Christmas Mumps

Christmas is like a hurricane, sweeping you up in a whirl and depositing you the other side among the debris, not quite knowing how you got there but drawing breath at last.It smells like Christmas still, Christmas deconstructed, turkey stock simmering as the last vestiges of Christmas feasting are tidied out of the fridge. How can we have got through all that turkey already…and the gammon? Even

$1.00 a pack cigars in Jacksonville, Florida

If you're on the streets and a smoker, you'll eventually face needing discount cigars, compared to the cost of recent taxation by both Federal and State authorities over the last year.

A total of $1.60 has been felt per pack by people addicted to nicotine, but the funny thing is it hasn't 'yet' hit filtered cigars the same size.

Currently Remington flavored cigars; peach, rum, vanilla, grape, cherry, menthol, and regular; are going for $1.00 a pack in most locations that still have them.

Milder than other types such as Swisher Sweets, they flavors help smokers since cigar smoke is much harsher.

Of course smoking's bad, and there's plenty of armchair quarterbacks who'll whine about this entry...but how many of those same people aren't related to people related to providing tobacco products through at least a third degree connection?

Where are the homeless niche safety products at?

There's tons of safety products for just about any walk of life, but how many are out there for people experiencing homelessness?

Forget safety items like pepper-spray, they're confiscated at shelters.

Forget protective eye gear, they can't stand up to the amount of debris like sand, mud, and twigs hard sleepers come in contact regularly.

The rest of the like such as oil resistant non-slip footwear...can't hold up two weeks off the beaten path.

Just sayin'.

We reimagined our website so you have a reason to give us money now!

I was having a conversation the other afternoon with someone 'hard sleeping', and living the lifestyle for the most of 15 years. Clinicians call such people 'service resistant', and truth be told they've got their hands full when trying to 'coax' such from out of the cold.

They're there for a reason, and the hard thing is many clinicians fail to understand much has to do with themselves meeting the mark originally long ago to meet expectations.

It's almost like trying to tell someone in a meal line they need www.wholesaleinsurance.net, as opposed to someone living in a home...with a job...and amenities.

For each 'success story' there are millions of 'failures' that service providers in whole failed to meet expectations.

Reimagining oneself with a website doesn't change things in the real world.

Christmas is Coming, Ready Or Not

Silent Night is echoing around the house, as the girls learn all their favourite Christmas carols on the recorder.Paint smears over T-shirts indicate that some serious pressie creation has been going on.Middle Daughter now has two bagfuls of home-made presents all totally independently made.Son spends time alternating between computer and book and is relying on a last minute batch of home-made

Katrina and The Waves in New Orleans

Yesterday I watched a show on PBS regarding the 2005 Katrina evacuation of residents to Salt Lake City, Utah. Black residents of New Orleans dropped into the hands of a white Mormon community.

What appeared to be a military airlift of long distance movers was ironic...some people relating not knowing where they were going until the plane door closed. Many only wanting to get away from the water, others thinking they were headed towards Texas.

The show touched on the lives of two men dealing with this culture shock, both affecting their lives as well as the lives of the community. Majority embraced the changes, some didn't, some of the some reacting negatively and with immaturity...they hadn't lived with 'diversity', and this was their learning curve.

Some evacuees later returned to New Orleans to visit, others wrestled with problems that New Orleans offered more readily such as availability of crack. One many lost his family due to the addiction, ironically his wife returning to New Orleans when he found it eventually in Salt Lake City.

Good show if you can find it.

How do you know if a banana flavored condom is 'just that'?

My screen popped up information for "best under eye cream", and I was thinking...where are the best under arm deodorants at?

What about the best blankets to use outdoors when it downpours?

Then there's the best male prophylactic. Would it be flavored, non, dry, or lubricated?

What about...female prophylactics, specifically female condoms?

If people don't want homeless people to reproduce, you'd think they'd be offering a variety more than plain, vanilla, banana, and strawberry flavored 'Lifestyles' condoms. Have those people ever actually tasted them, cause I'm here to tell you....

...the banana Lifestyles don't taste half as good as Laffy Taffy!

It was taken out of the wrapper and fresh before acquiring this knowledge.

Just sayin'.

Previous experiences of homelessness don't have to be trashed

I've been having discussions with my two sons about loaning out items to their friends that don't seem to get returned by well intentioned neighbors.

The rhetorical situation of the lawnmower lent to the guy next door, in this case either a broom or electric grill. It's not that I'm a bad neighbor, I'm actually trying to teach my kids responsibility...and to let their friends be just that.

Green shopping is the same. I don't want to over time purchase 20 brooms in my life for my household, due to either loan outs not returned or handles breaking. I want one item purchased for the long haul, not having to take up space in landfills.

I told my younger son the other day if I could do that with just 20 broomsticks, what could I...and then many...people do regarding our local landfill.

Just a thought. What's yours?

Recycling Tip: Old Servers can get new homes

The last few months have been 'industrious' for me, taking bits of PCs and putting together boxes that work out of older ones that don't. A friend of mine who's involved with IT at a prominent firm locally now got me hooked on it.

I now have three computers networked in my living room I wouldn't have otherwise.

Years ago it would have required hard wiring and physical boxes to connect together a industrial computer. Now with open source communities more available, I'm able to use software solutions.

And I don't owe Microsoft anything. What's in your bag of tricks?

Professional Blogging and Homelessness: Why few succeed and many continue to fail

Everyone makes mistakes when they first begin blogging. There's the 'teeth cutting' period. I see hundreds of sites weekly that are given up by people with unique material out of discouragement.

It's the mindset that self professed professional bloggers have created that new bloggers buy in to. Dreams of leaving day jobs, of being able to work at home...when the reality of having to self educate hits hard most can't stay the course.

One web directory giving promises of high returns of visitors (sometimes with disclaimers in small print at the bottom), promises of being Paid Per Post by advertising middle men taking their cut...the simple truth is that when a person starts thinking of blogging as a business...they need to professionally evaluate if they can self manage themselves.

Everyone can be a blogger. Everyone can create online accounts.

The difference between everyone and the professionals is tenacity.

It's the same thing with people experiencing homelessness. They fall into three categories.

1.) Those that break the cycle on their own volition.
2.) Those that do by being inspired by others that have.
3.) Those that never do.

Jacksonville Homeless Speakers' Bureau: December 8th, 2009

Please join us for a real look at the Face of Homelessness among our children.
During this presentation you will hear the stories of three young adults who have aged out of foster care and found themselves experiencing homelessness at one point in their lives.

Donations of coffee are much appreciated and will benefit the St. John’s Cathedral coffee service to the homeless.

You can always check for an online auto insurance quote as well.


Date: 12/8/09 Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Taliaferro Hall
St. John’s Cathedral
256 E Church St
Jacksonville, FL 32202

A rose by any other name would still be a flower

A number of years ago I remember the lure of living in an RV, traveling the countryside and seeing it's sites, and finding a way of making a living to exist in a nomadic lifestyle.

A sign to the likes of "sell motorhome" never seemed to pop in front of me when I had the cash.

I remember two television shows in the 70s that revolved around people living this lifestyle, one seeming to be financially self sufficient and the other a freelance photographer. These days it's much easier, the only thing necessary being the ability to connect to the internet...everything else I; and others do; online use tools integrating with laptops for mobile office use.

