Sam Gives Back

I have mentioned Sam before in my blogs. He had a stroke when he was 45 years old. He spent the last two years struggling to do everything with his cane and only the right side of his body working.

Everybody helped Sam. Even the worthless drunks helped him because he was so helpless. Of course plenty took advantage of him as well but it was unusual for the kind of people I saw helping him to help anybody.

A couple of months ago a man gave Sam a motorized wheelchair. Sam has been enjoying his new found freedom. I found out the day before yesterday that Sam is doing little things for people around the building now. Usually things like taking out the trash and picking up trash around the grounds.

He is so grateful to be out and about that it is his way of giving back. There are many of us here in the building that go out of our way to pick up trash or do little projects to beautify our neighborhoods. We may not be able to do much but we do what we can.

Yesterday, I watched Sam stop Vera and take her trash to the dumpster for her. Vera and I were talking about how nice it was to see Sam in his wheelchair because we had watched him struggle for so long to take a single step. Once he had taken Vera's trash to the dumpster he came and told Vera he wanted payment. He wanted a cup of coffee. He still has trouble cooking. She was happy to do it for him.

While I'm on the subject it is nice to see Vera out. She was in so much pain for a couple of years that she had to have others walk her chihuahua, Charlie. She has been able to do it herself for a few months now. She is also the one who took care of Lillian so she wouldn't have to go into a nursing home until she died.

So many times I blog about the assholes in the building. It's time to focus on the good people too.

Waking Up on the East End of Town

It's 4:52 a.m. on the east end of Charleston and all is well.

It's peaceful except for the bugs I occasionally swat. The birds aren't even out yet. Soon a robin will skit across the grass. He's the first bird out every morning. He taught me, "the early bird may get the worm, but so do the rest of them." He doesn't even necessarily get the fattest one. Haha

It's supposed to be a crime ridden mess in this part of town. But I am out all hours of the night and never have a problem. I tend to make criminals nervous I have found. I live in a low-income high rise and I have heard the "troublemakers" talking. They think I hang out to narc on them. It is certainly not the reason I hang out but if it makes them behave in my little corner of the world than so much the better.

I live my life on a mostly cash basis. It's a good thing because during the most recent Emergency Power Failure the first thing that quit working was credit cards. If you needed anything you had to have cash and the ATM's went down first. Many stores were closed because they couldn't take credit cards. It wasn't because they didn't want to. The computers didn't work and they couldn't.

Remember the days, not so long ago, when they swiped your card on a little slip of paper? Do credit card companies even accept those any more?

There goes a firetruck. So much for peaceful. Now another. They went off in the distance. Now there goes an ambulance. There's something big going on. I'm glad it's not here. We have plenty of fake fire alarms in this building. I bet it drives the firemen crazy. The general public has no idea that a full brigade of firemen must respond to every fire alarm in these buildings. 9 times out of 10 it is a minor kitchen alarm that normal people have all the time. In these low-income highrises that are full of people with assorted disabilities the alarms are sensitive and we can't turn them off. Only the firemen can after they have confirmed that the problem was only minor.

There's the fourth firetruck. I heard a police car as well. It must be really big. I see two more firetrucks and hear more in the distance. This must be really big. I bet if I go up to my 8th. floor apartment I can see what is going on. I see a lot of stuff from up there that nobody realizes I see. I can't do anything to help though so I'll just hang out down here. Just know your tax dollars are definitely at work. All that response in less than a 10 minute period.

I only called 911 once in my life before moving in this building. Now I have called them enough to know that their average response time is 7 minutes. So I know if I can manage to keep myself alive for 7 minutes then the City of Charleston will take over from there. Here comes the first truck back. Not bad, just another 10 minutes. That's good, maybe things aren't as bad as they first thought and somebody's life didn't just fall apart.

Now I hear the first birds chirping in the morning and the crickets have just chimed in. Whatever happened in the other part of town has had no impact here. A train passing in the distance sounds like home. No matter where I lived there has always been a train in the distance if not actually right in my front yard. Remember playing on the tracks when you were a kid. Our parents taught us, "you get off the tracks when a train comes or you die." None of that silly, "It's the train companies fault if I can't get my ass off the tracks before the train hits me," stuff.

Well our firetrucks are back. One more truck and they'll all be safely home. All that in little over 1/2 an hour.

Stepdaughters and Make-up

Soon after I first married Bobby's daughter's came to spend the weekend with us. I had met them before we met. In fact the first time I ever met them they planned their father's and my impending nuptials. The only problem was that Bobby and I had not been dating too long and to say it was awkward would be putting it mildly. Putting our uncomfortable feelings aside, we played along because his daughters seemed to be having so much fun with it.

We were leaving to take them roller skating and we were staying with his parents because they hadn't seen the girls in awhile. They ran down to their aunt's house to get ready and once I got ready to went to get them. What I saw when they pranced out of that house as only 11 year old girls can when they are feeling pretty almost floored me on the spot. I wanted to laugh hysterically but I didn't because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I couldn't let them go out in public that way because I guarantee you the rest of the world wouldn't be able to contain their mirth at the sight.

They decided they were going to wear make-up. Unfortunately it was obvious that no one had ever taught them to put on make-up. Coming toward me were two, giggly little girls that had on full fledged clown faces! I wasn't their mother or father so I couldn't tell them to take it off. They had barely even met me.

