hooray snow!

so it's been awhile, too long in fact. i was in california last week and got quite a bit of grief for not keeping up with the going-ons (cough, cough, dave hale, cough).

things in tacoma have been pretty intense as of late. due to the economic hardship, we at nativity house are finding that we are serving far more guests than we are really able to. in addition, we are also suffering from the bad economy, there has been a serious lack of donations and funding, so much so that we have had to cut back on services and staff. it's really pretty bad, so bad the guests can sense the stress and lack of control.

on a different note, the weather has been outrageous. it has snowed at least a foot over the last week (you must understand that this is quite the anomolie). it's been interesting to see how the town shuts down here with what most places would consider a small amount of snow. however, no one here is prepared for this kind of weather. all but the major streets have been baracaded off, shops and business have been closed and folks are being encouraged to stay home unless absolutly necessary. lucky for me, this just means that it's much more important for me to go to work. in all honesty, i have been quite annoyed by all this snow, it has only made daily life more complicated, until yesterday. i was waiting for my friend to get off of work, so i could go over (it's been much to cold to stay in my house). whilst i was awaiting her phone call, my roommate arrived home. i hadn't seen oliver in a several days so i went to the kitchen to chat. he informed me that he had been sledding everynight until the wee hours of the morning and was planning on the same this evening. so he and i went outside and played in the snow at 10pm. it was really quite fantastic. it was snowing and the clouds were so low

all the city lights were reflecting the light making it really bright

outside inspite of the late hour. next thing i know oliver decides to snowboard down our street, so he straps on his board and heads to it. it was really quite amusing.

this is oliver

snowboarding

my very first snow angel (at least that i can remember)

this is my house, so endearing,

like a snow chalet.

our dishwasher

today i had the great joy of attending a graduation from drug and alcohol treatment. the person attending has become a great friend of mine. he has only been hanging around nativity house for the past few months. starting his first day he has volunteered in the kitchen washing dishes. and what a great help he has been. we had been so spoiled by not having to wash dishes that we were in quite the shock when he left for treatment a month ago. he is also quite the flirt, showering the female staff with accolades dripping with sentiment (think int he style of: "your beautiy is as radient and 1000 blazing suns"). anyways today our friend graduated. it was such a pleasure to be there to share in his joy and support him on his journey, also so wonderful to see how he touched many of the other clients and the staff and this particular facility. he really is such a blessing wherever he is and i wish him only the best.

waiting for something interesting

so it's been awhile, but i've been waiting for something fun and exciting to happen for the update catch-up. but there really hasn't been much. i have been back in tacoma for about a month now and life is as ridiculous as always. i've started working another job (babysitting on my days off), so i haven't had a day off in three weeks, but at least i'm finally feeling not really poor. life at nativity house is much the same. after our two weeks of we had a rather large staff change, 6 new staff members to a team of 10. it's funny because i have become the most loved and most hated at the same time. the folk love me for staying and use me as a go-to while the new staff are still learning the ropes, but since i still say no to requests i deem silly, i draw more ill-will than before. i have been called a bitch more times than i care to count, and thus have been reminded that this job is not for the weak of heart. in my little spare time i can be found at my house trying to entertain myself as the house i live in is very sparse in the way of luxury items (such as television, internet, kitchen cabinets, etc), reading/stealing internet from my favorite coffee shop or attending a rousing session of bingo (yes i am a member of BJ's bingo hall).

busy, oh so busy.

we have spent the last 2 days completely cleaning out the building i work in. we shut down our program for two weeks in the summer to make up for the holidays that we work during the year, but before we close completely, we clean the entire building from top to bottom, and i must say, i am exhausted. what makes this process more difficult is the rest of the busyness that is my life. i have been trying to pack and move all my belongings out of my current habitation and then clean it, so it's not a complete disaster for the new volunteers moving in, in about a week. then having to come to terms and cope with the staffing changes we are experiencing has been difficult. three of the people i work with will not be returning in the fall, 2 of them being the other volunteers that started with me, and i must say, they have been brilliant and i will dearly miss them both. so needless to say i've been very busy and preoccupied with a lot the past week, but the silver lining is i will be home in california in less than 2 days, spending time with so many wonderful folks that i have missed terribly. can't wait to see your faces!

home!

so i found a place to live today. the house is only 3 blocks from where i live which is great because...1-i love my neighborhood, 2-i can still walk to work, the gym, library, etc., 3-i will still be near the catholic worker house and 4-i already know my way around. i will be living with an artist (he blows glass) and a guy recently returned from being and illegal resident in new zealand. yes this is my life.

