Gustavo is now a teenager.

 If you read the most recent previous post (from this time last year) I can avoid repeating myself and move into what's going on now.

First off, happy Barry was in full force this week. We had some newcomers and one returned for his second meal this week and we struck up a conversation while plating him seconds. The conversation became quite animated as various commonalities became evident and we began to geek out sharing similar experiences in regards to work, etc. and while I usually pack up and leave by 8pm I ended up talking with him until after 9pm.

I'm in the discussion/exploration phase with a local church about partnering with them to offer free shower services followed by dance lessons where I can offer dance lessons which will hopefully facilitate socialization through touch/movement/music therapies, but also build conflict management skills where I might simply demonstrate a move and let people explore making dance figures work and during this, suggest ways of how to facilitate cooperation within each partnership.

Finally, while everyone's commonalities are overdetermined, I've noticed one common factor among the people who've lived outdoors with whom I've been able to develop relationships: foster care. It seems fairly obvious to me foster care in its current state does a really poor job of preparing people for life. A CA study involving children in foster care as of 2019 discovered that at least 30% were applying for government assistance of some sort by 2022. I speculate that the overall results are even more dismal and that a large percentage were eligible but did not apply. And given how housing prices have continued to skyrocket resulting in a lot of working people leaving CA I can only see the situation getting worse, and I'm exploring how to use my mentoring/tutoring/teaching skills and possibly be of some usefulness in this area.

The dog still enjoys getting her tummy rubbed but barks a lot more than I wish she would due to anxiety. Suppose I can't blame her since the Altadena fires have driven the coyotes farther and farther south prompting us to keep her inside after dark. One night two coyotes got into the yard and one chased her around the corner of the house to where the other coyote was waiting. Fortunately I was there and disaster was averted but she was pretty geeked for about a week and we took steps to keep coyotes out of the yard.