In October I got a message that my blog had been nominated for a “Lovely Blog” award. I figured the comment was spam. Not that I don’t think my Safe & Sound blog is lovely. It’s just that I’d never heard of a “Lovely Blog” award. And the nomination came from a lawyer. Not to be trusted, right?

Wrong. Turns out that both the lawyer guy, and the nomination, are legit. Matthew Stoloff is a civil rights attorney with an interest in disability discrimination law. He wants to change the way the public thinks about people with disabilities, and he nominated the Safe & Sound blog because he thinks it helps the cause.

In order to accept a “Lovely Blog” nomination, a blogger has to follow three rules:

• Post the news of your nomination on your blog together with the name of the person who nominated you, plus the link to their blog.
• Pass the nomination on to 15 other blogs you’ve discovered.
• Contact your 15 bloggers to let them know they’ve been nominated for the award.

That requirement to nominate 15 other blogs really stumped me. There are so many good blogs out there, how do you decide? After two months of contemplation, I’ve finally managed to home in on my 15 Lovely Blogs. Here they are — along with their tag lines.

Blogs about Writing

The Empty Pen “The thrill of writing, the agony of editing”

Smells like happy “I don’t have all of the answers. Neither do you. As long as we
both can admit that, we can have some pretty fantastic conversations, don’t you think?”

Sandra the Future Journalist “The purpose of this blog is to share my experiences (both positive and negative) as a college student with a visual impairment.”

Teaching authors “ Six children’s book authors who also teach writing.”

Defective Yeti “Haphazardly Spellchecked Since 2002”

Dogblogs

Bark “Bark is the magazine (and blog) of modern dog culture—it speaks to the serious dog enthusiast.”

Paws for Thought “A diary of a woman in Northern Ireland training and working with her first guide dog.”

Shandy Dog at Work “In 2003 Shandy was the inspiration for starting Sit Stay Read, a literacy organization here in Chicago that brings kids and dogs together for reading fun.”

Disability-related blogs

American Foundation for the Blind blog “Expanding possibilities for people with vision loss”

Easter Seals and autism blog (In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit: I am paid to moderate this blog, so of course I think it’s lovely!)

In the Center of the Roof “The day to day ramblings of a young woman who used to be able to see and now is blind. It sounds much more dramatic than it is.”

Matthew Stoloff’s blog “I hope I can help change the way the public thinks about people with disabilities.”

Other blogs

Sloopin “A South Loop Blog”

Truthful Enthusiasm “Discussing Contemporary Issues through The Arts”

Reading with Scissors (Another disclosure: This is my husband Mike’s blog)

Congratulations, nominees. Happy blogging!

Blind advocates in Chicago are handing out free Pocket Money Marker Braillers this Wednesday morning, encouraging the public to use them to mark their paper money on behalf of those of us who can’t see. Hanni and I are doing a school presentation that morning, so we won’t be able to join the demonstration. We’ll be with them in spirit, though!

The demonstration – and the brailler giveaway — is intended to make the public aware that the Treasury Department should mark U.S. currency in order to prevent discrimination against those of us who are blind. An op-ed piece I wrote about this issue appeared in Friday’s Chicago Tribune:

180 countries use printed paper money, and the United States is the only one that prints bills all the same size and color, no matter how much each bill is worth.
Last year a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. currency system discriminates against blind people. The court decision was not a unanimous one, and some high muckity-mucks weren’t exactly happy with the ruling, either. The National Federation of the Blind, for example. NFB strongly opposed the 2002 lawsuit that led to the ruling. They figure that most blind people have found ways to cope with paper currency and say there are other, more pressing needs to address. Treasury Secretary
Henry M. Paulson, Jr. testified against it, too. He said the blind can function fine using credit cards or electronic scanners to identify different bills,
and if that didn’t work they could rely on help from others.

The NFB and Paulson do have a point. In the 20+ years I have been blind, I have never been shortchanged by a cashier. Even Chicago cab drivers – who have an undeserved reputation for being rude – have been honest with me, correcting me when I’ve made mistakes and tried to pay them too much. Still, I feel pretty stupid sometimes when a bill unfolds itself, or gets mangled up in my wallet, and I have to ask what money I’m carrying.

