It was my pleasure to return to the shelter this morning, where little has changed. I take great comfort in that. Arriving later than I did back when I had two pain-free arms, I saw again the small hoard of men who ply their way from the uptown meal to the downtown meal. By early afternoon, they'll be hanging out uptown again, waiting for their dinner and a bed. They look like a content bunch—I saw smiles perched atop their bulging backpacks. Who's to say that theirs is not a more perfect existence?
Mr. A. is scarce these days (personal issues with staff, I hear), but Doug, Gatekeeper and Crazy were in their places. There was little for me to do before serving time, but I did open a #10 an of applesauce and pour it into a bowl. Crazy fried chicken nuggets and crinkle potatoes. There was bubble gum aplenty, so each plate got a piece of that.
I'm still fascinated by the change in our pre-release prisoners. We've not housed any scary ones in a very long time. Surely, that is a policy change—probably has something to do with our housing regular homeless families as well. There's a rumor, from time to time, that the "regular homeless" will be dumped in favor of state monies for housing prisoners. I don't see that happening…
The little artist came to lunch, and he chose a toy car this morning. Then he brought me a 3 x 5 card with a drawing of a Christmas tree on it. He's faithful.
Our deaf fellow is still there, and he waved from the dining room. I've been practicing, so I gave him a confident "Hey! How are you?" And he signed, "Fine!" I'd forgotten "fine," but recognized it immediately. Signing seems to be a lot like riding a bike…
After 90 minutes, I had served two groups and many extra helpings. It was time to punch out, and bring home the gimpy arm. Doug and I went over the holiday calendar, and while he'll be there on Sundays, he's got big plans to celebrate New Years day with a large hangover.
On the cold war front, it really ticks me off that sites in that huge country just north of Mongolia (lest they be phishing for mention of themselves) hit THIS BLOG 75 times this week! I know from past experience to not look into the URL that links them to this site because it's pornographic. Once an innocent blogger hits such a website, they are hounded with outrageous amounts of hits. While I love to see if anyone has read my post, and from which countries, it's seldom more than a dozen or two in a week, and the USA and France are the only guaranteed friendly hits. This porno thing is something I have researched; other bloggers struggle with it too, and no one has a solution to the problem. Just FYI.
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