Depending on who you talk to and the definition they choose to use, nomadics living in homes on wheels to me doesn't feel 'homeless' should be applied to...they identify and feel 'at home' in such.

Who should be the authority of what label is given a demographic slice of society?

Ten Year Plans To End Homelessness: Not for the masses

When a person goes from living a 'sheltered life' to having a home, there are many challenges they face to sustain themselves that are taken for granted...by others and themselves. Many more 'fall off' the wagon than some would want to admit publicly.

While communities across the nation embrace "10 year plans" to end homelessness, many times they don't offer numbers to justify initial or continued cost. While 'placing' individuals or families into 'secure housing' sounds good, many civil authorities can't 'buy in' to such plans due to the best interest of all residents they serve.

It's not just the residents in existing stable housing, there's the fact of services necessary for the needs of the masses that won't fit into predefined planned homes.

How many people could be served by the same funding used to create a safe campground, potable water for consumption and showers, and availability to transportation by including one local transit bus line adjacent? Local service providers could 'satellite' and rotate regularly employees jointly at such sites for case management, medical, and other existing services rendered in facilities requiring overhead cost that could be invested in the service...not the building to provide services to those not living in buildings.

For over three years I've had the chance of witnessing a police lieutenant of Jacksonville Sheriff's Office personally manage a daytime foot patrol beat of Hemming Plaza. Both him and a fellow officer are seen regularly enough there that I address them both by first name when not in the presence of others.

Jacksonville has in it's ability to provide a safer habitable area than many of it's military currently serving overseas and living 'in the field' experience.

When we get past the notion it requires someone in an office to do 'the right thing', maybe we'll start finding the money in our pockets to have done what was needed long ago.

To serve the residents rather than our self serving goals individually.

If you read this far, thanks. If you don't like the air of it, consider changing the humidifier filters if you're that stuffy.

Put your aces in their places

Since it's getting colder and students from high school to undergraduate have a chance to burn fat, there's an increase of awareness through 'sleep outs'.

Depending on who's relating their perspective, readers have a tendency to either 'buy in' or become critical...towards both the subject demographic as well as participants.

There's also the spin put out by recent increases of non-profit agencies using Twitter, Facebook, and other online social sites. Connecting to supporting businesses, potential private and public funders, etc.

It needs to be mentioned that while some agencies employ people later they sometimes serve, doing so serves the business. The bigger an agency gets, the tendency of more people becoming job scared behind a desk.

Homelessness is a business niche. While some businesses having outreach programs are equipped to do the job with offices, vehicles, and the overhead cost needed...I gotta ask:

Why do I constantly see vehicles that should be 'in the field' parked outside an agency's door the majority of the week? Or used to shuttle employees to multiple regularly scheduled meetings monthly? What about the free lunches and buffets?

I see the people on the street. I see them in hotels. I see them when I walk the sidewalk in the woods to my side where they camp, where they call home. Not in my neighborhood, but throughout Jacksonville's other areas I frequent by it's transit system.

...and the vehicle that should be here outreaching isn't. It may be seen driving through downtown at times, but when it's so easily visible when and where it shouldn't be...

...doesn't anybody care?

Get rid of vans and sedans sitting useless. Reimburse people for gas. Get them where they are needed to do their job.

Out of the office and on the streets.

Of course there's gonna be professional lunches. Hitting the streets instead of parking the vehicle and getting behind a desk immediately...it just feels right.

Kids love it

Today I was writing up some recipe articles for a client and found the words “kids love it…” tripping nonchalantly off my keyboard, as I assured readers that cottage pie is a really kid-friendly dish guaranteed to smuggle vegetables past the green detector into their child’s diet.Later this afternoon, as I perspired over a hot stove (the weather was actually hot today for a change), making a

A Dogs Dinner

I often struggle to find something to make cold leftover meats interesting for the family in cold weather. If I do baked potatoes then they always want our traditional accompaniments of grated cheese, baked beans and tuna with them and don’t eat the cold meat, which misses the point entirely. So I was really happy when I tried this potato recipe from Nigella’s Feast and everybody liked it – yes

Feet

Feet are fundamental to our well-being and yet we only notice them when they stop doing their job properly.I’ve been taking my feet for granted all my life, always knowing I can walk anywhere I want to, reserving the right to learn to dance one of these days when I get around to it, expecting them to hold me uncomplainingly when I stand cooking in the kitchen for hours when we have a festival,

Ten Things Update

A nudge from Marcheline made me realize I haven’t posted for ages. All my writing mojo is being spent on work stuff, so I’m falling back on an update in the ten things format to fill the black hole.1. It has been raining now for two days and nights, practically without stopping. This is supposed to be summer in South Africa, not in England. Getting a bit worried about the pairs of animals that

Designer Labels

Ever since I gave my husband a hard time for cutting garlic on my fruit chopping board, he has had a plan to label the boards and avoid any confusion for the uninitiated into my complex system of wooden boards.Finally on Saturday he put the kids to work burning names into the wood. I'd envisaged lethal red hot pokers being needed, with major danger to life and limb.All it actually took was some

Rumor Control Issue Vol:1 Iss:1

Rumor #1: Homeless In Jax is gone: Yes, it's 'gone'. Totally. Daggers thrust at certain service providers, others held aloft. Truth be told, the site was the victim of a vicious Denial of Service attack (DoS) two months ago.

Persons of interest include global Russian and Indian cottage industry comment link mafia, Jacksonville's "Downtown Vigilante", and unidentified orange shirt wearing homelessophobic minimum wage earners spending too much time babbling with Mr. Butler near his cruiser.

Rumor #2: "Jacksonville just doesn't 'Get It'": Yes, at a recent meeting held behind closed doors a person having connections to funding sources and having experience in other cities made it clear

that Jacksonville's business and residential attitude towards it's homeless issues was behind the times in comparison to other metropolitan cities.

Rumor #3: The influential bloggers are 'mainstreaming': Totally true. Over the last five years, this and other blogs/sites have grown much in regard to readership, marketing, and business growth and arrangements with other established media or businesses. It's just good business. Continue to read them or go seek opportunity elsewhere…lord knows I did numerous times.

Rumor #4: "The Homeless are coming, the HOMELESS ARE COMING!": It was all a dream, they've been here for years. Rumor control has it that a Drop In Center is in the works for Downtown Jacksonville. TRUE!

Other matters revolving around this are too deep to put here at the moment, due to the amount of interconnection between the issues.

Chances are if you give a rat's arse, you'll go contact the Emergency Services & Homeless Coalition and beg them for membership before the bottom falls out and the NIMBY nightmare comes true.

…which it has, but you're still in denial.

Rumor #5: You're fat and you know it: Course you may be, and if you are weight loss supplements might be your answer. Just remember, if you don't get help at Riverpoint…get help somewhere.

I'm JohnC and that's Rumor Control this month. This entry is on behalf of every person experiencing homelessness as a family, living with mental disorders, and choosing lives of recovery.

