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This is part one of a three part story arc, so make sure you tune in next week for the next episode of our Holiday Trilogy!
PS: Stay inside, society crumbles a little more with each flake that hits the ground.
This is part one of a three part story arc, so make sure you tune in next week for the next episode of our Holiday Trilogy! PS: Stay inside, society crumbles a little more with each flake that hits the ground.
Read MoreJeff here. Despite what everyone said, Jeff managed to sleep the whooooole night last night without any problem. Jeff was absolutely dead to the world.
After such a huge sleep, it was finally time to tackle the battery charger problem. Before coming to Barcelona, I found a website dedicated to accessibility here and included on that website was a link to a company called “Cosmo Scooters,” who rent accessible scooters to tourists. After playing a bit of phone tag, we finally connected with their staff and they confirmed they would have a scooter charger that should work with my wheelchair–great success!
Before heading to the scooter shop, we decided to head downstairs and have a delicious breakfast, courtesy of the hotel. Breakie was fantastic and, much like Jeff’s trip to Britain, is sure to become his favourite morning activity. With full bellies and heightened optimism, we decided it was time to face the world and find that battery charger. With Clara’s expert navigatory skills, we found the place without any problems and that’s when the real fun began. As it turns out, Jeff’s battery charger is fine, the real problem lies with the wheelchair. Remember when the staff at Pearson “figured it out”? It appears as though they removed the circuit breaker that connects the charging port to the battery, leaving the plug unable to accept a charge. Luckily, this chair has a second charger port on the controller, which uses a different breaker to give power to the batteries. The guy at Cosmo Scooter was extremely helpful and even let us borrow his charger for the night just to make sure we were good to go before renting one.
Because we were in the area, we decided it would be a good idea to go check out the Sagrada Familia, but unfortunately the line was way, way too long. And when we say too long, we mean nearly around the massive building twice. Instead, we found a cafe right beside the Sagrada and after some tapas and Fanta (a new favourite of Jeff’s) we decided to head back to the hotel to charge the chair, which was pretty close to dying at this point.
Jeff was feeling pretty tired at this point, so the obvious decision was to lay down for a quick nap. Said nap quickly became a full on sleep, proving that Jeff is, in fact, terrible at beating jet lag. Waking up around 8pm, we decided there wasn’t really time to do much of anything too educational, meaning it was time to go find a place to drink. Given that we’re from Canada, the place we decided to check out a bar called IceBarcelona, which is constructed wholly of ice and requires special jackets to sustain the -4 degrees temperature inside. The patio of the bar was accessible, which gave us hope, but after inquiring we were shown the 1-foot drop inside the front door.
Yep, even bars love bittorrent. This version of "Life" had dutch subtitles. Interesting.
Arg. After a quick pow-wow with Melody, we decided to leave the electric wheelchair behind the bar and simply sit Jeff in a chair. Awesome. Ice bar, here we come! Turns out we’re the only ones stupid enough to enter a bar made of ice in the middle of summer, as we were the only people in the bar. Strangely, the next group of people to enter after us included another man in a wheelchair. Looks like Monday is “Handi-night” at IceBarcelona. All in all, the experience was pretty cool (no pun intended) and certainly something to check out, if only to see the pirated copies of National Geographic’s series “Life” or “Ice Age 3″ playing on the TV (as per photographic evidence).
Greetings from Cana...lona?
After the bar, and a bathroom break at the hospital featuring accessible washrooms that we found down the block from the bar, we were off to find our way home on the “Night Busses” that run in Barcelona. As it turns out, the bus schedules are completely different at night, although it’s still fairly easy to get around. A note should be made that someone here goes around to ever bus stop and changes all of the paper schedules from the day busses to the night busses. Not seeing that type of commitment from you, LTC. It was a bit dicey and confusing, but we eventually arrived home safe and sound, ready for bed.
Now we just need to see what type of shinanigans we get into tomorrow. Adios!
- Jeff and Clara
Jeff here. Despite what everyone said, Jeff managed to sleep the whooooole night last night without any problem. Jeff was absolutely dead to the world. After such a huge sleep, it was finally time to tackle the battery charger problem. Before coming to Barcelona, I found a website dedicated to accessibility here and included on…
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This week’s comic is the first in a many, many part series called “Interventions,” in which Rhett and Griff comment on some topical issues that have been bouncing around in the media, especially those particularly insane or ludicrous (or Ludacris…dependent on your tastes). Today’s steaming pile of brilliance comes from the Balmy Beach area of Toronto, where a local cantankerous woman and history enthusiast Elizabeth Brown is attempting to block the Greg and Melissa Teehan, wife Melissa is a quad, from redesigning their home to become accessible. Apparently, Brown finds the current house at 204 Beach to be an important heritage site and an inspiration for her artwork: after all, she is an artist. Unfortunately, she has been having trouble finding supporters among the community and in a recent Toronto Star article, appears to make the claim that Geoff Teehan is just using his wife’s disability to get what he wants. Because she is not disabled, so sad for her, she’s now working with Councillor Bussin to register the location as a heritage site, thereby crushing any hopes of making the place accessible.
