I finally decided to begin a series of taste tests to find which brand of a particular type of food my guys liked best. A couple of years ago I started with a blind test of beef jerky, served at our Superbowl party. The results were remarkable. I bought one bag of every brand of regular beef jerky that I could find at our store. There were seven or eight brands.
Each brand's strips were cut into bite sizes. The brands were served on separate plates. The plates underneath to identify which brand was which.
The results were amazing! Hands down, everyone chose the same brand of beef jerky as their favorite, except for one person. It was a brand that I never even realized they made beef jerky, until I bought the bags for the taste test. And the brand was... Slim Jim. Slim Jim beat out all the ones I thought would be the favorite, including all the heavily advertised brands.
Needless to say, I am changing brands of beef jerky to Slim Jim.
Today I tested two brands of Pork and Beans, Campbell's and Van Camps. I wanted to see which brand was best, before I bought several months worth of supplies. This test was only on my two guys. Campbell's won over Van Camps by a wide margin on the "like" scale.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
"No Mail For You" Mail Nazi
Our mail carrier left a notice that she would no longer deliver our mail, because of an obstruction. The "obstruction" was a light-weight sliding door panel we placed at the bottom of our wheelchair ramp during construction to prevent the dogs from escaping. My husband and son are both severely physically disabled, wheelchair bound, and completely dependent. The dogs would take advantage of them and slip past. The construction was needed to make the house more accessible and was finished in Oct 2013. So, why wasn't the sliding door completely removed? (Usually it leans against the ramp railing in an open position.)
First, we ran out of funds to complete everything we needed in the remodel, which included a "special" gate for the mail carrier. And secondly, until this past month, I was the sole care giver for both my husband and son, which meant on call/working 24/7. I only got sleep in two hour increments. I was exhausted and didn't have time to train the dogs. Recently we got a part-time care giver, so I can get some sleep. I have been training the dogs and telling all visitors not to shut the slider. On the 27th of June, a visitor who hadn't been at our home in quite a long time, slid the panel shut. There has been no obstruction since then. I got a notice that the mail carrier would no longer deliver, as of July 9th, 2015.
Sure enough, on July 9th, she walked past our house, with no attempt to deliver, even though there was no obstruction. I need to add that I have health issues, which sometimes makes it very difficult to retrieve the mail from the box, even though it is next to the door.
I called the post office to explain our situation. We can't afford to pay someone to move the box and, if it was moved, would find it very difficult to retrieve mail. They asked if there was a driver in the house. Yes, me, but running errands is difficult, because I can't leave my guys alone and I, myself,have mobility problems. When our part-time caregiver comes, I need to sleep, which gives me four straight hours of sleep. The postal person on the phone asked if the care giver could go to the post office. The care giver's job isn't going to the post office, it's care giving for two people. It is the mail carrier's job to deliver the mail.
Does our mail carrier really believe that a small inconvenience on a few occasions is so great that she can not deliver our mail? Doubtful, unless she is pathologically self-centered and lazy, which I also think is doubtful. So, what is the real reason she doesn't want to deliver our mail?
I can only guess. The post office sent out a survey to assess their service. At that time, we had more wrongly delivered mail here than in any of the other places we lived. The problem was well known in the neighborhood, as it was a fairly regular occurrence. Perhaps our mail carrier received fallout from the survey. The other possible reason is that our house is on a relatively steep hill. Our mail carrier would cut across our yard, instead of staying on the sidewalk, to mitigate the steepness and shorten her route. We never minded, even though we know she is suppose to stay on the sidewalk. We understood. After the construction, the yard is uneven, un-repaired, and more difficult to navigate. (As I said, we ran out of funds.) Perhaps the mail carrier became irritated that her shortcut hadn't been fixed. She now had to either navigate the rocky and uneven yard or climb the steep sidewalk and then slide something a child easily moves. Perhaps the mail carrier has other issues. Everyone has their own struggles... you never know.
So, here we are: a veteran career fighter pilot, wheelchair bound and completely disabled; our son, wheelchair bound and completely disabled; and myself, caregiver 24/7 until a month ago, now 18/5 and 24/2, with significant health and mobility problems myself. We have a carrier who won't deliver the mail, because she is inconvenienced on (now rare) occasion by an easily slid barrier. We don't need people feeling sorry or pity for us. We just don't need people deliberately making life more difficult than it already is.
