pearl and i

pearl and i went for a nice long walk yesterday, longer than our usual romps. while pearl’s goal was to sniff out new things she’s not sniffed before, my goal was to search out places where we could get some sleep at night.

while all of the city’s parks close at 10:00 p.m., many of them have wooded areas which are deep and thick enough to enable us to hunker down for an evening and catch some zzz’s.  and although i do have a tent given to me by erika m., i don’t think it would be prudent to use it. it could be seen by police or an individual who may report it to the police.

another thing that has been on my mind is what pearl and i will doing during rainy weather. while a couple of the parks have small gazeboes where i believe pearl and i could hang out during rainy days without any problems, it is the rainy nights which concern me.  going to a shelter on a rainy night with a dog is impossible, (actually even without a dog i don’t  think i would go to a shelter since from what i’ve read shelters are the best place to get assaulted and become the victim of theft. not to mention that they can be a breeding ground for lice and other pests.).

i suppose that on stormy nights it would be possible to use the tent as a tarp and set up a lean-to without attracting too much attention. i have thought of perhaps finding my way into one of the many abandoned factories which litter the city, but again i am concerned  about getting caught by the authorities, and what may happen to pearl if i were to be apprehended.

a few of the places on line where i have been reading up on street living have suggested that the best route is to actually stay up and on the move through the night, and then spend the day getting rest in parks, since many people lay out and sleep/sunbathe during the day in parks it’s highly unlikely a homeless person would be bothered for doing the same. especially if one doesn’t look homeless, i.e. curled up in rags on a park bench etc.

this may prove to be the best alternative. unless something else comes to mind.

on other fronts, my packing is nearly complete. i have rid myself of nearly everything i no longer feel the need to keep and hopefully all that remains will fit into the storage unit i have. i will be posting an ad today for my bookcases, and hopefully they will be sold before i am to be out of my apartment. if not i will need to call goodwill or some other organization to come and take them off my hands. but i’d prefer to sell them as having the cash would be a big help.

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

i continue to

i continue to find it interesting how friends of mine react when they learn i am going to be homeless. while several of them have lent me a hand in numerous ways. a decidedly large majority seem to ignore/ avoid my situation as if it may infect them with some horrible affliction.

i’m not sure why. is it simply because they find the situation so awkward and uncomfortable that it’s simply easier for them to deal with it by not dealing with it?  or could it be that they are afraid i will ask them to put me up and they figure if they don’t comment on it/ end contact with me they won’t have to face such a possibility? not that i have/would ask anyone to take me in.

i have commented on this before in a previous post . but a recent interaction with another person i know has caused me to think upon this further.

i need to have some cash on hand for buying items that my food stamps don’t cover such as soap, toothpaste and other non-food items which are not allowed under the “snap” program.   i find it interesting that people when talking about the homeless usually will make reference to them being “dirty”, “smelly” and “unkempt” etc. but how, i ask, are homeless people supposed to bathe, shave and wash their clothes without money to do so? and in the case of bathing, a place to do so?  why is not a small portion of food stamp money allowed to be spent on personal care items? i realize that there are a percentage of people who might use such non-food money on items such as liquor, cigarettes and other non essential items. but the vast majority i say, would spend the money on useful personal care items. and with modern computerized technology, it would be very easy to to allow certain taxable items to be purchased, while refusing others.

allowing the homeless to purchase these items would not only remove the veneer of uncleanliness, from the homeless. but would also go a great way in lifting up their emotional/psychic well being. after all how good can one feel about themselves and how can they have any hope about improving their situation, if they have been wearing the same unwashed clothes for weeks at a time, or haven’t been able to shower or shave in months?

but i digress… so i need to have cash on hand, as i have said. i have a few personal items which i am attempting to sell, one of which is a yamaha 6-string guitar. i have a musician friend, brian s. who is very keen on guitars and has a small collection of them. so i sent him an email asking if he would like to purchase my guitar before i put it on craigslist for sale.

his response was “definitely! i get paid this thursday. what kind if guitar is it? why are u selling it? ill definitely buy it”.

my reply was “it’s a yamaha 6 string acoustic…you were with me when i bought it all those many years ago… i’m selling it because due to all my hospital/prescription bills, and not being able to find work, i am out of cash and desperate for money… so out of money that i am actually going to be on the streets as of june 1…or thereabouts….so the 75$ will certainly come on handy… i have started a blog about my situation which you can read here:
https://ironwrackdream.wordpress.com/”

after sending him that message i heard nothing from him for 3 days. not a word about the guitar, not even a “sorry to hear about what’s going on”. nothing. so after 3 days of no reply i sent him a message asking if he was going to come by the next day to get the guitar  and his response was ” i’ll see what everything is like after i pay all the bills i have”.

