Thursday, February 15, 2018

If a Tree Falls in a Forest...

...what are the odds that it will hit our car?

100%.




Luckily, no broken glass. In fact, other than some dirt and a few small scuff marks, no real damage to the car at all. However, what we park the car under didn't fare so well.


The park guys came back here with chains saws and got rid of the big stuff. I spent my days off cleaning up the rest.





 We're not sure what we're going to do now. I don't like the idea of our car sitting under old trees without some kind of protection from falling debris, but technically, that ain't part of our lot. The only reason we've been able to use it is because everything was already there when we bought into the park. The new management was rumored to be instituting a park-wide ban on all new free-standing structures, but as is usual, nothing official. There is also a rumor that all the dead-end roads like ours will have turn-around's installed so people don't have to back out. I need to find time to run over to the park next door and talk to the Corporate Head Cheese and get the real 411.

My mom had a second "event" back on Sunday, February 4th. Given our problems with 911 the first time around, I just stuffed her in the car and didn't even bother with it. This time seemed much worse. The aphasia was much worse and was combined with a lot of confusion. She asked me about halfway to the hospital if I was a friend of her son, Ric. She took much longer to come out of it as well. She's home, but still struggling with the aphasia, especially when she is tired or upset. She is also having a lot of trouble with numbers. Again, no word on if any of this is permanent, if these "events" will continue or if there is anything that can be done to prevent them. But I'm sure the hospital is being paid well by the US taxpayers for keeping her in there for several days so twenty different people could come in and ask her what her name is, where she is, her address, phone number, who my dad is, who the president is, etc.

Debbie's mom is now back to where she was a couple weeks after her initial surgery. She was doing well, trying to talk, recognizing people both in person and on the phone, etc. Then her surgery site became infected (MRSA, natch; she is in a hospital) and was transferred back up to Saginaw to take care of that. Everyone was so focused on the infection they "forgot" to pay attention to her lungs. After getting transferred back down to Pontiac, she stopped breathing. Ever since, she has been in a deep sleep and is not really responsive. Debbie will be heading back up in a couple weeks to give her brother and sister-in-law a break from bedside care.

[Update for 02/18/2018: Debbie's mom is awake, seems to recognize people both in person and on the phone.]

I got through a first-draft run of our taxes. We're still getting hit with the $1,000 nigger ta... er... Obamacare tax. At least that goes away next year for a little while. (All of Trump's tax cuts for working stiffs expire the year he leaves his presumptive second term. The tax cuts for his corporate buddies are permanent.) But thanks to the massive medical bills we had to pay last year, we're still getting at least something back. It will likely all go into car repairs; we had planned on replacing the Durango this year, but then we had to give all the money we had saved to the fracking doctors. If we are going to be driving the thing up to Michigan again this summer, I need to get it to the garage and get some major work done on it. That will likely eat our entire tax refund plus a bunch more. Yaaay!!!

2018. The Year of Suck.

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