Baked Pasta Cravings

I’ve been craving proper Italian pasta al forno for ages. There’s just one hitch. My kids aren’t really into creamy/mixed sauces… in fact sauces are a bit problematic altogether. The only pasta our son likes is Dad’s aglio olio with bits of bacon in, as it leaves the pasta practically bare, so it doesn’t activate the sauce detector alarm.When you’re cooking pasta al forno, you need to have an

Bedtime

“Are you ready for a story?” I enquire, walking into the kids’ bedroom to see figures balancing precariously on their beds still in their day clothes, flying a small toy figure around in the pull cord of the electric ceiling fan.“Yes!” they chorus.I point out the lack of pyjamas."You can read to us while we get into pjs," they say, continuing to play.I decline to start down that slippery slope of

Red Lentil Dhal Recipe

I love it when I stumble on a new recipe that’s easy and is an immediate hit with at least one member of the family. I found this dhal recipe when I was desperately looking for inspiration for making packed lunches for a vegan student, who is visiting our school.We have a group of four students and two teachers from our sister school in Germany visiting at the moment. They’ve raised funds and

Birthday on a School Day

A birthday falling on a school day leaves you out of breath and gasping from the onslaught of cake, presents and wishes, even when it’s not your birthday. Youngest was seven the other day. She was a bit fed up that she had to go to school on her birthday. After all, it’s too tantalizing opening up pressies over breakfast and then having to go off and leave them in a pristine, untouched state on

Florida Times Union Story: ...(efforts) not much help

Some say clearing lot used by homeless not much help

By Drew Dixon. Story updated at 3:42 PM on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009

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Preparing for a long cold winter

The earlier the better in most cases. A warm fuzzy gift of an electric blanket...just isnt all that fuzzy when you don't have a place to plug it up!

Over the course of the last six months, I had different conversations with confidential sources...trying to make sense of what was said as opposed to what the real deal was. Who could a consumer trust to represent their needs as well as desires for systems to improve...for them to improve and move out of homelessness into self sufficiency.

To live and lead productive lives, whether in private or putting back into Jacksonville.

What's sad is what's said 'off microphone' by one of our local Council Members, as related by one source requesting to remain confidential:

• "If I hear it's 'for the children' I'm going to throw up."

Thanks. I'll make sure to tell my peers and those serving your community they can black ball you, or they're guilty by association as you for misrepresentation of the people's trust to serve.

Because in Jacksonville, that's the way things used to be done. Not standing up for what you say. Down here, they like to fall on rhetorical quotations such as "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Try "The friend of my enemy is my enemy". It makes it easier knowing who your friends are. Snakes always tend to bite the hand that feed them.

When Spring Turns To Summer

Signs that spring is surging on towards summer:Last week the yellow daisies swathed the sand in thick blankets. A few days of warm sunny weather have dried them out and the golden carpets have faded away to dry stalks that rattle as you brush past.Balmy evenings with glowing pink sunsets tempt you outside, just when it is time to cook supper.The first braai of the season happened last night,

Pony Show

I learned to ride as a child. Living in the country it was what girls did and riding was an afternoon activity once a week at school. All the girls rode, so I did too. I was OK at it, but never in the prize winning league. My memories include: being unable to convince ‘my’ pony to go over any jumps ever; being left hanging from a low branch by another pony determined to find the shortest way home

Fighting Chance

Traditional weapons aren't much use when the cowboys come to town. But if you're lucky they'll give you a sporting chance and fight fair. Duelling swords at dawn....

Up The Cloudy Mountain

Going up Table Mountain in the cable car is an annual treat. A treat because it’s expensive to ride in the cable car. You can walk up the mountain for free, but riding the cable car is priced for tourists and taking the whole family up is a major financial investment.Revolving 360 degrees slowly over the 5 minute trip in the car, you dangle over precipitous heights and see the city shrink in size

Gertrude was a table tennis star

The other day I spotted Gertrude on Facebook. Gertrude isn't her real name, and for all readers know she's fictitious. Take the measurement of a ping pong table in three dimensions and you'd have Gertrude.

She was one of those sanctimonious two faced BS artists who never got pegged since she usually produced reports claiming rules were broken.

When the $1 million cocaine bust went down, she never got caught, nor during the incident of a man's brains bleeding onto a card table as he died looking at a still full plate of food.

Left, back, left, back, for whatever reasons. With Gertrude there's always bad things when she's around.

And around again she is.

The invisible’s they still don’t want to talk about

Over the last week I've continued to speak to different people after the last few months' tirade of 'Give us money or we will put them out' propaganda. More and more people came forward admitting the lack of respect some service providers have been showing.

It's gotten to the point that RUMOR CONTROL is admitting legal investigation by some over the matters of individuals having experienced homelessness having their full identity being made public on the internet by employees of certain services in numerous online social communities.

Putting the word out there about homelessness is one thing. "Outing" people is another, regardless if anyone waves legal releases signed by individuals with a history of mental disorders…and that's just what's happened in one particular case. It's like pawning used auto accessories and claiming innocence when someone gets fried.

The hell of it all is that the CEO of this one agency in particular will disavow responsibility. The individual responsible for pushing 'submit'…he or she'll probably disappear. When things have hit the fan before, it's been known to happen.

…and people wonder why so many still choose to camp out in the woods these days.

Birthday Spoils

Some birthdays are painful reminders of the years passing, hurtling you onwards into incipient middle age. But they can be opportunities for three days of pampering and indulgence, the equivalent of a spring makeover, courtesy of the family pulling out all the stops to spoil you rotten!That is what I got this year and I feel like a new woman, the wrinkles of age banished by a new haircut, a deep

When it's not enough: Outing the homeless part 2

I had some time to think about the last entry and received a few emails over the issues. One felt it totally legit to identify and 'out' someone on the internet, searchable simply on their first and last name entered in to Google.

We don't reprint or display recovering drug or alcohol addicts names or faces on the internet who go through our programs.

What right do we do this with the homeless, without specific release to do so...and for how long is that release meant to be good for if secured.

The whole issue to me really needs to be sucked in some spa filters and come cleaned out the other end.

The prior entry included a comment by someone linking to a gallery of homeless family's images on the internet as well. The one saving grace was that it's not possible to identify those families or their members by name.

With what a local non profit in Jacksonville did recently providing specific first and last names, I'm surprised they didn't include their social security numbers.

I wonder if you can get them if you called them on the phone.

Online portrayal of homeless: Violation of privacy issues?

Over the last few weeks I've been seeing an increase of internet activity on the part of non-profit agencies whose role is delivering services to people experiencing homelessness. At first I was honestly thrilled seeing their activity in some of the 'known' online social communities.

That was until they began going deeper.

This last week I found a two year old video snippet on Youtube.com, originally part of an annual presentation/fund raiser held by this county's. Originally tastefully done and quiet suitable for it's intended audience at the time, someone decided to place it on the internet unedited.

The client's full name released to the world. Going deeper into this account's 'channel' on Youtube.com, I found numerous other former clients' video's placed as well. Experiences in alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental health recovery. No mention of apidexin use was found in helping weight loss.

I myself was one such person; as was my family; who were part of the original parties video taped by the former CEO of this agency. Looking over my files I don't recall ever having given formal written permission for anything to be duplicated or released past the original intended audience. At the time of this writing, I'm not aware of it having been done so as has my peers personal accounts that were videotaped…some who I personally came to know and befriend while within he homeless community.

