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Jul. 3rd, 2010 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickWatered the roses, did more laundry. Wow, clothes dry fast at 86 degrees with no humidity. In other news, two things of interest, unrelated.
Item the first: Friday at work involved the phrase I've fallen and I can't get up! This is way more resonant to people of my generation but for those of you young sprouts who haven't seen the commercial, it lives on via the magic of YouTube.
Now, it was funny when I was a young pup, immortal as all such are until that time when they suddenly aren't, but it is a lot less funny as I get older. It is particularly less funny when the CART (Call A Ride Transport -- it's what we have in Bumfuck instead of public transportation) calls to tell me that one of my tenants was supposed to be picked up at X hour but is not answering the (locked) door or the phone.
Said tenant is overweight to a degree that probably qualifies it (we're going for anonymity, here, even unto gender) as medically obese though it is still ambulatory, sort of. Tenant is not old, particularly, maybe late forties, but at the given weight (well north of three hundred pounds), tenant's health cannot be said to be good. Tenant has diabetes, retains water, gets out of breath very easily, yadda yadda yadda.
So, in lieu of a better plan, Dad and I went to the apartment to determine whether or not tenant was dead or otherwise unable to come to the door. I knocked on the door. (Dad was parking the truck.) Nobody came to the door. I got keys and opened the door, which opens into the living room of the apartment. Tenant was on the floor, sort of, between the chair and the television set. Tenant would have been ON the floor except there were geologic layers of magazine insulating the floor to an average depth of six inches. (I, in reasonable shape and equipped with better-than-average balance, had difficulty walking over the magazines on the floor as they were slippery and very uneven.) "Are you Okay? Do you need me to call 9-1-1?" Tenant replied, "I'm fine. I just need someone to help me get up." Like the brainiac that I am, I said, "What happened?" Tenant (irritably) said, "I've fallen and I can't get up." So, there you have it.
Imagine, if you will, a turtle on its back. That's kind of what Tenant looked like. It has been hot weather, here, and Tenant does not have air conditioning so is dressed in summer wear and displaying enough skin for perhaps two normal-sized people. Tenant is on back, kind of nestled in a dip in the magazine coverage, so that the general effect is very turtlish.
(Oh. Regarding the "normal-sized" comment. Y'know, you can go all Size Acceptance Mafia on me if you want. However, human beings over three hundred pounds are not "normal sized" and I am not going to pretend that they are. It's not normal if they're NFL offensive linemen and it's not normal if they're impoverished rural tenants. I am using the word "normal" in a bell-curve sort of way, here. Persons who fall outside two standard deviations from the mean on an objective measurement are NOT NORMAL. Are we all clear on that? Kay.)
So I go over and take the hand of my tenant and attempt to provide sufficient leverage for tenant to regain footing. Since I am not three hundred pounds (slightly less than half that, actually) and since I'm standing on a shifting surface of glossy print, my effort is less than successful. Dad shows up and we start to clear the magazines off the floor beneath the feet of the tenant. (Now I know who buys The Star and The National Enquirer and so forth.) Once the floor is clear, Dad takes a hand and I take another hand and we drag tenant to the clear floor space and a more-upright position. Tenant assures us that this is sufficient help and that we do not need to call anyone and that we do not need to call 9-1-1 and that everything is completely and totally fine now, thanks. Tenant is not actually standing, but assures us repeatedly that things are "fine", so we leave. We do not relock door or deadbolt when we leave, reasoning that if tenant dies or collapses, emergency services will be able to get in without breaking door. If tenant is able to make it to door to secure same, tenant is probably fine and will live through the weekend.
CART wants to know what we have done vis a vis the tenant. We give them a summarized report. They try to call tenant on the phone. Tenant does not answer phone. Tenant's living space is such that getting to the phone and/or locating same may be something of a problem for even a fit and nimble person, which tenant is not. CART calls us back and tells us that tenant is not answering phone. Like, what? This is my problem? No. My problem is fixing stuff like "The faucet drips" or "My toilet shifts on the floor" (to which the answer is not "Lose a hundred pounds" but "I'll put down a new flange and new bolts.") or "There's no heat." I am not freaking social services, here.
