It's 5:40 a.m. It's a little cold, even inside, this time of day, and there is a little moonlight out there. I love looking out my windows, just about any time of the day or night. There's really nothing to see; I guess that's what I like. Everyone's asleep and it's very quiet here.

Yesterday I was working and T. knocked on my door. She said, "about this money thing. I give you 70% of my money and what does that cover? Do you pay for everything? I like to take my kids places, like the movies." "We have a dollar movie you can go to, out by the mall." "Well, we like to see the latest thing that just came out." "you can't do that while you're here, that's $8." She currently receives $66/week in child support. She has four children and I am pretty sure that is not for all of them. She has a cell phone for which she pays $55 a month. It is hard to say in this day and age that a cell phone is not a necessity. If she applies for work, she can give that phone number. If her children's school is trying to reach her, they can. There is a phone at the shelter, but she will not be sitting by it most of the time. She has a car and spends about $25/week on gas. I told her we can help her by giving her bus passes and she can take the bus instead of driving the car. She is paying $25/month on storage fees and another $25/month on a credit card bill. Kerri said, "you're not using that card are you?" "No," she said, "just paying it down." Once she is working, the 30% she keeps will be enough to go to the movies if she wants. She has certain cleaning products she likes to use--will we buy her those? As long as they are not too expensive.

I went to a meeting with a lot of other organizations about child support. Judge Sweat, bless his heart, is trying to find a way to help and encourage men to work, establish relationships with their children and pay their child support, instead of putting them in jail, where they can't. He said there is one young man (24) who has eight children. OMG! What can we do to teach responsibility and get them to use birth control? I do not think we can teach people not to have sex. Or pass laws against it. How can we make men (young men) want to be involved in their children's lives? And keep women from having children if the fathers are not going to be supporting them? Georgia apparently has the highest rate of incarceration in the country. I think he said one in thirteen people in Georgia is in jail: 54,000 people...and jail is expensive. It's worth reducing the number even by one percent.

Ray and I played racquetball yesterday for the first time in weeks, only about 20 minutes. It felt good, but my back is complaining now. I have apparently gone back to before the time change, falling asleep by 9:30 and waking up very early. Last night I was in bed at 9:30, but I had already been asleep for awhile on the couch.

Homeless Coalition meeting yesterday. I like going to meetings where I can hear about what's going on and hobnob with people doing the same work. Yesterday John Scoggins talked about a big new grant, stimulus money, that a coalition of ACTION, Community Connection and the UGA Institute for Non-Profit organizations got. They will be giving smaller grants to 30 organizations in 5 or 6 counties. I applied to be the director, but they just hired someone else. No interview, no thanks for your application... We may be able to get some of the money for our Job TREC program. It is about helping people get and keep jobs. On the other hadn, some of our CDBG money will not be renewed, unless we can come up with a project to write it for. You can only get it for three years, under new rules, and we have had it longer than that, I think. That's about $11,000 that we'll lose, unless I come up with a bright idea. I am not sure I can ask for money to buy diapers...

New family arrived yesterday. Mom with four kids from somewhere out of state. Why would you just start driving without any reason to settle somewhere? She was staying near Atlanta in a shelter with lots of people in one room and is very relieved to be here. I think she is a worker, but it may be harder than she thinks. Lots of applications for the Executive Director position from all over: Nevada!

Came home.Vanessa had made pepper steak and dessert. I worked on cookies and put some rice in a pot. Captain went out to pick lettuce. He also brought in and hung out laundry.

The computer says it's 37 out; it's warm enough in here. As long as we keep having sunny days, it's very pleasant. last night it was about 74. I opened a window for a bit.

Arabic class: very challenging. Only 3 of us there. The teacher jumping up every now and then to check on the cooking, while assigning us words to write. I know more than I did.

Another resident has the option to move into public housing in another county on Monday. It is a great opportunity, but she has to come up with $600 to pay the utility deposits (and a back balance she owes) by then. You would think I would jump at the opportunity to help her and make it happen. The Shelter has never been involved in paying the costs of getting into a home. This is a Mom who has been working for a while. She had saved some money, but used it all to for the down payment on a car, for which she pays $70 a week. Plus insurance, registration, gas and any maintenance it needs. It is not a nice new fuel-efficient car. She has been looking for an agency to help her and I tell her as far as I know no one will pay utility deposits. Since she bought the car, she has not saved any money. She had $20, but took it out last week for gas. She works part-time, cleaning at a department store and makes less than $800 a month. When she was talking to me, she said she had to buy shoes for the baby last week. There is not much chance that she will succeed in paying her bills if she manages somehow to beg or borrow enough to pay the deposits. Residents think we are mean to make them save, but I sure wish she had listened.

