Chez PLJ

We finally started the process for getting Jon a new wheelchair on August 19. No, let’s back up a bit: We started the process for getting Jon a new wheelchair sometime last year, but the stars (and government agencies) didn’t align properly until now.

Jon’s been using the wheelchair frame he was prescribed four years ago, which, in a word, is crap. (For those not in the know, wheelchairs start with the basic metal frame, on which you can add all the not-quite-optional extras, like footrests, wheels, backrests and seats.) It’s a Category 2 frame, which means it is not very adjustable – only a limited number of options for wheel/footrest/armrest size, angle or position. He had the chair totally reoutfitted two years ago, and instead of junking it and starting with a better chair (like a Category 3, which is wholly adjustable), for some reason the same crap frame was expanded on and added to instead – which ended up costing about the same amount as the original chair.

Aside: I remember mentioning the cost of Jon’s current chair seat (a bare-bones thing made of hard foam and fabric) to my brother-in-law, who yelled “What! $600! For that price it should be a custom gel seat!” Bit of a difference of size of market for bikes vs. chairs! But I digress.

So, in July 2003 we went to the wheelchair clinic at Bloorview-MacMillan to start the process of getting a new chair. The physiotherapist asked us to put it off until Jon grew a bit, to give the government a nice, easy reason for requesting a new one (seemed reasonable, since they’ll be paying for half of it). Also, we were told to apply for a particular government grant for disabled children so that the full cost of the chair would be covered (sounds good to me!). I’ll leave it to your imagination, the hoops we had to jump through to apply for the grant. Suffice to say I don’t like government forms – especially 20-page ones!

Fast-forward to 2004. We got approved for the grant in April; get a clinic appointment in August. It takes five people to get Jon all measured up for the new chair: the physiotherapist, the seating specialist, the wheelchair vendor and the two parents who have to tell the other three “no, it has to be able to fit in a station wagon” or “no chest strap, because Jon would hang himself on one of those”. Now we sit tight and wait another couple of months until the government approves payment, and then – maybe, maybe – Jon’ll get his new wheelchair by November or so…

Ah well, too bad we couldn’t get one of these babies for Jon’s chair. He’d love the speed!

For the past two weeks, we have been corpulent couch potatoes from early in the morning, hooked on the Olympics, and watching Canada take fourth in everything including rock-paper-scissors.

Jon is patient, but isn’t entirely hooked. Until…diving. Diving is his opiate. Synchro or individual, tower to 3 metre. It even trumps the Weather Network. I had assumed–given the visual issues–that beyond the general concept of the water and the movement of the athletes, the sound of the splash was the big attraction. But he’s taken to muting the TV and (ok, at first at my suggestion) hollering “SPLASH!”, so it’s not a necessity.

Beyond that, unlike his mom and dad, it inspires him to go out into the world and DO. We’ve gone to Grandma and Grandpa’s pool the past couple of days and Jon has done a lot of diving. It’s tricky to set him up, but he loves it, even the belly flops! Wow.

Me making my line on Black Chute, after years of flubbing it!
I got a chance to kayak on the Main channel of the Ottawa River with Paul and Judy Mason.

Before we begin, it’s important to say that they know what they are doing. Me? Well, Laura and I took a kayaking course 9 years ago, and I’ve returned to the river more or less once a year, thanks to Paul. I’m a tad rusty, and can’t forsee how I’ll ever be anything but…

Judy descending the hill at the put-in at 25 km/h.

Click the picture to see a QuickTime movie of Paul’s surfing mastery

Paul, incidentally, is a canoe master, author (or here), speaker, and cartoonist (which is how I came to know him). Paul has been kind enough to take me down the Ottawa these times, and gradually I starting to realize what I’m supposed to be doing. In other words, Paul really has to watch out for me.

And Judy is a phys-ed and English teacher with who skis cross-country marathons in the winter and rows dragonboats four times a week when the water isn’t frozen.

A couple of things. What Paul is in is a canoe. It is a very odd shaped canoe, and people made comments on it during our paddle, which is something, since Paul has a history of having oddly shaped canoes. This one is the weirdest yet, so far as I can tell. Here’s how to tell a canoe…1) single blade paddle. 2) he’s kneeling, and you can tell by looking at his posture. A kayaker like me has his bum on the floor of the boat and has two blades. Both Paul and Judy’s boats have large airbags to displace water, allowing them to roll it back up after being rolled upside down. Not that rolling a canoe is easy, just for folks like Paul and Judy.

For the uninitiated, there are two fun things to do when paddling…one is going down through the rapids, and the other is going back to surf the waves of the rapids you pass.

Surfing, you ask? Yep. If you picture an ocean, as the waves come into shore, the water is essentially in one place. Now reverse that for the river…the water rushes past, and the waves (created by uneven bottom features like rocks) stay in one place, and you can surf ‘em. And once you can do that, you can do tricks in them.

Well, Paul can, anyway. I am still learning, and in the sit-on top I paddled yesterday, I got pretty solidly thrashed. I might take my little kayak on the river next year…maybe, maybe, but in the meantime, Laura’s sit-on top is more stable, and easy to re-enter if you get thrashed, but it can’t be rolled, so it’s a swim and a haul each time.

I surprised Paul by making my line on all my runs (despite showing incredible incompetence like almost going over the one at top BACKWARDS…you should hear Paul’s commentary on the video) and only getting overturned once running down the river, when a boil at the bottom of Hair made short work of me.

