We drove the bus to meet up with Sunny in Idabel. His daughter is my age and a nice lady. We stayed there a couple days before heading up to Sonny’s mom’s.
We’ve been here almost a week and have been couped up with rain and cold and then started on house and yard work. I’ve taken charge of the kitchen and making food available for everyone. I prefer to minimize microwave usage.
It seems I now have 3 dogs. Stormie has been sleeping with Galixy and comes along with us when we go walking. Rhea’s displeased by the commotion but will get over it soon enough. At least he’s a mellow adaptable dog. He’s still a bit whiny, but that might just be his demeanor. Gizmo’s getting his big dog teeth in, so still on the destroying stuff phase.
I’m missing traveling, though I’m not missing Walmart parking lots. My brand new transmission acting up again is making me weary. I’ve even looked at alternatives and given a barthilda bugus a thought. Or a property or a something different. It’s probably just the fact that we’re supposed to be sitting still which makes the mind wonder. For the town run today she did just fine, besides the rough start due to low battery. Trickle charger from dad came in handy! Maybe it’s akick off to rethink things… Maybe it doesn’t have to bee sucha drastic reevaluation? It’s nice dreaming of more room in a bigger bus. It’s also feasible to put it off yet and run more slowly, once we get to running again. I’m thinking paid campsites and state parks. Longer mid day times at parks and new exploration territory, max of an hour drive and during cool parts of the day. Longer time in smaller areas. More rest.
I did file my taxes this year and declared some panhandling income. I count as self employed and will do a more thorough job of keeping up with our earnings and expenses for this year to be able to be as accurate as possible next year.
Current income over the last 2 weeks was about $6 in Hugo. At least we’re not hurting for anything and I don’t foresee us hurting about anything very soon either. Dot, Sonny’s mom, has remarked that she can see us surviving in the woods for a while.
Dot is 68 and on hospice. She lives in her living room and sleeps at odd hours. She has five children, one of which, Scott, lives with her. Sonny comes and stays periodically. He doesn’t like seeing his mom go downhill, but wants to be there for her. He is the eldest of her children. She was 13 when she had him. She has some wild stories of raising hell in her youth. She still tries to keep her kids on their toes.
We have some days of sunshine in the forecast. The fields are green and some plants have been planted. The birds are out and singing and the dogs have plenty of cow poop to roll in. THe road next to the house has pretty fast traffic at long intervals. Bugs are out but it’s not so bad quite yet. Got some crafting done too!
I’m hoping you all are well and that the most you’re hurting for is the freedom of a shoppin spree or playground visit.
Stay grateful!
I wrote all this yesterday, and never published since I hadn’t attached any pictures yet…. And now… Dot died this morning. She had been sleeping since the day before. Scott had heard her yell at the dogs in the early morning for waking her up with barking. Not sure if she ever woke up again. When her provider came, Scott was saying that he thought she’d passed and the providor confirmed….
Sonny didn’t want the kids to see her being wheeled out, which I don’t understand, but I gave him respect and took the kids for a walk through the meadows. We talked about death and listed some good things we’ll remember about her. She loved the kids and was very happy to watch movies with them. She made sure to let me know that all her food was available to them and they should be fed and that their noise wouldn’t bother her at all.
I got one amazing great big hug from her. I wish I’d have gotten more. She took the full pink super moon out. She was ready, but the ones left behind never are. I’m so sorry for Sonny and Scott. I’m grateful Sonny was here, though, for her. I hope my presence gave her a feeling of being loved.
When we got back from our walk there were a lot of people there. Dot hadn’t been moved yet, but cleaned. Her friend brought dinner and cake. The homehealth hospice provider (a different one than the one who’d come over in the morning) was giving my kids lots of attention as they splashed in the kiddie pool. She decided to call child protective services after leaving. So after everything had calmed down and I was about to cook dinner, two cops and a cps worker show up to do a well child visit on the kids who had been portrayed as starved and beaten, and some odd story of a gun being pulled on someone during the day. They checked the kids butts for bruising, peaked in the bus, which is overflowing with healthy snacks (my kids had grabbed themselves apples while that lady was there, maybe she assumed kids only choose healthy snacks when nothing else is available?), questioned the kids separate from me, took down all our info, asked to speak to Sonny…. just to wonder why people lie about this kind of stuff. I told them that living outside of societies standards in a school bus, draws attention and there’s a whole variety of perspective on what goes through their head. I must be on drugs or endangering us in other ways. Maybe some people feel jealous but that seems like such a haughty thought to me. I still don’t feel like I’m that special. Just a mere human trying to find her footing in the world…
I also thanked them for being out during the pandemic, which the lady then asked a little taken aback that I was aware of the current state of things. I told her of course, or we’d be out traveling and exploring, but as travelers I generally see a high volume of people so I want to keep my nose clean of being able to be considered a vektor. She looked a little confused so I told her that we live very healthy lifestyles and I have great faith in our immunesystems so I’m not afraid of the illness itself. She smiled and told me that there would be nothing coming from this visit for me. She’d be handing it to her superiors to look over, other than that the kids seem happy and healthy.
Every one’s in bed. I’m the last person up. I was ready for bed at 4 PM, now it is past 10. Dog howls, frog and cricket chirps. Tomorrow will also not be easy. I’ll just focus on kids projects and keeping food available and areas clean.
Send a little love out for Dot. Stay grateful
Matilda the Bugus 