Home safe after my accident on Black Friday

We had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Beautiful church service and then dinner at the home of our daughter and son-in-law.  We spent some time trying to load our Christmas card, but gave up on that.  On Friday, "Black Friday," I had my hair cut and styled, and Bob and Mark headed for Lakeside for a final leaf raking.  Bob needed more lights for our deck, so on my way home I decided I'd go to Lowe's which is across the river.  As I turned on to the bridge I hit some black ice (it was snowing) and Bob's little SUV began to spin, and I swung around into the oncoming traffic (wasn't hit) and slammed into the concrete wall on the north side. I knew the river was far below and was afraid the car might be thrown over the rail into the cold water. The air bags went off, as did the front bumper.  I could feel pain in both knees, which I first thought might be broken (I was wrong).  A woman pulled her car over, called the squad which had a station about a mile west, and then came to my door to see if I was OK.  I don't carry a cell-phone, so she retrieved my purse and I gave her my daughter's number.  She told her she had called the squad and would stay with me.  The squad at first told me they'd take me to an urgent care, but when they saw my arm (large hematoma) then changed it to Riverside Hospital, very close to our home.  The ER checked me over pretty carefully, I had a nice nurse named Brian who had interesting stories to tell and loved his job as a nurse.  I had a full body scan and nothing was broken.  Visiting in ER is more generous than the regular hospital, so we soon had the whole family there.  My daughter had called Bob and Mark who were about to Bucyrus, and they turned around and drove to the hospital. By 10:30 p.m. there was finally an available room and I was transferred and made as comfortable as my bruises would allow.  I was finally home about 3:30 on Saturday. On Monday Bob and Mark went to the impound lot to retrieve items from the car.  It was sad--Bob loved that car--it was 21 years old and only had 115,000 miles, and never had any mechanical troubles--got good mileage, too.  I'm safe, sore and bruised, but nothing broken. The scans did show some structural problems I didn't know about, which I'll check out with my doctor.

Update with photos:

  

Friday

  

 

Wednesday

Ridiculous Black Friday stories

After we left our daughter’s home yesterday they were going to go out to buy . . . king size sheets.  One of the specials for Black Friday which started on Thursday. She should have been exhausted from her 2 days of cooking and planning, but there’s something about shopping that energizes some people.  Maybe I had that sort of energy in my 40s—and just don’t remember.

On Fox this morning I saw a story about 2 women who had shopped for “mini-sports” cars for their kids, and the containers for the toys wouldn’t fit into their cars.  So with the Fox reporter guarding their finds, they went off to find a rental car that would hold their treasures.

Now, think about it.  How much money can be saved if you need a rental car to haul home your treasures?

Loaded words in this article about shopping

Doesn’t seem to be much love for retail in this article.  I wonder if the author understands that it is the advertising for products (which must be sold to make a profit) that pay his bills?  This article guarantees a negative impression of American retailers. http://www.menshealth.com/best-life/retail-tricks

America's malls and department stores would like to see you shell out even more.

subtle psychological tricks

latest scientific research on the shopper's brain

stores are squeezing more pennies from your pocket

something more insidious

subconsciously plants that second idea

free from other manipulations

subconsciously influenced the shoppers

Fight back against these hidden retail tricks

Why I'll never shop on Black Friday

Greedy people are also obese and blood thirsty if this video is any indication.

Media hype wrong again

So much for all the gloom, doom and disaster the media were promoting. Who are their sources? The people went out on Black Friday and increased spending by 3% over last year. And for once I'm glad. The jobs they saved may be their neighbors or their own. Now we'll get all the qualifying stories from the journalists and consultants who got it wrong. The "yes, but," excuses.

Anyone in retirement years can see we're heading for a bad time, just open your latest statement. It's not like 2004 when the Kerry/Edwards campaign continually bad mouthed the economy for over a year, Bush, new jobs, etc. and the media chimed right in. It's not 2006 when the Democrats took over Congress by campaigning on the bad economy (that wasn't) and then rode it into the ditch by making no corrections the president wanted. The week after the 2004 election it was all good economic news again. Because we don't have time for it turn around like it did in the late 80s, and the late 90s and after 9/11, it's going to be a challenge for retirees--especially if they don't fix that 70.5 age for drawing down IRAs based on Dec. 31, 2007 balances. People my age didn't grow up expecting everything, so we are probably better off than the younger boomers who thought life would always be a bigger house, or a new leased car every other year, or a vacation in Aruba.