Saturday, October 23, 2010

I’m so sorry that I’ve gotten away from this.  I’ve started out writing.  I’ve taken photos to post, and then…

There is so much going on.

Re: my parents, my father is up and about, but not as he wants to be.  He’s becoming forgetful about small things, and I know he gets frustrated by this.  My mother goes from day to day mostly in her own world.  She makes appearances in this one, then retreats to read, nap or do “paperwork” endlessly.  For the most part she’s “with it,” but forgets or, many times, doesn’t hear what someone says.  They have---or, I should say, my father has---asked me to look into condos and apartments near Cleveland for them.  They cannot continue making these Cleveland Clinic trips, which take 3 ½ hours each way.  Tomorrow is their 57th anniversary.

I am trying to pull my life together while they are stable for the moment.  A local daily newspaper just hired me as a part-time reporter, and I cover village council meetings and school board meetings in this part of Belmont County.  I also do two or three features each week, and one it seems went on the wire to Associated Press.  Oddly enough, it was a kind of goofy article on the local pumpkin festival’s pumpkin food fare.  A village councilman’s cousin in Searcy, Arkansas sent him the paper because it was about the councilman’s town.  He passed the paper on to me.  It of course, couldn’t have been some important, in-depth corporate espionage expose, but rather a fluffy festival rundown of pumpkin ice cream and fried dough.  Oh, well---it’s exposure, right? 

The people here are very nice, very welcoming, but I miss the ocean, and I miss my friends.  I don’t really have friends here yet, but I’m sure that will come over time and getting out of the house.  Overall there are worse places to be than the Midwest.  I’d better say that now, because I won’t be saying it in January. 

As mentioned, I’ve taken photos for the blog several times and not posted, so here are a few “fall colors” images from the past month.  I actually have some others ready that I’ll post under a different theme.