I'm at the Harrah's Casino.
Feeling overwhelmed.
I swam with Lilly this afternoon.
Lilly has been almost insisting, lately, that I go over to swim with her, in the late afternoons.
But, she probably doesn't think it lady-like to seem like she is encouraging a gentleman to come over and swim.
What a lady does, I am starting to figure out, is to drop hints, such as: "It's supposed to be in the nineties tomorrow, I'll probably just sit around the pool."
Then it will be up to the guy to call and ask if she would like some company.
Monday, I wound up sleeping most of the day. I had been up reading until mid morning.
When I turned my phone on it started chiming to announce that I had messages on it from Lilly.
When I called her, she informed me that she had been texting me about going over to swim, but that it was then too late, and that she was disappointed.
She also said about my recent agenda, of staying up reading until the sun was high in the sky "Isn't working out for you."
It crossed my mind that it wasn't working out for her.
But, today, I had blown off a trip to the plasma place, thinking that it might have me returning too late to swim with her.
It is always in the back of my mind that I might be just a small piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is Lilly's life. That she is meticulous and prefers everything to be just so, right down to the small details such as the musician who sits at the corner of her house, where he can report to her about the comings and goings of the neighbors, etc.
When I went to swim with her the last time, I was let in the gate by a young and handsome and well groomed young man in a wet bathing suit, who introduced himself as Alan, and lead me back to the pool, where Lilly and he had apparently been swimming.
He had "potential husband for one of Lilly's daughters" written all over him, and it crossed my mind that I might have been invited there so she could maintain a sense of propriety while she swam with the young guy.
The guy was probably hoping that whichever daughter it is, would join them in the pool, but that is a card that Lilly will keep up her sleeve until the time is right, if it ever is.
Besides, her oldest daughter was in Ireland at the time.
But, today I was going to go to the plasma place. My fifty dollar donations are all used up, but I would still have gotten maybe 35 bucks.
I know this is chump change for most people, it seems. I used to be one of them, when I had just any old job, making just a bit above minimum wage.
Hell, if I was washing dishes for 23 hours a week now and taking home around 200 bucks every week, I highly doubt that I would be making the trek to Gretna, taking the abuse of being elbowed out of the way when the bus for Gretna arrives, boarding only after all the black people have gotten cracks at the available seats, and then having to go through the whole plasma extracting process, and then being stared at dumbly by black cashiers and black bus drivers along my trip back home.
The donation leaves me famished enough so that I wind up eating into the profits by consuming more food. It's almost a vicious (or humorous, I'm not sure) cycle -they give a guy food stamps so he can digest food; then the plasma people drain the protein out of him and give him cash for it.
A symbiotic relationship between the SNAP people and the plasma people.
"Fifty bucks, are you kidding me?!?" exclaimed Lilly when I told her that I had been selling my plasma for that amount.
I think I may have been a homeless street musician a bit too long, to have seen my sense of the worth of money erode to the point that fifty bucks is something to me; when it is nothing to the average person.
After swimming, Lilly and I walked to the Starbucks on Canal Street where the top photo was taken. Lilly saw that I was trying to capture her image in the nick of time and was able to block with her phone.
It's funny how someone like her, who often dresses elegantly, will have no qualms about just wrapping a bandanna around her wet hair and walking through the Quarter in her flip-flops at other times.
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| Lilly, still camera shy... |
I swam with Lilly this afternoon.
Lilly has been almost insisting, lately, that I go over to swim with her, in the late afternoons.
But, she probably doesn't think it lady-like to seem like she is encouraging a gentleman to come over and swim.
What a lady does, I am starting to figure out, is to drop hints, such as: "It's supposed to be in the nineties tomorrow, I'll probably just sit around the pool."
Then it will be up to the guy to call and ask if she would like some company.
Monday, I wound up sleeping most of the day. I had been up reading until mid morning.
When I turned my phone on it started chiming to announce that I had messages on it from Lilly.
When I called her, she informed me that she had been texting me about going over to swim, but that it was then too late, and that she was disappointed.
She also said about my recent agenda, of staying up reading until the sun was high in the sky "Isn't working out for you."
It crossed my mind that it wasn't working out for her.
But, today, I had blown off a trip to the plasma place, thinking that it might have me returning too late to swim with her.
It is always in the back of my mind that I might be just a small piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is Lilly's life. That she is meticulous and prefers everything to be just so, right down to the small details such as the musician who sits at the corner of her house, where he can report to her about the comings and goings of the neighbors, etc.
When I went to swim with her the last time, I was let in the gate by a young and handsome and well groomed young man in a wet bathing suit, who introduced himself as Alan, and lead me back to the pool, where Lilly and he had apparently been swimming.
He had "potential husband for one of Lilly's daughters" written all over him, and it crossed my mind that I might have been invited there so she could maintain a sense of propriety while she swam with the young guy.
The guy was probably hoping that whichever daughter it is, would join them in the pool, but that is a card that Lilly will keep up her sleeve until the time is right, if it ever is.
Besides, her oldest daughter was in Ireland at the time.
But, today I was going to go to the plasma place. My fifty dollar donations are all used up, but I would still have gotten maybe 35 bucks.
I know this is chump change for most people, it seems. I used to be one of them, when I had just any old job, making just a bit above minimum wage.
Hell, if I was washing dishes for 23 hours a week now and taking home around 200 bucks every week, I highly doubt that I would be making the trek to Gretna, taking the abuse of being elbowed out of the way when the bus for Gretna arrives, boarding only after all the black people have gotten cracks at the available seats, and then having to go through the whole plasma extracting process, and then being stared at dumbly by black cashiers and black bus drivers along my trip back home.
The donation leaves me famished enough so that I wind up eating into the profits by consuming more food. It's almost a vicious (or humorous, I'm not sure) cycle -they give a guy food stamps so he can digest food; then the plasma people drain the protein out of him and give him cash for it.
A symbiotic relationship between the SNAP people and the plasma people.
"Fifty bucks, are you kidding me?!?" exclaimed Lilly when I told her that I had been selling my plasma for that amount.
I think I may have been a homeless street musician a bit too long, to have seen my sense of the worth of money erode to the point that fifty bucks is something to me; when it is nothing to the average person.
After swimming, Lilly and I walked to the Starbucks on Canal Street where the top photo was taken. Lilly saw that I was trying to capture her image in the nick of time and was able to block with her phone.
It's funny how someone like her, who often dresses elegantly, will have no qualms about just wrapping a bandanna around her wet hair and walking through the Quarter in her flip-flops at other times.
$50 is a lot to, I'd say, 90% of the population. It's more than I make in a day at my regular job.
ReplyDeleteI've got a standard when I'm out busking, of making $60 on a weekend, but if I make $50, that's OK too. It's a lot of money.
I think we're all living under what I'd call the "Brady Bunch Effect". Remember the Brady Bunch lived in a huge house (as sitcom houses tended to be, to have room to move the camera equipment around) and had a maid, and went on adventures like riding mules at the Grand Canyon and at least one trip to Hawaii.
The reality is, most of us would be pretty happy if we just lived as well as The Honeymooners, with the missus able to stay home, the Mr. working a job with a union and a pension, and enough spare time to go bowling and do such things.