How much is too much when someone's likeness is used repeatedly? Knowing homelessness is a chronic cycle for some, and that as stated one of the people found on Youtube.com was identified as having experienced that, is it fair to release such information unedited online…knowing that information could be used to identify them…by predators on the streets or business owners as has had in the past in Jacksonville?

Muffins and Marmalade

I meant to write a post today, but I made marmalade instead.It was going to be a thought-provoking discussion about real food made with real ingredients, as opposed to shop bought fluffy cakes that fade to nothing in your mouth… but I hadn’t made marmalade yet this winter and spring is knocking on the door. Oranges will only hang around so long and the thought of going through a year without a

Bring on the Garden Gnomes

What is the opposite of green-fingered? I had some flourishing nasturtiums growing in pots outside our door. They'd just got to the abundant flowering stage and were looking really bright and cheerful, when I noticed they were covered in blackfly, which were killing off all the new buds. My sister-in-law suggested spraying with soapy water.I think I overdid it. Or else dishwashing liquid is the

Chocolate Tart

Good chocolate, dark chocolate, seriously bitter chocolate… how dark can you go? Do you stop at 60% or can you take the almost no sweetness of 85% cocoa solids that stays on your tongue with no holds barred, chocoholic, I’m-in-need-of-a-fix madness.Looking for a chocolate tart recipe for a grown-up dinner party, I was thinking really bitter chocolate in a light pastry case: dark chocolate flavour

Spring Blooms

I was toiling unenthusiastically at the computer this afternoon, when Middle Daughter sidled over tentatively and said she wanted to show me something. It took me no more than a second to abandon my screen in favour of distraction. She took me outside into the breezy spring day and opened my eyes to the new flowers that have bloomed overnight. Several of these pink pypies are blooming among the

How should we advocate?

Over the last few years I've come across different national volunteers trying to solicit former homeless to speak at local schools, for educating the kids as to what life on the streets is about.

This made me wonder if it's reasonable or not for the speaker to get paid for his time, travel, and presenting information that in all fairness is based on years of experience.

As my ceiling fan twirls it makes me wonder...is it wrong to expect such compensation? Would we be so easily able to attain other speakers if they weren't paid?

Then again, who screens or decides which former homeless walk into schools interacting with young children? What if any level of criminal background is the limit, since many chronic homeless have that in their past in some shape or fashion?

Monthly Gossip Amongst The Masses

Anyone reading this blog knows I pretty much don't give in to media spin. While I've lent my voice and likeness to a number of agencies when I thought it was for a good cause, there's tons of other times I've just had to say 'no'.

Seems it's coming back around to that time again.

Recently the last two months have been a period when many agencies were putting the spin out that the sky was falling. The fact is it's not, there's going to be plenty of people experiencing homelessness to justify all the businesses 'doing what they do'.

The problem is justification of what they're doing. It all comes down to who rants the most, gives the best impression, all before packing up for the day and heading home for a well deserved drink.

I had the chance last week of speaking to a few people 'in the biz', being pretty disgusted by the tactics being used by some of non-profit providers in Jacksonville.

"If they need the money, then they need to quit concentrating on rubbing elbows for political success and start peddling to the millions of residents in their own county."

"They're more worried about setting up 'annual' hooplahs instead of getting out there weekly and doing car washes...they've got the ovens, they've got flour...do a bi-weekly brownie sale!"

"They became too much about businesses and whatever term starts getting used by someone else first. Too many people hurt or fired by people who can't get a job elsewhere...it's like a cancer here."

Got your own tripe to grill? Feel free to email 'homelessfamily' 'at' 'yahoo.com'. All contacts are kept confidential to protect the innocent from the assanine.

Survey SAYS!

By now Jacksonville City Council's voted on whether to increase local taxes...or not. I had the chance of speaking to a handful of different home owners yesterday and today, all whom are in the same mindset: it's appropriate to raise the taxes to take care of what's necessary.

One question I regularly asked people was how they felt about local officials making the choices of what and who gets money, let alone if they felt voters were represented fairly by their elected officials.

All in all most didn't seem to care. The majority felt they wouldn't see the effects of a tax increase due to mortgages, escrow, and other matters handled seamlessly in the background until the end of the year when surpluses were usually found and realized during tax season.

Which makes me wonder about the naysayers. Is Jacksonville's rant heard by both sides of the fence, homeowners and non-profits alike, over the issues of funding a mere sign of poor financial management for those that opened their mouths the loudest? Would the same people I spoke with have the unplanned need for rv finance information...or had they planned long ago for this?

This isn't to say that those heard the most aren't as valued as any other resident having an interest in this community. But it's a fair point to see that those with more solid safety nets to avoid homelessness simply weren't as interested...as those who are a bit closer to that reality.

Maybe that's why the ones heard...are just that.

Guava Parfait and a Search for a Chocolate Tart Recipe…

My cooking mojo has suddenly returned and I even started to get excited about new recipes over the weekend. For too long I’ve been doing the same old crowd pleasers and though I love doing a Sunday roast, it’s nice to have a little variation in the desserts at least.So I leafed through Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book for inspiration. She is a domestic goddess of the Seventies following in the footsteps

Social Profiling: Still goes on no matter what they say

Friday I had the chance of walking along Jacksonville's South bank of the Riverwalk around Friendship Fountain. It was just before people were leaving the high rise offices, the time when you only see people in the area who don't have 'anything better to do'.

I spotted three couples in the area, and one police cruiser driving by one time on the sidewalk in a 20 minute time period. One of the couples I knew someone directly, having been a person of interest to my family for the time period we experienced homelessness.

The officer made it a point of checking the male's identification, as opposed to anyone else he had seen in the area. As he called information through his handheld radio, I approached and engaged the young girl I was acquainted of.

The only reason she related the officer gave as to asking for her friend's identification was he'd never seen them before in the park. Again, this was a young lady I'd known for years and at one time mentored over some issues I'm not able to relate here. Full of hopes, dreams, one day finding that one special guy to be able to send out wedding invitations for...I looked on her as a niece I never had.

The one thing that separated the place she was sitting at as opposed to anyone else not confronted by the officer?

There was a book bag on the picnic table she and her friends sat at talking. Just remember...this could have been your kid on a sunny Jacksonville day as well.

City Hall showup: Tuesday July 28th, 5PM

The cry of the month has been "Fix It Now". Well, it ain't gonna happen kids.

Jacksonville's about to have a vote of whether or not to increase taxes towards homeowners, which in turn will affect later availability of funds for grants and other money doled out to parts of the city to keep it going, whether that means frivolity, spirituality, or necessity.

I spoke with a handful of people on the phone the last few days. People that were afraid. People that didn't know if they would lose their jobs. People that were facing that wall knowing they had only so much in liquid assets before their electricity could be turned off.

And they were employed by non profit agencies providing services to people experiencing homelessness.

Cries for people to email City Hall on their behalf. Cries that the sky was falling. Cries that "we'll sacrifice the children if we don't get our way".

I've had the chance of hearing Mayor Peyton over the last few years, standing in front of cameras, sitting behind tables, belittled and having to be seen as the pivot point in a huge circle jerk: City Hall, residents, businesses, and agencies.

Good old boy routines, City Council members who don't know the bigger picture of things to come. Egos and the ability to leave it all at the office, spare the neighbor calling at home bothering them in their part time position that takes away from their already existing business interests.

