From Dragonfly: View from Up Above

So, I wrote too soon... Yesterday, I came home from my job at 3:30pm and everyone was saying, "your name is on the list...!" They were right, my name, and Lola's, was on the list of people who had to move. I had less than 15 minutes to pack up everything I have into laundry bags and bring it to my new room. The new bed had a crappy mattress, so a friend's friend found me a medical mattress. A newish friend, Taz, moved all my stuff. I couldn't do it... because my new room is back on the second floor - 24 steps up - and we know that stairs and my body don't mesh well. Luckily, Taz can do the stairs running if she wanted to, so she had no problem doing them 4x in a row to get all my stuff to my new room. Someone had been waiting to move into my space for an hour, and she was needing to get the bed made and lie down before 4pm count.

My new room has two people I am familiar with and one person I am not. I'm glad to say that I don't believe any illegal activity is occurring in this room. That will be a very nice change. One of the ladies is a former student of mine, who now is in a different classroom. That's a little awkward, but alright. Another lady is someone I've seen making out with and fighting with her girlfriend on numerous occasions around the compound. I believe her girlfriend was just recently transferred to a different prison. The fourth new roomie is my bunky. I think she speaks Spanish primarily (so, she can speak well with my former student who is also Latina), but has not said two words to me since my move in yesterday.

My new room, also, has three early risers. My bunky works in the kitchen on breakfast shift. On week days, she needs to be there at 5am, on weekends, 6am. The one whose girlfriend recently left, I'll call her Blondie, wakes up early every day and spends most of her day in pill line - 3x/day for 1-3 hours each time. Then, there's me. I wake early every day as well. I am up by 5:30 am most weekdays and by 6:30 am on weekends. So, it may be a good room in that way (no more being yelled at for making noise in the a.m.).

The problem remains the stairs. I am great getting up the stairs (as long as I am not hauling anything), but I really have difficulty getting down the stairs. My enthesitis causes pain at my Achilles region and the way we bend our legs for stairs just causes pain. I'll take it one day at a time, but I may have to go back to the dreaded "sick call" to get a lower tier or elevator pass. Neither is easy with the P.A. who I am currently assigned to.

I guess I got luckier than Lola, though. She was moved back to 1 South. I am devastated that we are no longer on the same unit. Since just before South left, Lola became my pal, and the person I most hang out with. Now, we can't just hang on the unit together, which is what we mostly did. Different units means that we can no longer eat our meals in together. She literally has the peanut butter to my jelly. We would share our commissary and eat together. I have the BBQ sauce, she has the packaged beef. I have the tortilla wraps, she has the stuff that goes inside them. Ugh. We never planned for being in different units, because we are both "chronic care." She has rheumatoid arthritis, so we have a lot of pain in common.

Okay, I want to end this with something positive. I have a view from my barred window for the first time. I look over the compound, directly at the camp that I should be at, but am not. I can watch the sunset, a bit, off to the west. That's something I'll enjoy. I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot more time in my bed, and a lot less time in the atrium, now that I am back upstairs.