The Cafeteria Complex

I have intended to write for some time now but life just sort of continued exploding in a reaction-chain with no visible limiting reactant to end the chemical conversion—gack, chemistry! If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Yup, Yoda must’ve taken chemistry before he said that. Anyway…the point is, we’ve been busy, but I have a few minutes to sit down and write a bit.

In response to the tragedy of a couple of weeks ago a group of therapy dogs spent a considerable amount of time on campus the week we got back to school. They and their handlers posted themselves in the lobbies of the main buildings and visited the res halls in the evenings. So how did Prada take to that? Y’know that little kid in the mall that’s sitting there pointing and saying “look, Mommy, a dog!” Well, Prada lives with people so often that I think she identifies more with us than with other dogs sometimes. No idea how founded this thought is, but her reaction to the dogs on campus seems to support it. She was that little kid pointing out all the dogs to me. “Look Mommy, a dog!” She didn’t pull towards them, but she definitely indicated their presence. Prada and the therapy dogs respected each others’ distance, and Prada didn’t get territorial when they came in Franz. They knew their job and she knew hers. Good to see she hasn’t f forgotten any of the dog distraction training. I’ve also been getting a considerable number of comments from people I see regularly about how she’s calmed down a lot in harness. She doesn’t get quite as ecstatic when she sees her favorite people while in harness, isn’t as sniffy on duty as she used to be. Yay Prada for growing up!

Recently a friend of mine, who operates a similar blog to mine called From Canes to Canines, posted an entry about how college cafeterias were a bit difficult for blind people, and especially dog users, to work around. I thought I’d write something similar for y’all and elaborate a bit on his complaint. Basically, the idea of the college cafeteria is to provide quick, satisfying substances with as little service and preparation required as possible. Saves the university money, but it’s a bit inconvenient for us. At my college, and apparently at my friend’s, too, they don’t offer trays to set plates and cups and the like on. Instead we get to use somewhat nicer, often cleaner heavy-duty ceramic plates. But they’re not terribly big, so if you want a main dish and then some sort of side like a salad, soup, or a snacky-type item (chips, cookie, fruit) you have to have multiple plates, plus your cup. This is a two-handed operation, on a good day, and even the students who don’t have one hand constantly occupied by a dog or a cane often go back for a second trip to make sure they can get all their food without becoming spill-hazards. I usually end up making a minimum of two trips, often three, to collect the various components of my meal. Now, at UAH I can request a tray from the food services staff and they’ll provide one for me, then I just balance one end of it on my hip and hold the other end with my free hand, but this is a major spill hazard, not to mention rather unbalanced when there’s a cup-full of liquid on it, so for the time being I’m taking the safe but slow route—multiple trips. Guess I get to work off the calories I’m about to eat. Here’s the real problem for me, though, I’m a high partial (in blind-speak that means I have some vision but not a lot), but I still have difficulty identifying food. So unless I’m with someone whom I can ask about what’s on the various racks and counters, or unless there happens to be a non-occupied kitchen staff there (kudos to them for the times they’ve bailed me out!!!) I have no way of knowing what the food is. Now, I may be a little on the picky side but when it comes down to it I’ll eat pretty much anything, but what about the folks with allergies that have to use a bit more discretion during their meal-gathering? So far the only solution I’ve come up with for this little problem is to never eat alone, make sure there’s someone there you can ask at all times. Usually works fine, who likes eating alone anyway? But there are those occasions where we don’t have those luxuries, so this is an independence-limiting issue. It’s similar to the restaurant problem. Most noticeably in fast-food restaurants, they have those oh-so-distant menu boards with all the food listed, but if you can’t see those you’re out of luck unless you’ve memorized them or feel like hanging out a while and listening to everyone else around you order to get an idea of what’s on the menu. Now, few people ever eat out alone, so if you can’t see but you’re eating out odds are you’ll have someone you can ask to read a menu for you, but there are those one or two occasions when you are alone, and that can be a bit of a trial. Unfortunately most of the cashiers in those places don’t have time to sit there and read a menu board to you, and it’s not really in their job description, so if anyone’s got any ideas we’re all very interested in them. That’s one of the reasons I write this blog—get others’ ideas on issues the blind community faces. The more minds in on it, the better.