Thinking fast I told them that their daddy hated make-up. I pointed out that I wasn't even wearing any which sealed the deal for them. They ran back in the house and scrubbed their faces clean so that their daddy would be pleased. Unfortunately I couldn't put my own make-up on because I had got them to take theirs off.

Anyway we went skating and had a wonderful time.

We Finally Found Our Fishing Hole

Eddie and I have been fishing for a couple of years. I should say that "he" has been fishing while I watch for wildlife or read or daydream and generally hang out in the woods which is something I like to do. I actually had a fishing license last year but I only caught one fish and I am too cheap to buy another one....no return on my dollar.

Yesterday we went to a spot we have been wanting to go to for at least a year. The strange part is it is the closest spot to my house. We just kept forgetting about it. I backed my truck up right next to the river and dropped the tailgate and "viola" it was the perfect spot.

He caught the same fish twice, It was a little catfish that he threw back. Another guy that was there caught a little bass that he threw back. He is a customer at Fruth so I knew him. He started telling me about the giant catfish and gar and muskie he had caught from his boat. He said if people knew how big the fish were around here they would never get in the water.

He started laughing about seeing a family come to the river with a bar of soap to take a bath. I had to laugh at that because I had seen some people do that in Boone County once. My stepdaughters were horrified. I thought it was funny and as I explained to them at the time, "at least the people are trying to be clean." If you don't have water you have to do what you have to do.

As I hung out yesterday doing "my thing". I noticed a lot of trash laying around. Some was regular river trash that is left behind by flooding. Most was trash left by trashy people including lots of plastic where somebody had been stripping copper from wires and left their crap behind. So I started my own personal river beautification project. I cleaned up enough wire plastic to fill up a shopping bag. It may not sound like a lot but if I do that everytime I go back it won't take me long to singlehandedly beautify my own little corner of WV.

The best part is I found a butterfly bush seedling. I wish I had found it a month ago. I paid $40 dollars for a butterfly bush for my mom for a combination mother's day/birthday gift. Since she wouldn't let me take her to dinner for mother's day I transferred the money to a better birthday present. The bush was beautiful but I had been trying to grow one for almost a year because she mentioned she wanted one. None of my cuttings took root though. I have a black thumb unfortunately.

The seedling was tall and pretty. Not as pretty as the $40 bush but it would have still made a lovely present in a pretty flower pot. Not to mention the fact that it would have been free! Anyway I got Eddie to dig it up and I took it home and repotted it. Hopefully it will take root and grow. If I had not have taken it, it would have been washed away by the next flood anyway so I didn't hurt anything by doing it.

We finally found our fishing holw

July Health Update

I'm doing better than I have in Months. The doctors changed my meds last month and I haven't had any a fib attacks in a couple of weeks now. And that was after going through a couple of weeks of utter exhaustion because of helping an ungrateful friend and then the power failure.

No, I don't mean Lou, the friend who stayed with me during the power failure. She was wonderful and we hope to hang out more in the future...just not live together...haha

I had a problem with someone accusing me of some stuff. I was going to document my every move but I realized after very little consideration that I quit defending myself to this person years ago. They say when you take meds or get drunk that your true feeling about someone come out. Well trust me, they did. But it is their problem, not mine.

Eddie and I are getting along better than ever. Who knows how long that will last ...but that is the nature of our relationship. We both know that when push comes to shove that all we have are each other. We just have to give each other plenty of space in the good times. If it had not been for him during the power failure I would have ended up in the hospital.

It's amazing how a little change in routine rocks my world. As tired as I was I would normally be having chest pain galore but I didn't have any. Just the bone chilling tiredness that is typical with a heart failure patient.

They finally scheduled my surgery for August 3rd. But I just found out one of the doctors will be on vacation that week. I'm waiting on word from the other doctor about what to do. There is NO WAY I'm going to let them do 2 surgeries.

Get it all done the first time or not at all is what I am going to tell them!

Levi

Levi was a greyhound I took home to because he had the good sense to fall in love with me. It's a good thing because he did not adjust to being a pet too well and I was able to give him the special care that he needed. He did just fine around me but he was very nervous around others and thunderstorms terrified him. He became Queenie's best friend and they did everything together for a few years.

I had him fixed because I didn't want him to defile my precious Queenie. That's when I learned that even if you have a dog fixed it still has the desire to mate (just like a man - huh)! Levi was a world champion digger. He weighed like 85 pounds and he could dig a hole deep enough to hide every inch of his body with only a few inches of tail sticking out of it. The contractor next door to us said he wished he could pay Levi to dig where he wanted holes dug - he would make a fortune with him.

One time I had him in a kennel with dirt floors. I opened my front door one day and he was sitting there waiting for me. To dig his way out of the kennel he had to dig through 3 pens and under the front door. In two of the pens there were chickens sitting on eggs - he did not disturb them! Unfortunately there was a storm one night and it must have really scared him (I was at work). Instead of cowering in the closet like he usually did, he went outside and dug his way under the fence. I looked far and wide for him and I never did find him. He is one of the few dogs that I have gone looking for in my life and couldn't find.

I wish I knew what happened to him.