It's all about money. Take away the money, and you'll still have homeless families though...won't you? People won't just go...away. Or will they?

The end point for all of this is simple. Take away the funding, and Jacksonville will begin to develop cells of homeless tent cities. In time, these will organize productively; or not; into larger cells. Whether in a year or two, we're about to see history made on the First Coast.

Luckily I kept my cache of camping equipment from three years ago. Just remember though, the food won't be abundant so start taking some weight loss supplements now to make sure you're fit and trim for the New Era. You wanted 'Change'. You got it.

Big Brother's been watching you since 1984. He just didn't follow the script.

Disney and Beyond

Veterans of Disney classic features, our kids now know all the DVDs we’ve got off by heart and are looking for something new in the movie stakes.They loved Racing Stripes, which led them on to race horse movie, Dreamer and then on to Seabiscuit, which we thought might be too adult for them, with all the background of the Great Depression and family tragedies. But that ended up being their

Inklings of Spring

This morning I emerged from a fug of computer induced wordiness and went outside for a breath of air and to pick some grass for the guinea-pig and rabbit. I discovered that while I was working in the blinkers of cyberspace, the seasons in the outside world have crept up on me again.Here I was thinking we were in the middle of winter – winter holidays just finished, log fires in the evening and

Water

Living on a farm is great – wide open views, plenty of space, fresh air (unless our neighbour has just spread slurry on his roll-on lawn growing operation) and wonderful tasting, unchlorinated water fresh from our own borehole… that is as long as said borehole is functioning as it should. The trouble with boreholes is that they depend on electric pumps. And pumps that spend all day below ground

Winter at the Beach

Winter at the beach - blue skies with wisps of cloud high above. Black rocks on Blouberg beach and shoals of mussel shells to hunt through, picking out the iridescent shards worn to jewel brightness by the waves.Rocks and rock pools to explore, provoking the anemones to defensive closing by dropping unsuspecting sea snails on them. The girls were sure they were eating them, until I said they

Bedtime stories

I’m really enjoying the age we’re at now. All the children’s books we’ve been hoarding for years, the old favourites from both our childhoods that we assiduously collected in second hand book shops before we left England, now make the perfect bedtime reading for all three kids. We used to have to separate out for story time. Dad would read The Chronicles of Prydian or the Narnia series to our son

25 Firsts Meme

It's a meme kind of day. Charlotte posted this one this morning and here I am following suit.1. Who was your first prom date? We didn’t have proms in England then, just a few school dances. Those of us not joined at the hip to a steady boy/girlfriend went as a mixed group and it was hard to get the boys to dance at all.2. Do you still talk to your first love? No. It was a long distance

Map out your local homeless before they do

With the seasons changing as they do each year, the migration due to weather and job scarcity increases to more temperate areas like Jacksonville.

I had contact with two different families, one coming from Seattle and another from Boston, both having the same issues of inability to find work as well as preparing for another hard winter affecting family members' health problems.

Although the agencies in the area attempt to assist as much as possible, there's the masses still unaccounted for that are off the scale. Meal lines, labor pool lines, medical clinics, all of them are already beginning to see the increases during the hours of operation that otherwise go ignored.

Until someone gets offended at what's outside their front door regularly.

I'd give it another month before more of the uneducated business owners downtown start throwing up the idea of barcode scanner usage on the homeless again, similar to what was proposed to fingerprinting for food five years ago.

Winter Holiday

The first day of the winter holidays yesterday and the sun was shining after four days of nothing but rain. So it was in a holiday mood that we set off for the other side of the mountain, to Kalk Bay and Glencairn. We love it over there with its seaside, eclectic vibe, part of Cape Town and yet not quite of it, but for us it is a long drive: only 30 minutes to the edge of Cape Town, but then

Midwinter Festival

Mulled wine, bonfire, sparklers, lanterns, soup and sausages cooked over the fire, these are the essential ingredients of our winter festivals. Over the years we’ve held winter festivals snatched in the intervals between showers of rain, when we had to hurry inside for pudding with our last mouthful of sausage still being chewed, but this year we had the bonus extra of a still, starry night that

Winter in the Western Cape

It's pouring with rain, deluging down on our tin roof, interrupting the satellite signal broadcasting a tense cricket match between South Africa and the West Indies into our sitting room. The boys leave, clad in waterproofs, to find a house with a better signal. The girls bake rusks. Youngest is itching to get outside again. She has just taught herself how to ride a bike. This morning she at last

Fashion Alert

I now know I’m beyond the outer reaches of fashion here on our farm. The first I’d heard of Uggs was when Inge mentioned them replacing Manolos, now it’s winter, on the feet of those Cape Town trendsetters patronizing her new deli in Kalk Bay. Spoken in the same breath as Manolos, I knew they must be the height of chic, but it wasn’t till I got an e-mail offering a discount to my readers on an

WTSIM Boeuf Bourgignon

Winter is really here now, a chill in the air and cold fronts bustling over in a hurry to get somewhere, showering us with torrents of rain as they pass. The scarlet vine leaves are dropping fast now, our only real autumn colour carpeting the ground with its finery.Today was the perfect day to cook a slow stew in the oven, the aroma of its winey juices pervading the house, and the warmth of the

Sleepover

Last night the children had a sleepover at their aunt’s house. This is all of 50m away, just down the hill, but is a major step forward on the road to independence, when up till a year ago the girls had never spent a night away from us.Over the last year they have evolved their own traditions for the sleepover. In the morning the girls go in to town with their aunt and choose a movie to watch

Orange

England in autumn applies orange lavishly with broad brush strokes. Dripping and splattering all shades of sunset, it spreads throughout the landscape: beech trees a golden or coppery shade, through to fiery oranges and rusts in London parks, interspersed with reds and golds. The bright colors make up for dull skies and flat light and just occasionally are picked up by bursts of sunlight that

Treasure in the Rain

Eleven is a transition age – the automatic magic inherent in birthdays, that has the girls excited even when it’s someone else’s birthday, has worn off for our son. His birthday fell on a Monday this year, with a long day of school and for the first time ever we decided to hold his party on a different day, so that he could have a sleepover party with just a few of his friends on the weekend. A

Cheap Shoe Shuffle

Children’s shoes have been the trial of mothers for generations, I’m sure. They grow out of them in no time, but good quality ones cost as much as adult shoes. Buy cheap ones and it is a gamble whether they will last until they are grown out of.Faced with a barefoot Middle Daughter, who had grown out of all her shoes over the summer, with only three pairs of flip flops left to her name, the

In Our Back Garden

Unicorns frolic in a flowery bowerHorses prance and toss their manesLeopards pace and the lion lies down with the lambA hippo wallows in a watering holeA girl waits patiently to go fishingCows graze peacefully in the evening sunshine.A few mishaps mar the idyll...Indian Jones tried one stunt too manyAnd the Italian Job did too good a job money laundering and jackknifed their lorry.But overall tis

Things you can do

If you're getting new office furniture, donate the old stuff to people reintegrating back into homes. Getting on one's feet isn't easy. Most people don't have filing cabinets, folders, and the rest of the stuff that really most people need in keeping track and dealing with this, that, and the other stuff in their lives.

