Sandy's Here!

Robert called me to the living room to see the "tree branch in our front yard." What an understatement!

And, actually, the branch is mostly in the street and our neighbor's yard.

That's one of the smaller trees in the neighborhood. It used to live in front of our house, where we usually park one of the cars. It was a problem tree, so to speak, because it had undermined the sidewalk causing a major tripping hazard. The trees and sidewalks are considered town property and we asked to have the situation corrected even before we took ownership of the house. The town's response was to make a cement ramp to cover the uneven sidewalk surfaces. Mother Nature had the final say on the matter about 30 minutes ago.

What's scary is that we haven't entered the most damaging phase of the hurricane yet.

Sandy Is Coming

Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on New York. The phone has been ringing every couple of hours with automated messages from the power authority, our jobs and the local government announcing evacuations. The neighborhoods just to the north and west of us are under evacuation orders. Living near the water can be a major pain.

Here are two pictures from last weekend. The kids decided to dress up. Hopefully the storm will not prove to be a major disruption of Halloween since the kids have been waiting for it all month.

What's Your Emergency?

October is fire prevention month. The kids have been learning about safety and what to do in an emergency. That's a good thing.

While eating dinner tonight, Sammy put her new skills to work, by picking up the phone and dialing "nine-one-one" as she ate. Bob grabbed the phone out of her hand, half hoping that she didn't actually dial, and hit the "end" button.

About 50 seconds later......You guessed it....the phone rang. "Police Department, did someone dial 911?"

Apology made and accepted, we reminded Sam only to call for help when there's an emergency. It's nice to know, however, that she learned something useful at school and that the police will call back a hang-up before sending the squad cars to the house.