One last (water balloon) hurrah

After all the counting down, the end comes so fast.

I have been waiting weeks, and waiting months, for this day. Tomorrow. My last day. My release. My scheduled permission to move on with my life.

And here it is...yet it seems to be event-worthy only in my own mind. Life goes on despite the headlines in our personal lives, especially in social work. Half our staff are gone, leaving no management in the office. Everyone is doing their job and trying to keep up. Appointments still need to be made, food needs to be unpacked in the pantry. My departure may be visible to me, but it sure doesn't matter to those coming to the center. Most of the staff, too - they go through Americorps members like weekly groceries. Sure, they'll miss me, but I'm another in the line of revolving HFRC staff.

Oh well. This doesn't mean it's not important to me. In fact, unlike college graduation - which I honored by skipping the ceremony, opting for a dragonboat race instead, and doing Life As Usual - I am celebrating this one with raucous friend time, Lebanese food, alcohol, and 90's dance music (isn't this how every celebration should be?). Celebrating a year to remember! A year to learn! A year that, after so many spent in repetitive college classes (in school), I was challenged. For me, college was just something you do - Americorps, on the other hand, was something I chose, worked for, was anxious over, and worked through challenges while in it. And beat them. I like to think I headbutted most of them into oblivion.

Ha, just kidding. But before I continue writing more metaphors that make less than half the sense they should, I am going to sign off and go to bed. To wake up for my last day of Americorps national service.

Booyah world!

Four weeks and counting...

Have I mentioned that I'm ready to be done? Enough with the muffled-morning commutes and feeling of working helplessly, with only the goal of being finished. I'm tired of combing the office cabinet and settling on crappy food I don't really want. I would like to be home for dinner once, please. So I suppose I'll outline the highlights of each week...

Week 1: July 4, my least favorite holiday, gets a bump in the polls for providing me a 4-day weekend and a 3-day workweek.

Week 2: going out with the coworkers, something that should be done more (with most of them, anyway). We're celebrating (or mourning?) the departure of both myself and Irene within a week of each other. We settled quickly on Skate World, though I think Irene, Rosie and I (the youngest and least tied-down by children or husbands) are the most excited. Retro Night - we don't know quite what this means, but it does mean Irene and I, at least, will be wearing side ponytails and ridiculous clothing.

Week 3: July 20th is Ruby's wedding - a Wednesday. Like most weddings, the lead-up seems to have gone on forever. I am excited to hang out with the gals again, see her fiance/husband in the flesh, and, honestly, see Ruby tipsy or more. Haha.

Week 4: what can I say, it will be the last week! Irene will be gone (very sad), a new coordinator will be rushing around the office (I feel for him/her...) and I will be hard-pressed to find motivation. And then I will be done! And no longer receiving a paycheck.

Damnit, money.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

If you were here, I would tell you about the craft activities I set up each day for the kids in our Summer Food Program. How any combination of construction paper, markers, and glue occupies kids. How paint - and the inevitable ensuing mess - makes them even happier. What craft ideas would you have for me? That boundless kid wisdom would have helped me. Did you know you had an amazing spring of creativity? For adults and kids, it was alluring. Why can't we swap ideas anymore.

I just discovered kids, and their absolute honesty. Their funny answers. Their bursts of energy. Tthe quiet "yes" of shy delight. The frustration, and the exhaustion, and the fresh fun.

Right now I'm stressed out. I'm getting over a cold. I want to complain to you about my long daily commute. I miss your voice, sending me a message from your never-never-land of relaxation to "take it easy, Zoe! You're doing a lot and need to take care of yourSELF!" I would probably still nod and distractedly say "yeah...". Thanks Mom; it sure is easy to take of yourself when you're not working 40 hours a week and commuting 10 more. So many of my calls were just an obligation, but now I wish I could hear you again. I love you.

I've heard you were endlessly proud of us, and now I just want to share what I'm doing with you. I want to share my life with you to feel your pride, and make you happy. I want to encourage your own dreams, really this time, instead of listening to my experiences. I know you could do it, if you wanted to. I love you.

I have no illusions that if you were still here, I would still be distractedly saying "yeah...", and still rolling my eyes silently when you announce your (13th) grand plan of the year. But I love you so much, and I wish I could share the moments of my life with you that I know you would love.

Love you.

Six weeks and counting!

This weekend marks the beginning of the end. Six weeks left to go before I am an Americorps graduate, unemployed, free from the two-hour commute, and ready to earn the monayz.

I'll miss my girls - Irene, stomping around the office waiting for her computer to unfreeze and forever grateful for my ability to keep her organized (I do? Okay, well thanks). Ruby, that sweet funny girl, even when stressed out, who peeks over our divider to chat. Rosie, my wonderfully sarcastic friend who grins wildly and says 'shut up' anytime I compliment her (seriously or no). Lourdes, with her thick Brazilian accent making her offbeat comments even more charming.

I'll miss the casual. Wearing my sneakers to work, rocking to music on headphones while I work at my desk, wandering around the office and starting a conversation. Being able to monitor myself is wonderful.

Well, six weeks of wrapping up projects (which means starting them too, whoops!), writing reports for the next Americorps member, and spending two hours outside every day with kids, making craft projects and serving lunch. So that's cool!

Sunny Friday Bar Work?