now i understand that everyone has bills and that yes he might not have the cash to purchase it from me. but the general tone of his responses after learning of my situation was quite different than before he knew.

this is the way most of the people i know, have responded. once i am out on the streets and begin to make friends amongst the other homeless people, it will be interesting to see if this type of response is fairly typical, or if it simply is that most of the people i have counted amongst my friends have always been merely assholes in disguise.

addendum: open mouth and insert foot…i wrote to brian s. about the situation with the guitar a few hours after my original post of this blog post, and he told me he didn’t have the money. of course he was still a bit….ummm impolite for not letting me know.  and i certainly jumped to a bit of a conclusion upon not hearing from him, for which i apologize, should he ever read this. so i do not include him among the asshole contingent of people i know. maybe i am becoming jaded by the attitudes of some and apply them to everyone else. i shall have to guard against this in the future.

 

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

i attempted to

i attempted to sell an old t.v. and dvd player today, but to no avail. the dvd player no one would accept, because it was an old model which is not high definition compatible. and no one would take the television because it didn’t have a remote. which seemed to me to be a bit ridiculous, since the advent of universal remotes would eliminate the necessity of a brand specific remote control. but then again i know virtually nothing about electronics.

so i gave the dvd player to my roommate kristy, who is moving out of this apartment in july. i attempted to give the television to goodwill but they wouldn’t take it. and the woman who was working there didn’t seem to have an answer to why they didn’t take them other than to say that it was just their policy.

so i ended up bringing it to best buy which will take all used electronics and recycle them in an environmentally safe manner. while i would have preferred it to go to a charity  which could sell it to earn some money, i suppose that recycling it was a better option than simply bringing it to a dump.

the rest of my day was spent doing more sorting of my personal belongings, and trying to co-ordinate rides to get my stuff into storage. i have additional boxes coming tomorrow so i should have nearly everything packed and ready to go by the end of the weekend.

it’s interesting to note that as my sorting and packing has started, pearl has become more attached to me, more nervous when i need to leave her by herself when i venture off somewhere. i think she is afraid that i am going to abandon her. even as i type this while sitting on my bed, she is lying next to me with her head and paws pressed firmly against me as she sleeps.

i also need to find someone who will be my c/o (care of) address so that i will be able to have mail delivered somewhere. while kristy has offered the use of her address once she is settled in her new place, i will still need to find someone to accept the delivery of my mail until she has actually moved. if she were the only other person living in this apartment i would have no problem with simply continuing to have my mail delivered to my current address, but unfortunately the third person we live with (whom we have nicknamed “psycho mike”) i do not trust. and would not put it past him to steal or otherwise tamper with any mail/packages which might be delivered for me.

i could go into why i don’t trust him and the reasons he has earned the moniker “psycho mike” but quite honestly i don’t think anyone would believe me. suffice to say that he suffers  paranoid delusions about the government and is also a textbook megalomaniac. he is also an inveterate liar and cheat. he in fact owes me slightly more than $250 for his share of internet service, but refuses to pay. i would take him to small claims court for it, but i don’t have the money to file the court papers.

tomorrow, weather permitting i am going to bring more of my books to the donation center, and post an ad online to attempt to sell my bookcases before i need to leave the apartment. while i do have the room to store them, i have more use for the cash at the moment.

 

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

it’s been a

it’s been a few days since my last post. i have been busy going through my things and packing up. i’ve also been getting rid of many things. originally i planned to get rid of roughly 40% of my books, but it looks like i’m actually getting rid of about 60%. i’ll be donating them to the local goodwill/salvation army. i was originally going to donate them to the local library, but then realized that it would be better to give them to a charity where they will be sold and the money going to help others.

i also gave to a local clothing charity, two large bags of clothes that i haven’t worn in quite a while.

