Samsung Blues

It is 63 degrees and raining in New Orleans...

I am on the third day of the juice fast and cleanse. I feel much more patient, feel my memory is sharp (I am remembering this whole post word for word after having lost it earlier because of a glitch) and, without having my emotions dulled by substances am confronting the true pathos of the situation I am in.

Yesterday, the forecast was for heavy rains, followed by much warmer temperatures. We got the much warmer temperatures (75) without the rain.

At night, the rain started around 10 p.m. and I went across the river to grab stuff; intending to spend the whole night (and the morning, until the rain stopped) under the dock on the stone bed which I had crafted, upon cardboard and the blanket as thick as a carpet..

I didn't escape the stand of trees before Howard stirred, woken by the first few raindrops that had seeped through the conifer leaves of the cedar trees and landed on him.

He started grabbing up his stuff; apparently sensing that I was doing the same, and intent upon coming with me, wherever I was going.

I thought that I had told him that the hotel spot that Stephen had shown me was no longer viable, and was being cleared because within a month or so they are going to put a bowling alley on that level.

"Are you going to the hotel?" Howard asked.

I explained about the hotel. "Didn't I tell you that we can't sleep there anymore?"

"No, you didn't...Where are you going to sleep?" (...because I'm coming along, right behind you...)

I told him that I was going to sleep under the dock, but that it could only accommodate myself. It took me a good hour of repositioning rocks in daylight just to make myself a flat bed; and I didn't like the prospect of trying to make him one in the dark.

He looked so dejected that it occurred to me that he might have been expecting me (with my 12 years [off and on] of homeless experience) to take up the responsibility of insuring that such contingencies were covered for both of us.

After I had gotten him out of the rain the time I brought him to the hotel; he went and got me a beer; it almost felt like a token of appreciation.

Looking at the situation from his perspective, I  envisioned him spending a miserable night, only half out of the elements by the terminal; having had to wait for the ferry to stop running before even being able to lay there; throwing him off his schedule.

I decided to go across the river to check and see if indeed they had cleared out the area where we had slept; before going to the dock. If it were still feasible to sleep there, I would return to get him and give him the stipulation that we had to be out of there by early morning.

I have worked enough construction sites to know that it takes a teleconference between 5 people just to move a pile of bricks (Yeah, Bill; hold off on moving those bricks until I hear from Chad; he's calling Phil to find out how close to the road you can put them...).

I wouldn't have been surprised if they had scrapped the whole project, due to some arcane New Orleans code about the proximity of bowling alleys to casinos.

I prepared to check it out, and Howard picked up his stuff and prepared to come with me. I wondered if he plans to follow me to the end of the earth...to share in my adventures?!?

The Poor Creature

A recollection came to me of a time when I encountered a wandering stray dog, when I was in my teens.

I petted it and fed it a little and it began to follow me around.

I had to go inside a shopping center or something and couldn't have it tagging along, so I shooed it off by stamping my foot and clapping my hands and yelling: "Git!"

The poor downtrodden creature; already forsaken and abandoned to skulk the earth; looked betrayed and went off whimpering with its head down and its tail between its legs.

I will need to talk to Howard soon. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now...?

We got to the basement to see that the pile of bricks had been removed but that there were plenty of other crannies to disappear into.
In a "Stephen" moment, we found two rolls of carpet remnants, just about our body lengths, sitting right by where the bricks used to be.

Whatever I need, I just pray for it and it appears.... -Stephen

At 3 a.m. the female security officer was standing over us and barking: "You guys need to go!!"

Before we left, she told us in a much nicer tone of voice that we could take the carpets with us. Outside, the rain had just let up. She may have waited until then before encountering us..

We went off to sleep another 3 hours under an overhang; at which point I went back to the Algiers spot to sleep some more and Howard went to the Rebuild Center.

I got up a couple hours later when it began to rain again and took this Samsung laptop to the Westin Hotel Starbucks to use their wireless in an attempt to do a blog post.

The system being in Spanish, it was tedious; and I had to guess at a lot.
I wound up losing just about the whole post because the Windows "security updates" from the last 2 years since the Samsung had been on were missing, is my guess.

In the upper right hand corner was an icon giving the weather conditions in Seattle, Washington, which is where Sue, the Colombian lady (who gave me the laptop) lived before coming to New Orleans.

Tonight

54 °F

T-storms

80% chance of precipitation

It was 43 degrees and cloudy there. I hope Kooky is alright.
I will think of Sue every time I use the thing.
Switching Laptops

Now I'm at the library and have installed Ubuntu Linux off of a DVD from one of the books on the shelf; and it is behaving a lot more like what I am used to.

I still have a lot of work to do because the book on the shelf was almost a whole 2 years old and I have to update things. I also have to go somewhere other than the library to do that because the library has filters preventing anyone from downloading software onto the libraries computers; and the effect is global.

So it will be a while longer before I have the bane of my existence; Audacity music studio; on here.

Fast Going Slowly

Other than that, I still haven't lost my appetite completely, or become light-headed and physically weak; which is a state which must be passed through for the cleanse to really take effect.
It might take longer to purge New Orleans from ones system...