A Day Of Firsts

It was my first day in my new home with all of my stuff here. It's pretty full right now, but I am getting it done box by box.

It was also very nice to wake up with Veronica here yesterday morning. My first overnight guest! Hopefully she and other nieces and nephews are here regularly.

Patrick and I went shopping at Benny's - I needed light bulbs, wastebaskets and curtain rods. I also needed to have some keys made - to replace the one I dropped into the dashboard of my uncle's truck and the one I borrowed from the landlord.

We went to Michael's house where Chelsea was off to get her hair cut (very cute). As we waited Vanessa and JaeMae came over as I was babysitting the cute little girl while her parents went to the Red Sox game. JaeMae now has two bottom front teeth that make her more adorable than she was when she was toothless.

While we waited for Chelsea to return from the hair salon we fed JaeMae and just hung around in the car. Once she got back we admired her new hair style and we were on the road.

We stopped to get some pizza and milk and then went to my new house. Once there, JaeMae cried so hard, with tears coming down her cheeks which was the first time I'd ever seen as she is usually a very happy little girl. She had some pizza dough which she kept dropping much to the delight of Hannibal who sat adoringly at her feet.

For the rest of the visit we girls hung out on my bed (which is the biggest clear surface in the entire house) and we had a great time.

I'd forgotten how long it takes to get a baby ready when getting ready to go out. So we were running a bit late to return Chelsea and Emilee home. As we were all getting in the car, I put my hand on the part of the car between the front and back doors to lean in and put some stuff on the passenger side of the car. That was when Emi decided to close the door. After saying "open the door" a few times my hand was freed. It hurt, but not too badly as the door closed at the fleshy part of my hand just above my fingers. Emi started to say how sorry she was and then she cried, which made me cry because I knew how badly she felt. It took a bit to get her and me calmed down and then we were off. (Today my hand is fine, it's a bit swollen but it hardly hurts at all.) I have a vague memory of getting a finger or two caught in the car door as a kid, so while it wasn't a first, it was a first as an adult.

Once the girls were dropped off, JaeMae (who was sleeping) and I headed off to her house. She cried a little after we got in the house and I took her sweatshirt off, but I rocked her and she fell back to sleep. I watched a little TV as she slept on the bed next to me and I gave her some kisses.

Just before Vanessa and Ryan got home JaeMae woke up and I was getting ready to change her diaper - but before I did, Vanessa and Ryan were at the door where we met them (along with Veronica, who was there for just a few minutes.) We were standing in the kitchen talking and I felt a warm liquid over my arm and down my shirt. JaeMae was peeing and because her diaper was so full, I was the one to absorb most of her baby pee. I laughed and Ryan went and got a towel for the floor and my arm. I think they were a little mortified that it happened, but it didn't bother me at all.

They had brought some gaggers home so after JaeMae went to sleep we sat and ate and talked about the game where Vanessa (and Veronica) showed some of their moxie by yelling at the loud drunk people behind them who did quiet down after their verbal assault, though somehow a beer came flying at them a bit later!

I drove home (where the radiator light on my car kept coming on (I think I have a leak) - see The Need For Glasses) and then took Hannibal out for a walk. When we returned to the house I turned the door knob to enter and it turned a little bit and then LOCKED!! It was 1 am, my extra key was in the car which I had locked with the keys that were hanging in the front hall. I very briefly thought of going through a window and then decided to walk over to Patrick's house and wake him up and get his key. After banging on his front door for a couple of minutes without any results, I walked around to his bedroom window which was opened. After abruptly being awakened, he very nicely handed me his keys so I could get in the house. I had (until last night) never locked myself out of a house before, though I need to have the lock checked, because it was unlocked as I left the house. I think I will have to do what I've always told my customers to never do - hide a key outside! There are a few good spots, however, and once the alarm is installed it should be okay.

I collapsed into bed about 2 am and slept like I was in a coma. What a day!!

I'm Home

After feeling like a nomad for the better part of a year, I finally am home. I like this place and hope that I grow to love it.

It's pretty full right now, but I am going to go through every box and make a decision; keep, throw away or give away. So far it seems to be working because everyone who has walked out of here over the past two days (except for the movers) have left with something! (Actually, now that I think of it the movers did leave with something; a check from me!)