You can read the entire editorial online — it’s called Paper Money that Works for the Blind –and leave comments there at the Tribune site if you’d like. And hey, if you happen to be out shopping in Chicago this Wednesday morning, word has it that most of the free money-braillers will be handed out in front of Water Tower Place – check it out!

Before last week's Nor'easter, there were steps from Katherine and Larry's deck to the beach.

Growing up in the Midwest, I’d never ever heard the word “Nor’easter” before. But then in 1997 we moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and I found out firsthand how destructive a November storm like that can be.

We lived at the ocean for two years, and every morning I’d take my Seeing Eye dog Dora out for a short walk on the beach while Mike got Gus off to the school bus. We’d meet in the kitchen then, grab a cup of coffee and bring it outside to enjoy at the top of the steps to the beach.

One particularly stormy morning, though, I knew we wouldn’t be meeting for coffee. There’d been no news of a hurricane, not even a tropical storm, but the rain seemed to be pelting down sideways. In buckets. “Hup up, Dora! C’mon, Dora!” I hurried Dora down the wooden walkway to the beach. “Hup up! Let’s go!” She did rush, but still remembered to stop at the top of the stairway. And I remembered to praise her. “Good girl,” I said, tapping the top stair with my foot to reinforce the notion that a step down is worth stopping for. Even when the rain is pelting down, and the winds seem to be rushing at 60 mph, she has to stop. “Good girl, Dora,” I repeated, then gave her the “forward” command. She didn’t budge.

“Dora, forward!” I commanded again. She wouldn’t go. I started getting mad. The rain was cold, and though we’d only been out for a minute or two, I was already soaked. the wind rushed at us, determined to knock us over. “DORA!” I yelled at her. “Forward!” I was so mad, I took a step forward myself just to show her what I meant.

It felt like Dora and I were suspended mid-air for a long time. I learned later from Mike that it was at least a six-foot drop. I had no idea how we’d ended up free-falling that way, but I was glad Dora had come along for the ride. After we hit ground, I turned my head right and left, trying to assess what had happened. I couldn’t see, of course, but looking around like that is just old habit. It took a few seconds, but I did work it out. There were no stairs. They were gone. And so was Dora. I’d lost her leash in the fall.

”Dora, come!” I screamed into the wind, hoping that somehow she’d hear me. She did. She came and stood. Right by my side. I crouched down to feel her, clutching the leash now so that we couldn’t be separated again, asking her over and over if she was okay. “I’m so sorry, Dora,” I repeated, shouting to be heard over the wind. “You were right.” I told her she was a good girl, trying to reassure her we’d be alright.

But would we? The Nor’easter had washed the stairs completely away; we’d have to climb the dune to get back to the house. Waves were creeping in at our feet, which should have been scary, I guess. I found them reassuring, though. They gave me a clue of which direction to go next. Turning my back to the sound and feel of the water, I picked up the harness and commanded, “Dora, forward!” She led me as far as she could on foot. Eventually I had to get on all fours, like her. We crawled up the dune together, side by side.

Once up the dune, Dora helped me find what was left of the walkway and we headed back to the house. I might have felt heroic, if I hadn’t been so ashamed. You see, when I stepped off that top step ahead of Dora, I’d broken one of the Seeing Eye’s cardinal rules: never get ahead of your dog. I’d put Dora and me in real danger, and I didn’t want to admit my mistake to Mike.

And so, I walked in, took Dora’s harness off, and hung it on its hook, just like normal. I might have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for the long hooded coat I was wearing. The coat was made of wool and was covered, head to foot, in sand.

Who woulda’ thought something that doesn’t even qualify as a tropical storm could cause so much havoc? Tropical storms, hurricanes and nor’easters all produce buckets of horizontal rain and high winds, but tropical storms and hurricanes usually come and go quickly. Nor’easters can hang around for days.

*******

Two of our best friends from our Outer Banks days visited us here last weekend. Katherine had visited us in Chicago before, but it was Larry’s first time here. We caught up over cocktails, enjoyed a delicious meal together and even took a long walk along Lake Michigan, the weather was so unusually beautiful in Chicago that weekend.