The other option is letting people use doors on their backs set on cinder blocks, not being able to find papers put somewhere when needed, and being back on the streets once more....

....all for the want of a table, the house was lost!

The 'Anonymous' Comment you may find

People are people. Some nicer than others. Some not. Recently I've been getting a large handful of posters commenting 'anonymously', most replying out of ignorance and not knowing anything about the blog or the writer behind it...but the majority pretty much just simply ignorant.

For them I offer this list of top term life insurance companies. May they find their needs better filled elsewhere.

For the rest of the readership, last week ushered in another mass scare involving Swine Flu. Texas one of the first reported States closing schools, followed by numerous others throughout the country. Florida itself had two confirmed cases as reported by media on Friday.

Our Vice President went as far to say something along the way of avoiding closed confined spaces such as airplanes and subways. On the other hand I saw nothing in regards to closed air spaces such as jails, shelters, or other congregate living areas targetted for the poor.

I've also seen no sign of masks worn or dolled out. Maybe it's early, or maybe they're using those nifty noseplugs you can't see that I saw in Batman Returns...you had to look close to find them...they were in his nose...obviously.

WTSIM Avocado and Prawn Cocktail

Jeanne has asked us to cast our minds back to the Seventies for this month’s WTSIM – the theme is retro classics, things that we would now blush to present at a dinner party but which were the epitome of cool way back then.My childhood memories of food are mostly of traditional home-cooked fare, ageless dishes like shepherds pie and Sunday roasts, and then the unchanging school-food themes of

Around the World in 80 Clicks

Is it possible to traverse the world finding mothers who blog in 80 clicks? Do mothers raising children in different places have different perspectives? Catherine at Her Bad Mother teamed up with her friend David to find out. She listed 5 things she enjoys about motherhood, linked to 5 other mom-blogs, and threw out the challenge...I copied this paragraph from Poppy Fields who tagged me and had

Tortoise Requiem

The girls came back up the hill from planting bulbs under the pine trees with their aunt, full of the tiny tortoise they had found. He was smaller than their hands, so tiny he must have been a baby. Unfortunately he was also rather dead.So small and so perfectly formed in every detail, his shell still soft, he must have been quite newly hatched when he came a cropper and perhaps got stranded on

Autumn Flowers

Flowers in soft-focus and now I know why – my whole world has been in soft focus for a while now and the optician has told me I need to start wearing glasses all the time, not just when my arms aren’t long enough. The silver lining is that maybe I’ll be able to see the details sharply once again: that sparkle in the children’s eyes, the sheen on a rose petal, the texture in a stone. The colours

The threads of a day

At breakfast my mind wandered away from the cereal packets: the day seemed to me like a loom with a variegated pattern growing into a chaotic and bright cloth. A background of deep green grass with white bobbles of ducks preening. Bright threads of children’s voices in azure and pink making a continuous stream of chatter, zigzagging and flowing through the duller muted greys and blues of a soft

When ya get a job, ya can get some of da bling

Howie Mandel...Youtube.com...and Buy.com. It's always pretty when he pushes a sale.

But unlike his million in a briefcase; which has dwindled to a half a million...and where did all the models go; he's getting better quality time in 30 seconds rather than minutes, in my opinion.

On a scale of 10 this time around, I'd give him a '7'...but not for lack of trying. He simply didn't ask me or any homeless cohorts to be included in his video.

That was a joke.

So when you end up getting a job, need some 'pretty pretty'...go give 'im a click. Tell him John sent ya...and he should have gotten 'MY' bling on.

Trust me, I can use all the prettyness I can get these days.

Eggs Excess

Bright early morning sunshine blinds the egg-hunters, as they line up on the stoep, armed with empty baskets to collect the Easter bunny's bounty. We managed to hold them off till 8 o'clock by letting them watch The Knight's Tale, which was enthralling enough to allow the Easter Bunny to hop around outside undetected.We egg-celled ourselves this year with an over abundance of eggs. The Easter

Take care of your butt on the streets

Toilet paper, personal hygiene wipes...lest we say...douche?

Face it, you can't use leaves on the streets...well, you could...but it wouldn't feel good, would it?

In the amount of times I've had the chance of seeing closets of items of personal hygiene items accumulated, I see a common factor each time: how quick they go. Constant rantings of locals claiming how 'good' the homeless 'have it'...they don't have any idea what they're arm chair quarterbacking looks like.

Ignorant.

Perchance time for a Colonix treatment?

I had the chance of connecting with a young man whose family was homeless alongside my own years ago. Father passed on, siblings with his grandmother, and now it seeming himself returned to the cycle. Entering into adulthood, alone, and vulnerable.

I'm beside myself on this one.

The only thing I can do is listen.

Can you?

John says: "Eat more meat, people!"

With the economy causing more homeless migration from the upper United States to warmer southern climates, there's also the issue of having to feed the masses at local meal spots.

It's always been tough for years, and it just keeps getting worse. The long term effect however isn't felt on the employees and establishments weathering these tough times for decades, it's in the health of the recipients of such services. Many being chronic, their health conditions worsen over time very fast.

Health supplements, such as those at HGH, can help, but their only part of the solution. Increases in creating more balanced diets will in time cost our American taxes less in homeless health costs than anyone realizes.

Or will admit.

Ten

It’s the end of term today! Hurray! It has drawn out long because of Easter being late and had started to feel like it would never end. In celebration summer has decided to make yet another come back and we have a suffocating day of 38C, all the more fierce for the cool weather we've enjoyed lately.Back from school with two of the girls’ friends in tow, we went straight down to the pool in an

Unemployment rate increases in Jacksonville

Many people having homes worry about their insurance rates. Homeless people worry more about the number of jobs available.

I've had the chance of speaking to someone this evening in northern New England, part of a couple preparing to migrate back here after attempting to locate work up the Eastern Seaboard.

Their story really hit me. The wife has multiple physical illnesses, the husband works whatever he can. Living in hotel rooms, they're finding; along with about 30 other families; the property owner sold off and they have to move within a few weeks, if that.

It's all about affordable housing. Homeless shelters don't have room for the migrating masses the next four years will be bringing further into Florida.

Tent cities will eventually be the way to go. Funnel the funds to central locations, and bring satellite services on laptops to the masses.

Imagine the amount that could be done just with the electric bills saved?

