Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Heart Day!

It is A Day in My Life day again.

My Man went off to work dark and early this morning like he does every Saturday, and I went back to bed, like I usually don't, and I actually went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

I love Saturday mornings at home alone, having plenty of time to avoid whatever it is I don't really want to do. Today, as it is so often, it was the paper piles, the bane of my life. Here a pile, there a pile, everywhere a pile...

I did manage to get myself dressed and had dinner almost all ready in the crockpot before the phone rang. It was my friend De who had found a homeless person by the side of the road last night. She was calling to see if I could meet them at the Little House, our church's pantry/clothing room. It was a chilly morning, but they had gotten out of the truck and were sitting outside at the picnic table when I got there. We went in and quickly found a few things for her to wear. Not so easy was rounding up something for her to eat: food had to be non-perishable, single-serving, and no cooking required.

We spent quite a bit of time talking with her. At times she was perfectly rational, other times...not so much. The encounter left us with a bit of an Alice-in-Wonderland feeling, and in the end she told us she would rather go live on the street than spend any more time talking to us, so De loaded her up with her *new* stuff and took her back where she got her. We can't fix her, but at least we know we did what we could, and she is a little bit better off tonight than she was yesterday.

I did a couple of errands, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon at home. I made some phone calls and took another run at the paperwork, which springs eternal around here. Every now and then I had to run outside and hold something for my Man who was working on a display stand for the Central Texas Home and Garden show next weekend.

Later on I had a moment of hope that I might see D on the webcam, but that was short-lived. It's a bit too advanced for my techno-grade, so here's my plan: tonight I will shut down the computer, and hope that it has time to heal by the time I turn it on again.

My Man and I used to have a standing date to watch the British comedies on Saturday nights, but over the the last year or two, with one thing and another, that lovely habit has gradually fallen out of favor. So tonight, in honor of Valentine's Day, it is being resurrected. That oughta be enough heartfelt fun for anybody!

4 comments:

sterling river said...

Home and Garden show sounds fun - hope you do well.

Marytoo said...

They're fun to go to. Not so much fun to do, but they generate a lot of business.

Mary said...

Wow, I wouldn't have thought of there being homeless people in Copperas Cove. There were plenty in Tyler, Texas, when we pastored there. There was this one poor woman who walked the streets of the city constantly. She wanted to live in our church building, but it was just a storefront church, with a landlord and 3 other businesses in there, plus it had no shower or cooking facilities, so that wouldn't fly. We helped as best we could, gave her money and put her up in a motel for a couple of nights. She was obviously a mental patient (many of them are) who needed to be institutionalized or on medication or both. We took her to the welfare office, but they couldn't help her and told us that she had probably worn out her welcome with her family and was now on the streets. The poor woman cried CONSTANTLY. No place would hire her in that mental condition. It was truly sad, and we felt bad that we could do NOTHING to help her. She didn't respond to prayer.

We were called constantly at that little church to help various homeless people. Most of them, we noticed, were mental and just wanted to be put up in a motel for the night before they moved on. They seemed to want to constantly be on the move. None of them responded to prayer and had a weird look in their eye.

Several peoplesaid, "They just need to get a job." We said, "Well, would you hire them at Super One?" One of our ladies was a manager at Super One. She said, "Oh, no, we would never hire somebody like that." So, we said, "What do you want them to do?"

Anyway, we felt bad that we failed those people. They needed to be on medication, but didn't have the money and didn't qualify for welfare, and even if they did, who would see to it that they took their medicine every day?? I don't have the answer.

You don't want to take those people in to your home, because they might get violent. You don't know them. It's awful.

BTW, I am on Facebook now. I'll look you up and put in a friend request.

Mary said...

Mary, my full name is Mary Grovine Elliott Raynor. Send me a friend request, ok, on Facebook.