That's Larry and Katherine, our dear friends who live on the Outer Banks, during their visit to Chicago the first week of November. We're trying to persuade them to move here for the weather.:)

Unfortunately that was not the case when Katherine and Larry returned home. They got back to their oceanfront house in Kill Devil Hills just days before a Nor’easter hit the coast. This from a blog called Seaside Vacations:

The November Nor’easter is sticking around on the Outer Banks. The storm (really two systems; a high and a low pressure system, the low being the real “Nor’easter” and the remnants of Ida) set in late Wednesday and is very reluctant to release its grip on the OBX.

The wind and rough surf have been relentless. Due to the large waves and higher tides than normal, the beach no longer serves as a boundary for the ocean; water and debris have flowed onto the streets in many areas.

Katherine wrote to assure us they were alright, and in that Outer Banks spirit, the subject line in her email was, “Could’ve Been Worse.” You can see for yourself from the photos – they lost their steps, just like Mike and I did a decade ago. I’m afraid it may be a while before Katherine and I enjoy a glass of wine on her deck like we did last September.

I wonder. If I could see, would I have been afraid to visit the Chicago public schools Hanni and I went to these past couple weeks? Volunteers drove us to each school we visited, and we were so busy discussing the kids I was about to meet that no one mentioned what the neighborhoods looked like outside the car window. It wasn’t until all three visits were over that I did my research. Turns out we were in neighborhoods I hear about in gut-wrenching stories on Chicago nightly news. Little Village. North Lawndale. East Garfield Park.

Thanks to the generosity of my publisher--Blue Marlin Publications--all the kids who participated in Sit Stay Read went home with a free copy of "Hanni and Beth, Safe & Sound."

At one school, I was told the kids never get to go out for recess. “Gangs,” the teacher told me. “Too dangerous for them to be outside.

Safe inside the schools, the kids were like any others their age. They wanted to know how old Hanni was. They told me stories about older relatives who were losing their sight. One girl raised her hand and said, “I think you’ll like this poem.” It was one of her favorites from the third-grade reading textbook. “I’m going to read it out loud to you.” She did. And she was right. I loved the poem. After I explained how Hanni looks both ways for traffic before she leads me across downtown streets, a third-grader had a question. “Is your dog brave?” he wondered. His question reminded me. We were in a rough neighborhood. This little boy probably knew firsthand how hard it can be to be brave sometimes.

Two of these schools Hanni and I visited participate in a literacy program called Sit Stay Read! (SSR). In order for a school to participate in Sit Stay Read!, 95 percent or more of the students enrolled must qualify for the National School Breakfast program. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Center for Literacy helped Sit Stay Read! design the program to coordinate with school curriculum — it’s meant to improve children’s reading fluency, encourage them to become successful readers, inspire them to explore the world through books, and help them learn to respect people and animals.

The school we visited in Little Village wasn’t part of the Sit Stay Read! program. There’s a waiting list for schools who’d like to participate. The Little Village school would certainly qualify: Every single kid at that school participates in the National School Breakfast program, which means every single kid at that school is from a very poor family.

Here's just one of the thoughtful, handmade thank-you cards I received from the kids I visited.

My friend Pam teaches science at that school, so I offered to come with Hanni and talk to the kids about the senses. They must have really been listening! Days after my visit a package came in the mail. Each student had carefully glued yarn onto construction paper to create words I could read using my sense of touch. “Thank you, Hanni and Beth” and “It was nice having you.” Feeling the letters reminds me that there’s more to those neighborhoods than gangs and crime. Kids live there, too. Thoughtful kids. Resourceful kids. Sweet kids.

Last Thursday Hanni and I gave a guest lecture for an animal sciences class, and some students came up afterwards to thank me for explaining how Seeing Eye dogs are trained. “I love dogs,” one of them said. “Now I’m thinking maybe I could be a Seeing Eye dog instructor.” You know what? Maybe she could!

