Blogging Against Disableism: Shipwreck? Soundtrack Ray Stevens - I Need Your Help Barry Manilow

Jesus Christ on a Pizza Crust!
(Yes, RantWoman knows that utterance is blasphemous by definition. COPE.)


It's Blogging Against Disableism Day.
http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/
RantWoman invites readers who might be terrified of more RantWoman fountain to stop here and pick another blog post from this link, read it and chat up RantWoman about it. because there is no way RantWoman is going to get read anything near as much as she might like.


RantWoman sat down to try to write one teeny tiny blog post about SOMETHING from Bad Friend Monthly Meeting of the Society of Irreligious Fiends, a Monthly Meeting that may or may not bear ANY resemblance to any Meeting In RantWoman's vicinity. RantWoman was HOPING to highlight some some ploddings of progress and, well....


RantWoman started to write one teeny tiny blog post and it was as if the Titanic plowed into that iceberg. Well, maybe shipwreck is not the right metaphor but whatever it is, it may take RantWoman longer than 1 day to write. and RantWoman is clear that NOW is as good a time as any to do some more of it. There are a WHOLE bunch of problem that just are not going magically to solve themselves especially if one gets stuck being "charitable," forgets the bit about "love your neighbor as yourself" meaning one has to love and take care of oneself.... But back to "it."


"It" comes with
--RantWoman thanking someone for being really public about a current family challenge--even though RantWoman also becomes crabby thinking about the RantFamily dealing REALLY badly with a not exactly parallel challenge when the RantChildren were teenagers. Topical data: RantBrother being the biggest pothead in the string bass section of orchestra was only part of a one-time RantWoman comment about "If anyone had been willing to talk, there would have been plenty to listen to."
   RantWoman's counterpart in that conversation missed a point RantWoman was trying to get to about ears in a community but RantWoman remembers being really gratified at an event to hear that others were thinking along lines similar to RantWoman's.
  But today, the comment clattered back to the top of RantWoman's emotional compost heap. RantWoman offered someone a concert flyer. The offer was declined on behalf of someone else whose  father, like RantDad, also fit the description "a brilliant music teacher (for most of his career) to everyone except his own children." Also somehow topical "every music teacher in the state knew RantDad because..."


--RantWoman convening a committee she chairs outside of Meeting, all full of accessiblity concerns and churning of the communities working on them.


--RantWoman revisiting the query "What is Meeting missing out on if RantWoman does not live in Integrity about her situation?"


Example 1: RantWoman thought it reasonable to ask to speak to all of the Oops Well committee about things to do with disability. RantWoman's first request was met with "That's not going to happen." HUHHHHHH! RantWoman was too stunned even to explode properly. Eventually the Friend Whose Title RantWoman Pointedly Omits got the message about meeting with all of said committe BUT when the Meeting occurred,  rather than say much at ALL about RantWoman's accessibility needs, the first thing RantWoman was called to do was to report on a meeting others had not been present at.


     But, in addition to NOT knowing better than RantWoman did what her needs were at the moment, RantWoman collected datathat more than one member of the Oops well committeeactually had not thought about important aspects of another topic on RantWoman's mind.


Example 2: EVERY WORKING AGE ADULT in RantWoman's Meeting ought to expect that someone somehow somewhere along in their career will make a reasonable accommodations request, a request that no amount of "you  don't need to interact with that person or that email" chatter will erase. For instance "please email RantWoman minutes and agendas far enough ahead of meeting times that RantWoman has SOME prayer of interacting with the documents before she gets on a bus to come to a meeting."

   RantWoman at the time she made this request THOUGHT optimistically that it was a reasonable request. But the person who RantWoman made this request of was CHRONICALLY incapable of responding to this request. This problem rattled into RantWoman's head recently because  Requested  Friend reported at a social event that he had been learning how to make documents "accessible." RantWoman knows there is a good bit of technospeak involved in the term "accessible documents." RantWoman laments that it did not occur to her just to say "well, the first element of accessibility would be getting the requested electronic copy into RantWoman's hands in a timely way." RantWoman apologizes for depriving her community of this simplifying information but also notes that it took MULTIPLE years before her Meeting reliable showed signs of getting the point.
   RantWoman is THRILLED that LOTS of things are getting emailed to her in a reasonable way. RantWoman gets close to being thrilled that at least some of the time, when not everything makes it into the first bulk email, people also understand that they should email any supplemental materials to the whole list because RantWoman applies her "Am I the only one with this problem test and realized that others might also appreciate...

   And RantWoman has decided or thinks she has decided just to forgive the Friend who one time wanted to help RantWoman read something on his laptop without accessibility software.  Apparently RantWoman is wavering because RantWoman needed to tell same Friend something sarcastic about recently interacting with a young developer wanting RantWoman to find some teeny tiny box in the corner of a screen and RantWoman was too polite to say to nice young developer what she said to Friend "which part of legally blind do you not understand?" Further HINT: you can enlarge text till the cows come home, but if you do not also enlarge menus, cursors... and the user is not super adept at keyboard shortcuts and...


Finally, it's spring. Whatever  pollens that fry RantWoman's nostrils this time of year are out in abundance. The timing of the pollen, some respiratory elements of both RantWoman's first detached retina, and RantDad's detached retina have made RantWoman wonder whether the pollen is to blame. Sure, blame the pollen. RantDad's detached retina happened at a symphony rehearsal while he was playing his bassoon. RantDad did not play the upcoming concert because he was in Denver for surgery.


But the RantChildren and our supervising adult hosted a teenage french horn player in town to play that concert. RantWoman does not remember exactly why Teenage French Horn Player needed to play this song, but RantWoman thinks is an awesome soundtrack and is seasoning a leading to rewrite it in Quakerese for this occasion.