Clouds

I love clouds

Ramp & Lots of Help

This is my porch. It is a nightmare for dad to navigate with his rolling walker and impossible for a transport chair or wheelchair. Please excuse the dead ferns. You are welcome to come pull them out. I don't have the time or energy.

Here is my daughter and her brother-in-law building a ramp.

Setting the ramp in place.

The top is in place. They will be back tomorrow to finish it.

I am so thankful for the help. Another brother-in-law brought over a no longer needed wheelchair, which should be easier to roll than the transport chair I bought for $100 from Walgreen's. My next door neighbor has an SUV and she has offered to drive dad to his chemo treatments, since her SUV sits higher and will be easier for dad to get into. Our car is too low. He has to drop down to sit, and struggle to get up. My neighbor was a medic in the military and also a home nursing aid, so she will be a big help. I offered to pay but she said not unless she needs it.

Stuff

Well there has been a lot on my mind and a lot going on, and not much happy stuff to report. A recent post by A :-) proves what I've known all along---that I pretty much hold onto the past. I have caught opportunities, though, which is how I came to work from home. The truth is, if I let go of my past I would only have stress and sadness, because that is the present. Currently pretty much everything that has come my way lately would be better dropped. Yesterday we buried my son-in-law, and every day I live with the hope that dad will beat cancer. There is no way I can move on because I cannot forsake my current duties of caring for someone who is ill. Life is not totally crappy though. Each day is special, each day has meaning, each day we try to move forward. There is still hope.

P.S. I love that song---Turn Turn Turn by the Byrds

Repaired but not done

I was going to post this before but something got in the way, probably lack of sleep. The leak is fixed but the streets are still blocked off. I hope they finish soon!

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/hammond/article_cca415c6-a50b-55c4-9ae3-77b99e64cbe4.html

In the news---finally

We made the news on CBS tonight
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/bp.leak.hammond.2.1867557.html

This morning---page three in the paper:

Of course, guess what the headline was:

Hair Boy

I took this pic with my phone:

I kept hearing beeping, and discovered they had the manhole cover off to test for fumes (that's my car and my tree):

So apparently BP is digging up 175th street to look for the leak while the immediate residents are suffering the fumes. I am very thankful there are no fumes here.

Now BP is leaking HERE

I was wondering what was going on. I heard the end of the street was blocked off and an ambulance and all kinds of other vehicles were down there. That was about 1 pm. I stepped out and looked up the street but couldn't see anything. About 4 pm I was standing in front of the kitchen window and the ambulance drove by. I'm thinking---3 hours later? About 4:30 I heard a helicopter. Now let me explain. Around here we always hear helicopters. Every hospital around here has a helipad. But this one was hovering. Chicago news only sends helicopters to hover when (1) they are doing a traffic report on the expressway, or (2) something big happened. The last time something big happened was in 2008 when the Little Calumet River flooded for miles. So I turned on the TV, just in time to hear that Hair Boy (IL ex gov. Rod Blagojevich) only got convicted on one charge. Well, there goes the news---all channels---hair boy, all night. Did I tell you all our news is out of Chicago here?

I called my neighbor. No, she didn't know what was going on, but she did see a lot of people standing around.

So I tried online---local newspaper. Ah-HA! Found it. Hammond officials deal with oil leak. Wow that's close, so that must be it. I called my neighbor to tell her what I found.

She answered, "Oh, I got an automated call from the police department this morning telling me to run water down all my drains for a little while and then to put wet towels over them so no fumes could come in. And I didn't know how long a little while was so I called 911 and told them this is not an emergency but who do I call to find out and they told me just a little while so I let the water run for half an hour."

She's a sweet lady but I'm always thinking of the Sears Optical commercial "Missing Something?" when I talk to her.

The next question was why didn't I get a call when I'm only 2 doors away from my neighbor. I called the non-emergency number and was told I was out of range. She asked if I have a land-line. Yes. That could be something to think about if all you have is a cell phone---how would you receive emergency info? Probably by text message, if that service was available. Could be a good thing.

So anyway, those are BP's lines and something is leaking and no, I never smelled anything here, thankfully.

In the garden

We never grew eggplant before. The blooms are unusual. Here are a couple pictures.

We have a good crop of tomatoes this year but everything else is so-so. The bell peppers are ok but the banana peppers continue to struggle. The zucchini were damaged by squash borers and I think the cucumbers were as well.