This morning my friend Sabrina had a truly horrible doctor’s appointment. So she messaged me to see if we could do something fun together to make her day better! I was happy to oblige! I had wanted to take Felix out today or tomorrow to train a little, so it was perfect.
We met up at Salsarita’s, which is a Mexican restaurant similar to Chipotle. Since I’d never been there before, I didn’t know how well I could handle standing and training Felix while processing the menu and ordering. Plus, my wheelchair is much more comfortable than the seats they had, so I decided to just bring my wheelchair.
Felix did great as we went through the line. There was lots of banging going on behind the plexiglass and he just sat there and watched. No fear at all! Luckily one of the employees there was super nice and brought our food and drinks out to us instead of making us carry them outside. She even came to check on us while we were eating, and then came out to clear our trays away for us when we were done eating! Super service! I may have to write something up about that woman and send it in to them!
Sabrina and I had a lovely lunch! The food was really really tasty (maybe even better than Chipotle?!) and we had a great time talking!
I later realized that I forgot to get out Felix’s Himalayan Chew for him to gnaw on during our meal. But he did fairly well regardless! I did have to give him treats for remaining in his down on his mat fairly often, and especially towards the end of the meal, the leaves on the ground proved to be a big temptation. But overall he did a pretty good job for an 8-month-old!
We got a selfie of Sabrina and me with Felix leaning into us before we left. Sabrina and I both have short hair and Felix is in the middle of us leaning to Sabrina’s side and looking odd like a muppet.
Next we wanted to head to a craft store and Kohl’s. We decided instead of loading Sabrina’s chair onto the back of her car, that we would both take our wheelchair van! I took my chair apart and put it in the trunk, and we loaded Sabrina’s chair into the main section. It was fun driving over together!
Our first stop in the store was the bathroom, and the one accessible toilet was super nasty. So both of us had to park our chairs in the door of a regular stall and use the bathroom with the door open! Plus the door to the bathroom was really heavy and difficult to maneuver. On the way out, I tried holding the door for Sabrina with my left leg, and ended up tweaking my hip really badly. It still hurts even now that I’m home 🙁 Silly me, thinking my joints are like normal people’s!
We found some lovely fabric for a new vest for Indy and a harness-vest for Felix! It’ll be a while before Felix’s is made so we know what size he’ll be full grown. But at least we have the fabric! We got a dark purple cotton for the underneath and a gossamer fabric that looks purple or turquoise based on the light to go over top of it. I tried to get a picture of it, but it was hard to capture. The picture below shows one layer of the fabric over the purple fabric, and in the corner there is more of the gossamer fabric folded on top of each other.
We shopped around in the craft store a little longer, and eventually made our way over to Kohl’s. We had a lot of laughter trying to maneuver in some of the aisles! Sabrina wanted to look at wallets, and they were really hard to get to in wheelchairs. And we kept wanting to go where the other person was, leading to a lot of backing up and going the long way around things (that happened in the craft store, too).
We looked around in Kohl’s for a while, and even took a few pictures! In them Sabrina is in her power wheelchair with her Golden Retriever Indy next to her. In a series of three pictures, she asks Indy to sit, Indy sits and looks at her, and then Indy looks at the camera.
Sabrina got a picture of me in my power wheelchair with sable and white Japanese Chin Felix on my lap looking into the camera.
We had a great time together, and I think it really helped Sabrina get past the awful doctor’s appointment this morning.
After Kohl’s, we drove back to Sabrina’s car and headed back to our respective houses to rest! It was a fun but tiring day!