Abaculus

I'm flying AA next month. The horse tells me:

American Airlines will accept unaccompanied blind and/or deaf passengers on any flight provided they can read braille, or communicate with the flight crew. If not, they must be accompanied.

I'm totally asking for Braille. And I mustn't forget to pack my carer.

Please contact the local Special Assistance Coordinator through AA Reservations if a blind/deaf passenger requires extraordinary assistance, i.e. wheelchair.

That's the wheelchair ordered then.

On a serious note, WTF AA? What happens when a French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew you get the picture speaker travels and they have little command over English? Do you insist international travellers bring a carer along for the ride, to be let into monolingual USA?

More sarcastic fun to be found on Facebook, it's my coping strategy!

Posted by alison at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is my life right now:

- had to travel 28 miles to the bank this morning, to deposit some cash. Why? My local branch now only opens x2 four hour slots each week (Monday and Thursday);
- this afternoon we attended a family funeral (might write about this some other time);
- tomorrow we have another funeral;
- we've had no water between the hours of 8am-8pm for three weeks;
- as from this morning we have been without gas. This means we can no longer cook or have any hot water (in the late evening/ first thing in the morning). Arrived home at lunchtime, and the entire neighbourhood / place stank gas. The water board workman was bending over as pipe with a cigarette in his mouth;
- the road is blocked (it has been dug up). So what should be a two minute trip into town, is a three mile detour (this has been going on for two weeks);
- the satellite signal doesn't work (bad weather);
- and oh yes, it's tipping it down! Of course it is. The weather for the rest of the week is "heavy rain". Tomorrow I'll probably just take a shower from the sky;
- you cannot see any of the hills for mist.

That'll do for starters. I should be organising my uncle's birthday present, except I'm faffing around writing this post.

Posted by alison at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in March year Patti (in theUS) contacted Paddy and I to ask us to drum up UK support over an ICED statement to apologise for Milan; which is how I became aware of this.

Today ICED in Vancouver passed a resolution which basically apologises for Milan 1880. This is a rough transcript via Senan in Ireland:

…The resolutions of the 1880 congress in Milan:

In 1880, an international congress was held in Milan to discuss the education of the deaf. At that time, the members passed several resolutions that effected the education, and the lives, of Deaf people around the world.

The resolutions:
1. removed the use of sign language from educational programmes for the deaf around the world
2. Contributed detrimentally to the lives of deaf citizens around the world
3. Led to the exclusion of deaf citizens in educational policy and planning in most jurisdictions of the world
4. Prevented deaf citizens from participation in government planning, decision making and funding in areas of employment training, re-training and other aspects of career planning
5. Hindered the abilities of deaf citizens to succeed in various careers and has prevented many of them from following their own aspirations
6. And prevented the opportunity for many deaf citizens to fully demonstrate their cultural and artistic contributions to the diversity of each nation

Therefore, we reject all resolutions passed at the ICED Milan conference in 1880 [about 35 seconds of applause!]

I think there will be more cheering at the end. I’ll start again - all resolutions passed at the ICED Milan conference in 1880 that denied the inclusion of sign language in educational programmes for deaf students. Therefore, we acknowledge and sincerely regret the detrimental effects of the Milan conference. And therefore, we call upon all nations of the world to remember history, and ensure that education programmes accept and respect all languages and forms of communication. Thank you.

Blimey.

Posted by alison at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Want an idea of where I live (and grew up)? Here you go:

Growing up in surroundings like that (as my ancestors at least 500+ years before me), just count your blessings I'm barely as sane as I am.

Gaynor can be sighted at 4.26 and 11.06.

Posted by alison at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of days ago I posted that three people had died, which meant three funerals for my mother and two for the rest of us. Two of those deaths the vicar told us about - including that of my great aunt, a huge story in itself with 104 year history - as my mother has to play for the funerals. The great aunt one I would explain, and some really interesting social history behind with my great grandmother at the centre but I don't think even the most avid readers here would be awake at the end of the post.

So the funeral this afternoon. When mum got the names and some sort of explanation from the next door neighbour (who beat the vicar), she figured out who it was. And she told dad and I.

