Odds and Ends

I can't decide whether to write about this morning's experiment or last night's adventure. I vote for both.

This morning, Grantley and I were three blocks deep into our dawns early light waltz and I noticed that every time I started singing? Her tail would wag. She walks with her tail up. I remember a lady commenting that her tail looked 'so proud'. I don't know if I especially noticed it before. Anyway, yeah, remember that record player called The Close and Play? "Close it. It plays. Open it. It stops." Her tail was just like that. I'm going to try it again tomorrow to see if this morning was a fluke.

I was grateful to have that letter from last night because I was SO tired-there was no way I was gonna be able to type. My boss asked if I would join her Zonta group working at the food depository and I had never been there and I guess Zonta is all about empowering women and then the food depository-self explanatory so, I asked MK and she is all about spending time assisting the universe to spin a little better so off we went.

It was south south south. We got there and after an introduction they put us to work and I am not kidding that it was work. I'll be smiling even more broadly at the stock people at the Jewel because that is tough stuff. We were wrapped around this conveyor belt-ala I Love Lucy with Ethel and the chocolates episode. Me and MK didn't get a primo spotto putting things in the boxes. That was the essential gig. Everyone along the line was responsible for placing one item in a predetermined spot within the cardboard box. We backed them up. Yoikes.

MK got behind the chili guy and the sardine guy. I was behind the tomato soup lady and the tuna lady. Cases of tomato soup are HEAVY.

Yet! Cans of beef stew are worse and I didn't have that so, what am I whining about? They were constructing these (one thousand one hundred ninety one)emergency boxes of food suitable for a single person to keep them going for about three days. I'm not going to remember everything that was in the box but ya know what? It didn't look too bad. It was tomato soup, tuna, corn flakes, rice, orange drink, peanut butter and jelly, crackers, canned mixed vegetables, powdered milk, plastic spoons, oatmeal, beef stew, and that's all I can remember but I'm sure there was more.

I'm writing about this for two reasons. One-maybe someone else would like to go and spend a night trying this out. Me and MK thought it was a good activity. A good upper body aerobic work out. Something you could just show up to do without a long term commitment and I guess you're actually doing something necessary for human survival. They said they'd shut down without volunteers. The other thing worth mentioning was just something I noticed-just that emergency or poverty brings with the absence of choices. Like yeah you get tomato soup but it's not the kind you'd normally buy. And the cereal is not Fruit Loops by any stretch of the imagination.

I always thought I could motivate students to read more if they had any idea of all the stuff you can look up at the library. I mean, you can read about anything. I don't think non-readers really appreciate that.

Same thing here. Additional income seems to increase choices.

Maybe an entire blog so so 'duh-inducing' it's not even worth mentioning. Maybe I should just go to bed.