A Gargantuan Effort

I Don't Want To Spoil The Bunch

And so, after I woke up at 11:41 PM, threw on a shirt and went over to the school across the street to find that the "community food bank" people had left early (again), I walked back to Sacred Heart, past a few people who could have easily informed me that the food people were gone, as they saw me headed that way, holding a canvas "food" bag, and went inside.

Once inside I saw about a dozen apples on the table, which had been left by residents. I can understand why they are included with the meals.

The idea being that "an apple a day will keep the doctor away," -despite the container of sugary cereal?

They, the apples, are also placed in the Styrofoam containers alongside the gumbo or beans and rice where they each fight it out over the inside temperature, with the refrigerated apples being warmed by the "hot" food and vice-versa. Mediocrity is the end result.

Would You Like An Apple Pie With That?

This would be like McDonald's putting cold milkshakes in the same bags with the hamburger and fries and the apple pie that they had up-sold you.

Also, the apples are hard to chew, and probably about 75% of the Sacred Heart residents wear dentures (or are waiting for their last few teeth to fall out so they can start to wear them) so "an apple a day, so the dentist can stay" might also apply.

I am probably the only resident here who owns a juicer.

I was able to ascertain that Monday's hot meal choices were, yet again, gumbo in one container, and red beans and rice in the other.

Saving My Skin

I figured that there was about 20 cents worth of rice, another 20 cents worth of beans, maybe 20 cents worth of green beans, or broccoli (one crown, and the rest stalks) and that it wasn't worth it to me to capitalize upon this free item, at the expense of ingesting the partially hydrogenated soybean oil that is almost certainly an ingredient because, why ruin a perfectly cheap meal by preparing it with an expensive oil like olive or avocado?

Hydrogenated soybean oil makes my scalp start itching within hours, along with swelling the glands in my neck and giving me a headache, usually on just one side, accompanied by a stiff neck, on that same side. It causes my face to itch, probably because the swollen glands put pressure on the nerves running from the neck to it, so that my own hair irritates me whenever it brushes against the skin when the wind blows it, or something.

Then, if I scratch it (something that I have found it impossible not to do) it becomes inflamed and dries out, becoming flaky and giving me dandruff on the scalp and what could best be described as dandruff of the face; around the bridge and sides of the nose and under my eyebrows. This can take up to 2 weeks to completely go away. All that, for an 87 cent meal.

The apple is probably the most valuable single item included, based upon a $1.49/lb. price that Red Delicious or "Gala" apples are typically sold at.

So, I felt like I had dodged a bullet by not having gotten there early enough to snag a container of gumbo, because I was just hungry enough that I might have eaten some. I had planned upon giving that to my friend Bobby, in building C, though.

Instead, I took the dozen or so apples off the table, and went back to my room, where I deposited them in my kitchen along with the rest that I have accumulated, after juicing a half dozen of them, adding a couple raw carrots and a pinch of Himalayan pink salt to the mix.

No doctor within 10 miles...

Then, it was off to Rouses Market, pursuant to the application that I have completed online.

I didn't see anyone who looked like the store manager.

There was a guy behind the customer service area in the glassed-in enclosure where all the cash goes, who was wearing a red shirt, but there were also other red shirts in other areas of the store. I was looking for someone wearing business attire, adorned by a gold enamored tag over the breast pocket with his or her name on it.

I decided against asking any of the black employees that I saw, if the store manager was present. I was just stressed out enough that, if that employee had just stared at me without even answering (a common response from their ilk) I might have jeopardized my chance of being hired by asking: "Are you deaf, or just stupid?"

As I have mentioned in this blog before, the African Americans seem to feel that their jobs don't entail them speaking to white people at all, other than to maybe say: "Next in line!," or to bark the total price of their purchase at them.

A Creole Wouldn't Lie

There was an affable looking white/Creole lady working the register in the liquor section and so I went there to pay for a Bang energy drink and to tell her that I had completed an application online, whereupon she informed me that "the hiring manager" was not there, but would be in first thing in the morning.

That may have been the time of day when the recent hire, whom I had run into outside the store, had gotten his job -the one who had encouraged me to put in the application. The one who looked like a homeless bum in a Rouses Market uniform...

The lady further informed me that they had gotten a lot of applications "because of all the service industry workers laid off," -not quite the picture painted by the guy outside the store- and suggested that I submit a paper resume, to give them something to remember me by.

She also recommended that I return first thing in the morning.

She was kind of reinforcing what I had already learned ages ago about getting a job. The best way is to persistently arrive first thing in the morning and greet the manager with something like: "I just figured I'd come by and see if anything has opened up."

If you do this 5 days a week, while at the same time, he or she is plagued by people on the payroll who can only be relied upon to show up maybe 4 days a week on average (with their work week being curtailed by "a family emergency," an illness, a hangover, car troubles, a twisted ankle, a birthday, a wife's birthday, a child's birthday, an unexpected visit by relatives, a pipe bursting, a boogie man in their closet, etc.) then the manager might conclude that you have been showing up more to work there than some of the people who work there; and hire you.

Then they can then wait for an opportunity to terminate a pain in the ass employee ("Message me a a picture of the boogie man, and you can keep your job; it's that simple!" type of thing).

And, of course the paper resume bespeaks of your having gone through all the trouble of finding an online resume template, filling in the blanks, and then clicking the print button. Not muchwork, but still probably more than a lot of their staff get accomplished every day...

So, at this point, I think that, if I'm going to make some gargantuan effort at producing income, I might as well apply that towards playing music at a nearby street corner.

These are "held down" by skeezers, but those skeezers seem to occupy the spots for no more than an hour or two, before running off to the liquor store or a crack dealer.

Plus, who is going to walk up to me in Rouses Market, after I have mopped up a spill and say: "I really enjoyed that!" and hand me a 50 dollar "tip"?

So, as I sit here, a blog post that I started about 4 hours ago (interrupted by 3 trips to the coffee maker and back) is almost done.

1,343 words in 4 hours is hardly going to meet any editorial deadlines.

Plus, now it is already first thing in the morning and I haven't slept yet; I've been up writing a blog post and drinking coffee.

The apple juice cleanse hit a bit of a road bump in the form of a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. I did smear it on an apple, though, after taking a bite out of the thing to make room for it...

And, I had planned upon washing some clothes to wear to Rouses, but after I stuffed my laundry bag with the things I wanted to wash, it attracted Harold the cat, who soon thereafter occupied it and began to knead the garments with his front paws, before making a bed of it.

I didn't have the heart to kick him out of it.

So, things have conspired to keep me from going to Rouses. The staying up all night, the not getting the laundry done...

The boogie man in the closet was the clincher, though.

I should be able to sleep until right before the mail lady comes with, hopefully, the ounce of kratom that I ordered last Wednesday, using the last of my money.