Tenant had called CART for a doctor's appointment. Tenant doctors quite a bit for assorted ailments, some of them weight-related and some of them not. My thing, though, is that any medical treatment that does not, first and foremost, address the tenant's weight problem is not as useful as it might be.
An analogy might help, here. Let us say that you have a house. It is on fire. It also has a dripping hot water faucet in the bathroom sink, a stuck garbage disposal in the kitchen, and a flickery bad light switch in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Now, yes, the water faucet needs to be fixed. Also, the garbage disposal needs turned with a broom handle and possibly the reset button should be pressed. And someone should replace the light switch. BUT THE FUCKING HOUSE IS ON FIRE, which is probably more important to fix than this other shit.
I respect the right of people to be whatever size they will be. I do. But when one's size has one falling over and being unable to regain one's footing, that should be taken as a wake-up call on the Something Needs To Be Done front. Maybe what needs to be done is for social services to have a De-Cluttering consultation so that the floor provides good footing for my Very Obese Tenant. Maybe that's the solution, here. Having the fucking landlord show up to help one to one's feet is NOT a solution. The landlord is not responsible for fixing the tenant, only the physical plant in which the tenant resides.
Enough ranting on my having to exhibit basic human decency toward a tenant. La thinks it would be kind of cool to have a series of outdoor jumps (like for cross-country only way smaller and less intimidating, from 2' to maybe 2'6") and to invite people to come over for a day of jumping the jumps and tearing around the hayfield and surrounding environs. Obviously, this would have to happen when hay season was over. Maybe by then persons besides me will be okay with jumping 2'. Anyway, I'm feeling all motivated by that, so jump construction will have to keep moving forward. I'm trolling the internets for ideas.
Item the first: Friday at work involved the phrase I've fallen and I can't get up! This is way more resonant to people of my generation but for those of you young sprouts who haven't seen the commercial, it lives on via the magic of YouTube.
Now, it was funny when I was a young pup, immortal as all such are until that time when they suddenly aren't, but it is a lot less funny as I get older. It is particularly less funny when the CART (Call A Ride Transport -- it's what we have in Bumfuck instead of public transportation) calls to tell me that one of my tenants was supposed to be picked up at X hour but is not answering the (locked) door or the phone.
Said tenant is overweight to a degree that probably qualifies it (we're going for anonymity, here, even unto gender) as medically obese though it is still ambulatory, sort of. Tenant is not old, particularly, maybe late forties, but at the given weight (well north of three hundred pounds), tenant's health cannot be said to be good. Tenant has diabetes, retains water, gets out of breath very easily, yadda yadda yadda.
So, in lieu of a better plan, Dad and I went to the apartment to determine whether or not tenant was dead or otherwise unable to come to the door. I knocked on the door. (Dad was parking the truck.) Nobody came to the door. I got keys and opened the door, which opens into the living room of the apartment. Tenant was on the floor, sort of, between the chair and the television set. Tenant would have been ON the floor except there were geologic layers of magazine insulating the floor to an average depth of six inches. (I, in reasonable shape and equipped with better-than-average balance, had difficulty walking over the magazines on the floor as they were slippery and very uneven.) "Are you Okay? Do you need me to call 9-1-1?" Tenant replied, "I'm fine. I just need someone to help me get up." Like the brainiac that I am, I said, "What happened?" Tenant (irritably) said, "I've fallen and I can't get up." So, there you have it.
Imagine, if you will, a turtle on its back. That's kind of what Tenant looked like. It has been hot weather, here, and Tenant does not have air conditioning so is dressed in summer wear and displaying enough skin for perhaps two normal-sized people. Tenant is on back, kind of nestled in a dip in the magazine coverage, so that the general effect is very turtlish.