So I hope to have company, there's room for people to come, sit and visit all at the same time.

The best part of today (yesterday really) is that Veronica is here spending the night with me!!

Life is (almost, sort of, on the way to becoming, I hope) good.

The Restorative Power of Sleep

I had forgotten how wonderful a good nights sleep could be, but now I remember and I feel like a new person.

I Don't See Dead People

First night in new house, I barely slept. I am so used to being up all night that it has been hard to sleep normal hours. Tonight, however, I hope to have the good night sleep on my deluxe queen size air mattress that I expected last night. My bed will be here for tomorrow night, yeah.

Patrick and I were on our way back to my apartment last night to move the TV, computer and food. I had the key to the new house in my hand and reached forward to feel if there was a ledge on the dashboard of my uncle's pickup truck, like there is in my car to put the key on. Nope. What there was was a slot that was just the right size for the key to slide down, right into the underneath part of the dash. I couldn't believe it! We loaded up the stuff and I called my new landlord on the way back to the new house. I asked if he had an extra key (yes he did) and I also asked who's stuff (and there's lots of it) in the storage basement area. He said it belonged to the woman who lived in my new house and he'd been meaning to get in there and throw it out because she died!!! Then he said that he probably shouldn't have told me that, so I think that maybe she died here in the house. I didn't put it all together until today, but there was a lot of information about doctors and there is also a ramp up to the front door, so she must have been sick while living here. She does seem to be gone though, because neither Hannibal or I have any sense of her in the house.

Patrick, however, was here after work tonight and he had quite a field day in the storage area, finding all kinds of stuff. There's a vacuum which we found to work quite well; two tall bookcases, one of which is now in my house (the landlord said feel free to take whatever you want); there's a toolbox, laundry detergent to do about 800 loads of clothes; a leaf blower; paint and stain; christmas decorations and so many other things I can't even remember what they are to list here.

Michelle and Veronica were here also. Veronica cleaned the inside of all (and there's a lot) the kitchen cabinets and put my food away. She and I had pizza for dinner and she watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann with me. She will be able to vote in the next election and as much as she abhors politics, she feels that she should be an informed voter. We then watched Ugly Betty for entertainment value only. New Verizon Fios internet and digital cable with DVR, new phone number are all in. I'm learning the new TV remote and hopefully will have it down before the year is over.

Tomorrow I head back to the apartment to throw things into boxes (literally) for the movers when they arrive at 5 or so. I cannot wait for this entire move to be over and done with.

BOO!

Moving

I will be unplugging my computer soon and moving it to my new house, where I will be living as of tonight!! It almost seems sad to be leaving this place, it's been so enjoyable these past 3 days. My favorite part of living here has been listening to Amtrak go by all day long. The train tracks are close enough that I can hear the train even if they aren't blowing the whistle, when they do blow the whistle, I am pleased beyond belief. And while I'm not as close to the train tracks in my new place, I should be able to hear the whistle without any problem as long as they are blowing it! I'll also miss the ducks quacking in the river which is right next to the house.

The phone/cable/internet man from Verizon will be there tomorrow between 8-10 and I knew there would be no way I'd make it there so early in the am, so I decided that Patrick and I are moving the essentials tonight; TV, computer, computer desk, dishes and food. The rest of my belongings will be delivered Friday night by the movers.

On another front, I spoke to the RI state disability rep last week and she said that they recommended to Social Security that I be considered disabled (as the state has already done) and I should be hearing this week from Social Security. I'm almost afraid to check the mail, but I am hoping for the best.

So things seem to (finally) be coming together! Until I get up and running again....so long!

Smoke Detectors And Fire Safety

Entry level fire protec tion
Every home should have working smoke alarms on each level, and protecting each sleeping area. The Home Safety Council recommends installing smoke alarms inside bedrooms as well. For the best detection and notification protection, install both ionization and photoelectric type smoke alarms. Some models provide dual coverage. The type will be printed on the box or package.

Kids and Smoke Detectors
Did you know that despite a piercing 70-85 decibel signal, children often sleep through the sound of a home smoke alarm? A quick response is essential in a fire emergency, so if children don't waken to the signal, parents and caregivers must wake them. Interconnected smoke alarms can make a life-saving difference. Interconnected smoke alarms are hard-wired into a home's electrical system and each alarm is connected together so that when one alarm signals, they all signal, no matter where the fire starts.