Mum gets to the funeral and the person who she thought thought was dead and whose funeral she was playing for, was sitting in the congregation. Like sitting there. You know very much ALIVE! The coffin is at the front of the church and obviously not occupied by him.

It's not the first time it has happened. Mum thinks someone has died, and there they are, just sitting there! A hazard of living in a rural community, which your family has habitated for at least 500 years?

If you really think this is bad, try the time my mother phoned up her brother to tell him the wife of a friend had died. Because she has been told. So my uncle duly posts a sympathy card. Except it transpires the person was not dead. Sympathy card is already in the post! My uncle was down to the sorting office in north Wales to try and fish out the card from the Royal Mail - easier said than done - and failed. Card has GONE!

Panic! And oh yes, he's annoyed! Let's just say he was a teacher plus examiner (for a national exam board). Enough said.

Mum then tracks down the local postman, to tell him if he sees a card postmarked Caernarfon, please don't deliver it. The postman was around our house, "Is this it?" And, "How do you know?" To, "I recognise my brother's handwriting anywhere!"

You do know that it is an offence to interfere with Her Majesty's postal service don't you, and you can land yourself behind bars?

It turns out the postman had already delivered three other sympathy cards to this poor man and very much alive wife, that morning!

And the time my mother went to the supermarket, where she got told that her cousin - who lives in Cardiff - had died. By someone who had stayed with the supposed dead cousin's brother. Let's just say that she's still alive. I made some reference to it in this post:

Exactly how my uncle acquired this, involves a visit to a cousin and there's a mind boggling story behind. However, that's maybe for a few months time (J knows it, I've already written an e mail to this effect, so it will be a simple copy/paste slight modification job if I decide to share).

But I never got around to expanding on the dead cousin but really still alive scenario. I might entertain you with the story one day.

So. Back to the ALIVE DEAD MAN IN THE FUNERAL!

Since he was alive, and we can safely assume he wasn't a ghost nor jumped out of the coffin just to watch the service. Who was in the coffin? Turns out it was the brother of my mother's first cousin's wife. So the cousin in-law's family, and my mother's family sitting at the front as chief mourners. Like you work all this out sitting at the funeral. And these people will be back in church on Tuesday, for another family funeral (my great aunt).

When my mother returned from the funeral, my uncle and aunt were here. The same uncle that had posted the sympathy card to his friend, and was very quick to tell all these stories when he found out what had happened.

The vicar visited this evening (he's still here as I type, sitting in the kitchen drinking my wine), and first thing he did was to find me, "The man your mother thought was dead was sitting in the congregation!" And laughing his head off about it.

I already know! An utter disgrace!

(The funeral humour, it comes with the territory. Funerals are part of daily life around here; a rural community and an occupational hazard gives an interesting combination. I have a mother who has literally attended thousands of funerals in her lifetime, probably not even surpassed by most vicars or ministers).

Posted by alison at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

To Tony.

Posted by alison at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the space of fifteen minutes this afternoon, I find out:

- my great aunt has died (no, not the person who has pancreatic cancer, that's a cousin);
- someone else we know has died;
- the next door neighbour but one has died at lunchtime (I've known them since I was a baby);
- a friend is going into hospital.

Am sitting there thinking, whoa this isn't supposed to be like buses! Yet I guess one thing in life, there are no rules and nothing is certain. Accept that, and you play the game better.

(And before anyone worries about me, I'm fine. I'm more concerned about other people).

Posted by alison at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier this year (for my course) I had to offer a definition of, "What is family?" I'm no sociologist, anthropologist or whatever the ist that studies family happens to be, but this is what I knocked together:

A family is a micro economic, social unit which is defined by kinship. Kinship shares a genealogical origin, through either bioliogical, cultural or historical descent.

Kinship is subjective concept, one that is defined differently by differently languages, and by extension societies; which makes the concept of family fluid. For example, within Deaf community circles - especially where strong residential school ties exist, where a minority language binds plus there might be a seperation from what is traditionally defined as family due to language or communication usage - the notion of "Deaf family" exists. Those within one's "Deaf family" need not be "related" in a traditional sense, and extends to an immediate community.

