alarm clocks

I hate the sound of alarm clocks.  They’re jarring, they make my heart rate increase, they make me short of breath and I wake up angry and irritated which is not a good start to the day, especially when I’m not a morning person in the first place.   When I quit working outside the home I realized that I would no longer have to wake up to an alarm clock if I didn’t want to.  Oh happy days ahead of me!  And for a long while now, with a few exceptions, I haven’t.   When I realized I was going to need to use an alarm clock to make sure I make it to my volunteer gig on time two days a week, (not to mention Sunday mornings for church) I decided right then and there it would have to be iPod compatible and that it would need to have that gentle wake feature – where the music gets gradually louder so that it kind of lifts you from sleep rather than kicking you straight out of bed.

So did I find this alarm clock that had the features I want and need?  Yes I did, after a couple of false starts and store returns.  I now have the iHome iH11 and I’m very pleased.  It’s not huge so it doesn’t take up too much space on my nightstand and, miracle of all miracles, it works.  It also has pretty nice sound quality for its size.  Now I am gradually lifted from sleep by my iPod most mornings and even on the nights I forget to connect my iPod, the buzzer isn’t annoying.

When I wake up on Mondays and Tuesdays now, I’m preparing for my new volunteering gig.  It’s been about three years that I’ve had a heavy heart for people who find themselves homeless.  During the summer here where I live, I tend to see more people who are homeless standing on street corners or at the entrance to the Safeway parking lot holding signs asking for help.  And for reasons that elude me, other than the fact that I read Under the Overpass a few years ago, it breaks my heart a little bit moreso than other tragedies I witness.  Maybe it’s because I realized how quickly life can turn on a dime and that that person standing there today could be me in the future.  It takes one natural disaster, one healthy problem, one death in the family, one loss of job to end up homeless – and that’s not much.  Our lives and our livelihoods and what we acquire are so tenuous and delicate.  Maybe it’s because at some point I realized just how many of the local people who are homeless are also veterans.  I’m not sure and I’m not sure why suddenly three years ago it was laid on my heart, but it was.  For the last three years I’ve been working myself up the courage to actually do something about it which required more preparatory work than I imagined.

For one thing, I was inundated with fear.  I had to think about that long and hard and figure out what I was afraid of when I considered doing this work.  I realized I was afraid for my personal safety and I was afraid of becoming a target for theft.  I was embarrassed to realize that I was afraid of losing stuff, of having my things go missing.  That fear was a little easier to overcome once I realized it was there than the other.  Our stuff is not as important as people.  People first.  Always.  It also helped to realize how simply irrational that fear was.  Why would the possibility of theft suddenly increase just because I became an advocate for people who are homeless?  Obviously I had some biases and stereotypes to rid of myself.

But the personal safety issue wasn’t so irrational.  Being a woman I have to think about things differently than a man might.  I think about walking down the street differently than a man might.   I think about walking through a parking lot differently than a man might.  I think about being home alone differently than a man might.  Public bathrooms, riding in taxis, being at work, going to the doctor – all things that women tend to think about differently than a man might.  Putting myself out there as an advocate for people who might not even be happy to have me as their advocate and doing so as a woman has certain implications and so I have to be careful.  But there’s a difference between being careful and being afraid.  And ridding myself of the fear and simply learning to be careful still requires me to be okay with the possibility of harm.

I read a book a few months ago that changed my life because it increased my understanding of why this kind of advocacy is so important and why the risk of anything, up to and including death is worth the result.  I learned more about an activist I admire deeply and how, yes, his activism did indeed get him killed.  But when the passion comes from a place that is otherworldly, when it has ramifications that cannot be contained in 3 dimensions or in our concept of time and space, death seems, irrelevant.

That book really gave me courage.  I don’t actually fear death in the work I want to do.  I don’t even really fear harm.

