What?!  You’re going to do what?!

Flickr pic from Dizzy Girl

I’m going to buy my 13 year old son a dress this afternoon.  Pretty typical, right?  Haha!  Ok, he’s going to be in a Womanless Beauty Pageant at school! Isn’t that hysterical? A good friend of my other son was in it last year, and although we didn’t go (said son doesn’t like to inform me of much..hrmph…), the pictures were a SCREAM! His mother actually took him to some dress shop. Dress shop? Hello? I don’t even shop at dress shops, and no, the child will not even be shopping at the fancy boutique where I do shop for myself - WalFart. No, actually, I will be taking him to the thrift shop! He argued with me on this point, and I told him that if I bought him a dress at WalFart, he had to wear it a minimum of ten times! Ha!
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Our high school is in the middle of tennis tryouts.  My son is one of the ones trying out.  They get together and do drills and stuff for several days before the coaches make their final decision.  Shawn has been getting home and riding his bike up to the college every day, where they are holding the tryouts.  He’s really enjoyed it so far.

He has also had a physical at the doctor’s office.  (That was a big deal - the old man doesn’t like paying doctor bills to begin with, but, going to the doctor when you’re not sick?  What?!  Hahaha!)  He has also gotten new tennis shoes and a new tennis racket.  He’s really excited and has been looking forward to this for months.  He’s taken lessons back home in Dallas, and I’m just glad to see him interested in something physical, for once.  I do totally have a vision of this kid in the future as the lead developer for Bungie, or some such company - and I love that about him, but, I need him to get outside and get moving around, too!
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I’m feeling just a bit fired up here, so let’s delve into this a bit further, shall we? I was disgusted when I read Karen’s initial post - I just about completely lost it when I read that she was dealing with a MANAGER of an establishment. And then someone-who-shall-remain-unnamed in my F2F life, argued with me the validity of Karen’s claims. This ‘warmy’ (how I describe people in my right-here-next-to-me life) thinks that she shouldn’t even be upset at all. This person thinks that maybe she could have just gone to the speaker, waited a few seconds, and then hollered her order into it, and then pulled forward. (The ‘warmy’ dug himself out at this point, saying that she could then say, “I did order at the speaker.” Too late - said ‘warmy’ was just too deep.) And now I’m even more fired up!

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states in Title III, straight from the US Department of Justice website:

Public accommodations must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific requirements related to architectural standards for new and altered buildings; reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures; effective communication with people with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities; and other access requirements. Additionally, public accommodations must remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, given the public accommodation’s resources.

The emphasis in the paragraph is mine. Would it have been effective for her to go to the speaker and speak into it, not knowing what, if anything, was being said back to her? No. Does effective communication require two or more people? Yes. If I am deaf, and I go to the speaker and talk - that is just me. Alone. The argument came up in my mind about people giving speeches - that is just one person. However, if the entire audience is deaf, and there are no interpreters, then that is not effective communication, is it? So effective communication does require two or more people. One may only be listening, or receiving, the communication, but, without your ‘receiver’ - you are just telling the wind.

The Council for Disability Rights website provides ADA FAQ’s for those of us non-lawyer types. They explain the above referenced section of Title III, in part, as such:

• May a public accommodation require people with disabilities to meet certain standards of policies, especially safety standards?

A public accommodation must not use eligibility criteria or standards which screen out or tend to screen out people with disabilities unless it can be shown these criteria are necessary for the safe provision of these services. Safety considerations must be based in real, immediate threats of danger to others, not on stereotypical assumptions. In addition, a public accommodation must make reasonable modifications in policies, practices and procedures unless it would fundamentally alter the nature of the goods and services offered.

Again, the emphases is in the above paragraph is mine. Speaking to the first emphasis, would it be unsafe to take the order of the patron from the same window through which you will eventually serve them their food? No. Some fool might say, “We have to know they are real customers, it’s unsafe to have them just come up to the window. They could shoot us.” To which I would retort that I could order a burger, as if I’m just a customer, and then once I get to the window, shoot you. People are going to come to your window - it’s a drive-thru.

Speaking to the second emphasis, would it fundamentally alter the nature of the milkshake if I were to order at the window? Would my milkshake be salty? Would it have hamburger meat in it? As far as ‘altering the services’ goes, would you suddenly be physically unable to reach out the window to hand it to me? No, no, and no.

