Operation Black Friday

So we’ve all seen the headlines about what may have been the craziest Black Friday in history:  pepper spray, smash-and-grab, bloody fights with shoplifters.  Now, of course, it would be nice if we could all be civilized and remember that wanting to buy a crate of X-box consoles is not really provocation for physical violence, no matter how good the price. But this is America, and that’s a bit pie in the sky, isn’t it?  So I have a different idea:  instead of trying to fight it, just go with it.

Hear me out:  we’ve already got a really cool spec-ops name for it:  Operation Black Friday.  Stores will coordinate the exact opening times for the front doors, perhaps using those cool head-set thingies to communicate about the anticipated onslaught and their sales associates’ readiness capacity.  They’ll go to radio silence just before midnight, and the store managers will be doing those hand-signal things to the associate managers to direct them on the field.  Shoppers will come prepared for battle, wearing night-vision goggles looted during a previous Black Friday (spoils of war?) and decked out in protective gear.  I’d recommend stopping short of using tasers, as has been suggested, but again–this is America.

We could have training classes leading up to it, covering tactics, hand-to-hand combat, and comparison shopping under siege.  What a great form of exercise, and with self-defense built right in!  We would truly be the most feared nation on earth; imagine attackers plotting against us, spying and doing recon, and then reporting back to their leaders that all Americans over the age of sixteen know how to render an assailant unconscious using only a USB cable and a value pack of men’s underwear.  We’d be the new Sparta!  Those who are left at home would tell the valiant warriors, “Come back with Modern Warfare 3 or on it!”

I think this could be a turning point in our history.  Black Friday is not for the faint of heart.  Navy SEALS are taxed to their limits.  We’ve got untapped potential, here, people.  Let’s not waste it.

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Mea culpa, with cartoons

Now that I’ve started blogging, I think I’m starting to understand what high school was like for my friends.  Because I was legally blind back in high school, too, I couldn’t see all the hideous changes everyone’s bodies were going through.  I couldn’t tell that my lab partner had big ears or that the head cheerleader’s hair was frizzy that day or that the President of the student body had gorgeous eyes.  I could tell a few things about myself, but I’m grateful to have been spared the gorier details.  My friends, though, would obsess over every little thing:  is that a zit?  My jeans are too short.  What is going on with her hair?  Do you think he likes me?  I wanted to slap them, but I loved them, so I didn’t.  I just told them they were wonderful, because they were.

I did laugh at my guy friends when their voices started to change, though, ’cause when you’ve got super-sensitive hearing, that sh*t’s hilarious.

Now that I’ve been blogging for a few weeks, I’ve become obsessed with my stats.  How many people have visited my site?  How many comments do I have?  Why hasn’t anyone “liked” this post?  Should I leave a comment on this other blog?  Are my posts too long?  I seriously want to slap myself.  I’ve been in the game less than a month, and I’m feeling unpopular because I don’t have as many hits as other blogs that have been going for over a year.  Like I shouldn’t be massively flattered that total strangers have visited, “liked” what they saw, and left comments, especially once I see how awesome their sites are compared to mine.  The popular kids “like” me!  It’s a quantifiable fact.

But then there’s the dark side of blogging: the seduction of commenting in anonymity.  I’ve gotten nothing but cheers and support in my comments, which makes me think either my blog attracts really cool people or I’m not posting about anything very interesting.  No reason it can’t be both, I guess.  On some of the blogs I visit, though, there can be some really vicious comments, ones that I didn’t think people would have made face to face until I remembered high school.  There was nothing wrong with my hearing back then, and I remember being shocked by some of the things that would come out of people’s mouths, just like I’m appalled by some of the comments I read on other blogs.  I would self-righteously prim up my mouth, scroll down, and congratulate myself on not being like that.

Until I left one of those comments.

I’m not going to go into the details.  I recently left a comment on a blog I follow that was substantially less than positive.  To my utter horror, the blogger responded and had clearly been hurt by what I had to say.  Dismay!  Consternation!  My new-found blogging power has Gone To My Head!  I promptly responded with a Public Groveling and timidly extended the Olive Branch Of Recommenting, which the blogger graciously accepted.

So I’m wondering at this point if I’ve turned into those people I avoided in high school, who said the nasty things and didn’t have the wonderful friends?  If I have, please find some way to slap me.  I don’t give a rat’s hind quarters if my ears are too big or my jeans are too short, or even if my posts are too long, but I’m not in this to hurt anyone.  Mock with abandon, yes, but not just tee off and be nasty.  With election issues heating up lately, I think the news media has pretty much got that covered.  I’ll leave it to the professionals.

