THE HUNT

Yesterday we had our company holiday party. Part one started off with a day of volunteering at the Food Bank For New York City warehouse in the Bronx. A bus carted us out there and seventeen of us packed boxes of food in a cold warehouse for close to 5 hours. It was actually quite tiring and straining on the back but in the best possible way.

This is how it worked...a beep beep beep forklift would wheel in 8 refrigerator size bozes full of cans of all kinds of canned food possible every 15 minutes or so. Within these boxes were various Duane Reade bags, Old Navy Bags, Macy's bags full of canned goods. These are the bags that people like you bring to work to donate to that one giant box at the end of the hall at your office or local mall. We then take this giant box and break it down into categories:

Meats - lots of canned clams (ugh), canned salmon, tuna.
Breakfast - cereals hot and cold
Complete meals - Ravioli, canned soups, chili - oh my so many cans of chili
Beans - black beans, pinto, etc.
Baby Food - formula, baby food, etc.
Snacks - cookies, crakers, candy, etc.
Vegtables - corn, peas, etc.
Fruit - canned pears, applesauce, oh so many pineapple rings
Other - really random crap that was from another country or things we never heard of

The first group of people made boxes. The second group of people were handed seven different empty boxes for the above categories and then would take from the giant forklifted fridge boxes and start dividing out the goods. The third group would then pack and seal and label them. I was in the middle group, unloading cans and putting them in the right category. This was a fast paced job. It was no unlike working in a supermarket flying through inventory. The pace was fast and hard. Exhausting. Occasionally your brain would freeze despite having been in a rhythm for a while. Beans...beans...what category are beans...oh yeah. Beans.

In the end these boxes get delivered to various shelters and soup kitchens where volunteer staff unload the goods and make a 'mini-supermarket' where homeless families and the working poor can pick up food from each category to bring to their families. It makes you think...when you put something in that food bank box...try to remember that the food is actually going to human beings that will serve it to their families. Would you want to eat a can of clams? A can of evaporated milk?

At the end of the day, dirty and sweating...as a group of 17 we repacked 6,600 pounds of food, enough to provide 4,400 meals for the hungry in New York City.

Part Two - the bus headed to Central Park in the snow where we had a heated tent and wine and beer and food and hot chocolate and skated around Wolman Rink. I got a call from E,

K: Hi
E: Hi
E: So I got a photo gig for a magazine. I'm traveling to NJ around 3:45am to photograph bear hunters. Bear hunting is now legal in NJ.
K: Huh...
E: Yeah...
(silence)
K: Um. I don't know how I feel about this one. You know I try to be supportive cool wife but...you in the woods...in the dark...crazy people with guns...hunting bears. Will you be wearing orange?
E: I know...I know. I will wear orange

A DAY

A day can be many things. Mine started with a seaching hand looking for my husband who is usually next to me when I open my eyes. A momentary scare. He was only on the couch reading. Not the usual early bird so I was worried. A stomach ache brought him out there. Didn't want to wake me while he tossed and turned.

A pretty normal shower although the tiled floor felt extra cold. A kitty meowed for morning grub. Nothing new there. Got dressed. Went back to talk to husband now back in bed. Most mornings I'm groping along in the dark and don't get to see him. Kitty pissed. What's with all this talking and attention towards someone else.

I opened the blinds and the front door. Husband laughed at my morning rituals he is never privy to. Told him that most mornings I feel suffocated by the heat in the apartment. Need to breath fresh cold air. Feed kitty.

Say goodbye. Husband says have a good day and that he likes my outfit. It's prob a good outfit because I finally had the light on for once getting dressed. Ha. It's hard to leave a warm home. A husband. A kitty. Cozy home.

Police car waves me across the street. I cross. Too cold to buy a paper and take my hand out of jacket. Jacket needs a cleaning. Pass guys that are in the middle of a drug exchange. $2 left on my Metrocard. Behind a dad who was concerned his daughter was bundled up enough and asks her, "Where did you get that piece of candy?"

