Illinois to Alabama

It has been a tough three weeks. First of all, the film in Illinois sucked. They did an overshoot which means the area they shot had already been done as recently as three years ago so I didn't sell very many pictures. And the ones I did sell were for the minimum amount I could take. So I wasn't too happy about that.

Then my Aunt Elsie died on the 14th. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June and it didn't take very long. She started really going downhill in August and when her kidneys shut down the first of October, she totally gave up and that was the end of that. So my mom lost her main morale support that Elsie gave her in dealing with her own skin cancer and lymphoma.

Air Photo gave me the Birmingham area to work and I cut my stay in Illinois short to go to Elsie's funeral. I took four days off to be with Mom and then left to set up camp in my new digs. The campground is nice enough and I have a huge site which is a refreshing change of pace after putting up with a site so tiny in Illinois that I couldn't even extend my awning and the living room slide covered up the sewer connection.

I worked for two days (Sunday and Monday) then made the long trip up to Memphis early Tuesday morning for Alan's green card interview. The dude who had our case was a total dickhead. He had absolutely NO sense of humor and couldn't be bothered to make any small talk. He would read the file, ask us some questions and then study the file again without any feedback whatsoever. The prolonged silences seemed so awkward. I had a devil of a time trying to explain to him our lifestyle and he just wasn't getting it. Plus he had a tendency to only listen to half your answer and then he shut you down not wanting to hear any further explanation. So I have to admit that it didn't take long for me to get an attitude toward the whole thing because in my mind there was no reason to be so rude and curt as he was. He had to go check with his supervisor four times with questions about the documents we had and ultimately he said it would be up to his supervisor if they would even make a decision on our case as he thought it should be transferred to Delaware since that is the state I claim as my residence. Even though I told him it would create a great hardship on me to make a trip to Delaware for the interview, he didn't appear to care. He said they wouldn't get any credit for deciding our case in Memphis (whatever that meant). So at this point, the Homeland Security people are not at the top of my favorite government entities list.

I stayed with Mom Tuesday night and went with her to the doctor Wednesday morning. That deal, too, was an exercise in frustration. We waited four hours for her to see the doctor about her lymphoma and after it was all over, she still didn't have any resolution as to her treatment.

After that I headed back to Alabama where I managed to sell three pictures yesterday. Today it rained but this weekend is supposed to be nice so maybe I'll get some sales.