I am officially available for music and/or speaking engagements anyplace warm and sunny. Cheap. Write to this address. Will sleep on couch.
Sunday morning was another snowy one. Snow, snow, snow, snow. Another 10 or 15 cm. The kind of weather in which parking lots shrink because there's no place to put the white stuff but in huge piles. The kind of weather where your car develops a mind of its own and decides that forwards and backwards are boring and it's time for some sideways and that ditch looks like fun.
The plows had been by once, but they weren't keeping up.
CL phoned to make sure church was still on and I said yes.
She said she'd make the coffee but she might not be able to stay for the whole thing. She was hoping to go get her van, which she needs because she can't walk very far and which she uses to drive other Motelians to the food bank and appointments. She'd left the van in the grocery store parking lot at the opposite corner of town a couple of days before when the battery died.
Sounds simple enough, don't it? 5 minutes there, half an hour's work, home again.
HA!
Well, CL has no money to throw around, so TM told her he'd help her get a used one for fairly cheap and drive her up there. If, that is, the cold snap ended and the temperature came up to something less obscene than -20, -30 with the windchill.
And if he didn't have to visit OR. OR used to live at the Motel and he's dying. The nurses have been letting TM bring him a beer every now and then, even though it's against the rules. OR has family, but they won't have anything to do with him, even though he has so little time left.
TM's spouse is in hospital as well with a number of conditions that, even on their own, are life threatening. In combination, things get really nasty.
So... if TM has time to go get the battery, isn't needed at either of two hospitals and the weather co-operates, they can go install the battery in the grocery store parking lot.
However, the snow is so unrelenting today and the roads so greasy, CL won't drive. She needs to talk HR, who is in pain and can hardly walk, into coming with her to help install the battery. And if she can do that, then maybe she can convince N. to come as well. Because HR can install the battery and boost it from TM's car, but he can't drive the van back to the Motel because he's still working on getting his license back after losing it as collateral against some debts which he's working to pay off. Partly by shovelling snow which he can't do because he's hurt his back. By shovelling snow.
So, he can't drive the van, but maybe N. will. Except she might not be able to come if it conflicts with one of her recovery meetings which are really, really important and necessary.
So... if TM isn't needed at either of two hospitals, and if he's able to get the battery, and if the weather co-operates, and if HR is available and if he's able to walk and if N.'s meeting is Sunday afternoon, not in the morning, THEN CL will be able to go get her van.
It's a wonder anybody even gets out of bed in the morning.
r
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