Not good

Here's an article I found this morning. It talks about the recent rise in food allergies in children.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/25/health/plastics-perfumes-new-allergies/index.html?hpt=he_c2

I don't like where this is headed. I can say from experience it's very difficult for two people, both with severe allergies, although to different things, to spend time together without making each other sick. I'm not sure how the world will function if this gets much worse.

There aren't enough exclamation points in the world

I get to have candy corn. Incredible, right?
I made a post some months ago about how I could no longer find a brand of candy corn that didn't manufacture on the same equipment that also processes peanuts, and just recently a woman called brilliantmindbrokenbody gave me a link to a site that sells it! I ordered some, and it's delicious! It's perfect! I love it! Thank you!
 http://www.peanutfreeplanet.com/Sunrise_Candy_Corn_p/sunrisecandycorn%209oz.htm

How far am I allowed to go?

While I understand that my school's reluctance and in some cases flat-out refusal to accommodate me for the sake of their convenience was wrong, I have to wonder if they did have a point. Things like regularly wiping down surfaces and reading the label on everything I eat might seem normal to me, but to other people look ridiculously extreme. And do I actually have a right to say that no one around me can eat peanuts ever?
Adults glared at me when I asked them to bring the class candy from one brand and not another, and while that might be somewhat justifiable, where am I supposed to draw the line? I wanted to attend parties, but I didn't want to inconvenience anyone. I didn't know what to do. I still don't.
I panic a little whenever I read about legislation for better allergy policies in schools. "Don't these people know that's inconvenient and annoying? The school officials are going to frown and cross their arms at them! They'll be intimidated! What do they think they're doing???" But that's a stupid response, and I know it's a stupid response, and yet I can't help it because I don't know how far I'm allowed to go.
At what point would you be angry with me?

Rescuing Sage

My mother has always loved dogs and always wanted one, but my father doesn't like them, which is why I was so surprised when he was the one who suggested I have a service dog. My mother hated that she couldn't always give attention to Poodleface, so after I'd had him for a few years my father and I talked it over and agreed that my mother should have a dog too. She decided that she wanted another standard poodle, that she wanted to adopt it from a shelter, and that she wanted to train it to be a therapy dog.

We live in the middle of nowhere and no one nearby had recently rescued any poodles, so she looked at online shelter sites for almost a month before finding the dog she wanted. Her name was Sage. She had brown fur, was three years old and very even-tempered, and had been dropped off at the shelter when, supposedly, she became too expensive to feed. The shelter workers said she was still producing milk and was acting like her puppies had just been taken away, which made them think she came from a puppy mill. Sage seemed perfect; she was in need of rescuing and she had the right temperament to be a therapy dog. There was only one problem. She was in Texas.

Before we could adopt Sage we had to know if she got along with Poodleface, because no matter what happened, Poodleface had to stay. I needed him. So the two of them had to meet. Poodleface had to go with my mother to Texas. And since Poodleface was my service dog and wasn't used to taking commands from my mother, I also had to go to Texas. 

This was just before Easter, and because we were planning to leave only a few days after we'd seen her on the website, there wasn't time to prepare the camper. We were going to have to stay in hotels. I'm uncomfortable with traveling that way because I'm allergic to so many things, and without the camper I wasn't going to be able to prepare my own food. I compensated by filling a backpack with instant macaroni and hoping our rooms would have microwaves. 

We drove

   and drove

      and drove

         and drove. I saw a toll road for the first time, and an amusement park in a city big enough it just stayed were it was instead of packing up and moving every week. I met several people with thick Spanish accents who didn't know what a service dog was, and a lot of people who were helpful and called me "hon." It was weird; no one was nasty about my dog, they were either supportive or uninformed. It kind of freaked me out; I was used to being harassed. 

Poodleface traveled well and behaved himself in hotel rooms, and he ate dog food and chewed rawhides that I left in the back seat for him every morning. I filled a dog dish from my water bottle while we were driving and held it back to him so he could take a drink, and when we stopped for gas we got out and walked around. He sniffed lots of new and interesting things, and in bigger cities with more people he found lots of places to signal on. He was great.