With interconnected smoke alarms, you'll have early warning of the fire wherever you are, because the smoke alarm in your room will sound at the same time as the alarm in the room with the fire. If your children or someone else in the household isn't aroused by the smoke alarm, you'll be able to waken them, hastening their safe escape.

Danger: Even with interconnected alarms, emerging research has demonstrated that sleeping children may be able to tune out the blaring sound. Make sure your children wake and properly respond when the smoke alarms signal. Empowering children with basic fire escape skills is a very good idea - everyone should know to react immediately to the sound of the alarm and how to get outside quickly. But before assuming children will react appropriately to a late-night fire, parents must learn if their children will be roused immediately or sleep through the smoke alarm. Even those who awaken to the sound of the alarm may be groggy or move with indecision.

Learn if your children will awaken
To find out for certain, the Home Safety Council urges parents to hold regular family fire drills. Children can participate in the drills by helping to draw the fire escape plan. Once kids have mastered fire escape skills, hold a drill when children are sleeping to learn how they will respond to the sound of the smoke alarm (this is of utmost importance.) Push the "test" button on the closest alarm during the drill. If children don't readily waken and demonstrate the ability to move with decision, parents must make a contingency plan for awakening them in family drills and in a fire emergency.

Important: Children aren't the only ones who sleep through smoke alarms. Research shows that teenagers and even adults can tune out the loud sound while they sleep. Additionally, people with hearing impairments may not be able to hear conventional alarms; special smoke alarms with strobes and/or vibration are available for purchase online and through local fire equipment distributors. Make sure everyone in your family is protected by the early warning that smoke alarms provide.

Install smoke alarms on every level of your home, including the basement. Heat detectors are best for attics where the temperature can be extremely high and near the furnace or boiler.

Make sure there is a smoke detector IN every bedroom. If a fire starts in a bedroom where someone is sleeping and the bedroom door is closed the smoke detector is in the hallway outside will do no good, whatsoever!! Install about 3 feet in from doorway in EACH bedroom.

Choose an installation location that is well away from the path of steam from bathrooms and cooking vapors from the kitchen, which can result in false, or nuisance alarms.

Put new batteries in your smoke alarms twice each year, when springing forward and falling back.

Blocked Lint in the Clothes Dryer
When is the last time you cleaned out your clothes dryer vent hose? You're probably asking, "what and huh?" You should never, ever leave your clothes dryer running when away from the house. Vacuum underneath and behind dryer at least once per year to get rid of any lint.

Clean the vent hose annually. If it's an old white plastic vent hose replace it immediately with a foil or tin one. Available for just a few dollars at Home Depot!

Keep fire extinguishers around the house; kitchen, basement, laundry area, hallway by bedrooms.

It's Happened Again!

It was very quiet last night and I knew that the Dimwit wasn't home. It's odd because she is on home confinement after all.

Then this morning her alarm clock woke me up. For an hour the radio played quite loudly and then, thankfully, shut off.

So I'm wondering "where could she be?" Early this afternoon I heard the Idiot outside, but I was laying down and don't know what was going on, and frankly, didn't care.

A few minutes ago her mother came over, checked the Dimwit's mail and then went upstairs. Several minutes later she left with a bag filled with the Dimwit's personal items.

I quickly went to the ACI website and, sure enough, she's listed as being back in the Women's Division!!!

Since Tuesday (tomorrow) night is the last night I am sleeping here, I'm hoping for two good nights sleep and when the movers come this Friday, I'm hoping to put the Dimwit, the Idiot, their noise and criminal behavior behind me.

Oh wait, except for the fact that I've met with the drug detective for the local PD and they are now doing an investigation, which may have led to her being incarcerated again, though I suspect it had something to do with mandatory drug testing or being out of her allowed area.

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,793

As of Friday, Sept. 21, 2007, at least 3,793 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 3,095 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is five higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 169 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, 7; El Salvador, 5; Slovakia, 4; Latvia, 3; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, 2 each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, South Korea, 1 death each.

Rising Seas Likely to Flood U.S. History

By SETH BORENSTEIN

Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting.

In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.

Global warming - through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding - is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches.

It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say.

And it will reshape the nation.

