Poverty Is Not an Accident

Poverty Is Not an Accident
Nelson Mandela

Thursday, February 26, 2004

I'm running out of food

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The only animal protein I've had this month has been marked-down turkey. I have only 1/2 turkey left in the freezer.

There's some turkey soup in the fridge. I'm running out of cheese. I have about 1 1/2 dozen eggs, but that's pure cholesterol. I have maybe 3 more cans of tuna.

Food stamps don't come until the 8th. That's almost 2 weeks.

I spent my last three dollars today on a sack of food for Porkchop.

I dumpster dove several restaurants today and found some falaffel for him and half a burrito. There was nothing I could eat; it was all too dirty.

I see piles and piles of cheese, beans, fruit, vegetables: hundreds of pounds, all the time, thrown away. But unsafe.

I'm just about to the point of stopping at each restaurant and asking them to set some aside for me, so I can make it.

I have enough oranges for one a day.

I have beans and rice.

I have the cheese cake I made and froze.

I can make it, but it's going to be really tight.

I always panic, when the money and stamps run out. And the lack of variety in my diet is depressing.

I'm trying not to freak out.

I'd kill for a grilled cheese sandwich...no cheese; no bread.

Well, there's a LITTLE cheese, but I'm saving it for turkey tacos with beans. I may have enough for four or six tacos.

I'd kill for a salad, too.

I'm SO careful with my money, but there's just not enough!

And I'm determined not to electronically advance myself any money. I've GOT to pay that DOWN!

Thirty seven dollars a month for borrowing money on my own disability check is just friggin' criminal.

I paid a seventy five dollar phone bill this month: three months' worth of bills.

SO, after the rent and msntv bill, and the phone bill, I only had seventy dollars for the whole month, plus sixty in food stamps.

I've been stealing toilet paper at the university. I'm not proud of that.

Next month, I'll have to buy Porky a real bag of food; this one's only four pounds. I'll have to trash pick him food every day, to suppliment. He could go through four pounds in two days.

My disability check doesn't come for six more days yet.

Thank heavens for that new Middle Eastern restaurant! Porky likes falaffel.

Snuffy's gone. He got trapped, two nights ago, in the rain and snow storm. Normally, if he gets caught in a storm, he ends up in one of the cat beds I made in my yard, and I just go out and drag him in.

But he's really gone. And I see deep dog tracks, like a dog was running, going around the corner of the building. If I find out it was Rowen's dogs who killed him, I'll mess her up. Selfish cow.

Tonight, when I came home from the radio station, I saw SOMEONE has stollen one of my big, heavy, wooden flower planters! Had to tear it out of the board it was nailed to! Weighed nearly a hundred pounds! gawd.

SO, I'm sad and scared.

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