From the Seeing Eye Web site:

Staff instructors are full-time employees who hold college degrees from various fields of study and have successfully completed three years of specialized on-the-job training. They relate well to dogs and people and are physically fit, since their jobs are physically demanding and involve working outdoors in all weather. Some of our current instructors came from teaching, business consulting and rehabilitation fields. Some were in the military and worked with dogs before, and many started out as kennel assistants here at The Seeing Eye.

A Seeing Eye trainer demonstrates how dogs learn to negotiate obstacles.

When people ask me about training guide dogs, I always remind them that they won’t just be working with dogs. They’ll be working with people, too. We blind folks are all different ages, and we have all sorts of different backgrounds and experiences behind us. Some of us are newly blind and still adjusting, others have been blind our entire lives. Although some of us might be easy to work with, a lot of us are brats. We test our teacher’s patience.

The Puppy Place (a Web site created by a group of volunteers who raise puppies for guide dog schools) says it well:

Guide Dog trainers must work with a variety of dogs within a given size range. A great deal of walking and upper body strength is required to mold hyper young dogs into responsible workers. In the beginning, when working with dogs alone, this may not seem bad, but soon the apprentice must team dog training with people training. You can’t leash correct your blind student, or give him/her a dirty look and expect the undesired behavior or wrong actions to stop. You must verbally communicate while physically managing to keep up with the dog. Coming out of yourself to work with both dogs and people is a special skill and not one to be taken lightly.

Schools receive literally hundreds of applications a year from people who want to train guide dogs, so even opportunities to become an apprentice are rare. Most guide dog schools do require instructors to do an apprenticeship, and some apprenticeships last as long as four years. From my observation, apprentices work very hard. And from what I hear, salaries are quite low. I have no idea what people are paid once they pass the apprenticeship and become full-fledged instructors. Considering that guide dog schools are non-profit organizations, I would guess the pay is far below what a lot of today’s college educated people expect to earn.

If you’re looking for job satisfaction, though, this kind of work must be pretty dang rewarding! For general information about working for The Seeing Eye, contact:

Human Resources
The Seeing Eye
P.O. Box 375
Morristown, NJ 07963
or email jobs@seeingeye.org.

The kids at the Easter Seals Capper Foundation Kidlink preschool were a great audience. (Photo courtesy of the Topeka Capital-Journal)

A story in the Capital Journal does a beautiful job describing our visit to Topeka last week.

Jim Leiker, president and chief executive officer of Easter Seals Capper Foundation, explained the purpose of Finke’s visit to Kidlink, which is an inclusive
preschool and child care program for children with or without disabilities.

“She has a disability and has lots of challenges,” Leiker said, “and she has lots of goals and dreams, and she’s been able to achieve those. I think that’s a really positive message for the kids.”

The Capital Journal also took a lot of terrific pictures of me, Hanni, and the kids — here’s the gallery.

In addition to visiting the preschool, we were given a tour of the other facilities and did a talk at Capper’s all-staff meeting that day. We had lunch with folks who’d helped sponsor our trip, then gave a keynote at their advisory board dinner that night. It was a lot to pack into one day, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Hanni and I were treated like gold. This was our first trip ever to Kansas, and trust me, it won’t be our last!

One of our many stops during our Topeka visit was speaking to the Easter Seals Capper Foundation Advisory Board. I signed books after the event.

The next morning, Hanni and I climbed way in the back of a shuttle van for a two-hour ride to the Kansas City International airport. Hanni snuggled in so close to my feet that anyone who got on after us had no idea she was there. In Lawrence, we picked up a passenger who seemed, hmm, how to say it. Sketchy? Down on his luck? He’d come to Lawrence in a Greyhound bus from Colorado, needed the ride to KCI to catch another Greyhound bus to some other town.

The shuttle van was pretty full. Reluctant to let this guy sit alongside any of us in back, the driver ushered him to the passenger seat right in front.

Ours was the first stop at the airport. We let the passengers seated in front of us get out first, and then finally I asked Hanni to get up and lead us off the shuttle van. As we exited, the Greyhound rider looked back and said, “Hey! I saw you on TV last night!”

I’d almost forgotten. A couple of TV cameramen had been there the day before, taking video images of our visit with the preschoolers.
I laughed and told him I’d missed the news. “How’d I look?”

“You looked beautiful!”

