7 Quick Takes Friday #32

Another week, another seven days of work, at least another seven learning experiences. Here are the thoughts that have accompanied this week's experiences. Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler for hosting the 7 Quick Takes meme at Conversion Diary.Since it is not-so-early morning right now, I am going to post these without pictures this time, and this evening, insha Allah, along will come the pictures. Otherwise, I will be quite late to work, and in spite of all the disappointments there this week and last, I would like to keep my job, at least for a while!

1. The Old Mission fiesta chairman called for a final meeting to clean up all the stuff that we had just thrown into the parish educational center after last week's fiesta. Of 100 volunteers, only two of us showed up. I guess clean up in any format is not anyone's favorite activity -- except mine. I can really make a mess of some things, like cooking, but clean up is something I can usually accomplish passably well. So, the three of us had fun. It was better than the actual fiesta where a good part of the time I was the only one doing clean up for 300 or more people at a time.

2. I took Tuesday off to attend a meeting at Doah's group home about his progress at the home and at work. Well, a tad bit of progress on his part socially and at work, but the biggest expectations for progress are in the area of executive function, i.e. impulse control and judgment, which is a difficult thing to effect because we are pretty certain that his brain damage occurred in the frontal lobe area, the location of executive function. At least, his case worker is going to join us in trying to get his psychologist to work more on behavior control and less on drugging him. Finally, our voice has been heard! (The psychologist would not listen to us in the past.) (In photo: Doah loves to take pictures; he took some of the best at his cousin's wedding last month.)

3. Prior to the Tuesday meeting, I went to noon Mass. There I met two visiting nuns. Sr. Maria introduced them to me. They were all relieved when I was able to communicate with Sr. Maria Clara who is from the Goaina area of Brazil. I have spent some time there in the past, so I could speak some Portuguese with her. Folks here have been trying to speak Spanish, and she could understand them but they could not understand her very well. (Spanish is a popular second language in Brazil; I used it as a crutch when necessary while there.) Sr. Catherine, it turns out, has been living in New Hampshire and knew some members of my family! (My family spreads across the line from Maine to New Hampshire, and I went to school in both states.) It is a small world, indeed!

4. The up and down of changes at the office continued this week. First, I was reporting to a very senior person being added to our division (in addition, to several projects being moved out because we have been so successful and grown so large), then that would person would report to me, then, the final version settled on, I would report to that person and not to my boss. My boss and that person would both report to the local chair of the board (who would report to the regional, etc.). At this point, I know that my job is to see everyone safely, successfully, and happily through the change, and I am not worrying about what happens to me personally, to whom I report, or who reports to me. These things will work themselves out, I am certain, based on my walk with God this past week.

5. Surprise! Two foreign generals visited us today - a rare experience. One of them fell in love with the dog pictures in my budget director's office. The budget director volunteers at the SPCA and works to socialize the large dogs so that they can be adopted. The general adopts wounded dogs! They talked, and the general gave my budget director a memento coin. My budget director was ecstatic since it was from a foreign military. My thought? Yes, indeed, it is a very small world!

6. I usually don't report on movies, but Bible Study was canceled on Wednesday night so I had some found time. Donnie suggested a movie, and we watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It is such a powerful movie, about the friendship between a German boy and a Jewish boy in a concentration camp during WWII. The ending is overwhelming, but not the usual. I won't say more than that because it will spoil the movie for anyone who has not seen it and wants to watch it. I highly recommend it, but not as a mood lightener! (It was especially poignant for me because my budget director's father is the only member of his immediate family -- siblings and parents -- to survive Auschwitz. The budget director and I talk about that sometimes because the father's experience had a major impact on his own children.)

7. As for other evening activity this week, I have been chasing chairs. We are having two BBQs next week. With 20+ people expected for each, I need folding chairs. Every store we have gone to has had only a few; in one case, only one! We live fairly far from any city, so we traveled south, north, and east to acquire the chairs. I think I have enough. I would have liked 2-3 more. Maybe tonight we will go west!

Wishing you a blessed Friday (the remainder of it, that is) and a great Fourth of July weekend!