Going to Brooklyn

John volunteered to drive, which made my heart leap up! I hate driving to Brooklyn. I'd rather drive to Columbus, Ohio than Brooklyn.

Eleanor was asleep when we got there, after an uneventful two hours.

But she woke up and we gave her our presents--about 40 cut-able pieces of food and all these pans to cook food in.

She spent over an hour tearing the Velcro that holds the pieces together with a toy knife and putting the pieces in pans. She wanted no help. thank you! And very few suggestions, thank you very much.

Then we went to lunch at a bar less than a block away--nothing you need is far away in Brooklyn.

Mimi started feeling bad and retreated to their 13th floor apartment. I had, on a whimsy, a fried oyster sandwich and fries. The sandwich was amazing as were the fries.

Then we drove back to New Haven, where John lives, to pick up our car. The trip back was a typical Brooklyn to CT drive--40 minutes longer than the GPS had initially promised.

Tim and Mimi were great (besides Mimi's feeling bad) and Eleanor was, as always, amazing! So cute, so smart, so fun.

There was a woman on the street where Tim and Mimi live, with her head on the pavement, though her feet were on the ground. She was there when we went to the bar and had moved maybe five feet when we came back. Bern and I had seen her before. She's a local. John hadn't. He's a psychologist for the VA and has worked in several mental hospitals and had never seen anything like her.

He and Bern talked about her in creeping traffic for nearly an hour.

I almost smacked them both.

This is a woman that needs to be in an institution that we, in this country, have chosen not to maintain because of the cost. Nothing short of 24 hour care would help her--but we let poor folks like her, with serious mental health problems, be on the streets of Brooklyn and most any city of any size.

Children can be held, against their will, in detention, away from their parents, from Central America but a clearly disturbed woman can't be housed for her own good.

Make American Great Again! Give me a break....

Make America Sane Again! should be our goal.

God help  us!