Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Love
Sunday, August 19, 2007
My Favorite TV Show is Back - "Meercat Manor"
At last the summer hiatus is over and these fascinating little creatures are back on the air. It is a documentary/reality show/drama/soap opera of the animal world, filmed and narrated by researchers who have studied this group and their neighbors for 10 years. (See post below).
These tiny animals are related to Mongooses. Standing erect they measure 12" tall, the length of a school ruler. A very large male can be 14" tall. On all fours they are 6" high; babies are 3" long. They are very social animals within their gang (or mob) but territorial and anti-social towards other groups. Competition is fierce for food resources in their area of the Kalahari Desert.Although meercats are quadrupedal, they can stand on their hind legs for long periods of time.
All meercats are extremely vigilant in watching for predators; due to their small size they are prey for many larger animals and birds. When foraging, one or more volunteers to be sentry and will climb to the highest point to be found in order to see further. They have a number of language calls and when the alarm call is sounded, all of the gang scurries for cover. Meercats habituated to the human presence of the researchers sometimes climb to a human's head for sentry duty.
Their gangs are perfect examples of "it takes a village". All members cooperate in rearing the pups. Unlike most mammals, adult females who have not borne young or who have no young can lactate and feed the pups when mom is away. Pups are never left alone and when the gang goes out foraging for food, one or more members remain behind (and remain hungry) to babysit the babies. Babysitters will fight to the death to defend the pups from predators or members of rival gangs who will kill the babies. Destroying the young of an "enemy" prevents that gang from increasing and reduces the fight for food resources.
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Video tribute to Shakespeare, a brave meercat babysitting when a rival gang attacked.
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Video Description
Shakspeare the meerkat is a hero and deserves to be remembered. This is a little video I made with little Shakspeare and his fight for life!
Personal Message
Tribute to Shakespeare
***Because it takes the entire gang's cooperative efforts to insure survival of the pups, the gang's dominant female usually will not tolerate another female bearing young to divide the gang's loyalties and efforts . To assure her own pups' survival, the dominant female will usually kill any other pups born in the burrow. Often the dominant female will exile any other female of the gang that gets pregnant. A lone meercat has little chance of survival away from the protection of her gang family. If she manages to survive until she gives birth, without the cooperation of a gang her pups will not live. This seems harsh to humans but it is nature's way of assuring survival of the species. Sometimes an exiled female will pair up with a roving male and establish a new gang. (Males temporarily leave their home gang to go roving in search of romance but most of the time return home when mating is completed.)
These tiny creatures are strongly bonded to each other and display a great deal of intelligence. They are one of few mammals who actively teach skills to the young; pups are not born with innate survival skills.
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Video Description
A clip from Animal Planet's series, "Meerkat Manor".
Personal Message
Opening for TV Show, "Meercat Manor"
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share a video with you
Video Description
Meerkats and Babies (Turn off annoying music).
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Video Description
sleepy meercats
(MY FAVORITE! WA)
>>>>>
Share a Video:
Video Description
Meerkat Manor airs at 8pm E/P on Animal Planet
Personal Message
Meercat Manor - promo 2nd season!
*****
Tribute to Flower (4 minutes)
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Video Description
A tribute to Flower and what her mate, Zaphod, might be singing to her.
This is a bit of a spoiler but maybe it better you know...
If you are wondering, Flower, Dominant female of the Whiskers mob, was bitten by a snake while they were filming season 3 and unlike her son shakespeare, did not recover. She was 7 years old when she passed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2000-2007~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~R.I.P. Flower~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~Queen of the Kalahari~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~We love and miss you T.T~~~~~~~~~~~
Pics & Clips from Meerkat Manor and Music from Alan Jackson, Remember when.
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COMMENTS:
nvisiblewmn said...
I've seen it a couple of times. It really was fascinating. The Jedi wouldn't watch it with me. It didn't hold their interest for some reason. They'd watch for a few minutes, and then wander off....Sad about Flower.We don't have cable any more, so I never see it.
9/22/2007 6:59 AM
Labels: Meercat Manor - my favorite TV Show
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Tropical Depression Erin and the Usual Flooding
It rained 4" to 7" in my area and the Sims Bayou was running full. No news yet of homes downstream being flooded, as usually happens.