Candles for Earth Hour

Candles, lots of them... for Earth Hour we got out all our most colourful candles and candle holders and lit them all along our big table, before going round the house, switching off all the lights, the TV, the computers. Our eyes adjusted to the low light, the gentle glow of yellow candle flame reflecting off our red clay walls, and then we each took a candle and went out to our circle. As we

Wine Cubes in a Steamy Kitchen

A frantically domestic kitchen mood overtook me this afternoon and I found myself baking rusks for the first time in ages. I used to keep a tin on the go at all times in those days when I was ‘only’ a full time mother and didn’t have the distraction of work and computers. It used to be one of those things that would keep me and two toddlers busy and flour-dusted for half the afternoon, a huge

Earth Hour

Tomorrow is Earth Day. In an event called Earth Hour, millions of people and organizations are going to be turning off their lights at 8.30pm local time for an hour, to make a gesture towards awareness of energy use, global warming and saving the planet. Major monuments like Table Moutain and the Pyramids are going to be turning off their spotlights for an hour and thousands of communities and

Two Trips to Town

It was an average Thursday that kicked off with car no.2 refusing to start for the school run. I’d breathed a sigh of relief having successfully dispatched all three kids out to the car, fully equipped for school, hair brushed and plaited (except for our son!), and was just about to take my first sip of tea, when the door blew open again and they all trooped through on the way to borrow my

Pumpkins and Angels in Autumn

Another equinox has been and gone, signalling shorter days and colder nights for us, and the spring surge of energy and lengthening days for all you Northern hemispherites.We celebrated our autumn festival yesterday. It’s our harvest festival, with the theme of Earth, where we give thanks for all the fruits of the earth and the children build and decorate sandcastles in our big sandpit.After a

Four Legs Good

I’ve never really been a horse person. I learned to ride as a child, because that’s what all the other girls did, when I was growing up in the English countryside, but I had a largely undistinguished career, the main memories that linger being freeze frames: me left hanging from the branch of tree when the pony decided to take a shortcut home and the steering failed; me on ‘my’ pony that refused

Blog Awards and Addictions

Thanks Robyn for this fabulous blog award!Now it's my turn to pass it on to five other fabulous bloggers that I read with pleasure every time their name pops up on my Bloglines reader. Seeing as it's the time of the SA Blog Awards, I thought I'd make this an African theme and nominate my own five top African blogsPlanet Nomad for wonderful writing from the top of Africa.Reluctant Memsahib for

What do you get when you're about to lose everything?

One thing you'll never see in the lobby or dorm counselor office in a homeless shelter is a cash drawer, nor any other forms of valuable lockupable system.

In Jacksonville years ago, attempts were actually made by a few different non profit agencies to bring some form of 'shelter' for people's belongings, rather than have them carting them constantly through downtown streets.

Mind you, we're not talking much more than a high school locker, but for those needing to 'hide' their items while going to job interviews it's a big help.

While storage rooms are available downtown, the fact is people trying to get off the street don't have the cash in hand for the downstroke. That and the possibility of losing everything if they miss a payment can mean losing valuable and irreplaceable documents that they opt to carry regularly.

Think about it. If you only had 60 seconds to grab whatever you could if your home was destroyed, what would you grab...and would you tend to hold tightly to it after having lost everything?

Food for thought?

Nubivagant Words

A nubivagant post off in lala land, wandering among clouds… I’ve adopted a word and have to use it to keep it alive and protect its dictionary listing. Nubivagant (means: moving through and around the clouds) is one of the three I chose from a great site that I was pointed to by Robyn of The Egypt Experience.The site is called Save the Words and is huge fun – click on any weird word and find out

Flower Fairies on Hot Days

On hot days flower fairies make rose petal ice cubes to float in their spring water spritzers.My girls made several ice cube trays of flower fairy ice cubes, back in January, while the roses were in bloom. One or two petals per cube, water poured over and frozen. They stayed in the freezer for ages, almost forgotten until this last run of hot weather sent me looking for cool inspiration. We got

Paying by Numbers

My numerology for March said that money would be flowing out fast…. I wasn’t too surprised, as it does that most months. The first week was true to form: bill for son’s OT treatment after breaking a finger playing football (he saved a goal but it cost over R1000 in all, and it wasn’t even a major league match); filling at the dentist for Youngest (where she was hugely stoical and put up with it

Rock Buns on a Hot Summer's Night

It’s hot. It’s dark. It’s nearly nine o’clock on a fierce summer’s evening and I’m in the kitchen, next to a hot stove, baking rock buns. Is this early onset dementia or just plain madness? No, it’s just yet another class bake sale.With three kids in the school we now have a bake sale just about every other Friday and we’re supposed to send them in with some sort of marginally healthy baked goods

Pine Nut Gatherers

Pine-nuts have always seemed to be the stuff of delis to me, expensive sachets of delectable morsels that vanish in no time and add interest to salads and seed mixes. I had never even tasted them until I went to Italy as an adult and discovered them as an ingredient, used them in loads of invented salad recipes and tasted them on innumerable versions of torta della nonna in restaurants all over

Harvest time

Almond HarvestComatose after a full-on Sunday lunch last weekend, I dozed on the sofa and read for a mere hour or so until I was dragged out for a stroll. The family congregated in the orchard, to check out the fruit trees and we suddenly realized it was harvest time, so we all set about picking almonds from our three trees and filled two plastic bags with our bounty, cracking open some of the

WTSIM Plum and Apple Crumble

We are yo-yo-ing between summer and autumn here in the Cape, though it's almost unheard of to even have a wisp of autumn in February. Usually we are gasping from the heat of a week of 40 degrees, suriving only by constant immersion in the pool and living off salads and braais... bread-baking a trial to undertake only when the relative cool of evening brings the temperature down a notch or two.

Lighting up the night

The few weeks before I became aware we might become homeless was one of the more frantic periods in my life, more so than actually being homeless. Deciding what was necessary, needful things, and outright wants.

With my experience involving computers and mobile computing, I'd already backed up many documents and family pictures to either thumb drives or online storage, links to agencies for medical services and such...whatever came to mind.

One thing I learned was that there's no easy quick place to plug in items for recharging, whether it's a cell phone or laptop. Many places don't have readily available electrical outlets to tap in to. Many locations that 'do' have them make it a policy 'not' to use them or risk being kicked out for 'jacking' and powering up.

One family I came across had been around long enough in the homeless shelters to start using hand crank powered items, such as radios or flashlights that use led light bulbs. Both use less electricity and last a while after just a few turns, and many models can be found locally in dollar stores for under $6.00 USD.

What I didn't know is that this same technology used in small flashlights with single LEDs is now available in home lighting bulbs. Granted the initial cost is much higher than conventional bulbs, but the overall savings and ability to go 'green' is pretty interesting...especially with recent increases of our own electric bill.

You get what you pay for when you try to get a job

While there's a handful of professionals that end up living in their cars, for the most part many people experiencing homelessness with their family don't have degrees, sales training, and in many cases a formal high school diploma.

One thing of interest is Jacksonville Community College offering free education to people experiencing homelessness. It's a little known fact and one that I had reservations about blogging about, but it's something that needs to be put out there...because when I was, nobody told me about it.

If you're homeless and want to return or start college, go to the downtown campus and ask to speak to a guidance counselor. Be honest and state you want to return to school, and that you are homeless and want to participate in their education program to benefit someone experiencing homelessness.

Homeless Counts and the annual slice in time so to speak

Last month Jacksonville and other cities nationwide participated in the annual event of counting as many homeless people as possible in each of their communities, even though the numbers are baloney in the minds of many advocates and employees of service providers themselves...which won't admit the fact.

One problem in particular is the Federal Government's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). While one Federal Act identifies a child as homeless, HUD policy does not. While one Act identifies a family doubling up or someone couch surfing, HUD policy does not.

People are human beings and sometimes someone needs to point out that when you have two Federal regulations that oppose each other in their definition of people, it's wrong.

When we can make something as simple as a sleep number bed that can adjust to the task for consumers to purchase, we can pay attention to the laws and Acts we pass that dictate how we do and interpret things for providing services to our most needy.

I'm comin' up hearts

A few weeks ago I came across an ad for cattle supplies, and it made me think about the things I missed out in and never had the chance to do.

