East Coast Happenings

[Diane Amberg]

The fire prevention winners and families came to get their awards Thurs. Night.Our fire hall was full with the 30 winners and all their families, almost 200 of them. The kids were really cute and enjoyed their treats after.
Sonny had a proper send off yesterday with a good many friends and family there.
Yesterday we went to Al's Post Polio Support Group meeting for brunch.
Some are so much worse than Al is it makes me sad to see them struggle so to get around. But, they are such a happy up beat bunch. Nothing gets them down. They are uplifting to be with. We are down to 14 now as several have died over the years.
Our little local Super Fresh grocery store has closed.The liquidators are in there now to pick over the bones. Being so close we will really miss it. We have no idea what will happen next on that site.

[Diane Amberg]

Happy Thanksgiving!
Al spent his birthday yesterday in Philly having his appointment at the Einstein Gate Lab. Very tiring, but he actually did better than I would have thought. Some decline in muscle strength, but it could have been much worse. He needs new orthodics for both legs that will give him better support, but no crutches or wheel chair yet. Just his cane.   YAY!

[Diane Amberg]

I just found out niece Amy in AZ just got engaged....YAY!

[Diane Amberg]

Our little dinner at home worked out well.Al was able to take his pain meds and kick back in his chair to elevate his legs. He could enjoy the diner and snooze when he wanted to.
He's very good today, so were going to head north to both cemeteries to visit family and then have leftovers for dinner.Even better the second day. I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving day, and a Happy Birthday yesterday to our own Judy Harder.

[Diane Amberg]

I just got back from my ophthalmologist visit. Good one .20/20 and still 1.25 on reading specs.
One of the signs on the office wall stated,"Do you have a vision plan?" Yes, I do. I plan to have vision as long as possible. HA!
Yesterday I packed up the 5 big shopping bags full of the stickers, candy, pencils and little toys for our firehouse children's Christmas party.The bags will go to one of my friends soon, who is a teacher at a school that has special classes for deeply mentality challenged kids. These are older ones who look forward to putting together the individual firefighters' children's bags. They will be making 60 bags this year. It helps them with counting, categories, and more.
I always make sure they get Christmas candy too and I'll mail the class a thank you card after the party. 
  I'm still just so sad about the loss of my BIL. He was such a nice person.
If I've been grumpy with anyone on the forum, I apologize.

[Diane Amberg]

It's been a rainy sleepy day here I don't think I ever did get all my cylinders firing today.
Al brought our Christmas tree home. It's out under the Magnolia in a bucket. Now to find time to get it in, up, and decorated. I just put a tuna noodle casserole in the oven for dinner and then Al goes to Newark City Hall for the City Commissioners meeting this evening. There are a couple of rather controversial topics coming up. I'll be interested in what he has to say when he comes home. He runs a tight meeting, strictly by Roberts rules.  Believe me, he suffers no fools, and has a very good reputation with the public because of it.
I'm going to wrap his Christmas gifts while he's gone.

[Diane Amberg]

Christmas season is really on a roll here now.The fire company Christmas banquet has come and gone with lots of food music and fun for a hall full of friends.We did a photo booth this year with lots of goofy props.We also had our election,and now have a new chief, as he was hired as chief of Delaware's Emergency Services and had to give up our chief's position. Al and I are still responsible for the usual things. We were given a beautiful art glass vase engraved with thanks for our many years of doing community fire safety and all the years of fund drive, as well as other things. That was a very nice surprise. Sunday was the firehouse kids' Christmas party. Had 87, which was a nice room full. We had a photo booth for their party too. It made them look like they were in a snow globe. Lot's of fun.
Today I am really tired, but had a lot to put away from the party, and also cooked the ground sausage for the 40 pounds of big stuffed mushrooms we'll be making for tomorrow night's Chiefs Open House. I still have to mix in the grated cheese, bread crumbs, oil, a bit of water and seasonings, and then stuff and bake  them there. It will make up about 9 very large pizza pans.
I'm very flattered to have firefighters from other companies who come just for the mushrooms...not that they ignore the oysters and other good food too!
Tomorrow we can finally start our own Christmas. The tree is up but not much on it, and the porch roof edge lights look nice. Cards have started coming in and I'll finally get to send mine out soon.
It's still so warm here that we opened everything up again for the last several days. Feels weird.
My Knock Out rose burst into bloom today. Looks nice, but now I won't have much for spring.

