Surprises come in many different packages.  Take for instance our worries about the stupid flu shots.  We had an appointment to renew the nine separate prescriptions  I have to take at the rate of minimum once every four hours for four prescriptions to once per day for the rest.  So, while we were waiting for the poor GP doctor to write out the two pages of prescriptions, the nurse sneaked around the door.  She smiled and whispered, “Do you want flu shots?”  We both smiled and nodded our heads, smiling in unison.  So, some time later, we were presented with both the H1N1 flu shots and the regular flu shots.  We were both happy and sore at the same time when we left the doctor’s office.  We didn’t have no lineup to suffer through just to get the special flu shot.
That doctor’s appointment was last Tuesday morning.  I had to use my electric wheelchair just to get to the second floor doctor’s office at the end of a long hall that I would have collapsed in doing had I attempted it.  So, after seeing the doctor, we loaded the electric wheel chair into the van and drove home.  That afternoon, it began to snow.  It soon became impossible to move the electric wheelchair from the van.  That silly thing could get stuck on a wet spot, let alone actual slippery snow a few inches deep.
It was a full week that we first saw snow that landed on our driveway and stayed.  The temperatures hovered around the freezing mark for most of the past week, which wasn’t cold enough to harm the special deep recycle Lithium batteries that power the electric wheelchair.  Tonight the temperature is supposed to dip down to minus twenty degrees celsius, which would definitely harm those special batteries that cost several hundreds of dollars each.  Right.
We were panicked about the fact that we have been snowed in for the past week.  We live in a residential part of the city of Ottawa.  There are thousands of people who go past our snowpiled driveway every day.  Not one single person will help clear the way from the van to the back door so we could bring the electric wheelchair in from the cold.
I am so angry and almost in tears in desperation.  I hate people. I hate the world that makes me have such crappy things like that shocking hard and cold electric wheelchair that I had to save up and pay for second hand.  I hate everyone associated with doctors and all of the crap that the disabled have to deal with.  I hate to hate, because I hate so much and can do nothing about it.  Hate.
On another note, it was my brother’s fifty-second birthday and received Mom’s Christmas card at the same time.  Now, ain’t that a coincidence, eh?  So, smiling now, I look out at the pristine snow almost two feet deep on our front yard.

It all started one bright sunny afternoon when I answered my brother’s request to play a game on Facebook. Facebook is noted for having a whole lot of games and interactive role playing intrigues that can become so addictively overwhelming. Now, we set our day according to the time that oven contents in Cafe world are cooked and must be served. What has become of our own normal routines?

Gone are the thoughts of H1N1 Flu or any other reality based concerns. Gone are the hours that we used to talk and visit with friends who made the effort to respond in kind to our pleasant times together. Gone are the normal concerns that normal adults might have in blogging with friends, filling photo albums on various websites like Webshots and such. I remember something like fourteen websites that I had constructed and maintained as a pleasure and pasttime that I enjoyed so much. Oh well, it is strange how things can become so twisted and urgently demanding out of all proportions.

This is our third day of continuous snow falling lightly with a mix of fog, rain, and sleet. Nothing substantial has remained on the cold ground that is not cold enough to keep the thin layers of snow from melting during the day. Only this morning did everything turn completely white with frost that lasted for less than an hour. It isn’t quite winter yet, although it is certainly trying.

I notice that my fingers are hurting after only this bit of typing when I have been clicking with my trackball mouse most of the time. I do have to relearn my keyboarding skills that are so rusty as to make numerous typos and other mistakes in grammar and spelling. Hm.

I do have to make a routine of everything that needs to be done, from housecleaning to blogging and other Internet demands that I used to do so willingly. An almost non-existent budget has kept me housebound when the fear of spending money I don’t have overcomes my need to go outside. Somehow I have become trapped into playing those silly computer games instead of participating in reality.

It has been over three years since the last time I had a visit to a hairdresser to have my locks cut. My locks are now down to my waist and hang with a heavily sodden weight after my daily bath to straighten my spinal curvature. As long as I straighten my back at least daily, I am avoiding the permanent curve that marks other people with my genetic disease.

I still can’t walk any more or less than across the house at any one time. More than that leaves me collapsed down on the floor for hours until I recover enough to try again. That means I have become more dependent upon my old electric wheelchair that sadly needs a full reconditioning. Ah, back to the non-existent budget again when the big blue Ford wheelchair equipped van needs brakes and a muffler long before I could think of replacing the electric batteries of the electric wheelchair. It is a stretch to think of buying another set of Crayola coloured pencils for my drawings or glue and balsa wood for my scale model constructions of buildings.

