Tag Archives: volunteer

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wait

I am waiting for approval or refusal from an official body regarding a job. The job was supposed to start on April 15, but the official body did not meet until April 17. (I am picturing a group of body parts getting together, arm, arm, leg, leg, head. Where is the pelvis? Probably out fooling around.) They initially said they would let me know by April 19 and then changed it to by May 1. So, any time between yesterday and May 1. This makes planning a bit difficult.

And weight. I drop ten pounds with pneumonia. I did not gain it back for a year. Then I went past my “normal”, about ten pounds. Now I have come down six pounds. I am not taking one of the weight loss drugs. I am just reducing sweets and also letting my self be just a little hungry and walking. I am not losing weight fast. My goal is about 2 pounds per month.

The last three days my appetite has dropped, which is a stress sign for me. I am taking my friend to get radiation and it took four hours on Thursday and three yesterday. I have to back off if my appetite goes. The combination of waiting and taking care of her is a bit too much. Partly because there are multiple snafus, in both arenas. (Now I am picturing the body parts gathering in a football arena. Wordplay.)

Today I do not have things on the schedule. I may just putter and write and think, feed the cats, do laundry. Nothing much.

How about some music? The first one is a psychedelic band album: new to me. The second is a song sung by Rotarians in the 1960s. Maybe now too, though not by our club.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wait.

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Spring 2

My neighbor has tiny violas blooming in her grass, near the garage. I had a tax appointment in the morning yesterday so walked the cats around noon. The busier street by my house was noisy, so the cats headed for the neighbor’s yard, further from the cars. I don’t hold the leashes but keep a close eye. NO DIGGING, cats, at least not in the neighbor’s yard.

Little signs of spring. Spring still feels strange to me here, even after 24 years, because it is so long. We start in February but summer rarely arrives until July 4. And then it is very rarely hot. After summers in Alexandria, Virginia and Richmond, Virginia, it feels so odd to not be hot. Though my patients would complain when it’s 80 degrees and 60% humidity. “Hot and humid!” It is all relative. I have lived in quite cold areas, Wisconsin and Colorado, and fairly warm and humid in Virginia.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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Volunteer

I wrote this thinking about the increasing number of homeless because of housing costs and that incomes aren’t keeping up. And even if the income has kept up, a lay-off and an illness can put people so far behind that they can end up homeless. In Denmark, they rent rooms to students in nursing homes. Part of the payment is that they have to spend time with some residents. When will we set that up here?

______________________

Volunteer

A man I know slides into kidney failure.
He’s already there when I meet him,
care for him
for a number of years.
He’s a really nice man.
Over time a bit more disheveled
unkempt
dialysis twice a week.
Even so, once on dialysis,
people die younger
than the rest of us.
Over time he is in and out of the nursing home.
loses touch with friends,
in the home so much
that even when he isn’t there
he goes there
and volunteers.
They have become his family and home.
At last he is so tired
he stops dialysis
and goes to the nursing home for the last time.
The staff call me, crying.
“He is hurting,” they say, “Do something.”
He can’t swallow.
I see him and place a fentenyl patch.
He mostly sleeps then
but is no longer in pain
He dies a few days later.
I haven’t seen this before:
The nursing home staff cry
for this man
this volunteer
this friend
and I do too.

___________

One reason that he did well at the nursing home was that they understood how frail he was and that he couldn’t do very much. They gave him very gentle volunteer jobs and enjoyed his company. Sometimes when people are very frail or ill, others avoid them or just do not understand.

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volunteer

Ok, it has registered that I have a volunteer in the house. It’s a pepper plant. It is growing with the plant I brought back from Hawaii. The Hawaii plant was obtained in the airport and cleared to go to other states without taking nasty fungi or bacteria to spread around, so presumably this volunteer was acquired in my house. I bought a bunch of dried red peppers in eastern Washington when my son was still in college. These look rather the same. If they are the same, I think they will be HOT.

Also yesterday, there was a bee. A nice big fat bumblebee, pollinating the pepper. I thought about putting her outside, but it’s too cold and I am not sure she would survive. So now I have a pet bee. I have not named her yet. I take that back: I’m naming her Pepper.

Hooray for the volunteers.

This is for Friday’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: register.

volunteer pepper plant

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At the fair!

I had fair duty yesterday at the Jefferson County Fair. Two hours in the Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary booth. We’re in the new Commercial Building. The day started out with a fabulous band parade. I got a few photographs, next post. The fair booth is to tell about our Sunrise Rotary and what we do in the community and the world! The list is the banner on the right, everything from picture dictionaries for every 3rd grader in the county, to exchange students learning about the world, to Polio Plus and Shelterbox and big and small projects in our county and other countries. Hooray for teamwork and for all the people who donate their time and energy and fellowship and money.

The booth is still up today. We are already selling tickets for our “Running of the Balls” fundraiser. We roll numbered golf balls down Monroe Street before the Rhody Parade and the winner and 2nd and 3rd get cash! $2000.00 to the winning golf ball!

If you buy five tickets for $20.00 at the fair, you go into a drawing to get 50 more numbered golf balls in the race. Stop by!

And for the golfers, we need more golf balls. We don’t have enough for next year. Some get away, darn it. Contact me or another Sunrise Rotarian to get rid of the old golf balls.

 

 

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Rotary District 5020

Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary is part of Rotary District 5020. This district includes the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island, two countries. I am at the District 5020 Training and Conference, sitting next to the East Jefferson President and getting education and inspiration from our District Governor Craig Gillis. Excellent and inspiring!