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| Houston & Texas News |
Aug. 17, 2007, 12:10AM
Second man dies in Clear Lake store roof collapse
Floods left thousands stranded across the area
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Rain pinged on the roof like falling nails and thunder exploded in a sky that had become almost dark as night. Customers at a Clear Lake strip shopping center Thursday darted for their cars or hunkered beneath overhangs, marveling that a storm that supposedly was losing its punch could be so fierce.
Then, without warning, the roof of a supermarket's loading dock/storage area collapsed, crushing one worker to death. A second man died later at Ben Taub General Hospital.
The Clear Lake deaths were two of at least three reported in the region Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin — downgraded to a tropical depression shortly after coming ashore 25 miles northeast of Corpus Christi — pummeled the Greater Houston area. The deluge left thousands stranded on flooded freeways and side streets.
The driver of an 18-wheeler apparently drowned late Thursday afternoon after he accidentally drove his rig into a flooded retention pond near the intersection of state highways 225 and 146 in the LaPorte area, a Harris County sheriff's spokesman said. The driver, in his late 50s, was not identified.
As Erin's remnants shifted to the west, forecasters predicted more rain in Houston today — as much as 6 inches in some areas.
The identity of the Coca-Cola worker killed at the Randalls store at 2323 Clear Lake City Boulevard was withheld. The Harris County Hospital District identified Randalls employee Daniel Whitt as the second fatality in the collapse. Whitt, 26, was pronounced dead at 8:01 p.m. in the surgical ICU unit at Ben Taub , his wife and pastor by his side, said Shannon Rasp, a hospital district spokeswoman.
District Fire Chief Tom Frankum said the roof collapsed about 11:30 a.m. Firefighters could see the injured man, who, though initially conscious, passed out as he was pulled from the tangle of roof trusses, sheet metal and asphalt shingles at 12:43 p.m.
Cars washed onto tracks
In Houston, the storm flooded city streets, disrupting light rail and bus service for hours. Near Reliant Park, what was described as a flash flood washed vehicles onto nearby train tracks. In Rice Village, adventurous teens rode the tumultuous water in the streets on inflated inner tubes.Reports of residential flooding, however, were sparse.
National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Mooreland said south and southeast Houston received the worst soaking. Almost 9 inches were recorded at Hunting Bayou and Lockwood. "The area extending south toward *Hobby Airport and west toward the Medical Center saw 4 to 7 inches, as did Clear Lake, Pasadena and South Houston," he said.
[* my area]
The National Hurricane Center predicts the center of the storm will reach West Texas by 7 a.m. today and the New Mexico border by dusk. Mooreland said thundershowers, some severe, may linger in the Houston area through Saturday.
Storm moves west
As Erin drifted to the west, weather worriers turned their eyes far to the east, where Hurricane Dean stalked the West Indies with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph.Meteorologists placed the storm on a westerly course, traveling about 23 mph toward Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica and St. Lucia. All the islands are under a hurricane warning, meaning they could be affected late today.
Erin's impact on the Greater Houston area largely was limited to intense rainfall and moderate flooding.
Several inches of water filled dozens of units in the Crestmont Village West Apartments at 5638 Selinsky in the Sunnyside neighborhood. And in east Houston, water infiltrated school buildings at Patterson Elementary, Bellfort Academy and DeZavala Elementary.
The downpour was also blamed for a roof collapse at a warehouse behind the old Maxwell House coffee plant on Harrisburg. No injuries were reported.
About 3:30 p.m., a homeless woman — identified only as "Jay" — was rescued from a ledge of the Smith Street bridge spanning Buffalo Bayou. Water churned just about a foot from her perch as a Fire Department crew reached the scene in an inflatable boat.
"The rain just got to be too much," the woman said, noting that she and a companion had chosen the ledge as a safe spot to spend the night.
Power outages
At the storm's peak, as many as 20,000 CenterPoint Energy customers were without power, officials said. That number was down to 7,000 by nightfall and crews continued to work through the night restoring power.Late in the day, the Greater Houston Area American Red Cross opened a shelter at 720 Fairmont Parkway in Pasadena.
Joshua Hern said he was driving near Reliant Park about noon when a wave of water boosted his truck onto nearby train tracks. TranStar reported high water at numerous highway sites, including Texas 288 near Loop 610, where knee-deep water covered the roadway; Beltway 8 between U.S. 59 and Loop 610 East; and Beltway 8 south of Texas 225.
