Why the Dog Food Depressed Me

Yesterday I was depressed.  Actually, I'm still depressed today, but yesterday, I was depressed, in part, due to the dog food.

I couldn't quite understand why.  Yes, it is a hassle to have to open a 30-pound sack of dog food in my trunk, scoop it into plastic dishes, and carry it inside that way.  It is also a hassle to then wash all the plastic dishes I used to carry the dog food.  But many things in life are a hassle.  If you get depressed every time you must deal with a hassle, well, you are going to be depressed a lot.  I think I do a pretty good job of not sweating the small stuff, at least most of the time.

I think I was a little depressed because I had no one to help me, and that makes me feel lonely and sad.  Of course, I probably could have asked a neighbor for help, but I don't like to ask for help.  I feel like I should be able to do things myself.  I feel like it's my responsibility and I shouldn't bother other people.

I think the biggest thing about the dog food that depressed me was the realization that there was a time in my life when lifting 30 pounds would have been like nothing to me.  I used to be a certified nursing assistant.  When I worked in a nursing home, we were not supposed to lift anyone weighing more than 60 pounds by ourselves.  Since most nursing home residents weigh more than 60 pounds, that meant we were supposed to get another CNA to help us.  Since we were chronically understaffed, though, we frequently lifted residents alone that weighed more than 60  pounds.

And for a while, I did private duty care for a teenage boy with multiple disabilities.  He weighed about 70 pounds, and in a day, I would lift him in and out of his wheelchair at least a dozen times.  I would lift him into the bathtub, then carry him from the bath to the bed to dress him, lift him back into his chair, lift him out of the chair and place him on the living room floor to do his range of motion exercises, then pick him up off the floor to put him back in his chair, etc.  And it was easy.  Even picking him up off the floor was easy.

Today I could not bend over to pick up a package off the floor when Fed Ex left it outside my front door.  The package contained a two-pound tub of protein powder, three single-serving samples of protein powder (I guess a couple ounces each), and a small bottle of vitamins.  Altogether, it might have weighed three pounds.  I could not bend over to pick it up.  I had to kick it across my door sill, across my foyer, across my living room, until it came to rest beside my couch, so I could sit on the couch and then pick it up.

I used to pick up a 70-pound teenager off the ground with no trouble at all.

I find that depressing.  It's depressing that I can't do things that I used to do so easily.  It's depressing that it's so difficult now to do things that should be so simple.

30 Pounds of Dog Food

I have 30 pounds of dog food in the trunk of my car.

I normally buy dog food in 15-pound bags.  The brand Isaac eats comes in five-pound, 15-pound, and 30-pound bags.  I normally buy the 15-pound bags because I can carry them, though it's somewhat difficult, and because it works out to be cheaper per pound if I buy that size instead of the five-pound bags.  Well, today the farm supply place was out of 15-pound bags.  I had to choose between five pounds or 30 pounds.  And the 30-pound bags were on sale.  I could get a 30-pound bag of dog food for $41.  Compare that to buying three of the five-pound bags for a total of $36.  Well, of course I wanted to get 15 pounds more for just another $5.

I managed to wrestle the bag into my cart, and then into the trunk of my car.  I have no idea, though, how I'm going to get it out of my trunk and into my apartment.  I guess maybe I will open the bag in my trunk and scoop some of the food out into a container of a manageable size.  I can then carry the food into my house, making several trips.  Doesn't that sound fun?

Doing Laundry with Isaac in My New Apartment

Isaac has been helping me with laundry since shortly after I got him, but it's a little different in my new apartment than it was where I used to live.  I don't have my own washer and dryer here, but there is a laundry room downstairs I can use.  Since the laundry room is downstairs, Isaac doesn't get to pull the laundry basket to the laundry room for me, like he did in our own  house.  I have to carry the basket of laundry.  If I don't feel able to carry it, there is a cart on wheels I can use to take the laundry downstairs.

There are two washers and dryers in the laundry room, so I can do two loads of laundry at a time.  That works just fine for me, but Isaac is not a fan of it.  He is usually happy to pull the clothes out of one dryer but then he thinks it should be time to rest or time to play.  Sometimes I have a bit of trouble getting him to empty the second dryer.

One of the washing machines is a front loading kind, and it is actually broken at the moment.  Yesterday I suggested to the apartment manager that he replace it with a machine that loads from the top.  I've heard several tenants in the building say they don't like the front loading machine, and I don't like it, either.  Isaac takes the wet clothes out for me, just like he does with the dryer, but he can't put clothes in it so I have to bend over to do that.  Several of my neighbors have physical disabilities and find it difficult to bend over to put clothes in and take them out, and some of them can't use the machine at all.  Everyone seems to prefer the top loading machine.  Isaac doesn't mind getting the wet clothes out of the machine, but sometimes he drops clothes on the floor, and I don't really like my clean wet laundry falling on the laundry room floor.