Three years is a long time to be mulling over things of this nature and so I remind myself that I also got temporarily transplanted to San Diego for six months, Allan’s father died, my grandfather had health complications and then he died.  There’s been  a lot going on these past three years.  Finally the time had come to get involved and as the Nike commercial says, “Just do it.”  I called the Salvation Army and two local food banks to inquire about volunteer service opportunities.  No one called me back.  So I called and left messages again.  No one called me back.  At the same time I was getting the bug to start going back to church and after a lot of contemplation, I decided that I would attend an Episcopal church.  For one thing, the local Episcopal church’s website was peppered with social activism opportunities.   I thought, “I’ll probably be able to find an opportunity there.”  And I did.  I also found a group of like-minded believers to commune with and that was and is a nice surprise as well.

And as God is wont to do the volunteer opportunity didn’t have anything to do with homelessness, per se.  The organization that was advertising  was KCHAF:  Kitsap County HIV/AIDS Foundation.  The flier was advertising the need for drivers to deliver groceries to people who are home-bound.  So it had to do with feeding people, just not homeless people.  After a meeting and two weeks volunteer work I have a better idea what the program is about and I realize that this program helps people who are much closer to homelessness than most.  People who are affected by HIV/AIDS who also are at or just above the poverty line receive a bag of groceries every week full of nutritious food which helps the HIV/AIDS medicines work more effectively.   It’s about helping to keep them as healthy as possible so that they can be as independent as possible.

The first week was shaky for a lot of reasons but after this week, I feel really good about the work the foundation is doing and the fact that I get to be involved in helping it come together.  I’ve met some of the clients and they are great people who will undoubtedly and probably unknowingly teach me a lot.  I also get to work with other volunteers who are great people, again, more people who will be unknowingly teaching me much.

And suddenly that early morning alarm buzzer isn’t so bad.

balance

I started volunteering this week with Kitsap County HIV/AIDS Foundation, about 12 hours between yesterday and today.  I’m joining in as they are undergoing a huge change in their food delivery program and the person who has been heading that part up – his last day was today.  Back when I called the foundation in early November, R explained that currently, the food they deliver each week to their clients is trucked over from the Chicken Soup Brigade over in Seattle.  But funding got cut and at first, KCHAF was going to be on their own in funding, purchasing, bagging, and delivering the food for their clients come January 1.  Well, fortunately in December they found out that their funding through CSB got extended three more months and now they are planning to take over all functions April 1st.  But as I said, the person who has been heading the food delivery program is leaving and the hours I am able to commit to the foundation – 10-15 a week are the number of hours R works.  So perfect!

Except it’s not.  R basically handed over all of his brainstorming and files and information to me today and went over it all with me and I realized that to get this program up and running by April is going to be full time work.  I can’t devote full time work.  I can devote 10-15 hours a week.  And 10-15 hours a week means I can’t even really be heading this up because hopefully someone else will be working on this the other 25-30 hours a week.  I should be coming in and being directed, “Okay, today we need you to spend your 4 hours doing X.”  But I’m the only volunteer.  At first I thought about increasing my hours until April, but when I came home and talked to Husband about it, he brought up some valid reasons why I really can’t and probably shouldn’t – the most important being how quickly I’ll burn out.  And I don’t want to burn out.  I would like to be a long-term volunteer with KCHAF.

I have a really bad habit of thinking, “I can take care of that!” And then I work myself dizzy 60+ hours a week and eventually, 7-10 weeks later I want to throw in the towel because I have cared so much that I suddenly couldn’t care less.  Burnout.

On Monday I’m going to need to go in and talk to the ED and explain that as I would like to be able to work enough hours to get the program organized and managed, I can’t.  I don’t work outside the home, but in order for that to work for us financially, that means I do a lot of work inside the house which saves us money.  I iron Allan’s work shirts instead of sending them out to the cleaners, I cook all our dinners and I do a lot of cooking from scratch.  I do our budget and our taxes and banking.  I obviously clean the house.  During the summer I garden and grow vegetables. I take care of making Allan’s appointments, I do the grocery shopping, I take care of the vehicles.  I’m not going on and on to say, “Hey, look how great I am!”  I’m just saying, if I was working a full time job, I would be paying other people to help me do a lot of this stuff.