Paul k. came by and took several boxes and my main computer to his place. (i’m posting this from a 4 year old mac mini) and let me know that if i needed, i could store some additional things with he and his wife. and offered to help move some of my things into storage.

the most difficult thing i’ve been dealing with is trying to fit what i feel i will need into a single hiking backpack. what appeared fairly large when i first looked at it, quickly seemed to lose it’s size once i began to fill it. simple things like trying to determine how many clothes to pack. how many pairs of socks, underwear, shirts etc. should i have so i can still look presentable without having to launder them too often. granted, $3.50 per load for washing and drying laundry isn’t that much in and of itself. but when you are homeless and virtually penniless, it’s quite a bit. there is also the question of jackets, hoodies and other foul weather clothing.

and trying to figure out what basic foods i need to carry with me is another challenge.  since i am going to avoid buying pre-made foods which although convenient and take up fairly little room, are quite costly. that means i need to buy more basic ingredients (including things like olive oil, herbs and spices,salt and pepper) which are cheaper in the long run but take up more room, and weigh considerably more as well. luckily the local food co-op sells many of these things in bulk so that i can buy  smaller amounts of some things more frequently.

another consideration is water. when i was young, every park had water fountains so people could quench their thirst. but since the commodification of water. there are no water fountains in public parks (at least in the city i am currently in). so finding a source of free water isn’t that easy. the local train station has a water fountain (“bubblers”, we called them back in my school days), so filling up a couple of large bottles should be fairly easy. a couple of homeless living websites i have visited  suggest getting water from the outdoor spigots of homes. this tactic i am not so sure of, as going onto someone’s property to steal their water is trespassing. that is, if you get caught. and while the local water supply doesn’t contain fluoride , it does contain a heavy dose of chlorine, so much chlorine that on some days i can smell the chlorine as the water flows from the faucet. so figuring out a way to filter water with a compact device is something else i am trying to figure out.

my time left in domicile existence is getting closer. so my working out these details is a fairly pressing issue.

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

i spoke to

i spoke to a woman today from the massachusetts justice project. they provide legal advice and assistance to low income individuals. they assisted me in finding forms for my eviction case. i will file both an “answer” to the claim as well as a discovery of evidence. while i full well know that i am going to lose my case, by filing for a discovery of evidence for papers relevant to my case, the court date is automatically postponed for two weeks.  which gives me additional time to get things in order before i am on the streets.

another very helpful legal service is mass legal help. which offers a plethora of help and advice as well as online forms for any sort of legal issues.

i spent the day today going through my books. those i don’t need i am going to donate to the local library, as selling them isn’t an option. the few locally owned bookstores in the city only offer store credit, not cash for used books.

i have also started a list of what i need to pack in my backpack. and also how to pack it so what i need is easy to get at. not as simple a task as i originally thought. deciding what clothes to bring with me, how much room to leave for foodstuffs, and other essentials and packing it away neatly and in some sort of organized fashion (not two of my strongest areas) is going to take some doing. i am thinking about also having a black smallish travel bag, but i am unsure if i want to carry that around with me. it also may make me more of a “mark” for unsavory characters.

which brings me to the issue of personal security. during the day, with a dog, i don’t expect to bothered by anyone. but i have been thinking about sleeping out in the open at night. by out in the open i mean of course, sleeping outside, on open ground without shelter. luckily there are quite a few wooded areas deep and dark enough where i shouldn’t be seen by passing patrol cars or people walking along the streets. but if i can find these areas, so can others.  so i have been reading up on street safety, and how to defend oneself if confronted with a hostile individual. hopefully i will not have any sort of negative interaction with others, but i’d rather have some knowledge of what to do if such a situation should arise and never need it, than the opposite.

the national coalition for the homeless (nch) reports that:

“From 1999 through 2010, in forty-seven states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, there have been one thousand, one hundred eighty-four acts of violence committed
by housed individuals, resulting in three hundred twelve deaths of homeless people
and eight hundred seventy-two victims of non-lethal violence.”

the figures for 2010 are as follows:

Total Number of Violent Acts in 2010: 113
Total Number of Non-Lethal Attacks: 89
Total Number of Lethal Attacks: 24

Breakdown of 2010 Non-Lethal Attacks:
Beatings: 50%
Assault w/ Deadly Weapon: 37%
Shootings: 5%
Rapes/Sexual Assaults: 3%
Multimedia Exploitation: 2%
Harassment: 2%
Setting Victim on Fire: 1%

so the chances of being homeless and the victim of a violent crime are relatively low, when you consider the total number of homeless individuals. and who really knows how many of these crimes were related to drugs/alcohol or some sort of illegal activity.

one other precipitating factor, is the attempts of various municipalities enacting laws which virtually criminalize, and de-humanize those who are homeless.