And so was Sage.

We took her home.

For her first few weeks with us she was the most shaky, traumatized dog you ever saw. She loved to be petted and hated to be left alone, and when no one was hugging her she'd take naps under the piano bench. When my mother sat down somewhere she'd get under her chair, and the first time she met my father she shook like a leaf. Her pads were ridiculously soft and she didn't know how to run, and she hoarded Poodleface's toys in her bed whenever he left them out. I laughed my head off when I found her sleeping in Poodleface's bed, with Poodleface curled unhappily on the floor because she'd piled hers with not only every toy she'd been able to get her teeth around but also a ball of yarn and a pair of my father's socks. 

She calmed down wonderfully, though. Now she doesn't sit under the furniture anymore and doesn't panic when she's left alone in the house. She loves to meet new people and let them pet her, and my mother is indeed training her to be a therapy dog. I hope she gets her license. She'd be perfect.

Can you not do that, please?

There are a lot of little things people do that really bother me, but that I feel I can't mention because they sound so silly. A rather extreme example of this was a woman in one of the college classes I've taken at the local university center.
It was the first day of class and we were all choosing our seats. I went to sit in the back, which is one of the things I try to always do because it makes things easier on Poodleface. If I'm at the back of the room none of my classmates will need to walk by me, which greatly reduces the chance that Poodleface will be tripped over or stepped on, and also makes it easier for everyone in the room to ignore him.
A woman in yoga gear and with long blond hair (I never learned her name) came in and started looking around for a seat. When she saw Poodleface her eyes grew wide and she immediately sat down in the seat in front of me, turned herself backwards, and started watching my dog. I expected her to hold out her hand to him or try to whisper something, and after a minute of this I was beginning to pray she would, so that I could tell her off and get her to turn back around. But she didn't. She was just...staring. The instructor came in and introduced himself and started talking, but she didn't turn back around. She was still staring at my dog! Not moving, just staring, barely blinking, with her mouth open! I had a half-dozen snarky comments I was dying to make, but she hadn't done anything to be besides thoroughly creep me out, so I stayed silent and squirmed uncomfortably. Almost ten minutes into the class the teacher passed out a worksheet to see how much we already knew, and this seemed to break the spell. She turned around, and you could've cleared the leaves off your front lawn with my sigh of relief. But then she finished her worksheet and went back to staring at my dog.
I'd had enough, and I asked her what she was doing. She beamed at me and told me that my dog was amazingly well-behaved, and so cute, and she just loved him, but that I shouldn't worry because she wasn't going to try and touch him. All I could think of to say was, "Can you...not....please?"
She turned back around, but for the rest of the semester she'd turn around and watch my dog whenever she was bored.
Please don't stare at me, I hate it, and if you absolutely have to stare maybe you could close your mouth?!?

Applause for the pleasant security guard

On our vacation we stopped at a mall, and at that mall I bought some wonderful pants and a shirt. The pants were wonderful because they were marked as 'tall' and thus fit my legs without requiring a belt. Our unpleasant little town is too small to stock such things, but this entry really isn't about pants, so I'll get on with it now.

While at the mall I was approached by a security guard who wanted conformation that Poodleface was a service dog. He approached me with a smile and phrased his question politely. I politely responded that yes, he was a service dog, and that I had his license with me if the guard wanted to see it. He assured me that wasn't necessary and told me to have a nice day. And that was it. 

Here is a list of everything the guard did right:

• He quietly approached me instead of flagging me down and making a scene
• Instead of being confrontational he addressed me politely and used a pleasant tone
• He didn't demand to know the type of service dog, type of disability, or anything more than what he was legally allowed to ask
• He didn't attempt to touch or interact with my dog in any way
• He didn't attempt to make conversation about dogs and let me immediately return to shopping
• He treated me like a person instead of a liability to be cleared up

Never have I met a person more reasonable about service dogs than the pleasant security guard. I take my hat off to the pleasant security guard. I thoroughly applaud him, and I wish him well in all his future endeavors. This world needs more pleasant security guards. 

Irritating

Annoying double standard: It's okay to say "Look, a service dog!" but not okay to say "Look, a wheelchair!"

