Anyone Ever Eaten a Newspaper?

I’m reminded today of the story my mother told me about when I was in the hospital with pneumonia when I was only two. Every day Mom read the menu to me and let me decide what I wanted for my meals the next day. Every day I insisted I wanted spaghetti. And every day my mother talked me out of spaghetti. Shortly before I was ready to be released I once again insisted I wanted spaghetti for lunch. Mom gave in and checked off spaghetti for lunch the next day. That next afternoon when she visited I wore a frown. She asked me if I enjoyed my spaghetti. I said “no. The spaghetti tastes like newspaper.” She told me she never did figure out how I knew what newspaper tasted like but she knew I wouldn’t like the spaghetti. The only spaghetti I’d ever eaten was made with authentic Italian sauce. I was a snob at two

You might wonder why I remembered that story today. Well, it was lunch. For lunch foods I like to have several different ready-made meals on hand. I have favorite soups and definitely favorite Lean Cuisines that I can pop in the microwave especially on the days that I’m just feeling too sore to do serious cooking. There are a couple of the Hormel Compleats that I like but the one I keep asking for is Macaroni and Cheese. David insists he won’t buy the Hormel Macaroni and Cheese because it’s too expensive for something you can buy in the dollar store box. Okay David didn’t say dollar store, I don’t think he’s ever been inside a dollar store, but I know you can get macaroni cheese at dollar stores sometimes even 2, 3 or 4 for dollar. The thing is there is a difference between dollar store mac & cheese, Lean Cuisine mac & cheese and my homemade mac and cheese. The Hormel looks good in the picture. I figured it was comparable to the Lean Cuisine and wanted to try it.

The Hormel Macaroni and Cheese taste like newspaper

Eh, ya live and ya learn.

In better news from today I was inspired to do a scrapbook page by a photo I just had to take this morning:

Credits: Forever in Blue Jeans by Seatrout Scraps

The basket Marco had adopted as a kitten had fallen on the other side of the table and we found it last night. Marco found it pretty quick after we did but it was a tighter squeeze than it had been. It didn’t stop him from getting inside and chewing on the handles. I just looked down and saw a scrapbook page.

I hope everybody that was in the area affected by the storms yesterday fared well. I texted my brother and he said they just had fierce wind in Indy. Seamhead Gypsy and I tweeted back and forth; we both spent a little of Sunday evening in our respective basements in different parts of Ohio. Thankfully it was sirens but no tornadoes for both of us.

Now the unfortunate part is that David and I have discovered I’m better off taking my chances with the tornado than trying to go downstairs. I scooted down the stairs on my butt okay but getting back upstairs was somewhat of a dramatic challenge. Health insurance doesn’t cover stair climbers and at the price of the stair climber we had to choose which set of stairs got one. Upstairs is the bedroom and shower and downstairs is the basement. Since we figure that I’ll want to sleep or shower more often than there will be tornado sirens we put the stair climber going to upstairs. Next time there is the tornado siren my place for shelter will be the downstairs bathroom rather than taking the set of stairs into the basement. With so many people in the area without power and other potentially greater medical emergencies I felt it would be irresponsible to call 911 so someone could carry me up the stairs on a stretcher or something. David was incredible in helping me get each foot up on the next stair while I grabbed the railing and pushed up with the other arm but it really is a better choice in the future to hunker down in the bathroom rather than try to get down the stairs.

Ya live, ya survive and ya learn some more.

I’m behind on my book reviews! There will be two more soon. I really am doing well with my reading goal for the year!

Coffee and Clouds

I find that cloudy days make me crave coffee. Okay, if I tell David that he’ll ask, “and that’s different from any other day how?” But rainy or cloudy days make me truly crave coffee not just want a cup. That makes today a great day to tell you about the Nani-perfect opportunity I received last month as a BzzAgent!

Yes, I’m promoting a product I got to try for free, but it was a free sample of a new flavor of a product I liked anyway! I got free K-Cup samples of Green Mountain Coffee Fair Trade Three Continent Blend. To be honest I was a little leery at first because one of the coffees blended into Thee Continent is Sumatra and I’m not a Sumatra fan, but as part of a blend it took away the acidic edge I wasn’t fond of and it was good. But what I really learned at the Choose Fair Trade website is why some of my favorite Green Mountain coffees are favorites!

