The testing part of World AIDS Day and a girl named Melissa.

As you know, December 1 was World AIDS Day, and we were off to do our thing at the Community College.  I promised a report, but this is one that is going to be made in about 4 entries as I want to try to do justice to each part.  Our focus this year was on testing.  Pueblo Community Health Center, Southern Colorado AIDS Project, and MPACT all had testing on site and it was free!  Now, you are going to be amazed at the changes in the world today.  Well, maybe you aren't, but I sure was.

First off, piercing through the eyebrows, lips, nose, eyelids and through the ears are all considered normal.  My thoughts on this is "If God wanted holes in my body he would have got out his drill!"   Now as to the dress code.  Remember how the boys used to wear their jeans baggy and way down their hips?  Now they wear what is called "Skinnies".  I know this because John told me. I digress!  Back to my purpose here on this blog.

So there were 8 long tables here in the foyer and we all advertised free HIV testing and our job was to reel in the students, talk to them about safe sex and the end goal was to get them tested!  I was absolutely amazed at our reception.  Here we have mere babes in arms being counseled on how to have safe sex by an old woman who would not have even said the word out loud 20 years ago.
They all left with a handful of condoms and a goodly portion of them headed upstairs to learn their fate.  That trip usually lasted about 20 minutes if they waited for results.  Then they would come by the table and poke out their finger with the band aid and I would give them a high five. If they did not want to go upstairs they were given a card for free testing at the Health Center.  Walk in.  Anytime.

I noticed one young girl visiting the tables and you know how you can just tell sometimes?  She finally came to my table.  I told her my spiel.  Free HIV testing and then I went a step further with her and engaged her in conversation.  I told her if she had sex she needed to be tested.  She told me she was pretty sure her boyfriend was faithful and I told her he probably was, but this is her body to take care of and protect.  "Take the test and if it comes back negative you can breathe a sigh of relief.  If it comes back positive then you got an early start and we will cross that bridge, but the unknown will do you in."  Only with this girl did I leave my table and walk her up the stairs and personally deliver her to "the room".  Of course I could not stay with her due to privacy issues.  So I went down to my table to wait.

The goal in testing is it is part of education.  There are people out there who think AIDS has been cured.  They think it is not the problem it used to be.  And it is definitely different.  People used to die of AIDS Related Complications or ARC.  But now we have high powered drugs that make the body toxic and in so doing suppress the viral load and build the immune system.  Now the cause of death is Heart Failure, Liver Failure, Cancer, Lymphoma, and any disease that can come in under the radar.  AIDS always wins in the end.  Always.

Along with the AIDS test comes counseling. Now this whole process takes about 30 minutes from the needle stick till you get your results.  Do you think anyone is going to leave that room and go have unprotected sex again without thinking about it? That would be just like setting there looking at a ticking time bomb and trying to figure out just when it is going to blow. Your whole life is now hanging on the word "if", the longest word in the English language.  I am pretty sure I would change a few habits I carried for years if I had thought about them a little more!

It seemed that waiting for Melissa to reappear was one of the longest waits of my life.  I had formed an instant bond with this little waif and I must confess I may have said a prayer or two inside my head that not our will but thine  be done.  I felt a personal connection to all the kids I sent upstairs, but it was just special with Melissa. I wanted them all to be alright, but especially this little girl with the sad eyes.

And my patience was rewarded after due time.  I knew when Melissa started down the stairs what the news was!  She was negative!  So I gave her a card for the Health Center testing with instructions to get that boyfriend in and get him tested or I would be paying him a visit.  Then I told her,  "I am going to write about you on my blog, but look, no pictures.  And I will change your name."  Then I gave her a card and I just want her to say this to her.....

"Melissa, it was wonderful to meet you yesterday.  You reflect the innocence of youth and the hope for the future.  It is women like you who hold the key to ending this epidemic that grows every year.  You can talk to your friends about safe sex and convince them that their bodies are theirs to protect and as women it is our duty.  AIDS is not gender specific, it is not a GAY disease and it respects no boundaries.  If your boyfriend thinks a condom is uncomfortable, what does he think full blown AIDS would be?  You can help me do this.  And you can have your friends talk to their friends and soon we will be an army of women marching shoulder to shoulder ...."

My God!  I am woman hear me roar!  I feel sooooo Helen Reddy!

In an ironical twist of fate there were in the neighborhood of 70 tests given yesterday and not one positive in the whole college!  To me that was absolutely amazing. This group of people that I thought was the party crowd, clothing optional, pass the bong turns out to be responsible citizens of society.  Well, I for one feel a little better about my future.