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Thanksgiving: definitely my favorite holiday

I think it’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard that we have a national day of thanksgiving.  I also think it’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen that visual aids have advanced enough that I can now read all of these blogs and write my own.  I’m grateful for all the random readers who’ve left comments or liked my posts.  I’m grateful that I can then go and read their blogs and comment, or respond to their comments here, and have dialogues with people all around the country.  It’s amazing to me, and such a gift.  And I’m grateful for all the people who read my blog because they know me and love me, and who patiently read through all the posts because they know how much fun I have writing them.  Thanks to all of you.  You’re the best things in my life.

I can’t think of a better way to illustrate how this holiday brings people together and to show what I’m grateful for right now than to link to the blog that got me thinking I could write a blog.  It’s written by an Australian who lives in California, who presumably did not grow up fighting about who got to wear the Indian (sorry, Native American) costume and who had to be a Pilgrim.  Still, he takes the day to say thank you and to tell us what an awesome country we have.    How would I ever have even known he said that without all these blogs we keep?  Check him out, and have a happy Thanksgiving!

http://dysfunctionalbachelor.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/you-know-what-time-it-is/

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Adopt a Little Blind Girl

Free to good home:  one Little Blind Girl, lightly used.  This rare and exotic breed is known for its endearing clutziness, comically mis-matched clothing, and inconveniently good hearing.  This particular Little Blind Girl is fully housebroken and ready for show.  Her skills include running in four-inch heels, applying makeup with her eyes closed, and finding creative ways to reach the highest shelf.  As with most Little Blind Girls, her diet consists primarily of raw foods, though this specimen has mastered the art of boiling an egg and has demonstrated prodigious skills with the microwave.

Prospective owners must demonstrate their ability to care for a Little Blind Girl, including extensive first-aid skills and the ability to get condiment stains out of dry-clean only clothing.  All applicants must show proof of ownership of a high-end stereo system and be trained to handle the occasional tantrum when the Little Blind Girl gets a new toy but can’t read the assembly instructions written in 6-point font.

Little Blind Girls are well-known for their easy-going attitudes regarding what channel of television to watch, though they can develop attachments to certain actors if seen before their vision problems set in.  This Little Blind Girl will insist on watching anything with Johnny Depp.  Should a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon come on the air, do not attempt to get between the Little Blind Girl and the screen unless properly attired in protective gear.  Simply supply her with popcorn and Milk Duds, check on her at commercial breaks, and wait for the marathon to end, at which point the Little Blind Girl will resume her normal behavior patterns.  She is very loving and affectionate and would be a good addition to any home.  Except one with small children, which she will not see and may possibly step on.  Please leave a comment if interested.

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The future’s so bright, I’ve got to wear shades

A friend of mine posted this on my Facebook page:


 

 

 

 

 

I’ve suspected for a while that this is what’s really going on!

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Little blind girl vs. the smoke detectors

Remember when I posted about my apartment?  I mentioned in that post that my apartment has cathedral ceilings: it makes changing bulbs for the recessed lighting a little tricky, but I manage.  So what do I come to find out but that the smoke detectors, which are my, the tenant’s, responsibility to maintain, are located right up there next to the ceiling!  Two of them!  One of them cunningly located at the very highest point of my ever-rising sloping wall!  Good joke, Management, very funny.  And I find this out when?  When they start going off and won’t stop because the batteries are running low, of course.

Now, I want to be clear about this:  little blind girls and ladders do not mix.  I can about manage a stepladder to reach the cabinet that some genius put right above the refrigerator (really? really?), but anything more and the world gets so fuzzy that I might as well be standing in a cloud, one step away from falling thousands of feet to a gruesome and very messy end.  So the smoke detectors were beeping and I ascertained that there was, in fact, no fire, no smoke, no alarm test, no nothing, definitely low batteries, and it was, naturally, Friday evening, right after Management packed up and left for the weekend.

It being Friday evening, I’d stopped for supplies on the way home, and by supplies I mean beer.  So I broke into the supplies and paced back and forth, sucking down the beer and trying to locate the smoke detectors which, until that evening, I had never thought to look for.  Having found them, and upon realizing I had no way to reach them, I assessed the situation, chugged the rest of the beer and started immediately upon another.  And here we come upon one of the magical properties of beer:  it can help you out of seemingly impossible situations.   As I slumped on the kitchen floor, clutching my bottle, both smoke detectors going full blast, an idea came to me.  Yes!  This will work!  There is nothing at all wrong with this idea!  Beer, you’re the best.

