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.
No comments:
Post a Comment