I also had to deal with board members telling me to do something I disagree with, wasting the shelter's money on something that will make more work for me. And a leasing company that has been making automated calls to us daily, saying we are behind on our payments, when I have been paying another company for the copier. When they have a real person call me, I have thoroughly and patiently explained the situation, but this is the third one I've talked to, and he hadn't even read the notes. Maybe this time it will get straightened out.

Another beautiful day. When we got home, Captain and Vanessa were not here. They didn't arrive until after 5--no note, no phone call. They had been at the grocery store and said they had tried to call me, but my phone was turned off. (well, it wasn't, but maybe I wasn't getting service at that point, and Vanessa didn't leave a message). Ray made macaroni and cheese and I worked on my Arabic. It is hard. Then potluck and choir, a pleasure. We are starting to work on music for our solstice service, in the evening on December 20.

I learned the Arabic alphabet yesterday. Well, learned is strong. I have a piece of paper that I can look at to tell me what the letters are. I knew once that Arabic is written from right to left, but I had forgotten it. It is hard to adjust to. The letters are written somewhat differently depending on whether they are at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Fascinating stuff. One woman is learning Arabic because her boyfriend (and his friends) speak it. It is a surprise. One 12-year-old girl is learning it because she is interested in Egypt and going to work there.

The instructor, who owns a restaurant, has a masters degree in engineering from a US college (one I had heard of but forget the name of). He left Lebanon when he was 17. He was in charge of 35 men and they were behind enemy lines. They were shot with Katoosh rockets. Several died. One he carried for 2 1/2 miles later died in the hospital from his wounds. He was shot in the chest and the leg. Z. turned in his gun and left the country in 1976, while I was in college. He decided there must be a better life. And I guess he found it.

Yesterday at work: meeting with students from Leadership UGA. They are going to have a drive to see who can collect the most diapers, etc. Then took my lunch to meet with some leaders of other non-profits and the Director of Georgia Shares, a state organization that uses payroll deductions to allow employees to donate to non-profits.

Captain and Vanessa were working on the lamb stew when we got home. He couldn't find the recipe he had found on line yesterday, so I should him how to use History on his browser. They had used the food processor to chop up the cooked lamb. So we used it for the onions and celery too. Then I cooked them in butter and mixed everything together and baked it for a while. Vanessa seems much better. She said she walked a little yesterday and her legs were sore. The house is very pleasant this time of year, warm on sunny days, about 74 indoors yesterday. Ray's allergies are acting up...unless he is getting the cold.

Sigh, back to the grind. It was pretty crazy yesterday. Monday mornings often are. As I arrived at the shelter, a mother and daughter (about 4) walked up to me and asked if I worked there. She said they had no where to go and were just walking. I told her I couldn't help her right now and tried to give her directions on somewhere else to go, but she was not from Athens. She said her daughter needed to use the bathroom. I got them some bread and let her use the bathroom. They left while I was on the phone.

Two families left over the weekend. I had known that one had gotten a chance at a place to live. Apparently she invited the other to move in with her. The second Mom, with one child, will probably not enjoy living with the first Mom, with four children under 5, but maybe I'm wrong. I think they are likely to engage in petty criminal activities, but maybe I'm wrong. A third Mom was moving out yesterday. She had bags and bags of stuff. Hoarding is not uncommon for people who are homeless. Her boyfriend came with a car and went away and came back with a truck. He was berating her and she was just calmly replying how her baby needed clothes and toys... Kerri is interviewing families to move in this week. Later in the day I had a call from a woman who wanted to know if a certain person was staying at the shelter. We often get calls like that, usually wanting to help them. We don't confirm or deny any residents. She said she and her daughter had asked for money and all she could scrape up was about $4 in change. She told her she would cash a check and bring $25 by the shelter (The woman said that's where she was staying). I told her we couldn't do that, but of course the residents had plenty of food and all their needs were met. She said yes, I should have realized that, and I thought I smelled alcohol, but I try not to judge... I also had a message on the answering machine from someone who needed a caretaker, someone to live in, and figured she would ask someone from the shelter. I have had those calls before too. Or people who stop by looking for someone to rake their leaves. The thought is good, but we don't generally encourage our residents to do that.