My fabulous plan entailed me, all 105 legally blind pounds of me, pushing my 5-drawer bureau across my apartment, over to my hallway, and using my stepladder to climb on top of it to reach the first smoke detector.  I then, and this is where it gets good, pushed the bureau back across the apartment over to my built-in wardrobe, put a small stool on the bureau, and used my stepladder to climb onto the bureau, then onto the stool, then onto the top of my wardrobe, from which I could just reach the highest smoke detector situated twenty feet above the floor.  There is no way I could have done this sober.  I distinctly remember the stool wobbling on my way down.  But I did it and I climbed back down, stumbled over to the couch and collapsed.  And had another beer.

The adrenaline has long since worn off by now, as has the alcohol.  But I still have my bureau wedged in between my bed and the wardrobe, and I can’t get it out because a) it’s at a really bad angle and 2) I weigh 105 pounds!  What was I thinking?  It may just have to stay that way for a while.  On the upside, I’ll be ready to go the next time the batteries in my smoke detector run low.

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Why little blind girls don’t travel much

A CTA Brown Line train leaving the Madison/Wab...

Image via Wikipedia

With the holidays coming up, my friends are all talking about their travel plans.  Me, I’m staying put for various reasons, but I keep thinking about the time I wanted to see my father for his sixtieth birthday.  Now, I don’t drive, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, and I live in a fairly rural area without mass transit or a train station.  My father lives a couple of hours away near a Major Metropolis, too far away for a taxi.  So what is a little blind girl to do?

Well, hey, there’s this bus that runs from our town to a neighboring town that has a train station.  Would I be able to take this bus to that town and catch a train to somewhere near my dad?  From what I heard, the train only hit that town about once a month.  I’d have better luck riding there on a cow.  Plenty of those around.  But wait!  The train was leaving in the middle of the afternoon on the actual day my father turned sixty; perfect!  So I’ve got it all planned out:  taxi ride to the bus stop, bus to the train station, train to Major Metropolis, mass transit to a stop near my father’s house, and then my stepmother can pick me up and give me a 5-minute ride to surprise my father for his birthday.  And it will only take four hours!  That’s only twice the amount of time it would take to get there if I could drive!  It’s the little things in life.

Now, I really should have seen this next part coming.  The day came; I took off work and was waiting for the train, for which I had already purchased a ticket.  Clutching said ticket and two forms of identification, I waited, waited, waited…checked on the train status…the train was expected to be an hour late.  Sigh, call stepmother, let her know.  I waited, waited, waited…checked on the train status again…the train was expected to be three hours late.  Panic, call stepmother, eat lots of junk food.  This is what I do when I’m upset.  By rights, I should weigh four hundred pounds.  Finally, three and a half hours late, the train pulled into the station.  I threw myself on board before anyone had a chance to leave me behind, curled up in my seat, and thumped my head softly against the window.  There’s probably a scientific explanation for why that seems to help with stress.  Maybe to give you a physical explanation for the pounding in your head? But I was on my way.

Glitch #2:  Fare cards were required for mass transit.  Crap.  What, seriously?  You don’t take credit cards?  Detour to ATM for cash withdrawal and fare card purchase.  Pounding in head near critical levels.

I arrived at Major Metropolis a mere six hours after leaving home, exhausted, wrinkled, and thoroughly fed up with my fellow human beings, especially the ones in the travel industry.  My stepmother had been delaying dinner and attempting to keep my father from getting suspicious, but even stepmothers can only be so devious.  She snuck out on a pretext, snatched me up, and bundled me back to the house driving at what seemed significantly higher than the speed limit, but I couldn’t be sure because it had gotten dark out by then, despite my having left before noon.

By the time I showed up on my father’s doorstep that night, I’d taken a taxi, a bus, a train, mass transit, and bummed a ride from family.  I felt like I should have thrown in a canoe trip somewhere, just to complete the list.  You know the stress most people get from traveling?  Yeah.  Multiply that by about fifty thousand.  So I rummaged through my bag, pulled out my father’s slightly squashed present, walked through the door, and said “Surprise!” to my darling dad.  And you know what?  He was really surprised and really happy, and it all became worth it right then.  It wasn’t until I smelled dinner that I remembered that I’d only eaten a banana, a muffin, and five pounds of sugar over the course of the day.  In retrospect, maybe not the best diet while traveling.

So remember me when you travel during the holidays, you lucky b*stards.  When you’re in your comfortable cars and planes and going straight from point A to point B, think of me.  And all you guys who have to travel from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles to eventually get to Atlanta, I feel you.  And bring painkillers, because it’s going to start hurting after a while when you’re banging your head against the window.  Oh, and go easy on the sugar.  Trust me on this.

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This is Republican Idol!

