Day 5 - Keep the Lights On! in These Foolish Things

OK. I’m tired of writing about my brother now. Let’s move on, shall we?

It’s Sunday night and tomorrow things go back to “normal” after the holidays. There’s going to be a lot to do on the work front since I’ve slacked off tremendously. I’m supposed to have a meeting with Head Cat tomorrow afternoon, and it looks like I might have to make a bunch of stuff up and pull some things out of thin air.

Tomorrow will be a day that I’m glad I work remotely and don’t have to scramble back into high-high-stress mode.

And even though we are into a fresh, new year, I’ve decided to leave my Christmas decorations up until February. It took me a long time to put them up and I’m not done enjoying them yet.

Did the volunteer thing with the thrift organization this morning and the vibes were kind of off. There were a couple of tense moments with the peeps.

One dude got in a fight with his girlfriend and he was screaming at her. Another guy (one of the unhoused men) told the dude he was being completely out of line with the girlfriend and the dude got in the guy’s face and threatened to essentially kick the guy’s ass. It took a couple of attempts from the “internal security” (the homeless have their own internal community leaders and de-escalators and I love those guys) to talk the guy down. They came over and got him to move to another location away from the girlfriend and seemed to calm him down.

Another guy somehow upset another one of the women we call The Preacher. She does street preaching every Sunday in the square, and she dresses so beautifully (most of her finds are from the thrift organization and she wears them so well - we try to pull the shiny, frilly stuff for her). Anyway, the preacher was so upset by the time we finished, she was screaming at the top of her lungs at this other guy.

Stressful. And today, for the first time since I’ve been doing this volunteer thing for the unhoused, I experienced some super unpleasant bodily functions and odors. I couldn’t get the urine scent out my nostrils for a long time, and I also couldn’t unsee the masturbating man under the big tree yet immediately in my line of sight.

On the good side of things, I’d picked up a couple of bags of donations from my mom yesterday when I was up to visit my dad for his birthday. And today I got to directly give some of those donations to the people in the park. Mom had donated some nice turtleneck shirts and sweaters, and it was a perfect time to donate since the weather has turned bitterly cold. It was a good feeling to know that mom’s warm energy will help someone else.

Anyway. It’s past my bedtime and I need to get to bed. I’m about to do my nightime routine, but wanted to get this out quickly. I have the Golden Globes on in the background and Demi Moore’s glow-up is blowing my mind!

Anyway, goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning!
xo,
GS