Urine ON Demand!

     As I stumbled into our bedroom because I was so darned tired, my roommate-an 87-year-old minister of the Southern Baptist Convention, Grandma wanted to know if I was okay. I'm just beat, I tell her. I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before because it was payday and I was busy taking care of all the bills and didn't get in until around 10pm. I get up around 5am and anyone who knows me knows I need at least 8 hours a sleep a night to function properly. I told Grandma that it's  good thing I wasn't pulled over by a cop; they would have sworn I was drunk by my stumbling. Nope, just very tired. I even fell asleep at Starbucks after I posted my blog and played around in Farmville. I was beat.

     I washed my face, brushed my teeth, took my medicine, brushed my hair, put moisturizer on my skin and got into my bed. Grandma was already in her bed, reading another Reader's Digest "Abridged Stories" book. We both drifted off to sleep...

     BANG! BANG BANG!

     I jumped up. What was that? The only person who knocks on the door that way is the Program Manager of the program I am in. I hear voices then banging on my door. I sit up at the edge of my bed and say, "Come in". Sure enough, it's the PM. She says, "Good, you're up. You have been chosen to do a pee test." I asked why me, again. The last time she came around, at a more acceptable hour of 7 instead of 10:30pm, she chose me. Outside of Grandma, I am the only obvious clean one there. So why harrass me?

     I asked her why I had to do it again. She said "because you are up." I tell her the only reason I am up is that she pounded on the door and woke me. I didn't have any urine in me and there were three other people (she had the youngest roommate also pee in a cup) that she could ask-all of whom do not have permanent jobs that are an hour away and they don't have to be up in less than 8 hours to get to. She said they were asleep. But when I went out to get more water from the garage, one of the Shunners was doing laundry. Guess she was walking in her sleep.

     So here it is, 11pm on a Wednesday night. I barely made it home alive because I am so damned tired and all I want to do is sleep. But I am not allowed to. Apparently being homeless is a crime, because I have not committed any other ones in this century. And actually doing something about it - getting a fulltime, permanent job - is not enough proof that I am not a criminal. So give me your pee, dammit!

     I drank a half gallon of water and still could not produce urine on demand. By midnight, the PM was pissed (pun intended) because I could not -and in her mind would not - produce urine on demand. She asked what time I got off work and I told her. She said she would be waiting at home for me the next day to get my urine.

     Since I was so rudely awakened, it took forever to get back to sleep. An hour after I did, I had to get up and pee. And every hour after that until I crawled out of bed at 5am to get ready for work. I fell asleep saying my prayers. And fell asleep again while driving to work. Heaven forbid if I don't pee on demand-maybe they can get some from my corpse. I could just hear the PM, "Yes, it's sad that she died because she fell asleep at the wheel, but I really need you to stand aside while I take a urine sample."

     I so had to pee Thursday afternoon, but remembered I had to pee on demand when I got home, so I held it. For three hours. I had errands I needed to run, but couldn't because I was told I needed to come home right after work so I could pee in a cup. I got home, but the PM was not there. I was doing the "I gotta pee" dance all over the house, asking everyone if they had seen her and they said no, that she was supposed to be there at 2pm and still hadn't shown up at 6:30pm. I hadn't peed since my break at 3pm and drank a lot of water on the way home to make sure she had a big enough sample.

     I texted her this: "I have to pee. I didn't go @ work and have been holding it for 2 hrs because you said you would be waiting for me. I am going to pee in a clean Starbucks disposable cup. I am not going to put my health @ risk." And I did just that. I showed Grandma the cup, so she could see it was clean, I went into the bathroom, filled it up and still had more pee to put in the toilet, flushed, brought out the sample and put a Ziploc bag over it. Then I wrote on it what it was and what time and day it was taken. Then my phone rang.

It was the PM who told me she would be there by 8 and that I needed to hold it until then. I told her I had things to do and that I held up my end of the bargain. If she couldn't do what she said she would, that is not my problem. She said that if I wasn't there at 8 that night when she showed up that she would come in and wake me up in the middle of the night and make me pee again. I don't get it. I have done nothing wrong. I follow all the insane rules (you are not allowed to have tools of any kind-even to fix your glasses!) I am not a criminal. I don't have a drug or alcohol issue. In a few months I will be self sufficient if they would just leave me alone. But the PM could care less. She is the boss, I am the criminal in her mind. When she says jump, I am to say "how high?" and then jump that high. She keeps reiterating that she will wake me from a sound sleep and I will give her urine on demand if I am not there at 8pm. It is already 7 and I have errands to run. The phone reception at that house has never been good and we get cut off. Oh well. Too bad. For her, because I call up her boss-the second time in that day-and leave a message on her voicemail that I do not appreciate being treated as a criminal, that I agreed to give the PM urine on demand at a certain time and she wasn't there. I told the boss that the PM threatened to wake me in the middle of the night, like she did the night before (even though one of the shunners lied and said I was up and walking around before the PM pounded her way into the house. An hour before I might have been). I let her boss know that if she keeps this up, I will lose the job I fought so damn hard for because I cannot function on no sleep.