I'd like to speak to your manager. Unless he has the same accent.

Poodleface and I had been to Texas once before, when my mother wanted to rescue a poodle named Sage she'd found on a shelter website.
I don't think I've talked about Sage.
Sage is a former puppy mill mommy that my mother wants to train to be a therapy dog. She's a little shorter and a little heavier than Poodleface, loves people, loves to be petted, and still occasionally ducks when someone raises their arm. I once threw a dog toy over her head (Poodleface was standing behind her) and she ran out of the room. I'm not sure I've ever felt worse. I sometimes call her Soft Sage because when we got her the shelter had given her a ridiculously poofy poodle cut and you could bury your fingers in two inches of fur on her topknot without ever touching the dog.
I suppose I'll have to blog about that trip later.
Anyway, I'd already been to Texas once, and I'd already had uncomfortable encounters with people with thick accents who hadn't heard of service dogs. But the one I had on this trip was worse, for several reasons.

• It was dark out.
• No other employee with an accent I could understand overheard and rushed over to sort things out.
• My father walked in.

It was dark outside and bright inside and the gas station had large windows, which was probably pleasant during the day but at night felt very vulnerable. I went in to buy some chips while my father was putting gas in the camper.

The man behind the counter immediately stopped me and told me that I couldn't have a dog inside. I said it was a service dog, which 90% of the time makes people immediately step back and leave me alone. He shook his head and said something quickly I couldn't understand with his accent. 

I gave my little speech on how service dogs were protected by federal law. He had his arms crossed and was still shaking his head at me, occasionally talking over me to say that I should leave. I got Poodleface's license out of his vest and showed it to him. I said that Poodleface was the same as a seeing-eye dog and that, really, he couldn't throw me out. He still said no, and something about his bosses rule that I didn't really get because, again, he was talking too fast in an accent I couldn't understand. I put the license back in the jacket and got out one of my ridiculously friendly cards, folded over once and with happy rounded edges, which boldly proclaim "I'm a service dog!" and go on to list all the rules and regulations. I held it out to him. He shook his head and refused to take it. I stood there, with my back to these huge dark windows, feeling small and alone and waving this card and wondering if, maybe, I should just give up. I felt like I was in the wrong here, and I felt powerless, and he was taller than me and I couldn't understand him. 

I heard the door open behind me, and then my father was standing over my shoulder, repeating what I'd said to the man who was still shaking his head. I stood in the background and felt horrible and embarrassed while they talked, and when the man finally threw up his hands and said okay and walked away from the counter to the other end of the store, I decided that I didn't really want any chips and ran like hell back to the camper. I was so ashamed that my father had had to step in like that.

That was really horrible.

I think I'll stay out of Texas from now on.

Snow in Texas

Because it was so late in the year we decided that our vacation destination should be somewhere around New Mexico. We were traveling by camper and figured that, because of the warmer climate, the campgrounds there would probably still be open late in October. I didn't bring my laptop and was only occasionally able to get online, but when I did I checked the weather back home, expecting to be able to gloat about how much better the weather was in whatever state I happened to be in at the moment.

The temperature at home stayed around sixty the whole time we were gone.

And when we got to Texas it snowed.

In the camper I sleep on a shelf above the cab. It has a window and a light and a curtain, but there're only about two feet of room between the ceiling and the floor, so it's basically a glorified shelf. There isn't room it sit up, so I do literally roll out of bed in the mornings, and the space is nearly impossible to heat in the winter or cool in the summer. So when it snowed on us in Texas, I elected to trade in the privacy of having a curtain for a lack of frostbite and sleep on the couch.

Poodleface has always slept by himself. At home he has a kennel he gets into at bedtime or whenever we're in my room and he thinks I'm being boring. When visiting relatives or staying in hotels he sleeps in a collapsible kennel, slightly smaller than his one at home and resembling a rectangular tent. In the camper he sleeps on the sofa. So, for the first time in almost four years, I slept with my dog.

