a cooler day

6/1/06 Thursday
It will be cooler today but was so muggy this morning I turned the air on. I will try not to run it too much to save on electricity. I asked Cherie about something from yesterday regarding her family and as she answered she started to cry. It is hard on her to watch things happening and be powerless to fix or change what is very wrong. Unfortunately that is the price of caring. When you care, you hurt. It is much easier to walk away and distance yourself, to blind your eyes to what is right in front of you, to harden your heart. The Bible says that easy is the way and wide is the path that leads to destruction but the path to life is much harder and the one few choose. I like this Bible stuff because it holds true to real life.

I have showered, shaved, fixed a bowl of oatmeal, and cleaned up the kitchen. Running at an 7 on the Bob scale which is not bad. I will be leaving to take Barb to Family Services for her regular hearing regarding her benefits. After that I will drop Wayne’s medical records off to him. At 1:00 or so I take Fred’s car in for the two new tires they are getting him to replace the two bad ones. I am working on a letter to Connie in response to the E mail she sent me. I’ll take my time and will let Cherie review it first as I am prone to do. Suppose I can take this laptop and work on that while waiting for Barb’s hearing.
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I am at Family Services now. I decided to stay out in the car while Barb went in. Really didn’t feel like sitting in there with the crowds of other misfortunate’s, especially with this laptop. There are many who would love to get a hold of this and some who would not hesitate to wait and rob me. That’s not paranoia, just an understanding of this world. A wise man doesn’t put a target on his back.

Barb was pissed at Fred when I drove up. He has been going off on the phone, calling her, then Dixie, and then her brother, telling him Barb had a heart attack. This is not good to hear. Fred has been known to get himself all worried up and has called the police before, telling them something happened to Barb. It seemed to be under control but you know how that goes. Stability at ninety years of age is not a sure thing.

I talked to Dixie. Don’t remember if I told you she was out of the hospital but she is. The fact that she was outside and talking is a good sign. I presume she is taking her medication. Dee, the black girl next door to Barb, took Dixie shopping and talked her out of a lot of her food. This is not at all unusual for Dee. It is the way of things at this level of life, get what you can when you can. She takes advantage of Barb at every chance, borrowing money knowing she will forget.

Dee is the one on the end

As I talked to Barb it was good to hear she was toughening up on that kind of thing. Dee had demanded $15 to help Barb clean her apartment for inspection and then wanted Barb to buy her a pop. When Barb said no Dee tried the “Aren’t you my friend?” guilt trip crap. That didn’t work. I applauded Barb for that and encouraged her to keep it up. She told me that Caroline and Richey (Two others who had lived in the complex) were invited over for a cook out. Barb told Caroline she had to bring something to contribute and not to bring along anyone else. She showed up with three other people and no food so Barb sent them off saying there would be no cook out. Barb had been feeding the neighborhood for a while and they had gotten used to it. She has a good heart but good hearts need to be guarded.

Barb called me while I sat out in the parking lot. “Their giving away $200 worth of free gas. Do you know anyone who could use that?” she said. I asked a couple of questions to figure out what this was about. As she tried to explain what she didn’t have a full comprehension of I asked “Do they have any literature on it, some kind of flier?”. They did so Barb ran one out to the car. Now that I see what the program is I think Cherie’s sister Cathy might qualify for it. I suppose I will have Cherie run the application over because it might be accepted from her.

Barb called Dixie as I drove her home and talked her into letting me take her to a store. She had to work to convince Dixie but the clincher came when I yelled “Get your shoes on Dixie. We’ll be there in two minutes”. Instead of going to a store I took Dixie and Barb to the Huntington Community Center because Thursday is the day they give out food and soap. Dixie was talking a mile a minute, showing me a cut on her hand and how her feet were swollen up. It was good to see her not being paranoid and talking. They got a shopping cart of food and I took them home. On the way they saw all kinds of furniture out on the curbs. I think it is one of the special pick up days where the garbage men will collect things like furniture. Barb and Dixie both called someone they knew who had a pickup truck to see if they would pick up some couches that looked brand new. I’m kinda glad I didn’t have a truck. Barb doesn’t have room for anything and I really didn’t want to get into hauling stuff.

I went to Wayne’s and dropped off his medical records. He was glad to see me and I was able to visit for a short time. I did excuse myself so I could get to Ed Schmidt for the tires, where I am currently writing this. When Eric saw me driving in the look on his face was great, kind of a “Now what” look. He was relieved to hear I was getting two tires and quickly got things moving as soon as he found it had already been approved. I went into the new customer lounge that was being built while I was there yesterday. There I worked on the letter to Connie. Had a hard time figuring out what to say and started over a few times. The General manager, who’s name escapes me at the moment, came back to say hi. “I hear your getting two new tires” he told me.
I am impressed with his hands on involvement and the fact he even knew the car was in the shop. I complimented him on this and the new customer lounge. Everything went well and I took Fred’s car to the car wash where I also waxed it.

Just checked the blog and was glad to see Nate had left a comment. That is communication and positive or negative it is good. He wasn’t negative at all so who knows, maybe we will get things figured out. Stay tuned, don’t touch that dial, there will be more on the same bat time and the same bat channel. (For you young guys this was a regular line at the end of the “Batman” TV show I watched in the sixty’s)