Government shutdown rant

Well, I know I said I wasn't going to do any more political rants, but things being the way they are, how can I not? Janet and I have not really talked about the situation at all. This is all my take on it.

When Obama was first elected, the conservative Republicans publicly stated that they would do anything they could to make him a one term president. When that didn't work, they vowed to make him at least be unsuccessful and ineffective. They basically succeeded in their second goal, by passing very few bills and blocking as many of his objectives as they could.

The one major bill that passed happened to be Obama's signature piece of legislation. The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, was to be Obama's legacy and gift to future generations. Conservative Republicans did their best to block it from passing. When it did pass, they claimed it was unconstitutional and fought it all the way up to the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional and should stand, they voted. I believe it was 42 times to overturn it and failed every single time. This went on, even though the majority of their constituents wanted Obamacare and would've preferred that they actually work and pass some more legislation.

When it got to the point that they had no other way to block Obamacare, the Republicans allowed the government to shut down and the only way they will vote to reopen it is if Obamacare is delayed or renegotiated. Of course Obama is not going to allow changes to the bill to be forced and I don't blame him. What kind of precedent would this set? Will they then be able to go back and repeal past laws? How far could this go? I really don't think that once The Tea Party.got its foot in the door, anything would be safe.

And I know I'm preaching to the choir, but for those of you who don't know, there's a lot more at stake than just keeping the national parks open. I just want to mention a few of the lesser-known yet very important things that are affected by this government shutdown:
No WIC assistance so low income babies will not receive formula or nutritional assistance.
No Head Start programs in schools.
No Amber Alerts for missing children.
No national statistics, like unemployment levels, even though I don't think I want to now.
Reduced FEMA staffing and assistance so the weather better play nice
Reduced FDA inspections of food… Over cook your chicken and hamburger until this is over.
Reduced staff to search for missing people like those poor people lost in the desert.
I'm going to stop now because this is making me more frustrated.

I really think at this point everyone is acting like children… But especially the Republicans :-). I think everyone needs to share their crayons, play well together, vote well together and fix this mess that you have caused.

Just a funny

I had a funny/strange/frustrating experience a while ago and I feel a need to share it. Janet and I were watching a program about Internet security. It was especially concerning the difficulty people have selecting and remembering passwords. It stressed the importance of having strong passwords, and different ones for each resource used.

 

I have always found these types of programs very informative, yet very frustrating because they  me realize how 'insecure' I really am online. I had one password for home use and one for work and they were very similar. Wherever possible I used the same words over and over again. The words were moderately strong according to a password rating system but they probably lost any strength they had by reusing them.

 

When I went out on disability from work, the password issue I had there of course was resolved since I was automatically locked out of all work related programs. The password problem at home continued however. Before I watched the program I was already somewhat aware and a little concerned, but afterward I decided to take action in my own quirky and ineffective way.

 

I changed my password on my Yahoo email account to a rather strange combination of letters and numbers that made sense to me. In any case, a week or so after making these changes with the hope that my system would be more secure, I got hacked. It shouldn’t have been a major issue, just a lot of spam email was sent out from my account. The major problem though was that they changed my password and since the hackers were the last to access my account, Yahoo did not recognize my computer. When I tried to 'convince' Yahoo that I was me, I forgot the answer to one of my security questions and was totally blocked out of the account.

 

It was only after talking to my mom (who is totally non-techie and did not understand a word of what I was talking about) that she reminded me that my father was a Navy baby and was born overseas and then was brought to Philadelphia. She gave me the answer unknowingly, and resolved part of my problem.

 

Thanks to mom, I was able to answer the security question, but then I had to come up with a new, stronger password for Yahoo. The system would no longer accept a weak password. I entered passwords that I used for years and that always were acceptable before but now were not strong enough for the Yahoo password strength rating system. I began getting very frustrated and used expletives in various languages, text messaging curses and various symbols and numbers that indicated my displeasure. I strung together almost 20 different types of characters, but nothing worked.. Janet heard me swearing under my breath and reminded me of the program we had watched and of the free password generators it told of that were available on the Internet. So I went online, found a couple that looked fairly reputable and signed up on one. I copied the outlandish, impossible to remember series of symbols from the generator and pasted it into the Yahoo password thingy but of course it didn't work. So I signed up for another one, went through the whole process again and still it didn't work.