Rising waters will lap at the foundations of old money Wall Street and the new money towers of Silicon Valley. They will swamp the locations of big city airports and major interstate highways.

Storm surges worsened by sea level rise will flood the waterfront getaways of rich politicians - the Bushes' Kennebunkport and John Edwards' place on the Outer Banks. And gone will be many of the beaches in Texas and Florida favored by budget-conscious students on Spring Break.

That's the troubling outlook projected by coastal maps reviewed by The Associated Press. The maps, created by scientists at the University of Arizona, are based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the one-meter projection. Some believe it could happen in 50 years, others say 100, and still others say 150.

Sea level rise is "the thing that I'm most concerned about as a scientist," says Benjamin Santer, a climate physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

"We're going to get a meter and there's nothing we can do about it," said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris. "It's going to happen no matter what - the question is when."

Sea level rise "has consequences about where people live and what they care about," said Donald Boesch, a University of Maryland scientist who has studied the issue. "We're going to be into this big national debate about what we protect and at what cost."

This week, beginning with a meeting at the United Nations on Monday, world leaders will convene to talk about fighting global warming. At week's end, leaders will gather in Washington with President Bush.

Experts say that protecting America's coastlines would run well into the billions and not all spots could be saved.

And it's not just a rising ocean that is the problem. With it comes an even greater danger of storm surge, from hurricanes, winter storms and regular coastal storms, Boesch said. Sea level rise means higher and more frequent flooding from these extreme events, he said.

All told, one meter of sea level rise in just the lower 48 states would put about 25,000 square miles under water, according to Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona. That's an area the size of West Virginia.

The amount of lost land is even greater when Hawaii and Alaska are included, Overpeck said.

The Environmental Protection Agency's calculation projects a land loss of about 22,000 square miles. The EPA, which studied only the Eastern and Gulf coasts, found that Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Texas and South Carolina would lose the most land. But even inland areas like Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia also have slivers of at-risk land, according to the EPA.

This past summer's flooding of subways in New York could become far more regular, even an everyday occurrence, with the projected sea rise, other scientists said. And New Orleans' Katrina experience and the daily loss of Louisiana wetlands - which serve as a barrier that weakens hurricanes - are previews of what's to come there.

Florida faces a serious public health risk from rising salt water tainting drinking water wells, said Joel Scheraga, the EPA's director of global change research. And the farm-rich San Joaquin Delta in California faces serious salt water flooding problems, other experts said.

"Sea level rise is going to have more general impact to the population and the infrastructure than almost anything else that I can think of," said S. Jeffress Williams, a U.S. Geological Survey coastal geologist in Woods Hole, Mass.

Even John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a scientist often quoted by global warming skeptics, said he figures the seas will rise at least 16 inches by the end of the century.

But he tells people to prepare for a rise of about three feet just in case.

Williams says it's "not unreasonable at all" to expect that much in 100 years. "We've had a third of a meter in the last century."

The change will be a gradual process, one that is so slow it will be easy to ignore for a while.

"It's like sticking your finger in a pot of water on a burner and you turn the heat on, Williams said. "You kind of get used to it."

The "Real" War

I recommend that everyone, especially younger people, watch an amazing WW2 documentary that will be on PBS starting on Sunday night. If Ken Burns, who is a terrific director/producer, lives up to his previous documentaries, (The Civil War being among his best), we should have an insiders look into an enormous part of our world history. And a look at a war that really was necessary! It took Ken Burns over 6 years to put this documentary together. He had decided to do it after hearing two things; that over 1,000 WW2 veterans a day were dying and that young people thought we fought with the Germans against Russia!

from PBS: THE WAR, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, which tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four quintessentially American towns.

The series explores the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history — a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America — and demonstrates that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

Throughout the series, the indelible experience of combat is brought vividly to life as veterans describe what it was like to fight and kill and see men die at places like Monte Cassino and Anzio and Omaha Beach; the Hürtgen Forest and the Vosges Mountains and the Ardennes; and on the other side of the world at Guadalcanal and Tarawa and Saipan; Peleliu and the Philippine Sea and Okinawa. In all of the battle scenes, dramatic historical footage and photographs are combined with extraordinarily realistic sound effects to give the film a terrifying, visceral immediacy.

