Adapt

Adapt

Being one handed, the most important thing I can recommend in order to survive is, learn to adapt.

It’s the day’s I go to the city and I do some hunter/gathering, that I push myself a little more and while it exhausts me, I notice how my physical body adapts.

My standard trips to the city meant a lot more steps and carrying. If I can’t carry it, I can’t buy it. So, I’ve gotten creative.

Yesterday, I bought two novels and a box of envelopes. Not heavy, just cumbersome and sharp corners. These day’s I travel with one of those fold up grandma bags. (Not a slur) but you can carry it around until you need it. It weighs nothing, takes up no space, but once it’s got two novels and inside it, I usually ask someone to help me put the handles on my left arm above where my cuff and collar sits, just on my elbow. The bag swings along my side and doesn’t hit my left thigh.

My next stop I collected comics, they are flat and not very heavy, so they go in my bag that sits on my right glutinous maximus. Slap, slap, slap.

Then I stopped at a chemist and picked up a few things. Definitely the weightiest purchases of the day. I might even have behind packaging to save or bulk. At this point I’ve reached my maximum density.

I’m starting to feel weighed down and I’m walking a little sideways and bumping into people. Or it could just be people on their devices not paying the least bit of attention to where they are.

After a quick pee break where the bag on my left arm stays there to save needing to put it back on. I walk not far to the tram or Bourke Street Mall and I get on the tram.

Waddling like a pregnant lady now, I try to get two seats near a door facing forward. I might start with one seat and the bag sits on my lap, the straps digging into my shoulders. My right leg in the isle making people brush against me. The bag on my left arm is beside me digging into whoever didn’t think to offer me both seats.

• I’ll just point out here I’m not bigger than Texas. I’m just a wide load by this stage.

Thirty-Five minutes later, I’m at my tram stop (Maybe I was able to spread out for the last 15-20 minutes) I stand up on the tram, readjust my bags, the strap on my left shoulder. I carry my walking stick with the wrist strap between my teeth, so it doesn’t bang all over every piece of metal known to man.

Have I mentioned, I can’t do stalker or stealth? I manoeuvre my way to a door, favouring my right side as that’s my better peripheral vision. All the better not to step on or bump into people and while holding on to one handle or another I manage to get to the right-hand door handle. Walking stick still in mouth.

Tram stops, door opens and I swing my left leg out and bending my right knee, step down. I don’t let go until both feet are on the ground. Hoping just hoping people have followed the road rules and cars have actually stopped at the back of the tram. Yeah! That does not always happen.

I then use my walking stick to walk to the curb. Right foot up, lift and swing left leg attempting left toes to clear the curb.

Fast forward to me getting inside my apartment. There have been days I’ve taken off the bags and weighed them and I’m surprised I’ve carried the extra five kilos home from the city.

But the biggest surprise to me is after I’ve unpacked everything and take my extra layers off (jacket, scarf, etc) I’m moving around my home feeling like I’m on a permanent tilt.

So, by gradually adding weight, my body compensates to do what I insist on it and when all of that is gone, my body still acts like it’s needing to adapt to carry the extra weight and that is today’s lesson.

You don’t know what you can do until you try. Do a little more on top of that and a migraine.

Today’s Lunch – 22nd January 2020

Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

Want to keep it simple today. All the effort to have more time for writing, but so far, a week worth mentioning.

Monday, a day of public transport, a tram, a walk, a train and another train then a tram. Went South-Side which I do rarely these days. Tuesday seemed to be bill day, I paid four, including my scooter insurance and I went out on my scooter. You would be surprised how many people jump out of my way as if I intend to mow them down. About as many as those that dawdle all over the footpath taking up every inch of the available space. Those that choose to paste themselves to shopfronts as if that would stop me if I chose to collect some large hood ornaments? I mentioned they had nothing to worry about and my insurance was up to date! It’s the little things in life!

So today, after some extra chores, had to get a box of goodies and a Christmas present to Natalie in Collingwood and trade her my new shoes she mulled for me from Monday.

A regular Wednesday lunch the chicken turmeric salad with medicine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

H

Playing the Disability Card

Playing the Disability Card

There are times when I have to play my disability card to get results. Sometimes I throw it out there and I have to hope for the best, because it can very quickly be taken out of my hands (in this case, just the once) as I can’t control everything once it gets away from me.

You know that time “You attract more bees with honey?” and I’m sure there’s something about putting innocent bystanders in a situation where they witness something happen and you have to hope someone comes to your defense.