I’ve been drinking Fair Trade Colombian for a while because it was just the best Colombian I’d tried and I love Colombian as my every-day coffee. The Pumpkin Spice from Green Mountain, also my favorite of the Pumpkin Spices, is also a Fair Trade coffee!

Fair Trade means that coffee farmers are guaranteed a minimum price for their beans which gives them money they can invest in their crops and communities via hiring and spending. A statistic that bothers me is that only 38% of consumers even know what Fair Trade is! And I admit that prior to the opportunity to try and learn I was part of that 38%. I knew there was something about the Fair Trade Colombian that made it better. After viewing the website and reading about the people singer Kelly Clarkson visited while she learned about Fair Trade I was even proud to discover that the Pumpkin Spice I love and The Vermont Country Blend I’ve tried are both Fair Trade.

Nantucket Blend, a flavor enjoyed by Seamhead Gypsy and shared with me last Christmas is Fair Trade. The Wild Blueberry Rina likes and ended up sharing the box I gave her with her dad? Yep, that’s Fair Trade too. Green Mountain Coffee offers one of the largest selections of Fair Trade coffees.

I encourage you to check out the Choose Fair Trade website and check out all the facts about Fair Trade and the great selections of Fair Trade coffees. If what you contribute to the communities in coffee-growing regions isn’t enough to make you feel even warmer inside than just a hot cup of coffee, how about this? That investing in their crops and quality of life in the area just makes a better-tasting coffee. If you won’t do it for them, then do it for yourself!

Let’s make the world a better place one great cup of coffee at a time!

I Love Being a Secret Santa!

I just want to give a “shout out” about how totally awesome Suzanne at The Coloradolady is for taking on the big job of coordinating the Secret Santa Soiree This is the third year I’m participating and I just love it!

I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. That’s the real reason I’ve blogged so little. I’ve been depressed, actually down, me! I don’t mean to make light of it. I’m a super-optimist and I always have been, so chronically bouncing between happy and sad makes me..well, it makes me sad! I decided to talk to a counselor about it. I want to talk to someone who can professionally ask me the questions I’m not asking myself and someone for whom I don’t feel a need to “fake it” if I’m in one of those sad moods to keep them from worrying. I’ve been feeling happier since making the appointment. I’m confident that this will work and get me back to being me.

That actually does tie-in to the Secret Santa Soiree. When I got my Santee for this year all kinds of ideas started. I did some reading; my Santee’s blog, looked up and learned about some things she likes, looked up some photos. This is one of my favorite parts of the swap. I love learning new things and getting a feel for what gift or gifts would be very special.

In the past there’s been one idea, one part of the gift that was a mission for me. Something I had to search for. Christmas shopping has always been like that for me; there are one or two gifts every year that I get in my mind and have to search for. It’s so much easier now with the Internet. That’s how David got his jar of Argentinian Dulce de Leche last year. For a few years he’d comment about the incredible caramel spread he had in Argentina. One of my holiday missions was to find a jar of it even if I had to pay to get it imported. Both years so far I was inspired to search for part of the gifts I gave my Santee and this year was the same.

There was a perfect item that I really wanted to find. I knew in my mind a general idea of what it would look like and was sure I'd just “know” when I saw it. I spent a few hours searching today. A few hours on the internet is the same as a few weeks a couple decades ago! I saw it and I did just “know.” I hope my Santee “knows” when she sees it!

I’ll be taking advantage of the powerchair and paratransit to finish my SS shopping and do a little more Christmas shopping next week Don’t worry, the UPS guy won’t miss me; I still do most of my shopping the week of Cyber Monday!

And that is all it took today to keep me out of the bad and into a really great mood!

The All Day Post

Good soggy Wednesday! That is not a complaint about the weather, I’m glad for the rain. I had one of those mornings where I woke up and could barely get up off the bed because my back hurt so bad. Then when I did finally get out, after a generous coating of Icy Hot, I could barely walk to the bathroom or moved to get dressed. It never hits me why this happens but later after whining about how much I hurt I noticed how dark it still was at 9 AM. I usually remember that the barometric pressure just before it rains really wreaks havoc on my back and knees. Salvation comes when the rains come down, the pressure changes and I can walk again without the discomfort instead of pain.

