My Little Family

When I got home yesterday from my 6th day at my new job, girlettes had lined up in the window for a birthday parade. They had recruited bink to hang a birthday banner (above them) too. "We are too small."

The Small Family (not all present)

I'd voted in the presidential primary, on the way home.
Fastest time ever--no line to stand in, one oval to fill; though I did pause a moment to consider if I should write in Penny Cooper. But she's a civic-minded girl and likes things to be Correct, and I could just hear her objecting, "I am not old enough to run for president."

I posted this photo ^ on FB, where I now have 27 friends. A couple didn't know it was Primary Day. Not that it matters much at this point? Still.

Annette dropped by after work with ground chilis from New Mexico, where she'd been visiting her granddaughter, and two bags of beautiful oranges. So kind of her--and a perfect gift: my workplace is dry--oranges for lunch will be welcome, and I'll feel cared for when I peel them.

I've been taking my lunch--mostly sandwiches--and eating in the small staff lounge on my floor, which is pleasant. The brick building is a hundred years old, with wood floors, tall ceilings (long staircases to climb), and big windows (they open!). Someone has hung spider plants in the break-room's windows. Signs of care--so welcome.

Staff can buy school lunch for $5, and maybe sometimes I will--there's a small but fresh salad bar and always some vegetarian option. Yesterday when I was went with a student to get their lunch, I saw there was both black bean burgers and lentil sambusas.

Lunch is free for ALL students.
No one needs to apply or prove anything--they just enter their student number at the cash register.
Brilliant!
Some things have improved in schools.

Yesterday I saw another improvement: mental health services. 
There was a mild but real incident, and I was glad to see there's a system in place that does work.
(An older social worker involved and I talked afterward and agreed that if there'd been anything like this for distressed students when we were in high school, we sure hadn't known about it.)

My coworkers were all supportive and gave me more info when I talked to them afterward.
Astonishing to have SUPPORT and resources at work.

The thrift store badly, badly needed a system like this--a chain of simple steps to get people connected to services. I was endlessly frustrating that management rejected any such thing.
I asked Big Boss once what we could do for someone, and he said, "Pray".
Prayer is fine, for a start, but you gotta DO something.

I saw again how well the store prepared me for difficulties.
I was actually the person the student had turned to (pretty much just because I was there), and while I didn't know the steps to follow, I knew I could figure it out, and be present for the student in the meantime.
Not my first rodeo.

I always said the store was the Wild West, but it's kind of shocking to keep realizing in contrast with this workplace how true that was--how lawless, how "everyone-for-themselves" it was.
Even someone caring for PLANTS feels so civilized.
And coworkers ask things like, "What are you reading?"
Everyone I asked was going to vote, or already had.
Nobody offered up a conspiracy theory.
(I almost miss some of the unhinged opinions. Almost. I really don't miss the place though.)

In the evening, bink, Maura, and Marz took me out to dinner at a favorite Ecuadorian restaurant, Chimburazo, where the young server looked like a twin (Marz agreed) to Callum Keith Rennie (from Due South and Battlestar Galactica). He didn't know who that was, so I showed him a photo on my phone.
Sometimes I love phones.
He even wore his hair all spiky, like CKR.

My sister had sent me zinnia seeds she'd saved from her flowers last year, in a card. That's it for surviving relatives, though I feel the others at my back. Not in some supernatural way, just remembering their love, little things like the way Auntie Mary sent a few dollar bills in a birthday card every year.

During dinner, I looked at my friends. "My little family", I said.

I wish I'd asked CKR to take our photo, all together. Marz is leaving town soon--she's working at a canoe camp on the Canadian border this summer, and then she's off to college!
MN has made state tuition free, which is brilliant. She's smart to jump on it--we'll see how long it lasts.

On the way home from dinner, a bridge was lit up in red, white, and blue bars. "I wonder why they're showing the colors of France," I said.

"Maybe because France added abortion right to their constitution?" bink said.

Marz laughed. "Maybe it's red white and blue for Election Day in the USA?"

Oh, yeah, that.