For the Ice Cream Social (next Wednesday from 1-3 pm, if you're in the area of Our Daily Bread) we asked for, and got, a case of bananas donated. This means my first successful grant request at this job was paid out in bananas. (Those of you who know what I was paid the first time I was ever paid for a story will especially appreciate this. Those who don't know--it would take far too long to explain.) One case=40 pounds of bananas, enough for one hundred people. That's a lot of banana splits. We've also gotten free ice cream and money to buy syrups, nuts, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, etc. etc.
I love my job.
On Easter Monday my existentialist mentor gave the 'Bread sandwiches left over from her parish's post-Easter Vigil feast and some balloons that had decorated the tables. They were the standard helium balloons, the kind that deflate in a day, but after a week they were still holding up. All but one--one dropped to the floor.
There's this little boy who comes in the office every once in a while looking for Mary Beth, or, as he puts it, "maay BEHHH" (he's like three years old). Actually he calls all of us "maay BEHHH" but it's clear that it's the original maay BEHHH he's looking for. He came in one day last week. It took me a while to realize he was in the office because I could just barely see the top of his head bobbing along on the far side of my desk.
"maay BEHHH?"
"No," I told him. "She's not in right now. Shall we go look for her?"
"K."
So we wandered out into the main dining room.
"maay BEHHH?"
"I don't see her...oh, but look, want a balloon?"
I pulled out the one that had fallen and gave it to him. Then we played a quick game where I would kick it out of his hands and he'd chase after it. This made him squeal with glee. It was the first time I'd heard him really happy.
A couple of days after that we let one of our guests take the whole bunch of remaining balloons--which, yes, were still inflated. You couldn't see his face as he left, just all these pastel teardrop shapes bobbing their way out the door.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Cooie
Here's how my day went yesterday.
Just after 8 in the morning I hopped in my car to go to a workshop on grantwriting I'd registered for last week. When I sent in the payment for the workshop, I'd torn out the whole page in the brochure with the registration form. What I tore out included the "Save the Date" info with the directions to the workshop, but I didn't worry about this. I just figured the workshop would be held at the headquarters of the organization that sent out the brochure. So I went from Norwood, where I live, out 71 to 275 (on a rainy day, this trip took about 25 minutes). I got there a little late, thought it was odd there were no cars in the parking lot, went in to the office and apologized for being late for the workshop.
"But that workshop isn't being held here--it's in Norwood."
"!...I just came from Norwood!"
So back in the car I went. Luckily not much had happened before I got in the conference room at the real location; they hadn't even started the PowerPoint slides yet.
During the workshop one of my co-workers at my old job left a message on my phone. When the presentation was over at 11:30 I listened to the message.
(Background: last week I'd tried to arrange a lunch for sometime this week with my old boss and our regular lunch crew. We'd originally planned for Tuesday, but it was silly for me to plan for Tuesday because I had also planned for my friend Beth, who was in from out of town, to come in to work with me that day. So I'd emailed my old boss back to ask if another day of the week would be better.)
My co-worker's phone message said that my boss had gotten my email, had decided Wednesday would be the day we'd go to lunch, had sent invites to the whole crew--but had forgotten to tell me. By the time I'd listened to the message and called my old co-worker back, they were all at the restaurant already. Luckily the real location of the workshop was fairly close to the restaurant, so I placed my order through my co-worker's cell phone and got there in time to see her starting in on my crab rangoon.
After that I got in to work. We're planning an Ice Cream Social at Our Daily Bread as part of the continuing festivities surrounding Cookie's retirement. It's going to be during the time our regular guests are around; we're inviting donors and friends from all over, so it should be an interesting mix of people. Yesterday we were on the "design a postcard to send out" stage. The Wednesday Craft Lady had recommended the Chiller font because it looks cool in both senses of the word, so I used that to write:
Join us for an
Ice Cream Social!
Wednesday, May 2nd, 1-3 pm
Come help us celebrate and thank
Our Cookie V.!
Then I copied it and pasted it four times so we could cut up the cardstock we were using to postcard size. I used a clip art image of a sundae (I love clip art), enlarged it, brightened it and took away a lot of its contrast so it could hide behind the words and become sort of a subliminal sundae. Deeply pleased with myself, I ran off the master copy, stuck it in our mondo copier in the back room and printed 200 postcards. Then I ran the cardsstock through a second time to print the return address on the back.
