DAY TWO—THINK IMA DIE

     In at 10 a.m., out at 3:15. I was greeted this morning by an adorable young fellow who said he is Hottie's best buddy and newly hired to be a gatekeeper, but for today he was to be my kitchen helper. His eyes are like two large brown marbles—just cute as a bug. It feels like Hottie left a bit of himself here for me, and Buddy does nicely! He had rolls of ground beef thawing in the meat sink so we could make spaghetti for dinner.
     I've never worked so hard in that kitchen as I did today, and I'm not sure how much stamina I'll have for tomorrow. Because Buddy is in training for gatekeeping, he was not available as often as I wished. We were serving sack lunches, but we had 20-some folks in-house because it's Saturday, plus it is cold, so I made a big pot of stone soup. They ate nearly all of it, some having three bowls.
     The kids from the hotel across the street came for lunch—this might be my first-ever Saturday there, and it's not like weekdays or Sundays. Oh, did I mention that Doug is sick? He's on antibiotics and cannot come back for at least 2 days. He was not happy that I had been asked to come today; he felt that his Sunday lady was being abused, but she's not.
     Kevin (you remember Kevin who slept on the back steps and made himself an "apartment" in a trash can) was sleeping in the lobby this morning. Obviously, he's out of jail. He's a scrap of a human, and when he is hunched over a table with his head on his arms, the only thing about him that is discernable is that he appears to be a human. When I first passed him, on the way to the food pantry, I thought he was a manakin. His gender, his race, or even that he is alive were not evident. I so wanted to pat him on the back but dared not disturb him. Human misery can be lower than we generally imagine...from way up here in our lofty lives.
     We'll serve sack lunches again tomorrow, but I found a very large ham in the fridge (left from last week), and we will chop that tomorrow and mix it with beans for dinner. Pickin's are so slim in that pantry! There is NO fruit of any kind. In an emergency, I would make a foray of the freezer, but I'm saving that for an emergency…
     There isn't much to tell about our folks today; I was too busy hustling. The 9-year-old boy, Fancy Lady, the autistic teen and his mom and my little gay fellow (still happy!) were all there, including many other familiar faces. Doug was missed—maybe mostly by me!

This is what sack lunches and stone soup look like.