goldfish, go fish

what did i do at work today? hmmm, i got to play with the cutest baby alive and then played go fish with a 7 year old who insisted that the game is called goldfish. not only did little mike and i play, we played with big mike and patrick, two guys in their 30's. patrick had never played before. in the end little mike won the game, with 9 pairs. mostly because he cheated through the whole game by hiding cards up his sleeves. it's hard to remember the days that are so stressful when all i do on the other days is play. days like today are the reason i love my job.

is a proposal a proposal if there is no ring?

so i've officially been proposed to at least 3 times that i can think of off the top of my head. the most recent was on sunday by one of our regulars, doug. i was in charge of cooking breakfast sunday morning, i decided to make biscuits and gravy, a rarity at nativity house. apparently biscuits and gravy is all doug really needs in his life. as i was cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, he approached me and gave me an open ended invitation to get married, whenever i liked. another proposal came by way of note, with a circle yes or no at the top. the part that continues to surpise me: i'm fairly certain this man was serious, and equally as certain that he doesn't know that my first name is something other than 'shorty'. last was a letter i received from a guest who was in jail, listing all of the goals he planned to accomplish once he was released. number 11 on the list: marry sarah.

although marriage proposals are few and far between, here are some of laura and my favorite pick up lines to date:
damn girl, how'd you get in them jeans
if you take me home with you, i'll buy a pair of teeth
tell my wife i'll be home by 8, and i expect dinner to be ready (spoken to laura about me)

conversation: where have you been? 'in the hospital' why? 'mending a broken heart'

you like to go to cinema?
are you straight? what a waste!
i didn't know there were angels...and then there is you.
it's been about two weeks, we should probably renew our vows soon.

family is relative

on the street, family means everything. although you may be very close one day and screaming at each other the next, your family is the most important part of street life. i learned this very early while working at nativity house. while learning the importance of family, i also found that everyone appeared to be related. for a long time, i assumed most of the people just happened to be related to each other, until i learned about 'street' families. in street life culture your family are those who look out for you and take care of you and fight with you, just like most biological families. and in a culture where most people don't have any biological family left, or at least any family that will talk to them or support them, street families trump all other relationships. street brothers and sisters, moms and dads can come in all shapes, sizes, ages, backgrounds. i recently discovered a street parent need not be any older than their 'kids'; the parent has street experience and takes those new to the street under their wings and make them their 'children'. one can have any number of moms, dads, brothers, sisters, cousins. it's very confusing keeping all of the families straight, who belongs to who, especially when you throw biological family into the mix. conversations usually go something like this, "i need to pick up my mail, my brother's mail and my sister's mail" what's your name? "carrie wood". what's your brother's name? "john smith". and your sister's name? "joan". joan what? "joan wood, same last name as mine, duh!" well your brother's last name was different so i thought i'd ask. "well that's because john is my street brother, and joan is my sister" oh, for some reason i got confused, my mistake.

while being a small part of the street culture, i have gained many family members myself. people that look out for me, which can be a blessing and a curse. living in the neighborhood i do, it's nice to have people looking out for me (i live in the 'hood and most of my guests know where i live and cringe). i see my guests all of the time on my days off and the shelter and services they use are located on the blocks more or less directly surrounding my house. and at work there are always a group of people checking in with me. one man, we'll call him mark, is always checking up with me. "people treating you right here?" oh yeah. "seriously, you let me know if anyone tries anything" i know you're there for me. "no, if ANYONE EVER..." i know mark... "you just call ol' mark.." i know, and i appreciate that so much, but really, everything and everyone has been great. "well...okay, BUT you let me know if..." i know, thanks mark. the slightly scary and worrysome part about this 'protection' is that it's completely real. i know and have been told, that if anything were to happen to me, people are going to lose body parts. and my 'family' are completely serious. my family is made up of criminals, 'collectors' (people who collect debts for loan sharks or drug dealers, they break bones), drug dealers, drug users, murders, the gamut of scary sounding folks.

most recently, i have been deemed the daughter of one man in particular. our friendship started with him hitting on me and my roommate, claiming he had a church and marriage license on hold awaiting one of our arrivals. later, when he found out our ages, he said he would no longer try to marry us, but would be our dad. he said he had promised his daughter, who if she had not been murdered would be 30-something, that he would never make a pass at a woman younger than her. since then this man is always checking up on us, giving us advice and scolding us for hanging out with 'these hoodlums' outside of work. i recently learned that he is on the top of the 'housing first' list and will soon be receiving housing.

hot hot heat

so laura and i have decided that there is no ideal weather for working at nativity house. one week ago people were bitching about the cold and rain (myself included) and this week it's been a battle against the heat. honestly, we were just as busy yesterday as the temp topped out at 91 degrees as we were when it was snowing. the only difference is everyone that comes in is sunburt and i couldn't be more jealous. if i remember correctly, at this time last year i was sunbathing on a beach in mexico, more tan than i have ever been in my life. this year it hasn't been warm enough to lay out, except on days that i'm stuck inside working all day.

