What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
There is absolutely nothing it would take to get me to actively make my worst fear happen. Because my worst fear is that I will become more disabled. I mean, if I have another stroke that takes out my right side,or if the aneurysms that I currently have in my brain all burst at once, but somehow I live through it and my cognition is lost. I’ve always said that I would rather lose my body than my mind, and I got so lucky with my stroke because I didn’t lose my cognition , I only lost access to my left side. So you see, my worst fear is perfectly reasonable.
Right now, on TikTok and youtu.be, there is a dance challenge to the song by Vanilla Ice, real name Robert Van Winkle, ice ice, baby, and every time I hear the chorus, my brain changes the lyric.
The other day, after watching yet another person dancing to the song, I started singing it aloud, and my husband was in the room, and he started laughing. When I asked him what was so funny,he told me that he thought my alternate lyric was hilarious,so I’m sharing it with you today,so you can get a chuckle from someone in your life.
During the chorus, which is literally just three words, ice ice, baby,substitute these three words.
I mean, is it ten thousand dollars or 10 million dollars or 100 million dollars? Or did I win a car? What about a mansion? You’ll have to be specific if I’m expected to respond properly. For instance, if I won anything above 2 million dollars, I would hire a live in care aid and a physiotherapist to help with my paralysis so my husband wouldn’t keep hurting his back , and I might improve more . If I won 10 thousand dollars, I’d probably purchase a new electric wheelchair for indoors as my current one doesn’t hold a charge for too long and is looking worse for wear. If I won 100 million dollars, I would buy us a new house. It would be a 3000 square foot bungalow and be flooded with light with a half acre of land, and I would hire a gardener to tend it. I’d also hire a chef and a cleaner so my husband could have more leisure time and less responsibility in his retirement. He could golf wherever he wanted to or visit friends who live hours away and stay for several days without having to worry about my care. Plus, it would be nice to count myself as a job creator.
My unread stack of books is starting to get out of hand. I’ll explain why this is at the end of this post.
Several of Graham Norton’s novels begin the list, and by several, I mean all 5 of them, including his newest. Frankie.
Next up is Cher’s autobiography. However, I won’t be reading it until the second one comes out because I want to read the whole thing at once.
Then comes Salmon Rushdie’s Knife and Freedom by Angela Merkel.
Now comes the real reason I have yet to crack them open. My eyesight has gotten worse, and I’m afraid to try reading them in case I can’t .I’m just not ready to lose another thing that I love doing. I’m afraid of what that will do to me. You see, reading was one of my first loves. I used to read to escape my life during childhood. Reading books became a safe haven for me, and I’m simply not ready to let it go. Granted, I can read blogs on my tablet, but I can also make the print bigger on my tablet. Also, it’s not the same experience as cracking open a new book,from the smell of the pages to the fact that I can hide behind a book and feel transported into the story and the minds of the authors. It’s as if I can live the story and befriend the author. I’m just not ready to lose all of my friends.
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.
The only family traditions I can think of involve birthday dinners, usually at our favorite restaurant . We also have a lovely dinner with my mom on December 24th . But my favorite tradition,if you can call it that, takes place every Wednesday when mom comes over and spends the whole day with me. We either watch a couple of movies or binge watch a series like Love is Blind on netflix. If the weather is good, we’ll go for a stroll to the dog park by the beach and stop for a smoothie on the way back. It’s my favorite day of the week.
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
I’m retired, so all of my time is leisure. I’m disabled, so 90 percent of my time is spent indoors. The time I enjoy most is the time I get to spend outside. Living in Canada means I have 3 ish seasons in which to get outside for about an hour in my wheelchair. My favorite thing to do outside is visit my local dog park and enjoy meeting all of the happy puppies of every breed and size. Nothing is happier than a dog who is off leash, and nothing sparks my joy as much as being around that energy.
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.
Perhaps this spring, I’ll finally get the chance to experience this very cool place instead of just driving by it.
Located on south Vancouver Island, the malahat skywalk is a newish experience that I’m very excited to report is wheelchair accessible and I’m dying to try it out myself. It’s a visitor center as well as a cool lookout point. And a view that I can’t wait another year to see.
Looks like a gorgeous view
And it’s not just for adults because after walking or rolling to the top, you can choose to get down to the bottom via a long slide, which looks like quite a bit of fun.
Sparking childish glee indeed
Although I’m pretty sure that I won’t be using the slide because my type of paralysis would very likely have me sliding to one side, I’m still excited to see it in action.
Here’s proof of wheelchair accessibility.
Nice wide path all the way up.
Power wheelchair users don’t get the opportunity very often to see views from so high up and surrounded by nothing but nature .
If you’re making a day of it, they even have a canteen serving pizza, hot dogs, and the like. And don’t forget dessert.
Kudos to the architect who had the idea to build this wonderfully inclusive structure.
