Home » Diary Home » Week of 25 January 2010

Photograph of Barbara Fritchman Thompson
Email Me
Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 25 January 2010

Latest Update: Sunday, 31 January 2010 2:40 p.m.


Monday, 25 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

Over the weekend we watched Julie and Julia. What a great movie. I love anything with Meryl Streep but gosh, did she play Julia Child to perfection. I am now reading another Deborah Knott, Slow Dollar, about the murder of a carnival worker.

Really busy at work today then off to the Y tonight. Overnight last night, we had 3 1/2 inches of rain causing some major flooding in some areas of our county and surrounding ones.  The temperature yesterday afternoon was 42, last night when we walked Malcolm it was 59.  A cold front is coming back through tonight bringing temperatures back down into the 30's. The wind was blowing so hard it was all I could do to get the door open leaving the building. When I finally got it open the wind blew my had halfway back down the hallway of the foyer. 

This is the last post until at least Saturday. My dad's only living brother died this past Saturday. My aunt decided to wait until this Friday to hold the funeral. The folks and I will leave Wednesday to drive up to Allentown, PA. We'll have Thursday to do some things in my dad's hometown, then head back home on Saturday.


[Top]


Tuesday, 26 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]





[Top]


Wednesday, 27 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]





[Top]


Thursday, 28 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]






[Top]


Friday 29 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]






[Top]


Saturday, 30 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]


I am back. What an adventure. The drive up on Wednesday was great. We took our time making break and lunch stops leaving here at 8:45, arriving at our hotel just outside Allentown at 6:30.

Thursday we drove over to our favorite steak sandwich place that has been in business in the early 1930. From there we drove into Allentown to locate where the funeral home was and then over to the Farmers Market at the Fair Grounds. That too, has been there forever expanding into two long buildings with meat, pastry, bread, etc. booths on both sides much like the Amish Market we go to in Annapolis but larger. We look before buying ring bologna, smoke sausage, and Lebanon bologna to bring back home. The ring bologna and smoked sausage cannot be bought anywhere like what I am used to eating from the PA Dutch area. That done, we drove out to my uncle's house where one of my cousins was house sitting for my aunt who had an appointment in case anyone called needing information about the funeral.. We caught up with him and his family, children and grandchildren. He left when my aunt came home, we stayed a visited for awhile then left to meet two of my other cousins for dinner. Their mother is in a nursing home about 20 minutes from where we were staying. Her brother was in town for the funeral from Phoenix. She took us out see dad's only living sister for a nice visit. Only two of the 7 kids left now.

When we left for Allentown there was no forecast of any bad weather in the PA area and maybe snow showers down here for Friday. Our first surprise was getting up Thursday morning to see show flying. Fortunately it did not stick on the roads and was pretty much melted and gone by the time we were ready to leave the hotel.

During the day I talked to both Frances and Bob plus watching the weather channel to discover a huge snow/ice/sleet storm forming in the mid-west heading for here by Friday. Instead of staying over yesterday afternoon after the funeral we decided to take off and try to get home ahead of the storm. My uncle had a military funeral with help from the local Purple Heart Chapter. He won a purple heart, a silver star, and 9 battle stars having served in the WWII under General Patton. The service started at 1:30. By the time we made the long drive from downtown Allentown out to the nearby township of Macungie where he was buried it was 3:30. Then on to the firehouse for a late lunch. We left at 4:45 making great time taking on one quick stop about 9:45. Updates from here told us things would be worse today so we made the decision to try to get home rather than get stranded in a motel somewhere for days. Actually, once we hit the snow we were only 2 hours from home normal driving time and past any major towns to find a place. The roads were snowy but drivable, I was taking my time in dad's car which is a Toyota Corolla with front wheel.

We were about two miles from the highway exit to my parents house when the back end skidded out from under me. I turned into the slid but the car kept on sliding sideways. We came to rest up against two of those big steel beams holds a bridge ahead sign. No one was hurt but the left front wheel was bent. We call the cops then I called Bob. He unloaded his white Trooper and came out to pick us up. As we were transferring all the stuff from the car to ours the wrecker showed up in a hurry to pull us out to make other calls. We got them home around 3:30, unloaded their stuff, and then Bob followed me home driving my Trooper back. By then we had 4 good inches on the ground. I'm not sure we could have got all the way to the house in dad's little car. I was upset about wrecking his car, making it almost all the way home, etc., etc. But!

We got home and in bed around 5. I woke up at 7, unable to sleep. I got up and snoozed on the couch awhile then took another nap this afternoon. We have about 8 inches here. I shoveled the walkway this afternoon. Most of the snow is finished falling. The road crews will get started scrapping to get things ready for Monday work day.





[Top]


Sunday, 31 January 2010

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]


We had somewhere around 8 inches of snow in all. It stopped yesterday afternoon then started flurrying again around 5. I took some pictures if Bob has time to post them on my page tomorrow. Temperatures today at to make it up into the mid thirties. What snow melts today will freeze back tonight.

I am now reading another Ali Reynolds mystery by J.A. Jance, Web of Evil. This is one of her four series I had not read until I picked up the first book awhile back. I took the second book in the series to PA with me and started reading it up there. There are only five in the series right now with the most recent coming out in 2009. I had bought the first two for Bob to read but the library has the others.

The usual house cleaning chores today with Bob doing the laundry. Around midday we lost our phone service and my PC started acting up. I could not get mail nor connect to the internet. Bob eventually got the phone service working then worked on my PC. He vacuumed it out, put in a new fan, and reconnected all the cables real good. When he first checked to see what the problem was the Ethernet cable was loose. The cooling fan had also started making a horrible racket yesterday afternoon.


[Top]


Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 by Barbara Fritchman Thompson. All Rights Reserved.