First problem: I hadn't waited long enough for the ink to dry. My pretty Chiller script got all streaky. Oh, well, I thought--maybe it'd help people to feel sorry for us if our mailings are a bit imperfect.
Next problem: As I cut the sheets down to postcard size, I saw that the return address didn't line up very well. Sometimes it was right at the corner, sometimes it was a quarter of the way down the card. My postcards were starting to look pretty sad.
And then: I happened to notice as I was cutting that I must have deleted something by accident after I had done the copying and pasting of the invite. One-quarter of the cards now said
Join us for an
Ice Cream Social!
Wednesday, May 2nd, 1-3 pm
Come help us celebrate and thank
Our Cooie V.!
I left these on Cooie's desk. I hope she notices.
Just after 8 in the morning I hopped in my car to go to a workshop on grantwriting I'd registered for last week. When I sent in the payment for the workshop, I'd torn out the whole page in the brochure with the registration form. What I tore out included the "Save the Date" info with the directions to the workshop, but I didn't worry about this. I just figured the workshop would be held at the headquarters of the organization that sent out the brochure. So I went from Norwood, where I live, out 71 to 275 (on a rainy day, this trip took about 25 minutes). I got there a little late, thought it was odd there were no cars in the parking lot, went in to the office and apologized for being late for the workshop.
"But that workshop isn't being held here--it's in Norwood."
"!...I just came from Norwood!"
So back in the car I went. Luckily not much had happened before I got in the conference room at the real location; they hadn't even started the PowerPoint slides yet.
During the workshop one of my co-workers at my old job left a message on my phone. When the presentation was over at 11:30 I listened to the message.
(Background: last week I'd tried to arrange a lunch for sometime this week with my old boss and our regular lunch crew. We'd originally planned for Tuesday, but it was silly for me to plan for Tuesday because I had also planned for my friend Beth, who was in from out of town, to come in to work with me that day. So I'd emailed my old boss back to ask if another day of the week would be better.)
My co-worker's phone message said that my boss had gotten my email, had decided Wednesday would be the day we'd go to lunch, had sent invites to the whole crew--but had forgotten to tell me. By the time I'd listened to the message and called my old co-worker back, they were all at the restaurant already. Luckily the real location of the workshop was fairly close to the restaurant, so I placed my order through my co-worker's cell phone and got there in time to see her starting in on my crab rangoon.
After that I got in to work. We're planning an Ice Cream Social at Our Daily Bread as part of the continuing festivities surrounding Cookie's retirement. It's going to be during the time our regular guests are around; we're inviting donors and friends from all over, so it should be an interesting mix of people. Yesterday we were on the "design a postcard to send out" stage. The Wednesday Craft Lady had recommended the Chiller font because it looks cool in both senses of the word, so I used that to write:
Join us for an
Ice Cream Social!
Wednesday, May 2nd, 1-3 pm
Come help us celebrate and thank
Our Cookie V.!
Then I copied it and pasted it four times so we could cut up the cardstock we were using to postcard size. I used a clip art image of a sundae (I love clip art), enlarged it, brightened it and took away a lot of its contrast so it could hide behind the words and become sort of a subliminal sundae. Deeply pleased with myself, I ran off the master copy, stuck it in our mondo copier in the back room and printed 200 postcards. Then I ran the cardsstock through a second time to print the return address on the back.
First problem: I hadn't waited long enough for the ink to dry. My pretty Chiller script got all streaky. Oh, well, I thought--maybe it'd help people to feel sorry for us if our mailings are a bit imperfect.
Next problem: As I cut the sheets down to postcard size, I saw that the return address didn't line up very well. Sometimes it was right at the corner, sometimes it was a quarter of the way down the card. My postcards were starting to look pretty sad.
And then: I happened to notice as I was cutting that I must have deleted something by accident after I had done the copying and pasting of the invite. One-quarter of the cards now said
Join us for an
Ice Cream Social!
Wednesday, May 2nd, 1-3 pm
Come help us celebrate and thank
Our Cooie V.!
I left these on Cooie's desk. I hope she notices.
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