Today I feel like I have done nothing but ride MARTA buses and wait around. I got to sleep in a bit because I volunteered. Volunteering means delivery the carrot salad I made last night to the Open Door. This delivery trip was a bit different than most.
Last night the state of Georgia where I live executed a man. This usually happens every couple of months, but it hasn't happened for a while due to a case before the Supreme Court about the cruelty of lethal injection. Anyway, on the news broadcast I head as I made the carrot salad, I heard singers at the vigil outside the prison which is somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I thought immediately of my friends at the Open Door, and wondered if their voices were among those I was hearing. I wondered what the mood would be in the kitchen when I went to drop off my salad.
There was a long line at the Open Door this morning. They were giving away tickets for the lunch soup kitchen and Ann was doing the honors. I got to watch the line. She called each man and asked him for his first name and last initial. Nearly all the people the Open Door serves are male.
I rang the doorbell and got let inside. The kitchen was pretty much business as usual, but I asked one of the regular house volunteers, one of the ones who lives there, if any one from Open Door had been at the vigil. He said that nearly all the Open Door staff had been "vigiling" on the steps of the State Capital. It is awful lonely down there in the evening. I got lost in those streets once, but the prison is even further away and gas is expensive. The man also said that one Open Door member had made it to the prison proper and even ended up in the newspaper.
The staff member went on to say that three people who'd lived at the Open Door or had dealings there had been sprung from Georgia's death row. I found that impressive. In case you're wondering, I'm anti-death penalty myself. I'm not sure what a vigil at the state prison or the state capital would be like though. Someone after all has to make the salad.
This was carrot salad with mangos and Craisins. The mangos came from...guess...Haiti where people are starving. Of course the recent cyclone that hit Burma (Myanmar) has put Haiti and the rest of the food crisis off the map. Oh well, the mangos were pretty good but a bit overripe. I should watch the mangos I put on top of the fridge.
I caught the number 2 bus back up from the Open Door on Ponce. It was so empty it was like riding in a taxi. Of course the bus hit traffic on Ponce coming back through Druid Hills and arrived late at the Avondale Station. That meant I mised the number 125. The next one was a half an hour later, so I went through the gates and down to the train tracks. I wanted to take the train one stop east to Kensington and catch the 121. The train slowly nosed its way into the station and even after it let people on, it just stayed there parked on the platform. It seems a train further east had malfunctioned and blocked the way. We sat. I called work. Then the train finally moved. I made the 121 without a problem and walked in the back way to work.
I also got to the doctor today for my eczema. Yes, this was another ride on a bus, this time the 125 all the way into Tucker. I have prescriptions for cortisone cream and for an antihistamine. Hopefully, my hands will stop itching and burning soon. I did manage to grate five pounds of carrots with them last night. It took me forty-three minutes to go through a five pound bag of carrots.
Tonight, I get to actually get my two prescriptions. That is a big relief. I also don't have to cook tonight. I need to get a dish brush, and I'm not doing any housework. I'll have to drag a cart full of laundry to the laundromat but hey, I'll have plenty of clothes to wear so again that won't be too bad, until I'm sitting in front of the laundromat feeling incredibly bored.
By the way, I don't have a lunch place for Shabbos. I'm so used to home hospitality I will feel very strange without it. On the other hand, it will be very good to eat my own food for a change. I am planning hot soup for Friiday. Oh well...you can't win them all. The reason I can't is I can't reheat soup on Saturday. I'll have to figure out something to do with the long Saturday afternoon as well. I'm sure I can think of something. I've become resourceful and I'll consider this Shabbos a test of faith.