Just give the woman her damn milkshakes, would you?!

I love it when situations get attention quickly from news crews - stories that really need to be told. And that is just what happened yesterday. Karen Putz, the blogger who was turned away from a restaurant, without being served, was on her local news yesterday. It’s really so great, because, her story not only created a major ripple online - more like a RIPTIDE, but, also - was also broadcast on the Chicago news, reaching even more people. When I first read her story, I was thinking some smarta$$ kid would need to be dealt with, but, reading that it was a manager really, really got under my skin! You can see the clip here: Hearing Impaired Woman Claims She Was Denied Service

I sure hope that Steak and Shake is able to make things right for not only her, but, for every disabled person they encounter. And wouldn’t it be great if the obviously necessary education, spread through all service industries!

So many people would have sulked and pouted at such an encounter, and then gone home to grumble within their own four walls (me :/ ), but, not you, Karen! You stood your ground and are assertively fighting for your rights! You are an inspiration to those of us who just are not so good at doing that! The Council for Disability Rights says:

Knowing your rights is the easy part. Exercising them can be a bit trickier.

You are definitely exercising them, and you are teaching so many of us a lesson - and for that, I thank you! Sincerely.

Pardon me, but, is this the year 2008?  And are we in the United States of America?

The reason that I ask these questions is because a fellow blogger, who just so happens to be deaf, was so poorly treated yesterday at a
Steak and Shake in Chicago, that I was wondering if we were in some kind of weird a$$ time warp. She was picking up her kids from school and in between schools, she decided to go through the drive-thru of Steak and Shake for a shake for herself and her child.

She is deaf, so she just pulled up to the window. The guy working the window refused to serve her unless she drove around the restaurant and started at the speaker. She repeatedly explains to him that she can’t HEAR the speaker - and he continues to refuse to serve her!

Flabbergasted - I was just flabbergasted reading through her post - and then, in the comments, she revealed that the gentleman with the heart as big as Texas that she was dealing with - was the MANAGER!! At that point, I became nauseous. It would be one thing if some smart-mouthed teenager needed a talking-to, but, the manager?!

That is so unbelievable! He even went so far as to threaten to call the police on her - what?! You just need to go read it in her words - she obviously tells the story much better than I! You will find her story here: Steak and Shake Denies Service

She has been contacted by them and has set up a meeting with someone from the company and dammit!  Something REALLY GOOD better come out of this, because, there are quite a few riled up bloggers ready to go to bat for her!

Come on, Steak and Shake - fix this for this sweet lady and educate your people properly on the laws that protect Americans with disabilities!

God bless his poor little heart! I feel for him so much - he cannot go on a vacation! It’s true, I swear! Just watch this:

I know you must feel as badly for him as I do! He’s too busy saving the freaking world - he just cannot go on vacation. He, and they, are the only ones that know, you know! So sad - he’s only got $31 million freaking fracking dollars! Puh-lease! I’ve got $98 in the bank and a stack of bills on my desk totaling a lot more than $98. I wonder, since he’s too busy to spend his own damn money and take his beautiful wife and his precious daughter on a freaking fracking vacation - maybe he could send some of those Benjamins my way. Hey, maybe I could finally get Alabama Power off my ass!

Yo Tom - Alabama! I live in Alabama!

P.S. If that video gets pulled, you can watch it on Gawker.com, where it will NOT be pulled. Nope - no such luck!

If you’ve been around this ol’ interwebby very long, you’ve no doubt heard the term ’sticky’ as it pertains to websites. Basically, it means, are you gonna click in here to Hippie Spelunker, have a one and a half second glance and book? Or are you going to hang around, reading posts, clicking here and there, checking out all that this Spelunking Hippie has to offer?

And if you’ve been listening to me in the last six or so months, you’ve no doubt heard the name John Pozadzides, or better yet, One Man’s Blog. I love it over there! I just love it! You never know what will be happening over there from day to day. Will it be informative? Will it be entertaining? Will we all rally around a cause, or against an injustice? Will we learn how to protect our computers? Will we read about icky and oh-so-creepy handsoap? You just never know, and that is part of what makes me keep going back every day! And that doesn’t even begin to mention how much I actually learn over there from John and his commenters!