In the boring world of talking about health, which makes me sound like an old lady, I get the pleasure of being crammed into a tube like sausage meat with supersonic earplugs for 90 minutes of MRI fun! I have prescriptions for two MRIs and I’m getting them done back-to-back so I only have to be stuffed in once. That’s my annual brain MRI for my MS doctor and the lower spine so I can see a specialist about steroid injections. I know I didn’t really want those but the discomfort and weakness has become pain and weakness more often than not. Hopefully, ideally, if I get rid of some of the pain I’ll be able to exercise better and get my muscles a little bit better.

Rina at Fogo, table-side service with 16 different meats

Pop will be 69 years old on Friday! We celebrated in Indianapolis on Sunday. With Pop, Dave and me all living in different states now we take turns choosing the restaurant in our home state and gathering to celebrate Pop the weekend before or after his birthday. This year he chose Fogo de Chao, fantastic Brazilian steakhouse. Fogo de Chao is a fabulous dining experience great food! After an extensive salad bar that includes luncheon meats and cheeses you flip your coaster so the green side is up and “gauchos” who rove the room with 16 different types of meats stop to cut off whatever choices that portions you desire. It’s definitely not a vegetarian restaurant!

I got my Santee for this year’s Secret Santa Soiree, hosted by Suzanne at The Colorado Lady. I always love the day I get to “meet” the person I get to shop for! I won’t say anything about her except that I already have ideas dancing in my head and it’s going to be a ton of fun to find gifts for her!

Okay and last for now, remember I said I was going to do some sort of giveaway when I reached 100 on the Google mug rack? Well I was there, right at 100 for about 2 weeks, Now I’m at 98. I’m going to convince myself that those 2 left Google and not The Chronicles of Nani. It’s NOT that I have followers who were only loyal as long as I was loyal to the memes!

I need to really wrap this up now! I’ve been writing a paragraph at a time all day. I’ll have more thoughts soon!

Disabled and Disenfranchised?

The powerchair might fit if it had no arms

It’s not quite as bad as the title infers, but this morning was, um, interesting. It wasn’t too cold and our polling location is very close to our house so David and I “walked” over to vote. That’s something I haven’t been able to do since the location for our precinct moved to so close because this is the first year I’ve had the power chair. So we closed up the house and made our way to place our votes. However there was a problem.

We crossed the bumpy parking area to the doorway between the school and church and lo and behold the door opening was not made to accommodate my chair! Last year we went downtown for early voting and the year before we took the manual wheelchair and I guess David must have pushed me through the door with my arms forward because there’s no way I could have done it myself without bashing my elbows and/or skinning my knuckles.

Here is where the interpretation of the ADA term “reasonable accommodation” comes into play. If I go to a store and my chair can’t get through the aisles, reasonable accommodation may include bringing me a variety of items to choose from and letting me select the items I want to buy, essentially bringing the store to me. It can also mean taking my order and delivering items to my home with no delivery charge as I wasn’t able to use the store in the same way other shoppers can.

Today, the reasonable accommodation, since I couldn’t get in to cast my vote, was that a provisional absentee ballot was brought out to me. Had it been colder, snowing or raining I’d have been sitting outside in the weather waiting for all the paperwork to be brought out. Regular voting for me is adjusting the screen down and using the touch screen method everyone else uses. Absentee voting is filling out an envelope and choosing which candidate and issue responses by filling in spaces by hand. One of my MS issues is the inability to write well and sometimes to even hold a pencil. There was a book to hold under things to write on but no table and maybe it's just me but I don’t really like the idea of people circled around me able to read and see what votes I’m casting. The voting machines have privacy walls for a reason. So, I backed up a little and colored in the spaces for my choices in midair. If I’m voting absentee, I’d prefer to do it from the privacy and practicality of my own home or at least the more private back table of a crowded coffee shop.

The two gentleman who tackled the problem of there not being accommodation for a powerchair to get into the building were great in their efforts to make sure I could vote and very sincere in their apologies for the situation, but it’s an issue that should not have come up. It’s a building that’s open to the public and should be accessible in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities act as updated in 2010.It's also a location selected by the board of elections that does not offer equal access to voters with disabilities.  I can't believe they don't consider this when choosing places people go to vote.  Updates should have been made to the building by spring 2011; full out construction renovations should have been completed by March 2012. It’s November 2013; it’s unquestionably in legal violation.

Today the accommodation was as reasonable as could be given the circumstance but it should be a call to attention of a bigger problem. In 2014 it won’t be acceptable.


(The Board of Elections will be getting a letter.)