By late Thursday morning, 4 to 5 inches of water covered Metro light rail tracks, effectively disrupting service on the line's southern end for hours. High water on city streets Thursday afternoon caused delays on at least 17 Metro bus routes.
Bayous and tributaries in the county were within their banks by noon, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Flood Control District said.
Near the Galleria, pedestrians bemoaned their watery fate.
"The water is moving as fast as I can walk," said Paul Kittell, who sought refuge in a restaurant. "I am watching the water rise as I am eating. It's like a tide."
Californian-turned-Houstonian Sandra Major groaned, "It is terrible. I am not used to this type of rain. I'm used to a sprinkle. Now, we're going floating."
Medical Center OK
The Texas Medical Center, site of devastating flooding during Tropical Storm Allison in June 2001, locked down hospital garage floodgates just before noon when water in the nearby Harris Gully culvert reached 10 feet in depth. [ During the Medical Center flooding in 2001, a woman drowned in an elevator going down to the garage].Harry Holmes, Medical Center senior vice president, reported localized street flooding on Holcombe, Almeda and Fannin, but said the high water posed no significant obstacle to reaching hospitals.
At the nearby Houston Zoo, workers were surprised to find poncho-covered animal lovers traipsing across the sodden grounds during a driving rain. About 150 visitors showed up, said spokesman Brian Hill. A normal summer day would draw about 3,000 visitors.
This story was written by Chronicle reporter Allan Turner. Chronicle reporters Mike Glenn, Eric Berger, Kevin Moran and Salatheia Bryant; Chronicle photographer Nick de la Torre; and the San Antonio Express-News contributed.
Labels: Tropical Depression Erin - usual Big H flooding
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Cats
The master bath was converted to an ICU ward to keep Buffy safely confined and available for dosing of the antibiotics. She had never before been in a house, far less confined, nor had she ever been forced to take medications. She was very vocal in expressing her acute displeasure and disapproval and yowled constantly. The humans in the house spent the 3 days also acutely unhappy about the unrelenting noise. Sleeping was difficult.
Early Monday morning Buffy was once again stuffed into the carrier, which by then she hated passionately, and returned to the vet's where she endured horrors (in her mind). The next day she was yet again stuffed into the carrier and yowled her way home. To add insult to injury she had a huge funnel shaped collar affixed around her neck to prevent her from chewing at her sutures. Confined to the bathroom/ICU ward, she made the house echo with her desperate, outraged yowls and meows.
I had appointments every day that week which necessitated making the 100 mile round trip to Jo's each day - dash to Houston for my appointments, dash back to Jo's to medicate and care for the cat. I conceived a brilliant idea. Bring Buffy home with me; she would have the freedom of the entire apartment instead of being confined to a bathroom, and I would no longer have to make that long drive. See how that turned out in 2nd post below, "Oh, Poor Me..."
Buffy and I were not friends. I was the evil one, the Wicked Witch of the West who repeatedly forced her into the hated cat carrier, took her on long, miserable drives, dumped her off at a torture chamber of horrors and crammed medicine down her throat. The last straw was making her spend several hours in the carrier with another cat. Even though Sheba had spent a week at Jo's and had become socialized with the 5 indoor cats, she and Buffy were strangers due to Buffy's confinement. Several hours pent together in the carrier on that final trip to Houston failed to endear them to each other.
Once at my apartment and released from the carrier, Buffy bolted. It amazed me that she was so ingenious at finding inaccessible (to me) hidey holes in an apartment as small as mine. Every day at medicine time it was a frustrating game of Hide and Seek. She yowled and meowed ceaselessly, but when I moved she would grow quiet, like a little feral animal when the predator is near. Finally capturing her and giving her the medicine was a three ring circus, then she would bolt again. Finally she began creeping out to stare at me and yowl as long as I was immobile. She played payback by crapping on my loveseat one night as I slept.
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My memory of Buffy (photo from internet). I cannot recall seeing her with her mouth closed or not yowling or meowing.