I can’t reach my toes anymore to do my toe nails. I can’t reach past my ears towards the back of my head from the two ten inch scars from both lung operations of a few years ago. I can’t even raise my arms past my shoulders in height because of the limiting scars that mark where my muscles were surgically separated so that my lungs could be reinflated. And, it hurts me so much just to sit at Super Stupid, my old dependable computer and access to the Internet. I have so much to write about that I have done in my life. I should only think about telling stories instead of writing them out.

During the past six days, I have begun and finished many projects, gone places, watched movies, and a whole list of things that I have done in the process of living.  I can’t say that I have all that much of a life, only that I do have a life that does have some wholesome goodness about it.

All along I have been in a duel or race against time or even against someone specific.  The fact is that there are no real contests or races.  It is only a matter of what you decide is a priority and how you decide to do things.  What really matters is only what you decide that matters.  Now we must hurry before the bridge collapses, as it will according to the Mothman Prophecies and a host of other predictions.

There are those predictions that must come true regardless of other evolved circumstances to settle prearranged paradoxes.  There are other continuums of reality that have combined and mingled in the evolved circumstances of this line of reality.  Even so, realities alter and evolve to reflect narrow bands of perceptions that determine what values are being followed in general predictions.  Even so, I can determine temporary values to be followed and change things to balance as I see fit.  Sometimes I do extraordinary things only to fit a balance correctly according to the new values as I see them.

Why is it that I keep trying to explain something that there are no words to describe the concepts adequately.  I usually force simple words to bend around conceptual circumstances that are so vastly complex and intangible.  And, it is only by my personal experiences that I try to express enough to vainly satisfy my urges of expression.  But, that’s another trouble of mine in that I write short stories as if they were mere chapters of a long book.

You would think that I could make a living by writing books, journals, and stories of all kinds.  Likely it might have been true had it not been for other factors in my life.  I do like freedom and spontaneity over conforming discipline and punctual regularity.  Few careers were open to my limited education and preference for demanding physical labour.

In retrospect, I am amazed at the accomplishments and nature of the work I did find.  At the Unemployment office, I took a battery of tests that showed I was capable of pursuing at least eight career categories.  Yet, I did manage to find work at driving dump trucks.  So much for the need of education over experience at performing some unusual work.

There are advantages and disadvantages to any sort of career or work.  Luckily I found the advantages of being mobile in a physically demanding environment much to my liking.  I was able to live on the fringe of society in general and thereby avoid the troublesome interactions with the public at large.  With experience and time, I was able to expand my capabilities and subsequently my range of mobility.  Along with the increase in freedom I had came the responsibilities that were attendant with the profession.  I was able to meet the demands and obligations expected of me in a consistent and responsible manner.

It’s this time again, late or early in the morning and still hard at work with Super Stupid.  Who would believe that so much time has been spent upon the Internet for one reason or another.  All I care about is that I am keeping up with the habits that I have established and everything seems to be going well.  I think that is the main concern for now anyways.  So much for talk about the weather on the Internet, eh?

My little Chip Wagon project is going along well enough.  I have worked out the basic interior of the Chip Wagon and have yet to plan the minute details that I will be adding with either materials or paint.  It is still a pretty sparse plan that I seem to be following at the moment.  It seems that as I go along, I work out the details to fit in a presentable way.  A good example is the door to the Chip Wagon.  As I cut the thin bass wood wall, I accidentally chipped off a sliver from one top corner of the actual door material.  I finished separating the bass wood and carefully glued on the separated sliver.  While I held the pieces of bass wood together until the glue had set enough, I thought about making hinges for the door.  It took mere minutes to cut cloth door hinges and glue them into place.  Now, a weakness in the grain of the bass wood door had been repaired and the door was set and held in place by two tiny cloth door hinges.  The door actually opens as it is supposed to do.

I have taken a few more pictures to show how far along I have progressed with just the simple plan I worked up so quickly.  There is a grill mounted over the windows to prevent breakins.  There is a canvas awning rolled up at the top of the front windows in case of inclimate weather.  There are propane tanks propped up at the rear of the Chip Wagon.  There are garbage bins and a picnic table arranged off to one side of the Chip Wagon.  There are a hundred other details that I do fully intend to include in the finished set of the Chip Wagon.  And, there will be more as I think of it and set about the making of it.