That's right folks, right now I am sitting in a bar, drinking 16 ounces of pure peach-sweet foggy whiskey from a mason jar. Rosie and I have made our way from sushi happy hour, to pink champagne cupcakes, and finally to Swift where we have settled in to work.

So I thought I'd give a few updates:

- The arrival of June means nearing the end of this service adventure story. With just under two months to go, I am suddenly feeling nostalgic. This is my cycle: writhe passionately in the joy of new experiences and skills, squirm in the constraints of my location (college, college 2, Americorps), then suddenly grasp on to the remaining moments that I know, despite all my griping, I will miss in a few months.

That's not totally true. I'm still looking forward to finishing this, to moving on, to completing every week. But unlike the torturous month of March I can see the end of the line and I don't want to get there without a few more stops on the way.

- Summer Food Program: activities include a treasure hunt (made by Zoe!!), Carnival Day (face painting anyone?), balloon car races, making/bashing a pinata), and recycled art. Guests include firefighters (hot please!), Reptile Man, and seeing eye dogs. I've been doing a lot of planning.

- Some bad news from the resource center. My dear coordinator, friend, partner-in-crime will be leaving. Irene told me she is done working at the HFRC. I understand now - it's stressful, she never went into it thinking it would be more than a year, and our boss is not the best to deal with. It felt a little too close to the breakup of (another) family, though, and I spent some emotional minutes in the car with her. She is committed to finding and training a great replacement coordinator, and I did spend some time comforting her - she shouldn't feel horrible about her decision as she was incredibly responsible about it. She will be leaving at the end of June, possibly into July.

- But! The GOOD news is that we got another Americorps member. This in itself is not good news - I feel like a lot of Americorps positions are just a way to get a cheap employee. But it's also giving young, less qualified people like myself a chance to handle real responsibility and get experience. So maybe not so bad? Whatever the case (endlessly debatable...especially depending on your idea of Americorps' goal[s]), Irene and I will be interviewing and choosing a new member! Which means I get to sit in on interviews, and ask questions, and give my opinion...omg so cool.

- I'm going to meet with Kate's dad, who used to work a lot on campaigns, and see what kind of job prospects for September - December I can drum up.

- I'm taking 2-3 weeks in August to travel the length and breadth of California and visit all my lovely people! From the city of angels/smog to Ventura to Oakland to Petaluma to Lake Shasta...very excited.

LOVE YOU BYE!

The perplexity of cellphones

In late December a drunk, homeless man ended up at our center after we had closed and refused to leave for over an hour. He called me a racist for helping a Hispanic lady but not him, a black man, and pulled out his cell phone, more complex than my own, to look up "KKK" on google news. Yes, sir, I agree with you that racism is still alive and kicking. If I could talk over your angry blustering pronouncements, I would tell you that I am less than five hours from a two-week vacation and catering to your needs while you yell at me is the last thing I want to be doing.

I was walking down the street in February when a man sitting on the sidewalk, "please give" sign and all, pulls out a cell phone and tells his friend that yeah, he'll jump on the MAX and meet him in no time.

Most of our clients, in fact, have cell phones. Some very plain, some pretty damn fancy. They pull them out while searching for free clothes in our Clothes Closet, or dawdle in the (emergency) food pantry to ask about canned carrots. One of our admin assistants, one of those friendly-but-never-ever-ever-cross-her types, also gets a food box - and recently purchased a new iPhone.

Is this a sign of the troubled, upside-down world we live in, where people don't have enough money to buy food but direct poverty-level incomes to paying their cell phone bill? Sometimes I would believe that.

Of course, there is always the debate about poverty in developed nations vs developing countries. Those living in poverty having benefits to fall back on. There are programs to give kids backpacks full of school supplies for school, not to raise funds to build a school. And perhaps cell phones, like cars, are becoming more and more of a necessity these days. Not like food or shelter, sure, but if you want to function and get a job than you'd better have a quick way to reach you.

The company Cricket offers pay-as-you-use cell phones, which makes even more sense.

Still, I keep coming back to these two homeless guys, and to our many clients - in tough economic times, at least you can still gossip on the phone at any point. Or even better, play a game on your phone.

I don't actually have much contact with clients, and I probably wouldn't ask them about this. So maybe there are better reasons out there. It is completely and likely possible that I have not thought this through. If so, leave a comment my dear friend.

Summertiiiiime!

Waiting for summertime...

Both for the work, and for the sunshine/trampoline/delicious fruit and vegetables! Time seems to drag on and on sometimes, but now it's suddenly picking up. I realized that the Summer Food Program is suddenly starting in a month and a half...I better start coordinating some volunteers! And planning some activities! Aiiieeeee!

So I've got to do that, and make up my hours that I missed (Americorps you're lame), and do overtime work on a "Leadership Project" (OSSC Americorps you're lame). Although it'll be great to build up on hours now (in May) so that in June and July, when Kate is no longer working 14-hour days and I am still commuting back and forth from Hillsboro, I can at least leave early so I can come home to the above-mentioned wonders - sunshine, trampoline, delicious food, and FRIENDS!

The past month has been tough, but life is certainly looking up. Three months seems like a long time to work but I'm hoping with all this excitement the time will fly by. I do know there are a ton of projects to do, and I can't imagine finishing them in that time, but that's okay. I'll just pass them on to the next Americorps member and leave knowing I've done an incredible amount. Because I am proud. I will have left this place more organized and more sustainable in multiple ways. Go me!