And I want to send a plea out to my Melissa and all the other Melissa's out there and the little gay guy and the macho football player and anyone else who will listen to me....I need you!  Southern Colorado AIDS Project needs you.  The Community Health Center needs you.  We need warm bodies to help us.  We are overwhelmed.  Linda Lorraine at SCAP particularly needs help answering the phone and always something to be done.  Do this.  See down below this where it says send a comment?  Send me a message.  If you do not want it published just say so and it will be our little secret.  If we keep talking we can conquer the world!

I do not remember who said this, but I remember it being said:

No man is an island....

P.S.  I give a social luncheon on the second Tuesday of every month at the SCAP office.  Everyone is welcome.  Come and meet some of the clients that eat with me.  They are wonderful people and this will put a face on this disease.  We even have a tiny baby to play with!  It starts at 11:30.  Oh, but I am skipping December because the Springs office caters that one for Christmas!  Well not skipping, but being lazy.  I will be there with the cookie bags from PFLAG.  Call me!  I am lonely!

Oh, finally got something done with that damned hair!

Do you see who this is? This is my friend Trisha! Trisha just finished giving me a permanent and making me very beautiful! See, today I decided that I had all I could take of my hair poking out here and there and needing cut, so I took myself to the city. And it was there that she took me to her chair and worked her magic. She is a novice in that she barely started there. Her daughter will finish in March. Then daughter will start a shop probably on the south end of Colorado Springs and Trisha will go help her when she graduates in August. And then another daughter will do massage, so I am staying in tight with this bunch!

But this place and I go back a lot further than today.  See, many, many years ago, when I was first separated from my very first husband and waiting tables at Skaets Steak Shop in Hutchinson, Kansas, that self same husband was drunk out here in Pueblo, Colorado. Ah, the plot thickens.

This man found his way to this shop and to the man who at the time ran the Center Beauty College.  Frank Schultz was a very kind and gentle man, but he had a mission in life. Well, actually two missions. The first was to teach young girls how to be cosmetologists and do it at a very reasonable charge to them. His second was to sober up men he found and put them to work. That business was called Center Tree Service and the first husband was a tree trimmer. Frank did indeed sober the little fellow up and put him on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, we never made it that far, but such is life.

Years later I came to Pueblo. I remembered Frank Schultz and went in to get my hair done cheap! My daughter, Dona enrolled in his Beauty College and when she went to State Boards I was her model.  I then modeled for 2 more students and that was fun. I got facials, manicures, fake fingernails and it cost me nothing!  Course I let them practice on me once a week, but I had to leave the hair cause when you went to State Boards the student had to cut off at least an inch and you better have it to spare!

Dear, dear Frank Schultz passed to his much deserved reward three years ago, but Center Beauty College lives on in the graceful and very beautiful form of his daughter, Leasa Wood.  Cici is still there as the most able receptionist in Pueblo, Colorado. She has held that post for 38 years, if you can believe that! She could tell some tales, I am sure.

Center Beauty College is still located at 228 West Third in downtown Pueblo.  Right there on the corner where it has been for 38 years.  The phone number is 542-3833.  Poke that little number in and go get a haircut at a reasonable price, or do like I did and go top of the line permanent for $30.00.  It is a bargain for you and the students need some one to practice their craft on.  A boon to both of you.

So, here I set, all dressed up with no where to go!  But bet I could if I wanted to cause I am lookin' good and feelin' fine and it is thanks to Trisha, and the whole crew at Center Beauty College!

World AIDS Day planning committee at work!

Here we are at Joe's Coffee Shop in the basement of Pueblo Community College.  This is our first year to  be on the campus at PCC and I must say it has been a real treat!  They have been most accommodating and the friendliest  people I have come across in a very long time.  Why it just makes me want to go back to school!

First I have to tell you who all these people are and if I knew I would sure share that with you.  Not really.  I did not get my little release like I need to go around the table naming names, so I am just going to point out a few.  Needless to say they are all friends of mine !  OK, top picture.  See that kid on the right with the dark shirt and glasses?  That is John.  He is on the National Quality Center Consumer Advisory Council Steering Committee.  Quite a prestigious fellow.  We just went and had Chinese before we came so he is probably dozing off, but more about him in another post.  The empty chair is mine.  The two ladies on the left are with PCHC. One is our co leader along with John.

Bottom picture on the right is Eric.  We used to go to church together, but I changed.  The lady with her back to me is one of the PCC Staff who is most kind.  Another one is behind her head.  The lady on the left is with Pueblo City/County Health Department.  So there you have a loose accounting of the people it takes to plan an event of this magnitude and actually pull it off with any degree of decorum.  Tomorrow is our test!!

Events will start at 9:00 AM and run until 7:30 PM.  Pueblo Community Health Center will offer free testing the first part of the day and then SCAP and IMPACT the rest of the day.  Dr. Steve Johnson, MD Professor & Director of Infectious  Disease, University of Colorado, will be our Keynote Speaker.  Our guest speaker will be Merilou Johnson, MSW, MPA, Program Director Colorado AIDS Education Training Center.  They are no relation, just share a last name. 

