Mialkowski Family News

Well, we got back to Georgia yesterday late afternoon. (5:30pm).  On Saturday, Nov 7th, I was notified by strangers that my mother’s other son (my brother I guess some would say) had died.  I was given his case number for the Cook County’s Medical Examiner’s Office.  On Monday, Nov 9th, I rented a mid-sized SUV so we can go up there and check things out.  I knew we would be stopping by my friend Mark’s house in Wisconsin to pick up some of my mother’s boxes that she had in her studio welfare apartment in Elmwood Park, Illinois which was a directly adjacent suburb of Chicago.  Mark and Sherry (Mark’s significant other) were gracious enough to let me store boxes at their house. I had rented a trailer to bring back some larger items a few years ago too.  Anyways, we left Georgia Tuesday afternoon (2pm to be exact) and headed north up to Horse Cave, Kentucky where we stayed at the Horse Cave Motel ($40).  It’s pretty much the exact half-way point between Atlanta and Chicago.  We left the next morning (Wednesday) and got into Chicago probably around 3pm or 4pm.  We headed straight to the CCMEO so I can provide a positive I.D.  Nowadays, you don’t have to go into room to view dead people. They position a video camera over the deceased and display it in a viewing room on a LCD or PLASMA widescreen TV.  I had been told he was found in a decomposing state and I was not able to provide a positive I.D. because of that.  We left and went to our hosts, Larry and Bambi who put us up for the next couple of nights.  I did have an e-mail that contained a picture of the deceased and our mother dating as recent as 10-30-2009 so I printed that out (in color) and the next day we went back to the CCMEO and I asked Katherine (my wife) to help and see if she can I.D. him or not.  She did say it was him, but I needed to be really sure so I asked the Chicago Police Department to follow up and proceed with finger printing him.  A day later the detective called me and confirmed that it was him.  At that point I was able to go to my mother who is in a nursing home, due to her stroke which caused her to be blind, and let her know that his death had been confirmed.  So basically, that’s what we’ve been up to the past week.

Well, Lily has officially made it past her 3rd birthday! It was yesterday and we celebrated with a couple of pizzas and watching Madagascar 2. Her big party will be this Sunday. Come one come all! Oh yeah, BYOB…

This place called Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Georgia was having a Father’s Day special price for dads so we decided to take advantage of the deal. It was just 2 hours away from our house. We got there and bought our tickets, Lily was free since she’s under 3. With enough time for a bathroom break, we got in line to wait for the safari bus. Katherine didn’t want to take our own car. Didn’t matter to me, I would have liked to brag that our 1989 Volvo station wagon was rammed by a water buffalo. The bus had it’s windows taken out so it was more airy which was good. We bought a little bag of animal feed pellets (they didn’t let us take our carrots for the animals) and began throwing them down on the ground for wild boars, emu, bison, zebras, deer, giraffes, rams, longhorns, etc. It was like an hour and a half tour through the lands. It kinda reminded me of Jurassic Park. Once we got back we went walking around in their walkabout zoo which had lions, and tigers, and bears, etc. It was really hot out that day so we had to hop back in the car and head towards the house. It was already like 4pm and we hadn’t had lunch so I saw a billboard for Cracker Barrel so that’s where we went! Click on any of the below thumbnails for a larger picture.

Some time Friday I checked to see what the goings on in Helen, GA were for Saturday. And I found one of my favorites happening Saturday. It was the Shriner’s Parade. So I was going to take Lily there because Katherine had to work. Katherine called me at 11:20am on Saturday saying that she is coming home because her appointment was a no show. The parade started at 2pm so we were cutting it close since it takes likes and hour and a half to get up there. So I popped in our GPS and we got outta here around 12:15pm. We arrived at 1:45pm and were on scene in our standing spot on the bridge at exactly 2:01pm. The parade didn’t actually start until 2:05pm so we made it with time to spare! The parade lasted for 45 minutes and it was pretty warm out. The day before Katherine was looking up the prices for tubing the Hooch. We found that Helen Tubing was only $3 so we decided to hit the river. It lasted about 2 hours total and the water level was just fine, we bounced off other tubers that were stuck to keep us moving. Can’t wait to do that again. Click on some of the below thumbnails of the parade to get a larger picture.

Yes yes folks (and people [Chicago-ese]), today is World Turtle Day.  Luckily, we in the northern part of Georgia have the Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center which teaches everyone about the importance of sustaining our environment. Think of it this way, when you were younger, you may have had a gerbil (google “Richard Gere gerbil”), well, you were certainly told that you have to take care of that gerbil because it or he or she can’t take care of itself. That means giving the gerbil more food, water, and cleaning out the bedding area along with the area it likes to poop and pee in. Ah, the area that the gerbil likes to poop and pee in. In human terms, the toilet! Now I’m getting it. In Gwinnett County, Georgia, the Department of Water Resources comes to the rescue by providing us with water and a way to get rid of our wastewater (which includes sink sludge, tub turnout, and toilet tur[d]bulance).  We’ve had a drought in the past couple of years so water shortages have been a big concern. It’s also been a concern with our main supply of water which comes from Lake Sidney Lanier has been down over a dozen feet of full pool. Things are looking up now as the water supply is slowly starting to replenish. Let’s see how everything works out.

World Turtle Day 2009