That made my day. What a snob I’d been, thinking this guy was sketchy. Obviously, He was quite sharp! And hey, he had a good eye, too.

Hey, have I ever mentioned that my husband Mike has a blog, too? Probably not. Because, to be honest with you, Mike’s Reading with Scissors blog is a bit difficult to explain. At least for me it is. It’s kind of visual, and I’m told even if you can see it’s a little difficult to explain.

But not for Micah Maidenberg, the talented editor of the Chicago Journal. Maidenberg’s article about Reading with Scissors this week is spot on.

Equal parts found object, humor and social commentary, Reading with Scissors features scans of advertisements (there are a few obituaries, too) that have caught Knezovich or site collaborator Greg Schafer’s eye. Both say they share a mordant sensibility, antennae that seek out absurdity, goofiness or the plain strange in the ads laced across daily life. There is a laugh-until-you-cry thing happening here.

Maidenberg goes on to explain that Mike and Greg are longtime friends.

Schafer, a flight attendant who lives in Barrington, regularly finds magazines, crossword books and other ephemera during his travels. He flips through what’s left on the planes, saving certain pages. “The job lends itself to time well spent reading,” Schafer said. The best gets sent in big manila envelopes to Knezovich. Knezovich scans the ads, posting one every other day or so.

He sometimes writes a bit of a jab to contextualize the entry, often just a line or two.

While Schafer has been sending Knezovich ads for years, the blog went live in September 2007. Knezovich wanted to experiment with online publishing. About 50 people now hit the blog daily, he said, up from five or six at the launch.

The blog has already gotten attention — and traffic — from Steve Rhodes and his Beachwood Reporter, a terrific Chicago-focused Web site that’s a must-read for Chicagoans. Now it’s caught the eye of the Chicago Journal, and no doubt traffic will double after folks read the entire article. And after they see the stunning photo of Mike Knezovich with his piles of magazine and newspaper clippings? The hits will triple. Quadruple! Do your part and link to Reading with Scissors. WHO knows? Like Mike, you may find Reading with Scissors therapeutic :

“I can pay attention and get utterly depressed, or confused,” Knezovich said. “Or I can find a way to get a laugh out of it.”

The good news: My interview with Dick Gordon on NPR’s The Story aired all over the country last week. The bad news: It didn’t air here in Chicago.

Chicago Public Radio held its pledge drive last week; my interview was bumped so that WBEZ personalities like Ira Glass could cut in and ask listeners to call in and pledge to the station. The nerve! Seriously, Mike and I are members of WBEZ, and I understand why they have to do these pledge drives. But still, I gotta admit…I was disappointed friends and family members in Chicagoland didn’t get a chance to catch me on the radio.

I did hear from people in other parts of the country who heard it, though. A woman in Memphis wrote me to say she’d heard the interview on satellite radio and recognized some of my anecdotes. “I read them in your book!” she said. A man from Las Vegas wrote to tell me he, too, had modeled nude. No mention if he did this for art students, or on the strip.

Mike and I were able to hear the interview online, and I must say, those folks at North Carolina Public Radio did a fabulous job of editing. They took an hour’s worth of tape, condensed it, and came out with a nice little package that makes chronological sense. If you missed hearing the interview on the radio, you can hear it online. Listen to my voice, and to my laughter, and you’ll know what a great job Dick Gordon did setting me at ease in a studio that was halfway across the country from him.

Mike and I took a slight detour on our way to the Wisconsin Book Festival on Friday. An NPR show called The Story had contacted me earlier in the week and we had to stop at a studio Friday morning to record an interview. If you’ve never heard The Story, here’s a description of the show from the Serious Radio web site:

The Story is a daily interview program designed to bring great stories to public radio midday’s in a way that will help listeners understand what is going on in their world and why it matters to them. A veteran radio journalist, Dick Gordon interviews people whose real-life experiences help us understand the news of the day or ongoing issues of importance.

The Story originates on North Carolina Public Radio, so Dick Gordon, the show’s host, was in Chapel Hill during Friday’s interview. Me? I sat alone with Hanni in a recording booth in Evanston, IL. The sound man, seated in another room behind a plate of glass, says if you listen carefully you’ll hear Hanni’s harness jiggle as she settles in at the beginning of the taping. She slept for the rest of the hour. She’d heard this all before.

