Friday, November 29, 2013

Two Potlucks and a Funeral

Another busy day. Busy is a little underrated. A roller coaster day would be more like it. While I enjoyed each moment and I am really pleased with how it all turned out I am still amazed how much work gets packed into one ordinary day.
Woke up early, got the kids ready, made the lunches and sent them off with Nasir. Went to work with my butter chicken. My dish for the Volunteer appreciation potluck. I reached work a little
after 9 and saw everybody already working at top speed to get things cleaned and organized for the potluck. Ran into Rose, who was almost ready to burst into tears. The craziness is a bit overwhelming for her. I offer her a cup of water and ask her to take it slow. Then I head over to my desk, switch my heels with flats and then get everybody to work. Friday is a day when we do not have much going on at work and it is also a day when all my special needs volunteers come in to volunteer. It was indeed a big challenge to work with people with varied abilities. But somehow I managed to give everybody a task to do and I was quite pleased with myself. A couple of hours of this organizing and then we had to leave and head over to attend Bob's funeral.

Bob was my Saturday volunteer. Always thinking about how to bring in products for our clients. Most recently he brought nearly 20 huge cartons of individual sized frozen pizza from Air Canada. He even got local hotels to donate shampoo and bath soap to us. Having tea with him, Larry and Elizabeth was a usual Saturday morning routine. Little did I expect that the tea time merriment was short lived. His death was sudden and unexplained. At the church, listening to his bereaving wife talk fondly about Bob's life was quite touching. When they burned the incense sticks and took the casket out of the church it all seemed like a dream. Bob North will surely be missed.

We then came back to work and joined in the rest of the potluck fun. Everybody seemed to have a good time. Life for these folks is usual business while for most others that we left at the church, life has come to a standstill. At least for the time being. Time will heal their sorrow and time here is just filling up every tummy with yummy food. Everything goes well and the clean up also is a breeze. Thanks to Wendy and Sophie.
They took care of the kitchen duty and did an awesome job too.

I left work early because I had to pick up the kids from school. Nasir is in Seattle to drop Afzal for her flight to India. The kids are happy to see me. We get in the car and as soon as I buckle in, I get a call from Rhoda. She needs me to sign the cheque for the Pizza day and a couple others. I guess Madhuri was out. I sign it and offer to drop it off for her. She is very happy. Once I get back in the car I notice an exclamation sign light on the dashboard. Any red light on the dashboard is a cause for concern. Assuming that it is tire pressure, I drive to the nearest gas station and have some air filled into the tires. Back on the road, I am hoping for the light to go away. But it is relentless. I choose to ignore it. I stop at the pizza place and drop off the cheque that was two weeks overdue. The owner didn't mind. He is looking forward to a regular monthly order. Hmm.. I tell him we will look into it a the next PAC meeting.

The kids were hungry. We order a cheese pizza, eat it and then head home. We try to nap but only Ayaan succeeds. At around 5pm, I get up and fry some samosas and spring rolls for the evening potluck. I love the concept of semi-home made. No more cooking from scratch and get the same compliments! Meanwhile, Ayaan wakes up coughing and then decides to throw up. He probably had too much pizza. He seems to feel better so we all get dressed and get back into the car to go to the Family Services of Greater Vancouver's potluck. Aaliyah won a humongous panda as the lucky draw. Everybody cheered her on and couldn't stop telling her how lucky she was. All the kids in the room wanted to take that panda home. I was happy for Aaliyah but I so did not want that giant Panda in my home.  Anyways, felt appreciated as a volunteer ad had a good time with Hassan, Tara and Rizcar. Aaliyah and Tara seem to really enjoy each other's company.

After the potluck we head home. Nasir is still not back from Seattle. Once he returned, we help him put all his grocery shopping away in the fridge and then call it a day!

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