Methodist with Angel and Kathy, Open Door with Mikell, and OD with Italia

October 10, 2023:

Well my significant thought of the day is that Open Door is significantly better than Methodist. I had a decent time at Methodist today, even though it was much, much slower than usual, but it just can’t compare to how nice Open Door is.

Ok, now I’ll narrate my day. First things first, I felt a bit nauseous at 4:30am, and took a Zofran. Then I took my pills at 7:30am, and waited to eat because I felt nauseous. Then I did, and I felt bad again, so I ended up actually throwing up a lot of the yogurt into one of the Mayo blue barf bags. I took another Zofran at like 9am because of that. It’s funny, today I’d even told Methodist that I might come in for the whole day, not just the afternoon when they needed me, but because I felt so sick this morning, I wasn’t able to do that. Instead, I chilled in the morning, and took a short walk with Papa to get my bowels moving, and emailed them said I’d probably just come in for the afternoon. So then, I ate a small amount of scrambled eggs and a rice pudding, and drove over to Methodist. I stopped at my house first, and got a TON of stuff done that I’d had on my list. It was things like printing all my October photos of the day, picking up some fuzzy socks, and checking my mail to pick up the small hoops earrings I’d gotten to replace the ones I lost.

At Methodist, today seemed to be the Poalasin day, with oodles of clients with that last name. We had a hard time sorting out who was who for a while. I also had a nice conversation moment with the volunteer named Angel. He said that he’s actually going to be going back to Mexico around the end of the month, leaving his wife here. He also asked how I’d learned Spanish, and I told him the Valleyfair and ex-boyfriend story. I also mentioned that the TBI tends to make you forget things, and I LOVE Spanish so much now, because I remember it. It was annoyingly slow today at Methodist, with there being literally no line at the end of the shift. We got everything entered into the computer too. At the end of the shift, the staff person Kathy walked me though how to save all the documents and put the information into a pivot table, and then export it to a flash drive. Apparently we’ve had 202 clients this week, all in one day.

Then, I pretty much immediately went to Open Door, to have a conversation with Mikell about possible graphic design and photography help. We talked a bit at the beginning, and I even told her my fun realization about “always wanting to be normal,” which is the easiest one to explain to people sometimes. She talked to me about wanting to have someone take photos of clients shopping in the pantry, once we get a way to get their permission. She showed me some photos they’d had Second Harvest Heartland take recently of people shopping too. She also talked to me about maybe wanting me to make a carousel of Instagram posts, that break down Open Door’s four programs. She also got me set up to use their Canva account, and literally made a folder called “Anya’s projects,” though I just realized writing this that I haven’t got the login written down anywhere. So now I’ve messaged her to ask for it again, just so I can save it to a passwords document.

After I met up with her, I was like 10-15 minutes “late” for my 4:15pm shift. For my shift, I didn’t actually have a pre-defined role, but the place they needed the most help was sitting at the greeter desk with Vicki. It was nice to help with Spanish there for sure, and I got a few new clients registered too. Today, Italia closed alone for the first time, so she was in charge of locking the doors and everything. I also learned that Italia had graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in nonprofit leadership. I absolutely HAVE to ask her what kind of classes that involved taking in the future.

Oh, and then I drove home, and I tried to do it with no directions but got a bit turned around, and had to use them. At home, I had my meds at 8:01pm with three tempura shrimp for 11g of fat. We’d gotten them at Trader Joe’s the other day, as something to experiement with.

Grateful: I’m very, very grateful for Open Door. I had a great talk with Mikell, and I forgot to take a photo with her even though I was planning on it, so I just have her hands here. And then I also had a good time with Italia, and I’d love to talk to her more about what exactly she studied some time in the future.