Hello to All

[BlueGirl]

Hi Everyone,
My name is BlueGirl. I just joined and wanted to stop by and introduce myself. Got to go now but I look forward to chatting with you later on. I'm glad I found this site.

Good day,
Sue :)

[Gennee]

Hi Bluegirl and welcome to Soulforce.

Gennee

:wave::love:

[BlueGirl]

Thank you. :)
Blue Girl

[paul]

Hiya Bluegirl,

welcome.:wave:

come back when you can stay awhile. :)

paul

[Zerbie]

Hiya Blue. Or Sue. Oh gee, Blue rhymes with Sue! :rolleyes:

Welcome. :D Tell us something about yourself. :)

[BlueGirl]

Thanks Paul.

Thanks Zerbie. I meant to just sign as BlueGirl but signed Sue without thinking. :rolleyes: I'll answer to either one. :) BlueGirl is a take on a 1950's song by Jim Reeves that I've always liked called Blue Boy. Does anyone on here remember that one?

What would you like for me to tell about myself? I'm female, gay/lesbian, Christian, 60+ years of age, and single. My favorite activities/hobbies are video collecting, working/playing on the computer, and sewing. I love old movies and old TV shows, cats, rain, pretty music, my friends, New England, playing pin ball games (wish I had a machine but will have to settle for the computer) and some other things.

BlueGirl

[Vanessa White]

So glad that you have joined us here at Soulforce. One big, happy family. :D

New England? I am from there. Do you live there now? I grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire; I live in PA now with my partner, daughter, five cats, one dog, a fish and a guinea pig. We are both from NE and miss it terribly!!!!!

Glad to have you with us. :love:

[BlueGirl]

Hi Vanessa,
No, I'm in West Virginia where I've lived most of my life. I live in my "home place" with my mother and 7 cats.
I've been to Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island several times on vacation. I think we spent one night in New Hampshire one time. And I have a friend in Conn. that I haven't seen for about 12 years. The last time I was in New England was 3 or 4 years ago when I went on one of those bus trips. I doubt if I'll ever get to go back there. :unhappy:

My closest friend lives in PA, about a three and a half hour drive from here. I wish she lived closer. We have such a nice time when she's here. I only get to see her about 3 times a year. I don't have any friends who live close and I get very lonely. I don't drive and am pretty isolated. :unhappy:

Thanks for the welcome. :)

[Zerbie]

What a great intro!!!
:D
Thanks.

Hope you'll stick around.

[BlueGirl]

Thanks Zerbie,
I hope so too.

BlueGirl :rainbow:

[Pablo Rafael]

Hello BlueGirl,

It's good to have you here.

I have been to all of the states surrounding West Virginia, but not to WV itself. I should remedy that; I am heading right out for a visit. Don't worry, I can sleep on the couch, and I will pick up after myself. :laughing:

Seriously though, please let us know more about you. What are your thoughts on things? What is important to you? Tell us about your journey through life.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

[BlueGirl]

Thanks Pablo :lol:

I just got back from the store. What an ordeal. Especially considering something that happened
today. :eek:
I don't have time to write much now. I need to get off of here and get a bite to eat and maybe take a nerve pill. :o and get busy on some sewing I'm behind on. I've been spending too much time on the puter and because of it, I'm getting way behind on other things I need to be doing. :(

Talk with you later. Have a good one. :)
BlueGirl

[keltic63]

Thanks Pablo :lol:

I just got back from the store. What an ordeal. Especially considering something that happened
today. :eek:
I don't have time to write much now. I need to get off of here and get a bite to eat and maybe take a nerve pill. :o and get busy on some sewing I'm behind on. I've been spending too much time on the puter and because of it, I'm getting way behind on other things I need to be doing. :(

Talk with you later. Have a good one. :)
BlueGirl

ok, thanks for the suspense......... :mad: you can't just post something like this and then run away!

