A super cold night, I woke up periodically during the night. Finally get up at 7:00 a.m. turn on the heater for a few minutes just to feel some warmth.
7:30 get up get ready for the day work on securing the camp in the woods. I made a short video to show how cold it really is. Then go check on Mike.
8:00 a.m. stop check on Mike who had moved back into his smaller tent that night. I call into Mike’s tent and Mike tells me that the wind was cutting through the thin walls of my tent, so he moved back into his smaller tent.
8:45 a.m. I walk over to lifebridge for breakfast, and when I arrive one of the workers tells me that they do not do breakfast. I got some spinach pastries and a breakfast sandwich. I sit by the flagpoles and do a video feeding a seagull. After I eat my breakfast I take a walk by the tent City. The tent city was flooded, but Witch City Action gave the people pallets to put their tents on top of, and help them get resituated, and everything looked pretty good at tent City.
10:00 a.m. I sit in my car and I work on the blogs on my phone. I also spend some time trying to work through some of the issues with my girlfriend. I don’t want to go into depth about this but it’s very difficult for me. Her and I have some discussions and things seem to get a little bit better.
11:30 a.m. I walk back up to the camp to check on Mike. I tell Mike that I’m going to get something to eat at lifebridge. Like the size that he wants to come with me, so I wait for him to get ready and he and I walk over to lifebridge. When I go to the shelter to get the takeaway tray of food, The worker tells me that I cannot take one for Michael, I try to explain that Michael has a restraining order for his wife who was in the shelter and can’t come in. Regardless, the worker does not want to take the tray for Michael. This ends up working out because when I bring the tray to Michael to give it to him he refuses it. So I end up eating the food.
1:00 p.m. I walk back to my car and I hang out my car for a little bit charging my phone. And then walk back up to the camp and I lay in the tent for a while. It’s really cold out today.
4:30 p.m. I walk back to lifebridge and I hang out outside waiting for them to serve the take away trays. There are other homeless people waiting as well, and you have some nice conversation. It feels good to be surrounded by people and to talk. When the trays arrive, we all take one. I end up sitting at a picnic table with another woman named Mary, and we enjoy our meal together and make small talk.
5:30 p.m. I walked back up to Michael’s camp to check on him. It was freezing cold, and Michael was freaking out about his zipper breaking on his tent. I was going to stay with him, but instead offered him my tent, air mattress, and blankets to stay warm through the night. I walked back to my car and I talked to my girlfriend on the phone and asked her if she wanted to spend the night in the tent with me. I told her how cold it will be and she told me that she’ll get back to me within an hour and let me know. I hang around in my car waiting for her response. About 45 minutes later My girlfriend gets back to me and lets me know that she’s going to stay at her apartment. I drove out to the location of my other camp. I hike out in the woods and I settle in for a cold night. It’s usually my hands that bother me the most in the cold. I have big winter gloves which I put on my hands to keep me from being woken in the night by having cold hands. This works well. Although it is hovering between 20 and 25°. I have a good night’s sleep and only my feet are a little bit cold, even though I have two pairs of socks on.