A cool face from the past

I know I have been completely slacking on this blog, but really nothing has happened. So I decided to tell you about a story that kind of happened in the past. Recently I started to watch the HBO series Deadwood via Netflix. And I kept thinking I knew one of the actors from somewhere but couldn't quite place where. Also I did the "I probably don't really know her, I just must have seen her something else a long time ago". But when I saw the "behind the scenes" of the show and heard her talking in her natural Irish accent, I remembered who she was.
About fifteen years ago my Dad and I use to take our dog to a park next to the L.A. County Museum of Art. It was not an official dog park, but since it was tucked away from the busy streets everyone would take their dogs there. There was a core group of dog owners that we would see there all the time. These people came here so often that we watched their babies mature over the years into elementary school students. One dog owner took a particular liking to me. Her dog Bosco was a German Shepard mix and was one of the rough and tumble guys. His owner would always sit and talk to me. She immediately figured out my "yes/no" and would ask me questions that she knew I could answer with a head nod. It was so nice to be automatically understood.  And she made more people comfortable approaching me because they saw her talking to me. As I was watching the "Behind the Scenes" I went "Oh my God, that's Bosco's Mom". It was cool to see her doing so well. But it's kind of weird to watch the show now(her character being a prostitute in the Wild West) and think about how I know this woman from when I was younger. So anyways, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who live in the U.S. And for those of you who watch Deadwood I'm talking about Trixie played by Paula Malcomson.

Yay for cool bank people!

So I went to open a savings account because my lovely puppy ate something and might now have a blocked intestine, and I realized I should have money for emergencies put away. My aide and I rolled into the bank and it's always a crapshoot as to whether I get someone who actually talks to me like a human. Today I was not in the mood for anyone to do anything insensitive. We got assigned to a woman and I made my aide whip out my board. Surprisingly, she was awesome! She talked directly to me and didn't look to my aide for answers. She kept saying how cool my board was. She discussed my account with me like anyone else and made sure I was cool with everything. I kept telling her she was a rarity for treating me like a human. She made my bank experience pleasant.

Wow, you read my head shake.

Quick story. I was out with Bailey and this lady came up and asked if she could pet him. Now when people ask me a yes or no question, I usually respond though I know that people won't have any idea what I'm doing. So I did my usually head shake meaning "no" and she actually listened. My aide explained afterward that Bailey was working and shouldn't be distracted. But I thought it was cool that she looked to me for the answer and actually listened. She did kind of follow us around the store after asking every questions in the book- What does he do for you? Where can he go? How do you train him? But that's kind of normal for people who are not familiar with service dogs.

Hmm...maybe my dog will stop people from saying crazy stuff.

So I know I haven't been posting as much, but it's not because I haven't been going out. Quite the opposite. Since Bailey is only 5-months old and grew up on a farm, I have to get him used to city life. We have been going to cafes, stores, the bank, etc. And every time I have been prepared for people to say stupid things to me. But none so far. In fact, people usually just compliment me on my dog if they say anything at all. Maybe people see me handling my dog and realize that I'm not a kid and that I am semi-intelligent. That being said, I'm sure there will be a few times people say outrageous things and you can bet I'll post so fast.

Question for my readers who use a service dog (if anyone)- Do you find people make less offensive remarks when you have your service dog with you? I mean remarks about your disability- I know they often make stupid remarks about service dogs (like try to distract them, make baby talk, pet them without asking, etc). Or have I been just lucky?

I wouldn't be surprised tomorrow when I'm with Bailey if I get an offensive remark now that I have posted about people being cool.

"You're not going to let physical barriers get in the way of your daughter's education, are you?"

Hey, so this is an old story. When I was in the 1st grade I went to my neighborhood public school. I was fully main streamed- not in special ed. But one day I told my mom I was board about 60% of the day. So that propted her to start looking for other schools. So she called 11 schools and explained about me- extremely bright and very physically disabled. Nobody was interested. Even though I brought a one-on-one aide with me to school, so the school didn't really have to do anything in terms of helping me physically or adapting lessons for me.

