Catchup A Birthday, A Walk, and Skid Row

I have had some ups and downs and it has been awhile since I wrote anything. I would say that I am mostly up right now. I have found that my job is causing the eb and flow of my emotions. It is Monday and I am stilling riding the wave of a good weekend. I also wanted to catch up with a few pictures that I took. I would have more and better, but we can’t find the charger for the camera battery and so I all I have is a few pictures from Xenia’s phone. I am going to work backwards starting with yesterday.

A month or so ago I had set up for us to go help out at breakfast for the Midnight Mission in LA. It is the center of skid row. It was not a good weekend to be doing this since we had to go move our stuff from AZ and everything else we had going on. I even confessed to Kim that I didn’t want to admit it, but I was wishing we were not doing this. I told her at 11PM so it was a little late to do anything about it but not show up the next morning. We went to bed at midnight and I set the alarm for 5AM. I still had to print out the forms, unhook the trailer, print off directions and get all the kids out the door. Somehow it all came together and we were on the road by 530AM. Since we had helped out at the St. Vincent DePaul center in Phoenix we all kind of had an idea of what was expected. That is why when they asked for volunteers to work in the back Dakota and Xenia jumped at the chance. They ended up cracking eggs for the entire hour and half we were there. The rest of us worked in the dining room. At one point near the end of our shift I was overcome emotionally. I felt it was an honor to be doing this on Sunday morning. We were home by 830AM in plenty of time for church though it was tough to stay awake. I can’t describe what it felt like to be helping with out judgment the most vulnerable and needy of our population. I didn’t care if they were addicted to drugs, criminals, or even bad people. I was just there to help them get a single meal for a single morning. I wouldn’t be anyplace else. Last night I whispered to Kim that I want to go back next week. That may be too much for the kids, or even me, but I want to go back.

As part of our preparation for whitney we walked from Grandma’s house to Seal Beach. We had dropped a car off the night before so that we did not have to walk back. It was 6 miles of walking. It took us about 2½  hours. The reward at the end was to eat at the end of the walk cafe. It was a real treat and expensive ($75). The food was ok, the view was fantastic and the rest was needed.

End of the Beach CafeBefore that walk we had gone up to Korea Town for McKala’s birthday. We walked around, there wasn’t much to see. We tried to find a place to eat. One place looked good, but the table setup was intimidating and the prices were too much for us. We ended up just eating at the local mall in their food court. We were the only non-Asians there. Korea Town Food CourtIt was adventuresome. We spent way to much on McKala’s birthday, but in a way I feel like we spent too little consideration. Sure we let Xenia buy a $30 gift instead of a box of her favorite cereal, but did we celebrate McKala? Did we make it special enough? I don’t know. She is 18 now. She already drives. She says she wants to change, but she knows she does not want to make any effort. I don’t envision success for her in doing that.

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