The Wednesday HodgePodge (October 18, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s Wednesday once again, so time for the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. What’s something small you tend to sweat even though you know you shouldn’t?
Hmmm, I tend to get nervous and frustrated about a lot of things that are probably minor to others, but to say they’re things I “shouldn’t” sweat, feels a bit invalidating. I mean, I could choose the situation where staff randomly switch up who is going to support me and as a result a staff I didn’t expect shows up in my room. This often feels minor to the staff, but honestly I think they don’t know what it’d be like to depend on an almost countless number of random staff for your everyday needs.

2. October 17th is National Pasta Day…do you like pasta? What’s your favorite? Cooked at home or eaten in your favorite Italian restaurant? How often do you make/eat pasta?
I love pasta. My favorite is either penne pesto or macaroni Bolognese. I know, in the U.S. it’s spaghetti Bolognese but even that isn’t originally Italian, as it’s a combo of Naples’ spaghetti and Bolognese sauce. The way I understand it, in Bologna they eat their recipe only with tagliatelle.

I enjoy my pasta mostly home-cooked. At my old care home, we’d get home-cooked meals on weekends, which was awesome. Here, we get meal delivery service meals each day, but I already agreed with one of the staff that I’ll be helping her cook macaroni Bolognese on the 28th.

3. Do you consider yourself a spontaneous person? Explain.
No, not at all. And usually when I try to do something spontaneously, it means I’ve forgotten something else and I end up majorly messing up.

4. Who are some of your heroes? Tell us why.
Do people who are no longer alive count? In that case, my paternal grandmother, of course. Some of the autistic activist pioneers, like Mel Baggs and Cal Montgomery too. I admire their work in standing up for their and all of our rights to an actually meaningful life.

5. Let’s wrap it up with something light…Taylor Swift…are you a fan? On a scale of 1-10 how much so? (1=who’s Taylor?, 10=a true Swiftie, seen her in concert more than once). If you’re a fan what’s your favorite T. Swift song?
Uhm, 2 I guess. I’ve heard of her. I’m not a fan, but it’s not about her. The thing is, I’m not a pop music fan at all. In fact, I rarely listen to music except for soothing instrumental music when trying to fall asleep. I honestly couldn’t name any of Taylor Swift’s songs if I had to.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I want to give a shout out to the app Be My Eyes and its AI-based image description component Be My AI. Until this was introduced several weeks ago, all we blind people had were Seeing AI, Envision AI and some other apps that did rather generic image descriptions. Be My AI, on the other hand, does a rather detailed description of images. I can’t copy an image description here because for some stupid reason I can’t get it to write its descriptions in English, but let me just say it’s great.

My Heroes #Write31Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day two in the #Write31Days challenge, in which I share 31 reflections on personal growth. Today, I am going to write about my heroes.

Heroes can be ordinary people or they can be celebrities or historical figures. My first hero is someone I knew in real life: my paternal grandmother. She sadly passed last May at the age of 94, but she lived a positive life up till the last days of her life. She was one to rarely if ever complain. Even when in severe pain, she remained positive.

My grandma married my grandpa in 1948 and gave birth to five children, my father being the eldest. When the youngest was eighteen, she divorced my grandpa. She was fiercely independent, getting a career for herself as a social worker. She traveled a lot and had lots of hobbies. My grandma’s motto was “Do what you want, as long as you don’t bother me”. I am not nearly as resilient as my grandma, but I’m trying to be.

My next hero is someone I never met in real life and never even talked to. She is Cal MOntgomery, a disability rights activist. About fifteen years ago, she wrote an article in Ragged Edge Magazine that changed my life. She described for the first time what it is like to live with the identity-destroying effects of ableism. Her internalized companions Mary and Bruce are in many ways similar to my Jane and Carol. Read this if you think that ableism can’t be traumatic.

Finally, I felt I needed to include a celebrity. I’m choosing Helen Keller. I don’t know that much about her, but I do know that she was an important women’s rights activist. I love many quotes from her too.