Wild Ride

     I've been thinking about the past and some of the humorous things I've experienced back then.  
My little sister in her early teen years owned a beautiful Palomino horse like the one Roy Rogers rode in the old cowboy movies.  As i look back on this mare, I believe she must have been a lesbian horse although in this distant past, no one conceived of such a thing.  She hated all the male gender and abhorred having a man on her back and unless she had a more pressing need, would do whatever she could to get rid of him including rolling over and trying to crush him beneath her, resulting in two males with broken limbs that I know of.  With a female of any breed she was like a playful kitten, horse, human, or whatever as long as the gender was right.  Thus it was that the horse was tethered in the back yard.  Like any young girl, my sister was at that stage of transition from horses to boys.  She had ridden her horse from pasture to backyard, left her there when a boy came by and invited her to the Daily Queen or wherever teens went then.

    Meanwhile, the mare was getting thirstier,  hungrier and more angry by the hour.  

Finally, our mother asked me to ride her home and she would follow and bring me back. Sounded like a simple plan to me.  "Where's the saddle", I asked.  "Oh, she rode her bareback."  "Is it too much to ask if she brought a bit and reins"  Who knew what rapport she might have with this pet of hers.  Maybe she guided her with psychic commands.  By some good luck, this mare was guided in the normal manner by the steering wheel of bit and reins. After attachment and backing to the porch and at last I was aboard and ready for a gentle walk back to the barn.  But this she-devil had her own ideas when she saw an open gate to freedom and her pasture only a couple of miles away.

       By the time we reached the front yard  she was in full gallop mode at top speed. Normally a horses accelerator is controlled by the pressure if a rider's legs against her side.  By the time we cleared the yard, all thought of control was out of the question.  I had one hand on the reins, the other wrapped in her mane and holding on as tight as possible, legs flying every which way desperately trying to sit as tightly as possible to keep on board. Each second of success pile up until you become convinced your balance will save you and you are not going to die sliding alongside the road.  Until about halfway there, you hear a pack of neighborhood dogs barking, roused by all the commotion rapidly approaching .

      Pictures rise in your mind of movies you've seen where a horse reads up and throw its rider when surprised by a snake on the path.  Surely, this encounter will have a similar result.  Ha!. With the thought in her mind only of fresh grass, gallons of cold water and a cozy stable, the dogs were past by the time anyone noticed leaving only yelps and whimpers where the ambush failed.  At last, we arrived at the gate, foaming and blowing  and both still alive, although it took me several minutes to be able to stand up after sliding to the ground.  She just stood there placidly munching grass  Her mission accomplished.

   She was a lot like our president.  He sets a goal and goes for it regardless of obstacles or distractions like barking dogs in the way.  With healthcare or gay rights, he just rolls on home where he was going in the first place.  I've lived and watched 13 presidents now.  Roosevelt and Truman and Johnson were strong, Carter was strong in his honesty, but Obama is quietly strongest of all.  In my opinion.

Police Change

     One can't help feeling sad, angry and frustrated at the spate of gun deaths of black men and white police officers.  The media would like nothing better than a full scale war between the two factions and do their best to foment such.  They couldn't care less about individuals dying as long as there is a news vacuum they manage to fill every day.  No one suggests a solution to this sorry state of affairs.

    There is a solution although it would involve much time and effort.  These two things are anathema to the populace raised by TV in thirty minute intervals.  Real life does not happen in short time and sometimes solution takes years.  Leaving aside the racism that is finally lessening with each new generation.  It will finally die out maybe in the lifetime of our grandchildren but surely in that of great-grand children. It's really sad none of our contemporaries will live that long.

     I think there are too many men and women taught by our own government to kill people without remorse in order to win battles in insane wars.  I feel we would be better served if no combat veteran would be serving as a policeman on the street.  I envision an entire street force made up of men and women  rarely experiencing episodes of PTSD which seem to be the result of  kill conditioning in conflict with their basic impulse to help instead of hurting others.  A woman can do anything a man can do as well and sometimes better.  I have personally seen a female cop attacked by a man being arrested.  She had him on the ground handcuffed in seconds.  All police officers should be trained in martial arts before they can carry a gun.  Deadly force may end up being necessary but as a last resort, never the first.  There may be short or easy solutions but they must come from minds much more qualified than mine.