Now don’t get us wrong, we understand the importance of heritage sites and agree there are buildings and locations in our country worth protecting…unfortunately we don’t think “ableism” is a proud tenet of Canadian history worth preserving.
Having said that, we here at Cripz: A Webcomic are solutions people, not just complainers. As such, we have compiled a short list of solutions to the current impasse.
This week’s comic is the first in a many, many part series called “Interventions,” in which Rhett and Griff comment on some topical issues that have been bouncing around in the media, especially those particularly insane or ludicrous (or Ludacris…dependent on your tastes). Today’s steaming pile of brilliance comes from the Balmy Beach area of Toronto, where a…
Read MoreClara and I decided to have a last minute escape from the city and head for cottage country to visit my parents and pick up puppy Kirzweil this weekend. Sometimes I forget how quiet and relaxing it is in Port Elgin, but I have to say Clara and I definitely enjoyed sitting in my parents back yard reading and enjoying the nice weather. Another highlight of the weekend involved an interesting nature walk through the forest by my parents house which was recently made accessible. Growing up in Port Elgin, most of my summers were spend either hanging out on the beach or ripping around the forest. Unforunately, most of the trails were too sandy and uneven to pass with my wheelchair, leaving me a bit limited as to where I was able to go with my friends. It appears that is becoming a thing of the past though, as one of the major trails has been cleaned up and packed with wood chips–perfect for my wheelchair. On our nature trip, Clara also made friends with a lovely tent catapillar. Let’s not tell her what people usually do to tent catapillars…
Oh and best of all, we got to spend some time at my sisters lovely new house in Sauble Beach. I’m really jealous.
But alas, all good things must come to an end eventually and it’s about time to head back to the city. As much as I love it in London, i definitely have a lot of fond (and important) memories back here. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you love something until you leave I guess.
Until next time,
Jeff & Clara
Clara and I decided to have a last minute escape from the city and head for cottage country to visit my parents and pick up puppy Kirzweil this weekend. Sometimes I forget how quiet and relaxing it is in Port Elgin, but I have to say Clara and I definitely enjoyed sitting in my parents…
Read MoreFrom the moment I was diagnosed at 3 months old with Congenital, Muscular Dystrophy my parents raised me to be a fighter. While my parents acknowledged there would be challenges, they truly believed life with a disability did not have to be a life of no ability. It is because of their undying support that I have been able to accomplish some pretty amazing things in my short life, all because they wouldn’t let me use the word “can’t.” In many ways, it was for my parents that I set off from London in 2008, to honour their hard work and help show the people of Ontario just how “able” someone with a disability could be. On my trip to Ottawa, I hoped to show people that contrary to the popular euphemism “confined to a wheelchair,” wheelchairs are actually about freedom. Unfortunately, wheelchairs are expensive pieces of equipment, the average electric chair running over $20,000, with limited funding to offset the burden placed on families whose youth have disabilities. The result are youth left stuck, immobile in their own homes, watching their friends play as they wait for funding to come through.
Enter Easter Seals Ontario. Easter Seals is an organization that helps fund the costs of these crucial pieces of equipment to help get kids moving again. Over the years, Easter Seals has helped thousands of families like mine purchase equipment that helps us overcome our limitations and live independent lives. Recently though, as our community tightens our collective belts, Easter Seals London had to waitlist two families in dire need of equipment funding last year, a nightmare scenario set to repeat itself this year as international disasters have diverted much of the local moneys to support those worthy causes. The result, however, is more families in London may be waitlisted this year, left in the lurch, waiting for equipment that is needed now.
On May 29th in Springbank Park, supporters of Easter Seals are gathering for the “Walk With Me” event to help raise money to ensure this does not happen. Youth and adults alike from the London community will be using their legs to help kids with disabilities get moving and it didn’t seem right for me to not do my part and help out. It is for this reason that on Friday, May 28th of 2010, I am taking to the road once again, this time driving my electric wheelchair around the circumference of London to raise awareness about the dire need of funding for Easter Seals in London to help us continue to support youth with disabilities in our community. The marathon will take me over 10 hours to complete, start to finish, and will be the longest drive in a single day that I have ever made in my electric wheelchair, totaling over 90km. The trip will be tough and the road will be long, but it’s a journey that would not have been possible without organizations like Easter Seals to help pay for the wheelchair. On May 28th of 2010, I will show London just how able we can be if we have the right support and that’s where you come in.