Like today for example.

Buses have replaced trams on my tram route while roadworks are being completed. Today, while leaving my acupuncturist, I saw three buses go past and seeing none anytime soon. I walked about three tram stops. I’ve walked further, in fact the whole way home, but I had an evening adventure planned that I had to save some of my spoons for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory

So, I saw a bus (tram) pull up to a stop and I stepped it up a little to make it to the bus. If I couldn’t get to the front door of the bus near the driver, maybe I’d make it to the back door. I got to the door half way down the bus and I saw the teenage school boys (I presume they said nothing to the driver to ask he to wait for me, Yes? They had seen me coming) the door started to close, so I put my walking stick in the door. A woman stepped forward to stop the doors closing and yet the bus started to move.

Oh dear!

I tugged at my walking stick; it really was stuck. I could see some people on the bus standing in the isle call and look towards the driver. The bus stopped, thankfully and I put my right foot up on the floor of the bus using my right hand pulled myself up. My walking stick now dangling from my wrist strap.

A woman in a seat near the door moved to get up and I thanked her and told her I was only going two stops. The bus driver appeared at the door behind me asking what was stuck in the door?

 

I explained, I had wanted to catch the bus and my walking stick had been stuck in the door. He didn’t say anything, he just looked ‘put-out’. He got back into his seat and behind me someone else offered me a seat. Word passed down I wasn’t going far anyway.

Once off the bus, I saw a man in high-vis, when I asked him about the roadworks back in Clifton Hill and if it meant they would be completing the accessible tram stop on this route, he had no idea and had simply gone where he had been told and worse still, did not normally do this area, so really had no idea whatsoever. He just directed every question to the PTV (Public Transport Victoria) website and phone number.

Guess I’ve got another thing to add to my list tomorrow. But it just goes to show, people did come to my aid when I needed it and I don’t ever know who they are.

Now, while you read this post, who had a vision/image of an old lady like Mrs Magoo with the grey hair and grey dress being dragged beside a bus by her walking stick?

Yeah! Me too! That could have gone so much worse as the cord around my wrist often gets twisted on pretty tightly, making it rather challenging to get it off in a hurry.

 

If I Go Down, So Do You

If I Go Down – So Are You, Awkward

There are some days when I’m out and about, where so help me God. Sometimes I think people are going out of their way to get in mine. I get off a tram where I have to take a huge step down and before I get to the curb (2.5 metres away) someone has gotten off the same tram, come around on my left side, then cut right in front of me.

Just a friendly reminder, my worst eyesight is my peripheral on my left side, so I don’t see them coming, but I mean WHY??? Some days it’s every moment I’m out of the house. The last two sets of lights I cross to get from the tram stop to my home, guaranteed people will move into my path to get where they have to be.

One of these days Alice, one of these days, someone’s going to knock me over and I always say “If I go down, you go down with me!” I have been known to say this to kids running around the shopping centre when I’m there.

Fucking kids and these are the ones old enough to know better, I give them my grumpy European stare. My Nona would be proud.

There are also times when I go to get off the tram or train, when I get up early so I can get my left leg to wake up. Rearrange my bag so I don’t have it get in my way and there is usually an awkward moment where another is trying for the door also and they are okay for me to go first. I always let them go first, stating they will be quicker and if I think they can take it, I also tell them, if I fall, I want something soft to land on.

If I’m luck to get a startled look from them, I know they heard me and I give them a little smile sometimes, it’s the little things.

Tram Stop

Tram Stop

I was standing at the tram stop the other day when waiting for a tram. In a perfect world every tram would be a flatbed tram (that’s accessible) and one pulled to a stop, but the doors didn’t open.

One of the other two women mentioned the tram stated it was not in service, I hadn’t noticed. I claimed poor eyesight and the other woman mentioned she’d broken her ankle at Christmas. Broken ankle lady stated she was doing a Masters in the effects of Social Media and the internet on society (I think). I got my phone out of my bag and looked at it. My phone apart from driving all the amazing things like text, phone, cull emails while out and countless other things. It is my watch, because I don’t have one.

I briefly looked at my phone then up and way down in to the distance, I saw a tram and commented that one was coming. Broken ankle/Masters degree looked at me and asked if I’d ‘Looked it up?’ I said I hadn’t but I had ‘Looked up’ and she told me I’d made a joke.

Even more amusing, was that Masters was older than I am, so she remembered a time without internet/computers and socializing online better than I do. So, for once I didn’t feel like the old one.