[Kelli Busey]

Welcome I love cats and the rain also. Enjoy!:)

[BlueGirl]

Hi Kelli,
Thanks for the welcome. :)
I'm glad to hear of someone else loving rain. Most people say they don't like it, that it's "depressing". My mother calls a cloudy or rainy day "dreary", but I feel just the opposite. Cloudy and/or rainy days have always been enjoyable and soothing to me. I guess that's just another way I'm different from the majority. I'm also left-handed and have always known I was gay as far back as I can remember anything. :)


Sorry Keltic63. I didn't mean to leave anyone hanging in suspense. I didn’t have time to write much yesterday and I just didn't think it would interest anyone. I'm so used to my mother not being curious or interested in anything, not even things going on with her own family. She says she doesn't like to ask personal questions but I think what it really is, she just isn't interested. I tell her that if someone "opens the door", then she has a right to ask questions and that a person should be curious about things. It shows that their mind is working. I think she just doesn't care about anything except pulling weeds and feeding cats or else her mind has deteriorated to the point that she can’t think and is more like a zombie that a human being. My cat, Tigger, shows more interest in things I say and do than she does. She thinks more of me too. When I talk to Tigger, she often makes a sound that sounds like she’s saying "hmmm?". She's the only cat I've ever known that does that. She's so precious and I thank the Lord for her.
It's a long story about the situation concerning my mother and it really gets to me sometimes :hissy: . I will talk more about it some other time if anyone wants to listen.
Anyway, it's so refreshing to be able to talk to someone who IS curious and interested in something enough to ask questions. Do you like mysteries, by any chance? I don't have much time for reading books but I LOVE good mystery movies. :inspector:
As for yesterday, it’s a long story but here goes. I guess you’d say I had a moral decision to make and not much time to think about it. My brain works but not fast so I need time to think things through. First of all, I need to explain what's involved in my going to the store and why it’s an ordeal for me. I don’t drive and the way I have to get there is through the local senior center. They have a van that takes people 60 and older to the grocery store, the beauty shop, and medical appointments. There’s a small fee based on income. I am very thankful for that service and was so glad when I turned 60 (can you imagine) so I could use it. My mother’s eyesight had gotten to the point that it wasn’t safe for her to drive anymore. She couldn’t judge her distance properly. She would drive way to the left to keep from hitting something on the right but she kept refusing to give it up. She’s a very contrary-natured person and we had more than one blow-up about it before she finally gave it up.
As I said, I’m very thankful for that service but it does have it’s drawbacks. They only go two days a week to the stores and beauty shops, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and a person can only go on one of those days in a week, not both in the same week. Several days notice has to be given because they make up a schedule as to who is going and where and how long they need. Some, such as myself, need longer than others. My mother doesn’t like to go anywhere and because she has such a time getting around, I do all of the shopping most of the time unless she wants something in particular that I might not be able to pick out to suit her such as greeting cards. As picky as she is, I won’t try to pick any out for her. I usually need an hour and a half to two hours, depending on what I have to get and which store I’m going to. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal but it’s not easy to get what you need to get and get through the checkout line and not be late getting it done or getting done too early.
If I’d run over, that would make them late getting to the next person and throw off their whole schedule. I always feel like I’m running a race.
I have a memory problem and can’t always remember to put everything on my list. I like to be able to browse sometimes in case I forgot to list something, especially for things other than groceries or just to see if anything’s on sale that I might want, but it’s hard to do any browsing. The time goes pretty fast when racing with the clock. They cut my time short a couple of weeks ago to make up for a missed day due to weather and I wasn’t able to get everything I needed. A lot of things get on my nerves and a situation like that definitely makes me nervous. In addition to that, I don’t especially care for 2 of the van drivers (I don’t think they like me either). One of them is a fundamentalist. She’s always humming or singing a hymn. If it was someone other than a fundamentalist that was doing it, I wouldn't mind that at all, but I think either she thinks she's “witnessing” to me or she wants to show how religious she is. She also listens to fundamentalist radio stations in the van. I don’t think that’s right, maybe not even legal, considering that it’s not her private car and not everyone shares her beliefs, but I’m not going to say anything about it unless I hear some anti-gay garbage come on there sometime. If that happens, I’m going to tell her that it offends me and ask her to please turn it. I don’t know if she’s heard that I’m gay or not. I live in a small town and word like that travels like wild fire. I was harassed on 3 different jobs because someone told them I’m gay. They liked me before they were told.

