Things, I think, are finally back to normal.
I am at home. My husband is at home. My dog is at home. We have no large trips looming in the near future. Dave’s started school again. I’m back into the swing of things at both of my jobs. I even found some time to do a little extra stuff today!
And football season is started, which means I’ll be watching TV again.
20 minutes and counting…
Time off is good.
This is the first real time off I’ve had since I started this job in last June (‘06). I’ve been to Hawai’i several times, been to all sorts of eastern states. I’ve taken a day off here and there. We’ve been camping, reunioning, and beaching, but each time I’ve brought work and stress along. This time, however, I’ve not been working. As much, anyway. A few hours here and there – urgent things tend to come up as soon as I say I’ll be away… For the most part, though, this has been a restful experience. Something new for us. =)
One thing I’ve learned in this past year and a quarter – full-time work plus part-time work plus full-time visiting does not equal vacation. Each time I’ve come home from one of these trips, I’ve been that much more exhausted instead of renewed – and relieved to get back into the “grind” because it seemed like a chance to breathe!
Hopefully, we’ll feel refreshed at the end of this trip (we have most of one more day here, and then 12 and a half hours of driving to do)…
I keep thinking things are going to slow down. And then I keep getting kicked in the rear with another round of insanity.
Since last I posted:
Those are the highlights. =)
Hopefully, things will slow down enough that we can enjoy our trip to South Carolina. This summer has been such a quick, stressful blur that I feel like I’ve missed everything.
I stayed home and am working from the dining room table today. David is playing DDR and the floor, the chair I’m sitting in, the table, my computer – all are vibrating in rhythm with the songs David’s jumping around to. =)
In other news, we’ve joined Angie’s List and are busy getting electricians to come give us estimates. We’ve got a long list of things we’d like to have done, but it turns out that electricians are pretty dang expensive. We’ve narrowed the list down to three must-haves, but are still going to get estimates on the rest.
The neat thing about Angie’s List (angieslist.com, if you don’t know about it) is that we can not only review what folks think about various contractors and the work they do (members leave reports on all the work they get done and all the companies they’ve dealt with), but we also get discounts when they do come to do the work. And, turns out, if we mention that we saw them on Angie’s List, they’re really responsive. Quick to do estimates, quick to schedule work. It’s as if they’re teachers who are being observed by their principals – they’re on their best behavior because they know they’re going to be reviewed and critiqued, and that the report will be available for all the city to see.
I feel… powerful. =)
That guy I posted the article about, Michael Haynes (lives in my neighborhood and got shot trying to break up a dog fight), is out of the hospital. We just got this letter through our neighborhood association.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Most of you know about Mr. Michael Haynes, 41, a father of five who lived on Tecumseh and 12th, who was shot trying to rescue a neighbor’s dog being attacked by a pit bull.
Sky Bank has set up a fund for Michael Haynes and his family. I am inviting you to contribute. If anyone deserves community support – it’s Michael Hayes. He did a brave and selfless act, and he even managed to keep it civil.
Donations for the Haynes family are being accepted by Sky Bank, where a special account has been set up. .
Checks should be made out to Michael Haynes Jr. and sent to:
Sky Bank
3824 Madison Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46227Here’s the background:
The neighbor’s dog ran loose a lot, and the Haynes kids were playing with him. The Hayne’s dog was inside his house.
Although Michael Haynes had a job as account manager for Rent-a-Center, he did not have health insurance. His injuries included 2 bullets lodged under his arm, and another through his lung. Hospital costs are unknown at this time, but are expected to be quite expensive. Although he is now out of the hospital, doctors don’t know how long recovery will take or whether he will gain full use of his arm. The family is moving out of their $800/month home and will be staying with in-laws until the wife, Stacy can get a job. She was a stay-at-home mom.
About the incident itself — the whole time Haynes was trying to get the neighbor’s dog away from the pit bull, he was talking to the owner – “come on man, grab your dog”, the owner kept saying “can’t”, “yes you can, just grab his collar and pull”, “can’t”. Up to that point, Haynes had neither touched nor threatened the pit bull. But after getting nowhere and fearing for the dog’s life Haynes raised the rolling pin as if to strike the pit, which is when he was shot. At that point the dog owner yanked on the pit bull and took off. The other dog survived.
The Haynes’ had one more pay check coming after the incident, and that’s all the funds they have on which to live.
I like being part of a group like this.
This happened in our neck of the ghetto:
Man shot while interceding in pit bull attack
Police: Victim was trying to stop dog from hurting other canines when gunman fired.An Eastside man was shot twice Sunday while trying to stop a pit bull attack on two neighborhood dogs, police said, and fell to the sidewalk as his children watched.
Michael Haynes Jr., 41, was in stable condition Sunday evening at Wishard Memorial Hospital after undergoing surgery to treat his chest wounds. Indianapolis metropolitan police continued to search for the shooter and the pit bull.