There are a thousand ways to make a mountain out of a mole hill.  In this case, I do want to make much more than just the simple box shape of the Chip Wagon.   By following the outline established in digital camera photographs, I will be able to  see proportions in context to fit everything together in a realistic scale.

The latest news about the H1N1 flu epidemic is not positive.  The flu is beginning to spread from humans to other mammals that humans come into contact with.  It is a sad and frustrating fact that influenza is highly contagious and at times fatal.  There is a serious concern about the various types of vaccines developed to combat the spreading epidemic of H1N1 flu.
Most of the clinics in the Ottawa area have run out of the last batch of vaccine shots.  The limit of high risk groups and pregnant mothers has done little to spread what vaccine shots there were among the most succeptable  of the population. 
Today was notable for the delivery of three hundred thousand vaccine shots to three clinics in the Ottawa area for high risk group and expectant mothers.    Unadjuvanted vaccine from Australia is being made available in Canada this week, and Canadian manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline will ship 800,000 doses to the provinces next week.
There was a special clinic for expectant mothers that was expanded to three Ottawa hospitals.  Pregnant women can also get the H1N1 shot at any of the city’s fixed site or roving vaccine clinics.  The clinics will offer both the adjuvant vaccine, containing an immune-boosting additive, and the unadjuvanted vaccine, which has been manufactured only for pregnant women in Canada.
Hospitalizations for H1N1 are about three times higher this week than last, and approaching the levels reached in June, when the first wave of the pandemic was in full throttle.
“It will continue right through the winter … it’s not slowing down,” warned Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer. “Nobody should be complacent about this.”
A simple fact is that the H1N1 Flu pandemic dominates the media digging to come up with other types of news.  A female postie stabbed by her ex, a Rwandan man charged with war crimes, the adrenaline junkie soldiers in the Canadian Army, and the year’s summary of City Hall politics.  Such news articles don’t rate front page coverage they are given to lighten the dire threat of the spreading flu.  The real question is what other news is not being reported.
Front page headlines are a lofty domain for select topics.  When lower class headlines creep into the front page, be sure that something of significance has had it’s assigned space filled.  Hm.  
Perhaps the vacant space was for the second nuclear facility in Iran, or that Korea has already supplied weapons grade uranium to Iran.  In any case, Iran is further ahead on it’s covert nuclear schedules than the West would like to admit.  In my opinion, websites like Debka or Digg are a week ahead of the news that is reported in the latest newspapers.     
I make it a point to keep ahead of the latest news headlines.  I do a few news blogs of my own, as well as a dozen or so other blogs that cover a wide range of topics from advanced energy experimental research and space exploration to the latest in thee political and social climates.  I am busy, to say the least.  

It has been a long week already. I have been going out every day and coming home exhausted despite not wanting to go out at all. I have been sleeping as much as I can, but only two hours at a time because my back is so painful. The hydromorphone and three other painkiller types are not doing the job. I wake up almost screaming in pain every time I lay down.

The lack of sleep is a serious concern, especially for doctors who believe lack of sleep weakens the immune system. I think they are right. It does sap your mental processes to go without sleep. We do so much subconsciously that we are not aware of exactly how much that does go on with our control. Why is all of this so important, you ask? Well, it is a terrific impact on the body and especially the back for a human form to ride on everything from skiis to snowmobiles. How we take the big jolts makes a difference to how we can ride, do stunts, and all sorts of other things. Not everyone is in perfect physical condition to take punishment properly.

There are a lot of factors that make a serious difference to how we perform and absorb any physical punishment. I was a trucker for twenty years, so I know all about pushing the limits. Even at my best, I could be laid low because of a lack of sleep, bad food, stress, and a bunch of other silly things. But, the overall picture of what we can expect of ourselves does diminish with everything working against us. I had to fight the odds on the highways just to survive, and now I am fighting the odds just to stand up and walk fifty feet. Not the same job for the same person. I know I shoulda been a preacher for all of my spouting.

The concerns for the H1N1 Flu are now heightened. The word that there is a mutation has already made the news. The present wave of Flu is peaked in the Ottawa area with numerous people feigning asthma to get into the high risk group inclusions at clinics. There is a shortage of doctors, nurses, and other first response staff. Hospitals are limiting visiting and admissions are for emergencies only. On it goes, one thing after another as the Flu affects more critical people in critical services.

So called preparations for the Flu season are almost negligent in every respect and the Health Minister is called on the mat for virtually no preparations at all. The single vaccine manufacturer is down to 600,000 shots per week instead of the planned 3 million shots per week. Some people are in a panic about getting a shot before the Flu hits them even if they do wash their hands. It is a reasonable concern in the face of the Health Minister promising everyone vaccine shots before Christmas. Two months can be too long if the Flu hits before you are immunized. Right.