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Crapping on my loveseat was NOT funny at the time but did have an amusing result. I always sit in the rocker but when the nurses, inspectors, agency supervisors, etc. come, I offer them a seat on the loveseat and they use the coffee table as a desk to fill out their countless forms. A medical evaluator came, a skinny little black man with a foreign accent, he adamantly refused my offer of the loveseat and insisted he could stand at the bar and use it as a desk. Shortly after he left, Jeannie came but when she started to sit down, leaped back and cried out, "Mother! There is cat doo on the couch!" I was horrified and mortified, remembering the evaluator's refusal to sit on the loveseat. Poor man! No wonder! But later Jeannie and I got the giggles over it.
Sheba has shown little reaction to the invasion of her territory by this annoying, yowling creature. She usually just sits like a sphinx staring with her round, yellow-green eyes but with claws partly unsheathed as if in warning, "Don't mess with me." A time or two she has hissed at Buffy but has made no overtly aggressive moves on her.
If the weather and flooded streets permits, I will take Buffy back to the vet to have her stitches removed and if he okays it, return her to the farmette with my blessings and a joyful farewell. I will buy Sheba a small tin of Gourmet cat food and a new toy mouse, a bottle of Perrier for myself and we shall celebrate the peace and quiet. (Please, please let the rain stop and the streets clear!)
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A perfect picture of Sheba watching Buffy (from the internet). It looks exactly like her!
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Labels: Buffy
Hotter Than the Hinges.....
Houston's hot: Temp climbs to 102
City declares emergency as mercury climbs, keeping most people indoors
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
THE 100 CLUB
A short history of the hottest days:
• 2007: Sunday was the hottest day in Houston in four years, since the temperature hit 104 degrees on Aug. 7, 2003.
• 2006: Only one day reached 100: June 13.
• 2005: Six days broke 100: July 1, 2, 6 and Sept. 21, 22, 27.
• 2000: July and August had 15 days above 100, with Aug. 31 reaching 107.
Source: National Weather Service Houston Intercontinental Airport Climate Data
How do you describe Houston's hottest day in four years?
"Murderous," "bloody hot," "fiery" and "worse than Dallas" were how some portrayed Sunday's sweltering heat, which reached 102 degrees at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The combined humidity and temperature created a feels-like heat index of 112 and led the city to declare a heat emergency, the first this year. Many stayed indoors, leaving pools and parks eerily empty during the hottest part of the day.
Houstonians face dangerous heat again today, with temperatures expected to break the 100-degree mark and no relief in sight until Wednesday, forecasters said.
It may be Wednesday before a heat advisory is rescinded, Wong said.
"We have a weak tropical wave headed our way and that should help increase cloud cover and moisture levels and rain chances as well," Wong said.
Yesterday's high of 102 degrees tied the record for Aug 12 in Houston, Wong said.
The record temperature for today's date in Houston is 106 degrees.
"I don't think we'll reach that," Wong said. "I think we'll maybe get to 104."
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[104 degrees? Oh Joy to the world! I'm staying indoors!]
Labels: Houston Heat Wave
Monday, August 13, 2007
Oh, Poor Me - But I am Lucky!
| Sat. Aug.11, 2007: I was whining about all my ill fortune and feeling quite abused. It was a Murphy's Law day for me and I still had to make that 50 mile trip to Jo's to care for Buffy, her cat recovering from surgery. If I returned home instead of remaining in Dayton, it would be a 100 mile round trip. Lloyd had refilled the van's AC with freon but the battery was acting up, not recharging well so I would not run the AC. Even so, the van was starting suggishly. I was not a happy camper about making that drive in this hellish heat without AC, and the windows were contrary about rolling down. I stopped at a gas station for more gasoline - MORE gasoline AGAIN - hobbled inside to pay and get a bottle of ice water. Back at the pumps, the machine wouldn't pump. Sweating profusely in the heat, I hobbled back inside to remind the new clerk to turn the pump on. Hobbled back to the pumps, got my gasoline and got back in the van determined to turn the AC on and cool off and devil take the battery. He already had. The van went rurr....rurr-r........rurr-r-r...clickclickclick, then silence. The battery's death rattle. The station/quick mart was packed with people buying cases of beer and filling up with gas in preparation for a good time Saturday night. The waiting lines of people were not pleased to have one of the 4 pumps blocked. I felt very unnecessary as I sat in the oven-like interior of the van, sweltering in the searing heat and enduring the angry glares of other customers. I had not subscribed to road service since the Suburu died; Terry was still in New York and I could not connect with Bubba's cheap cell phone . Drowning in sweat and self pity , faint from the heat, I coud do nothing but persevere until I finally reached Bubba. He was at Cheri's working on her car but promised to come right away to rescue the perishing. I spent the next hour and a half