ONE FRIDAY IN JUNE

     Work in the lot behind the shelter is full steam ahead. There were machines and workmen aplenty when I parked my car and took the hot shovel out of the back. I jettisoned it across two fences, as that many workmen looked with surprise. I waved to them, but they wanted an explanation. I told them the shovel was found behind a tree there and that I was just returning it. "It's not ours!" they said.
     "That's okay," I said. "It's somebody's, it's not mine, and you might as well have it." They were in. They were in "two" deep. It took a minute for one of them to graciously accept it from the other and put it in his truck. Too cute, and no longer my problem.

Looking thru the window screen, we can still see the construction work.

     Approaching the back steps, I first noticed that some empty drink crates were arranged into a wall of sorts. I wondered if Kevin had moved back in. He had. It was 10 a.m., and Kevin was sound asleep. He remained that way for the full 3 hours I was there.

Looking down from the porch. Kevin is oblivious.

Three hours later… still oblivious.

A full view of "the stairway/lift apartment."

     Doug has returned from another week's vacation. He was not surprised to find that there was no cheese for the meat sandwiches, and there were no mayonnaise or mustard packets. The packets had been ordered and received, but mysteriously disappeared. Also missing was his phone charger (for his old flip phone). And WHO needs 500 mayonnaise packets? I'd love it if he'd put a critter cam in there! As hard as I tried to sell him on that idea, he wouldn't buy it.
     So many things are just not right in that place. Doug had to throw out a half dozen large pans of restaurant foods, dried and not dated or labeled. And the new 8-foot-wide cooler in the dining room is full of boxes of donated lettuce. Doug whined, "Who would use that much lettuce?" We won't, and he will have to haul it to the dumpster. Throwing out trash is a large part of his post-vacation duties.
     Just before noon, a man who was mowing told Doug that he mowed right by a man's feet, out behind the building, and we might have a dead one on our hands. He was miffed, at any rate, that he could not mow there. Doug and I locked up the kitchen and headed out back to see this body for ourselves. By the time we got there, the corpse was sitting upright, rubbing his eyes. The Grim Reaper would have to wait.
     We had 8 or 10 folks come for sack lunches at noon. There are some new ladies living there now, and Fancy was there, of course. The autistic boy and his mom were there, and for about a month now there's been a young fellow who eats very well, but appears to do nothing else. He arrives early for meals and has an air of entitlement, but that's all he has.
     For dinner, Doug deep fried drumsticks, steamed cabbages, heated pintos in the oven and baked a pan of corn bread. We filled 36 plates and got out of there early! —Good night, Kevin