It’s 5:00 now. I just got back from taking Fred and Barb around. Barb finally called to say her check arrived at around 2:30. She told me that Fred had been calling her every fifteen minutes telling her “Did your check come yet? I’ve been waiting. I have to go to the store too. Did your check come yet?”. That’s typical Fred. He gets antsy and worked up. Patience is not a word that fits in his description. I called Fred and let him know we were leaving. He beat me to the car, which at 87 is scary.
We got to Barb’s and she was at Dixie’s. She came to the car and said that Dixie wasn’t coming, claiming that she caught a cold, her arms hurt, and anything else she could think of. Barb said she was getting depressed again. At least she had her door open and was talking. Wish I could have got her out of the house.
I took Barb to the carry out to cash her check first and then we went to Cricket. The battery on Barb’s phone wouldn’t hold a charge so Fred said he would buy her a new one. Fred gets panicky when he can’t get a hold of her and has been known to call the police to have them check on her. A battery at Cricket would have cost $40 but the lady said we could get it cheaper at Page Plus, which is right down the road. She also said the battery had been recalled and now that I think about it, perhaps that means they should have replaced it free. Too late now.
I drove to Page Plus and we got the battery for ten dollars less. With that done we went to Kroger. What a madhouse. Saturday is a bad day to grocery shop. There were no handicap spots open and when there was folks were willing to run you down to get it. I let Fred and Barb out at the door and went on in search of a spot. Got lucky and caught one right in front. Had to wait for them to get settled and after sitting there for five minutes I honked the horn. The passenger looked up in surprise and opened his door to signal they would back out in a second. Here they are surrounded by cars cutting each other off and seemed clueless someone might want to park.
I rushed in and found Fred waiting, leaning on his cart. He handed me his coupons and we went in. Fred told me “I don’t like this Kroger. I’ve never been here and I don’t know where anything is”. “Fred you’ve been here plenty of times, you just don’t remember” I said. I really don’t know because this is the store I take Barb and Wayne to all the time. I’m think I brought Fred here but can’t say for sure. We walked in more and Barb was looking at all the flowers that were for sale. Fred couldn’t tell what she was looking at so asked me. “She’s looking at flowers Fred” I answered. “What the hell is she looking at flowers for” was his retort. I told him she was a big girl and left it at that. Then Fred looked around and asked if we were in the vegetable section. I know he is blind but he’s not that blind. We’re surrounded by bins filled with apples, oranges, potatoes, and walls lined with green produce. “Yes Fred, this is the vegetable section.
I got them all done and took Barb home. Fred was not breathing to well by the time I got him home so he was glad to be dine.
Right now it is 9:30. There is much that has happened in the space of just a few hours. Sharon called and talked to Cherie. She had been beaten up pretty badly by a cokehead who was after the woman getting mail in front of her. Broken bones in her face and just badly hurt. This on top of a life time of abuse. She is afraid of black people now and that will make housing hard when you are on section 8. She said she will need help moving so I think I will talk to Bill at Westside Community church about it.
Cherie had visited with her parents when she went to drop off something for Cathy, whom she presumed would be going to Lorain with Nate. Nah, they didn’t go. Cathy was on her computer. Who knows what that was about. Cherie is always broken a bit after she goes over there and I just let her lay in my arms to help her feel secure.
Ahmed came home so I took him the key I had made for him. He wanted to talk about the girl he had stay with him. Come to find out she is a 22 year old heroin addict that he has known for a while. He had brought her to Toledo on the condition of no drugs. He took her to the hospital and they gave her something to help her kick and he said she was clean. Then he told me she had talked him into going to Detroit and buying her heroin, which he did. I’m listening to this and thinking to myself “Is he nuts?”.
She then told him her grandfather was sick so she needed to go back to Chicago so he took her. He gave her money to buy something for the grandfather and then took her to a dope house in Chicago. He waited and waited outside but she never came down. Then he paid some other dope head, who had just came out of the house to go and get her. That didn’t work so she called him and told him to come up and get the keys. At least he had enough sense not to do that but he hung around till a cop came by and asked him what he was doing there.
He went on to drive his truck. She calls a few days later and said she was ready to come back. He refused to pick her up and is all worried about that as he talked with me. I went through things with him. I told him I had been a heroin addict so knew a little bit about that world. I explained she was just using him and would continue to do so till he put down his feet. I said she needs to be in a drug rehab program and until then drugs were her god and would tell her what to do and when to do it.
Ahmed told me about some other lady he met in Oxford Ohio who also was a drug addict. I explained how heroin works and also cocaine. It seems that Jackie had bought some rocks while she was with Ahmed. Is this boy just stupid or what. He’s sitting there telling me this stuff and seemed to be clueless. “She paid $10 for this little piece of something this big” he said as he held up his fingers pinched together. “Did she smoke it?” I asked him. He told me she did. “That was crack cocaine Ahmed” I explained. He asked if I would be willing to drive his firebird to Chicago and bring her back if she called. He said he would leave me money to do it with. I told him I would drive her straight to a drug rehab but I would never drive her to his apartment, which is across the hall from us.
Enough of that. “Ahmed, I’m cooking dinner so I’ve got to go” I excused myself and left. That was true because I had gotten halfway to making up some hamburgers when he had gotten home. Cherie had covered it up so I came home and finished them up. As soon as we got done the phone rang. It was Fran Duschle, whom we had known way back in the early days of our first marriage. It was when we had helped build a church in the city of Oregon with the pastor, Ron Charles.
Fran told me that Ron and his wife Paula were both in bad shape. Ron was ministering in Garbage City, which is located in Egypt. Just type Egypt in the blog search engine to see what I had written on that. Anyway, Paula had fallen from a horse in Egypt, breaking a bunch of ribs and puncturing her lungs. The Ron fell from a horse and broke his leg and I guess his hip. Paula almost died and Ron’s leg wasn’t set right so didn’t heal so he is hobbling pretty badly.
This is a lot to deal with in a short time. Fran said the church we had helped found was having a big celebration because they were finally being recognized as an Assembly of God charter church or something like that. I really wasn’t comfortable with going and neither was Cherie.
It’s been a night and I have much to ponder now. Night all.
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