Oh, Cindy, that's dreadful. How is she?

I think it was pretty mild. I'd known she'd been unsteady and not feeling well. One time (before it was clear anything was wrong) I got a look at her face, and my immediate thought was stroke, because she looked simple, suddenly. But then she was talking (in ways appropriate to the conversation) and laughing and so I figured I was overreacting.

Ten minutes later, Scott and f-i-l were walking her across the yard to the car, but she didn't want anyone to know what was going on. She had complained of numbness on one side earlier I guess (I didn't know that at the time) and once when she was reaching to the side to get her purse on the ground, she just sort of slumped there, and didn't get up. That was before we arrived, and we didn't hear that 'til after she left for the hospital.

They've found evidence of what they think are past TIAs (mild strokes), and suspect that's what's going on this time too, but the CAT scan didn't show anything. She has to have more tests and will be in the hospital at least for a couple of days. The s-i-l that accompanied her to the hospital said she was way better within an hour of being there, and could answer all the questions except for who was president (I say she's blocking that out).

Most of the kids were in the pool, and I think Ben is the only one that realized anything was going on among the grown ups. I had to hush him, because he yelled from the pool, "What's going on," but it wasn't a visibly scary thing. It was only scary if you knew what was going on (once people started being forthcoming about all that had been happening). M-i-l is a very young 72, so none of this behavior is typical-old-age stuff for her. It was out of the ordinary.

Oh dear. Hoping for the best for your MiL, Cindy.

~ma for Cindy and fam.

I'm having a rather boring 4th. Worked on a sewing project, and finally gave up b/c it's just not working. Am now watching fireworks on my tv, while enjoying AC. Not quite the same as outside, but since I didn't manage to hook up with friends it's an acceptible alternative.

But did you know they have fireworks that look like 3D cubes?!?! I find that a little odd.

Oh how awful, Cindy. I hope she's much better quickly....my grandmother passed out at Christmas Dinner one time, and when she came to, wasn't making any sense--we called the paramedics, but by the time the showed up, she was fine and insisted they not take her anywhere. Hopefully your MIL is just that fine.

The fireworks were crazy---oh, not the ones on the national mall, though we were viewing those too. The ones in our neighborhood...there's one spot (four blocks from me, half a block from my best friend) where everyone in the neighborhood sets up, it's on a high point, a hill you can see half the city from, including the Washington monument, and the fireworks. Except it being OUR neighborhood, people get craaaaaazy with their own competing displays...nearly burnt down a tree next to us, and made some of us scramble, but really they were more fun than the ones on the mall, that we could tell. Completely illegal, of course, but...

We also figure that tonight would be a *great* night to kill someone in our neighborhood. You could set off a machine gun and no one would know...

{{{Cindy and family}}} Tons of ~ma to your mother-in-law.

Dave and I are home from Mom's beach house. We had a lovely couple of days of too much food, much sleep, and letting my mother wait on us a little too much (she does insist on it).

{{{Cindy and family}}}

I watched the fireworks here in Bethlehem, PA. They were neat. And for the first time, I noticed that they've got a light-up Star of Bethlehem in the mountains at night.

My fireworks got rained out, and then I had to deal with a crazy person. I'm in a the car with a friend. I'm soaking wet. There are very few lights. It's raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. We wait a few minutes and it doesn't get any better, so I start backing up really slowly and end up tapping the car parked behind me. Then I'm trying to ease back to see if I could see any marks at all while my car lights were on. (Did I mention the advanced darkness?) In doing so, I apparently also barely tapped the corner of another guy's bumper, because, I suspect, he had rolled forward about 10 inches waiting for me to leave. I didn't think I'd hit him at all, but I stopped the car and tried to figure out if and how I could leave notes. (Did I mention the torrential rain?) The guy in the last car comes banging on the window and screaming that I'm a dangerous driver and he's calling the police. In the meantime, I'm standing in the rain running my fingers over both cars to make sure there is no damage. A police officer arrives and agrees that there is, indeed, no damage, and tells me to drive home carefully. I left my card with both cars, and I fully expect that the crazy person is taking a can opener to his paint job in order to claim I did it. Okay, it was not my best driving, but there was no damage. And yet we had to sit around soaking wet until the officer came.

bumpers are there for just the sort of thing you describe.

ma~~ to the family of Cindy.

I am not really against people haveing fireworks. but I have a shake roof- so it makes me nervous. Esp since it isn't even dark yet.