It’s Better Than Just Gobbledy Gunk = D

[Personal Mood at Time of Entry: Grateful]

There are good Thanksgiving celebrations and there are great Thanksgiving celebrations. However, there are also the best Thanksgiving celebrations that you’ve ever experienced in your entire life. Thanks to the new job, I got to have the best Thanksgiving dinner ever.

I’ve been working at the HRC for a little over a week now, and I love it. I am still trying to get everything down, but I am getting there. I’m pretty confident in the basics and whatnot. I just want to get past the standard nervous hump that comes with every new job.

Well, in an attempt to help integrate myself into my new workplace, not that I am having a lot of trouble with this, mind you, I thought I’d volunteer at the Thanksgiving dinner that the Cafe hosts every year. Not only this, I tend not to have a whole lot to do during the holidays, so I like to either work or volunteer for whatever organization I happen to come across on any given year.

This year, that organization was the Star of Hope. This particular charity helps people get back on their feet after life has come in and swept everything out from underneath them. I believe that they might also work with the homeless people that live on the streets Downtown. I’d have to check on that to be sure.

Anyway, they came in to the restaurant with two different groups. We were expecting at least 300 people to show up and eat. We ended up getting significantly less than that. In fact, we had tons of food left over. I don’t know what we did with it all, but I am guessing that maybe it was donated somewhere.

Since the HRC is known for its burgers and such, I naturally assumed that we were going to be serving cheeseburgers. I mean, I didn’t see anything wrong with eating some of the best cheeseburgers around for Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out that everyone was served a traditional dinner, sans yams. There was a vegetable mix in its place.

It was just so much fun to be surrounded by people who had been supplied with Sunday’s best and a reason to smile during the holidays. We greeted them as they came in off of the chartered bus and directed them to seats. Drinks were brought out and then came the food. There was also hot chocolate dressed with whipped cream being passed out. After a small lapse of time, pie slices also topped with whipped cream were distributed.

After everything died down, many people who had helped out sat down and ate a plate of food together. Some even had dessert, like me. I got a chance to chat with my new ‘mom’ and a few of my co-workers. My new mom is actually the mom of my co-worker named Robert (who’s known as Skippy to me, because he said that I could call him anything I wanted). Robert is attractive and all, but he’s the kind of guy that I would normally avoid. If it weren’t for his rather sweet nature at least half of the time, I’d merely write him off as a jerk. He is utterly obsessed with my breasts and keeps asking for full frontal hugs. Ugh.

If it wasn’t for that one disgusting facet of his personality, I’d be more than willing to find myself interested in him. He’s not at all too short for me, he’s fun, funny, has a great smile, and is solidly built. Think, nice muscular back and arms that would great for any number of things, including hugs to die for. God, I don’t get nearly enough of those. Luckily, everyone was handing those out like candy at the restaurant. : )

So, Robert’s just not anyone that I would be mad over anytime soon, but I do like his mom. She’s funny, too. Sure, she did tell me that she was rather on about her Baptist faith, but other than that, I really liked her. She’s the sort of person who’s warm and friendly and welcoming to anyone right off. If she sees you sitting alone, she’ll come over and chat with you. I adore people like that, because I cannot seem to help myself when it comes to these same situations.

My adopted mom, named Rhonda, by the way, told everyone about Robert’s bleeding heart. We all had a good chuckle about it, too. She told us that Robert used to give his lunch money away to homeless men as a child. Of course, she scolded him for doing so, but he’s still compassionate after all of these years. Now, if only it weren’t for that darned obsession of his. Ugh.

After everyone cleared out, including the television cameras and a local news reporter, that was even better looking in person and actually took the time to talk to me when I didn’t expect him to, the last few stragglers headed out. I said goodbye numerous times and walked toward my bus stop. As I was making my way down the three blocks that I’d need to walk, Ronnie, one of my new co-workers, shouted across the street to ask me where I was going. We chatted for about a minute and he asked me if I wanted to hang out. Since neither of us had anything to do, and would have simply went home to an empty house without anything significant to do for the rest of the day, I decided to go ahead and hang out with Ronnie. This is despite the fact that I had some reservations about him.

You see, Ronnie is a Host, like me. We both stand at the door and get customers where they need to be. Well, Ronnie is really enthusiastic when it comes to his duties. I mean really in way that his desire to do his job well can be off-putting for some. Yes, this does include me, but I figured that I should step back and let him do his thing. If he and his personality need that kind of space, that’s okay by me.

Then, there is the fact that all of the other Hosts seem to think that he is sort of slow. I haven’t been sure sometimes, but the way that he talks and acts does appear to suggest that he has a mild mental disability. After talking to him for hours yesterday (November 23, 2006), I’m still not 100% certain either way. He seems to have a handle on life, even serving in the Army overseas in Germany, but some of his habits make me wonder. It’s not like this would make me treat him any differently, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing to him one day and hurt his feelings.

Anyway, we ended up talking for hours, because it wound up that we couldn’t go to the movie that we were planning to. No money, you see. We got a notice of payment on Wednesday (November 22, 2006), but there wasn’t yet any money on our company pay cards. (Whoever in the hell thought that paying people via a fucking pay card was a good idea should be shot.) We shrugged an ‘Oh, well.’ and decided to go to a park nearby. Well, I shrugged an ‘Oh, well.’ and Ronnie apologized repeatedly and said that he was embarrassed.

I told him not to worry about it, because you really don’t need to spend money to have an enjoyable time. And that we did, for the most part. We talked about all sorts of things. Our past, where we’re at in life now, and what we’re hoping to do with our new source of income. As much as I want to get along with everyone in my workplace, I do have to admit that I am worried in a vague sense about Ronnie getting the wrong idea. I know that we’re sort of friends now, but I don’t want him to get it into his head that there might potentially be a “we.”

It’s not that I hadn’t thought of it myself, but that hardly counts for anything, because I ponder that about just about everyone I meet. It’s usually written off as either ‘nothing’, ‘impossible’, or something I am choosing to be “oblivious” to. I haven’t had the energy to spare for worrying about cultivating a relationship with anyone. I was, and still am, more concerned about bills and buying groceries and whatnot. I figure that all of that can wait for me to get my life straightened out first. And then, when I am meant to get together with someone, it’ll happen in its own good time. You know, once the opportunity bangs me across the head several times to get me to pay any amount of attention to it.

So that was my Thanksgiving. I got to eat, spend time in the company of others, which I didn’t know that I was quite so anxious for, and I got to talk to guy who’s currently being written off as the weird, “slow” guy. In talking to him, I found out that he’s just lonely. None of his family lives here, and he doesn’t have anyone to just sit and talk to. I figure that he’s going to settle down in the Cafe once he finds his stride. Sure, he seems like a bit much now, but he’s still finding his way there, just like me.

However, there is still the matter of why his name is spelled using that of the female variety. I didn’t ask, even though I wanted to. I felt that it would be rude, but wondering is still okay, isn’t it?

*shrugs*

So, how was YOUR Thanksgiving celebration?

Danielle