   

Home Care #3

     This is the last installment of my life in a personal care home gone bad.
 
"The care home business is a joke. There's no wonder so many disabled folks are homeless. I have visited so many homes with deplorable conditions"

     This is the comment pf a personal friend who is trying to find a better place for me that I could move to.  At this point it seems futile so I'm kind of resigned to living here and seeing what might happen.  Every time an ombudsman or a Human Services agent visited in the past, I told them I had no problem.  Because I didn't and could work it with out the owner.  I don't talk with him  because he is seldom around any more leaving everything up to his 24 hour surrogate.  The next time any state agent contacts me I will give them a copy of this blog.

     Up till now, animals were not allowed in the house on the basis that so many people have allergies.  Yesterday the caregivers dog arrived with it's bed and bowls for food and water in the living room.  It is allowed to wander around diners legs during mealtime. I suppose it wandering in the kitchen is no more unsanitary than food preparation or medicine dispensing with a bare hand without any use of gloves such as used by a roadside taco stand. I guess disabled people are automatically immune to each others germs although my three hospital stays this year tell me otherwise. 

     So for now I'm stuck here.  I have heard that conditions in other states that have expanded Medicaid are much better.  Unfortunately I live in a Red State whose governor  doesn't believe in helping people although he gets around in a wheelchair himself.  If you have a loved one in a care home check on them often.  Conditions can change in a heart beat.   
 

Home Care #2

     As promised yesterday I will continue with my description of how quickly things have changed at my residence.  As I noted I have been here 18 months, always felt comfortable and secure and extolled the virtue of being here. It always felt like a home.  No more.  When the refrigerator was secured with a padlock, not allowed to turn on a light before 5:00 AM in the dining room because it disturbs the 24 hour caregiver who sleeps on a couch in the living room.  No one is allowed   in the kitchen after 10:00 PM or outside on the patio that people use to smoke cigarettes.  I understood the removal of the coffee pot since there are only two of us who drink coffee.  We buy our own supply but we have to ask for sugar or cream if we don't want to drink it black.  I hate that we need to ask since her facial expression and body language say it's a lot of trouble for her and she resents having to do it.  There used to be some sugar for residents use in a jar but now it's hidden just like paper towels and you have to ask for a napkin.

     Breakfast now is about the same, except that now the toast is dry with nothing  available to put on it, not even cheap margarine.  There is always scrambled eggs, McDonalds style potato patty, poor tasting sausage links and either oatmeal, grits or cold cereal.  I usually pour the milk off my cereal and save it for the next day's coffee.  I hide it under the bread in the bottom of the big freezer outside my door.  Lunch is always one and a half of a tuna salad or bologna sandwich, some potato chips and a small cop of Kool-Aid.  We used to sometimes get tea but not lately.  The drink is only Kool-Aid, cold water and in a blue moon, some cola. Dinner is usually hot dogs if not some hamburger and elbow macaroni.  I counted we had hot dogs for lunch or dinner six times this week. Condiments for the hot dogs are mustard or ketchup.  We once had a jar of relish but I got the last of it yesterday.  I would really like some chili or chopped onion to go with the potato chips and Kool=Aid on the naked wieners on the cold buns.

     I did forget that on Thursday, we have frozen pizza from Walmart that gets topped with sliced onion and bell pepper, then baked in an oven.  The crust gets hard as slate and you have to eat with hands as a fork won't cut it.  Again napkins all hidden somewhere.  Luckily I stash toilet paper on my wheelchair to use when nothing else is available.

     Tomorrow I will wrap this up of how to cope in a house with no special disabled facilities and what I looking for and how. 


     












   

Home Care

     For the last 18 months I have resided in a personal care home.  Over that time people have come and gone leaving five of us a permanent core group.  At present there are seven residents.  I had negotiated a monthly payment based on my income.  I don't know how much anyone else pays except that most are helped by Medicaid since most are mentally disabled.  I am the only person here with a physical problem that is covered only by Social Security and Medicare and supplementary insurance.  I pay every month out of my SSA check and keep the rest to help my son in his last year in college and the co-pays on my medication.  In mid-year, I had an increase in income so I raised my care payment voluntarily by a proportionate amount.  I've been happy and satisfied until this last month when everything changed so drastically,  I have been looking for another place to go.