Within a family, there is usually the exchange of promises and/or services, which makes it a form of economic unit. Value is not usually shown in terms of society's legal currency - although it is not entirely absent - but value in kind.

Promises into a family relationship take both the form of private arrangements, in that the individual parties entering into an arrangement are free to attach any conditions they so wish (in the same as private contracts operate). This arrangement is particularly evident in the case of co-habitees. However, a family set up is not an entirely private arrangement; and arrangements can be at least quasi regulated by the state. The obvious example is traditional marriage, due to its long history, first through common law and subsequently through legislation starting with the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 (or more commonly known as Lord Hardwick's Act). Legal rules pertain certain relationships, what society classes as 'vulnerable persons' (children, older people, disability), due to a weaker position. The notion of crime does not escape family units, and this is particularly evident in the law relating to domestic violence. The state has not recognised all forms of micro arrangements, and with it enjoyment of certain rights. Historically in the case of same-sex partnerships or co-habitatees. Where the state becomes involved with dispute resolution or needs to intervene due to crime, it is via the vehicle of the legal system.

Re-reading that, it needs some rework. But how would do you deifne family? Not just yours, but one that encompasses the spectrum of families we see in the world.

Posted by alison at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tonight is one of those nights where it's just raining, it feels cold (my feet are frozen), and somewhat feels like the nights are already drawing in. I picked up a copy of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet off the bookshelf; the inscription inside was from a friend as it was given for my 30th birthday!

I was inspired to pick the book up again, as I needed balm for my soul and "The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves". I read the book from cover to cover, and difficult to pick out a single poem. Rather aptly, here's what the book says on self knowledge:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.

Goodnight.

Posted by alison at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This post only exists, because:

Eeekkk families, you have to blog about this! Sounds like you have a lot happening in the next few weeks, keep us posted.

Basically I had to reply to a friend this morning, about something else and I added a short paragraph about some of the stuff that's been happening (believe it or not I don't write everything here). I'm not going to write about that, except my day today! Where I've not stopped but don't actually have anything to show for it.

Increasingly as my parents' generation gets older, I find myself sorting them out and not just my parents but my aunts and uncles plus cousins too; the dependency ups an ante. It has become my assumed role in my family, even where my aunts and uncles have children of their own.

First off. I woke up to a Facebook message from a cousin from NYC, along the lines of help! My aunt and uncle have now decided to fly over here in two weeks! Except they don't have any accommodation for the wedding (it is on an island, and you cannot leave after around 7.30pm). The questions were unbelievably American, which part makes me go LOL but I also have enough Americans in my life to get how they think. Yes, let's tar all 300+ million Americans with the same brush because of the underlying traits! Let's just say, my sister has started asking me, "How is SCHHHHHHOOL going?" I left school over twenty years ago, thank you! And, "Don't you have xyz over there?" and she's been in the US just over a decade. Like she was never brought up in the UK. Hello! I think America chews up your brain, and it never sees the light of day again.

Case in point, my uncle and aunt haven't been to the UK for fifteen years (they've lived in the US since the 1960s). So I've fired off a couple of e mails to my cousin this morning, plus this evening of the do the digging variety. Because really, suggestions were coming let's go and stop on another island! Are you proposing to swim come 2am, when the party is over? This ain't Manhattan you know. Unfortunately I cannot just give up my hotel room (it's a single), and offer to sleep on the floor which I'm happy to do. I've suggested a game of musical chairs, various people swop and basically someone has my room and I'm on the floor. And gave her other specifics, to think about when she woke up.

So that's my NYC family.

THEN ... at 10am another aunt and uncle arrived (from North Wales), who were in a complete fret about changing a hospital appointment. And were all confused. My aunt hands me all the paperwork - and I should stress everything is in Welsh - who do I phone? And how do I do xyz, all in Welsh. Then it comes to my uncle using a mobile phone and getting in a strop because he cannot, I have to educate how to use it for *voice*.

My aunt earlier this year acquired a hearing aid. My mother is the other person in the room. They are speaking quietly, as they don't want my uncle to hear (he's gone to the bathroom at this point).

