He heard me over on the glide rocker, and…

GREENIES TIME!

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*(Dorothy Lynch salad dressing is made on Grand Island, Nebraska. It may be ordered online, though most likely by people who tasted it in the initial distribution area, mostly locally. It is sweet, spicey, tomato-based, and probably very similar to Russian salad dressing.)

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I emphasize, too, that I DO make sure I have secure anchors (solid objects or object with two solid anchors…) before I make a move. I think it through, pause, consider other possibilities that might give me better anchorage.

Sometimes that entails moving to a different spot the next time I’m moving onto a spot, if the anchorage or angle moving over feels more secure.

I’ve revisited every place I go to this level of thought. SAFETY FIRST!

I’m not just sitting there. If I’m in the wheelchair, the first step is to lock the brakes! You don’t want try to get in or out of a wheelchair with unlocked brakes. Believe it.

Typically, while I’m pondering anchorage, I tell meyself: “slow and steady” over and over (…the mantra of wheelchairists unless they like landing on their butts!); the attack angle for minimum air time, physical effort, or awkwardness moving from one seated place to the place you want to be seated; how would I get up in the location if I failed to transfer safely and fell; how, if I fell, would I get help if I couldn’t get up; if I fell, would I have room to get on my hands and knees, crawl over to a solid object (chair, for example) on which I could use my upper body strength to drag myself onto my feet; do I have access to my LifeAlert call items in case all else fails (probably not).

Sometimes I’ll just sit in my wheelchair, rethink whether going and doing things that passed through my head is worth the effort, decide not, and sit for several minutes to decide what to have for my next meal. 

That’s fun! By the time I eat, I have changed my mind so often, I don’t have an answer, making a what I fix interesting because it isn’t what I thought I’ d have!

I rarely make food by recipe, so every familiar meal can have variations previous meals of the same thing did not. The elbow macaroni had currywurst ketchup in the meat sauce, for example, and onion, green pepper, and chopped tomato I sautéed and added to the sauce. The potato salad got a does of Doeothy Lynch dressing because I like a slightly sweeter, spicier potato salad. I ground coarse black pepper on it all and a bit more salt on the macaroni. I don’t add much salt to food, if at all , but this time, the sauce seemed flat, needing a bit more than the pasta absorbed from the salted water I boiled it in.

Tomorrow, the last day I can tolerate more of this pasta, I’ll either add something else to it – sour cream? cream cheese? – or bag it for the freezer.

I know this has been too much on the topic of feeding myself and use of the wheelchair, but there was concern that I wasn’t ready to live alone, that I needed someone to come in to prepare meals or vacuum and clean.

My Mom taught Red Cross swimming for 60 years. My siblings and I knew that that was her priority for daytime, that we could prepare meals for ourselves from whatever looked good on the shelves or in the refrigerator. I like to eat, so I’d try different things, for example, mix Jello flavors to see what (brown) Jello tastes like. You had to be careful which color Jellos you mixed! Ha! (Answer, good, especially if I mixed shredd carrots, celery pieces, even chopped onion in it. It’s a Midwestern sort of thing, I think.

I have a couple boxes of Jello in my cupboard I probably bought so long ago but never fixed. I wonder if they ate edible! Dialysis patients have to watch water intake, though. Jello is water heavy. Grapes are, too.

I tend to sip water with bites of food because of a slight paralysis on the right side of my mouth. My shingles legacy. It helps wash food down. You probably were told not to do this. A physical therapist in Denver told me I could choke on food if I didn’t break the rule!

I rarely finish a full can, bottle, or cup of a drink, so am glad bottlers offer those 7.5 ounce little cans. Twenty ounces!! Too much, and the fizz diminishes the linger they are in the refrigerator. I order small cups of pop at fast food places, and “small” sometimes is 20 or more ounces! Gad! Large is outrageous.

Anyway, for wheelchairists, walker users, and cane people, public places and restaurants tend to be a pain. The handicap parking is far away from the entranc3 or close with a steep curb to negotiate. You get inside, and waitress is fluttered about where to put you because your mobility device is “big”. (Sweetie, it can fit in a booth with you, but she hides you in some undesireable spot, pissed you weren’t happy to be isolated from everyone else. Mi Ranchito and Ken and Dale’s, folks. I stopped going to both.) Also, mobility devices do fold, making it possible to bring them into the both with you or secure them in some small place.

If they deliver, perhaps an infrequent restaurant meal is a small indulgence worth considering. IF THEY HAVE HELP THAT WELCOMES ALL CUSTOMERS. I note that while I abhor paying tips because proprietors underpay their help, the help are charged taxes by federal and state revenue services in the USA because of the assumption they get a certain amount in tips. To help that out, no matter how I feel about stupid tips, I never go below 25% or above 35%. Could it be that’s why I expect EXCEPTIONALLY BRILLIANT, FRIENDLY Service? Damn right!!