I have not met Merilou Johnson, but I have met Dr. Steve Johnson and can attest that he is one of the kindest and most intelligent men I have had the good fortune to visit with in my time in this business.  He and Dr. Swartz were Mark's doctors for the last several years of his life, so I had the good fortune to visit with them both every month.  They are both very caring men which is a necessity in this area of medicine.

Now for my far away friends, you should know that this is a coup!  I figure this is going to be the biggest WAD Commemoration to date in this fair city.  Right now I have to go finish Rick's panel or I will be standing there tomorrow night with egg all over my face and this whole table full of people glaring at me.  Not me, man.  I am looking forward to tomorrow and hope when I come home it is with a feeling of accomplishment!

Cuban Caravan part 2!!

Here is that shot I told you to watch for.  This Google thing is like a whole new world to me.  Just put your mouse on the picture and click!  But in case that does not work, I have done it for you.  The teal shirt says:

Cuba has:

One teacher per 10 primary children.

Vaccinations against preventable diseases.

A lower infant mortality rate then the United States.

No homeless children.

100% literacy.

The red shirt says;

Now is the time to:

Free the Cuban 5.

End the economic blockade.

End travel ban for all.

Take Cuba off "terrorist list."

Hand Guantanamo back to Cuba.

Normalize Diplomatic Relations.

There is the link you are going to need to learn more.  See in my simple mind I can not understand why we are carrying on diplomatic relations with every one in this world, from China, Russia, and Iran clear down to Osama Bin Laden, but we will not deal with Cuba, a struggling nation 90 miles off of our coast.  And this has gone on for at least 40 years.  I just can not see this.  If someone out there, reading this can give me a reason, I am a reasonable person.  I am fair minded, but we have 5 Cubans in prison for doing less than criminals walking the streets here in Pueblo.  Just clue me in cause I am clueless in Pueblo!

http://www.PASTORSFORPEACE.ORG

I missed these Cuba shots and they are so worth looking at!

I want you to take a look at these pictures that I have been looking at for the last how many months and not seeing!  If you think that going to Cuba with a school bus full of anything is a piece of cake, you are sadly mistaken.  These particular pictures were sent to me while they were at one of the crossings.  I probably posted a link, and maybe you actually looked at them.  You should have hollered and said " Hey, dummy, here is the whole thing in a nut

shell!"  See those three little guys there?Pretty soon you will be able to read the back of their shirts!  Now see how big they are?  Probably about the size of most of us and they do not look like heroes to me, but you hang on there!  Now, see these guys at the back of the bus?  They are the crossing guards and they are looking pretty closely at these computers.  The computers look pretty evil to me!  They did in fact have to confiscate a few of them.  All of them contained the same hard drives, so it was not the info.

But look at these guys!  Can you hear the conversations?  I can and I am thinking a few of these guys may have made a few dollars off this little crossing here!

OK, I can not get the picture I want to load on here.  So I am going to continue on another post which will be called Cuba Shots part 2.  You have got to read these guys shirts.  It explains why myself and a lot of others are adamant about the Cuban Caravan.

Remember way back when you were dating?

I was young once and I can still remember that time.  I was young and actually dated boys.  I don't think things happen the way they did many years back.  For one thing, everybody has a car now days.  Usually given to the kid by one parent or another so they do not have to drive them around.  Back in the day, it did not work that way.  Cars were few and far between and if the boy wanted to use the car to take a little chickadee somewhere on Saturday night, the deal was made weeks in advance.  A date was a big deal back then.  The guy had to come to the door and actually meet mom and dad. Well, it was supposed to work that way, but it didn't always.

See back then I thought my parents were way to strict and old fashioned and and I just could not be bothered with those little customs that other kids held so dear.  One might say I was a bit of a rebel back then.  So I always managed to meet the lucky boy up on the highway.  Looking back, I see that I might have been sending the wrong message.  Well, I am pretty sure I was not getting the message across that I had parents who cared about me and wanted to know where I was more for my benefit than just because they were nosey!

So, I met Prince Charming up on the highway and we would go to the drug store and have a coke ore something equally decadent which cost in the neighborhood of five cents.  Dates were cheap back then.  Then we might walk around a while.  You know, look at the stars and stuff because back then there was not so much light pollution and you could see the stars.  Then back to the car and drive some where so we could see better.  Inevitably that damn car would run out of gas!  What to do now?  My idea was to hit the road and go get more gas, but his was to neck.  Neck!  We could neck all night and that car would still be out of gas.