It went better than expected. We kicked each other for the first few minutes until we'd both found a comfortable position, and then we slept until morning. I woke up with warm feet and no frostbite, and I lifted the curtain to see a beautiful winter wonderland with snow hanging heavily off the trees and sparkling on the ground, which was really quite beautiful until I remembered we were in Texas. Then it was just weird.

I expand my scientific horizons, Poodleface gets stalked by a tourist

We went to a science museum while on vacation, which I initially thought was going to be a disaster but which turned out alright in the end.
My father and I bought tickets to see a show in the planetarium on the history of spaceflight, and we had a half-hour to kill in the rest of the museum before the show started. The front hall was under construction and very loud, so we escaped to a wing filled with model planets and interactive solar system displays, and I was sitting at one with Poodleface on the floor beside me when he suddenly started to growl. I turned around and shushed him and found myself face-to-face with a very embarrassed-looking woman who was, I thought, ridiculously hunched over. She straightened up and hurried away, and my dad, who had seen the whole thing, explained that she had been very slowly and deliberately creeping up on Poodleface, which he had noticed and felt threatened by since she was acting more like an incompetent predator than one of the normal curious humans he was used to dealing with.
Honestly, you can just come over and talk to me. I won't get offended. You don't need to stalk my dog.
I was feeling really embarrassed and defensive and worried that we would get thrown out because my dog had growled, but nothing happened and we got to see the show in the planetarium. And they had handicapped seating! Some theaters don't, and in those I put Poodleface on my lap and suffer through the show with fifty-two pounds of disgruntled poodle curled up on my legs, which is why I absolutely love it when I get a special seat with lots of room around it and he can just stretch out on the floor.
The show was projected onto the curved ceiling overhead, and the animation was done so that it changed perspective with each shot and made the audience feel like we were hurtling through space. Poodleface watched very intently, occasionally tilting his head or glancing at me to show just how much he didn't understand, but he was polite and well-behaved and very adorable.
After the show we looked at the dinosaur bones and walked through a mock cave and the glowing inside of a plaster volcano, and while we were in the ocean life wing and I was admiring a tank of manta rays (Poodleface didn't understand what they were and has his head sideways again) a woman came bounding over, squealed at Poodleface and held out her arms as though she wanted to hug him, then told me very seriously that I didn't have to worry; she knew all about service dogs and understood that they couldn't be petted or talked to. I wondered aloud to my dad if she thought knowing the rules made her above them when we weren't quite out of earshot, which felt good in the heat of the moment but was really pretty mean of me. Sorry about that.
We went out through the gift shop, where I discovered that astronaut ice cream is manufactured on equipment that also processes peanuts (It takes some of the novelty out of a thing when you realize it's made in a factory and not some top-secret NASA supply room, so I wasn't all that disappointed) and where my dad bought a tube with a spring in it that sounds like an alien ray gun every time it's jostled. Poodleface once again didn't understand, and this time he was a little afraid and stood behind my legs. He warmed up to the tube on the walk back to the camper, which sounded like we were being shot at every step of the way. Fortunately, no one was wearing red.

Woohoo!!!

I DID IT! I GOT MY GED! I'M A GRADUATE!!!!
...which has absolutely nothing to do with service dogs or peanut allergies, but I mentioned a few posts back that I was trying to get it, and now I have. Yay!

Well....shit.

I had a nice long post partway typed out about the vacation we just came back from, but my computer stalled and froze and had to be restarted and I lost the whole thing. Sooooo, I'll come back to that later and for now I'm gonna talk about sunglasses.

We went to New Mexico and Texas in our camper last week and I spent a lot of time thinking longingly of sunglasses and how much I miss being able to wear them. I'd love to, but I don't, because they're just not worth the misunderstandings.
I got Poodleface at the beginning of summer, so I learned fairly quickly that if you wear sunglasses whilst walking a service dog everyone will assume that you're blind. A lot of people will approach you and ask if they're right, are you blind? And then you get to explain that you're not, no, it's just very bright outside, and then the conversation can go one of two ways. They can be embarrassed but handle it well, or they can demand to know if you really need a service dog at all or if you were just hoping you could wear the sunglasses and have no one notice the clearly unworthy dog you've just brought into their store.
So I swore off sunglasses forever.