Ray and I came home about 3. Vanessa had been to the doctor and gotten lots of meds. They said this bug was going around. She seemed much better, with more energy. She was trying to put the dishes away until I scolded her and told her she was too germy to do that. The Captain seemed really glad to have me there to take over cooking and cleaning duties. He even followed orders really well, emptying the compost and getting some lettuce and herbs for our supper. He also cut the leftover lamb off the bone and looked on line for a recipe using lamb leftovers. Vanessa wrote it down and it will be waiting for us when we come home! I got out some of the ingredients and left them on the counter.

The down side of the time change is I fell asleep before 9.

We ate Janna's famous oat-apricot breakfast (with Greek yogurt), as well as applesauce-raisin cake. Janna picks out the raisins, just like my children. Ray and Kent and I walked around a little, admiring the large boats from far-away places. We showered and packed. I played Spider and got one pack off, but didn't win. We loaded up the cars (Janna and Ron rode with Becky and Kent in their super-van) and drove to a place we had picked for lunch. I had blackberry French toast. Ray and I got a salad to eat later and some bread to take home, as well as 2 slices of pie. We said our goodbyes. They were hurrying back. Becky could pick up her dogs between 5:30 and 6.

We drove around a little, including a visit to the marina where the Captain and Vanessa had their sailboat tied up 26 years ago. Ray and I drove over from Louisiana at Thanksgiving to introduce their granddaughter to them, when she was one month old.

Then we stopped at the Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge. It was amazing! We parked with other cars and followed a cub scout troop down the trail, which is a gravel road, very level and easy to walk on. They (we?) have created man-made ponds to encourage wildlife. We saw lots of birds, including an ibis rookery, and an alligator. The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, but not hot or humid or buggy. There was lots more, but we had to go so we didn't get home too late. I am always amazed to find something new like that. Why haven't I heard about it? We will go again, with lunch and water.

We started driving. I called home and the Captain was glad to hear from us. Apparently Vanessa was pretty sick all weekend. I felt bad. They had seemed fine when we left. When we finally got home, about 8, we took her temperature. It was over 101. She took some medicine and we took it again twice before we went to bed. It was down below 100, but I still slept with my door open, so I could hear if they called. She is planning to go to the doctor this morning. She was quite lucid, but apparently has been sleeping a lot. She looked pretty white.

And so it is, good and bad together.

We had a lovely beach day yesterday--October 31!! It was very misty/foggy in the morning and we called to ask about the kayaking. They said the captain would decide whether it was safe or not and they would let us know. I'm guessing they decided it wasn't safe and/or we were the only ones interested so it wasn't cost-effective. Anyway, they never called back and it was scheduled for 10:30. So about then, we all got our stuff together (Ray, me, Kent, Becky, Ron, Janna) and drove the mile to the beach. Disney's resort here (where Ron & Janna have a time-share and we are all staying in a 2-bedroom unit) is on the marsh side, but they have a sliver of beach on the other side with amenities for guests, like a pool and expensive snack bar and parking. It was still misty, but sunny and warm. Sitting on the beach, you could see Kent and Ray in the water, but they were kind of in silhouette, no colors. Anyway, we played bocce, some took walks, we found hermit crabs and a dead horseshoe crab and a starfish that we returned to the sea. Ray showed things to strangers' children and we all had a great time. Some of us got quite sunburned. We went up to the snack bar and waited a long time for food that later gave us indigestion. Finally we drove back and some people watched the football game, while other people went on a small shopping expedition. Then we all had a great time at dinner, drinking another 2 bottles of wine and laughing till we cried. At one point, Kent starting singing a song and Becky tried to get him to stop. She said, "he only knows one song...and that's not it." My favorite line of the evening. Apparently the one he knows is Old Dan Tucker. We asked the busboy if he was going to a Halloween party when he got off work and what he was wearing. He said he would just go home, throw on a cape, some fangs and blood...we wondered later why he has those things lying around his room...

This morning it was light out at 7 o'clock. I'm so happy. I want to head out for a walk on the beach, but am waiting for Ray to wake up. Then we have to pack and check out by 11, but we might hang around the area a little longer. A long drive home, but worth it.