I am not “working”. I’ve tried to work this fall but it’s been difficult. Not only are subbing jobs hard to get but I’ve had to cancel out of two jobs because I had to bring people to the hospital. Last Friday, fairly desperate for money, I took a rare subbing job. But it ended up being problematic. Jesse was late for school. Andy missed his college orientation. And Kevin had to come home at 12:00 and spend the rest of the day waiting of Andy’s bed to be delivered by FedEx. Had I known the ramifications of working that day I wouldn’t have taken the job.
So what do I do all day? Here was my day yesterday.
It started with Ken knocking on the door at about 5:00 in the morning wanting to come in. He is homeless. He was cold. Then I picked Carl up from the VA and brought him to the AIS to pick up his belongings and then to our house to eat breakfast. (Carl was an alcoholic living on the streets. A few weeks ago my neighbor found him staggering across 28th Street and brought him to me because she didn’t know where else to take him. He had been drinking Listerine. We took him to detox, a move which he believes saved his life. Since then he put himself in treatment.) Then I took Ken with me to pick up Andy from the hospital and bring him home. I quickly fed Andy some broth and then brought Carl back to the VA for an appointment and a ride back to St. Cloud. Then I spent the next three and a half hours calling to make appointments for Andy for the hand specialist (the number is not on his discharge paperwork so I had to track it down), to arrange to pick up his medical records and xrays from two hospitals, and to get his prescriptions sent to Target. Then I went to Target to pick up Andy’s prescriptions. Then I helped Ken fill out his registration for MCTC. Then I helped Chuckie check his Myspace account. Then I talked to HCMC about supporting Bill’s commitment to the hospital for alcoholism. Then I cooked supper. Then I went to bed to read Vishal Mangalwadi’s fantastic book Truth and Transformation.
