Catching up

I've been a bit busy at work the last two weeks and haven't had much time to blog. Not a whole lot has been happening in my world as of late anyway. Yesterday was an interesting day so I thought I would take a few minutes out of my work day and blog. I'm especially crabby today as I am coming down with a cold so bear with the snippiness that may bleed through.

I am frustrated with the debates. Frustrated that neither candidate actually answers a darn question. I watched most of the debate last night (full disclosure, I fell asleep towards the end) and had a hard time not flipping the channel when the candidates went off on their I'll-blame-the-other-party-and-not-answer-your-question diatribes. Seriously... I know who I am voting for and I was disappointed in his performance. All the media outlets are posing the question, "who won?", followed up with statements about how it is hard to tell. Well, I'm here to tell you that is because they didn't answer the questions. No wonder you can't tell. You know how to win over the undecided and independent voters, boys? Actually answer questions in short and clear sentences. You will win the hearts of many voters across this great land. I know I posted before how I was already tired of the mudslinging, and while it wasn't too over-the-top last night, I just didn't have the patience. I floated between that and a repeat of Bizarre Foods. Urgh.

On a different note, yesterday my co-workers and I went to a local transitional housing unit to volunteer during the lunch hour. We arrived around 10am and worked until 1pm, doing food prep, serving, cleaning, and anything else they could find for us to do. It was an amazing experience. This location houses up to 55 homeless people and there is always a waiting list. Residents can be individuals or families and they also allow 'drop-ins' for meals. These folks have been referred to this facility by another location in DT SP and can only stay for 30 days. After that they are either back on the street if they have not found housing. The staff are truly God's angels. To see what they see every day and still come to work, continue to have faith and hope. It's amazing.

Let me just tell you how hard it was to walk out of there after seeing what I saw. There was a precocious little girl, five, maybe six, who I wanted to take home. She and her parents live in a car. They sleep in a church on the hard floor using cardboard boxes to separate them from the other families. She has never been to school. What type of life is she going to have living like this and not receiving an education? How will she break this cycle? I want very much to go and grab her (all of the children, really) and take her home, give her a warm bed and a permanent address so she can go to school. And to see her eyes light up and her chatter away with all of us. Kids are resilient.

Needless to say, I came home and told Pete we needed to find a way to either volunteer, donate or do something more for these people as they are less than 2 miles away from where we live and it feels more like they are on a different planet. And then I hugged my little girl, hoping nothing like this ever befalls her.