Aunt: [my uncle] is having a limo for his birthday, it's a surprise!
Me: Oh cool!
Mum: What did you say?
Me: Limo
Mum: What?
Me: I'll tell you afterwards.
Mum: Is [a friend] coming to the party?
Aunt: What?
Me: No
Aunt: What did she say?

And so it went on. Internally I was ROFLMAO because seriously I was the only person in that room who could follow conversation with no problem whatsoever. You know irony of ironies.

THEN .... a combination of a railcard, CADW stuff, and my sister's new house (a long story, I know far too much about buying houses in the US).

THEN .... sort some other arrangements; a relative last week was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (his brother died of the same thing, and it is rapid). We were meant to have party in a couple of weeks, so there was tying up cancelling that and keeping open arrangements.

THEN .... the vicar arrived. Except he's in his 70s too. So I had to sort some stuff out for him. Usually ranges from print stuff out, to find something online. Because of the computer phobia. This is normal.

THEN .... by 11.30am I had left for Aberystwyth, as my father had to go to hospital (heart issues); and I had to sort him out. And oh, dad didn't know how to (a) read a text message on the phone, and (b) had no idea how to put credit on his phone. And I get into an situation where mum gets totally confused talking to dad, so I need to take the handset and speak (even though I cannot hear a damn thing).

THEN .... I met another aunt in Aber, who was in a complete tizzy over a mobile phone her son had given her, including not having a clue what her mobile number was. How to top up or how to use it. She was going to north Wales on Wednesday and wanted it sorted.

THEN .... I went to another aunt's house, she has dementia. If you've dealt with dementia you'll get it, if you've no idea then count your blessings.

THEN ... my cousin turns up, he's waiting for his twins to arrive. Hello, baby drama. And oh, he dropped his iPhone 4 already and it broke.

THEN .... my mother has been knitting some cardigans for the twins, and took a couple of garments with her. Except she'd knitted two left sleeves or something, and sewn up the garment complete with a sleeve the wrong way about. You will not catch me knitting, but I had to figure out what she'd done wrong. And explain. Argh!

THEN ... I finally go to Morrisons, as I need to get a passport photo taken. The machine is broken, so I go back to my aunt's house. I explain the machine has broken.

My father: Why are you back here so soon?
Me: I've just told you (and explain).

.. pause ..

My aunt: What you doing here?
Me: The machine has broken.

.. pause ..

Another aunt: Where did you go?
My father: (explains)

.. pause ..

My mother: Where have you been?

ARGH! By this point even my father was laughing at me, I think he can see me mentally clawing my fingernails down the bloody wall.

THEN .... I get home, to more messages from my cousin in NYC, who's thinking about putting her parents on another island. Like, NO! Bloody Americans. Just because the island is next door, and it doesn't look very far in US terms ... you do not stick your parents on another Scottish island to sleep. You know, this isn't Manhattan and ferries don't run à la Staten Island 24/7. THIS IS SCOTLAND! It shuts down at 6pm. Try and explain. More research from me, and I locate a few places. Eventually get somewhere booked and paid for (don't ask, it's a miracle).

THEN ... a message system is going:

Cousin in Macclesfield > aunt in Aberystwyth > my father > my mother writing > me > my cousin in NYC > aunt/uncle in NYC.

And back. I do not want to think about how much was lost in that Chinese Whispers.

THEN .... logistics on how the hell to get from Liverpool to this island. And, etc.

My cousin replied:

Thank you so much for all the help, information, relaying, etc. I feel like I know more about the island now than I know about Long Island.

Okay(!)

So that's my day, and I don't actually have anything personally to show for it.

Scotland is in three weekends and I have FIVE OAPs in tow (including two Americans). I'm driving, where I have to do a 60 mile detour first, and two more detours en route. That's ten hours. It's going to be a comedy alright. I'll just want to get from A to B and be done with it, their idea will be to stop at every service station going. You know! TOILET! CUP OF COFFEE! ARE WE THERE YET? WHERE ARE WE GOING? WHAT FOR? And having to explain, ad infinitium.

Can I have some kids please, I'm sure parenting downwards has to be easier.

Posted by alison at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)