alternately baking in the van but sitting down or standing in the shade of the building to catch a slight breeze but enduring the aches and pains of long standing. I bemoaned my ill fortune and debated with myself on which position was the most miserable. Poor me. Poor, poor me! Salvation came when Bubba arrived, found the battery needed water and got the van running. Since the battery needed to recharge, I still could not run the AC. I continued my trip sweating and mentally grumbling. I was supposed to stop at Sharon's and pick up a check that I sorely needed for gas but could not remember which house was hers. My calls to her Nextel were repeatedly aborted. Fie on the flipping check! Got to Jo's house and found it in a terrible mess from Bubba's dog and two puppies. To hell with it. I loaded Buffy in the cat carrier and since I had left Sheba there the previous week I stayed out there, I had no choice but to put her in the same carrier. That did not turn out well. Sheba responded by attaching all four sets of claws to the opening, hissing and growling alarmingly. She made it obvious that she did not care for the carrier nor did she intend to share it. Buffy just yowled piteously. They hushed briefly when I stumbled going down the steps and the carrier rolled over several times and alit with a thump at the bottom. They greeted this little adventure with silence until the carrier was placed in the van. However, that was the last of the silence for the next 50 miles. Buffy yowled incessently and Sheba punctuated Buffy's seranade with an occasional scream of rage. Their caterwauling did not improve my mood; I was too hot, sweaty, tired, frustrated and aggravated to have much pity for them. Their non-stop yowling and screaming directly affected the pressure of my foot on the accelerator and increased my anxiety to get home faster, faster. I scratched rubber coming off Old US #90 onto the Beltway; careened around the curving ramp to Interstate #10. Passing the Uvalde Rd. exit, I breathed a sigh of relief. Less than 20 miles to go. Batting along at a good 80 mph, I topped an overpass and screeched to a wildly swerving halt. The sparse, free flowing traffic had morphed into a sea of red tail lights as far as I could see. All 5 lanes were a solid bank of red and I was trapped in the center lane. A glance at the feeder road showed that it was futile to attempt to work my way across and exit. It too was jammed with traffic. Traffic inched along, stop and start. It was obvious there was a bad blockage ahead but there is always the hope that traffic will ooze around it and the flow will open up. Then the huge highway announcement sign loomed into view stating that the freeway was closed off due to a severe accident at McCarty. Idiots! Where? McCarty crosses #I-10 and also exits at the #610 Loop that is often referred to as a freeway. If it was at #I-10 and McCarty I could take the #610 Loop exit and be home free (the center lane leads to the exit). If it was at #610 and McCarty, I could stay on #I-10, go downtown and take #I-45 home. If I could manage to work across the lanes of traffic, exit, bust a U-ey back to Federal Road, go through the tunnel under the Ship Channel and through Pasadena, I'd come out near home. These frantic considerations of options were thwarted by the realization that I was by that time completely hemmed in by gigantic tractor trailer trucks. Interstate #10 is a major artery across country all the way to California, bears countless trucks heading to points west, including servicing Houston's insatiable appetite for merchandise, produce and goods. I had no choice but to go where my companion behemoths went. I felt like a Chihuauah surrounded by Great Danes. During the several miles of inch and go traffic, the cats showed no mercy. I did not feel merciful myself but rather than open the door and fling them out, I elected to turn on the AC and damn the battery. If I felt as if I was melting, I thought that the cats, clad in fur coats and penned together inside the little carrier, must have found the heat completely unbearable. I turned on the AC! Did they show their appreciation by growing silent? No way. After what seemed like hours of inch and stop, stop and inch, we came to where the #610 exit Ys off from #I-10 and found 4 police cars parked across #I-10 , completely blocking it. One even parked across the V to prevent a motorist from cutting across the exit back to #I-10. All traffic was routed to #610, willy-nilly. Ahead down #I-10 I could see a forest of flashing red, blue and white lights. That many emergency vehicles and a major artery into the city blocked off proved that the accident was a REALLY bad one. Someone was dead or severely injured. My heart went out to whomever was involved and I felt very ashamed of myself for my bitching, bad mood and self pity. So I'd had a Murphy's Law day. So I was hot and tired. So the cats got on my last nerve. BIG DEAL! I drove the rest of the way home at a sedate pace, rather cowed. Arrived safely, released the yowling, screaming cats and thanked God I was so lucky. The next day I found out just how lucky I was. Something like that could have happened to me or my loved ones. Quitcherbitchin' Old Woman. |
Family's night out ends in a tragic I-10 wreck
Couple, child killed when car struck by drunken driver, police say
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Brandon Brown was driving on I-10 early Sunday when he saw the wreckage that had been snarling traffic for several hours.