this week has been particularly challenging as a one of the women who have been coming by recently is trying to figure out what to do with her four young children. i admire the idea that she believes her children should not be on the street, however the means in which she is trying to remove them from street life is very disheartening. everyday it seem like her children's very presence is harboring her time to socialize. when she does interact with the children or their father, people always end up crying and yelling. from what i understand the solution has come down to putting the kids on a greyhound to california to live with their grandmother, the catch being the grandmother won't know the kids are coming to live with her until their are already on their way so she can't refuse them or the other option, which would be to drop them off at the police station to be put in foster care.

it's been really difficult to see the children who are brought into nativity house. it's hard to watch children be subjected to some seriously heinous and violent adult behavior. not to mention the language, sexual activity, illness and substance abuse which these children witness. it's quite sad to practically be able to foretell the type of individuals these kids will turn out to be as so many of our guests have become frequenters of nativity house, consequences of a childhood with striking similarites. and the way the children are watched after would give most mothers high blood-pressure.

on a lighter note, one of our guests, who no one had heard from or seen in months came in today. apparently there are many good 'tricks' to turn in seattle, so that's where he had been residing in the recent past. i particularly like this guy because we always compare our jewlery from Claires and talk about furry coats.

king center

the city council meeting to review funding for the king center (the main shelter in town) was last night. pretty frustrating meeting for a variety of reasons. to begin, yesterday on the front page of the newspaper, there was a statement saying the meeting had been cancelled, which was only half true. the meeting was not cancelled, only they pushed back the decision for the king center to next week, only slightly coincidential is the fact that next tuesday is the national homeless coalition meeting, so many advocates will be out of town. either way, about 50 tacomans went down to the meeting, sat through all of the agenda items, until the citizens forum. there were many people who stood up to defend the necessity of emergency shelter, including some of the guests who 'live' at the king center. the meeting ended with the city council promising that they were not intending to shut down the king center and leave the homeless with nowhere to go, without providing an alternative. though i must say, their arguments weren't very convincing. it seemed like an 'it's not my fault, it's their fault' defense. everything that was being said was contradictory to what i know the homeless are experincing. i can only hope and continue to argue that the city needs to take responsibility to limit gentrification in downtown tacoma as well as provide for it's most vulnerable citizens.

old friends

i have created this blog as a way to share stories from my work as they occur (the long emails have become quite the task). so, enjoy the absurdity that is my life.
it has been quite a long month. the weather here is finally starting to get to me. there will be one day of nice weather, followed up by four ugly days. although, yesterday and today it has been really beautiful outside, i can only hope that the weather holds up for my upcoming days off. i must say though, when the weather is nice here, it's really beautiful.
life at work is ridiculous and entertaining as always. i'm really starting to feel at home at nativity house, in a way in which i feel comfortable with most all of the guests, therefore also feeling a stronger sense of authority when a situation calls for such. because of this, i have decided to stay on as a staff member once my volunteer year is up. i have found that i have become so involved in so many of my guests lives, i'm just not quite ready to leave and no longer be involved with them. in addition, the local shelter that houses most of our guests over night is most likely closing for good on july 1st. there are a handful of us that are trying to be proactive about this decision by the city to deny funding to the king center and i'm curious to see the developments that will take place over the next year.
it's amazing to me how many people come through the doors of nativity house. laura and i were talking last night and realized there were so many guests who we no longer see and had pretty much forgotten. even though many guests no longer come around, we are still full everyday. it would be very interesting to be able to go back to my first day of work and notice who was there then compared to who comes now. there was one guest inparticular i can hardly believe i forgot. his name is jason, and these days i have no idea where he is or what he is doing. jason is pretty mentally ill and he had a pretty big crush on me. i would catch him staring at me on a daily basis, which wasn't very hard to do seeing as how he would peek behind a corner 2 feet away from me and stare for a solid amount of time. the biggest, reoccuring problem we had with jason was him using our phone to call the ambulance. the converstation would go something like this. 'jason, why are you calling the ambulance' 'because i've had too many beers' 'jason, you shouldn't call 911 just because you are drunk' 'but i just can't stop drinking beers'. my favorite memory of jason is one day while he was staring at me, i asked him what was up. he replied that he had figured out why i didn't like him, it was because he is white. jason is not white. i looked at him a moment and said, 'jason, you aren't white'. he insisted that i didn't like him because he was white with the families and the grandparents, so on. i replied, 'okay'.