It wasn’t a Halloween around here.  No kids came to the door singing “Trick or treat!”  No kids at all seemed to be out celebrating All Hallow’s Eve.  Nor did we even bother to get dressed up into costumes or anything remotely witch-like or zombie-like.  Most of the families in our neighbourhood are Islamic or Muslim.  Who could believe this to happen in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario…  yet, such is the case.

Up on Parliament Hill, the capital of Canada set off fireworks, and crowds of people dressed up in their costumes were seen to be parading around in joyous glee under the full moon.  My, how times have changed as hockey is slowly being replaced with soccer, and snowmobiles roar racing across snow covered flats instead of horse drawn sleds.

It was something I grew up with, trick or treating for candy from door to door until our pillow cases were filled to overflowing while the sky was exploding with fireworks under a rarely seen full moon.  Just about every Halloween was cold and a thick fall of snow was on the ground.  This unfortunate Halloween was remarkable to me in that there was no snow on the ground.  Where is the snow?  Where is the Halloween?

Remember that it is illegal to talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time.  It is just as bad as drunken driving for all of the damage and fatal statistics as far as insurance is concerned, and the law, for issuing tickets of hundreds of dollars.  And, don’t get caught with summer tires when snow is on the ground.  Those all season tires are no better than summer tires, so get those winter tires or be fined.  Ha!

Here it is in the mid afternoon.  The clinics are limiting their doors to the pregnant moms only.  The average wait for moms and their children is about six hours.  There are great concerns for the moms with kids who have to wait in lineups for such extended periods of time.  There is a call out for any off-duty medical staff to volunteer for manning the vaccination stations that have been set up around the city.  The general public is being told to avoid crowded areas and to stay home if displaying flu-like symptoms.

The forecast by the Health Ministry for more vaccine shots by Tuesday has been cancelled.  The drug manufacturers have had to reset their production processes to handle the vaccines for pregnant women from the type of vaccines for the general public.  So, there will be a considerable delay before the general public will be able to receive their vaccines.

There was a call to investigate the handling of the management of the epidemic control, but so far the explanations given are reasonable and standard.  Usually there will be a set rate of about three million doses of vaccine per week under normal production standards.  That rate does assure that all Canadians will be able to receive their vaccine shots before the Christmas holidays.  I can only ask, “What about now?”

Well, the fun only begins!  The flu shot clinics are having a trouble.  At opening, the clinics had about eight hundred vaccine shots available for the two thousand plus crowd waiting outside the doors before their opening.  Then, it got busy.

The clinics will receive more vaccine shots on Tuesday.  Meanwhile, the general public will simply have to wait until all of the hospital staff, pregnant moms, and high risk disabled people get their vaccine shots first.  Already there is a great hue and cry about the unpreparedness of the Health Ministry to deal with the outbreak of the Flu epidemic that is already raging across Canada.

The politicians themselves are also screaming for their shots in the face of meeting the general public that has no protection at all for the H1N1 Flu epidemic, let alone for the usual Flu shot season.  Pity that the politicians don’t rank any higher than the general public when it comes to their turn at getting shot.  They are getting shot, aren’t they?  No.  Oh, too bad and so sad.

The fact is that the real protection for getting flu is to stay away from everyone, regardless of having a vaccine shot or not.  The risk of passing along a flu virus is greater in places where other people congregate.  A mall, a city bus, a doctor’s office, a hospital or clinic, or any public gathering is a dangerous setting for passing along the flu bugs.  You don’t gather, do you?

I am sorry that I have such a bad attitude.  But, it is earned attitude when I saw the Health Ministry promising to have a plan and a means of protecting the general public in the case of any pan epidemic.  Now that we do have a second wave of H1N1 sweeping the country, there have been literally over thirteen hundred deaths by H1N1 directly.  Oops.

I am disabled and have a compromised immune system to contend with.  I do rank in the high risk group as does my other half.  Yet, I don’t have a chance of seeing a vaccine shot for some time yet.  Meanwhile, I will stay away from public places.  All hospitals and clinics in the Ottawa area are closed because they are swamped with sick patients who do have the symptoms of H1N1 and are sicker than usual, enough to be hospitalized.  The picture doesn’t get any better.