The interview questions centered on my working life. Before losing my sight, I had a job advising college students who wanted to study overseas. The job entailed talking with students, checking out what programs might work for them, phoning different college departments or other universities to arrange for the transfer of college credits. I was sure I’d be able to perform these tasks without being able to see. My boss, however, was equally sure I could not. My contract was terminated. My confidence was shattered. How could I have been so naive? Did I really think I was worth hiring? Why would anyone employ someone who couldn’t see?

That all happened in 1986. The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law four years later. It took a while for me to get the gumption to apply for work again, but once I did I met up with some pretty wonderful, flexible employers. A series of part-time jobs helped rebuild my confidence back up. So much so, that in 1999 I took a job many others would never dare try: I modeled nude for University art students. An essay I wrote about the experience was published in alternative newspapers all over the country, and my new career was launched. No, silly. I did not become a professional nude model. I became a professional writer.

The Story is doing a special series called “What’s Working Who’s Working,” and my guess is that when my interview airs, it will be featured in that series. The Story is distributed nationally by American Public Media. It can be heard in North Carolina on WUNC-FM and WRQM-FM (90.9) in Rocky Mount. The show can also be heard on other stations across the U.S. including WBEZ in Chicago and KPCC in Los Angeles. Not sure yet when my particular segment will air, so stay tuned — I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.

Showing the girls how the harness works.

I spoke at the Milwaukee Montessori School last Wednesday, so I missed out on all the Olympic frenzy going on back here in Chicago last week. The Montessori mom who volunteered to drive Hanni and me back to our hotel after the presentation was the only person to even mention Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. The mom worked for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and the organization was hopeful Chicago would get the Olympics in 2016. “You took the train here, right?” she asked. I nodded. “So you know. Milwaukee is only an hour-and-a-half away from Chicago.” Her association was hoping tourists might opt to stay in Milwaukee, take the train to Chicago for the games by day, head back to a peaceful retreat by night. Milwaukee would benefit without footing the outrageous Olympic bill.

I was in the hotel lobby working on my laptop when the announcement was made about Chicago losing the Olympic bid. I heard no collective sighs. People there had never assumed Chicago would get the bid, so they weren’t shocked to hear the news. They might have been disappointed, but they didn’t act like the Chicagoans I was hearing about in the news. I didn’t sense anyone in the Milwaukee hotel lobby feeling angry. Or cheated

That’s one – of many things – I love about Wisconsin. People there are sensible. Kind, too. I stayed up there a few days after my Montessori School visit to work on my writing. The seclusion worked. I made good progress on two new books, and rewarded myself with occasional breaks to listen to the incomparable Bob Uecker call Brewers’ games on my transistor radio. Hanni and I felt downright carefree during our three-night stay, everyone there was so willing to guide us when we’d come to the lobby for a change of venue, or when Hanni needed to go outside for breaks. The hotel staff also recognized when Hanni and I were doing fine on our own, so they’d leave us alone.

Another reason I love Wisconsin? Our son lives there, in Watertown. After driving there to visit Gus Friday morning, Mike headed over to Milwaukee to spend the night with Hanni and me at the hotel. We had such a great time in Wisconsin that we’re going there again this Friday. This time, though, we’ll be heading to Madison. Hanni and I are doing a presentation at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison on Saturday morning, October 10 at 10:00. The theme for this year’s festival is Courage.

Presenter(s):
Beth Finke,
Katie McKy
Two writers who’ll appeal to kids from ages 4-8. Themes of courage in the face of disability/difference, and the courage to be oneself. Wolf Camp, by Katie McKy, is a comedy of parents’ unconditional love as their kids try on different skins. And Beth Finke returns with Hanni, her beloved Seeing Eye dog, to talk about the courage they both exhibit every day.

Gus’ house in Watertown is about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee, so it’ll be easy to stop in and see him again this weekend. On, Wisconsin!

Gus, Hanni and I--in front of the Hank Aaron statue outside Miller Park on a previous visit to Milwaukee.