Besides that fact that he has to do more work in a short period of time, Isaac also has to deal with more distractions when doing laundry in our new place.  Every time he hears someone out in the hallway, he stops working and looks to see who it is.  For a while, the idea of a dog that did laundry was quite a novelty for my neighbors and they all wanted to see him helping me, but of course that was an even bigger distraction.  They are all pretty used to Isaac by now, though, and usually stay away from the laundry room when they hear me in there telling him to "Get it, get it, get it," over and over again.

Yesterday for some reason, Isaac wanted to play tug with everything he took out of the dryer.  I was getting really annoyed.  I didn't want him to put holes in my towels.  At one point, he also lay down on the floor and said he was done.  I had a little trouble getting him to get up and get back to work.  Maybe I need to use hotdogs as treats the next time we do laundry.

Dating with a Disability and a Dog

It's been more than seven months now since Mike and I separated.  I haven't dated much in that time, but I have dated a little.

Let me start by saying I hate dating.  I always have.  I've enjoyed being in relationships, although I'm also enjoying being single now.  But I hate dating.  Especially first dates.  First dates feel a lot like job interviews, only more complicated, because it's like I'm being interviewed and also like I'm interviewing someone else.

The internet has changed the dating process for many people, I think, and it's mostly been a good thing for me.  Mike and I met online.  Since I don't have a regular job, and I don't go to school, and I don't go to church, and I don't enjoy bars or nightclubs at all, I don't have many opportunities to meet people.  Plus, on internet dating sites you can be really clear in your profile about what you're looking for and then you can kind of screen people and try to avoid the idiots as much as possible.  Of course, you get messages from all kinds of creepy people online, too.  But you can just delete those.  It's better than someone creepy hitting on you at a party, I think.

When you have a disability, you have to decide when to tell a potential partner about your disability.  If you are blind or use a wheelchair, people are gonna figure that out as soon as they meet you, but if you have PTSD, they won't know until you tell them (or until something happens that freaks them out if they don't know about the PTSD, like have a flashback when you're with them).  I don't want to spend a lot of time getting to know and like someone, only to find out that they can't deal with the fact that I have PTSD.  I also don't want them to feel like I was not being honest, or somehow "lying by omission," if I'm not up front about.  On the other hand, I don't want to scare someone off before they've gotten the chance to know me at all.  Plus, I don't think the PTSD is the most important thing about me and I don't want to present it like it is.

It occurred to me recently that, although people can't tell just by looking at me that I have PTSD, it is now summer and it is hot out and I am not going on a first date wearing long sleeves.  I've had scars on my arms, and elsewhere, for years and years, but most were pretty faded.  After the... what do I call it?  The incident?  I don't know.  The thing last November when I cut myself really badly.  I now have numerous scars on both arms that are quite noticeable.  I'm sure they will fade more in time, but they are very obvious and anyone I meet will see them right away.  If I don't tell them before we meet, I need to be prepared to answer the inevitable question about what happened to my arms.

Then there is the dog.  When do I tell people I have a service dog?  If I tell them I have a service dog but haven't told them I have a disability, well, they are going to ask why I have a service dog so I need to be prepared to answer questions about my disability.  On the other hand, mentioning Isaac can be a good way to lead up to the fact that I have a disability.  For instance, if someone mentions their dog (people love to talk about their animals), I can say, "I have a dog, too.  He's a yellow lab.  He's a trained service dog."  Or, if someone I'm chatting with online asks for a picture of me, I can send them a picture of me with Isaac, with Isaac dressed in his service dog vest.  I've done that a couple times.

I decided I do need to let people know I have a service dog before I show up for a first date with Isaac in tow.  At first I wasn't sure if I should mention it ahead of time or not.  Then I decided, what if someone is allergic to dogs?  What if they are really scared of dogs for some reason?  What if they just don't like dogs?  It seems unfair to show up with one without making sure it's OK with them first.  Now, if someone said they hated dogs and would never want to be around my service dog, then obviously that relationship would not be going anywhere.  But it still seems wise, and fair, to discuss that before I show up at Starbucks with my service dog for a first date (I think Starbucks is the perfect place for a first date, by the way.  It's casual, you can  make it a short date if you want but you can also hang out and talk for a whole afternoon if you want.  And if the date doesn't show up, I still get a latte.).

Don't Encourage Your Kid to Bother the Service Dog

Apparently this is not uncommon, although today was the first time it happened to me.

I was at the grocery store, with Isaac, and a man was pushing a cart down the aisle with a toddler in it.  He pointed out the doggie to the toddler, then started calling, "Here, Doggie, Doggie!"  Then he started barking at the doggie.  The man, not the toddler.

Besides looking like an idiot, what is that teaching his kid?