It is one thing to live on a limited income.  It is another thing entirely to live as a couple of disabled people supporting a house, a chair van, an electric wheelchair, and obvious disabilities.  There is no room for errors or extraneous expenses like medical and dental expenses not covered by Federal or Provincial medical coverage, van’s gasoline, roof repairs, snow removal, yard cleanup, plumbing repairs, and all of the other things that we face.

I am frail with a serious back condition and Peter is blind and has COPD out his lungs.  The two of us have to manage without any help to keep on top of our basic needs.  Believe that we do use an inventive method of dealing with things.  We live until the money runs out and then we simply sit and wait.

It’s not fun to sit and wait.  At least we are hanging on to what we do have.  There are a lot of people who are in the process of moving down the scale in living standards.  The rich get rich and the poor get poorer as usual.  Now, the food bank lines are not keeping up with the demand of so many more in poverty.  It is easy to see who has and who hasn’t got what it takes to stay solvent.

Today is a big day that we intend to go out to the local Landsdown arena to sell tickets for the annual event sponsored by the Quonis club.  We aren’t even members but we have a friend who is eighty five years old, blind, frail and we are going to take him and support his cause.  Now I think of avoiding events… right.

It’s a serious thing to get sick. No one wants to get sick. Yet, at least ten per cent of all schools in Ottawa are home with the new strain of Flu going around. Already there has been a sudden death of one thirteen year old boy in Toronto that has been attributed to the new Flu strain. So, it is definitely not a joke to get sick. This summer, Peter went off with his daughter in tow to the IFactor contest for the best singer in Canada sponsored by the Canadian Institute for the Blind. Both Peter and his daughter are legally bind with about ten per cent vision as a result of congenital cataracts. Anyhow, Jan was a real protege of her father in that both can sing their lungs out like angels. Ha. Peter came home after thirteen days of having fun, meeting all of the famous and rich people from across Canada who were selected to sing in the finals of the IFactor contest. It was as much a treat to stay in the luxurious facilities of the retreat in the Muskokas as it was to hob knob with the most talented people in Canadian Music Industry. Peter was in his glory. Well, Peter got into much more than glory out in the bush of the Muskokas. He also tied on a few and came down with the coughing kind of flu of some sort. He was so sick when he got home that he went straight to the doctor’s office. One prescription of antibiotics later, Peter was still sick for another two or three weeks. Last week, Peter phoned the doctor’s office to find out if he was on the list of high risk people to get the H1N1 Flu shot. Well, the receptionist who knows Peter very well for over a decade, said that she didn’t know, so she would ask the doctor and let him know when she finds out. Besides, since Peter already had the Swine Flu, she thought he wouldn’t need it. Oh? Already? You mean that I had it already? Oh yes, in the summer after the vacation trip to the Muskokas. But, Peter still has coughing and COPD, a bad set of puffers about to plug up completely anyways. Right. Peter already had the Flu and so did I, naturally since we live so close to each other all of the time. But, it seems that we can catch it again. In fact, there are circumstances where we could possibly pass it back and forth to keep each other infected for a very long time. Hm, maybe that seems to be the case now. I don’t cough, but I am just as sick as Peter is. The trouble is that I just don’t show it by coughing. To say the H1N1 Flu is on the rampage is an under statement. It is beyond the epidemic stage now. Most of the population has already had it or is going to get it inevitably. How can you tell a bunch of uneducated immigrants who can not speak the language how to keep hygienic conditions? But they are not as bad as the kids in schools who are playing together that spread the Flu faster than the drugs to immunize them. Already hospitals are closing their doors except for emergencies because of the influx of sick people coming in to be diagnosed or to be admitted for care. It is back to being a serious thing to be sick with the Flu that can and does prove fatal. Scientists are studying how fast the Flu is spreading. They are also trying vainly to prepare for when the Flu bug mutates and turns on itself to reinfect all those who it already infected. If you have been sick or are going to get sick, it is a fact that you have to reconsider your habits in Life. You are simply in the line of fire for contagions that can and will come along. There is no way you will avoid contagions unless you make serious alterations to your lifestyle and ways of keeping clean and hygienic. Whether you live in rural or urban areas will make no difference to the spread of the Flu. It goes where ever people go. It travels along and infects as it can, and does, proving fatal to those weakened by circumstance. It almost seems silly that the spread of the Flu can be so easily stopped. Just washing your hands isn’t the answer. It is the combined efforts of everyone that provide the hygienic sterility to arrest the spread of the Flu in the first place. Am I preaching? I hope that I am spreading something besides the Flu around.