On the train. Look out window for a while at the snow covered rooftops. See animal prints on one. A dog? A cat? How the hell did they get all the way up there? Their trail makes a giant L. Whatever happened to Laverne & Shirley? Same guy and girl on the train every morning. Guy has a cold today. I am just getting over mine.

Morning oatmeal and an OJ. To go? Yes. Every day but feel free to keep on asking.

Non-stop working and working and problems and tapes wrong and calls and things to be Fed-Ex'd overnight and calls and meetings and work stuff and work stuff. Was responsible for bringing a girl to a surprise bday gathering of cupcakes in a conference room. Brought her to the wrong place at first. Surprise. Everyone at work asking how I am feeling? People I never talk to. Must have been annoying them all this week with my non-stop hacking away.

Mom calls. Crying. Our family dog is sick. Disoriented and going blind. Tumor? Hope not. Not sure. The conversation seems surreal and unsupportive on my part as phones ring off the hook and the sound of the copier blares into my ear. People anxiously awaiting for me in a meeting.

Meeting. I am the writer. Of a script. There are revisions.

Phone call: husband calling from a meat locker in Brooklyn. Yes a meatlocker. He is shooting a photo of a comedian for a project. In a meatlocker.

E: Great news!
K: What is that?
E: A baby has been born

Welcome to the world Henry Rogers Carter to two very wonderful and loving parents.

DEEP THOUGHTS

Why do people blow their nose in a tissue and then look in the tissue? What do they think came out? A set of steak knives?

MARRIED PERSON'S SNOOPY SNOW CONE MACHINE

Over the weekend E and I received in the mail my dream come true and his personal nightmare....a red Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker off our wedding registry. There weren't many things we fought over in regards to the wedding registry but let me tell you...this was one of them.

After attempting to make lemon sorbet - (for the record - the thing makes frozen yogurt, ice cream, sherbert, sorbet and frozen drinks...come on!!!! how great is that!!!) in the '20-30 minutes' as advertised in the directions it became quite clear quite fast that well...this was SO not going to happen.

First of all the freezer bowl that actually is the crucial element in making the sorbet had to be in the freezer for '6 to 22 hours' prior to making anything. Huh?! Having already put the freezer bowl in there overnight I thought it would be enough but it wasn't. I turned it on and waited...and waited...and waited.... What was meant for a nice relaxing night at home, reading and watching TV as I waited for our fresh lemon sorbet to gel in the kitchen turned into a head bashing continuous grinding sound that was not unlike the rhythm of a child's toy train looping around a Christmas tree on a track at full volume. Ugh. At least I can blame my childhood.

As a kid, there were two items I longed for in life. The first was for my family to own a 70's style van of Scooby Doo/Don't Come A Knockin' type origin. The second...a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine.



After a string of diasappointing, wood-paneled vehicles parked themselves in front of our family home, I soon realized the van dream was no longer in the cards if it ever was. Same with the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine. My mother wouldn't let us eat sugar cereals much less grind ice cubes for hours in an usafe device not unlike a garbage disposal to then smother in blue food coloring.

It didn't help matters that I lived next door to Laura Luke - my next door neighbor who had just about everything. A constant reminder of things I didn't have nor knew I wanted. You know Laura Luke. There is a Laura Luke in every neighborhood. She had the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine, The Easy Bake Oven, The Barbie Dream House. Her brother Larry Luke had the Green Machine, that mini-car with an actual engine that kids could drive and even the Knight Rider remote control car that was IMPOSSIBLE to get one Christmas in the 80's. Larry's parents were only able to score him the Spanish version. I'd hear the Knight Rider car revving up their gravel driveway, KITT screaming, "Hola! El Coche Fantastico! Que Pasa?!"

I never got a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine. And Laura Luke got pregnant right out of high school. I'm pretty sure my life long quest for a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine manifested itself in the form of our new, red, loud, so not relaxing sounding, 6 to 22 hours to any form of satisfaction ice cream maker. It just proved once again to me that material things don't always live up to the dream. And most of them just end up on eBay.