Holy cow, I can be incompetent!

Despite the trashing, inhaling a fair amount of river, and free dental flossing–er– flushing, the if-at-first-you-don’t-succeeding paid off, and I ended up with a short accidental surf and later on, my first trick–an ender!

My ender!

…but Paul can do it better!

I enjoyed the company, and being in the great outdoors. Swimming to my boat in an eddy downstream, no one around, I rolled on my back and stared at the clouds in the approaching evening sky, and just relaxed. It was a really great day.

Goofy at the end of the day…Paul’s boat on top of mine as we take on some major riffles–blindfolded!

To celebrate my dad’s birthday, my mom took available family out to 360, the CN Tower restuarant the other night. Jon loves the CN Tower (for its elevators) and the restaurant (for the rotating view and the passing structural bulkheads).

Midori making lemonade with all of our lemon wedges.

In fact, Jon’s love for bulkhead spotting netted he and Midori a souvenir when, late in the meal, he lunged at an upcoming bulkhead, knocking over a candle lamp, which in turn broke a water galss square onto Midori’s half-eaten dessert. Since Midori had found the chocolate mousse a little too rich anyway, she declined a replacement dessert, and the staff presented Midori and Jon with adorable souvenir drinking glasses.

Yesterday, Midori and I spent the day at Canada’s Wonderland, where I went on almost every ride she dragged me to. (I did avoid the Sledgehammer–I had a bad experience with overaggressive interior facing spinning at the Disney World teacups when I was ten, and the SH added sudden up and downs to just such spinning. Maybe next time.) We did enjoy the Minebuster, the Cyclone and the Drop Zone. Just as the Austrailian aboriginals purportedly believed that the camera steals a piece of your soul, Midori believes that a bit of you is left at the top of the DZ, and a serious chunk of me is still somewhere up there, let me tell you. Wow, that drop is intense. I like it very much, but the 45 minute wait was too long to do it again. So off went went to repeat the Wilde Beast, the Minebuster and Cyclone. Midori located the perfect seats for the Cyclone. Eight or ten seats to the left of the control panel on the ride as you enter to board. Those seats are the ones that face directly down during the hangtime when the ride is at 120 degrees up in the air. Zero gees. Wheee!

I found most of the new rides roller coasters and such had all of their thrills in the first drop, after that it was just lightly pounding you on the head and shaking you up, perhaps for loose change. Give me the Wilde Beast and the Minebuster any day (happily, I’m in tune with today’s youth–Midori agrees with me!)

Sadly, everything seemed a little more intense than when I was there 10 or so years ago. I guess I’m getting old and more sensitive to being roughed up. I hope Midori or Tamo visit again in the next few years so that I can go again before I age my way off the roller coasters.

So you ask: What’s with this Weather Network addiction of Jon’s anyway? He’s been watching it fairly obsessively for about 3 years now, since kindergarten. He was at home sick with the flu one February, and within a couple of days took an interest in both Blues Clues and the Weather Network. Both are still favourites of his, but if Blues Clues was taken off the air I don’t think Jon would really notice, whereas if the Weather Network suddenly disappeared I tremble to think of the consequences!

Everyone who hears of this obsession remarks to us that he must be able to tell us tons about the weather. Uhhh…no, actually Jon has little to no interest in the weather. What he’s interested in are the weather forecasters! He can name all the WN’s on-air personalities and knows when their shifts are. What a groupie!

He also knows when all the different types of forecasts (International Weather, Lawn & Garden Forecast, Claritin Pollen Forecast, etc.) are coming, but the Local Forecast (“every 10 minutes on the 10s”) is by far his favourite to watch and the only one he pays attention to. He even has an eerie ability to turn on the TV just as the Local Forecast is playing (though it could be luck since they are only 10 minutes apart.) Why the Local Forecast? Maybe it’s the predictability of the graphics. Maybe it’s the hummable music (His interest did increase this spring when they introduced a catchy new Local Forecast theme). Who knows?

All we know is there’s gonna be hell to pay if Jon goes over to his Grandma and Grandpa’s later this month and Shaw has kicked the WN off the basic tier of channels like they’ve been threatening to. He’ll have to be satisfied with his other obsession, his LeapPad toy. But that’s another story….

Perhaps this is because due to Mr. Local Forecast I’m a captive audience of the Weather Network much of the day, but I am getting quite irritated with the commercials for tooth whitening products. Not just because they’re particularly idiotic commercials (there’s a lot of those around); rather, the companies seem to be pitting their own products against each other, which seems somewhat self-defeating. There’s the paint-on stuff and the tooth tapes as well as the toothpaste. Each commercial takes pains to point out the “problems” with the other methods (too messy, too complicated, takes too long to work, not powerful enough), but both the major brands (Colgate and Crest) have products using all the whitening methods. Of course companies try to diversify their product lines to get a larger market share, but seeing a bunch of these commercials in a row just points out how grasping their advertising techniques are.

Also, have you ever noticed that whitening toothpastes aren’t to be used by children under 12? A convenient way to make the family buy even more products.

Another Flash animation artist with a particular view of the world has teamed with a major band. Monkeehub has combined his/her depressing office view of the world Low Morale with the band Radiohead for a sublime piece of Flash entitled “Creep”. Maybe not uplifting, but wonderful.