Mary and I
John "just before" chatting with Paul, the Cameron Parish Deputy Sheriff
Leroy and Lorraine being presented the "found" item
Well, I had a three-page post to publish (had spent almost an hour typing it) and before I was going to send it, I went to justify the margins, and it disappeared. I was just a little upset! It highlighted the text and then it was gone.
So I took a bit of a break and enjoyed some of the “pretty day” as they call it down here. 85 degrees again today and it is a PRETTY DAY! So, now I will try and recap everything I wrote before…
Started with Monday of this week, when we were putting the finishing touches on Leroy’s house getting it ready for the home dedication on Thursday. Paul and Barb cleaned up the yard and burned all the cardboard from cabinets, etc. and the leftover building materials,. They had a few hours worth of burning there! And the yard certainly looked better when they were done. John and I stayed late at Leroy’s (later than the usual 3:30 finishing time) and then went over to Myrna’s where the Cameron crew (short-termers) had been helping us by sending two men and three young ladies over to paint the house. We just wanted to see what it looked like. What a sight! I swear our 10 year old granddaughter, Keely, could have done a better job. So, because the cabinets were arriving in the morning, John and I took off our coats and got to work repainting the kitchen ceiling and walls.
We were trying to figure out how to deal with the situation for the next morning, and decided the best thing we could do for our sake and MDS was for John to go in the morning and teach the young girls how to paint properly. There were two older men and 3 young girls there on Monday. So that’s what he did, and helped them finish up himself. Of course, the 3 young girls started painting the way John showed them, and did really well. The younger of the men, the crew foreman, was tall and was doing all the cutting in just walking around the rooms. The older man continued painting exactly as he had done the day before… Isn’t that just the way it goes! It all got painted and it looks quite good anyway.
Verna and I swept up and washed the laminate flooring at Leroy’s on Tuesday morning and then went over to Myrna’s to clean up the floors there after painting.
On Wednesday, John put in the kitchen at Myrna’s and Paul and Lamar were installing receptacles and light fixtures. Verna and I went to Myrna’s and painted the inside window sills before the trim would be put on. When we were done, we saw her neighbour out in her yard planting a tree so went over to talk to her. She told us her story about the storm. I had gone into great detail with the story when I typed this morning, but just don’t feel like doing it again!! It’s in my head to tell if anyone is interested.
Verna wanted to see what our motorhome was like because their friends who are coming from Manitoba on Tuesday are going to be staying in it while they are here. So we were checking it out and while I was checking to see if one of the screen windows was open in the front, and the front door was open, I slipped and fell out the door, scrambling to try to get back my footing, and landing, rolling on the ground about six feet from the motorhome, not quite on the cinder road, thank heaven. What a feeling. Of course Verna was watching, helpless, at the door of the motorhome. I lay there for a while trying to assess any damage to my limbs and she’s telling me, “get up, get up, are you hurt??” The grass was quite wet and she was worried about me getting the knees of my jeans wet and dirty. I said “Just wait until I can see if I’ve broken anything!” I managed to get up slowly and determined I only had scraped elbows and bumps. Knew I’d have my share of bruises, but was very thankful to walk away, with BOTH OF US LAUGHING OUR FOOLS HEADS OFF. Not that it was funny, but it would have been one for Candid Camera. She said it was a graceful fall, but it sure didn’t feel like it.
Mary was home baking some of the 10 dozen cookies which were our responsibility to provide for Leroy and Lorraine’s Home Dedication on Thursday.
Thursday was the “Big Day”. Our first home dedication, which turned out to be a lot more than we bargained for! The Home Dedication itself was wonderful. There were about 40 people there, including the homeowners, relatives and friends, the Deputy Sheriff (who is not the Building Inspector {inside joke}), Karl and Laura Dube, Project Directors for Cameron, and some of their crew (including Naomi, who I found out is Ruth Landis’s sister – we worked with Ruth and Ira in Alabama last year), Dinah, the representative of the local Recovery Committee who was on board from the first, Julie, the co-ordinator of the Americorps workers who helped pour the pillars, the lady from the newspaper and the MDS RV program volunteers. Dinah opened the dedication with words of greeting to everyone and to let us know that this dedication was to turn the structure from a “HOUSE” into a “HOME”. She had a brief responsive dedication ceremony. Karl and Laura presented Leroy and Lorraine with the traditional quilt and wall hanging from MDS, and our unit presented them with a little kitchen hamper from the couples here right now, as well as a lovely GOD BLESS THIS HOME plaque from the MDS Senior RV Program. I also presented them with a little 50th Anniversary Precious Moments cross that had been found in the grass near the house and which must have been lost in the storm. I took home and cleaned it up and the group said I should “present” it to them. So I did. The kleenexes all came out…
We never did get to see the presentation of the keys and Bible because there was an unscheduled interruption. My dear husband passed out on the concrete where the van was parked and the Deputy Sheriff called the ambulance, which carted him (and me in front) off to the hospital in Sulphur, where he stayed over night. Scared the heck out of everybody. I did the long version earlier and want to get this over with, so suffice it to say, they took him in because his blood pressure was excessively low and they wanted to know what was causing it. After many tests including heart monitor, heart tracing, echogram, carotid artery and heart and chest ultrasounds, PLUS a stress test with the treadmill, the cardiologist discharged him with a clean bill of health and no explanation for the incident. The only thing he could say was that John was taking one extra medication that he did not think was warranted to lower his blood pressure. So he told him not to take them any more and gave him a prescription for something he should take only occasionally IF he finds his heart rate increasing from normal on a steady basis.
And there is another interesting story. Because Walgreen’s was the closest pharmacy, we went there for the prescription. Before the prescription was filled, I inquired what it would cost. The pharmacist said $54.00. I know that when John got his muscle relaxant prescription filled last month, we saw a sign at Walmart that said “All generic prescriptions are $4.00”. That prescription was $4.00. So, off we went to Walmart, where the cost of this prescription was $4.00. Isn’t that just unbelievable! No wonder the Walmart pharmacies are terrifically busy! It would be interesting to see if there is any such thing in Canada. I think not.
Anyway, John felt quite bad that he had “rained on their parade”; however, everyone was just happy it was nothing more serious. Our new friends here were just as concerned as the old ones!
He was back at work today… to make up for lost time…
Well, that’s enough for now. Maybe will catch a few rays yet before the sun goes down and them pesky mosquitoes come out.
Bye for now.
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