CAN OPENER

It's here! Okay, people, pull out the supplications in earnest—I'm as nervous as a virgin on the verge—I don't like having to be underhanded... but we do what we must.

IT's ALL GOOD

       Joey had a little pot of soup started when I got there. We poured it into the giant pot and I peeled potatoes and chopped celery and onion to add. Then I added three more cans from the mystery box. We heard compliments galore and served a few second helpings. For some reason, our concocted soup seems to taste homemade to our clients—they get sentimental over it. Maybe my personal homemade soup is taking a lot more effort than necessary…
       Joey had a big bag of gorgeous brown bread loaves, like baguettes only soft. He had cut them into sandwich-size pieces and sliced open each piece. We put turkey, ham, cheese, lettuce and Italian dressing on them. That was a first for us, and we were so pleased with the final product. The two heads of lettuce from which I gleaned enough for the sandwiches had lived previous lives… I was surprised how much could be salvaged from something that I would normally throw in the trash before digging to the middle.

       I had taken a cucumber/tomato/red onion salad, so we served that on the side, and lunch was a success. We had 4 pre-release folks and about 18 homeless, including a pair of towheaded toddlers. How cute!

       Miss Anna (the other Sunday lady) is coming in this afternoon to help Joey serve up dinner. She's been sick for awhile, so I'm glad to know she's coming back.

       Joey helped me with the lunch sacks today—36 sacks, 72 sandwiches—whew.

       One came often to the kitchen. He didn't have any new stories for me, but his company is always a pleasure. I get the feeling that he'd rather be serving in the capacity of his college degree, but he doesn't shirk the responsibilities of this position.

       As always, we had C&W oldies.

       Miss Patsy doesn't live there anymore and Joey says that's why she was so grumpy last week—she'd been asked to move out. "Paranoid" was a word Joey used. Apparently Miss Patsy wasn't able to get along with other residents. Actually, Paranoia and Schizophrenia OFTEN live in homeless shelters. In spite of what some of the staff say, I don't see Lazy when I look at those people. I see Lost and Frightened, but they generally pull up their bootstraps and move on, just using the shelter as a launching pad.

       On the education front, Joey gave me a full rundown of his week's math accomplishments. He took the 3rd-grade math workbook I gave him to school and showed it to his teacher. She approves! He learned greater than and less than. He figured out how counting by 10s is not the same as by 5s, and that multiples of 3 are difficult. He's thinking. I love it.

      "So, Miss Joy," he said today, "I've been thinking I'd like to learn to drive."

       "You'll need driver training," I said.

       "Yeah, but I wouldn't know where to even start for that!"

       "Joey," I said, "there was a time when you really wanted your GED, but you didn't know where to start, and just look at you today! Why don't you ask your teacher? Maybe she'll know."

       I see another success coming Joey's way. What a kid!

       Well… that's about it—three hours, sore back, big smile—good times.

FATHER'S DAY

       Thunder rolled through our area at 5 o'clock this morning. By the time I got up at 8 and to the shelter kitchen at 10, the storm had put down roots, with high winds and lightening. Joey had lunch prep underway, and the kitchen was warm and safe. Let the rain fly!

       We were serving deviled eggs (5 dozen), sausage gravy with biscuits, pizza with salad, and applesauce with brown sugar and cinnamon. Everybody got something they wanted—and they all wanted deviled eggs. "My mama made those," I heard, and for some reason it makes me uncomfortable to provide that sort of memory for folks—like I evoked unnecessary sadness.

       A young woman came to work with us around mid-morning. Joey said she was working off her community service and that he'd give anything to know what she did. He cannot imagine such a person breaking the law. "She's like you, Miss Joy—high class."

       High class. Who knew?

       I very much enjoyed the child. We made the sack lunches together. She told me that she'd been coming to the kitchen during the week and working with Miss Lillian and other ladies. They made her put napkins in all the sacks… and they made her make up the sacks one at the time. She was delighted when I lined up a bunch of sacks and filled them assembly-line style. We had fun.

