Catching up Part 2

Last week (Monday-Wednesday) I went to a training conference near Los Angeles. The conference was barely three days long, and they crammed a lot of information and speakers and food into a very short period of time. They crammed so much in there, they didn't sent out a conclusive schedule of conference until after everyone arrived, probably so no one decided it looked like too much and decided not to come! A slight exaggeration, perhaps -- but the point is I had hoped I'd be able to do a little bit more in CA while I was there than just the conference stuff. (Like visit people!) Fortunately my aunt and uncle did drive over from Burbank and were able to help me escape for an hour or two. We went to dinner down the road from the hotel, had a nice but short visit (it was great to see you!!) and then back to work for me!

This past weekend I ventured north (practically to OK -- but not quite!) to visit friends of my aunt and uncle from Burbank. They live in a really beautiful rural area about an hour's drive north of Dallas. Their family lives down the road in another big, beautiful house with plenty of animals as well (4 cats and 3 horses). Escaping the city for a bit was great, everyone was so nice and acted like I was part of the family, not some stranger, and invited me back some time soon -- any time I'd like to come and try horseback riding. Here was the Texas as I imagined it before moving to Dallas: wide open fields, horses roaming about, big ranch style homes, people waving to each other as they drove by...

Well, maybe I didn't necessarily expect all of that. But here's something I definitely never even dreamed I'd see:

Saturday evening, our party-of-eleven (the grandparents, daughter and son-in-law, the three grandkids, the three grandkids' three friends, and myself) went out to dinner at this restaurant that was about as stereotypical Texas as you could get: the outside looked like a big log cabin, the inside had wooden walls and big heavy-duty wooden benches in the waiting area and the same heavy-duty chairs and tables in the dining area, walls covered with cowboy memorabilia, random knickknacks, and dead animals, complementary jalapeno cornbread came before the food, the menu featured mainly steak or other meat hickory-seasoned, and the mashed potatoes came with white gravy. MMM I hadn't had white gravy in ages, and was pretty excited to order those mashed potatoes, but almost, ALMOST passed them up for another delicious potato option: the sweet potato fries. So yes, this restaurant was about at Texas as they come. So what, you may well be asking, was so shocking?

Blue tooth phones are so annoying. I mean, yeah, they can do all this cool stuff, blah blah blah and probably won't give you brain cancer. But they look ridiculous. Well, they're ok when the wearer is in an office, or driving a car, or someplace else where it's necessary or convenient to be so attached to a phone. But anyplace else -- ridiculous. I half laughed, half rolled my eyes at the guys at the conference who had them attached the their ears all weekend, sitting in the speaker sessions, or at dinner. Guys with shaved or nearly-shaved heads who wear them especially made me giggle a little inside when I saw them at the conference, because their ill-manners were so made so obvious by the fact that they had no hair whatsoever to hide the obnoxious little clip attached to their ear as they sat eating a formal dinner. But those well dressed, nearly bald men were nothing compared to the two men I saw in that Texas restaurant, sitting there at their table with (presumably) their family, dressed in the big flannel overcoats (it was cold that evening), old dirty jeans and boots, disheveled hair, and their stinkin BLUE TOOTHs. Honestly! What self-respecting cowboy eats his chickenfried steak and whitesauced potatos, or his 14 oz hickory smoked slab of steak and homemade cornbread while remaining constantly wired to the network through his bluetooth? Definitely not something I thought I'd ever see...

Catching up Part 1

My life since January:

Learning how to be a case manager. I really can't write about this because it's still a work in process. But suffice it to say my job is completely different now. No longer do I work with the little kids; I'm now working with thirty-one 14-21-year-old "adjudicated and at-risk" youth. I'm learning case management, and time management, because these students are never in the same place at the same time. Some of them rarely (all right, let's be honest: even never) show up at the center. At this point, I've talked to most of them at least on the phone. But some of them I'm still trying to track down and meet for the first time. The fact that I still haven't been able to get a hold of a few of them, don't know them and can't find them, is only a minor challenge of this job, in comparison to other things. The challenges some of these youth face overwhelm me at times. Literally. I heard a song on the radio the other day that just hit a little too close to home ... well, these are personal details that I really don't feel comfortable typing online. I ache for some of them, at times.

Don't get my wrong, the works challenging, but I came prepared for a challenge. No, that's not true. I wasn't prepared, by myself. But I came expecting a challenge, and came prepared to be built up and hold my ground in the midst of a challenge. I hope I'm doing things right. Just those of you who do, pray for my kids. Pray that they realize there are people out there who care about them, want to see them succeed, and expect that they can succeed. And not just people. People come and go, despite all best intentions. People fail. Pray that they believe, and learn to trust, that there is more than just "people" out there, caring for and looking out for them.

And not to worry, my job isn't just one big challenge. Some of the kids have been doing amazing things lately, and that's exciting! For example, on of the girls who rarely made it to school last semester has been regularly attending, and bringing papers marked "100" to show us at the center. She tries to act like she's not proud of herself, but haha! It doesn't work. And we're all so proud of her. Actually, all the kids who regularly attend programing at the center have been improving in all sorts of different areas, so the plan is to throw this surprise Valentine's Day Party for them on Wednesday. Hopefully it goes well!