On Friday, while I’m out on the road, show your support by going to the Easter Seals Ontario website and making a donation online or make a donation to support a friend or family member who is participating in the “Walk With Me” event on Saturday. Your donation will go a long way to getting kids with disabilities in London moving again.
From the moment I was diagnosed at 3 months old with Congenital, Muscular Dystrophy my parents raised me to be a fighter. While my parents acknowledged there would be challenges, they truly believed life with a disability did not have to be a life of no ability. It is because of their undying support that I have…
Read MoreYo. Clara here.
The title of this post is something people occasionally say to me. Not because I give millions to charity (I don’t) or am an organ donor (I am! But I’m protective of my organs and will haunt whoever gets them, asking for them back, please) or help old ladies across the street (never) or steal puppies (wait, that isn’t nice…but I’d do it)…et cetera, point is, I’m not that nice. The nicest thing I’ve done in the past week is probably give a tip at a coffee shop, and even then, I wasn’t actually giving a tip Out Of The Kindness Of My Heart, I just didn’t want a damn penny back. What does a person do with a penny? Prop up uneven furniture at best. Wait. I should’ve kept that penny.
Anyway. The title of this post is, for real, wait for it wait for it, what people often will tell me if they get wind of the fact that I am dating someone who uses a wheelchair. What’s up with that? There’s nothing nice about me dating Jeff…I’m a horrible girlfriend. I’m only with him for his sweet downtown digs, obviously. If there was anything nice about me dating him, it’d be putting up with how he posts it on Facebook every time I drop food in my lap.
Seriously, where do I even live that people tell me it’s “nice” of me to date who I’m dating? From now on, I’m going to evaluate peoples’ relationships with “oh that’s _____ of you statements”. Oh, you’re dating a blue-eye? That’s mean of you. Oh, you’re dating a boy with brown hair? That’s Irish of you. Oh, you’re dating a guy in a wheelchair? That’s a…that’s a bad choice.
Yo. Clara here. The title of this post is something people occasionally say to me. Not because I give millions to charity (I don’t) or am an organ donor (I am! But I’m protective of my organs and will haunt whoever gets them, asking for them back, please) or help old ladies across the street…
Read MoreFrom Daredevil to Rainman, we’ve never really seen a movie or TV show about disability that spoke to our experiences. If your only encounters with disability came through the media, you would have some pretty bizarre expectations of what life in a wheelchair must be like. But what if we could watch and listen to and read about disabled characters that didn’t spend all day either whining incessantly about how their penises don’t work or improbably rescuing a bunch of kids from an underwater bus wreck? That’s where the idea for Cripz was born. That, and Beverly Cleary’s kind correspondence to a 9-year-old Jeff Preston, recommending, “why don’t you write a story about a regular little boy in a wheelchair?”. Granted, Rhett and Griff aren’t exactly “regular”… but neither are most people. But Rhett and Griff aren’t weird because they’re disabled. Or disabled because they’re weird (whatever that might entail). Ultimately, they’re weird because they’re two teenage boys growing up in the magical place that is London, Ontario, home of the Great and Muddy Thames River, Adventures in Sex City, old men who obsessively watch 18 year old boys duke it out with one another every Friday night, and two university students with too much time on their hands who decided to do a damn webcomic.
So what’s Cripz all about?
Cripz tells the story of Rhett Breton and Griffin Moonlove, two ordinary guys living in a (mostly) fictional London, Ontario, navigating the complex world of high school, friendship and disability.
Is Cripz a true story?
While the characters and situations are fictional, many of the obstacles and challenges that Rhett and Griff face are based on real issues facing the disabled population in Ontario. And though Jeff seems embarrassed to admit this, there is a LOT of real Jeff-ness in both Rhett and Griffin; they’re sort of like what would happen if he had twins with himself.
When do new episodes come out?
New episodes of Cripz will be released every Wednesday morning on the front page. If you’re new to these parts, use the navigation menu on the left side of the page to check out previous episodes.
I really like Cripz and want to make sure it keeps going. How can I help?
Honestly? The best way to help is through cold, hard, cash money. I mean, we love you reading our stuff, but a crigga’s gotta eat… and gold-plate his wheelchair, if possible. For real though, donations go a long way to covering expenses (art materials, web hosting, printing, etc.). So there’s a donate button right below this paragraph, if you just wanna give something for nothing. If you’re not into philanthropy (Scrooge! …we love you, but…seriously) we will be setting up a merch section of the site so you can criggify your wardrobe. On that note, if you have any T-shirt or button suggestions, feel free to email us and we’ll take them into consideration.
From Daredevil to Rainman, we’ve never really seen a movie or TV show about disability that spoke to our experiences. If your only encounters with disability came through the media, you would have some pretty bizarre expectations of what life in a wheelchair must be like. But what if we could watch and listen to…
Read More