I have always been a woman of action.  "Come on!  It will be midnight before we get back.  I ain't gonna set here all night."  And it was then that the truth came to light,  I could either give or walk.  Give or Walk?  Is that your idea of foreplay?  Well, I have also been scared of the dark most of my life, but here was a situation that would warrant closer scrutiny of whatever was in the dark.  On the one hand I was alone with an idiot who did not have sense enough to put gas in his car, thinking that sex would make that thing run.  And if we had sex, he would still be out of gas and I would be walking.  Either way, I knew I was going to hoof it home that night.

Ever look back on your life and just wonder how you could have actually been that stupid and ever lived?  I got more walking time in when I was a teenager than in all the rest of my life.  And you would have thought that the guys would have wised up at some point, but they never did.  I did finally decide all the boys in my hometown were jerks and started dating the boys from the big city.  Now those guys knew how to treat a girl!  Actually I think they were afraid of me because I had some very muscle bound legs.  Guess they thought I might kick them!

One of the guys from way far away in Dodge City caught my fancy and the rest was history.  We dated three weeks.  He met momma and dad.  Never made me walk home. Took me dancing and we drank some beer.  I got sick, but I knew I would spend the rest of my life with this gorgeous man with blond curly hair, blue eyes and a Roman nose.  Funny thing, life.  My forever lasted 10 years and 5 kids.  The Dreamer that I had loved with every fiber of my being turned out to be just that, The Dreamer.  He wrote the most beautiful love letters, but neglected to pay the rent.  He painted pictures of a most glorious future, but wouldn't change a diaper.  Guess life just kind of got in the way, and life does have a way of doing that, doesn't it?

I have come to a decision and you shall be the first to know, after me of course.

I am going to start dating after the first of the year.  Now I know, I did hang out with the tall guy for a while, but I am not sure that qualified as dating.  The way that worked is I hung out at his house or garage and kind of helped him organize stuff and we talked a lot.  Sometimes he fed me or we went out and ate.  I do not think that was dating.  I think it was hanging out mostly.  None of that personal stuff, you know.

I think dating is where the guy actually would come to the house, ring the door bell, open the car door and take me some place, like out to eat or the movies or something like that.   Maybe we could hit some garage sales.  I don't know, but I am sure if we work at it we can come up with something to do.  Oh, yeah, like the fundraiser things that I hate to go to alone, I could like to have someone take me.  OK, now comes the "someone" part.  How do I get me one of those?   Sometime back a thing kept popping up on my email telling me I could find me a man at Match.com, or Zoosk, or any number of places and all I had to do was click on there and it was free.  Let me tell you, that sounded pretty easy to me, so click I did.  That is an experience I shall not soon forget. 

There were pages and pages of men who described themselves as "good looking, hard bodies, long walks,romantic, financially secure, and looking for love."  Now no offense intended here, but if he has to tell me he is good looking that is strike number one.  A 75 year old man with a flat stomach and hard body is a little hard to imagine.  I am having a hard time even imagining one with hair!  Now his idea of a long walk and mine may not be the same.  Right away I started thinking of a long walk on a short pier!  First hit I got was a guy from Pennsylvania who was ready to relocate, all I had to do was send him my email.  I may be a bit of a doubting Thomas on this "Get the man of your dreams for only $7.95.  Limited time only." 

Now, in all fairness, this may be the way to go for some people, but not for me.  Hell, I could not quit laughing long enough.  I found another way!  And it is free!  I can just pick one up.  They are every where!  My friends know single guys.  Well, mostly widowers.  So I am a widow.  That works, or should work.  All they have to do is introduce me.  Course they have to screen them first, you know, weed out the ultra conservatives, homophobes, Catholics, men afraid of spiders, and things like that.  Don't want one in a suit. No smokers.  No drinkers. Like animals.  Don't want to ski.  No racists and must like big dysfunctional families.  I am a thinking, I may be a little too particular.  You think?

Well, now that I think about it, I am not sure I want to do that dating thing.  I suppose it would probably happen at night and I like to go to bed about 9 PM.  That could present a problem right there!  And say I did date one, what if I got to liking him?  What then?  If I start liking him and he starts liking me, then we got another problem.  But if he could just like walk me to the door at 8:30, peck on the cheek and hit the road, that might be alright.  Yes, dating will be a good thing if I don't actually have to spend any time with him!  I am going to think about this some more.  When I reach my final decision I will share that with you.

Right now I think I just looked at the full moon the other night and thought about the good old days when I was a young, romantic girl.  That was when the wee, wee hours were for snuggling with a fella, or dancing the night away, not trying to kick the cat out of bed and letting the dog out for a quick minute then back to sleep.  Well, I do love my bed and I think right now I am going to go crawl in it and say my prayers.  May rethink this whole thing.  Got a whole month before the first of the year and everything is subject to change.