The Abandoned House on my street

Where's my hot drink? Scuse me while Polly puts the kettle on.

So, I'm running after Mailman Ken, I've got two checks to deposit - one for $333 from Green Planet (when it arrived, I thought Who are they?) it was for hosting Bruce, my Chinese exchange student, tho I would've done it for free, it was such a great experience - and thother a refund of $681 from AON Insurance.

The dude was on vacation and didn't process my payment so I signed up with another firm, whose name I can't remember, but Michael LaBarbara owns it. Great name! And a writer is always seeking great names.

Like Sonny and Hilary in LOVE OF CAR, which I'll polish up tonite and mail it in.... somewhere.

So after Mailman Ken takes my envelope w/the checks inside, I decide to do a lil exploring. Four doors down, at 210, an abandoned house has been there about four years.

In the spring I help myself to the daffodils in the backyard.

The new owner must pay at least $450,000, well over what the house is worth, but the Township comes out and cuts the lawn, and there are liens against the house, whatever that means.

So I walked to the backyard of the yellowish house below

 and the back door is wide open.

"Anybody home?" I yell, popping my head thru the door.

No way am I gonna go in.

When I walk in, I'm in the laundry room, and then go further into the cellar, where a man's jacket lies on a far shelf.

I stand and listen for noise upstairs, but hear nothing.

I go next door to where Lisa lives. She advises me to call the police, which I do.

About five cop cars are dispatched to the street.

Sgt Moffat tells me to wait in front of my house, quite a ways away.

Another time, when there was a power outage on Cowbell Road, he told me the same thing - everyone was crowded around the same house - and I paid no attention to him.

Here's the story I wrote about the outage when I worked for Patch.com.

He repeated himself to me, Stay away! And I realized when a cop tells you something, you must obey.

The officers were taking a long time inside the house. Maybe 25 minutes. Is there someone in there, I wondered.

And visualized seeing someone brought outside and pushed into the cop car.

No one was there.

The wind had pushed open the door.

All for naught.

But I did love the excitement.

In retrospect, the wind did not push the door open. I've been back there many times and the inner door has been locked. I've tried it.

So, at one time, someone had gotten in.

Since I write short stories, I write down ideas. And I wrote about some people living in the very same house. I'd thought maybe I'd have the neighborhood kids have a fort inside the house.

Mmm, my tea is nice and hot.

Took a nap this afternoon while watching the penultimate disk of the original Upstairs Downstairs, a glorious look at a forgotten era.

Wiki - It ran on ITV in 68 episodes divided into five series from 1971 to 1975.
Set in a large townhouse in Edwardian, First World War and interwar Belgravia in London, the series depicts the lives of the servants "downstairs" and their masters—the family "upstairs".

Great events feature prominently in the episodes but minor or gradual changes are also noted. The series stands as a document of the social and technological changes that occurred between 1903 and 1930.
The distinctive lettering is in the manner of the now defunct Punch magazine.

Ah, here they are. Hudson is the father, Mrs Bridges is the mother, and the rest are their 'children.' This was said by Mrs Bellamy, whose husband Edward is now missing in action and presumed dead on the battlefield.

And poor Edward, the footman, served at the Battle of the Somme and suffers from shell-shock or PTSD..

We have a good issue of the Compass coming up. Someone will discuss PTSD in soldiers from Iraq and the Afghan.

I also contacted a friend of mine whose husband has a very slow form of Alzheimer's. I will interview her tonite over the phone after he goes to sleep.

This morning I went over the Giant where Helen ran the group. As a token of my deep affection for her and for her running the group I bought her a

pink primrose, which Suzanne gave her this morning.

Then, she and two others went downstairs in the coffee shop for lunch.

I had a huge salad - delicious! - and when I got home, instead of shooting insulin, I shot upstairs and went on my bike for 25 minutes, while watching a repeat of the life and times of Johnny Carson.

Raise your hand if you don't know who he is.