Charity x 3

Today has been a pretty wild day. I’m still perturbed that Allstate wanted to give me a measly $2,100 for pretty much wrecking my life- temporarily. My conversation with the rep went something like this,

“Mrs. Lindsey, we’re able to offer you $1,700,” said the rep.

“Did you say one, or ten?”

[Rep snickers lightly]

“ONE.”

“Are you serious? Considering that I had to drop two of my classes last semester- with a doctor’s note excusing me from those two classes, had to repair my GPA-”

“Well Mrs. Lindsey, you didn’t actually have something from your doctor saying that the car accident caused you to have to drop out of school,” he said.

“Um, [rep’s name omitted for confidentiality’s sake], the doctor wrote the statement on a prescription pad. It clearly said MVA (motor vehicle accident) along with the names of the two classes right on there. Any lawyer or jury would absolutely agree that that’s legit.”

“Yeah but, we feel that it wasn’t actually the accident that made you have to quit school,” he said.

“Ok,” said I. “First of all, I didn’t ‘quit school’. I simply dropped out of my two most demanding classes due to the pain and stress caused by your client splitting my bumper. Secondly, I haven’t had to drop a class in years. Not even when my house was flooded and cracked in half a year and a half ago and my kids and I were put up in a hotel by the Red Cross. We had nowhere to go, and I had to ask my art friends in Australia for help. They pulled together $650 in an hour and a half, and we were in an apartment days later- and [rep’s name]…I was carrying four classes during that time and STILL didn’t drop any classes.” [And for the record, made all A’s and B’s.]

“Well…Mrs. Lindsey….” [insert more BS here]

I was able to talk him up to $2,100, and what a disgrace. As mentioned before, and somewhere else- you are NOT in good hands with ALLSTATE. No siree….

To the rep’s credit, he expedited things to the best of his ability and Fed Exed the check. I thought long and hard about settling for pennies practically, but, I was able to give my friend Jean (the homeless woman currently residing in an abandoned train car) $100 cash todayand a new cell phone with 750 minutes + text and internet. That in itself made it worth it to me.

I wanted to get my guitar out of the pawn shop and when I got there, I was told that I was a few days too late. The (very cool) guy behind the counter saw my disappointment and told me that he would see what he could do for me. He certainly did. He clicked around on the computer and said that it was still in the backroom, but he wasn’t able to return it. Nevertheless, he checked with his supervisor and was able, by the skin of his teeth, to pull some strings for me. (Um, no pun intended.)

A few minutes later, he came out with my beautiful, green Oscar Schmidt- acoustic electric:

I twisted up a $20 and handed it to the (cool) counter guy.

“Man, you didn’t have to do that. Here,” I said.

“I can’t take that,” he said, making funny faces in the direction of his boss.

I shoved it under the massive day planner on the counter and said, “The world would be a better place if there were more people like you. Here. Take it.”

And smiled and walked out.
I wasted no time in giving the guitar to Josh as a gift. ♥

I also gave each of my kids $50 for some spending money. We were in a grocery store parking lot and saw a man asking for change. Naturally, he hit me up.

“Hey, weren’t you at the Haven house?” I asked, shaking his hand.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, returning the smile.

I dug through my purse and gave him the equivalency of $3.00. I can’t help thinking that he was going to go straight to the liquor store and I really didn’t care. It’s a tough world out there.

“I think I’m gonna call that guy Liquor Store Lawrence,” my son said. I have a lively bunch. 🙂 It was several hours later when we were in Louisville, Ky. (minutes from the Kentucky Derby), and we saw a man on the street who was muttering to himself. He was fairly young with tattered clothes and a shabby toboggan. My daughter saw him looking through garbage cans. It made us all very sad.

“I think I’m going to give that guy some money,” Brianna said.

And moments later, while sitting at a red light in a congested intersection, she bolted from the back seat and sprinted across the street, shoving her $50 into his hand.

“Did you give him your $20?” I asked.

“No, I gave him 50,” she said softly.

“Are you serious, Sissy?!” I asked, not so softly.

“Dude, that’s probably the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen you do,” my son said to her.

I was completely stunned. She became my hero, immediately. To top things off, she was wearing this:

A beautiful kimono looking lingerie gown, with sneakers. 🙂

Not that we were out looking for homeless people today, but homelessness is rampant in this area. I ponder on this Scripture: Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. (Proverbs 3:27)

We popped into the Greyhound bus station so I could use the ladies room. I couldn’t resist the lighting:

SP/ 50 MM 1.8 II/manual exposure/manual focus

I also couldn’t resist snapping these guys on the way out:

50 MM/manual focus/manual exposure

You have to be sneaky to snap pics of people without them knowing it (all while focusing the lens- I can’t stand autofocus and consider it taboo). Something tells me the guy on the right knew I was taking his pic…

It just kept getting weirder as the day drew on. The wind blew fiercely and we found ourselves facing this:

We took a detour and ended up here:

Not only can pigs fly, but pigs fly high. Literally. Look at its bloodshot eyes…

I was able to shoot a rare pic of my son outside of a music store. He dyed his hair blue today, although you can’t see it here:

I never in a million years thought I would be cool with my kid dying his hair blue. I guess I’m mellowing out as I’m growing older.

That’s not altogether a bad thing…