Like dirt...

I hate silence here, but I have been struggling to swallow being stood up on Sunday and hung up on on Monday.  I met someone out and about at my medical stuff a few times.  She said I was funny and interesting ... found me encouraging ... and so I finally go up the nerve to ask her if she wanted to go have a meal.  She said yes.  She picked a day.  She picked a time.  I spoke with her the day before.  And then ... she didn't show up.  She didn't text.  She didn't call.  She didn't return my voice mail.  And when I called on Monday, she picked up the phone and when I said it was Myrtle, she breathed heavily into the phone for a long while before hanging up.  I got the message.

I feel like dirt.

I know the world will tell me that this is not the measure of my worth, but I have been on the receiving end of that kind of behavior quite a bit since moving to Fort Wayne.  Quite a bit since becoming disabled.  It hurts.

I hurt.

Not even growing my own carrot has eased that hurt.
And I still feel like the dirt from which I pulled this carrot.
But I did grow a carrot!

I will admit that I have also bee struggling to swallow this.  For 96 years, this floor register did its job ... until one of the maids my mother sends stepped on it and crushed it.  I honestly cannot figure out how in the world she did that ... except it was clear she was not paying attention to what she was doing.  There is no preparing this.  And there is no identical or even like replacement.  SIGH.

Today, I finally girded my loins enough to email the manage of The Maids with the tentative replacement information, which means spending a colossal amount of money on a custom floor register.  The best quote I got, thus far, is $440.  I was so fearful of sending the email, fearful that I will have to fight to get them to replace this, that I vomited.  SIGH.  And then I did not even hear back from her acknowledging the email.  In it, I asked for the next steps in the replacement process.  I suppose a lot of waiting is going to be on tap, even if there is no arguing about the replacement.  Non-standard sized floor registers are EXPENSIVE.  Standard steel ones, safe enough to bear someone's weight, are not that much less.  SIGH.

Aside from the carrot, my other "positive" has been learning to make Sweet Potato Roti.  Roti is Indian flatbread.  I had thought that naan was the only Indian flatbread, but I was sorely mistaken.  I am in LOVE with this recipe and have made it many times already.  It has just two ingredients!

I have tried three flours:  all purpose, white whole wheat, and bread.  I do not really understand flour yet, but I thought since the only variable in this recipe would be to change the flour, I could try that. The white whole wheat works, but it makes the roti not quite as soft.  Plus, you can definitely taste the wheat.  However, as strong as that is, the sweet potato flour still comes through.  The bread dough made it a bit more chewy, I think. I like chewy, so I was fine with that, but I believe the original recipe's use of all purpose flour is the way to use.

If you do make this roti (and you should immediately), I would highly recommend that you watch the YouTube recipe where I got the recipe.  That way, you can see how the dough is kneaded (lightly) and how it is cooked ... certainly the video has more insight than my mere words on my recipe rememberer blog.

In case you were wondering, Amos loves the sweet potato roti, too.

Besides feeling like dirt, so much so it is hard to do anything, I will admit that trying to put words together has been rather difficult for me.  A part of me feels like that is payback for gloating over being able to write that post.  However, I know that my new normal is not being able to gather my thoughts, as opposed to my old normal of being able to sit down and crank out thoughtfully written pieces right and left.  Grammatically correct ones, too.  SIGH.

Given the comment on my Not A Warrior post, I pretty much failed to communicate there, too.  I do not feel compelled to self-identify as a warrior.  At all.  I am not one and I know that full well.  What I was trying to say is that celebrating your inner warrior seems to be about the only encouragement for folk suffering from dysautonomia out there.  This new pendant for sale case in point.

The parallel I was trying to draw with pedagogy is that I learned to acknowledge and respect the fact that not everyone learns the same way.  Thus, instructional methodology needs to incorporate multiple modalities of learning styles.  You need visual, auditory, read-write, and kinesthetic instructions and engagement opportunities in order to best reach your students.

Likewise, I think about that theory about love language.  Not everyone "hears" love the same way.  Understanding that can help go a long way towards limiting miscommunication and encouraging your loved ones.

So, I happen to think that chronically ill people could use different types of encouragement, not all based on the theme of harnessing your inner warrior.  SIGH.

But what do I know?
Except how to grow a carrot.
And to make roti.

And to feel like dirt.