Funny the World...

NED MOVES INTO A PLAYHOUSE

March 20, 2000

Everybody's doing it these days--writing an on-line Journal, and I've been inspired by Steve Schalchlin. I was also so enamored of the day today and had such a good time going to visit Ned that this seemed like a great time to start.

I'm not going to start with anything like an introduction. For anybody who doesn't know who I am, you can visit my web site and meet all the characters in my not so fascinating life. So I'm just going to start with today and see where this takes us.

This is Monday and on Monday I drive clients of Breaking Barriers, which is an AIDS outreach group in Sacramento, California. I've evolved into specializing in Driving Miss Priscilla. Priscilla is a wonderful woman, who suffers from AIDS and colon cancer. She receives an injection every day and I'm her chauffeur on Monday and Friday. The thing I love about Priscilla is that with all her problems, she is always upbeat, always has a smile, and talks about love of God, love of people, and love of life. She's just come through several weeks of chemo, which exhausted her and left her with no appetite, so she lost a lot of weight. But Friday she got in the car laughing, "Girl, I still got my booty!" Priscilla cheers me up.

But today Priscilla was not happy. Her neighbor's son, who is in his 40s, just keeled over the back yard and died instantly. They don't know what caused it. But he was a good friend to Priscilla and she told me how much she is going to miss his laugh.

It was too glorious a day to be sad. The wind is blowing hard, pushing all the bad air in the general direction of Chicago, and leaving us with clean, clear air, bringing the mountains so close it's hard to believe they are a 2 hour drive away. Blossoms are still on the trees, though the trees are starting to leaf out as well, and the poppies are exploding on the sides of the freeway. It was a good day to be alive.

After I left Priscilla, I drove to the corner of Howe and Fair Oaks Blvd. in Sacramento, where Ned has just started living in a playhouse as a stunt for The Arrow, to raise money so that the station can buy shoes for the homeless.

Ned will be staying in this playhouse until they've raised $10,000 to buy shoes for the homeless of Loaves & Fishes and the homeless children's school, Mustard Seed. He's fixed up the inside with photos, a TV, videotapes, books, a table, and a sleeping bag (which pretty much fills the entire house!)

He's already feeling bored, and wondering how he's going to survive a week in the little playhouse, but he'll be playing his guitar and keeping a journal of his adventures, so I'm sure he'll find something to do. He's trying to figure out if this is easier or harder than his last stunt for The Arrow, which was going homeless on the streets of Sacramento for three days (which is where his aching feet gave him the idea of buying shoes for the homeless).

I returned home via back roads so I could take some pictures of the snow-capped Sierras, which were so very beautiful (and with the temps going up into the 70s in these weeks, the snow is not going to last much longer.

I spent the afternoon painting shelves for the guest room, and will be moving up somewhere in the neighborhood of a bazillion videotapes to get them out of the living room.

So this is the end of my first journal entry. Not very exciting. I expect that this is going to be a combination of reflections on life and the humdrum everyday events that go on around here. I hope it will be at least somewhat interesting.

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created 3/20/00 by Bev Sykes