[Diane Amberg]

Tic toc goes the clock. My electric candles look so nice in the windows. The tree is starting to look full at last. All my gifts are wrapped. Several will be given out at Bingo tonight.
We still need to make a trip to the food bank to give them the food we collected at the fire house, and I still have one more toy to drop off at the police station.
The "Santa Runs" have started. We take our Santa around the neighborhoods on the ladder truck to wave at the kids and toss mini candy canes to them.
Sadly, we had a bad fire on the south side of town mid morning today... an odd time for a serious fire. Nobody was at home, but two adults and 5 kids lost everything. It went from the basement and through the second floor before anybody even knew there was a fire. The Red Cross was called to help them. I'm sure they lost all their Christmas things too. Any major fire is heartbreaking, but especially so at holiday time.
It finally got December cold here yesterday, but is supposed to be right back up around 70 on Christmas Eve.

[Diane Amberg]

As I write this, it is 62 degrees and foggy.
It looks like I'll be spending part of Christmas Eve day wrapping gifts at the firehouse for the family that was burned out. We've opened up our one station to receive donations of clothes, toys, money and gift cards. The lines of cars waiting outside the fire house to drop donations have been amazing. With two adults and 5 kids, they need a lot to salvage Christmas.
We have an arrangement with one of our local hotels to put up people when this kind of thing happens, and Red Cross has vouchers for them to pay for lodging and immediate needs.
We have our folks sorting clothes and things, and we have a wrapping party planned at noon tomorrow. During the early evening we'll load everything, including Santa, on the fire equipment and take it all to the family at the hotel. Even the Mayor of Newark has gotten involved. Now I need to go dig around and see what wrapping paper and tape I can bag up for tomorrow.

[Diane Amberg]

On the 24th our station 7 really did look like Santa's workshop all day. Donations were still coming in and about twenty five of us sorted, wrapped, and put the kids' names on their toys, books, puzzles and games for the whole family. Even their little dog, who the Dad snatched up on the way out, was included. He received lots of dog food, a new dog bed and lots of treats and toys. The children of some of our fire fighters wanted to help so we put them to work too. There were lots of paper goods too... Cases of paper towels, toilet paper, soap of all kinds and enough personal supplies, both male and female, and new cosmetic sets to stock a drug store.
One of our guys, who loves to cook, fixed bacon and eggs for all of us for breakfast so we could keep on working.
The family has been given the use of a local parish house for a couple of months. It is usually used by missionary teams who stay there, but it wasn't in use right now. Its a nice big four bedroom place with plenty of room. At 2:45 we loaded everything into our van, an ambulance and several fire engines and created a lights and siren convoy to their house.
Another fire company came with us to help. They have character costumes for Mr. and Mrs. Clause, elves and reindeer and the Grinch, who we threatened to beat up. HA!   Everyone could hear us coming, so the whole neighborhood turned out to watch us unload and ''bucket brigade" everything into their soon overflowing living room and dining room.
I was surprised to see that two Philly TV stations sent camera crews, so we got a nice human interest story on two of the Philly news stations.
Once their insurance gets set up, they will have a more permanent place to stay as their house is leveled and rebuilt.
Now, about the mountain of clothes and shoes at the firehouse. The family will pick out as much as they want of both new and gently used clothes, and a consortium of our local churches will take the rest to sort again and share at several local church clothes closets. One nearby Baptist Church in particular does a wonderful job outfitting the working poor and homeless all year long and opens the church every Christmas eve through Christmas day, to feed and shelter anyone who needs it.
So is all this unusual? Not really. This year it just happened to be a large family right at Christmas time here in Newark. Any time folks are burned out, their neighborhoods pull together to help.
On a personal note... It felt so good to be able to do something positive.
Have a fun "day after."