Summertime and the living is....

...regimented.

Summer is my least favorite season.

This is not historically true. When my kids were in school it was a break in the routine and we always managed a week or so away with various shorter trips thrown in for good measure. When I was college age, it was time for ROAD TRIPS! We would pick up and go at the last minute because two of us had the same days off. Didn't matter where we went, we just went. When I was a kid summer was SUMMER!! No school! no schedules!

Now with Maggie's ever increasing nursing needs, a week away is impossible and short trips are unwieldy, there are never two days off in a row. Ever. It's Oh NO, it's summer! no school and no schedule. What in the world are we gong to do to fill the time?

This reality hit home Sunday. Eddie and Grace were in Monterey with Grace's parents and Tim told us Saturday he wanted us to head down there (The boys haven't seen each other since before Christmas.)  Monterey is about 2.5 hours from here so it's doable as a day trip. Long day, but doable.

Not doable for Maggie, though. It's too much. Too much for her. Too much for me. There was a nurse scheduled to work for 8 hours, but that wasn't enough to get there and back and have any kind of visit. Steve offered to stay with Maggie so I could go, and if it were the school year I would have jumped at that. But not in the summer. I would be wrecked for Monday and I have to be ON for Miss Maggie. It was easier to just stay home.

Steve and Tim went to Monterey.
Maggie and I hit the museum.
Again.

Sunday night my sister Joan called saying she unexpectedly had Thursday and Friday off and was making an impromptu trip to Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is Summer to me. We spent every summer there when I was a kid and my parents had a house up there that we used regularly until they sold it in 1999. My sister Ellen and my brother Pat have been posting fantastic pictures of hikes they are taking together and separately in the Tahoe area. I have been drooling over those pictures.

Joan asked, Did I want to join her? A road trip? To TAHOE? Why yes! Yes I do! With every fiber of my being. The San Francisco fog is particularly thick this year and the thought of sun on my face is almost intoxicating. But...I can't. There are 8 hours in each day that don't have nursing coverage and Steve is working and Tim can't do the nursing procedures. Besides, Tim started his new job on Monday.

 So I had to pass.

I don't mean to whine, really I don't. I feel very lucky that we have so much nursing support because that's the only way Maggie can stay at home. It's the irony that summer, when most people get to enjoy a little freedom, I am the most stuck.

And what about Maggie? I worry about Maggie getting too bored. We do the same things all the time. We listen to her music. We go to the mall. We go to the museum. We go to Safeway. we go to the park. Today we are going to Best Buy AND Safeway, just to keep things interesting. Maggie needs to break up the routine as well. Camp was a great diversion, but that's done now. Of course Maggie has the uncanny ability to revel in the present. She is delighted to be wherever she is.
And she's with me.

Today is July 30. School starts August 19. It will be the Maggie and Mom show for the next 21 days.

Let us know if you need anything at the mall.

Wheelchair Parking. Not for the feint of heart.

Maggie wanted to go to the mall on Saturday. Nothing new there. We go to the mall often, though not necessarily to buy anything. Maggie is a teenager and just loves to watch the people. Because of both the nurses schedule and the parking issue, we generally hit the mall in the morning when it's less crowded. (Note this is not optimal cool teenager time, but Maggie doesn't care). This is an outing Maggie and I can do together before the nurse gets to our house and Maggie can just hang with mom.

That is, IF we can find a parking place for the van with space to unload the wheelchair.

Believe me, I know where every single handicapped spot is in that mall. There are some in front of Macy's, downstairs in the back behind Macy's, there are a couple by the Williams Sonoma and several over by Nordstrom. In addition there are probably 5 or six in the underground parking. Of those maybe 20 spots, only 5 or so have the designated space to unload a wheelchair.  And those 5 spots are almost always taken by a vehicle that could not possibly hold a wheelchair.

There is, of course, no distinction between the wheelchair accessible spaces and the regular "blue" spaces designated for the disabled. Anyone with a placard can use any blue spot, wheelchair accessible or not.  That makes sense, there really aren't that many wheelchair vehicles cruising around. And while most wheelchair ramps come out the passenger side, some have the ramp coming out the back of the vehicle. So not even every wheelchair van needs the space on the side.

Still, it's maddening for those of us who actually DO have to unload a wheelchair out the side of the car to see a Honda Civic or some other small car in the wheelchair spot while another blue zone sits empty.