       Another new face came to lunch. Joey made a special plate for her and told me to save it "for Miss Patsy." When Miss Patsy came through the line, I asked for her room number and she became very agitated. "Ask Joey!" she demanded. Then she grabbed a plate and moved on before I ascertained that she was "Miss Patsy" who got the special plate.

       "Miss Patsy?" I called. "Joey made a special plate for you."

       She came back to the counter—much subdued and kinder. She's an angry woman. She seems to feel that she's been cheated of some circumstance that she deserves. Maybe she has. Certainly, Joey does not group her with the rest of the residents who he deems lazy—just plain lazy.

       We had lots of opportunity for math today. I see improvement. And he sees improvement! He made a 94 on last week's exam and says that learning comes so much easier for him now. I tell him it's because he's exercising his brain. Truly, Joey is a rich example of what can happen when we want something. I'm so proud of him.

       Okay, people, let's talk shop before I close. It's about that can opener. UPDATE: A large corporate restaurant is sending us a table-mounted, hand-crank industrial can opener! I WAS going to ask you guys for donations toward a new electric model, but now... now all I need is prayers. It might be less than slick to pass this table-mounted "contraption" off on Miss Lillian. I might have to elicit such dirty words as OSHA. I certainly FEEL like I'll need prayers. They're free. You can do this.

HOW DARK WAS IT?

       "One" flipped the switch to let me in this morning. "He's not here," he said, from behind his little office window. "We don't know where he is, but I'll let you in."

       He unlocked the kitchen and we stood there feeling helpless for a few minutes. Then I found some light switches, and brought the walls to life. No C&W music, no warm oven, no Joey. No lunch, either.

       The last time I found myself alone on a Sunday morning, Joey was trekking through the snow, and I dug through the big cooler for a makeshift lunch. When he finally arrived, he was quick to tell me I was heating up dinner.

       It happened much the same today. I spent about an hour dashing between the cooler, the freezer, and the pantry—desperately trying to formulate "lunch" for 45 people. My first decision was to make "soup" from the box of canned goods in the stockroom. A few of the cans had pop tops; the rest remained between heaven and hell, as I tried to ply that !@#$^#!% can opener (we notice nobody has offered to even help us get a new one)... so I was obliged to abandon the soup idea.

       I selected frozen chicken patties, buns, and coleslaw. Then I "turned on" the deep fryer—at least I thought I was turning it on (turns out that 250° is not enough). Didn't matter.

       When Joey finally came through the door (poor child has two immediate family in hospital and responsibility for two of their children), he was quick to appreciate me and to tell me that he already had lunch plans and dinner plans—neither of which was on the agenda I had created.

       We put the chicken back in the freezer, and Joey put his special casserole in the oven (I had seen that casserole but assumed it was for the evening meal). Then Joey and I scurried around to pull together some of his plans and some of mine in a short one hour. "I love you, Miss Joy!" he said. "I know you've always got my back."

       …well… I don't mind, but what if I just didn't turn up one Sunday?

       Because I had compromised the seals on numerous canned goods, Joey opened the cans for me, and I made a soup. This soup—I gotta tell you about this soup—has been on my to-do list for months! The canned-goods box was always full of cans of refried beans (what does one do with refried beans in a shelter kitchen?). Also, there were cans of chili, black beans, tomatoes, and corn. I put about a dozen cans of food in one of the giant pots, along with about a quart of water.

       When it was done, we had enough "soup" to feed both groups! I was fairly certain we'd have a lot of it left over. No. That soup made an enormous hit, and seconds flowed freely. "Miss Joy," they said, "that soup was delicious!" Blame it on the mystery cans—trust me—there was no magic recipe in that pot.