 

 

to anyone who may wish to help me out, i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

i met up

i met up early this evening with my friend erika, whom i haven’t seen in quite a while. she stopped by my place to drop off a backpack and some assorted camping equipment for my use. it was interesting to fall right into conversation with her after not having seen her in nearly two years.  our talk skated about many subjects including the economy, religion, and the state of the world today. it was a good, albeit short conversation.

but mostly i appreciated the fact that she saw my upcoming homelessness as a period of transition, a sloughing off of the old and a metamorphosis into something very different, much the same way that i am perceiving this situation. i am not fearful or worried by what is going on in my life. i will admit that when the inevitability of my becoming homeless first became apparent, i was worried. i went through the seven stages of grief: shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression and finally, acceptance and hope. but i went through them quickly, over the course of a day or two.

i subconsciously  at the time realized that i could  give into the fear that becoming homeless can understandably cause, or i could take as much control of the situation as possible, which would limit the emotional/psychic damage inflicted upon me. i say subconsciously because it was just that, an automatic response of my being to the occurring events. looking back on it i am rather pleasantly surprised that i have reacted in this fashion.

that is not to say i am looking forward to being homeless. but i am appreciating how it is making me look at materialism and not just in an abstract way, but in a most personal way.

for instance, i have been trying to locate someone with a truck to assist me in moving three wooden bookcases to my 5′ x 5′ storage unit. when i thought….”why?”  yes i do have many books, and yes again i do need bookcases to put them in, but while my books are in storage i have no need for bookcases. so why not simply sell them to get some much needed cash? and what of my books? do i really need to keep all of them? some i certainly do not want to part with, such as my collections of burroughs and ginsberg, but i do not certainly need to keep them all. so tomorrow i am going to go through them, and those i don’t really desire to keep, i will be ridding myself of. i am looking to eliminate perhaps 40% of my collection.

if someone had told me a year ago that i would be getting rid of 40% of my books without giving it a second’s thought, i would’ve laughed. today i am looking forward to it.

on a separate note, when i originally  started this blog i had placed a paypal “donate” button on my posts so that persons could donate money to help me out if they should so choose. unfortunately i had to remove them because in order to accept a payment to paypal one needs to have a bank account. i did not realize this when i opened the account, and paypal didn’t mention it until a donation was sent and i tried to accept it. i am not quite sure why paypal has this requirement, since they hold onto the money and don’t deposit it in the checking account of the member. for some odd reason they want to have the two connected. wether that is their policy or one implemented by the government, i don’t know, nor do i really care. i have shut my paypal account and the only donations i am asking for are items on my amazon wishlist.

i have already had several items donated to me (to see the items and the names of those who have donated, click the “donations received” link at the top of my blog). and am very grateful for the generosity of these individuals. it is my intent that when i am back on my feet, i shall give to those in need an amount equal to 3 times of the value of donations i have received.

thank you once again to those i know and do not know, for extending a helping hand to a fellow human in need. perhaps there is hope for our species after all.

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

even though today’s

even though today’s temperature was in the low seventies, as i walked with pearl through our favorite park, my mind was on winter.  i’m not a fan of winter despite having lived in new england nearly all my life. and my upcoming homelessness, has caused me to think of what i will do when the cold weather sets in. even though temperatures can stay at reasonable levels even through november, ( this past year  it didn’t get very cold at all, even throughout january and february) who knows what the coming winter will bring.

if i was by myself and  homeless it wouldn’t really be to difficult to find shelter during the cold winter months. but with my pearl, it is. there are very few shelters which will allow pets. and here in new england there are none.

according to pets of the homeless , anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of homeless people have pets. thats approximately 64,991 homeless people with pets, using figures from hud’s July 2010 5th Homeless Assessment Report.

