Compassion

My seniors group is always interesting, more because of the combination of personalities than because of the activities and content and this recent happening was no different.
The morning was drawing to a close and we were suddenly interrupted when a very thin woman with her hoodie pulled up over her head, obscuring her face came in the front door.
She was half crying and said she had come for a food voucher so while somebody went to get the person in charge of food vouchers the woman sat on a chair, just to the side of our group.
After a moment of surprised paralysis I went over and said "So, tell me what's going on for you?"
She blurted out that she hadn't eaten since Sunday (this was Wednesday) and followed up with "after that I had the vomiting and diarrhoea"
Her way of saying it was disorganised and I wondered how it all fitted together, then had the idea to offer her some immediate food in the form of our morning tea left overs. I was sure there was an egg sandwich somewhere but when I went to get it, there were no sandwiches to be found. There were a few strawberries and some teeny pieces of a rich chocolate slice. She thought some strawberries were all she could manage so I handed over the mostly empty punnet. At around the same time, Miss London loudly said "Give her a sandwich."
I didn't respond to Miss London and my attention was focussed on other things so I can't confirm the next part of the story but word has it that Miss London was poked n the ribs and asked to be quiet!
A funny story for a bunch of old church ladies.....

While all of this was going on, Ann was rubbing the woman's shoulder and talking about blood sugars.
"Tell me your name? " I said
Sandra
"How is it at home? Are you staying warm? Would you like a blanket?"
Yes, an extra blanket would be a help

By this time the person had arrived with the food voucher "Can we get a blanket for Sandra?" I asked. The answer was an unequivocal yes.
The voucher lady led Sandra away for a bit and when they came back there was a backpack, blanket and food voucher. I felt it was a small miracle,  I had expected someone would need to buy a blanket and take it to her or maybe she would be given a voucher for that, too.

Somehow, oddly, the strawberries made their way back to me and I packed them away in the bag they came from.

As we got in the car to leave, Miss London was visibly distressed and I knew it would be best to take her to her favourite seaside haunt for lunch. As it turned out, all she wanted was a coffee. It was an unexpected little insight into the heart and mind of a woman who has seen it all. 

Wife

My daughter Caitlin texted me from the train this evening, saying that she could see the phone of the man in front and he was texting his wife, entered into the phone as "wife"
The message said "Hi wife, I'm running late so have dinner without me if you're hungry"

Caitlin was amused by his calling her "wife" and I commented that there must be millions of similar texts sent each evening.

We started to toss around ideas about the most common text messages:

"Can you buy milk?" and "I'm running late" which is closely related to "%$@* Sydney trains"

My own most frequent text, the one that drives me insane, is "Are you home for dinner tonight?"
closely followed by "Yes" (Did you feed the dogs?)


What do you send?
What do you think would be the most common text ?
What funny messages can you think of?

Help a blogger out

Imagine if you were just going about your business one day and part of your house crashed to the ground. Imagine you were not allowed back in to get anything. Then imagine people looted your property while you were staying in a seedy motel, ill and hungry, trying to figure out your next move.
All of this has happened this week for my long time blogging friend Linda. You might of might not know her but I encourage you to pop over to her current blog, More Parsimony (it's on my sidebar) and offer some good old moral support. (is that an old fashioned term these days?)
Then, pop over to her old blog Practical Parsimony and click on the donate button.
I'm writing from my phone so Im not doing links but I bet you all know how to do this without me spoon feeding.
I'm sure even a few dollars would brighten her day and I can guarantee she'll be thrifty...... It's right there in the blog name!

Thank you, my friends. You are good people