The children were in the Haynes’ front yard with their small dog, Duchess, when the shooter was walking his dog north in the 1200 block of Tecumseh Street, neighbors and police said. One resident, Tracey Matthews, said the small dog from her next-door neighbor’s home had gotten loose, and both dogs were being threatened by the pit bull.
The pit bull latched onto one of those dogs and wouldn’t let go, police said. Haynes was trying to get that dog away from the pit bull, when a friend came out of the house wielding a rolling pin.
That’s when, neighbors and police said, the dog-walker pulled a handgun from his waistband and said something like, “I told you not to touch my dog,” before opening fire.
“The kids were hysterical,” said neighbor Anita Graeser, a 25-year-old graduate student studying counseling at Christian Theological Seminary.
She took all five children, ranging in age from 2 to 10, into her house after the shooting.
The gunshots woke Graeser from a nap. She said Haynes’ friend might have given the rolling pin to Haynes or tried to use it himself. The aftermath of the shooting was chaotic, she added, as the man with the dog quickly left north on Tecumseh.
Haynes’ wife, Stacy, and a friend were trying to staunch the bleeding until police and paramedics arrived. Graeser watched the kids in the meantime. The youngest, she said, was shouting into his toy phone.
“He kept saying, ‘Police! Come help my daddy!’ “
Graeser described Duchess as a “Paris Hilton kind of dog.” Matthews said the other dog, named Chewy, also is small, but she didn’t know the breed.
Both neighbors said no one they talked to on the block knew the man or recalled having seen his pit bull before.
Last year, a pit bull attack on a toddler prompted the City-County Council to pass an ordinance aimed at increasing penalties on dangerous dogs of any breed.
However, after a series of incidents this year involving pit bulls attacking young children and adults and inflicting serious injuries, Mayor Bart Peterson said this month he had decided to ask his staff to investigate ways to ban pit bulls in the city.
Margie Smith-Simmons, spokeswoman for the mayor, said staffers still are investigating the ordinances of other cities that restrict or ban pit bulls.
“We want to be sure that whatever we put forward benefits the citizens of Indianapolis,” she said. The mayor doesn’t have a deadline, she said, but she expects a proposal will be released by late summer or early fall.
Graeser, meanwhile, hopes she can help the Haynes’ children cope with the trauma. Her studies focus on helping people after devastating incidents, melding psychotherapy and faith-based counseling.
“They are going to need counseling,” she said. While they were in her house, at least one of the children felt responsible — because they didn’t get out of the yard when their father told them to. “They said if their daddy died, it was their fault. I told them they were children, and none of it was their fault.”
… oh *why* can’t this happen in Indianapolis?
US town set to ban saggy trousers
A mayor in the US state of Louisiana says he will sign into law a proposal to make wearing saggy trousers an act of indecent exposure.
Delcambre town council unanimously passed the ordinance earlier this week making it a crime to wear trousers that show underwear.
“If you expose your private parts, you’ll get a fine” of US$500 (Ł254) Mayor Carol Broussard said.
Offenders will also risk up to six months in jail.
Fashionable
Speaking of people who wear saggy trousers, Mr Broussard told the Associated Press news agency: “They’re better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress.”
Town attorney Ted Ayo said the ordinance expands on the existing state indecent exposure law by adding underwear to the list of forbidden exposures.
“This is a new ordinance that deals specifically with sagging pants,” Mr Ayo said. “It’s about showing off your underwear in public.”
Some residents say the ordinance targets blacks, as low-slung trousers are fashionable among hip hop fans.
Mr Broussard denied it was racially motivated.
“White people wear sagging pants, too,” he said.
One of the things that we planned on working on this summer is the deck. It has taken on a greenish-gray tint, and needs a good washing, staining, and sealing.
Also, it is very slippery when it’s wet. This morning, it was raining.
I stepped outside wearing my favorite khakis – and promptly fell. I landed (somehow) on my butt AND my big toe.
The khakis have huge green marks on the shin and backside (which, David reports, came out in the immediate wash!) and my big toe is bigger and bloody. It hurts!
So, we just spent 5 minutes laughing at a richy doctor. (A coworker came in and took us to the window, laughing and saying, “It’s a guilty pleasure.”)
It’s raining - a thunderstorm. There’s a convertible out there. The top’s down. =>
—
I’m feeling pretty great, laughing at this guy aside. I have a window again! I was moved from a private office into what a friend refers to as a “bullpen” and what I thought of secretly as “the pit”. 7 or 8 of us squished into a tiny walkway of a room… No windows (no natural light) and no air circulation, so it was always 85+ degrees in there. Now, I’m in a corner office again, and there are windows here! It’s amazing what natural light and space does for my productivity.
This is neat. I’m listening to an Imogene Heap track that sounds like she:
a) recorded an entire song’s worth of words/syllables on one pitch,
b) mapped those syllables to a synthesizer,
c) played “herself” singing a stack of harmonies for a song, then
d) sang the melody and primary harmony tracks over it.
Ramblings. Musings. A way to keep in touch with my scattered far-and-wide family. Don’t take any of it personally – chances are, my world doesn’t revolve around you. =)
