"And you got a gas bill due...Washington, DC came through!"

My Mood: Hopeful
I am reading: Today’s edition of the Washington Examiner

We went back to the Armory last night, loaded down. This time we were a group of four, plus ‘Baby C’. We each took one of Lilly’s and Emily's family members and went out and purchased things for them which included clothes, shoes, underwear, etc. We also took a large bag of professional women's clothing and some new stuff for men too. And of course, we had the most important request, Popeye's Chicken!

When we arrived, we found out that the family had just left to go look at an apartment that someone was offering, so we decided to wait. I saw another 'renegade' volunteer that I had met on the previous night and she too had come loaded with things for the family, including Popeye's Chicken...LOL I guess they really "Love That Chicken From Popeyes!"....

Anyway, while we waited, we were able to provide clothing to a teenaged boy, another family who had just purchased suitcases to replace their plastic garbage bags and several men and a couple, where the woman is three months pregnant. She really had us cracking up. They told us that they had just got on the Metro for the first time and someone had the nerve to call her a 'refugee'. I guess he selected the wrong one to piss off because she emphatically told him, "I didn't swim here from Iraq or somewhere, I am a US citizen!"...LOL She was also proud to tell us that she heard the baby's heart beat for the first time today. I asked them of they planned to stay in the DC area, and their answer was, "yes".

While we waited for Lilly and Emily to return, the evening was kind of slow because the new 'renegades' that were with me were a little leery about approaching the hurricane victims that we saw, but once we got started, we had given out our goods in a flash.

There was one teenaged boy who was playing football that we gave a lot of jeans and t-shirts to. Being a young boy, I knew that he wouldn't want to leave the game to go inside to take all of his new clothes, so I told my friend to ask him to go get his mother. After some thought, my friend said "What if he is here without his mother?"...a sad, but good point. He did end up leaving the clothes with his friend's mother to watch for him, so that may mean that she was his current caregiver.

Lilly and Emily finally did return, with fresh new hair styles. A local beautician had come by earlier that morning and took several women to the salon with her and did their hair for free. They said that the apartment that they went to view was a little small, but they had a lead on a five bedroom house that they would go see today. They were happy to get all of the things that we bought, including the chicken!

From the previous night, I had remembered Emily asking if we knew the name of a certain gospel song, and the song that she was referring to was "Jesus Can Work It Out". Another renege volunteer bought the song, along with a CD player to Emily last night. As we left, Emily was sitting on the steps outside of the Armory, blasting the song and singing along. If you have heard that song, you know that it will cause you to get the holy spirit. It was funny when she started replacing the words, saying "And you got a gas bill due...Washington, DC came through!". What was funnier was the look on the faces of those unconcerned individuals who were happily leaving the baseball game, without a care in the world, looking at her like she was drunk or crazy. They didn't look like us, and could not even begin to understand what she was singing about.