In Apple Valley, our mail carrier cared about her customers. If we hadn't picked up our from our mail box in two days, she would knock on our door. If that failed, she would peek in windows, just to insure we were okay. She saved a neighbor man's life by finding him, after he had fallen on his garage floor and lay helpless for two days. In contrast, our current carrier leaves notes that we need a bigger mailbox, if the mail hasn't been picked up. It never seems to cross her mind that we might be ill or worse. Perhaps one day she will learn from the example set by good, caring individuals.
Update: I had been protesting for more than a week, calling and pleading for them to send a supervisor to look at the situation. There was no obstacle. Finally, our care giver loaded my wheelchair bound son up and took him to the post office. They explained the situation to the post office. Our mail, which mainly consisted of medical and insurance related issues was critical. Even some of our medicine is delivered by mail. Delivery began again. The mail Nazi lost this round.
First, we ran out of funds to complete everything we needed in the remodel, which included a "special" gate for the mail carrier. And secondly, until this past month, I was the sole care giver for both my husband and son, which meant on call/working 24/7. I only got sleep in two hour increments. I was exhausted and didn't have time to train the dogs. Recently we got a part-time care giver, so I can get some sleep. I have been training the dogs and telling all visitors not to shut the slider. On the 27th of June, a visitor who hadn't been at our home in quite a long time, slid the panel shut. There has been no obstruction since then. I got a notice that the mail carrier would no longer deliver, as of July 9th, 2015.
Sure enough, on July 9th, she walked past our house, with no attempt to deliver, even though there was no obstruction. I need to add that I have health issues, which sometimes makes it very difficult to retrieve the mail from the box, even though it is next to the door.
I called the post office to explain our situation. We can't afford to pay someone to move the box and, if it was moved, would find it very difficult to retrieve mail. They asked if there was a driver in the house. Yes, me, but running errands is difficult, because I can't leave my guys alone and I, myself,have mobility problems. When our part-time caregiver comes, I need to sleep, which gives me four straight hours of sleep. The postal person on the phone asked if the care giver could go to the post office. The care giver's job isn't going to the post office, it's care giving for two people. It is the mail carrier's job to deliver the mail.
Does our mail carrier really believe that a small inconvenience on a few occasions is so great that she can not deliver our mail? Doubtful, unless she is pathologically self-centered and lazy, which I also think is doubtful. So, what is the real reason she doesn't want to deliver our mail?
I can only guess. The post office sent out a survey to assess their service. At that time, we had more wrongly delivered mail here than in any of the other places we lived. The problem was well known in the neighborhood, as it was a fairly regular occurrence. Perhaps our mail carrier received fallout from the survey. The other possible reason is that our house is on a relatively steep hill. Our mail carrier would cut across our yard, instead of staying on the sidewalk, to mitigate the steepness and shorten her route. We never minded, even though we know she is suppose to stay on the sidewalk. We understood. After the construction, the yard is uneven, un-repaired, and more difficult to navigate. (As I said, we ran out of funds.) Perhaps the mail carrier became irritated that her shortcut hadn't been fixed. She now had to either navigate the rocky and uneven yard or climb the steep sidewalk and then slide something a child easily moves. Perhaps the mail carrier has other issues. Everyone has their own struggles... you never know.
So, here we are: a veteran career fighter pilot, wheelchair bound and completely disabled; our son, wheelchair bound and completely disabled; and myself, caregiver 24/7 until a month ago, now 18/5 and 24/2, with significant health and mobility problems myself. We have a carrier who won't deliver the mail, because she is inconvenienced on (now rare) occasion by an easily slid barrier. We don't need people feeling sorry or pity for us. We just don't need people deliberately making life more difficult than it already is.
In Apple Valley, our mail carrier cared about her customers. If we hadn't picked up our from our mail box in two days, she would knock on our door. If that failed, she would peek in windows, just to insure we were okay. She saved a neighbor man's life by finding him, after he had fallen on his garage floor and lay helpless for two days. In contrast, our current carrier leaves notes that we need a bigger mailbox, if the mail hasn't been picked up. It never seems to cross her mind that we might be ill or worse. Perhaps one day she will learn from the example set by good, caring individuals.
Update: I had been protesting for more than a week, calling and pleading for them to send a supervisor to look at the situation. There was no obstacle. Finally, our care giver loaded my wheelchair bound son up and took him to the post office. They explained the situation to the post office. Our mail, which mainly consisted of medical and insurance related issues was critical. Even some of our medicine is delivered by mail. Delivery began again. The mail Nazi lost this round.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Unhook the Wagon
Unhook the Wagon
Late one night, Terry stopped outside the door to my sewing/computer/guest room. He was not allowed to enter this particular room, because he can't help but damage things within his path. Previously he disobeyed my demand that he not cross the threshold and knocked the door off the lower hinge. On this particular evening, he waited in the hall, leaning his head into my domain.