Pearl’s story:

i rescued my dog from a perilous situation. from the time she was able to be bred, she was kept locked in a basement with virtually no contact with people, and the only contact she had with other dogs was when she was in heat and a male dog would be put in the basement with her to mate. after she had given birth, as soon as she was able to be bred again, she was bred again. this hideous process continued until she was nearly seven years old.

when one day a male dog was put in to mate with her. she finally had enough and as the male mounted her she reached back with her powerful jaws and pulled the animal off of her back  and pinned him to the floor by his throat. it took three  people to get her to let go of her assailant. she still has scars on her hind quarters and below her right eye from this act of self-protection.

after this incident her owners decided to bring her to a shelter to have her killed. someone found out about this decision and liberated her from her captors.

a short while later, we found each other.

i went to visit some friends who were watching her for a weekend and i fell for her in an instant. a couple of weeks later, she was mine.

a few months later i had my heart attack and she stayed by my side 24 hours a day for the next few months while i recuperated.

that is dedication and love.

which is why i was thinking about winter. i have a couple of choices. i can try my best to find employment and housing before the winter comes. but my attempts at finding employment for the past 6 months has been to no avail. or i can attempt to make my way to a warmer climate before the winter is here.  but being homeless in a city i know moderately well is considerably different than being homeless in a completely strange city.

i don’t have to make this decision soon. but i will have to make it.

please consider donating to help me out. i can assure you that i do not do drugs and that i rarely , if ever, drink. any funds received will be used for food, clothing and necessities. i will make note in the blog of all donations received.

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

i seem to

i seem to have much more property than i thought i had. when it’s all spread out throughout my apartment it doesn’t seem like much, but when i need to decide where it’s going to go, the actual amount is considerably different than it appeared. while paul k. will be storing the more important items, the rest i need to find a place for. i have offered my roommate kristie c. to have her take my kitchenware with her to her new apartment when she moves, seeing as she doesn’t have much of her own. i have also told her that she can take a couple of tables and a small cabinet for her use. so that clears out a small amount. and at least those things will be serving a purpose, until i need them again.

the rest of my belongings (which is comprised primarily of books), i will need to place in storage. the cheapest place for storage that i found was $37 a month including mandatory insurance, an amount i can hopefully come up with while i am homeless. how i will come up with it i am unsure, but as they say, where there is a will there is a way.

i came to the realization today that being homeless will also deprive me of one of my favorite pastimes,(no…not that one lol) cooking. i have been cooking since i was 9 years old. and it’s something that i enjoy, and enjoy often.

although most of the parks in my city do allow one to grill etc. most of the parks do not have permanent grills in place, and being vegetarian i don’t really grill things that often. after a bit of online research i found a stove which not only doesn’t require alcohol, butane,or some other highly combustable fuel, but burns wood, sticks etc. and folds up very small, and it is quite inexpensive as well (hint hint…check my wishlist 😉 ). it will be nice to be able to eat hot food as i was afraid of most of my meals being cold.

i have also been investigating what are called survival foods. i am talking about hardtack and pemmican.

hardtack  is basically an unlevened bread which is baked until dried through and very hard. it was taken by sailors and land travelers in the past during long journeys because it essentially never goes bad.  it can’t however be eaten “as is”, it needs to be soaked in water or milk to be eaten, it’s nutritionally dense and as i said doesn’t spoil.

pemmican was created by the cree, who were one of the indigenous peoples living in what is now called canada. it is a paste made from dried meat, pounded into a powder and mixed with rendered fat. sometimes dried fruit was added. vegetarian pemmican replaces the meat with a mixture of nuts, it provides a good amount of protein and carbohydrates, as well as vitamins and other trace nutrients from the dried fruits.

i also plan on sprouting things like lentils and other beans as they are more nutritious and don’t really need cooking, which can take as long as two or three hours when prepared conventionally.

i’ll be preparing both the hardtack and pemmican in the next day or two. while i don’t expect them to be a standard part of my daily diet. i think they will serve an important supplemental role.

i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

by clicking the “wishlist” tab at the top of the blog you will see explanations of why i have placed these items on my wishlist.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you

one of my

one of my roommates brought me to a pawn shop today so i could get some cash for my camera. i rarely used it so it wasn’t much of a loss to me. it netted me $50.  about what i expected.  she and i haven’t really spoken about my situation. she seemed genuinely concerned about my upcoming homelessness. and i was a bit surprised/touched by it.  we have after all only known each other for a couple of months. she will be leaving the apartment we are currently sharing, because our third roommate is perhaps one of the most delusional sociopaths i have ever met.

but that insanity is not what this blog is about. though because of that insanity i had been thinking about moving for several months now,  (in actuality i had been thinking about moving after about a month of sharing a domicile), but the hassles of having to move again combined with the difficult task of finding an apartment that will allow a dog,  let alone a pitbull, caused me to put up with his behavior.

