I remember my mom saying, "let's get this show on the road," while she attempted to herd us kids out the door. Generally, it was directed at me, I required quite a bit of primping in my youth. I knew by the time this announcement was made my mother was becoming frustrated and it was time to do what she said... and get my show on the road. Never could I have imagined what the show would entail 40 years later. Honestly, we don't go out much. We go to the ALS clinic every three months and the movies once or twice a month and that is generally the extent of our outings. It's much easier if I have someone to help with equipment, tie down belts and open doors. When its just us, it can be done, but its not easy.
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| The Boys! |
We have a house cleaner that comes twice a month and often we head over to see a movie during the time she's working. Before Caitlin headed to college she was our constant movie going companion and it was the three of us heading out. With her going to college in San Francisco, our trio became a duo. Initially, I picked up the slack and we reduce our movie outages to once a month. But, often now our duo is a foursome with our grandsons, Anthony and Christian joining us. We have a standing joke with them that we are going to see "On Golden Pond." Last fall we forgot to tell Corrinne what movie we were taking them to, so in the van driving over Anthony asked "what movie are we going to?" I told him, "Oh, it's an old flick, On Golden Pond with Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn." They both got the funniest looks on their faces, but didn't say a word. We actually went to Black Panther. Now we never tell them the movie, and they know it's "On Golden Pond." Anthony told me, "he loves On Golden Pond it's like a different movie every time." He was surprised recently when I told him that it is an actual movie.
They've settled into their movie going responsibilities with Christian helping with tie downs in the van and carrying the respiratory supplies and Anthony carrying the respirator. The two of them manage doors and occasionally crowd control. Yes, Patrick uses the respirator during the movie. We frequent Studio Movie Grill and on occasion Blue Oaks Cinema both in Rocklin
. I'm sure we are a bit of a spectacle when we come in and get ourselves set up. One of the waiters at Studio Movie, recently said to me, "I remember you guys," then he paused probably thinking he was saying something wrong, "because I remember his bronco blanket, I'm a bronco fan too." I kind of laughed to myself, yeah you remember us because of his blanket.
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| Hanging with the Dudes! |
I like Studio Movie Grill; the staff are nice, you can buy tickets and reserve your seats online, and the door set up is pretty manageable. The front of the building has a set of wide doors, which works well although it would be great if they actually had disability buttons to open them. But that's ok, the staff and the boys run to get the doors. The doors into the actual theaters are all straight on, with no 90 degree turns and the staff hold open the doors at the beginning and end of the movies. That's probably my greatest complaint about Blue Oaks Cinema their theaters have 90 degree angles when you enter the theaters and no one holds the doors for you. It makes it a bit more tricky especially because the hallways are quite narrow. Yes, on occasion I have run into or scraped walls and doors - power chairs are not as easy as you think.
Bathrooms are another challenge. The best bathrooms are the private handicap ones. These offer a lot of room and privacy. Most public bathrooms, however are large multi-stall same sex bathrooms. This requires that Patrick goes into the woman's bathroom, versus me going into a men's bathroom with urinals. I know Patrick hates this and will wait until we get home if possible. We know where the private bathrooms are located near Studio Movie Grill, there is one at the smoothie place next door and Target in the nearby strip mall. We frequent them if the need arises.
I do have a few thoughts for my fellow movie goers...
Here is what we do for you:
- We go to movies after their opening week and on weekday matinees to avoid crowds.
- We purchase tickets and reserve seats in advance and although I've been told we can "bump" able bodied folks in the disability seating we never have, there are only four disabled seats in each theater.
- We get there early to set up
It would be great, if you could do the following for us:
- When you purchase tickets online try to stay away from the disabled seats and ones nearby - there are only a few and we require four seats next to each other.
- If you sit in the aisle way please leave room for us to get by in the movie. It's a wide aisle it shouldn't be a problem, but I did have to wake up a man in the middle of a movie because he was stretched out blocking the aisle asleep. He was pretty unhappy with me - just for the record I wasn't thrilled with him either.
- And as always, grab the door:)
Ironically, probably one of the most difficult buildings to get around in, is the medical building where they have the ALS Clinic. There are a number of doors leading to doors, an elevator with no "hold button", and doors that are exceptionally heavy. The handicap parking is sparse and most locations force you to travel within the parking garage with no walkway. We take almost all of Patrick's equipment to clinic, not just the respirator and supplies. We have a backpack with bathroom stuff, respirator and supplies, and Tobii (speech generating device) with pole. Yep, it does give new meaning to my mom's saying "let's get the show on the road."
Honestly, it's more fun going to the movies than ALS Clinic. But hey, it's summer time, so maybe we'll see you at the movies!
