welding, but am not sure it's something i could do sitting
So my thought today was to ask VESID to help me train as a psychotherapist.... and i could specialize in poetry therapy.....
maybe gerontological psychology if there is such a thing?

Helping Not Helping

It's taking me two days to eat the pomegranate I retreived from the trash mash of failed vegetables. It was among the dark bruised avocadoes. I found a mango, too. A small triumph of retrieval and I had hopes for the firmness i felt among the soft alligator pears.

The bread this week disappointed. This excess spread over three six-foot tables, loaf upon sorry loaf of stuff I never ate and would not now eat.

Not eating what i never ate has served me well, so I starved genteely in the nursing home after feasting at the hospital where they made gourmet vegetarian options.

Each week some intrepid citizens get or others bring-- I've seen a large black man haul in the bread--- an array of discards.
One morning this included fruit tarts, cheesecakes, cakes as welll as the standard breads. And these not day old, but day of.... a marvel that often includes the multigrain artisanal loaves, my favorite being mutligrain with currants and sourdough pecan raisin.

Ahhh it would be nice to be able to get food from the supermarket. I have a lead again on someone to hire. And yes neighbors have offered, but one was unable to find raw almonds and it required five minutes of discussion to tell her what I meant and where to find them and still she returned with a tiny bag of slivered almonds for baking. I won't bother relate other failures to get single items, because I am grateful that should my need be dire I can make a request.... but old habits die hard and I so miss being resourced and rescourcefull

Anyway scrounging among the trash sometime yileds somthing and the avocadoes were mostly a waste but five spoonfuls from them was wonderful. And in addition to the alien and delicious pomegranate was a mango.

This saves me at least a meal of two extending the time between chinese food orders. And with a Christmas invitation to a mea, it has been a week and half since my last order. So when the Chinese food man came he questioned me a bit more closely as is to discern why I was three days late on my weekly call. We chatted about the two new years and he played with Obi who let him manipulate his body into silly anthropomorhic poses.

But I'm skipping the earlier part of the day. The crochet part has now spun off to a crochet blog. My tall nieghbor was talking to a short man who she kept insisting had a communication problem. His English was fluent and articulate so I didn't know what she meant. His hearing loss left him unable to hear the higher frequencies-- mainly women's voices. This makesme laugh. He is humorous and warm.

Turns out surgery has left him disabled and out of work and his hearing loss and lack of both money and equipment compunds the problem. All these troubles and challenges since coming from Cuba. Anyway I am moved to try to assist--- seems he's fixed several computers for folks but does not have one that works and has no internet connection to boot. I call the Center for Disability Rights--- why:? given thei utter lack of doing a single useful thing for me-- I don't know. Maybe because I believe his probelm is solvable. but no. They won't help me help him. He needs to call. I could have spit I would have or kicked or punched, because I see see seee the obverse of what happens to me.
their smug insistence in not helping and the way they find to not do anything. I'm trying to help the man get the MEANS
to help hinself. An Amplified telephone a TTY. Have him call theyy say make an appointment.

I remember frantically seeking a way to get connected and help to get connected to the net. And I remember frantically searching for the apartment and calling and calling and these organizations set up to help who? did nothing for me except make ecxcuses. And these are the same folks I called to find help shopping, to find help getting an automatic door put on a building that is HUD and asupposed to be wheelchair accessible and the hlep was never forthcoming, only the wasted time.

But I had to ask. and I did, for him. The Center for Indepent Living, as for me in the past, was ever so much more pleasant and kind. They suggested he stop by. I wrote down the information and left him a note under his door.

He was out conducting his own physical therapy, walking with a walker in need of repair. I hope I can hlep myself and then maybe find a way to help Mr. J.

New Star For Friends

I woke grateful to awake, grateful to still feel grateful for the moment of peace. And had an insight into the star, an idea for another approach, because a member of FFCrochet (the freeform group) had a problem with with the adjustable ring. So
before I arose, I made two lareger stars using another method, felted them and then while on Liftline, pencil and finger shaped their hangers.

Here they are:


Felted Star Ornament 2

Ch 4 , 9 dc in 4th ch from hook,join, ch1: 10 dc
2sc, sc, around, join, ch1:15 sc
sc,dc,trc,picot:(ch2, sc), trc, dc,sc, skip two sc, repeat: 5 points
sl st to first sc, fasten off.
Using contrasting yarn, pull through center hole sl st, ch1, sl st:
You could just sl st, but adding a ch1between sl st seemed to improve the pattern

(3.5” prefelted using Grand Patons merino wool)

It was sheer pleasure to lunch with my former colleagues and what treats: dim sum of bean cake, vegetable bun, scallion pancakes, unagi sushi( my favorite and boy was it buttery sublime with my mash of wasabi and soy swirled together in the lovely porcelain demibowl. And the sublime dipping sauce. The only sour note was the horrible tasting water, but i was too busy blabbing to remember to ask for tea or something bottled.... and too soon it was time for me to go. In my nervousness I thought that 90 minutes was plenty of time... I should have made it longer, but i did not wnat to sitting there alone waiting. part of it was that everyone arrived late... oh well, rain and the weird liftline bus driver who required 4 parking spaces to pick me up because she deemed two not enough and that would be paralell parking, despite that inanity, i was grateful to get out and actually have a conversation about something other than someone's loss, or mindless chitchat.... OTOH, there was a handsome young man driver who treated me so gently and shared his concern about getting to apply his schoolwork to the work world and I told him about myself and my father--- did we ever get to apply what we learned?