"I saw them towing off the van and I saw the other car, but I didn't know what kind of car it was," Brown said. "I gave it no second thought."
Only later would he learn the car was his sister's, and that she, her new husband and her 2-year-old son had died in the flaming wreckage. They were victims, police say, of a drunken driver whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit.
Brown had driven by the fiery site Saturday night, shortly after it occurred about 8:30.
"They had the freeway blocked off. I went all around the accident," said Brown, still stunned after learning what happened.
Family members said Tenisha Williams, 26; her husband, S.J. Williams; and her son, Xavier Brown, 2, were returning from a movie when their Toyota Corolla was rear-ended by a speeding Dodge van in the 8700 block of the East Freeway.
"When (the other driver) hit the car, it hit the gas tank," said Felinda Williams, Tenisha's mother. "She spun out of control. When it was spinning, it burst into flames."
Police said the driver of the van, Juan Felix Salinas, 42, was treated for minor injuries at Memorial Hermann Hospital, where his blood-alcohol level tested at three times the .08 legal limit for intoxication in Texas.
Salinas, who was out on $1,500 bond for a previous charge of assaulting a family member, is facing three counts of intoxication manslaughter, police said.
Witnesses told police Salinas was speeding and rapidly changing lanes just before his van rear-ended the Toyota."The guy in the van came around me going fast — I was going like 60 or 70 and he went past me like I was crawling. I told my wife 'Watch that car — he's going to hit that car.' And he did," said Daniel Garcia, who was driving with his wife and three boys.
Garcia, 39, said he pulled onto the shoulder and tried to help Tenisha Williams out of the fiery car."She kept saying 'Help me' and I would say, 'Ma'm I'm trying to,' " Garcia said.
He sent his son to collect fire extinguishers from trucks that had pulled over and, along with seven others, tried to extract her by prying doors open and breaking windows.
"The fire was just too hot," Garcia said. [ She was burned alive.]
He said he also spoke with Salinas.
"He tried to tell me that she had pulled out in front of him. I said 'You're lying, I saw it all,'" Garcia said. "He was buzzed, his speech was slurred."
Tenisha and S.J. Williams had been married for just over a month, and "she was loving it," her mother said."They were in their own little world," Felinda Williams said, calling her new son-in-law "a quiet guy with a smile all the time."On her MySpace Web site, Tenisha Williams wrote that she was "in love with life and life is also in love with me."Of her new husband, she wrote, "I never knew I could love someone so hard."
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Damn drunk drivers!
Labels: I have no right to gripe.
Friday, August 10, 2007
No Roasted Old People - 7/31/07
Houston Firefighter
The old people here where I live are usually very bored and their chief entertainment is gossiping about fellow residents, talking about old times and past adventures, complaining about their ills, and occasionally criticizing the government. Now and then someone will be suspected of or caught engaging in romance and that is a source of major gossip and salacious entertainment for awhile. (Oh yes, children, even old folks still do the deed sometimes).
It will inspire old men to invent tales of women in the complex pursuing them with lust on their minds. I am amused that every tale is alike - the women come to their apartment, strip naked, lie down on their beds and beg the men to make love to them. I wonder that they cannot be more creative in their verbalized fantasies of still being virile and desirable. And some of them are ( although I doubt their fantasies are true) as there are true tales of Lust in the Dust now and then. One of my 80+ year old friends here carried on a torrid romance with her "boy toy", a younger man of only 73 years. Scandal and jealous, spiteful gossip raged for a long time and she is still viewed with suspicion by the other women and great admiration by the old men.
A scandal that gloriously entertained the residents was when an enterprising elderly entrepreneur was discovered having a troupe of 5 or 6 ladies of the evening come to his apartment every month when Social Security checks arrived and hiring the ladies out to male residents. Tongues wagged for weeks after that and there were a number of disconsolate old men when Management put a stop to his business.
