Two walks this week. in A small but passable life.

A few days ago I talked Jassy into going along on my walk. I didn’t have to convince Liam. He’s always ready to go.

It was a beautiful day. Warm. Not a cloud in the sky. Not a bit of breeze. Beautiful. We walked up and over to the credit union, through the park. Over to the post office. Past the homeless kitchen serving lunch. The line was longer than I’d ever seen it. And returned by the library and the park again. We turned Liam off his leash. He did great. He maintained his leader of the pack thing a couple of paces ahead of us. A good doggy.

I spent a couple of days lounging with a book in the van.

Jassy and I found something at the store. We were looking at apples. Those apples. These apples. A store lady heard us hollering back and forth and took me over to a shelf kind of out of the way by the book entrance to the vegetable section. There were 99 cent bags of various veggies. A kind of mix and match thing. We bought four bags to get enough apples so Jassy could bake three pies. In the bags were also a few green peppers, a few jalapeño peepers, a bag of carrots, three cucumbers, and an eggplant. Okay. When we got back Jassy figured up that we’d gotten about $15 or more for that $4. Nice. We chopped up the carrots and peppers and got them into the dehydrator. I ended up taking the eggplant downstairs to the neighbors because we didn’t really know what to do with it and didn’t want to just toss it out. They seemed glad and surprised to get it.

Gasoline had gotten down to $2.62. Jassy decided to wait another day. The next day it was up to $2.79. No rhyme or reason. She has enough points right now to get 40 cents a gallon off. So that’s not too bad.

Today I was dog sitting. And reading. After Liam woke up from his perpetual nap we decided to go for a walk. I didn’t need to go anywhere so to have a goal I grabbed a bag of clothes that Jassy had ready for the homeless. We headed out. A beautiful day for a walk. A lady at a bus stop gave us a bottle of water. I found a paper coffee cup in the trash at the park so we stopped so Liam could have a drink.

We dropped the bag off at the Veteran’s Coming Home Center (it’s one block past the credit union) and headed back. We stopped for another break in the park on the way back. I almost laid down on the park bench to take a nap. I was tired. And it was a beautiful day for a nap in the park? Plus I’d wore myself out carrying that stupid bag of clothes. I can see why homeless folks utilize shopping carts. I guess I could’ve snagged one at the grocery store and returned it on the way back. Knowing my luck I’d be the ONLY person ever to get busted for stealing a shopping cart.

I had put a double batch of pinto beans (32oz) in the Crockpot last night to soak. I put the onions and ham shanks in this morning and turned it on. I had taken a couple cups of liquid out before our walk because it looked close to bubbling over. No worries. It was fine when we returned. I put the liquid back in.

Jassy returned and I stayed for a bit until the beans were done. I ate a bowl and then came over here to Hardee’s.

Sarah has come out to chat a bit. I told her she’d broke my heart yesterday evening because she never came out to say hi. She said she had been stuck in the back and too busy to do anything. It’s all good.

Tomorrow Jassy will be making sure I’m up at 7:30am for coffee and then out to the farmer’s market by 8am. I hope the buffalo wagon is there. Some more tomatoes would be nice. We’ve got two jars of dehydrated tomatoes already.

The next four days are supposed to be in the eighties. Too hot to lounge in the van, I might need to find somewhere else to read. I haven’t been over to the student union in awhile so I may head over there.

Anyway, I’m off to try to get something constructive done. Two hours until bedtime.