This week has been more productive, thank gosh! Missy and I met a couple times and she is really helping me out with the vegetarian class now too. She made a flier for the event that we are going to post at the Cove and around Brooklyn. We decided that we will have a raffle and make a basket with a vegetarian cookbook in it as well as some cooking utensils. Nothing over the top, but a nice idea and will probably help bring people to the event. We are going to have recipe print outs for everyone to take as well. I am pretty excited about it all, nervous mostly about promotion. As much as I want all of my friends to attend and support me, it is the members of the community I want to be there the most.

As for the Healthy Holiday event, I am lucking out in the volunteer department. My co-worker Liz, a cook, agreed to discuss a healthy version of meatloaf. I am so happy about because this seems like an affordable dish that can feed a large family. She mentioned using oatmeal instead of bread to enhance its nutritional value. Oatmeal is a super food!

The weather was just right for the ‘clean up the block’ week. It took me a long time to get in touch with Chip, but she finally picked up the phone and said we could come by at three this past Thursday. Staci joined Missy and I this time as well. The bad news is that less adults helped, the same woman who would not help last night, refused once again. She just stood on her porch watching. Chips daughter said she couldn’t help because she had “too much work to do in the house,” although I never saw go inside and walked around yelling for her Mom most of the time. She did run off to the library to return books, the was scolded by Chip because she got two movies and wasn’t supposed to. There is so much yelling going on all the time. Everyone seems so annoyed with one another and Chip tells me who is good and who is not.

The good news is that all the same kids helped and remembered working with us a few weeks ago. The youngest girl, Jade, put her gloves right on and started sweeping piles into the dustpan I was holding. Two of the same boys joined and I made sure to tell them what a great job they were doing. I even asked the one boy, I think Brandon, if he remembered what nature was. He responded that it was glass. I told him again what it was and then asked him to repeat it back to me. Over the next hour he told me a few times that it was “trees, water, rocks, vegetables that you grow, flowers….” I told him I was going to ask him the next time we were there.

Chip loves to tell me stories while we are cleaning up. Not only did I find out she has only been living in her house for 8 months, she casually told me that she is Wiccan. She said….. “essentially I am a witch.” She then told me that people misjudge witches and that they actually do not believe in any devil. Her shirt said “my other house fell on your sister.” A reference to witchery and the Wizard of Oz. She is a character and I really like her. She is pretty ill too, has had biopsies for cancerous growths and has lung issues. Her voice sounds like a man from all the smoking. She is also involved in custody hearing over one of her granddaughters.

The block wasn’t as trash laden as I had thought, the alley was a disaster though. We definitely spent the most time in the alley. One yard was filled with trash, I mean covered to the point where you could barely see the grass!! Chip said that she and a couple others had picked up some of the trash in front of their homes since we had been there. Good news indeed. Some people just don’t care though, teenagers were yet again milling about while we worked.

The oral history project has hit a few barriers, which I am not pleased about. After giving my schedule to Sarah a few times, she is still scheduling them during my school and work hours. There are two interviews taking place next week that I would love to be involved with and just can’t due to scheduling. I know that I have all of November to turn this situation around. Also, I have been emailing Glenn (the head of this project) about photo locations without hearing back from him. I did give Carol my schedule, though, and she said she would help me out with the scheduling. Sarah felt bad too and we are going to try and make things work better in the future. I just want to be as involved as possible.

The running group is set to meet this Sunday, hope it isn’t raining.

words: 859

hours: 10