So the 12th school my mom visited was a good 45 minutes away. When my mom got there, she saw that the entire school was completely inaccessible with stairs going everywhere. She took the tour with 10 other parents but knew the school would not work even thought it would make an absolutely perfect match in terms of philosophy and teaching style. When the tour was over, my mom asked the principal if she knew of any similar schools that were nearer to where we lived. The principal rattled off names of schools but they were all ones that had rejected the idea of me. Not to sound like a jerk, my mom finally told the principal why no other schools had worked and why this principal's school would not work. She loved it, but it was not accessible. The principal looked at her and said, "You're not going to let physical barriers get in the way of your daughter's education, are you?" My mom was speechless (that's very rare for her). The the principal took my mom around the school and figured out what they would need to adapt. Needless to say, I ended up going to this school and loving it. I was the first physically disabled student the school had ever had but by the time I left, 3 more disabled kids had enrolled.

Making lemonade from lemons

Hey guys, I know I have been slacking but things have been getting crazy (in a good way). Anyway I thought I would tell you another story of people doing it right.


In my junior year of high-school my aide wanted to take her lunch break the period before lunch. That was fine but posed the problem of me not having an aide for one period. And since my schedule rotated that meant not having her for 3 different classes over the course of a week. So my parents and I brainstormed and though of asking my teachers if it would be cool to ask for volunteers in the class to help me out. They would take notes for me, read my board if I wanted to participate, and they would not be required to do the work for that day in class (since I was spelling out the answers and they would have had no time to turn in a copy for themselves). Everybody loved it and some people fought over who would get to do it. Before that year, I had a few friends but not that many. Because my peers were kind of forced to interact with me, they saw what a cool, funny, and weird person I am (especially in my creative writing class). This experience made people see me as a person and not the weird girl with the aide. I obviously couldn't do all my classes like that but having a few like that was cool.

Invacare part 2

So as you may remember, I had a little trouble a few months ago getting my display fixed. Well recently my back light on my display went out which means I could not see what gear I was in at night. I knew what fixing it would entail- sending the whole display to them again and that would seriously mess with my work. I didn't want to be immobile for god-knows-how-long so I emailed my contact at Invacare and asked if I could get a loaner display. She said yes (why this was not offered the first time, I don't know). So she sent the loaner to my repair guy first. When it arrived I switched my broken one for the loaner. Because I bought an SD card (because I don't want what happened last time to happen again), I could easily transfer my settings to the new loaner. The woman from Invacare was super communicative- she emailed updates and etc. When I received my display back, not only was it fixed, but my settings had not been messed with! Amazing! I guess I put the fear of my wrath in them.

Yay for cool new clients!

Hey everyone, so yesterday, I met with a potential client. As you might remember from my earlier post, meeting new clients can be interesting. Yesterday I went to meet an affenpincher and her owners. I gave them the whole spiel about my disability over email and they seemed cool about it. But you never know if they are really cool until you meet them. So me and my aide drove to their house and conducted our usual consultation- asking questions about the dog, showing them how I walk the dog, and asking them if they had any questions. It was going well. One of the owners went to show my aide where he kept the dog and the other owner stayed behind with me. Now usually if someone I just met is without my aide, the conversation (at best) is usually awkward yes and no questions. I don't hold it against them because if you are not taught how I communicate (granted it takes two minutes to learn) you would not know otherwise. Yes, my client sees my aide reading my board but we go really really fast so I don't expect them to catch on. However, yesterday when I was alone with one of the owners, he was like, "Is your board in your backpack so we can talk?" I nodded and he took it out and started having a conversation with me! Wow! Talk about cool new clients.

Happy birthday to me

Hey everyone, so Friday was my 27th birthday and before my raucous party on Saturday, my parents took me out for a nice steak dinner. Restaurants are sometimes meh for me. They sometimes don't give me a menu and almost always don't talk to me directly (and sometimes I get waitresses like this). I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me so much. However, the waitress on Friday was pretty awesome. It came out that it was my birthday and the waitress Keli asked me how old I was. She guessed 18 and when I looked upward, she knew what I meant. She then went on...19? 20? 21? waiting for me to nod. She then asked all her ordering questions to me, phrased in yes or no questions. Now if you are a regular reader of my blog you would know that this is not common. People don't usually pick up as quick as Keli that I am smart and can make choices. That made my yummy steak dinner even better.

Job Interviews

So as I have mentioned before I work as a dog walker. Getting a new client is always interesting. First they email me and I email them back and "come out" as disabled as well as explain what services I offer. It's about a 50/50 chance whether they will email me back after I disclose my true identity. If they do email back we set up a meeting.