     Last year when it got hot they installed a new central air unit outside and kept it on coming  through vents in the bedrooms making it comfortable all over the house.  This year the only air is two small units in the living room where our 24 hour solitary caregiver sleeps.  I have asked to no avail to turn on the air at least at night.  I have just resigned to changing out of my wet night clothes every morning.  By day I stay in my room where it reaches 85 degrees at the hottest part of the day.  Up to last month. I used my laptop at the dining room table where I eat.  It was fine with every one for 18 months until the new CG decided it had to be moved to my hot room.  Previously there were three caregivers on 8 hour shifts.  One of them usually fixed coffee in a pot.  Most of them started breakfast at a little past 4:30.  I would turn on my laptop to watch news summaries at 5:00.  We used to have fried or scrambled eggs, French toast or buttered toast or pancakes.  We got sausage or ham, syrup or jelly and often orange juice.  We used to keep our personal food in the refrigerator.  I had bagels and English muffins.  Marmalade and fruit like pomegranates.  Now the refrigerator is tied shut and padlocked when it isn't guarded  like the TV remote which stays hidden in her desk drawer

     I'll write more tomorrow when it's bright enough without the overhead light with it's missing third low watt bulb.  I will then discuss the dietary changes, seating arrangements and time restrictions, etc.
Also what I'm looking for in a place to go.

Top Secret

     I don't understand why anything is classified.  It seems like too many read it and know all about it before someone decides it is a secret.   Two can keep a secret if one is dead.  If Israel is such a good friend and ally, why do we keep catching their spies spying on us?  I'm sure with all their people and electronics, they know all  about anything before our officials and classifiers and it was on the way to Tel Aviv before Obama can hang up his phone.

     Russia and China are not far behind Israel at finding out our secrets.  If we do anything off the record like sending a high altitude spy plane over Russia piloted by Gary Powers who was subsequently shot down.  Our inept spies didn't know they could shoot so high.  We owned up once the secret was out.  Britain said we were idiots for admitting it. Their reaction would have been "what spy plane, what are you talking about?"  And "Gary Powers, never heard of him, don't know him.

     My opinion is that Top Secrets live about three days of relevance before they are obsolete and yesterday's news.  The world has evolved so fast and is so interconnected the whole concept of secrets is a fool's endeavor.

     I am still gathering data on group homes, assisted living homes, etc. like the conditions encountered nationally in a group home like the one where I'm a resident.

Governors

     Living in Texas with a Republican governor makes me qualified to write about what a disaster
it is electing Republicans to do anything more official than scooping up roadkill from state highways.   I guess we should be proud of Mr. Abbott since he was able to get a $35,000,00  bribe from Trump to drop complaining about the university scam,  The Florida AG was only able to get $25,000.00 for the same thing.  I haven't seem how much all the other Republicans got but I imagine it was pretty substantial. 

     I read about the leaders in Illinois and Kansas and their policies doing the opposite of what they said would happen.  Unfortunately, most of the red states are in the same boat.  Teetering on the edge of  bankruptcy, unable to fund their schools, their infrastructure or their social services.  Wisconsin, Florida or Mississippi.  I don't know the details of the problems in other states that caused them to vote in such incompetent politicians and get so little benefit.

     Here in Texas though, It's sheer stupidly, ignorance and foolishness.  It's no accident that the dumbest representative in congress, Louie Gohmert, is a Texan.  An imbecile elected by other Texas imbeciles.  The tragedy is that the same idiots also voted in other Republican dimbulbs like corrupt Greg Abbott. Ken Paxton AG under indictment for fraud & Ted Cruz chosen by God Himself.

     A simple example of how much Republicans care about people is illustrated by Texas turndown of Medicaid Expansion.  Probably because it came in such a way that prevented Republicans from grabbing most of it for themselves.  To paraphrase Forrest Gump "stupid is as stupid does."