Not keeping up

6/27/06 Tuesday
2:53 – Let me catch up here. I started out the morning calling John’s Trailer Sales to see if he rented trailers. He didn’t so there goes that idea. I called Wayne to make sure he is ready to go. I figured I could use Fred’s car so I called and asked. He said he had to use the car to go somewhere this afternoon. Ritchie has been taking Fred lots of places. I am grateful that Fred didn’t call me to drive him around and that he is already taking steps to be ready for us to leave.

I took off about 10:30 to get Wayne to welfare. We got to Family Services with fifteen minutes to spare. After

That is as far as I got yesterday.

6/28/06 Wednesday
I am not doing good at all. I got real slow last night and woke up the same way. There is so much that needs to be done I can’t keep up. Cherie thinks that the stress is why I am slow. That could well be as when I wandered homeless the stress made me barely functional where conversation was sometimes hard or even not possible. Anger however seems to waken this brain up for a while. I am running a 2 on the Bob scale. Almost to stuttering level. You can hear it in my voice. I almost sound like Forest Gump.

There is much to do. I had Cherie sit down with me and write out our money situation, listing how much was in each of our bank accounts and then the potential expenses. Seeing how close everything was we decided not to buy a trailer, at least not a new one. Nate’s offer to let us use his trailer will be a big help and make things much easier.

Finding out that Larry signed the settlement yesterday eases things greatly. I know this is a surprise to you as I did not post anything yesterday. You can see how far I got. Anyway I got an E mail from Patrick telling me he signed and requesting a call from me. Patrick E mailed a copy of the agreement which I signed. Then I went across the street to the bank and had a $37,000 bank check made. I wasn’t going to waste time on this so took care of it as soon as I hung up the phone with Patrick. I went to the post office and paid the four or so dollars to send the signed settlement and check priority mail.


This gives us access now to the $8,000 or so that is in Minnie Lee’s old checking account. We really need that just to be able to move and live until we get settled and some income. My veterans pension will help a whole lot because it gives us some cash to live on. I would like for Cherie to not have to work so we could build this farm together. It will become our job as farming is a lot of work. I still don’t know what I can handle but think I will be fine once things settle down. The orchard will take about five years before it will produce any significant fruit.






This is going to be a tough day. Wayne just called to worry, telling me he called the phone company and his phone will be cut off at the end of the month and he ordered the new phone for where he is moving to. “Are those guys going to move me?” he asked adding “I just went on what you told me. I just thought I’d let you know my phone will be turned off”. I told Wayne I hadn’t heard back from Nate so didn’t know. Then I told him “Wayne, I have a ton of things to do before we can leave for Texas so do me a favor, don’t call me unless it’s an emergency”.
There is a migraine coming up now also. This is a one two punch on what is a most important busy day. I worry that when I go into a muffler shop they will think I am dumb when they hear me talk like I do when I am this slow. Many unscrupulous shops would try to take advantage of that. I sometimes clear up a little when I have to interact with the public. We will see how this day goes. Normally I stay home when I am this bad but can’t afford to do that now. Got to push my way through.

Cherie and I are back from our runs. I don’t know where she went but I went to find someone to replace the catalytic converters for a decent price. I was not doing good so needed to focus on just one thing to do.

I looked in the phone book under muffler and saw a couple of shops nearby that I thought I could find. There was a map for one of them so I took the phone book with me in case I got lost. I did. This is one of those times I forget where I am going as I go there. I knew the “Big Truck Shop” is near Angola off McCord so I got on McCord knowing I would have to drive by the place. I went past Angola peering around to find signs of this place. I drove and drove forgetting I had gone past Angola. Finally I thought of the phone book nest to me and pulled off the road to look in it. Yes! I did remember there was a map. I like anytime I remember. Looking at the map I see that I have gone way beyond the place so head back.

I had already stopped by Mytee Muffler and gotten a quote of $480 so wanted to get a number here for comparison. At first he came up with $740 but when I let him know I already had a quote he redid his figure’s. Miraculously he beat it by seven dollars. WoW. I asked when he could do it and it wasn’t until tomorrow so that settled it. Mytee said they had a rack open now so they get the business.

It took a while to get the job done so I had Cherie come by and pick me up. We went to the storage unit to see what we might want to take to Texas. There are lots of boxes of who knows what so it looks like there will be no problem filling the truck. After that we went to Reynolds Garden Café to grab lunch. As we sat there waiting for our order I looked up and saw Patsy, Cherie’s mom, coming in the restaurant. “Cherie, Look, it’s your mom” I said. Cherie looked back in surprise and we invited her to sit at our table.

She had come to pick up some lunch to take home and share with Ted. We had a nice visit talking about a variety of things. I told her about needing to get Wayne moved and that I was trying to get a hold of Nate about it. She said she would let him know. Pat’s order came so we said goodbye.

Dinner was good. After we dropped by Cherie’s parent’s house to see if we could catch Nate. Nope, he’s in Detroit. We went into the living room and visited with her mom and dad and Cathy came out a little later. I teased Cathy and at first she didn’t know whether to get mad or laugh. She laughed but just barely. Oh well. Sometimes things don’t come out right. I got better.

After a while it was time to go so we excused ourselves. We went to the apartment and grabbed some boxes to take to Wayne. I did get a hold of Nate and he said they can get Wayne moved late tomorrow or early Friday. I had been trying to call Wayne for hours with no response so we had decided to go over there.

I knocked on the window and Wayne came to the window, peering through the slot where his finger held down a rung on his Venetian blinds. He was surprised and left the window to get presentable. That seemed to take a while but finally he came to the door. We explained that we had found someone to get him moved and that we would be helping him get packed. It registered but Wayne still seemed slightly confused. He was complaining about feeling weak and dizzy like he had yesterday. That is something new that bears watching but we will be gone.


Cherie and I were going to do some packing of our own tonight but are both tired. It looks like we will be leaving later than we planned. Have to get Wayne taken care of first. I’m going to post this and go to bed. Night all.