"Can you help me?" he asked quietly, as though there was any question to my response.
"Yes, what do you need?"
"I need you to..." he started, with the rest of the sentence undeciperable.
"What?"
"I need you to..." he said again, with, once again, the remainder of the sentence trailing off into softness and blur.
"What do you need?"
"I need you to..." he repeated, with the same incomprehensible ending.
With that, I got up from my desk chair, crossed the room, and bent down to hear his request.
"I need you to..." he said again.
"Sweetheart, take a breath and break up your sentence. I can't understand you." Standardly, if he didn't follow the speech therapist's instructions to take two deep breaths, break his sentence into three or four word groups, and over-enunciate his words, his speech quickly trailed into soft babble.
He took two breaths. "I need you," he said, paused, and took a breath, "to unhook the wagon."
"The wagon? What wagon?"
"The wagon behind my chair."
I leaned over to inspect the back of his chair to see if some small thing was being dragged along. I couldn't fathom what wagon he could be talking about. A toy? We didn't have children. Where would he get a wagon I wondered.
"Honey, what wagon?" I asked.
Very quietly and tentatively he said, "I think there's a wagon hooked onto the back of my chair."
With that, I smiled and chuckled. I said softly, "Dear, I think you were sleeping. There's no wagon behind your chair."
"Oh...," he paused, "I thought there was." He gazed down at the floor, with a look of confusion and slight embarassment, as he tried to sort through the conflicting information. I could see he was trying to meld this new information, that there was no wagon, with his thoughts moments earlier.
"I think you must have been dreaming." I gave him a few seconds to ponder the possibility. "What were you watching on tv?"
He sat for a moment. "Oh, yeah," he said and gave a little laugh. He had been watching a show about Alaska. The people had been using a wagon. He realized he had incorporated that incident into his dream. When he awoke, he assumed he had a wagon, which he couldn't see from his vantage point, attached to the back of his electric wheelchair.
It was too funny! We both laughed. Over the next couple of days, we both made reference to the incident if he needed or couldn't find something... maybe it was in the wagon.
Late one night, Terry stopped outside the door to my sewing/computer/guest room. He was not allowed to enter this particular room, because he can't help but damage things within his path. Previously he disobeyed my demand that he not cross the threshold and knocked the door off the lower hinge. On this particular evening, he waited in the hall, leaning his head into my domain.
"Can you help me?" he asked quietly, as though there was any question to my response.
"Yes, what do you need?"
"I need you to..." he started, with the rest of the sentence undeciperable.
"What?"
"I need you to..." he said again, with, once again, the remainder of the sentence trailing off into softness and blur.
"What do you need?"
"I need you to..." he repeated, with the same incomprehensible ending.
With that, I got up from my desk chair, crossed the room, and bent down to hear his request.
"I need you to..." he said again.
"Sweetheart, take a breath and break up your sentence. I can't understand you." Standardly, if he didn't follow the speech therapist's instructions to take two deep breaths, break his sentence into three or four word groups, and over-enunciate his words, his speech quickly trailed into soft babble.
He took two breaths. "I need you," he said, paused, and took a breath, "to unhook the wagon."
"The wagon? What wagon?"
"The wagon behind my chair."
"Honey, what wagon?" I asked.
Very quietly and tentatively he said, "I think there's a wagon hooked onto the back of my chair."
With that, I smiled and chuckled. I said softly, "Dear, I think you were sleeping. There's no wagon behind your chair."
"Oh...," he paused, "I thought there was." He gazed down at the floor, with a look of confusion and slight embarassment, as he tried to sort through the conflicting information. I could see he was trying to meld this new information, that there was no wagon, with his thoughts moments earlier.
"I think you must have been dreaming." I gave him a few seconds to ponder the possibility. "What were you watching on tv?"
He sat for a moment. "Oh, yeah," he said and gave a little laugh. He had been watching a show about Alaska. The people had been using a wagon. He realized he had incorporated that incident into his dream. When he awoke, he assumed he had a wagon, which he couldn't see from his vantage point, attached to the back of his electric wheelchair.
It was too funny! We both laughed. Over the next couple of days, we both made reference to the incident if he needed or couldn't find something... maybe it was in the wagon.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Move the Snow Plows
Spring 2015
At 4 a.m. Terry woke me.
