Ever had one of those days?

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Am I really supposed to believe that?

Last Friday I took delivery of my power wheelchair!

Last Saturday my spouse and I went for a trial run in the wheelchair to get used to it. It's sized just right for me - unlike the demo chair I had, which was way too big. And it seemed to be a piece of freedom for me. I was all set to escape from my home and go exploring to places I haven't been able to get to for years. I could leave the confines of my comfortable - but seeming more and more like a prison - home and get fresh air, sun, and all on my own!

But then the wheelchair came to a jarring stop.

There was no power to the joystick. There was no power in my wheelchair.

It became an exceedingly expensive sculpture. The winner in a game of statues.

Luckily, my husband was there. Luckily, he is very fit. Unluckily, we were at the bottom of a hill. He likens the effort to push the chair back up the hill to running up the Grouse Grind. He ran home to get my walking poles and foot splint, so I walked back up the hill to home while he pushed the chair.

I left a phone message with the dealer on Saturday, and today a mechanic came to fix the statue... er, power wheelchair. He said a connection was loose in the engine. He had never seen that before, but he got his tools and took the chair apart in the hallway outside our apartment. He said it was a connection that is usually almost impossible to disconnect, but it wouldn't stay closed. So he took a plastic tie and tied it together. (A plastic tie like you see cops using to tie up criminals on the news... an apt piece of plastic for the chair.)

So I asked, "What are the chances that this will happen again?" He said "Zero."

So am I really supposed to believe that?

It wasn't suppose to ever happen to begin with. Now am I'm supposed to be confident that I can take the chair out on my own? Cross busy streets without fear of it dying in the middle? Go down hills and believe that I can get back up them? Have the freedom I was hoping to obtain?

Call me jaded. But this chair is looking more like a death trap, and less like freedom to me. That's depressing.

Is that green? Or is that green?

I've finally taken possession of my manual wheelchair (the power wheelchair is coming later) and not much of it is in colour, but what colour there is, is definitely green! See the image! It's a colour called "toxic green".

My only regret is that the rest of it is a rather depressing black. I don't really want to be in stealth mode when in the chair - people will have enough trouble seeing me down here without my trying to make myself more invisible. But none of the other components come in colour. Oh well, it's better than the free loaner from the Red Cross, which really wasn't quite the right size for me.

The chair works wonderfully. It's significantly better having a chair custom made to my measurements - and my spouse's measurements too, he's the one who helps by pushing, so his hand height was measured! We took it out on Sunday for a trip around the Stanley Park Seawall. I can push much more now that I have a chair that fits me - more exercise for me, which is fabulous!

As a celebratory dinner we had fish & chips on the beach. Rain City Grill is a very good restaurant just on the edge of English Bay Beach, and it has a takeout window just for fish & chips for people who want to eat and watch the sun set. All of the packaging is biodegradable and the forks are made from bamboo, so you can dispose of the packaging in one of the garbage cans on the beach without feeling too guilty. And the fish is extremely well prepared! Yum! This kind of experience is why we moved to Vancouver... well, not the wheelchair part, but the seawall and beach part for sure, and now I can be back there again! Yay!

Is that a threat or a surrealist promise?

We are actually going to do it, after keeping old furniture and other junk in our storage locker for 10 years (after moving it from the storage locker in our Toronto apartment building, where it sat for 5 years...) we are having the 1-800 Got Junk people cart it all away!

When we booked the removal appointment online, one of the steps was to give additional comments. They have examples of additional comments. The punctuation and placement of the example comments makes them fascinating:

I have to leave by 11:15, or it's a sofa bed, TV and yard waste

Dude. If they don't leave by 11:15, it's a sofa bed, TV and yard waste. Is that a threat of metamorphosis? Does Salvador Dali come in and change reality for them?

Is this what happened in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when Ford and Arthur are thrown into space and the spaceship Heart of Gold picks them up? They changed into sofas for a while. Was it because they didn't leave by 11:15?

A sofa bed would be a major item to pick up and remove, is the threat really that the soft feather pillows will get to stay and the junk removers will have to take the couch if someone doesn't leave by 11:15?

The mind boggles. I think I need more coffee. Or maybe less coffee. Or maybe a couch...

Does the shushing help?

It's a cool, calm, still night as I sit next to an open window reading.

A car alarm goes off. They do that. They do that all the time. Once we had to live through a car alarm going off every couple of minutes all night long. Visions of throwing a large piece of furniture onto the car were dashed by the spotting of the objectionable car too far down the street for us to drop anything on it. Shit happens. It's the insurance company's way of making life hell for everyone even if they don't own a car and can't be financially tormented with it. As if it helps cut down on cars being stolen. I "pssff" in the insurance company's general direction.

There is now a bylaw on the books where we can call the police and waste their time coming to tag and have a car with an endless alarm going off towed away with a stern talking-to promised for the car owner. That way people all over the city can listen to the offending car whine as it is being towed away.

Last night the silliest of all methods was used to try to silence the car: "Shhh!" A little voice in the night said "Shhh!" I almost laughed out loud.

A minute or so later the alarm stopped. Maybe that was the first stage of the car alarm stopping. First, you chastise your car with a stern "Shhh!" and then you put the key in the door and turn it. I can see technical writers all over the place implementing that suggestion for the instruction manual. "For idiots who set off their own car alarms, give the car a stern shushing, and then turn off the alarm and open the car door properly. Look embarrassed."

What sport is going there?

While driving up to the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay recently we were telling our visiting guests that one of the mountains we were passing was going to be used for some of the Olympic sports next February. Just as we were trying to remember which sports in particular those were going to be... a sign beside the road gave us the answer! Freestyle skiing and snowboarding events will be held on Cypress Mountain.

Who knew we were going to be wondering that right there? That is some spookily good placement of the sign!

Where is the most dangerous place to have a wheelchair?

In a bookstore!

I used to have to cut my time short when I went into a bookstore because I couldn't stay standing for very long. Now that I have a wheelchair on order, and have been using a loaner wheelchair, getting used to the idea... no more problems with the standing, the only limit is now carrying capacity.

Oh dear.