We leave for Michigan tomorrow morning, bright and early. We'll leave Newark, wind our way to 76 and then to 80 and finally to 23 North. We meet Linda at Cottage Inn for dinner. We have strong memories of taking Sarah and Kate to dinner there before a dance performance. They were small, 10 and 12, maybe; maybe a little younger. Kate ordered a Greek salad, then proceeded to pick off everything on that salad except the lettuce and the cheese. We've told that story many times and I can see us sitting in that booth upstairs. So for yet another meal, we'll be in nostalgia land in Tree Town.
We saw Messiah at the Kimmel Center yesterday, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philadelphia Singers Chorale. We had not been to the Kimmel Center before and it is a magnificent facility, all cherry wood and warm metallic accents. We were in the last row, smack in the middle and the sound was excellent. The auditorium is new enough that there is plenty of room between rows, so that people can easily pass through. The performance was serious pleasure. I love big choral music and Messiah is the functional definition of same. Added to that, it is familiar to me from high school days and from my work with the Community-College Chorale at New Paltz. I am not alone in loving the "Hallelujah" chorus and it makes me weep profusely. The big choruses of part one have the same effect. It's what Ken and I call the "Kinky Boots effect," after a theater-goer sitting behind us during a production of Kinky Boots on Broadway wept in gulping sobs during the second act. We never saw him, but we heard him.
The Food Bank is closed until the first of the year. It has been so interesting to volunteer in the Food Bank kitchen. Here are some observations:
- Volunteers need to have a role as flowers need to find the sun.
- As soon as they establish their role, they stick to it for the duration of the shift.
- Volunteers are constantly seeking to be most efficient in their role.
- The jobs are simple enough that each individual finds the way to do it as best suits her/his needs.
- While the kitchen is quiet at the beginning of the shift, conversation tends to increase as it goes along. By the end, it is very chatty.
- The work in the kitchen is as close to assembly line work as I have ever experienced. It is repetitive and I can understand how repetitive actions could be debilitating at worst and boring at best.
- The pattern of the shift is to assemble the after-school snack, secure it with cap and bag and then pack it in numerable coolers. The drivers pick it up and are taking it to YMCAs and other venues by noon for distribution to the kids by mid-late afternoon. Volunteers then clean up the kitchen for the next day. I have become familiar with the big Hobart dishwasher, a brand I think is used in restaurant kitchens.
- Six to eight volunteers are present for any given shift, with two or three being 'regulars' and the remaining being work groups from various local businesses or random individuals.
- Volunteers fall into groups:
Retirees (like me).
Members of work groups, especially banks or, this being Delaware, one DuPont facility or another.
Those adjudicated into community service.
High school kids earning points toward awards or certificates.
College students either there as part of their majors or for their Greek organization or their sport. - The mix of age is broad, from mid-teens to mid-80s.
I'm there for the morning shift (8:30-11:30) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The kitchen shares space with a culinary program that has maybe a dozen students. Their classroom is visible from the kitchen, and sometimes the students are there and sometimes they are out among us cooking or cleaning up. I have never worked in a restaurant kitchen, but it seems to me that the equipment is old, but adequate. I understand that many of the graduates go on to jobs in local restaurants. This fall, the students have been for the most part young and African American and I hope they get good jobs.
Our first full year in Delaware has been full of surprises, good and not-so. Under the former category is the delightful discovery that, on the 95 corridor, we are within easy travel distance to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and New York. New York is farther away than it used to be, but Philly - by god, it is a great city. We can get to Washington by MARC during the week; cheap and relatively quickly. In order of frequency, we have been in Philly, Washington, New York and Baltimore. And the Delaware shore! Love it!
I'm thinking of creative outlets, and wishing I had one like my friends Carole and Stephen who are musicians, and a new friend Ellen, who is a painter.
All is vanity, friend. All is vanity.
Happy new year - 2015 seems surreal, but here it is.
Jackie
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