SPECIAL COMMENT

By Keith Olbermann
Anchor,

'Countdown'
MSNBC

Olbermann to Bush: ‘Your hypocrisy is so vast’ A reaction to Thursday’s press conference: the president was the one who interjected Gen. Petraeus into the political dialogue in the first place.

"First off, it’s "Democrat-ic" party.

You keep pretending you’re not a politician, so stop using words your party made up. Show a little respect.

Secondly, you could say this seriously after the advertising/mugging of Senator Max Cleland?

After the swift-boating of John Kerry?

But most importantly, making that the last question? So that there was no chance at a follow-up?

So nobody could point out, as Chris Matthews so incisively did, a week ago tonight, that you were the one who inappropriately interjected General Petraeus into the political dialogue of this nation in the first place!

Deliberately, premeditatedly, and virtually without precedent, you shanghaied a military man as your personal spokesman and now you’re complaining about the outcome, and then running away from the microphone?

Eleven months ago the President’s own party, the Republican National Committee, introduced this very different kind of advertisement, just nineteen days before the mid-term elections.
Bin Laden.

Al-Zawahiri’s rumored quote of six years ago about having bought "suitcase bombs." All set against a ticking clock, and finally a blinding explosion and the dire announcement: "These are the stakes - vote, November 7th."

That one was ok, Mr. Bush?

Terrorizing your own people in hopes of getting them to vote for your own party has never brought as much as a public comment from you?

The Republican Hamstringing of Captain Max Cleland and lying about Lieutenant John Kerry met with your approval?

But a shot at General Petraeus, about whom you conveniently ignore it, was you who reduced him from four-star hero to a political hack, merits this pissy juvenile blast at the Democrats on national television?

Your hypocrisy is so vast that if we could somehow use it to fill the ranks in Iraq you could realize your dream and keep us fighting there until the year 3000.

The line between the military and the civilian government is not to be crossed.

When Douglas MacArthur attempted to make policy for the United States in Korea half a century ago, President Truman moved quickly to fire him, even though Truman knew it meant his own political suicide, and the deification of a General who history suggests had begun to lose his mind.

When George McClellan tried to make policy for the Union in the Civil War, President Lincoln finally fired his chief General, even though he knew McClellan could galvanize political opposition which he did when McClellan ran as Lincoln’s presidential opponent in 1864, nearly defeating our greatest president.

Even when the conduit flowed the other way and Senator Joseph McCarthy tried to smear the Army because it wouldn’t defer the service of one of McCarthy’s staff aides, the entire civilian and Defense Department structures, after four years of fearful servitude, rose up against McCarthy and said "enough" and buried him.

The list is not endless but it is instructive.

Air Force General LeMay—who broke with Kennedy over the Cuban Missile Crisis and was retired.

Army General Edwin Anderson Walker—who started passing out John Birch Society leaflets to his soldiers.

Marine General Smedley Butler—who revealed to Congress the makings of a plot to remove FDR as President and for merely being approached by the plotters, was phased out of the military hierarchy.

These careers were ended because the line between the military and the civilian is not to be crossed!

Mr. Bush, you had no right to order General Petraeus to become your front man.

And he obviously should have refused that order and resigned rather than ruin his military career.

The upshot is and contrary it is, to the MoveOn advertisement he betrayed himself more than he did us.

But there has been in his actions a sort of reflexive courage, some twisted vision of duty at a time of crisis. That the man doesn’t understand that serving officers cannot double as serving political ops, is not so much his fault as it is your good, exploitable, fortune.

But Mr. Bush, you have hidden behind the General’s skirts, and today you have hidden behind the skirts of ‘the planted last question’ at a news conference, to indicate once again that your presidency has been about the tilted playing field, about no rules for your party in terms of character assassination and changing the fabric of our nation, and no right for your opponents or critics to as much as respond.

That is not only un-American but it is dictatorial.

And in pimping General David Petraeus and in the violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political, and to portray your party as the one associated with the military, and your opponents as the ones somehow antithetical to it.

You did it again today and you need to know how history will judge the line you just crossed.

It is a line thankfully only the first of a series that makes the military political, and the political, military.

It is a line which history shows is always the first one crossed when a democratic government in some other country has started down the long, slippery, suicidal slope towards a Military Junta.

Get back behind that line, Mr. Bush, before some of your supporters mistake your dangerous transgression for a call to further politicize our military."