     At 8 o'clock the PM calls wanting to know where I am. I am at the library and will be home a little after nine. I will pee then for her. I kept my side of the deal earlier and she didn't. That is not my problem. I call her when I leave the library at 9pm and she says she is in Vacaville so we should be at the house about the same time. I drink 3/4 of a gallon of water this time because she will gt her damn urine on demand and I will go to sleep. Except guess who is NOT there when I get home? She doesn't show up for another hour and a half! At 10:30pm, she bangs on the door with pee test cups in hand. I grab mine, go into the bathroom and...can't pee. My bladder is full, but I am pissed! (Pun intended once again) Who does this bitch, who was fired from the only police job she ever had and then sued the police department and lost, think she is? The madder I get, the harder it is to pee. So I try to calm down. I run the water. I think of water and finally, I can pee. I fill that cup up as far as I can, spilling some over the edge. And I still have some for the toilet. I clean off the cup (I should have accidentally spilled some on the bitch) and give it to her and turn to go to bed. But no, I am not allowed to go to bed until she does the testing,. What, to find out I only have the medicine in my pee that I have reported to them?

     Needless to say, I did not get to sleep Thursday night before midnight either and was up every hour peeing. The other person they pee tested was kicked out Friday. She told them she had THC in her pee because she was at a friend's house and they were smoking pot. She was upfront with them and they kicked her out anyway. Well, it was that and more lies from the Shunners.

But that's another column. I have to pee now.

Still @ the Loony Bin w/ Kleptomaniacs

(Note: This blog was actually written before th previous one. I just didn't want Easter to be a total downer)

Where to start? Am still at the insane asylum. The organization has still not decided whether they would help me or not. I spoke to a lady at work about this and she told me to get ahold of Catholic Charities, that they would help me with last month's rent at least.

I still refer to it as the insane asylum because it turns out that the deaf 56-year-old (one of the shunners) is also a kleptomaniac. I rarely go to K-Mart after an incident almost a decade ago at the Fairfield store, where I will never shop again, so when I went to the one in Antioch to buy some coffee they had on sale, I was amazed at the coats they had in the lobby as I walked into the store. First off, because I am a big gal, it is hard to find a coat/jacket that fits me. Second, if I do find one, it is usually a color or style I don't like. Third, if it does fit, and is in a style/color I like, I usually don't want to pay as much as they want for it. Imagine my surprise when I found a warm jacket, in OSU (THE Ohio State University) colors, in my size for only $14.99! It was marked down from the original price of $89.99. They practically gave it to me. In any case, I brought it home and hung it in the front closet where we are allowed to have 2 jackets each. By hanging it there, I would have three jackets, but only until I could put the KUIC one in storage. That's a warm jacket but I am real tired of advertising for a company that I no longer work for. That was about a week ago. Fast forward to this past Tuesday (actually 4/3). When I went to get the new jacket to wear, I noticed the KUIC jacket was missing. I know I live with thieves, but c'mon, I would know that you were wearing MY jacket because no one there is as big as me or ever worked for KUIC. I texted the Case Manager on my way to work and she said she would look into it. I thought for sure the other non-deaf shunner had taken it and hidden it because I had three jackets in there (I am the only one with jackets in there) and we are only supposed to have two. It's something she would do. She thinks she is the boss of the house.

When I came home, I mentioned the missing jacket to the non-deaf shunner, who said the deaf one had a jacket just like the one I described. When I asked the deaf shunner about it, she insisted it was not mine. I told her it was a 4X and my gloves were in the inside pocket. She contended there were no gloves in there and it was a 3X. She insisted almost to the point of tears. The other Shunner walked up the stairs to their bedroom and brought the jacket down. I showed her where it said 4X and the gloves in the pocket. I also showed her where-on the black jacket-there were the call letters "KUIC" along with the slogan of the station written in gold lettering. She knows I worked at KUIC for 17 years. She said she found it in the stack of clothes that had been collected in the garage for a garage sale. I asked her why then, since she knew I worked at KUIC, she did not ask me if the jacket was mine. She just stared at me and reiterated she didn't steal it. The last time I saw it, it was hanging in the front closet. A little later I realized she had done the same thing with a scarf of mine.