as i was walking pearl today, i thought that perhaps my becoming homeless is in reality a blessing in disguise. “after all”, i thought, “how long would i have continued to live in this mildly unpleasant living situation?”  but even more that that i realized that since becoming unemployed a little over two years ago, i had come to be trapped and somewhat complacent in my life.

while i was working, in addition to putting in 35 or so hours a week, i would also bike 5 miles a day, weight-lift 4 times a week, perform  hindu-yogi breathing exercises/ meditate on a daily basis as well as voraciously read. but since losing my job and having more time in which to continue to do these activities, i slowly, almost imperceptibly, stopped doing them. of course my heart attack and subsequent recovery brought my exercise routines to a halt. but even before that i had begun to slack-off on these activities i enjoyed.

when i got home from my little trek with my faithful companion, i realized that perhaps being on the cusp of homelessness was the way of the universe to shake things up for me, to shake me awake from this complacent stupor i had become ensnared in.

or perhaps not. maybe i am just another victim of an engineered socio-economic collapse devised by a hidden cabal of evil-doers.

either way, i can wallow in despair at what is to come, or i can choose to see the coming times as the ashes from which a new transformed self will emerge. it’s all in the perception, and how one reacts to the perception.

danny aiello in one of my favorite films, “jacob’s ladder”

to anyone who may wish to help me out, i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

 

thank you

today was a

today was a better day than yesterday. i had a telephone interview with a woman named karen b. from the department of transitional assistance. it took all of five minutes. basically she asked me to confirm everything that i had written on my application. afterwards she said she required certain papers, those being a statement of finances, a rent statement, and proof of occupancy (a piece of mail with my name and current address on it) as well as my i.d. . she said i could mail them to her, or drop them by the office. i said i would rather bring them in as that would expedite the process. i think she was a bit surprised at my use of the term “expedite”.  i made an appointment for 2:00 that afternoon.

so i went for a walk in the rain to the dta office, which luckily is only about fifteen minutes away, for what i thought was going to be yet another interview for obtaining food stamps. after checking in at the main desk i sat in what was a rather full waiting room expecting a lengthy wait ahead of me. but at precisely 2:00 my name was called. i met karen b., a rather nice young woman, in the hall, expecting us to go into an office of some sort. but it was there in the hall that she said to me “whatcha got?” it took me a moment to realize what she meant. i handed over the two statements i had written as well as my proof of residence and my state i.d. she looked everything over quickly, photocopied my i.d. and directed me to a window to pick up my card. after she told me where to go, i held out my hand and said thank you. she paused for a moment and then shook my hand and said “you’re welcome”. i had the feeling this was not something that she regularly encountered during the course of her job. i went over to the window, got my card and then left. the whole process took less than ten minutes, and i shall have the benefits on my card by friday. quick and easy.

but the real reason i was in a better mood was that last night after posting on my blog, i sent a message requesting storage help from a couple of other people, quite honestly not expecting any replies. but within a short time i received a reply from someone that i do not really know that well.

paul k. works for the local food bank distribution center and stopped at the grocery store i worked, several morning a week, to pick up food which was not sellable but still edible to deliver to local food pantries. a nice congenial man always with a smile, quite the opposite to my humorous curmudgeonly personality. we got along like salt and vinegar on chips.

he told me that even though he and his wife jen, were packing up their own house as they are moving in the summer(still in the local area) they would be happy to store my things and simply take them with them when they moved to their new place, should i still not have a place to live. his caring and compassionate offer to me actually brought tears to my eyes. this man and his wife, who as i said, i don’t really know that well, were more than happy to help me out.

he and his wife are christians, seventh day adventists, to be exact. and as i told him, he and his wife epitomize what a true christian is. someone who will gladly help others when it is asked of them. i am not a christian, i consider myself agnostic, and sometimes not even that. the many others whom i asked for help and ignored my plight (well one didn’t ignore it but simply sent me the reply “breathe”) are the types who are always talking about being nice to people, and having compassion for others, offered me no help.  but this kind man, who carries his beliefs not on his sleeve, but in his heart, quickly answered my call for help.

i told him that even though i don’t often talk to god, that on that night i would talk to god and thank him for the caring and compassion that he and his wife have shown me.

and i did.

to anyone who may wish to help me out, i have created a wish list at amazon.com for certain things that will be very helpful for me to have while i am homeless, but which i can not in anyway afford. you can simply select the item that you wish to donate, and it will be sent to me.

my wishlist can be found at the following link:   wishlist

thank you