It has been cold and clear, or cold and overcast.... a little bit warmer today....
Dale Sr. cleaned out the chimney a few days ago and we have been having fires in the morning and evening, decidedly chilly. I am still rehearsing Christmas songs with the group at the drama club, twice a week. Now they are telling me that we are singing at three places, they've added Philly's (a restaurant-bar) and Village Inn. I'd thought it was only the assisted-living place.
I wasn't that nervous about them performing at the assisted-living place, but at Philly's and Village Inn, people I actually know might be among the customers.
(During "Frosty the Snowman", one of the little girls makes this poster "dance around".)
Melissa Taylor called from MCC about my request to tutor ESL classes in the spring. (This was the lady from the International Students desk whom I originally left my information with, the same one who told the receptionist, an older Muslim woman, that their office didn't deal with volunteers any more, which made the receptionist very angry and she pulled me aside and told me that it was rude for Ms. Taylor not to talk to me and then gave me a hug!) So they had me take my information to another woman with an office in the library.
But Ms. Taylor, from the International Students desk, was the one who called Friday.
I was rather taken aback because she said that volunteering might conflict with the labor laws. Thus they would have me do something different, such as leading conversational groups to practice talking English.
She also asked me to send a resume! I told her I didn't even know what had to be in a resume! She said it could just be simple, some basic information. I had fun, starting to figure out what I should put, when the computer suddenly started doing updates, which it did for an entire day and a half! So I probably have to start over.
Friday I finally cleaned out my car, which I'd gradually been filling with stuff since the start of the presidential campaign, before taking it to get a wheel alignment done. Turned out I had to make an appointment and the wheel alignment is being done as I write this.
Early mornings I'm wearing my comfy old "Sweet Home Blue Chicago" sweatshirt, Peruvian hat, fuzzy throw...fire in the Ben Franklin....and coffee with milk. I am the epitome of "cosy"!
(I know I've included the above photo in last week's blog, but I like it so much.)
I am so glad Dale Sr. is still agreeable to going to the gym three days a week. Here he is on the stationary bike. He only does from 15 to 20 minutes, (which leaves him huffing and puffing) but it's a start.
Friday afternoon I had to go to Walmart for various items: varnish for a front window improvement, glitter and red permanent markers to finish the poster for the Boys & Girls Club kids' caroling, and items to donate to the Restoration Project (the group which houses and transports deportees between their arrest and their hearing a car seat and three sizes of diapers). It felt really good to buy these items to give away!
There was a kind of holiday excitement in Walmart, more groups of several family members together, chattering away about how this or that purchase would fit into their holiday plans.
That evening I ended up going out to a restaurant with Michelle, her sister Danielle, and the kids! I was on my way to Starbucks to Google directions for the church where the DACA clinic would be. On the way I stopped by Dale Jr.'s house to give Shelby the furry brown Santa hat I bought for her at Safeway. Michelle and Danielle the two younger kids were about to go to Los Gringos Locos to eat.
Danielle arrived and invited me to join them, and I did! I just had an O'Doul's non-alcoholic beer because I'd already eaten. It felt really nice to go with them. Michelle would not have asked me, she just wouldn't have thought of it. But she seemed perfectly comfortable to have me there, and I was glad I'd accepted.
Ethan was really cute interacting with the receptionist, when we first got to Los Gringos Locos. In the glass cabinet under the reception counter, there was a display of brightly lit colorful objects: ceramic chile peppers and so on, he dropped excitedly to his knees to look at it. Then he started playing peek-a-boo with the girl behind the counter, who was enchanted. Then the receptionist opened a door at the back of the lighted cabinet, and he laughed out loud to see her face when he thought he was hiding with her!
Little Shayla continues to be the most self-possessed baby I've ever seen. She is not fazed by anything, just continually investigating whatever she is interested in.
At Starbucks I got my directions to the Saturday clinic, and also Googled directions on how to make those Scandinavian woven paper baskets. (I know I used to know how, but I'd forgotten.)
Written Sunday early AM, Dec.
Nice day yesterday. The beading/embroidery meetup worked well, about seven attended. Three of them were quite interested in the paper baskets. The heavy art paper made nicer baskets but harder to weave them. The two I wove, I gave to Kristin and Heather, two of the Starbucks managers who are always so friendly to me, both there on that busy Saturday morning.
I had been concerned that our group wouldn't have a good place to sit. It was too cold for us to be outside (though a bright sunny day) and I knew that the usual heavily-Republican group of retirees which is there every morning would be taking up the large table. I pulled a double table out from the walls and got some extra chairs for it. But just at ten AM, the other group all left and I and the one other person who arrived right on time were able to move over and claim the long table.
I left right at noon and drove, rather anxiously, over the freeways into central Phoenix. The First Congregational United Church of Christ is at second and Willeta, in a run-down neighborhood, but with large fancy buildings not too far away, gleaming in the bright sunlight.
Luckily, someone was still there from the who could unlock the door to the kitchen for me so I could leave the baby car seat and the diapers in the pantry adjoining the kitchen, where all of the Restoration Project donations were piled. (The church does a lot of outreach to homeless people, so everything is kept locked, and the lady who leads the DACA clinic does not have a key to the room kitchen.
The DACA clinic (I had thought the letters meant Deferred Action for Children of Aliens, but they really stand for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.....sometimes referred to as the "dreamers") was shorter than usual, only two hours, because there were no new applicants. There were only two applicants who were finishing up applications started previously.
(It takes a while because the clinic is every two weeks, and they end up coming two or three times, each time it is figured out which papers are still missing. The application is a large folder with colored papers separating each quarter-year for every year the DACA applicant has been in the U.S., and for each quarter there must be some sort of proof that the child was in the U.S.)
It is sad that no new applicants are beginning the process, with Trump as the president-elect, they are scared to come forward. (The ones who started already, they mostly decide to take a chance and finish their application and have it sent in. Laura tells them that she can't advise them, it's their decision, but that she herself thinks that if those who have had a successful application will not be deported.)
I asked Laura, the woman who runs the clinic, how she started doing this. She said that she used to be a member of No More Deaths (a group which takes water out to points in the desert, for people who are crossing the desert) and through them found out about the DACA clinic in Tucson run by a group called Keep Tucson Together. She had left No More Deaths and was looking for something to do, so she started Keep Phoenix Together. She has one volunteer lawyer helping her. They have helped many, many people make successful applications. No one whom they have assisted has had their application refused, as long as they followed the directions.
There are other lawyers doing the same kind of work for people, but they charge a fee.
I made copies, and also ended up entertaining Laura's delightful three year old girl, Isabella, so that Laura could work undisturbed. Except for the occasional interruption such as, "Look, Mommy, the lady make a pretty rainbow!"
I got home by seven, and told myself I had time to cut out the navy-blue jacket I want to finish by next weekend (when I go to Idaho), but could not find the effort. I went to bed with glass of wine and watched a Miss Fisher's Mystery instead!
Written Monday AM
I had promised myself that I'd do a whole Christmas-preparation day yesterday, ha ha! I thought I'd get the house cleaned, buy a Christmas tree, do some decorating and write Christmas cards. All I ended up doing was getting a little way into the cleaning! So many things lying around in the wrong place! I did feel good to make a start on it, and I did find my misplaced tweezers! There have been a couple of times (a thorn, and a sliver of glass in Dale Sr.'s foot) when I really had missed them!
Love, Lennie
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