Mabon and the Harvest Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: Evergreen Orthotics. Handicap placards. Ruby. Low thirties. Rain. Golden coins among the green Needles. Fat Bears. Horny Elk Bulls and Mule Deer Bucks. Shadow spending more and more time inside. Closing my cold frames. Picking Tomatoes today. Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Lidocaine losing its efficacy.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Morgan at Evergreen Orthotics
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei
Week Kavannah: Yesod. Groundedness.
Tarot: still paused
One brief shining: Morgan came in, her hands full of plastic wrapped cervical collars, opened one and set its front half on my neck and under my chin while strapping me in at the back; how does that feel? Weird. Too much.
DMV: Yesterday began with a visit to the Evergreen DMV to register for my first ever handicap placards. I drove down through fog, wipers on slow beats, past Kate’s Stream and her Valley.
The DMV and the Sheriff’s office share a building. As I sat in my car, I arrived a bit early for my appointment, a large man, built like a Bulldog with a Sheriff’s deputy uniform on, waddled to the door. When I went in a few minutes later, a uniformed deputy, not the same guy, stopped me. He had a ripe banana on the small desk, a laptop open.
“I have an 8:15 with DMV.”
“First name.” I told him. “You’re clear to go.” Seemed odd to me that there was a gatekeeper with a gun in such a quiet spot.
Inside the DMV had skeletons, bats, an orange spider web plastic basket, and Dracula hanging above the plastic window to which I turned. A pleasant gray haired woman took my document, checked it over, compared the data on it to my driver’s license, then went to a drawer on the wall behind her and found two of the familiar blue and white hangars, using a bar code on each to scan them into the system.
She explained how to use them. The only restriction that surprised me? If I use the placard, I have to get out of the car and go in wherever I am. I can’t drive someone somewhere, use the placard, and wait. Not sure about that one, but, hey. I’m glad to have them.
Handicap placards in my small backpack I drove back toward home, filled up with gas, ate breakfast at Aspen Perks, then drove down the hill, more fog, to Evergreen Orthotics.
Evergreen Orthotics: Where I met Morgan. What a kind and fun person. Mid-thirties, curly auburn hair and a casual smiling manner, we decided cervical collars, meant for folks with fractured vertebrae, were overkill for me. Not to mention sorta ugly and intrusive.
Wearing anything around my neck in public feels like, will be, a big change from 78 years of not doing that. However, my neck has become increasingly unstable. If I’m standing, looking up at a taller person while I’m talking, my neck begins to wobble almost immediately. I already walk head down and people notice that, plus the tilt to my head, especially later in the day.
Morgan, the clinical manager and Orthotist at Evergreen, has never made a custom neck brace. That’s how rare my situation is. Even so I asked her to give it ago. She’s doing some research and I may get something 3-D printed. Until then, I’m going to try a foam collar.
The material she’s looking at is the same kind professional athletes wear if they’ve broken their nose. You’ve seen the masks, I’m sure. They’re all 3-D printed. We’ll see where this goes.