Good Fortune Day

My official title for today is "Good Fortune Day."

It began with Daena and I going on a free tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's home, usually $9.00. On the way out there, we stopped at the Library so that I could return my Indian Cookbook. With all the other problems I was having with the Library, I forgot about the due date, and for the second time since I've been in Chicago, held a book overdue. I ran in to pay the 30 cent fine, but they said that to my luck, the book had not been checked out under my name, so it wasn't late afterall. I asked them to check my account while I was there, and they said I had $7.50 in late fees, but no overdue books. They said that I had previously had $10.50 in late fees, but then I paid two dollars of it- which means to me that the Library found the books, realized their mistake, and are in the process of waving the late fees like they told me they would (IF, they said rolling their eyes, it turns out we do have them). But yes, good news. The books are found.

So then we went on the tour, which was interesting. Daena, with her degree in architecture, was able to tell me interesting snippets to complement the tour.

When we left, I was hungry, so we started casting about for what to eat or where to eat. We finally decided to walk to Juana's Mexican Buffet All You Can Eat for $3.50 just down the street. We'd never been there. So we rounded up Michael and Fabian (Phil and Val were out), and headed down there. The selection wasn't great, but they gave us a bag of candy each (except for Michael, who wasn't eating). Oh, but when I say a bag of candy, I mean like assorted candy that wouldn't fit in my two hands cupped together. When we got up to leave, the owner came up to us and said that if we wanted watermelons or potatoes that we should go around and meet him on the corner. He went on about how he loves God and America and believes in giving what you have, and he gives away food to help the poor community here, especially the Mexicans. We walked around outside and there were cases upon cases of potatoes and tomatoes and watermelon and cantaloupe and squash and onions, etc. Lots of people were around, giving and receiving. We grabbed a box of red potatoes, a box of white potatoes, three boxes of cantaloupe, and one box of watermelon. We went home to get the car to help out with this.

When we got back to the house, we pulled out a dozen of each kind of potato, one watermelon, and one cantaloupe, and took the rest down to Casa Romero, where the Holy Cross food pantry is. Valerie has told us about how excited the elderly people get when they come to get food and there is fresh anything, especially fruit.

Elena was there, who is the very very energetic woman who runs Kid's Cafe during the week, serving free meals to hundreds of neighborhood kids every day. She loves to feed people, and immediately offered us food. Michael was starting to get a bit hungry at this point, and Elena gave him a whole cooked chicken to take home and eat.

So, to sum up my day of good fortune,

1) No 30 cent late fee for the Indian Cookbook
2) The Library found my books
3) Bags of candy
4) Cases of food for free which we then got to
5) Share with other, less fortunate people
6) Whole cooked chicken

CCP Lab

That's the title of the program I'm working with, with Dugan. It officially started on Monday, and it is going well. We have four young adults enrolled, although only two have shown up yet. Oscar, who is kind of "in charge" of motivating them to come the first two weeks, and rounding them up so they show up on time, hasn't been able to find the other two guys this week. Of course, they were only enrolling in the program to look good for their parole officers- they didn't actually want to get back into school. The two that have been coming, E and A, do want to get back into school, so they have personal motivation for showing up.

Right now, though, they're no-shows.

We were having some trouble with the computer system up until yesterday. It just would not load the learning programs. We've got that ironed out, and I deleted about 100 students from the computer who went to the school that we bought the used system from. So now, in addition to working, the system works fast.

I like the guys who have been coming. We get along well. And I have to say, these are about the friendliest and most intelligent "youth at risk" that I've ever worked with. From what I've seen, they have a lot going for them. From what I've heard, they have a lot to overcome. So I really hope they come back.

We've got a good team working with this program. It's kind of the pilot for the CCP Lab with Dugan and Holy Cross, and I hope it goes well, because it is a good idea at least. The guys will earn a half-credit in 25 class days. And as well as catching them up so they can start Dugan mid-year, it's kind of a transition into school. Four hours a day, four days a week. Not a bad deal, really.

But anyway, work is going quite well. I'm going to attempt to give Project HOPE presentations next week, with Yesica there to supervise and make sure I don't miss anything really important. So, yes, things are picking up.

Home is quite good as well. We had a few rough spots recently, but we all seem to have come to some sort of understanding, because we're all getting along well right now. I think I might actually miss them while they're gone over Christmas. I"m used to having them around, and while we've always been friendly, I think we're becoming friends at this point. It's kind of nice, actually.