It's funny once we get to the meeting part, everyone has been super cool about my CP. I make my aide whip out my letter board so I can talk directly to the person. I then show them how I walk dogs with my chair - because I know they are thinking "how the hell does this work?" After I get hired or after I decide I want to walk the dog (I have met some psycho dogs) I mostly do all further communication via email. This works great.

I think the coolness of my clients is partly because they are in there 20's and 30's and professionals but mostly because my attitude toward my CP. I come into every interview like "Yes I have CP but it doesn't effect my job ability." I think my clients are calmed by my attitude. Some people with disabilities want employers to ignore their disability. I believe this attitude makes people uncomfortable because the disability becomes the huge pink elephant in the room.

Hey you moved your cart!

So this is another story of people who get it right. Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzUFOl2v7Ok

Obviously this is not huge but it was necessary for me to pass. She make no silly remarks about how I drive my chair or about how wonderful it was that I was out in public. She just treated me like anyone else trying to get by. She also noticed me very quickly unlike those girls from the coffee shop.

She didn't make a huge scene of it either. Too bad she's in the minority.

It's like she read my blog!

So I was waiting for my aide to bring down my next dog for a dog walking session and and a car pulled up and a woman walked out toward me. I honestly thought, "Oh crap, here we go."

She said, "Hey, do you need any help or anything?"

I shook my head.

She replied, "Is someone with you?"

I nodded.

She said, "Okay then, my name is Molly. I've seen you around and though I'd introduce myself. What's your name?"

We then had a brief few second of me thinking "Oh crap, I can't answer" until my aide came down and said, oh this is Eva the dogwalker.

The juxtaposition between this exchange and the one I had a few weeks ago is enormous. Not only did she listen to me when I nodded and shook my head, she proceeded to have a normal conversation with me. Wow!!!

Wow, you are talking to me like a person.

Animal of Bitch and Animal

So, this is another story of people who do it right. When I was like 18, I loved (and still like) a two-woman band called Bitch and Animal.

I had all their music and listened to them all the time (which probably drove my parents crazy). They played shows in my city a few times and of course, like any rabid fan, I went. The shows were usually in a tiny club or whatever. One thing you should know is I'm not shy so when the show was over, I literally knocked over chairs to go meet them with my aide cracking up following me. When I got Animal's attention (and when my aide caught up with me) my aide said "This is Eva and she really wants to meet you." Now in retrospect, I had no idea how Animal would react (would she baby talk me, get freaked out, or what?). I was so excited to meet her that this was the last thing on my mind when I plowed my way over. But she excitedly said "Hey Eva, nice to meet you. Did you like the show?," and WAITED for me to nod or shake my head. We chatted for a few minutes, each time she phrased the question in a 'yes' or 'no' style. My aide just stood there because she was not needed. There was no need for my aide to even explain me not talking.

You might be thinking "So what?" But for me this was a really big deal to meet someone (let alone someone I was a big fan of) that was so comfortable and casual right off the bat. 99% of the people I meet for the first time have at least some hesitation with me and my aides have to explain why I don't talk back etc. Explaining is obviously not a big deal but its sooooo nice to meet that 1% that just get it! Its like you have to tell your whole life story to everyone you meet in one sentence. Let me be clear; I don't expect anyone to "just know". Asking is always good. Its just really cool when someone doesn't have to ask.

Animal and I are still friends and I'm sure it was partly because of this encounter.

People who do it right.

So I have gotten a lot of great comments and emails in the past few days, many of which have posed the question "So Eva, what do I do?" So I am going to tell you a story about people who do it right.

Before it closed (so sad) I used to always go to a place called Highland Grounds

.

(yes, there is a step there but they also had an accessible entrance too) I loved their food, atmosphere, etc. As I kept showing up, the waitresses became more and more comfortable with me. One day the manager walked up and said "Eva, can you show me how I can communicate with you?" So my aide gave a little explanation and we tried it out. She gradually brought every waitress over to see the demonstration. So eventually I could just roll in and order myself. They didn't make a huge deal out of it and the desire to learn was absolutely sincere. It was just like learning my communication was the next obvious step since I came there so much. This might not seem like a big deal to you but to me it meant that they saw me as a person worth speaking to and not just 'that disabled girl'.

The difference between this and what the barista did was enormous. Now, the barista was being nice and this was the first time she'd seen me and I understand that she didn't have time to get to know me, so I will give her that. But talking to me that way at our first meeting is like when someone yells "HI! HOW ARE YOU!" to a deaf person. Its instinct but you've got to get over it.

I hope this story helps.