November 22

 Well, we did have an unplanned errand yesterday. We had to go into and through areas we don't normally visit. Got lost both coming and going because the areas have changed so much since the last time. The process was frustrating and a bit alarming. Frustrating because we are used to our town which has gone to considerable efforts to make traveling our streets easier. We have more visible street signs and traffic lights and the city has repaved a lot of the streets, curbs and sidewalks. Several of the business districts have been refurbished. During our trip we had to deal with small, difficult to read street signs and streets that badly needed repairs. That was the frustrating part. The alarming part was the neighborhoods that could have been the settings for a post-apocalyptic novel. Boarded up houses falling down. Block after block of boarded stores in bad repair. On one stretch we saw stop signs but the decaying, broken stop lights were still there. No one bothered t take them out. We encountered traffic but not nearly what we remembered and streets that had been crowded weren't any more. I remember walking some of those streets fifty years ago and feeling safe but now even the car seemed little protection. We were very glad to get out of there. For some time, looking at the housing going up here, joked that we were getting refugees from Chicago. Now I wonder if we aren't getting them from areas between Chicago and here.

Yesterday we got a bit of good news in the mess of generally horrible news from the Israel-Hamas conflict: there will be a five-day cease fire to allow an exchange of hostages/prisoners and humanitarian aid (including fuel) to go into Gaza. That might be extended if the cease fire holds past the initial phase with 10 more hostages released for each day. I hope it lasts for a good long time.