Buddy is ten this month. I just remember that I got him in September 2009, when he was a kitten. He’s the only pet I’ve ever had that I know the exact age of.
Yesterday, I was highly motivated. I got a lot done. Today, depression is sinking in and it’s a struggle to keep moving.
I will not surrender.
There are times in my life when I’m out in public with a hearing friend or family member. A stranger will pass by, look my way and say something that I don’t hear. But the tone that I detect and the expression on the stranger’s face makes me think it was something rude.
When I ask my hearing friend or family member what the stranger had said, they refuse to tell me. This frustrates me and makes me feel betrayed. All I can think is the stranger noticed I have cerebral palsy and made a nasty comment about it, but I don’t know that for sure.
Why do my hearing friends or family members not want to help clear these things up?
My dad just gave me one of his chainsaws. I was going to buy one eventually, but now I won’t have to.
My next door neighbors are cutting down this multiple trunk ash tree that has been dead for a few years. The tree is right beside my driveway, but on their property. There was always the possibility of the trunks falling on their house and my house, so I’m really glad they’re cutting it down.
Seven years I lived here before buying the house from my landlords. The smoke detectors would go off when I’d burned some food while cooking, but I could always shut them off by waving a towel in front of them. Every once in a while, a smoke detector would chirp repeatedly when a battery needed to be changed. But that was about it.
It never occurred to me that a smoke detector would go off like something was burning just because it was not a good detector.
So, tonight, I just happened to be drunk on Pabst when I became aware of one of my smoke detectors going off. I hadn’t cooked anything today. I ate at my mom and dad’s house. So, if anything was burning, it wasn’t because I was cooking.
I went through the house until I figured out that it was the detector in the basement that was going off. I did not smell smoke or see any flames. I didn’t know why the damn thing was going off. When I waved a towel in front of it and it wouldn’t shut off, I became highly alarmed.
When I was a teen, we had a fire in our house. I was upstairs when I started coughing because of smoke rising from a vent. After a while, I realized how dark that smoke was and I had to go down to the basement to get my brother whose bedroom was in the basement. My parents and sister were not home.
We called the fire department. They came in a long line of trucks. They entered our house and eventually carried out the dryer and put it down on the driveway. When they opened the dryer, flames rose out of it and they sprayed their hoses into it.
You just don’t forget things like that. It’s always been something that was not far from my mind. How close we’d come to losing everything.
So, when my smoke detector went off tonight and I couldn’t figure out why, and I wasn’t able to make the detector stop, I thought I was about to lose my house. That it was maybe an electric fire that would soon show itself.
Not so long ago, I found out that Lapeer County 911 has a texting option. I’m deaf, so this was the best option for me. Though my typing was sloppy, I got my message across and I was relieved that 911 actually responded.
They sent an officer from the fire department to my house. He went down to my basement and checked out the screaming smoke detector. He found out that the detector wasn’t any good. He communicated with me by writing in a notebook I keep handy. He told me that, free of charge, they could replace all of the smoke detectors in my house. I have six smoke detectors.
I asked him if he could replace my current smoke detectors with detectors that are designed for the deaf. They flash lights when they go off. I had been thinking about these detectors for some time now. Although I’m not completely deaf and I can usually hear my smoke detectors going off, there were a couple times when I didn’t know they were going off for several minutes.
He asked for my cell phone number, to text me, and told me he would look into the detectors that flash lights when they go off.
I miss the days when several neighbors shot off big fireworks like they were competing against each other. Today only one neighbor shot off some and looks like they’re already done.
When I was a kid, I asked for a big American flag for Christmas one year. I kept it all these years. It’s not the same flag that I fly on my front porch. I don’t display this one outside.
Tomorrow is the 4th of July. I’ll be at my mom and dad’s. My dad is going to grill something, but I don’t know what.