When I was fully employed and gave a damn about the GOP, I was a delegate to the State Party, which meant I went to all the conventions. I would always come home with something from there, whether it be a t-shirt, jewelry, bumper stickers or scarves. I have two of the latter-one with a black background and the other with a purple background, both with elephants on them. I was wearing the purple one one day and she mentioned she had one just like it, except it was black. She showed it to me and it was my scarf. The last time I had seen it, was in my closet. She maintained it was in the pile of clothes. I just want to know who is putting legs and feet on my clothes and enticing them to walk off. I told the Case Manager about both incidents and she said that the shunner might not even know what she was doing because she is on such heavy painkillers. I don't care whether she knows or not. I do know she needs to stop stealing my stuff.

I have told others in the house about this incident so that they would make certain she comes nowhere near their things. I can no longer hang any coats/jackets in there for fear that they too will get legs and feet and walk off to die in the pile of clothes for the garage sale. I still do have a coat in there that I will be washing tonight. She apparently sprayed some body spray on it because it smells like the body spray that she and I use. Unfortunately, one of my coworkers is deathly allergic to such things and the day I wore it to work, my coworker had a massive asthma attack.

Yep, I have one foot off Uncle Sam's Plantation (I am no longer eligible for the food stamps I have been on since becoming homeless in November 2010). Now, for the sake of both my sanity and articles of clothing, I need to be all the way off and on my own.



One Foot Off Uncle Sam's Plantation

Almost a month and I was going to do this three times a week. I must've gotten married or...

March left like a lion. The saying is true as she came in like a lamb. Now on to April and her showers.

I was able to get a rental car and started work on the 12th in Antioch. That's the last time I listen to someone at the Unemployment Office. When I was applying for the job there, I would've checked off Mars as a location if it meant I would get a job. I asked the person at the Unemployment Office, since I couldn't choose all three sites (East County, Central County, West County), which one should I choose. She said the first one and if they called for an interview, just tell them my preference. Well, I did just that, but what was on my application was what they went by, so instead of working out of Pleasant Hill on the 7th of March, I began working in Antioch on the 12th. I spoke with my now supervisor on the 6th and she said they weren't ready for me; they didn't even have a computer set up. I came in on the 12th when they had a computer and a cubicle ready for me.

I was able to get a rental car at $400 a week from Budget (funny name for such an expensive car!) for the first three weeks of work. Since they wouldn't accept my Walmart Money Card (works just like a debit card my ass), a friend loaned me her debit card. I got the first two weeks paid by my college instructor friend, but she used all her savings for that and I had to pick up the tab on the last week. Total that the insurance company owes me for three weeks? Close to $1300, which if I had right now, I could move out. But I don't so...

The insurance company gave me $4600 for my beloved Bonnie Bleu II (my last blue Nissan was the original Bonnie Bleu). I had to take the Thursday of my second week at work off so that I could clean out my BBII, take the stuff to storage, run up to Roseville and get the $4600 check, come back to Fairfield, buy a car and return the rental. All of that could not be accomplished by Speedy Gonzalez in an entire 24 hours, let alone 8 hours, so I had to take Friday off as well. By Sunday, I had a 1999 white Nissan Altima GXE. It was two years older than BBII, but a step up in the Nissan line, so I think I got a decent deal. Blanche gets about the same mileage as BBII. There are a few things that need fixing, but nothing major - so far. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Last Thursday I had to leave work early so that I could get an MRI on my neck. Not only do I have spinal stenosis, but now - because of the accident where my head hit the ceiling and compressed my neck - but my C5 and C6 vertebrae are toast. I so didn't want my boss to know any of my physical issues until I passed probation in nine months, but I had to tell her because of all the damn doctor appointments that are taking me away from work. I just wanted to go to work for at least nine months with no problems, get hired on permanent and then deal with the physical issues. But that is not what the fate gods want for me. I will find out this coming week what the spinal surgeon says needs to be done. I need something done soon; my neck hurts like hell. I would love to go to my chiropracter and have him crack it, but that would be taking my life in my hands as it could very well lead to paralysis. No thanks, I'll walk.

The beginning of April marked my independence from food stamps, which I had been on since I became homeless in November 2010. I have one foot off Uncle Sam's Plantation; I cannot wait to take the other foot off by no longer living in HUD housing. I wanted that to happen before my birthday on the 30th, but it looks like it won't come until the middle of May. It needs to happen before any neck surgery; I need my girls (cats) to help me recover.