I’m stressed out by this right now.  It’ll work out, but it’s hard to get started with an organization and see X amount of need and only be able to give Y amount of time.  I also don’t want this to be stressful.  I don’t expect volunteer work to be fun! fun! fun! all the time, but it can’t be stressful either.  Work is work. But I really need to maintain balance.

volunteerism

On Tuesday I met with two people from KCHAF to discuss volunteer opportunities.  I envisioned volunteering with a food bank and working primarily with the homeless population in the county.  But I was unable to get in touch with the local food banks after calling a few organizations a few times each.  Then after my first Sunday worship at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, I saw a flier on the bulletin board advertising volunteer opportunities with KCHAF, delivering food to the homebound.  I took the tab at the bottom with the phone number and called not really understanding exactly what the opportunity was.

After the Tuesday meeting I have a better understanding of what this non-profit’s focus is.  And it seems that it will be a good fit.  Because it doesn’t necessarily focus on the issue of homelessness, later that day I was thinking whether it is the place for me to volunteer.  But then I realized that I tried to get in touch with the food banks and the Salvation Army and other organizations and for whatever reason, no one called me back.  But KCHAF did.  I don’t know what I think about agency; it’s a complicated and unanswerable concept.  But I do believe in taking what is given and seeing it as the blessing or lesson that it is.  And I think that working with KCHAF will be an undeniably good and honorable work,  in step with the message I believe in.

I hope that I’m able to be of good use and that I learn much from the experience.

pharisees and Haiti

There is a lot of discussion about the comments made by American televangelist Pat Robertson.  Let me be pointedly clear here and say that I am grieved and angered when a person claiming Christianity says things that are hurtful, patently untrue,  unedifying, and un-Christ like.  Who is Pat Robertson that he can know the mind of God?  How dare he.  How dare he.

In other news, an online knitting community that I belong to has been hard work raising funds and helping people organize to help the relief efforts underway in Haiti.  One group that I am not a part of, but in awe of raised $5,000 in one night.  ONE. NIGHT.  I am encouraged and humbled by what I see there.  If you are a Ravelry member and you are interested in continuing to help the people of Haiti, even long after the news cycle moves on to other things, please join our group at http://www.ravelry.com/groups/haitian-humanitarian-aid

Have you donated?  What are your favorite organizations and why?

If you are lacking the cashflow to donate money but still want to give and you have extra stash you’re willing to part with, there’s a really cool program set up for fiber artists called p/hop (rav link)

Here’s the MSF p/hop project page which is a non-rav site.  Here’s more information.  And even more.

The devastation and loss is overwhelming.  May the aid and help be a counter to that.

One more link:  Doctors without Borders/MSF

Survivor SPOILER ALERT

Seriously – do not read any further if you have not yet watched the Survivor finale and don’t want to know who won.

I cannot express how happy I am that Natalie won survivor.  No, let me restate:  I cannot tell you how happy I am that Russell, a misogynist, arrogant, rude, and belittling little man did not win Survivor.  If he learns nothing else from coming in second place, I hope he learns how damaging and dangerous it is to be arrogant.  Nevermind how horrifying it is to talk about your fellow female contestants in such derogatory and belittling ways.  You have daughters Russell?  REALLY?  Well, I hope they never see you on Survivor.  I hope they never have to hear the things that came out of your mouth about the other players in the game, especially the female players.  Despicable.

So yeah, Natalie, you may have ridden coattails, you may have not been perfect the whole time, you may have backstabbed at one point or another.  But never did you sink to the lowest of the low like Russell.  And for that alone I’d award you the million.

I don’t normally get so invested in television.  But it sure was nice to see someone lose something so valuable to him when he thought he could do and say anything he wanted to get it.  It’s especially nice to see that society will draw a line in the sand somewhere. Consider what we’ve seen in the financial market in recent years – the greed and complete disregard for the higher good.  Me, me, me; I’m the best, I deserve it, everyone else can kiss my ass.  Well guess what?  That’s only going to get you so far.  Good luck the rest of the way.