Perfectly legal. Perfectly reasonable. Absolutely maddening.

Saturday as I approached I saw one spot big enough and figured we were in business. There were three other blue spots, none of which would work for me - but I only needed one. There was one car in front of me - a sedan of some sort.

OF COURSE, OF COURSE, he took the one spot I needed. Not only that, I watched as his wife, who did not seem to have any disability at all, jumped out of the car and sprinted to Macy's. He stayed in the car and waited for her. Really? And you have to take up a wheelchair spot to do that?  I did not see any placard, and I have no idea if he or she were even entitled to use that spot, but why oh why couldn't they have taken one not meant for a wheelchair.

Now I know you are thinking, why didn't you say something? If he realized he would have happily moved ... and you may be right. But how do I know that? No one likes to be corrected by a stranger. He could be a wacko. I can't play cop or even hall monitor in addition to all my other roles. Further, as a practical matter, I would never get out of the car and leave Maggie sitting there unattended. For one thing, it's dangerous and for another, any cop who happened by would be far more interested in my neglect than in the (possibly) legal if thoughtless parking of the other guy.

So I will use this blog to start an education plan.

 If you are not disabled, don't park in disabled spots. Just don't. The ticket is enormous and the karma is even worse.

If you do have a legitimate disabled parking placard, and you are the using it correctly, please don't take the wheelchair space unless there is no other blue zone available.

There are no fines or karma to worry about here, but you would certainly make my life just a little bit easier.

 Thank you.

I would love to know the story here.....

Addendum - I've now heard from at least three wheelchair users who do not use a van, so I feel better about seeing the cars that don't seem to be wheelchair users in those spaces. But let's face it, there are an awful lot of non wheelchair users taking them and an awful lot of non-disabled using all types of handicapped spots. If you are using a placard legally and need the space -go for it, that's why it's there. If you don't need the extra space and there's another space, take it. if you are disabled and staying in the car while your wife shops, don't hog a space. If you are parking in a blue zone illegally, I have nothing but disdain for you.

Taking it up a Notch

There are many people who enjoy shopping. I am not one of them. If there is something I need to buy, I will happily go to the appropriate store and buy it, but I am not interested in wandering around in a shopping mall for entertainment. My daughter, on the other hand, would like to do nothing else.

Every weekend I get, "Mom, I want to go to the mall." or "Mall, please." This generally starts around 7:00AM and doesn't let up until we go. For the first few hours I say, "Right, I know, But we have to wait for it to OPEN." That cracks her up. This past Saturday was no exception.

I decided early that I could not bear another aimless trip to Stonestown, the mall closest to us. I told her, "You want to go to a mall, I'll take you to a huge one with lots of stuff to see." We headed downtown to Bloomingdales in the Westfield Mall which is right next door and connected to the San Francisco Centre Mall. It is heaven for a mall rat like Maggie.

The big parking lot is behind these malls and you can enter from Mission Street. I will say the wheelchair entrance is about as circuitous as possible. You have to go up to the 5th floor theater level and walk through the cavernous theater lobby and then go down a separate elevator to the 4th floor get to the mall. It's accessible, but a complete pain.

Once you arrive, though you are treated to a view of the dome from the old Emporium Store. I'm so glad they saved this. It's stunning and brings back such fun memories of Downtown SF of yesteryear. (Perhaps this is the proverbial glass ceiling.)

You really cannot help but smile when you see it, whether you remember the old Emporium or not. It is just so beautiful and the area is completely filled with light.  Maggie didn't react at all, at first, because her chair is designed to keep her head facing forward. She was looking at all the people, oblivious to what was above her. Steve tilted back her chair and she reacted immediately. It was great to see her appreciate the beauty.

 We wandered over to the San Francisco Center with it's fabulous curved escalators. Maggie could not go on those in her chair, of course, but she thought it was pretty funny when I went up and kept waving to her. She waved back with all her might. 

This is taken from the top of the escalator,. I got on right behind them and rode up 

curving around in a half circle which  left me right where this picture is taken. 

We didn't buy anything on our shopping trip. This was just to give Maggie another experience and prevent me from going out of my mind. . I'm not sure it was a good idea, though. This may now be the expectation when she says she want to hit the Mall.