       While our homeless were having lunch and I was still working on the 25 sack lunches, a young woman came into the kitchen. She had very long hair (not pinned up or "kitchenfied" and kept her purse slung over her shoulder as she fixed herself a drink, took a plate of salad, ate it, tossed the plate in my trash can, found herself a few snacks, and chatted it up with Joey. My brain was screaming "Health Department!" but it is Joey's kitchen.

       After she left, I asked him, "Who was that?" and he explained that she is supposed to come to the kitchen to work off her community-service hours, but she only comes around to get a little food now and then. I told Joey how I had wanted to throw the trollop out, and he said I was more than welcomed to do that! Of course, she won't come back on my watch, and I won't get an opportunity to satisfy my righteousness…

       Well… needless to say, serving lunch was done on the fly but turned out well. One came several times to the kitchen, as if he thought we needed moral support—maybe we did. And near the end of my shift, the social worker from upstairs wandered in, "I haven't seen you in a long time!"

       "I was gone 3 months," I said. "Where were you?" Then he helped himself to a bowl of the soup, and seconds. Who would have ever thought that good soup could come out of refried beans?

       Before I could escape, Joey was "helping me plan" next Sunday's lunch. "I think we should have brunch next Sunday," he said. The ultimate question was what do we serve since we cannot serve peach daiquiris? Eventually Joey decided that I should bring deviled eggs, and he sent me home with 5 dozen eggs for next week, which led, of course, to a brief lesson on "What is 2 times 4? And what is 2 times 6? And what other words do we use for 6? …and 12?"

       He just lights up so when something like "a half dozen" slides into home base. If I could teach that child every day, I probably wouldn't need all the drugs and alcohol that One says I don't use.

A DEARTH of PRISONERS???

       Only 18 sack lunches were needed today! I thought I'd been dropped off in Heaven. Before I turned around, the lunches were finished, and Joey and I had brought together as many PBJ sacks for the street folks. Meanwhile, he was baking some FINE turkeys for tonight's dinner. I could smell the garlic and onions when I walked in; the kid can cook.
       For lunch we served plates of leftovers from yesterday and some plates of freshly deep-fried corndogs, onion rings, French fries and breaded jalapeño peppers (with cheese)... oh, and salad. By the time I had taste tested the onion rings, fries, and peppers, I wasn't interested in the health-food section...
       I made plates for 3 toddlers today, but only one showed up for lunch. Sadly, his mom had him chewing on an onion ring instead of the cheese, meat, and vegetables I had carefully chipped up for him. We do what we can ...said the Jewish mother.
       So we made about a dozen plates for our pre-release folks. Joey has never gotten the count straight on who's coming to lunch from that crowd. We have a long-standing joke about his count. There were two (count them—2) people from that group for lunch. When one of them came back to the counter looking soulfully at the remaining plates, I asked him, "Are you still hungry?"
       "Yes," he said.
       "What would you like?" I asked.
       "Could I have another plate?"
       "Sure," I said, "but you didn't hear it from me."
       Sure enough, within seconds Joey was on my heels, "I don't give seconds."
       "But I do," I told him. He grinned. He knows better than to jump on me—good help is hard to find.
      The homeless were in greater abundance, and eventually nearly all of the food we prepared was eaten! It's the first time I've seen the preparations and the takers so well distributed.
       Toward the end of my shift, Joey and I tried to put a large aluminum pan of rice & water into a steamer. It wasn't the first time one of those pans had gone cattiwampus on us—darned thing spilled into the pan on the bottom rack and onto the floor. Try adding the right amount of water after the fact!
       I burned my leg on an open oven door, but Joey gave me some salve, and I haven't heard from that burn since, though it's plainly visible.
       "One" was there again. Looks like he's doing the day shift on a full-time basis. I haven't seen the young pregnant woman at that post in weeks. More brain fodder for me! "One" is s.m.a.r.t!
       And BTW (in case it isn't yet on your "ponder it" list), that can opener need is outstanding, and this one is only $509!
       Thanks for coming by!