Night Moves

Carla was out late last night running all over town with the dogs, as usual. She “makes her rounds”… helps out at the food pantry, visits homeless haunts. She may squeeze in some dumpster diving or Goodwill hunting. Certainly there’s plenty of couch time at Barnes & Noble, and more time spent parked in their lot after they close so that she can jump onto their WiFi. She sits in her car, laptop in lap, windows half down to dilute the methane coming from the four dogs in the back seat. Cops pull up along side of her car to see why someone is sitting in an empty parking lot in a darkened car. Most of them know her and move on. She may go to Steak & Shake to sit and talk with a group of young people who gather there in the wee hours before she works her way back home by way of the Flagler Hospital. She checks to see if any of her homeless peeps are there and if they are alright. And I never know what to expect when I get up. This morning I found a T-Shirt that says I‘m “Accepted & Forgiven” so I feel pretty good about that, a pair of board shorts with tinsel hanging from one pocket, a Western belt buckle in the shape of a big silver star (which I immediately mounted on the frame of a large mirror over a table by the kitchen…you can see it toward the top left here), 8 chocolate éclairs, a blue stoneware vase with an opening in the shape of a flower, a tin roasting pan filled with leftovers from the community meal (food for the dogs), 9 tall, thin apothecary bottles with corks, and 4 very large cabbages. Carla, and the four dogs, are out cold, and I’m off to work…