When pressed against a sufficiently-pliant surface, the retractable tines make a pleasing hole pattern, the same sort of pattern one will see over many industrial or toy speakers, where the speaker cover is integrated into the body of the larger item, such as the speaker holes for emergency communications on an elevator control pad.

2/x

#pattern
#holes
#sharp

I bought the tool secondhand somewhere in #Edmonton, #Alberta sometime shortly after the beginning of the #covid19 #pandemic, as one of many quasi-random #tools and #materials I would end up testing and using to create my own masks that would be safe for me to wear for long periods and provide the best degree of homemade #PPE protection I could manage whilst also avoiding problems with #allergies (such as metal on nose-fittings).

3/x

#TrialAndError
#testing
#experimental
#experimentation
#safety
#health
#CovidIsNotOver

Since those days, and the present ability to obtain #allergy-safe (for me) #silicone #ElastomericRespirators, the tool has sat unused among many items from those early desperate days.

As locals will recall, 2020 was when #Edmonton experienced the beginning of the #pandemic.

2021 was our first-ever #HeatDome.

2022 and thereafter to the present has seen long stretches of #ExtremeHeat and the switch from #SummerSeason to #WildfireSeason, adding frequently horrendous #AirQuality to the sustained heat.

#yeg
#ClimateChange
#wildfires

4/x

From social media posts and various discussions among those I know, these many changes have been challenging.

Yet I think I am not overstating it to say that for #disabled people like me, these events have been a relentless cascade of complications--ranging from minor to massive--in our already #complicated lives.

I am far from alone in that my disabilities or #medications or both make me very #HeatSensitive.

When we hit 24°C, I am (metaphorically) melting and not particularly physically or mentally functional until temperatures cool below that threshhold.

The heat alone is enough to make me feel as though I am utterly exhausted, even if I have somehow managed to get a decent sleep *despite* the heat -- the heat saps it all away, regardless. ☹️

5/x

#heat
#HeatStress
#HeatDistress
#HeatExhaustion

An intetesting peculiarity of living in #SocialHousing is that we are explicitly banned from having window-based #AC in our units.

While I live in #Alberta, my understanding is that this ban is found throughout social housing #leases in #Canada.

Granted, the writing style and language choices strongly suggest such leases were drafted in the early 1970s at the latest, and back then I would have easily agreed that #AirConditioning would not be necessary.

However, 50-some years on, the heat is routinely a bajillion (estimated 😛) degrees higher and #disabled folks and others in social housing are BANNED* from installing what is literally life-saving equipment under the 'new normal' of our #FireSeason summers.

*TBC: portable AC units are not explicitly banned (not commercially-available yet when the leases were written??? 🤔) but these have limited range and are usually energy-inefficient compared to modern AC window units

6/x

#health
#safety
#medical
#medications
#disability
#poverty

In light of the above--a combination of increasing environmental stressors that negatively affect my #disability management and day-to-day functionality against a background of ongoing pandemic--it should come as no surprise that my #SocialHousing unit is presently the very opposite of tidy.

Annual stretches of multi-month #physical non-functionality from #ExtremeHeat (and also often terrible #AirQuality) make it tough to keep up with all but the most basic tasks.

And for many #disabled folks, our disablities, chronic #MedicalConditions, necessary #medications, and so forth may already have made "keeping up with the basics" pretty challenging in the best of times.

And these are NOT the best of times. Not by a long shot.

7/x

#housekeeping
#chores
#DailyCare
#DailyRoutines
#RoutineTasks

In my own Quest to Survive, my #kitchen has been the nerve-centre of designing/creating/building/modifying things to help me stay alive through the crisis of the moment, as well as as more obvious ongong crises such as extreme heat, terrible air quality, etc.

In some cases, #OffTheShelf technology to mitigate an issue exists, but (for example) both #poverty and #lease requirements prevent me from acquiring energy-efficient cooling technology.

Even if I pay 100% of the cost of buying and installing a #window #AirConditioner, it means a breach of lease and possible #eviction.

Given that I'm pretty sure I would not survive many days of being #unhoused (due to #MedicalConditions and #disability-management challenges, not due to any fellow unhoused neighbours), I have worked very hard to figure out other ways to mitigate heat in my unit.

8x

#mitigations
#experiements
#SelfHelp
#tenancy

I've talked about some of this on Mastodon before, such as creating #coroplast and #blackout material #WindowBlocks to prevent the heat from our long 53°N summer days getting into my unit (circa 2021) or adding thermal window film to reduce heat even more (circa 2025) without simultaneously creating a dark and depressing #bunker-effect for the entire summer.

Doing all of this required various materials, time and of course, money. While all these (and other) mitigations were experiemented with and created/installed over several years, which spread out the up-front cost, the irony is not lost on me that these approaches have culmulatively cost as much as as least two in-window #AirConditoners would. 🙄

9x

#heat
#ExtremeHeat
#mitigation
#HeatMitigation
#LifeSafety
#cost

Apologies for digressing somewhat into the weeds: the point is that all of this figuring-stuff-out on an #AISH (provincial #disability pension) that has not risen since 2016, is expensive, time- and (personal)energy-intensive AND are all genuinely monumental accomplishments given my disabilities and lack of functionality in extreme heat.

My #mitigations don't even necessarily make things comfortable, they just make it less-likely I'll die from preventable consquences of #ExtremeHeat.

And this point is important, because I HAVE been successful in not-dying (yay! 🙂), but the mitigations are NOT SUFFICIENT for me to live a 'normal life' (my normal, under my normal range of restrictions/challenges) during the #FireSeason and #HeatSeason.

IOW, not a lot of extras get done during these extended periods.

10x

#chores
#housekeeping
#management