ramblings and musings from this past week

Hey smokers! I don't want to smell like cigarettes. I don't want to die of lung cancer. I don't want to inhale your awful addiction. Obey the law and get out of the bus shelters and away from doorways. If you're too cold to stand in the snow and smoke, then maybe now is a good time to quit. I already don't enjoy standing in the freezing cold waiting for my bus, I definitely don't want my disgust for cigarettes to be added to that long, cold, finger-numbing wait outside.

I keep finding marshmallows all over my apartment, hidden under furniture and behind picture frames (that are leaning on the ground), from my fondue party. I just spotted one as I write this post. Thanks friends, I'm glad you had a good time-but maybe if you lived on your own and had to clean messes yourself, you wouldn't be so inclined to start a food fight in someone else's home. (I'm a real grump, aren't I?)

Today I went driving, in the snow. I'm apparently doing really good. My instructor's accent makes me chuckle and he says about the same 5 phrases every time we're out. "Make sense?" "3-4 feet away from parked cars" "left, centre, right, check, good" "wonderful!" "just like I show you. I coach you. No worry". He makes learning to drive fun.

Last night I volunteered at a soup kitchen and might I say, I now understand why training is so vital. I walked in and said "hi, my name's Niki and I'm here to volunteer in the kitchen" a few people looked at me and one said "oh yay! a volunteer" and she took me to the kitchen. I expected other people to be there, but there wasn't anyone. No big deal, I then expected she would show me around (because I told her I'd never been here before) ... I'm learning to not expect anything. The only direction I got was "here's some pizza, cut it into six pieces, put it on these trays and don't let anyone in the kitchen" and then she walked out! Whattheheck? I didn't know where the knives were, where to wash my hands or how to handle clients if they decided to walk into the kitchen. I managed to find a knife and then a client demanded I let her into the kitchen because she needed a cloth to wipe the tables ... I looked at her dumbfounded and she says "what, you have a problem?" "Well, yeah, I'm, uh, not allowed to let you in... let me find you some water" (oh my gosh, what the heck am I doing??). Needless to say she kept coming back and then other people came asking for coffee and sugarmilk (what the heck is sugarmilk?), I kept saying that someone would be back (I hoped)... I got some pizzas cut up after finally finding a knife and then I found a phone and called reception (thank goodness for barely legible buttons-because '0' was not the reception line) and asked somebody to come in. They seemed exasperated that I would ask ... I was kind of stunned and probably looked like a deer in headlights. Finally when it was all over they started walking away and I said "what else do we need to do?" and three people looked at me and said "you can go home now, unless you want to stay".  Makes me wonder why people don't understand when they have a hard time finding volunteers.  Don't get me wrong, when I was actually serving the clients I had a grand time-but some training would have been helpful.

I should eat something (pizza) now. ... almost done with the pizzas. Oh and guess what we served at the soup kitchen and had leftovers for the volunteers of? PIZZA. Very funny God.