Riding on my horse, sittin' in the saddle. That made me think about my ex-wife and made me realize how broke in that saddle felt, which I took for granted as the suppleness of newness. Youth wasted on the young, but that made me think of my prior ex-wife and the child she bore while married to me...and the questions of my family tree having African-American relatives somewhere amidst it's upper branches...or were those roots she was referring to?

Ironically in a twist of fate, said first ex-wife made contact with me and broke the truth to me, that I was not in fact her child's father...amidst much beating around the bush and pussyfooting of sorts.

Aghast at her comment, I made it perfectly clear the practicality of me being the said now young adult woman's father! Our marriage, our few nights of Shrangrala while in military training, and never the question of her having lived with another man while married to me and pregnant by another ever being a position the military took at the time.

And that's when I made it clear to her that after having found my own biological father after her statement some 22 years prior, I could offer her the following:

"After careful deduction and investigation, I have come to the following conclusion. You my dear, are black".

And so no further contact with her, requests for support, or demands for paternity testing to date. Which brings me to the final conclusion...the best thing about dating street people is you can drop them off anywhere after you're done.

But if you're gonna be free of an ex-wife's bogus power trip, sometimes ya just gotta call a spade a spade.

Somewhere over the rainbow, revisited two decades later

Someone in a local online forum mentioned in a comment thread that Jacksonville isn't considered as much the 'goto' location for transient homeless in other parts of the nation, as opposed to San Francisco. For someone having a knowledge of California lifestyles, it's understandable why the mistake was made.

From Maine to the Mississippi, Jacksonville has always been on the tip of the tongue for many migrant transients since 1988 long before the internet was made available to the masses as it is now. Word was spoken of churches offering clothing vouchers, Traveller's Aid assistance for busses to other cities, and other items of interest that were the stuff of urban legend and lore for those looking for the literal pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Always mentioned by name and reference was the First Baptist Church, most known for it's City Rescue Operation and Thrift Store. Personally I can attest to having heard of it in both West Virginia and Chicagoland area shelters by more seasoned 'hobos', those that made it their livlihood of travelling state to state either by rail or road...a lifestyle that for some it would have been a smart choice for getting travel insurance quotes before jumping trains.

Maybe in time when man colonizes the moon and we have people stranded and homeless in space will we see even the United States less known for it's homelessness.

By then when we've left our home those left behind will be the ones homeless, no?

Home security after you're homeless

Hurdles are always abundant it seems during the first two years of transitioning from homeless to homed, regardless of whatever spin is sung by service providers throwing numbers to the air in hopes of dollars raining back down.

I myself have been robbed at gunpoint on two seperate occasions while still in my work clothes enroute or around my home. What's scarier is that chances are both situations may have involved my own neighbors, rather than thieves scoping surrounding homes of people I know.

Chances are if you're coming out of homelessness and into a home, you've gotten a job. One of the first things to consider is your neighborhood...if it was cheap enough for you to get into it, chances are it's pretty risky. After getting your ducks in a row and the cable turned on, the next thing on your check list should be some form of home security, other than a baseball bat or 9-iron.

Over the last four years I've been victimized myself, talked neighbors who became victims of home invasion, as well as heard the stories of elderly women sexually attacked while heading to do errands on a regular basis.

While you can change your habits and movements, as long as you've got a home and close your eyes you're going to be vulnerable to any low life who's more desperate than you. Before you listen to anyone knocking at the door about life insurance or changing your faith, think about protecting the door from anyone that could hurt you or the ones you love most.

Rambling Mouse

Some of our sloping ceilings are lined with thatching reeds, which gives them a warm feel as well as helping with insulation. Sometimes though they are a bit too natural... as when just now a vigorous rustling came from overhead, forging a path upwards and then a sudden plop, as a fat little mouse fell 15 feet to the floor by my desk, through the gap at the top of the reeds. He looked surprised

The Interview

The interview meme is doing the rounds again and I can't believe that it is already a year and a half since the last time I did it. Back then I sent questions to Charlotte and yesterday when I saw she had done another interview I couldn't resist asking to be interviewed by a real journalist - fame at last!! If you'd like me to interview you, leave me comment asking for questions and I'll think of

WTSIM Plum and Apple Quiche

My head feels like we’re in the middle of winter, fogged up with the cold that the kids were so kind as to bring home from school and share with us. Snowy pictures all over the internet feel totally appropriate, except that our summer has reasserted itself and a hot wind is blowing off the mountains to give us an afternoon of 37C.And yet, despite the oppressive heat, I’m in the kitchen baking,

Extra-Murals and Pitta Bread

My girls have been asking for pitta bread the last few days. I meant to make it last night for supper with meatballs, but forgot and ended up making shepherds pie with the defrosted mince instead. So this morning I’ve kneaded up some dough and left it to rise, hoping it will be ready in time for lunch after a leisurely start to the day.In term time we treasure our Saturday morning lie-ins, which

Summer Holidays Draw to a Close

Swimming in the dam and trying out the kneeboardIt’s the last day of the summer holidays. Back to school tomorrow with Youngest starting Big school – Class 1. She has been apprehensive about the change and not sure whether she’ll like her teacher; worried about whether she knows enough for Class 1. She is only slightly reassured when I point out that she already knows a lot of her letters and

Which manner of luggaging is the best when you're homeless

That all depends on the circumstances and amount of items you need to lug around. For some, an item from Rimowa fits the bill. Some need just room for two, such as a single mom with a child under 12, while there's the needs for a two parent family with four or more children.

Straps are an issue as well. Seams split easily when overloaded, and while wheels and 'carryabouts' may seem attractive there's always the issue of dirt, grime, and other residue...not to mention the problem of the body not being correctly upright while pulling the load.

Before spending ANY money on an item, take the time to actually walk around the store with it for 20 minutes. Get a feel for what you're in for. If it's a 'drag', then imagine having to depend on it for what your life will depend on.

Taking a few precautionary moments can mean the difference between being able to concentrate on what's necessary, or having to deal with simply another negative issue of being homeless.

The reactions of children are the same regardless of homes

The time of the holidays is passed. The trees have been taken down throughout America, as they prepare for the next holiday of love, Valentine's Day, even in the homeless community. Where you see a family experiencing homelessness, you will be able to see the signs of this love even in the overture of despair they may go through.

It's called life.

And for the little ones there's still the need for the occasional toys, no different than any other child.

When you hand a child a gift, you can see it in their eyes the reaction at first, no different color, number of parents, or where they live.

Even for the child of a homeless family.

Be good to yourself, and those you love today.

Mosquito Frenzy

Today I have been sewing sequins onto our mozzy nets. Not just to make them look pretty, but in a last ditch attempt to patch up every single last tiny hole or ladder that could permit entry to the desperate breed of mosquitoes that have just taken up residence here.We’ve had these nets ever since we got here seven years ago now. It is dry where we live, so usually we only have a few mozzies

A Water Holiday

A summer holiday in South Africa absolutely must involve water of some sort.It could be a swimming pool, where, even if it isn't warm enough to swim, you can fish for leaves with your new nets, in front of a stunning view.Or a lagoon at low tide where you can paddle for miles and collect hermit crabs until your net is bursting.Or a forest rock pool with peaty brown water fresh from the mountains,