(Oh. Regarding the "normal-sized" comment. Y'know, you can go all Size Acceptance Mafia on me if you want. However, human beings over three hundred pounds are not "normal sized" and I am not going to pretend that they are. It's not normal if they're NFL offensive linemen and it's not normal if they're impoverished rural tenants. I am using the word "normal" in a bell-curve sort of way, here. Persons who fall outside two standard deviations from the mean on an objective measurement are NOT NORMAL. Are we all clear on that? Kay.)
So I go over and take the hand of my tenant and attempt to provide sufficient leverage for tenant to regain footing. Since I am not three hundred pounds (slightly less than half that, actually) and since I'm standing on a shifting surface of glossy print, my effort is less than successful. Dad shows up and we start to clear the magazines off the floor beneath the feet of the tenant. (Now I know who buys The Star and The National Enquirer and so forth.) Once the floor is clear, Dad takes a hand and I take another hand and we drag tenant to the clear floor space and a more-upright position. Tenant assures us that this is sufficient help and that we do not need to call anyone and that we do not need to call 9-1-1 and that everything is completely and totally fine now, thanks. Tenant is not actually standing, but assures us repeatedly that things are "fine", so we leave. We do not relock door or deadbolt when we leave, reasoning that if tenant dies or collapses, emergency services will be able to get in without breaking door. If tenant is able to make it to door to secure same, tenant is probably fine and will live through the weekend.
CART wants to know what we have done vis a vis the tenant. We give them a summarized report. They try to call tenant on the phone. Tenant does not answer phone. Tenant's living space is such that getting to the phone and/or locating same may be something of a problem for even a fit and nimble person, which tenant is not. CART calls us back and tells us that tenant is not answering phone. Like, what? This is my problem? No. My problem is fixing stuff like "The faucet drips" or "My toilet shifts on the floor" (to which the answer is not "Lose a hundred pounds" but "I'll put down a new flange and new bolts.") or "There's no heat." I am not freaking social services, here.
Tenant had called CART for a doctor's appointment. Tenant doctors quite a bit for assorted ailments, some of them weight-related and some of them not. My thing, though, is that any medical treatment that does not, first and foremost, address the tenant's weight problem is not as useful as it might be.
An analogy might help, here. Let us say that you have a house. It is on fire. It also has a dripping hot water faucet in the bathroom sink, a stuck garbage disposal in the kitchen, and a flickery bad light switch in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Now, yes, the water faucet needs to be fixed. Also, the garbage disposal needs turned with a broom handle and possibly the reset button should be pressed. And someone should replace the light switch. BUT THE FUCKING HOUSE IS ON FIRE, which is probably more important to fix than this other shit.
I respect the right of people to be whatever size they will be. I do. But when one's size has one falling over and being unable to regain one's footing, that should be taken as a wake-up call on the Something Needs To Be Done front. Maybe what needs to be done is for social services to have a De-Cluttering consultation so that the floor provides good footing for my Very Obese Tenant. Maybe that's the solution, here. Having the fucking landlord show up to help one to one's feet is NOT a solution. The landlord is not responsible for fixing the tenant, only the physical plant in which the tenant resides.
Enough ranting on my having to exhibit basic human decency toward a tenant. La thinks it would be kind of cool to have a series of outdoor jumps (like for cross-country only way smaller and less intimidating, from 2' to maybe 2'6") and to invite people to come over for a day of jumping the jumps and tearing around the hayfield and surrounding environs. Obviously, this would have to happen when hay season was over. Maybe by then persons besides me will be okay with jumping 2'. Anyway, I'm feeling all motivated by that, so jump construction will have to keep moving forward. I'm trolling the internets for ideas.
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Date: 2010-07-05 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-05 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-06 12:44 am (UTC)You could laugh at my lower leg! It'd be fun!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 01:36 pm (UTC)In other news, I have made some lovely contacts in the Hamptons and hope to find pony homes out there.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 03:29 pm (UTC)