I was pretty frustrated on Tuesday, though. I've been checking out loads of books from the Library for my Art class. I had 17 books checked out at one point, so I made a list of the books and their due dates and I've been careful to turn them all in on time. Well, I have a late fee for three books now. 30 cents. Not my problem at all. Tiny error on the Library's part, not a big deal. My problem is that they also say that I have 8 books overdue that I returned on their due date. I made a special trip out of my way into the Loop to do so. But rather than taking my grocery sack of books up to Circulation on the 3rd floor like I normally do (the library has 10 floors), I just dropped them into the book drop downstairs. I even handed one of the books to the woman sitting behind the information table/book drop because some of the pages were loose and I didn't want to cause any more harm to the book. That was over two weeks ago, and they have no record of me returning the books.

I've been trying to sort this out, but no one there believes that it is even possible that they made such an error. They say, one or two books, I could see. But EIGHT? There's no way. And they repeated that No Way thing many times, so that they never had to say that I'm a liar or a thief. They did, however say that I had to pay for the books. I said No, I don't have them. They said they'll look for them and that I should come back in a week. I don't know what to do. It's not my error, but somehow I feel like I'm at fault anyway. And legally, I guess I am at fault. I have no proof other than my word that I returned the books.

On Tuesday, after all of this happened, I was so angry and frustrated and impotent feeling. I had called my Archivist Friend Elizabeth for advice before I went down there, and she said to go to the people who can make decisions. I was referred to Customer Service. The librarians I spoke to, while being much more friendly, could do nothing but look for the books, which they didn't have. But ew, those were the worst customer service people I have ever dealt with. They actually made me cry. I was in a terrible mood all day, until, about 8 hours later, it occurred to me that if that was the worst of my problems, which it currently is, then I'm not doing too bad. So, while I am still frustrated when I think about it, I am feeling better. I still don't know what to do if they can't find the books. I don't have them. I returned them on their due date.

So for now, I wait, and I enjoy work, which is a lot of fun. And I enjoy dinner at Calypso, that John (well, the Claretians) treated us to last night for Christmas. My new theory is that dinner at Calypso just might be able to fix everything, because, you know, damn. That was some good eatin'. Aw yeah.

coming soon...

So I started training for Project HOPE finally. I"m quite happy about that. I've been going to presentations at Kelly high school this week, and in two weeks, my art class is going to have HOPE presentations as well. I'm going to do the third one for them, so I do get to start with that pretty soon now.

the art classes are going well. We're at the hardest part of putting together a comic book, which is the writing phase. We have to decide as a group on characters, personalities, events, dialogue, break-down of the story, what each page and frame is going to look like... arg! They're doing pretty well with it, though. I think after we finish the book, we're going to have to take a break on the 2-D art for awhile. I'm going to talk to Sr. Angie about going ahead with the clay sculpture.

Tomorrow we (Bridget Swenson, Alberto... Ortega?, Sr. Angie, and myself) are going to meet about schedules and projections and goals for the kids we'll be working with to get into Dugan alternative high school. The scheduled start date is still December 8th, this coming Monday. I'm still trying not to hold my breath, just in case something goes wrong and puts it off further, but it's getting really hard now to not hold my breath about it. I've been talking with Alberto especially, but also Sr. Angie, about it all week, and I am so excited. We've been discussing outside reading, and different goals we have, and plans for class discussions and groups, etc. I'm excited, not only to have something to do where I can really feel like I"m helping people, but also to be working in my field again. Working with at-risk young adults is my passion, I do believe. Well, one of them, at any rate. Because I'm also passionate about writing, and I'm also passionate about social and political activism. If I could find a way to do all three, I'd be set for life.

I also had my first marimba lesson yesterday. I learned two things during that half-hour. 1) Playing marimba is really fun, and 2) I really suck at it. But I have at least 9 months to get to the point where I either suck less, or don't suck at all, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Let's see, what else? We had our Thanksgivings, and they all went well. It was fun going to the Provincial's, and eating and drinking with the priests, brothers, and novitiates from all over the world, and all over Chicago. And then our "family" meal at our house went very well. We had so much food. I ate so much Sunday afternoon that I wasn't hungry again until Monday evening. I've eaten leftovers every meal I've eaten at home since then, and haven't had the same meal twice. Daena made some soup last night when Fr. Ron came over (he's our group spritual advisor). But other than that, we're not cooking dinner this week. Too much food already. It's great. I realized it was my first contribution to a big Thanksgiving meal since I've been grown up, and as I ate and looked around at our happy guests, I must admit, I was rather proud of it. (And the salechi confused people, but everyone loved it. I got special compliments on the pecan pie ["all of these desserts are good except the pecan pie, which is REALLY good"], and the sweet potato casserole was quite good as well. So thanks for the recipes, Mom.)

And Michael had a good experience going to Fort Benning for the SOA protest. He wasn't sure he'd want to go back, because he's not much for travelling, but being there changed his mind. He's loving his job, where he does lots of research, writes informative articles, does progressive radio shows, and organizes and attends rallies for good causes.

Yup, we're loving it here.