Ameri has called . . .

Ameri called me from a payphone. I asked if it was cold. She said it was snowing. She had just finished her shift at McDonalds. Hooray! This is her first payroll job with taxes and FICA. It's a landmark. Her other employment has been as a stable hand and trail guide for an equestrian venue. She made great wads of money, but it just evaporated into tack, ferrier (too many choices of spelling) horseshoeing bills, vet bills and entry fees. This may just work out for her but to me it seems to me like blindfold cliff diving after consulting an out-of-date tidal chart.

So it is cold there. Ameri grew up in a southern peninsular state. I have lived in that southern peninsular state for half my life. I do not travel in winter to places where bridges have signs that say, "Bridge Freezes Before Roadway". I will take hurricanes and humidity. I'll have no more truck with snow and ice.

I suppose that I should get back to with Ameri's history. I am soft pedaling on the details and I am being creatively obtuse to protect the "perpetrators". Ameri did not have a pleasant life until she was abandoned by her first adoptive family. It may seem strange to say, but as she remembers, she was both horrified and relieved to have been given away by them. Perhaps, I will pick up the story in the next post.