"You have an easy job!"

Apologies for the lack of blog postage. It's been a busy few days.

Highlights:

Monday

• Driving into downtown Cincinnati with Holli and Gus to pick up boxes of food from Kroger's corporate offices on Vine St.
  
• Watching 3 guys (wearing no coats!) load the food for us while we sipped hot chocolate.
• Arriving at Wildwood Elementary School in Middletown a few hours later to find 6 full barrels of food after only, like, 3 days of food drive-ness.
  
• Spending the entire afternoon unloading the contents of these barrels into about 30 boxes to take back to the foodbank--leaving the barrels with them for MORE food collection. Total weight of food collected so far: 1225 pounds. Go kiddos!
  
• Scarfing down popcorn chicken and tater tots that Holli bought for me at Sonic at 3:40ish for "lunch." Thanks, Holli!
  

Tuesday morning:

• Driving to TEN Kroger stores for the Check Out Hunger campaign.
  
• Hearing a bagger tell me that I have "an easy job."
• Trying to explain to said bagger that I have to do this every week at 15 Kroger locations, in addition to other job duties at the foodbank, such as food drive pick ups, Benefit Bank trainings, etc.
• Watching the bagger's facial expression turn into a blank smile, then listening to her insist that my job is cake. She was not being sarcastic.
  
• Giving up, then erupting in crazy maniacal laughter.
  

Tuesday afternoon:

• Driving to Dayton after lunch for a Frail and Elderly Services Provider meeting at the Job Center (JFS).
• Waiting in a LOOOOONG line that snaked all the way outside just to get in the building, let alone talk with someone.
  
• Receiving a coupon that had my destination (conference room) on it, then smiling meekly as I pass the stern-looking security guard into the hallway.
• Following a trail of orange flags to get to the conference room. There were also purple flags and red flags and blue flags and green flags on the ceiling, leading people to different locations in JFS.
  
• Sitting down in the conference room, only to hear the service providers complaining about how they had to wait in line with all of "those people" (i.e. "Welfare riff-raff.")
• Making a mental note to be more empathetic than these alleged "service providers" when I'm a licensed social worker. This shouldn't be too hard now that I've experienced being a member of the "Welfare riff-raff" firsthand, you know.
  

Wednesday morning:

• Driving in hurricane force winds/rain to the remaining 5 Kroger locations for the Check Out Hunger campaign.
• Filling up my gas tank for the 2nd time in 5 days. In hurricane force winds.
  

And that brings me to the afternoon! Now I'm awaiting a food drive pick up and 2 barrel deliveries with Gus, but we can't go until the adhesive on his new windshield sets, which should be any minute now.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Xenia for a training and then Friday I'm in Columbus for 2009 tax training.

But it's fine--my job is so easy, after all!