I can’t concentrate on two things at one time. I have to keep my mind on one thing at a time. Besides that, I have an inner ear problem which causes motion sickness and it doesn’t take much to upset it. I can’t whirl around or turn my head back and forth much so I have to be careful when unloading a cart. Some fluorescent lights bother me too. I’m buying for two people and seven cats. There’s usually 16 or 18 4pks of canned cat food plus maybe 12 or more single cans and sometimes big bags of dry food too, plus the groceries for two people, so there is definitely a full cart.
Now, getting to what happened yesterday. It was almost time for the van to pick me up at the store. I was in the checkout line, picking out my things from my mother's (2 separate orders with two separate monies), concentrating on what I was doing, when a woman came up and asked if I was paying for my groceries with cash. When I said yes, she wanted to know if she could get my groceries on her “card” and me give her the cash. I don’t remember what all she said, due to my memory problem, besides trying to concentrate on what I was doing. She said she was from the city which is 20+ miles from here in the next state and that for some reason she couldn’t get her pin number for some kind of a card (childcare?) to work in any of the machines she had tried. She said this was the first time she’d tried to use it. She said it had locked up after three tries (I can believe that) and that it couldn’t be unlocked for 12 hours. When I asked her couldn’t she call someone where she’s from, she said she’s a single mother and didn’t have anyone to call. She said her kids were out in the car and that she needed help. I don’t remember if she said she needed money for gas or not. With all that was going on (as I said, I can only concentrate on one thing at a time), I was having an awful time with the groceries and trying to figure out what she what talking about and trying to decide what to do about it and the van out there waiting for me. The manager came up and said she was confused too but that there was nothing they could do to help her. I don’t think the cashier was buying any of it. She said she didn’t feel sorry for her. If she was telling the truth, I sure did. I’m not a trusting person to begin with and my better judgement was telling me that this sure smelled like a scam of some kind but something else kept telling me, what if she was telling the truth. I’m well aware of what Jesus said we’re to do concerning someone who needs help and if we did it not to one of the least of His brethren, we did it not to Him. I take that very seriously.
If she was telling the truth, she definitely needed help and I was in a position to help her. She said that if I let her pay for my groceries with her card and gave her the cash money, that I wouldn’t be out anything, that my groceries would be paid for.

Since I didn’t know what kind of a card she was talking about, I wouldn’t let her put my whole order ($71) on it but I told her I’d agree to give her $10 cash for $10 of my groceries being put on her card. I figured that would buy her almost 3 gallons of gas which, hopefully, would have been enough to get her home. I think gas here, depending on where you buy it, is about $3.30 a gallon.
One thing I definitely don’t want is a guilty conscience, about anything. And I’d rather take a chance and get cheated by some crook than refuse to help someone who might be telling the truth. If I hadn’t done anything at all, I think my conscience would have always bothered me about that. As it is, I wished later that I’d have agreed to $15, just to be sure she’d have had enough to get home. I’ll always wonder if she was telling the truth or not and if that was enough to get her home.
After I got home and looked over my receipt from the grocery store, I saw that it was a food stamp card that she paid for my groceries with. I sure hope the government doesn’t find out about it. I don’t know if they could come after me or not for allowing her to do that but they could sure go after her. It’s illegal to sell food stamps which is what that amounted to. Everything she said may have been true or she may have been lieing and just wanted the money for drugs or whatever. But having no way to know if she was telling the truth or not, I’m not sorry I did it. I’m just sorry I didn’t let her have $15, just in case.

I’d like to hear opinions from anyone who wants to give them about this situation and what you think you would do if you’d be in a situation like that.

Later,
BlueGirl

[Zerbie]

I would have been confused too, I'm fairly certain of that. I've never had a stranger plead to pay for my groceries before. !! Actually, I might have found it odd enough to have said No just b/c of not understanding it.

So essentially, she did sell a food stamp? It would seem? Well, listen - I am sure no authority is going to come after you. It is obvious you were being kind hearted, not sure what her trouble was, and trying to be a good samaritan to a stranger in trouble. Anyone will know that, if anyone were ever to look into it. Which I'm sure no one will. I am sure you're fine. And just in case the young lady was in real trouble, you gave her enough cash for gas to get home so she wouldn't be stranded out of town.

I try to go with instinct on these things. If my instinct says to say no, I will. If it says to offer something, I'll do that. There really is no way to know, and it is important to draw boundaries and not lose ourselves intending to rescue others. It sounds like you offered a good balance.

It's over now, so I wouldn't second guess yourself anymore.