Bio Lab Fire (Why Me Lord)

 

If you look at the side of my blog you will see that Richard and I live in Conyers, Georgia. (Rockdale County).  Have you heard that mentioned in the news where you live?  Yesterday, we had a huge fire here at Bio Lab, a plant that makes pool and spa chemicals.  Reports are that you could see the smoke from thirty miles away.  The entire area around the fire plume was evacuated therefore, 17,000 people were meant to leave their homes. The rest of the county was asked to "shelter in place" leaving windows and doors closed. (The population of the county is 93,000). Until the early hours of today, the very busy interstate highway which cuts the county in half was CLOSED. (This made for huge traffic problems for the area.) Waking up this morning, the update from the county was the same information from yesterday, to remain inside, keeping windows and doors tightly closed "until further notice". Chlorine has been detected in the air by the EPA. 

Well.

Coming on the heels of the hurricane that swept through the region, this is quite a time of stress for so many.  Speaking of that, I just casually mentioned to you in my last post that a storm was supposed to march up through Georgia, not knowing at the time how deadly that hurricane/tropical storm would become. Have you also seen the news on that?  The photos from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee are heart-breaking.  I could look up the latest death toll but it keeps going up, there are so many missing in the floods in North Carolina. The damage is terrible. (Regarding that storm, it veered to the right of us which meant we didn't get nearly as much wind as expected.  We still had trees that blocked some of the roads, but they were quickly removed. Our power went out for four hours. Quite a bit of rain but no flooding. We were lucky.)

Seems to me that we are all so caught up in the turmoil of life that we forget that we are just PEOPLE.  Human beings who are just trying to make it through life and maybe just have a bit of joy along the way and hopefully, help someone else on the way! So much hatred in politics and everyone thinks they know more than anyone else.  I think we should think more of being fellow creatures of this dear planet, Earth.

There, I will get off my soap box now, but I just wanted to let you all know that Richard and I are okay if any of you saw Conyers, Georgia on your TV screen or newspaper feed.

This statue of Madonna and Child was recently cleaned at the Monastery.  So beautiful and serene against that blue sky with the cumulus clouds.  (Photos taken by Richard on Saturday, one day after the hurricane and the day before the fire.)

 

Peace.

"Why Me Lord"    Kris Kristofferson (May he rest in peace).

Laughing and Singing/September Days

 

Wake me up when September ends!  (Of course, that was a hit song for Green Day back in 2004. Wow, that's twenty years ago now.) Where has this month gone? So busy! I have THREE birthdays in this month, plus the family reunion that I always like to attend. I always went with my Dad. Those folks miss the big pots of peas which he cooked from his own garden along with his famous cornbread and peach cobblers.

Recently, someone looked at a post that I wrote back in 2016. I told you in that post that unbelievably I had actually got up and sung in front of my co-workers. I wondered if I might find it on YouTube and yes, I found myself from 2016! Want to have a listen? Be kind! Oh dear, I am a bit embarrassed to share this with you, but I think you will see that I really laughed a lot as I was singing. My laughter came mainly because of the astonished looks on the faces in front of me! I guess they didn't think the old gal had it in her! HA!  

 

A bit of background story here... I took some papers into my manager's office, and he looked very sad.  I asked him what was wrong, and he said he couldn't get anyone to do any skits or songs for that week's upcoming meeting (with big wigs in attendance).  He was feeling the pressure from this, I could tell. His face lit up and he said, "YOU couldn't do something, could you, Kay?".  Now, this guy had always been so nice to me. His nickname for me was "Sunshine". I asked him before why he always called me that and he said it was because I was always smiling. I told him that I find it very hard to get up in front of a crowd. It might be true that you can hear my knees knocking.  That evening, I got to thinking that perhaps I could just take a song and change a few words and sing it. So, I did! Hey, for someone who calls you "Sunshine", wouldn't you?

Speaking of sunshine, it is very HOT just now!  When we got in the car today, it said 98 degrees! Once we were out of the parking lot, it cooled down to 95, so we're MUCH better now!   Now, we have to worry about this big storm that is promised to be on the way. It will march straight up from the Florida panhandle bringing rains and wind. Wish us luck! 

It's Hearts a busting time!

I've shown you these seeds before. Don't you love them? These are in a pot right outside my window, isn't that wonderful?

Dianthus with eastern swallowtail butterfly, also outside my window!

  This is the bridge over the South River on the Rockdale River Trail.  Here's the South River....

Every time I see this river, it always reminds me of the song, "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water".  Hey, everything reminds me of a song!

---------------------------------------------------------------

Did you see that they found an unknown piece of music from Mozart? Yes! They believe that it is something he wrote as a teenager. That reminds me....

Why didn't Mozart like chickens? Because they kept saying, "Bach, Bach, BACH!". 

 Keep laughing and singing, folks! (Hey, stand- up comedy for me next!)