Nope not to work, but to ourselves, to our friends and loved ones, in service to our community only a lucky few get to do what they are trained to do--- truly... I was reviled when I tried to apply any of my newly minted MBA skills at the ad agency in the 70s... maybe they are smarter now, but I told him that work was hell but he seemed old enough to know the truth and he was to get his degree anyway and perhaps design a way for us to be free... howw I knew my faher's job was far far less than his intellect ranged until the end of his career when he traveled around the country advising on computerization and mechanization

Thank you dears for calling me out to play.... makes me remember the girls who cme to get me when I first moved to queens and would have just stayed inside and read, Lord bless them for coming to get me, in that way that kids know there is a kid in need, not the mean kid paradigm, but the other where somehow, the group of souls connect and bond and Leslie Walker, Sharon Brown, and Cynthia Atkinson came and got me and rescued me and helped me grow. Thank you dear ones.

Like meeting Marilyn Beverly as a prefreshman at Williams College that was some magic i grokked her we were both music majors she a violinist-- that was my first instrument and I was a cellist , basoonist and singer and here we were two young black women going offf to this formerly all male cold hostile New England Berkshire barren psycholgical gulag,leaving the Emerald City behind--- what were we thinking? We should've gone off to the Sorbonne or Oxford-- we would've been treated better and come back with exotic connections and had a hell of a lot more fun. oh well....and going to discos in Manhattan wearing those six inch platforms I bought on 8th street and loved so much-- trying to walk with them up that steep Harlem hill on/by Edgecombe Avenue.

My my my . Rescue me rescue me.... Andrea rescued me this year and all praises as did Karen and Jim and Jacqui
and all those who worked on the benefit for me thank you dears and all those poets who sent money that kept me from starving and living in the street. Thank you thank you thank you. Connie and Louise cutting my lawn o! thank you thank you I've never neede so much help ever before... how is my catalpa that i palnted? My new maple? my emotional rescue. my material rescue. Keep those cards and letters coming folks. Keep me in your prayers I want to rise up and walk again and make my way.

I no longer ask to be without pain, I would take the pain to walk again, because it hurts anyway, everyday. Be clear, i say, what do i need? To walk again and then I can get all I need, myself. sigh.

Designing, Discovering

Felting did not yield quite what I wanted…
For some flowers the densification was a muddying

For the bud and sepals, a caressable object that suggests an organism was formed.



I’ve tormented myself searching for a solution to my flower scarf. I wanted it to be flowers and leaves. Then I thought of oversizing the leaves, then the ever challenging for me question of color.





Especially now when I do not have my stash, my “fiber office” as my second niece, when a baby, so aptly named the room that was the library and yes was filled with books, but whose closet and diaper station turned into yarn shelves, and floor spoke of fiber use.

I see my table top loom there on the floor by the fronT facing window. O lord let me walk again..please!

Back to today’s narrative which is about design and my limitations. I feel it like a craving like a hunger that can’t be sated until it is enumerated, articulated, clearly defined, spelled out.

My next flower pattern set was to be Akua’s Fabulous Furled and Fluffy Flowers which I so thouigth that the wool felting would improve but no… To be fulfilled in felt the design owould have to be amended as the furled petals hardened and were wayward and the fluffy petal, so dependent on stitch construction for their loft, deflated.

I saw two commercial flowers that I dug.


http://www.cardsandcraft.co.uk/embellishments/405-big-crochet-flowers.html/1418.jpg



http://www.meimeicrafts.com/images/flowers



One took more work than my nature-mimic multilayer rose and it is flat, but the spoke rays of it are energetic and while my color pallet is more winter than n summer, the stretch and size of it gave me some new thoughts about the flower scarf.









Then I found this flower and loved loved loved the spiral and was reminded that a simple embelishment of the crochet hook and yarn itself could be used to enhance the flower.
At Gourmet Crochet













This Bolivian scarf showed an oversized direction but it's not integrated....
http://thestripeysheep.co.uk/index.php?itemID=161&jump=navbar#navbar
http://www.rosylittlethings.com/scallop.html-- $68 ?!
http://www.imaybeknittingaranchhouse.com/archives/2006/10/a_free_scarf_mo.html
between this and this

I knew there was an easier way:
http://heidisknittingroom.com/BoleroCrochetMotifs.htm

this suggests joining as you go:

(http://www.oaktrees.org/blog/?page_id=119)

and that's just what I've developed for this very greengold or browngreen--everything else made it look heavy. and the makeflowers sew two together was too much sewing and I did not to be another mere.near doily flower maker. I remember thinking about interlocking rings, so that's what I've designed: interlocking flowers, one open and the sme motif with a densified center, making it slightly larger.... I wonder if I want a their flower, but it's so wonderful that as I complete a flower, it's complete!