It was performance day here at Republican Idol, and all the contestants were nervous. Even Mitt Romney appeared to be sporting a light sheen of sweat, though his maintenance crew later claimed that it was condensation due to a malfunctioning cooling duct.  It’s been a long struggle for these hopefuls, with a grueling tour schedule that has had them onstage in cities from Florida to California.  Despite singing essentially the same songs in every performance, each contestant has had setbacks and each contestant has a story to tell, except for Rick Perry, who can’t remember his story.  But it all comes down to how they connect with the voting audience.

First up was Newt Gingrich.  Widely derided in the beginning as past his prime, Newt has modernized his repertoire and gone from Golden Oldie to Golden Child.  Now seen as a frontrunner, Newt belted out his popular hit, “Hey!  I’m Not Mitt!” to cheers and applause, many audience members joining in.  In a rare display of party unity, Rick Santorum and Gary Johnson were seen with their arms around each other, swaying to the beat and singing along.  Santorum later released a statement to the press clarifying that he was, in fact, extremely heterosexual and that he was merely caught up in the moment, a little curious, and that it meant nothing, nothing at all.  Gary Johnson posted a reply on YouTube indicating that his next-door neighbor’s dog was more heterosexual than Santorum.

Next up was Michele Bachmann.  She put a conservative twist on the Howard Dean classic, “I Swear I’m Not A Crazy Nutjob,” beginning with a quiet ramble and building to a final, climactic scream that brought the live audience to its feet but had the judges rolling their eyes, and left many viewers at home wondering if her handlers were hiding her medication.  She remains a strong contender and a media favorite, but will her followers find her entertaining enough to send her to the finals?

The night ended with embattled favorite Herman Cain, who turned in a raucous rendition of his popular “I Said 9! 9! 9!”  The audience joined in and, though many got the details of the words wrong when it came to the verses, they all came together to shout “9! 9! 9!” on the chorus.  Critics have speculated as to the ultimate meaning of the song, which remains unclear and has therefore generated a great deal of buzz.  Even buzzier are the allegations of improprieties with female fans after performances.  However, an investigator looking into the allegations was heard to comment that it was the only way the poor man was likely to see any action, and to have a heart.

Votes will be cast, dreams will be dashed, and one of the contestants will go on to the final show for a chance at a four-year contract and a whole new life.  Who will it be?  Only time will tell, but one thing is certain:  we’re in for many, many more performances before we finally choose a winner.

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I like my posts like I like my men, short and funny

Because that last post was a bummer and I like to leave you guys with a laugh:

Little blind girl walks into a bar, goes up to place her drink order, has the following exchange:

Random guy:  Nice shoes.  Wanna f*ck?

Little blind girl:  Um, no thanks.

(turns around, walks to friends’ table)

Friend:  Man, that guy was really cute!

Little blind girl:  That explains a lot.

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Some days are harder than others

Most days, I’m not afraid of going blind.  I’ve heard words of doom pronounced before, only to be rescinded, and I know when to panic and when not to.  I’m doing what I should be doing to preserve the vision I have, and there are new developments all the time that give me hope.

But some days are hard.  Some days I get so scared, thinking that the darkness is going to fall at some point and never lift again.  There will be a sunset that will be the last one I see, a ray of light that will falter and fade until the shadows swallow it completely, until they swallow me completely.  I’ll never see the sun again, never see another flower, never see the faces of the people I love.  I’ll walk in darkness for the rest of my life.  I know, I know that there’s so much that’s worse.  I could be dying.  This could be happening to someone I love, instead of to me.  But when I wake up in the middle of the night to pitch black and think, someday this is what the world will look like to me at noon, that doesn’t help much.

I love light.  I love the sun, the way it can be so far away, spinning and burning, and still light up entire worlds.  I love daffodils, which I’ve always thought look like sunlight made into a flower.  I love to see my niece’s face and how it changes as she grows, always more beautiful every time I see her, and it breaks my heart that I may not be able to see her as a woman.  I want to see her face.  I want to see the face of my sister when she looks at her daughter.  How often do you get to see happiness absolutely undiluted?  But I’ve seen it.  How can it be that I may someday never see it again?

But I can hear my niece laugh.  I can hear my sister joking with her and being stern with her and loving her; I can hear her father being so funny and patient and good-hearted, and I don’t need to see any of them to know what kind of a woman she’s going to be with parents like that.  I can recognize amazing in any language, with my eyes closed and both hands behind my back.  And I have time to memorize the faces of everyone I love.  I have time to sit by the daffodils and see the way they bloom as if they’re reaching for something, maybe reaching for the sun, like me.  I promise you, I will be watching the sun come up every day I can still see it and I’ll turn my face to the sky like those daffodils, and when my eyes fail me altogether I may walk in darkness, but I’ll dream of light.

I’m grateful for the time, and I’m grateful that it isn’t worse.  It’s just hard to be brave when you know what’s coming, and it comes little by little every day.

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