Desperately sleepy and hoping his problem would be quick and easy, I asked, "What do you need?"
He said, "I need you to...", with the remainder of the sentence unintelligible.
"What? I didn't catch that."
He repeated his "need" several times, before I was able to catch his words.
"I need you to do something about all these snowplows!"
"Snowplows?"
"Yes! I need you to move the snowplows."
"What snowplows?" I asked.
"The snowplows! The snowplows!"
"Honey, we live in San Diego."
His face reflected both confusion and frustration. "I know that!" Normally Terry's voice is nearly at a whisper. But, now, he was putting some real effort behind what he was saying, nearly shouting. "You have to do something about the snowplows."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Move them! Move them!"
"Sweetie, I think you're asleep or just waking up."
He looked at me for a few seconds, as though trying to comprehend what I just said, but went right back to his determinated goal. "We have to do something about the snowplows. It's going to be very expensive."
"Okay. How many snowplows are there?"
This question seemed to calm him, as he thought about the number. "A dozen or so," he eventually said. "There's a lot of them."
"Where are they?"
"They're parked outside."
"Where?"
"On the street. They have to be moved or they'll be towed."
"Are they broken down?"
"No."
"Then why would they be towed?"
"Because they don't have a permit."
"A permit?"
"Yes, they don't have a permit. It will be very expensive, if they all get towed."
This is where I made a mistake. I said, "Sweetie, there are no snowplows, because we live in San Diego."
Terry erupted. "I know we live in San Diego. Get the hell out of here!"
What I should have done was simply said, "Yes, Dear, I will move the snowplows," and left the room for a few minutes.
The next morning, while smiling, I gently asked Terry what he was thinking in the early morning. He said he thought there were a bunch of snowplows that needed to be moved. We figured out that he had been watching television shows about Alaska. That's where the equipment came into his mind. Then, we live in a college area, where every vehicle must have a permit and must be moved every three days or be towed. That's where his urgency to move the snowplows originated.
I asked Terry why he was so upset. He said he was frustrated that nobody would help him move the snowplows. Apparently, in his mind, he had tried to get other people to help and they either wouldn't or couldn't. He thought I could drive a snowplow.
At least he recognized my skill set. ;)
At 4 a.m. Terry woke me.
Desperately sleepy and hoping his problem would be quick and easy, I asked, "What do you need?"
He said, "I need you to...", with the remainder of the sentence unintelligible.
"What? I didn't catch that."
He repeated his "need" several times, before I was able to catch his words.
"I need you to do something about all these snowplows!"
"Snowplows?"
"Yes! I need you to move the snowplows."
"What snowplows?" I asked.
"The snowplows! The snowplows!"
"Honey, we live in San Diego."
His face reflected both confusion and frustration. "I know that!" Normally Terry's voice is nearly at a whisper. But, now, he was putting some real effort behind what he was saying, nearly shouting. "You have to do something about the snowplows."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Move them! Move them!"
"Sweetie, I think you're asleep or just waking up."
He looked at me for a few seconds, as though trying to comprehend what I just said, but went right back to his determinated goal. "We have to do something about the snowplows. It's going to be very expensive."
"Okay. How many snowplows are there?"
This question seemed to calm him, as he thought about the number. "A dozen or so," he eventually said. "There's a lot of them."
"Where are they?"
"They're parked outside."
"Where?"
"On the street. They have to be moved or they'll be towed."
"Are they broken down?"
"No."
"Then why would they be towed?"
"Because they don't have a permit."
"A permit?"
"Yes, they don't have a permit. It will be very expensive, if they all get towed."
This is where I made a mistake. I said, "Sweetie, there are no snowplows, because we live in San Diego."
Terry erupted. "I know we live in San Diego. Get the hell out of here!"
What I should have done was simply said, "Yes, Dear, I will move the snowplows," and left the room for a few minutes.
The next morning, while smiling, I gently asked Terry what he was thinking in the early morning. He said he thought there were a bunch of snowplows that needed to be moved. We figured out that he had been watching television shows about Alaska. That's where the equipment came into his mind. Then, we live in a college area, where every vehicle must have a permit and must be moved every three days or be towed. That's where his urgency to move the snowplows originated.
I asked Terry why he was so upset. He said he was frustrated that nobody would help him move the snowplows. Apparently, in his mind, he had tried to get other people to help and they either wouldn't or couldn't. He thought I could drive a snowplow.
At least he recognized my skill set. ;)
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