 

At this point I was ready to throw the computer across the room. I had been working on this, between the security question snafu and now this password acceptance problem, for over four hours. I was done! Janet kindly offered to help me out since I was at wits end. She walked over, sat down, pulled the computer in front of herself and stared at it for a moment. She then shut down Yahoo and restarted the program. She got through all the security questions and arrived at the bleeping password screen. She looked at it, entered something in, hit return and the system accepted it immediately! Apparently, while I was desperately trying to get an acceptable password, the Yahoo system timed out and did not notify me.

 

I don't know which was more annoying, the fact that I could not get an acceptable password no matter what I did, that the system locked me out without notification or that Janet sat in front of the computer, and touched it and it worked. And this is not the first time something like this has occurred. Janet has just got the magic touch. Sigh… Another day in the Stewart – Williams household.

 

Mom's essay contest

Will I know I've been incommunicado for a while now. I've been soured by all the goings-on in the world these days and I have decided to be a little fluffier currently. The story behind what I wrote here is kind of funny. My mom was at the doctor's office waiting for her appointment and the only thing other than Sports Illustrated that they had to read was Elle, some sort of fashion magazine. Apparently, they're running some kind of contest and my mom wanted me to enter. The rules were that you had to write an essay about your favorite wardrobe item, either an accessory or a clothing item. I explained that my mother that I was very not interested in fashion or the essay topic. She put up a good argument stressing that it did not have to be about fashion and I should just have fun with it. So that's what I did, and I'm sure they won't get another like this. I'm sure it's not a winner, but I don't even know what the prize is anyway and it's probably not something I want… Unless it is money :-) well I had fun writing it and it occupied my time!

I decided after a pen exploded in my immense carryall bag I used for work, that I wanted to replace it with something more compact that I could fit all my vital things in and not have to dig for them. With my limited budget in mind I looked on EBay and after searching around for a while, I found the perfect item. I immediately chose the Buy It Now option. It was a small, neutral black leather bag with a long cross body shoulder strap. It had side zippers and a flap that folded over and sealed with a magnetic snap. When it was unfolded, all of my different types of cards fit in the provided slots perfectly, there was a spacious section for paper money, a separate zippered change section, several little secret areas I could put important papers in and a Velcro sealed pocket on the back of the bag where I could put my cell phone and my business cards. Everything fit!

 

I am a woman with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis and have been wheelchair and bed – bound for the past three years. Prior to this minor inconvenience, I was very active; traveling throughout the United States and Canada, working as a library director at a small college and having an active political, social and personal life. But no matter where I was, or what I was doing there was one guarantee; my little black bag, fondly referred to as my wallet on a string, was always hanging by my side.

 

I’ve had my wallet on a string for over 10 years and it has served me well throughout all my life changes. I remember strolling jauntily through the streets of Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island with my wallet on a string. The next year the wallet and I were back, but this time I was using a cane. Two years later, we were back again, but I was on a handicapped scooter. I think we came back one more time, but my disease had progressed and traveling long distances had become a painful chore rather than a pleasure. I’ve gone back often in my mind and my wallet is always hanging across me.

 

My partner and I have enjoyed visiting all sorts of unique locales, events and merchants in the past and hope to continue to do this well into the future. In the United States, we don't have many accessibility problems because of the ADA, but Canada is another story. We traveled with ramps and that addressed some of the issues but sometimes additional measures were required. For example, the hotel that advertised as being accessible and it was once you got past the three steps to get in the door which was higher than my portable ramp could handle

The wallet on a string opened and tips were passed out that resulted in the maintenance man coming in on a Sunday and finding something to use as a long ramp so I could get in. And then there was the Curling Championships at a local rink in Prince Edward Island that had four steps to get in and no ramp… But I got in my manual wheelchair and the folks organizing the event sent out four burly young men who bodily picked me up in the wheelchair and took me in where the wallet and I promptly supported their curling organization since the guys would not take money for themselves.

