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So we went to look at an apartment today, the housing coordinator and I. Her name is Cayni, but I've heard her tell people her name is Ayni, so I asked her how she pronounces it. "Cayni or Ayni is fine," she said. "But usually Ayni. The C is just there to confuse people." 

We drove over to an area in Minneapolis where I have never been, near a hall of Saint Mary's University. She told me she's lived in that area before and she liked it. She doesn't want us to live anyplace unsafe because we are vulnerable. This place looked like - if Poverty and Depression were married, this is where they'd live. 

 It had some beautiful bones - a small area of exposed brick, some original Victorian era woodwork, and old blocked up fireplace in the former living room turned bedroom. None of the floors slanted in the same direction. The bathroom was not one Aaron would be able to access - the door was very narrow, and down a narrow doglegged hallway I don't think his wheelchair could navigate. There were soft spots in the floor. One of the bedrooms' only windows was boarded up and broken. Both porches had boards coming off. Neither the front hallway nor the back door would be readily navigable by Aaron. We'll have to pass. 

 The landlord seemed very nice and eager, but you can't be a genuinely good person and rent out a place that badly maintained. I sincerely believe that. Asking tenants to pay to live someplace unsafe is not Good People behavior.

back home, kitties were lounging per usual

Duchess, as you can see, still plays the game of thrones.  We have learned about her, though, that she sounds terrifying, but she's a giant chicken.  She'll glare at Scrunt, but the one time she actually started something, she was immediately treated to Scrunt's patented Meaty Slap (tm).  

"Scrunty looks just fat," I told Alan.  "But she's got a lot of muscle in there."

"Mostly potato," Alan said, correctly.

Alan took me to see the Deadpool movie this week, and that was really lovely.  The movie was good, we had some good food afterwards, he ran me to the store to pick up some Aaron supplies - but the part that was lovely, aside from the company of a dear friend, was just feeling like a person for a little while, out doing people things.  Not the person who set her entire life on fire and burned it to the ground, not the woman who is trying to hold her little family together living in AirBnBs and tents and hotels, not the homeless lady - just a person, watching a movie with an old friend.

Also the movie was pretty frickin funny.

I told Alan I was dying to see A Quiet Place Day One or whatever it is called, but Joey forbade me going without him, and I no longer have a Backup Adult for Aaron.  Alan mused over hauling us all to a theater.  He is a brave man.  

I paid for another week at the hotel, and intend to pay for another on the second.  I paid for storage because all of our things need to be out by Saturday, out of the garage my former friend is storing them in for us.  We're working on sorting out the movers, but Cayni wants me to give her a little more time.  We're cutting it way too close for comfort.

Cayni and I also visited the storage unit, to show them my ID and get my keys.  We walked down to the unit, way at the back.  Then we walked back to explain we couldn't figure out the lock.  Then we walked all the way back down to the storage unit again.

"This is like one of those hallways in a scary movie," I told Cayni.  "Like it gets longer every step we take."

"We are definitely getting our steps in today!" she said.

"I have no idea what that means," Pounce says.

I use the ironing board as a desk.  Pounce likes to help.

Now I'm back at the hotel, exhausted, recovering from the heat.  It is cool in here, Aaron is racing cars on the TV, Joey is chatting with his friends, his main social network.

I'm typing on my clacky keyboard.

My favorite part of this hotel room is the shower.  The beds are nice, better than cots, but I have to share with Aaron, which means I'm mostly lying on a pile of pillows next to the bed while he lays diagonally across the bed, snoring like there's a bear living in his nose.  Joey is unwilling to share a bed and has the trauma to deserve his own space.  

So the shower is the best, and I'll show you why.

Two showerheads!

This is amazing.  No cold backside.  Just glorious heat and showerness.

Once I rolled over in bed, and saw Aaron facing me, but he had no face.  That was terrifying.

But it turned out I was actually looking at Sweetie Belle's butt, as Aaron had her face pressed up by his.

Aaron's grimed up beloved stuffie.

So it's not always restful, I'm saying.

And I'm exhausted, through my soul, physically and emotionally.  I am weirdly lonely, and trying to hold everything together, and we don't seem to fit anywhere.  The shelters won't keep us together unless we have minor children, even in our circumstance and I've not been successful talking to an actual human.  They all suggest I call the intake line, which asks me to choose if I have minor children or not, or I end up going in automated circles.  We just don't belong.

I'm telling you at this point if I had a little land and an RV, I would just opt out for a little while and breathe.

Ok, not true.  We need utilities and transportation.  I'm afraid we will never be actually housed again.  It is not remotely a renter's market right now, and we need such a specific subset of a subset - Section 8 ready, wheelchair accessible, and cat friendly, that we keep coming up with nothing.

I've lost beloved friends, and I suspect it's just because I'm too much, this situation is too much and too hard.  I haven't heard from my oldest friend in three months.  I've given up on trying.  Between him and his husband, my lost friend, and another, that's 4.  I feel very much like an unwanted human.

And that's all just whatever.  People have to look out for their own wellbeing.  I'm apparently a wellbeing bomb right now.

And I'm still just trying to hold my little family together.  I'm terrified that if we go into the system, we'll just sort of... disappear.

Well that's depressing.  Have a kitty.

Look at this dork