ysobel | (no subject)

Got actual real mail in the, er, well, mail.

So naturally it is a request for money... /wry grin/

(albeit a fully justified and expected request for money, viz. invoice for service dog stuffs. I was kind of wondering when I would get poked for that.)

Service dogs are not exactly cheap, yo.

Worth it. Very fucking worth it. And given what I get out of it, it's practically a bargain. But. Several thousand dollars? Definitely not cheap.

#

As an elaboration of the very-fucking-worth-it-ness:

I was having One Of Those Days, Monday, where I was dropping shit all over the place. And I was outside, on my way to and from an appointment. One of my pair of fingerless gloves, which I made several years back and so have personal value as well as being awesome, and which I was carrying to let the anti-itch spray on my rather itchy hand dry a bit, made its way off my lap. (I didn't even notice at the time it happened; I just realized that it was no longer there and had to backtrack about three blocks.) My key jumped out of my hand when I tried to unlock the door on the way back. Another thing I was carrying joined suit on my way through said door. And so on.

Days where you Drop Shit are not, of course, related to being disabled. It's related to being human. But how you deal with Dropping Shit -- how you are *able* to deal with it -- is.

A year ago, I would have had a few options: wait for someone to pass by (in areas that are not deserted but not really high-traffic) that I could ask for help, or calling my parents or a friend or something to come rescue me. (Or just abandon whatever got dropped, but that was very much not acceptable here.) Both are awkward, time-consuming, and concrete fodder for the "I am just a burden on other people" brainweasels.

Even better, the glove-dropping happened on the way *to* the appointment, meaning I would have had the additional dilemma of whether to deal with it then and be late (or absent) to the appointment, or wait to deal wit it until afterwards and hope it was still there.

Now?

"Yahtzee. Get it. --that's it. Bring it here. Give. --good boy, thank you!"

It took a slight bit more coaxing than that, but not much. A few minutes later, I had what I dropped. Yahtzee was happy, because he had helped; other people were happy without knowing it, because I didn't need to bother them; in the case of the glove, the person I had the appointment with was happy without knowing it because I still showed up on time; and I was extremely happy.

This isn't the only sort of thing that Yahtzee does for me.

But it's big.