Feb 17 2009
2009-02-13 Friday Through 2009-02-17 Tuesday - First 5 days back in Battle Creek
2009-02-13 Friday Through 2009-02-17 Tuesday
First 5 days back in Battle Creek
Our first few days back in Battle Creek have been all at once uneventful but also extraordinarily frustrating. We are expecting money in the mail, and we thought that it would be here before we arrived, but alas it was not here when we arrived. Between gas and food, our bank account was pretty well drained. All we can really do is wait for the checks to show up. For the most part nothing has changed in Battle Creek since I left in the Spring of 2006 or since Fred Left in April of 2007. Everything is still pretty much the same. The town is full of crack and other drugs and the neighborhoods are just as bad as I remember them.
Fred and I met in Battle Creek some years ago through our good friend Gary. One day I was looking for Gary and Fred was sitting on the porch with Miss Juanita (Fred’s adopted mom) and Gary’s sister. I asked them where Gary was and Fred fell instantly in love with me. He told our friend Gary that he knew from that moment the he would marry me someday. At the time I was with someone else and Fred waited patiently for the relationship to end on its own. Fred waited more than 5 years for me to leave the man I was with. Then, when I sent Fred a letter from Colorado to let him know that I was single, he sold all that he had and got on a bus to Colorado just to have a shot at being with me. One year to the day after Fred arrived in Colorado we were married in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We only got a 3 day honeymoon; but we’ve been married a year in April and we still consider ourselves to be on our honeymoon.
I have not missed the city of Battle Creek at all, but I have missed my friend Gary very much. I also miss my friends Scott and Melissa and their kids Ami and Robert, but they live in Lansing and we’re pretty much stuck in Battle Creek until we can get some work done on the RV. I hope I will be able to see them soon. Our checks didn’t show up Friday (2009-02-13) or Saturday (2009-02-14), and of course mail doesn’t run on Sunday (2009-02-15) and Monday (2009-02-16) is President’s day, so we won’t be getting any mail then.
Fred gave me my Valentine’s day gift early. He got me a wish pearl necklace. They preserve a fresh water muscle in alcohol and put it in a jar. You make a wish before opening the jar and then you open the muscle up to reveal a freshwater pearl that no one has ever laid eyes on before. The color of the pearl is supposed to have different meanings. The color of the pearl I got in my muscle is supposed to be for health. I almost never take it off. We spent Valentine’s day catching up with our good friend Gary. Gary is like a brother to the both of us. He is deaf, but he does an excellent job of getting by and living in a culture of hearing people who are often rude and insensitive to deaf culture. Gary has been like a shadow to us. He has missed us a lot and we have missed him too.
On Sunday night (2009-02-15) our generator decided to die on us so we had to use our propane stove for warmth. The next morning, both the car batteries were dead. So on Monday (2009-02-16), Fred had to go and buy some jumper cables at Kmart for $21.19 We got someone to jump-start the battery late Monday night and were able to run the motor to warm it up in the RV some, but still had to use the propane stove to keep us warm through night. We got up in the middle of the night to start the motor and it was fine, but when we woke up Tuesday (2009-02-17) morning, the battery was dead again. We waited for the mail to come and luckily one of our checks (Fred’s last paycheck) was in the mail. We walked down and cashed the check and then went back to Gary’s house. While we were sitting over at Gary’s house trying to figure out how we were going to get a jump start again when an old acquaintance showed up and was able to get us started. We went out to Walmart to get some food and an AC/DC adapter so we can use our refrigerator that plugs into the cigarette lighter. Gary needed a ride to the grocery store too, so he came along as well.
While we were at Walmart, we were able to get a free WI-FI signal from Caribou Coffee house so we looked for an RV park close by but weren’t able to find anywhere that allowed RVs. I sent a short email message to my friends Scott and Melissa to let them know that we are in Michigan and asked them to call Gary so we could chat, but they haven’t called yet. We put $20 into the gas tank but didn’t get a receipt for it. We looked up a propane dealer and went to have the tank filled up so we would know we had at least some source of heat. We got 13.20 gallons of propane at 2.44 per gallon for a total of $34.14 to fill up our propane tank. We are still unable to use the generator despite Fred’s best efforts to get it running again. Tuesday night will be another cold night. They are calling for bad weather to begin on Tuesday night and it’s not supposed to clear up until this weekend.