 

These days, the adventures of my wallet and I are much tamer. It sits on the hospital table beside me every day and I’m always going through it, either for cash, credit cards or various types of insurance cards and information. It contains my life.

 

I don’t want to give the impression the wallet, my partner and I don’t get out now that life has become more difficult. We’ve just had to change how we do things now that I am in a power chair when I am out and about. We stick closer to home; Baltimore, Washington DC, Rehoboth Beach and Niagara Falls for example. We travel for shorter periods of time, usually long weekends. My partner does all the packing these days; she knows what I like to wear and I trust her to not stick me with clothing options that are not ‘me‘. I do run through a mental checklist with her about what we should bring. The last item that is snatched off my bedside table before I roll out the door is the wallet on a string. Because we are concerned that the string will become tangled in the power chair controls, I don’t usually wear it. It goes into a backpack hanging on the back of the wheelchair, but it comes out whenever I need it.

 

Recently, I discovered how important my wallet on a string had become. My partner was driving me back from a doctor’s appointment and for some reason I had the bag on my lap. I am prone to car sickness, we were stuck in stop and go traffic and it just did not agree with me. My bag was a casualty of the next occurrence. My partner suggested that it was a lost cause and I that I should throw it out. My mom came to the rescue and took it home with her to clean it. It was when I did not have the bag that I discovered how important it really was. The contents of my bag were spread all over my bedside table and I couldn't find anything. I spent several days crabbing and whining over the lack of organization in my life. I also missed looking over at it and remembering my more carefree days.

 

A short time later, my mother returned with my precious wallet on a string in hand. I won't go into details about its condition when she took it or what she had to do to clean it. The most important thing was that it was back and better than ever. I immediately filled it back up with the cards, money and things that littered my table. I then thanked my mom profusely for saving what I then recognized was a symbol to me of my past journeys and my future potential.

HBD DAD

Today, January 10, was my father's birthday. He would've been 88 years old. February 14 is the third anniversary of his death. The passing of Janet's father on December 1 reopened the wound. My brother is taking my mom to the mausoleum to visit my dad. I asked him tell my dad that I loved him and missed him even though I feel silly asking him to speak to a brass plaque on a wall on my behalf. He says it's not silly although I honestly disagree but am having him do it at my request anyway.

 I think about him All the time and sometimes feel like he is here with me. I mean literally… I sometimes smell him. There are certain scents I associate with him from my childhood. I sometimes get an occasional whiff of cigarette smoke although we are a non-smoking house. When he smoked he used a menthol inhaler I don't think kind of thing which I smell once in a while although no one here is using that time of product. There is the occasional eue de Brill Cream although we don't use 1950s hair products or any hair goo for that matter.

 I dream about him and fantasize about being with him. I don't know if everyone's memories work like this but I have little snapshots of him and little 30 second long movies that my brain keeps replaying. One of the pictures is of him on the beach in Ocean City leaning against the lifeguard stand with a cigarette at a jaunty angle between his lips. The most frequent film clip is from my perspective sitting on his shoulders and we are walking out into the ocean. I can feel his skin and muscles under my legs, his slightly greasy hair between my fingers and the cold drops of water hitting my legs. That one started playing in my head the moment I learned that he was dying and happens at least every other day that I'm aware of. Other less frequent film shorts starring me and my father include, playing Skee-- Ball, raking leaves and picking out the family dog from a litter of squirming puppies. Keep in mind that our family never had a home movie projector in those days; we were strictly a slide projector family. So this is all literally in my head. I hope this is how memories work; kind of a free movie theater in your brain that plays selected shorts.

 I just got a call from my mother, they're back from visiting my dad. I have to believe he knows how much I love and miss him in spite of the fact that I have not visited since the funeral. Although I don't visit physically, I think I am the most frequent visitor in my heart and mind.