But let’s get back to that concept of stickiness, though, shall we? John has not only created the stickiest website in the history of this here ol’ interweb, but, he’s created a Mighty Legion of Bubble Geeks! Now that’s an accomplishment! There are quite a few of us that have spent way too many hours over there playing the Bubble Shooter game! And this morning, while my rather grumpy children readied themselves for school, I casually sat and annihilated bubbles. And look what happened!! I joined the ranks of the Mighty Bubble Board Clearers!!  That’s right, folks - I cleared the board!

Given that it was one of those ‘grumpy kid mornings’ - no one seemed excited for me….huh?! What nerve! Do they even know how hard I’ve been working for this? And yet, I get not one, ‘Way to go, Mom’, not even a ‘Cool, Mom’. Insolent children. Hrmph.

I kick ass. They know it. We all know it. It’s ok.

My mom gets us these wonderful, personalized calendars every year for Christmas. It’s a wonderful tradition she’s started. She gets one for each of our families - so that is a lot of pictures to gather, because, each calendar has a different picture for every month.  I like to look at the pictures on Christmas day when we open it, and then I try not to look again until each month comes upon us. It makes for twelve sweet little surprises throughout the year. Last year’s calendar was a little hard to look at, as a lot of the pics were not only from Dallas, but, from the last few days before we actually moved 700+ miles away from home. Mom, Dad, Mic, Tracy, and DJ did a lot of stuff with the kids those last few days, squeezing in as much fun stuff as they could before we left. They had sleepovers and went to the zoo and all kinds of stuff.  One of the pictures was even of the moving truck. That one really tugged at my heart. It was so cute, though. All four kids - mine and DJ, my nephew - climbed up on the back of the truck when the big door was open, and I think DJ was even lying down ON the ramp, with his oh-so-precious pellow. (Not a misspelling, that is how his mom really says it. Cute, huh?) She’s from Illinois. I guess that is how they say ‘pillow’ in Illinois. Heh. That picture is so adorable - I’ll have to try to take a picture of it so I can show you!

What I can show you right now, though, is a picture of the January 2008 photo(s). It’s so cool, because, it matches so nicely with the walls in my kitchen. Whodathunkit?

And another thing that I think is really cool about this month’s picture(s) is that they were all taken at one of our three houses. Shawn is at Mic and Tracy’s house, Patrick is at Mom and Dad’s house, and Sammie is here at our house. I just really like that - kind of a symbolic ‘blending of the houses’, you know? The raising of my children has taken place in all three homes, and each home was/is very instrumental in their upbringing. Very cool.

I wonder if February will match the kitchen as well and be symbolically cool, too…hmm….

Sammie and I are in her room watching Pirates of the Carribean 3. I love these movies, although I pretty much stay lost throughout. Ha!

And I haven’t actually seen PC2, so I come by some of my lostness honestly. I’m enjoying it immensely, nevertheless.

Jack Sparrow is oh so adorable.

We’re watching the movie, the beast is snoring next to me (having gotten as close to me as he possibly could - he just wishes he was a lapdog - poor, giant thing), I’m blogging, and we’re playing ‘Oh Heck’ - multitasking babes, we are - my darling girl and I!

So anyway, I’ll catch back up with ya’ll tomorrow - I’ve got a few things here that need my attention.

Do you Squidoo? I sure do - and I love it! And the rockin’ chick who got me into it is a very cool marketer named Tiffany Dow. She wrote this really awesome ebook all about Squidoo, which teaches people all about how to make the most of Squidoo and how to be a valuable member of the community over there. That book is called, Social Networking on Squidoo. And with that book, I was hooked! Completely hooked!

Now, however, she’s written another book about Squidoo. This time she is teaching us how to build great Squidoo lenses and sell them, or rather, flip them. Hence the name of the book, Flip That Lens. I am so excited about this new book! Tiffany has had great success flipping lenses - her teenage son has even flipped a few!

The really cool thing about Tiffany’s ebooks is that she is such a great teacher. She really takes you through step-by-step what exactly you need to do. So often, I am reading an ebook and I get to a point where I don’t know how to do something that the author is talking about and they are not explaining that crucial step. That totally does not happen with Tiffany - she never leaves you hanging. I just love the way she teaches!

Go check it out - you’ll see what I’m talking about: Flip That Lens