We spent Saturday doing a lot of different things. For one thing, I was so tired I could not get
out of bed and go walking. I was up till
midnight last night trying to get our stuff put away, or at least find where
our needed stuff had been packed. We packed
in a hurry and so there was little rhyme or reason as to where things got put
in an effort to get packed and out of the apartment. I noticed as we were taking the last things
into the new apartment that Zach, the boy who helped us get moved, was going
into the old apartment building and had a piece of sheet rock and bucket of mud
to go to work on our bathroom. A few weeks ago I noticed that there seemed
to be water coming from the apartment above us and it was forming a bubble in
the paint on the wall above our shower head.
I had noticed some bubbles prior
to this but this one was not one to be ignored. It was about 3 inches across by 4 inches tall
and stood out from the wall about one inch.
I touched it and it was soft and I knew that water was in behind
it. The landlord had a worker come over
who cut a hole in the wall and placed some sort of adhesive over it to make it
look better. Well, prior to the new
person moving in, they were going to tear out the old dry wall (that is not
really dry due to the drip) and put in a new piece. They had the plumber come in and fix the leak
upstairs so we had no more problem.
This new apartment is nice and now that we have our stuff
put in place, it is actually quite livable.
We were told that it was quite a bit smaller than the other apartment,
but the bedroom is quite a bit larger and the room we use as an office is quite
a bit larger and the living area is quite a bit smaller but it accommodates our
furniture quite well and the postage stamp kitchen has the essentials – stove,
fridge and a 2ft 6in by 3ft. counter top and very few cupboards. Storage is not a strong point in this
apartment. The bathroom is also postage
stamp size but how much room do you need in a bathroom? They have in a new tile floor and new commode
and sink. Our building houses 36
apartments and it boggles the mind how much work they did to remodel this very
large old farm house to make all these apartments.
Bill went to the YMCA to workout while I stayed
sleeping. When he came home I got up and
we went to the Augusta Pancake House for breakfast. He had the sampler breakfast and I ordered
the Greek Omlette. They do not have an
IHOP shop here but this is the next best
thing to an IHOP shop. After breakfast
we went to the Whatever Festival. In
years past it has hosted a “whatever floats your boat” event but most of the
contraptions just sank and it became a dangerous activity. So they held it on the mall in the park in
front of the State House. This year they
moved it to the Civic Center Parking lot because we have had so much rain that
the ground is too wet and soft. At the
Civic Center they had all kinds of police cars, ambulances, fire trucks,
tractors, heavy earth moving equipment, cranes, jumping inflated activities and
loads of food vendors. There was a Taiko
Drum exhibition from the students at Hall Dale High School. One of the boys in the troupe is a member of
our ward and just graduated from High school and will be attending Keene State
University in the Fall, majoring in music.
Of course drumming would be right up his alley. The teacher is a Japanese man who wore Mompei
pants and workers Tabi – typical Japanese workman’s clothes. Each of the kids wore black tee shirts with
their names in Katakana written on the back.
Most, if not all, have taken Japanese language in school and I talked to
one of them in Japanese and he looked blankly at me. I asked him if he was studying Japanese and
he assured me that he spoke Japanese.
However, the expression on his face clearly told me that he did not
understand the language and that he was wondering what planet I had just come
from. I talked to the teacher and he was
surprised to hear that a Caucasian here in Maine could speak his language. He told me that he had been born in Tokyo but
that he lived here. It is obvious from
his pronunciation that he is having a hard time with many of our words but he
knows enough to make sense and as long as his students understand what he wants
them to do it is enough. I was amused to
see his workman’s tabi. These are heavy
canvas footwear that have a rubber sole with split area for the big toe where
they usually wear zori in Japan. I
wondered if anyone else in the audience knew what they were looking at?
We watched some young dancers go through their paces and it
reminded me of Sara when she was young and had to go to perform at festivals
with Mrs. Lorek’s Dance School in Pennsylvania.
It was just as hot and muggy those days as it was Saturday afternoon.
We took a ride on the trolley bus that they had there. It took us around the Whatever Festival
perimeter and then over through the University of Maine campus and back to the
Whatever festival.
We went back home and rested and then we went to the Church
for the Pot Luck dinner. They had quite
a good turnout for the event. They all
made short work of the food and had a good time just sitting and chatting. Someone brought out the Table Tennis Table
and Bill challenged anyone to a game. He
had one taker who said that he was pretty good at Table Tennis but Bill made
short work of him. We went home to go
right to bed – the moving of apartments and the heat and humidity has worn us
out.
Before we could go to bed, the phone rang and it was
David. He was at the Section 8 family
home in Gilbert and he wanted us to meet the parents of the home. I actually think that his goal is to do a
really good sell job to get us to agree that this is a move he should
take. We really do not want to be
included in the decision making process.
He hates rules and thinks that in this home he will have freedom to come
and go at will and not have any responsibility other than to eat and sleep
there.
As I talked to the man, I wondered a few things. Is he and his wife in this as another source
of income? They do get paid to
house people like David. This man and his wife work for Circle K but I
do not know in what capacity. I asked him about his religion. David had told us that they were Christian
and when I asked what church they go to, the man hedged the question. I put it to him again and asked outright what
church they go to. He said that they do
not go to any church but that they have their own beliefs. I did not get a peaceful happy feeling that
this was going to be a good move for David but David is 35 years old and his
own guardian and is known for making poor choices. It will be interesting to watch this whole
thing play out. The man did say that he
was anxious to get David moved into his home.
To me this is a red flag. It is
always interesting to see how David’s situations play out in the end.
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