This was supposed to be a day
that I missed at the shelter because I had surgery on Tuesday. When I came home
from the hospital on Wednesday, I was told to take it easy, and I did that for
as long as I could stand it! Doug knew I was house-bound. Still by 11:00 I had
to text him and ask if I could check off the names (least strenuous job in the
place). He wrote back, "Please." In fact, he told me later, he was
just reaching into his pocket to text me and ask how I was feeling when my text
to him rang in. "It's funny," he said, "but I was just about to
text you."
"It's real," I
replied. "We do communicate with others even when we aren't aware of
it." He agreed. Spooky but true.
Anyway, I took a precautionary
pain pill and arrived in time to welcome our pre-release to lunch. They got
soup, tuna salad, crackers, and a cup of strawberries. Our pale whale fellow
sat front and center for more than an hour—taste-testing the soup
many times and enjoying the repartee. At some point he mentioned being a
prisoner and I feigned ignorance and shock. It was hilarious to hear him
explain to me that he was indeed a federal prisoner but that I had nothing to
fear. Bless his heart. We had ourselves a little laugh, and life went on.
I had planned to stay only
half an hour, but by the time I had finished actually putting together the
plates for our homeless group and parceling out snacks for the afternoon, it
was after 1 o'clock. The longer I stayed, the stronger I felt. Giving is surely
better than receiving and FAR better than watching TV!
My boy wasn't there, but the
other two were. They were bouncing off the walls with energy, doing push-ups on
the serving bar, and banging on the piano—Lord 'a mercy!
The church folks brought the
customary bread donations, and two enormous cookies from that haul fell into my
carry-home bag…
The "overflow" that
was a focal point last week turned out to be a non-event as far as Doug could
ascertain. He fed that 5-gallon pot of soup to the shelter folks and was told
to not plan to feed overflow in future. I'm confused. Doug's confused. Even
Joey sometimes had a pot for overflow.
There is a middle-aged man and
woman living at the shelter—just by happenstance, and they are both more than a
little quirky. Doug uses the word "crazy." I noticed with amusement
that they've "found" each other. Our porkless fellow was again
unhappy to find a bit of bacon in his soup. I told him, "Well you wouldn't
have died if you'd eaten it." He repeated that he doesn't eat pork. I played
the halfwit and pretended to not fully comprehend. He responded with the fact
that pork would make him "sick" and that he's not eaten any since the
90s. I looked thoughtful, "You're probably allergic to that." The guy
drives Doug just nuts with his special needs, and oh! today the mother of the
two little boys also announced that she doesn't eat pork. She said she only
eats the food there when Miss Lillian is there and when I am there. So I really
enjoyed telling her that Lillian was no longer there, and furthermore, Lillian poured lots of bacon grease in all of her
dishes. The woman went through several of our offerings before throwing them
all out and opting for sack lunches for herself and the boys (each sack
contains one ham sandwich and one turkey).
Miss Lillian is officially
retired, and as I guessed, Dean has been invited back to take up the slack in
the kitchen. However, to my delight, Doug will stay on the Sunday schedule.
That's the plan. He was moaning today about having no one to help him prepare
the Christmas feast, though he'll have a dozen people to help serve it. So I
told him I'd be there at 8 a.m. on Christmas morning and we'd get 'er done. I
can't remember when I've looked so forward to Christmas morning.
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