Barkerburgh

Just call me

This was around 5:00pm yesterday. I had left Peter and Leslie’s and was about ten houses south of their home, when I saw a young woman looking up at a porch just as I heard an elderly female’s voice saying “I need help! There’s two sick people in this house.” She was quite elderly, frail, and as it turned out, and not surprisingly, very hard of hearing. One eye was bloodshot and wider than the other one. Standing out on the porch, she was wearing only a light shirt and thin pants on a chilly damp day.

I asked the expected, usual questions. She eventually told me that her husband was upstairs, sick, and asleep.

I asked her if I could come in and she said yes. The house was clean and smelled fine, although all the lights were off. (She wasn’t wearing glasses, but didn’t seem to have any vision difficulties.)

Not wanting to take any chances, I called 911 on my cell. The operator asked what service I required, I said ambulance (thinking paramedics, but I was nervous as hell) and I was transferred to a very competent, helpful, and reassuring woman.

The house is small, compact, and the only stairs were actually off the kitchen, which is somewhat unusual. It took me a minute to find. I was worried about her husband. Even though I was trying my best to help, I really felt that I was invading her privacy. I felt like I was snooping.

The operator told me that an ambulance had been dispatched and could I stay around to wait and fill them in. I know bastards who would run. (True story.) I’m not a bastard. (True story.)

The operator was asking me questions to ask the elderly lady, and the lady was asking maundering, meandering questions. I was worried about her state-of-mind, her husband, and what state he might be in to have triggered her anxiety.

I got upstairs and found two bedrooms. Both, spartanly furnished, were empty of any husband. I told this to the operator who asked me to double check, so I did. Definitely no sick husband. The elderly lady was concerned and dismayed that there was nobody up there. But there was a kind of unsettling disingenuousness to her reaction, like she was remembering she already knew that, but didn’t want to admit it.

I have more than a little experience with different forms of dementia, ranging from three grandparents whose decay I either witnessed or was victim of, through a dear friend with glioma, and another dear friend’s swift sharp mental decay due to cancer painkillers– he wasn’t there at the end, he just wasn’t. Yet another dear friend is dealing with her own father’s decline. But her mother’s still a spitfire.

We went back downstairs because I wanted to meet the paramedics and explain the situation.

He (one guy with a truck full of really cool shit; sorry) arrived promptly and I gave the situation over to him, because, let’s face it, he knew what he was doing.

He told me it was okay to go. I dithered a moment, feeling somewhat responsible, but basically he was in charge, so I left.

Having got up yesterday morning at 7:30 to go babysitting, I didn’t get to sleep again until well after 5:00am today. Does anyone know if there’s a way to follow up these sorts of things?

There’s another story about me recently helping an elderly person, but I’m still writing it up.

so for Kirk Cameron.

Tell people this: “Pass it on. If you know anyone who admires/believes/respects Sarah Palin, slap them. Then do it.” Then do it. Pass it on.

doesn’t mean freedom from criticism or freedom from mockery, and even if they tell you to shut up, you don’t have to. Grow up.

Much as I wanted to like Terminator:Salvation (and I’m about halfway through), it’s turning into one of those too-many-coincidences-and-too-much-CG movies, like The Day after Tomorrow. Lots of fine actors in the cast (Jane Alexander!) but it has none of the substance and gravitas of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. McG could have learned a lot if he’d watched that instead of Transformers and Star Wars, Eps 1 thru 3

What a relief! There’s a long sad story of five and a half years of bad-neighbourliness on his part, but that’s over; he’s gone.

Snoopy dancin’!!!

I swear those two sit around plotting and planning their positions like it’s a game – a real funny game- laughing at the newsies and journos who take them seriously. Matalin’s a smug mug and Carville’s null expression when she’s talking seems as contrived as Cheney’s earnestness.

Wheeeeeee!!!