Melita's Greek Café and Market, Denver

Grub Hub delivered, and boy, are those guys ever fast.

I called in the order then put on socks and shoes. Then walked back into the closet to change out my sweatshirt. 

This took a few minutes. All I could find was a knitted Hensley that does not have a waist band so the way it drapes over my kwashiorkor belly and covers my butt makes me look preggers. 

Ew, I hate that. 

It's the vanity in me. 

It's taken me two years to discover that stinking extended belly is the result of my kidneys failing. And now that I know that I want treatment soon as possible. But first I must have a biopsy. But first I must get the blood pressure down. And that right there is whatchacall a catch-22, since the kidney thing is causing the blood pressure to go wonky.

Know what the sad thing is?

Treatment can only repair them to 50% efficiency. 

What a bummer!

But even knowing this has been helpful. The pneumonia thing has lifted and that brings me back to this base situation which makes me feel great. I have energy to do things that have slipped. 

But this preggers belly is pissing me off. While the adjustments I've made on my own already have their affect. It's not so bad as it was. And it's getting better. Even without treatment, just by my own changes. 

So there I am in my maternity Hensley and the guy shows up as I'm on my way downstairs. We veritably met at the front door. He called from his car so I got there first by only one minute. That's how fast these guys are. 

Now imagine that. They cooked my lunch and a third party showed up there, a few blocks away such as a stair step, and brought it to me faster than I could put on socks and shoes and shirt and go downstairs to meet the delivery guy.

There is no way for this to have been more efficient. Even me going down to the garage and driving there and parking then doing that in reverse would be less efficient. 

I love this new world that we're making together. 

People hustle. Especially young people. 

Most impressively. 

God bless the young hustlers of this new world. They blow my mind.

And that does it. 

The Hensley sweatshirt is outta here. I'm not having that crap around anymore. While in the closet I can go one-by-one and pick out all the shirts and pants that I have no intention of ever wearing again. So that's what I'll do. Literally hundreds of shirts and pants are in fine shape and will go straight to Goodwill. Some of them were never worn. There is nothing actually bad among them. 

This is what my new energy will do. 

Care to hear something weird?

I had a great pair of pants. Brand new. Levi's 501 jeans. That's the type with the button up fly. They're a little bit obscene because they create a bulge. One day I sitting on a stool talking to a waitress and she never did look upward. I was all, "Hello ... my eyes are up here."

I bought them either white or tan and dyed them green. 

I dyed them a combination of greens. They came out beautifully.

Then I repaired a wooden cart with Gorilla Glue while I was wearing them and dripped some of the glue right on the front upper thigh. 

Nothing would get out that glue.

And I mean nothing. 

I bought a bottle of fingernail polish remover, and that didn't work either. 

I had ruined a brand new pair of jeans. 

And those pants sat in the back bathroom for ages as I continued to apply the polish remover to no effect. 

I got sick of looking at them. Whatever their original cost plus the cost of dying them, I had now exceeded that in the cost of agonizing over their repair. I wanted them out. 

I also wanted a cover for my magnifying glass. So I cut off one of the lower pant legs to sew up a magnifying glass holder. Now the glass will be kept clean between uses. I'm pleased with that. 

But the original pants now have a glue stain and a shortened leg. So I threw them out. 

I asked two friends to come over here to help me move two aquariums. One moved downstairs to the dumpster and the other from my truck to upstairs in its place. They also switched out aquarium stands. All four of these things are heavy and large. 

One of the guys saw the green pants on top of my trash bin and he removed them to donate to Goodwill.

I said, "No. Don't do that. We don't give Goodwill our trash. We give them our good things." 

We had a debate. The three of us debated this.

I lost the debate. The guy took my pants. 

Because they were brand new. 

GAWL!

At the doctor's office, I told this to one of the nurses. A young black woman. She sided with my friends. 

She told me how a young person would buy those pants from Goodwill and make them look great. Did I know what she means?

     "No. We give Goodwill good stuff, not our junk. It's in their name; Goodwill, not Junkwill." 

Sophistry. I realize that. The name has nothing to do with quality.

I had accidentally turned on her black-female debate switch. She became animated in describing how a teenager could go into Goodwill and select a pair of green pants with a glue stain and one shortened leg and use them for a school play. She was quite entertaining in her animation in describing how a young person might use them. For Halloween. Use them for a video. Use them as a joke, use them for a party, wear them ironically, patch them up with additional fabric. They could cut off the other leg and wear them as shorts or as 3/4 length legs and sew a patch over the glue stain. Teenagers and their wild imaginations and their absence of propriety by their youth they could rock those jeans. 

I laughed. She was delightful in her outrageous polemic. 

"Do you see what I mean now?"

     "No." 

I felt guilty about those jeans being given to Goodwill.  I still do. I'd much rather give them good clothes that I simply will not ever wear. Good clothes. Not ruined clothes. 

Maybe they can use the fabric to make a puppet or a pillow or something that I cannot imagine. I still don't feel good about passing along junk.