But the dog days of summer offered no excitement until we had a fire in the building and a veritable army of emergency vehicles descended upon our premises. We have had few fires in the 9 years+ I've been here and usually nothing more than someone burned the beans, panicked and pulled the alarm. One semi-serious event when Brandon, pilled and alcoholed up, passed out while smoking and set his couch on fire. He escaped without injury but the fire was fatal to the couch. Near the same time a female resident went to sleep in bed while smoking, was seriously burned and later died of her burns. These two fires kept the tongues wagging with excitement and a spate of anti-smoking rhetoric. Upper management even sent two reps here to discuss banning smoking in our apartments until my friend asked them, "People set fires burning their food. Will you ban cooking also?" But those events were months in the past and the elders were bored, bored, bored. The new alarm brought fresh excitement, food for gossip and wild tales of residents being carted away on gurneys horribly burned, all untrue. It was deliciously terrifying while they all were safe.
I was going downstairs to keep an appointment with my psychologist when the blasted alarm went off to evacuate the building. Ofcourse the elevator immediately stopped and opened its doors at the next floor. Occupants were met by the manager and assistant manager almost hysterically urging us to "Get out! Get out! Go to the exits. " We dutifully complied but not without grumbling. Trooping down 5 flights of stairs was not a happy thought. On the way to the stairs I met some Hispanic women chattering excitedly in Spanish and bearing an enormous pet carrier. I denied knowing Spanish and motioned for them to follow me to the stairs. For 10 half flights I endured the woman behind me banging me in the back with her pet carrier, nearly throwing me of balance as I struggled with my cane and folded pushcart.
Once outside I found that the circle and driveway was bumper to bumper with firetrucks and one was parked directly behind my van. No escape. There are only 3 benches outside for seating. Management brought out a few chairs from the community room but not enough to seat nearly 200 residents. I retreated to the shade of a tree to swelter in the 90+ degree heat.
We have had about a kazillion false fire alarms so our local fire department usually sends only one or two firetrucks and an ambulance when our alarm sounds. The City has warned management that they will begin fining them for each false alarm but they continue. I could not find what it costs the City of Houston to send out a unit but the Dallas/Fort Worth dept stated it cost $10,000 per unit. If it costs Houston that much, the taxpayers took a hellacious hit this time.
Facing the prospect of roasted old folks, more and more emergency vehicles screamed down the street.
The firemen didn't look as cheerful as these, as they labored in the heat wearing all that heavy clothing and bearing all their gear.
There were two of these truck types and the old people watched them avidly. It would have been better than a three ring circus if one of them had been required to bring down a non-ambulatory resident from an upper floor. And yes, my dears, management allows residents who are wheelchair bound, unable to walk, to reside on upper floors! Those of us who can evacuate down the stairs are instructed to inform the firemen of any such handicapped residents so that they may be evacuated by the firemen. Good plan, right?
Since the fire made a great deal of smoke but was relatively small, the majority of the fire personnel were not needed. The excess firefighters, drivers, bosses, and Paramedics ganged up for an Old Home Week gabfest with their companions from other stations. Gradually they returned to their respective vehicles and departed one by one, until only the trucks and firefighters actively engaged in the work remained - and a huge crowd of hot, tired, sweating old people beginning to grouse and complain. It wasn't fun anymore, the excitement of all the vehicles was over, and they wanted back inside to cool off and have their long delayed lunches.
However, firefighters will not leave a scene until there is not one spark left, not one wisp of smoke and they are positive that all danger is past. We waited and waited and waited.
I called my doctor on my cell phone and cancelled my visit. As soon as we were allowed to return to the building, I dashed upstairs (via elevator, thank God) , stripped off my sweat soaked clothes, got a bottle of ice water and sat in my rocker under the AC. As soon as I had recovered a bit, I collapsed on my water bed and went to sleep, completely exhausted from standing in the heat so long.
But I am not complaining. I treasure our firefighters and appreciate their work and am glad that they respond so concientiously to dangers to us old people. They are my heroes. They serve the public well and all too often at the cost of their lives. Sometimes, many lives.
My Hero(es)
My SUPER Heroes
Labels: Fire at the Old Peoples' Apartment
