Today was The Seneca Meadows Second Annual 5k "Run for Hunger". It is a fundraiser for House of Concern. The entry fees are a contribution to our food pantry and people were asked to bring canned goods also.It was a huge success!

It was a beautiful morning and while hot now, it was comfortable then. Okay, admittedly it was probably a bit easier for me to feel comfortable as I was sitting under a tent with a stop watch at mile 2 . I have to  say that all the runners looked hot.

So my job was to yell out their time for the racers as they flew by me. The first guy was by in 11 minutes. Two miles in 11 minutes! I was impressed. He did end up winning the race which did not surprise me as by that point he already had quite a lead.

Anyway,all and all it took about 34 minutes for everyone to go by me. That was amazing to me. In 34 minutes in that heat I wouldn't have been much past the 1 mile mark.Actually pretty sure I would have been laying on the trail in a big heap. Heart patients don't love the heat.

So I waited for the jeep to come and retrieve me because I was not walking back. I mean since they were giving money to House of Concern  they most likely did not want to kill the Executive Director so I figured they would be along. 
 After awhile I hear on my little radio that everyone is in and the guys would be around to clean up. So now I am wondering if I should remind them to get me as I did see the people from the water station near me walking back but I am not pushy and  very patient and I figure that they will remember  me eventually.
Then I hear "Okay I think we have everyone"...So then i speak up and of course they came right out and all was well.

BUT, it occurred to me as I was sitting there waiting for them that this is part of the problem for food pantries in the summer. 
Everyone gets busy.
There is always so much to do at all times for most people. So things get forgotten. Like food pantries. Its way easier to think about them at Christmas or Thanksgiving.
I reminded myself that sometimes you need to announce yourself.

Occasionally you need to remember to shout out  "Wait...don't forget me...I am here!"

So this is  my shout out to all of you no matter where you live.

The pantries need you more than ever now. School is out and so more families are coming in for services.
Think about it... If you are used to your children getting breakfast and lunch at school and now you have to provide that all week it means your grocery bills are going to shoot way up. Unfortunately your income does not.

I was speaking with a  woman  on Friday that is  now providing care for her granddaughter and she said " I work 40 hours a week and I have never had to ask anyone for help but I lost two weeks of work settling my granddaughter in and I don't get paid when I don't work and Wow,forgot how much that 12 year old girls eat!"
I hear many many stories like that.
At the House of Concern on Friday we had 5 new families and most said the same thing...kids are home and the paycheck just doesn't go far enough.
Here are a few facts for you...
In July we had 340 families in for food.
That broke down to 945 people that we try to help feed for a 5 day period.

We receive Foodlink but we had still needed many many trips to the grocery store and we spent.. just in the month of July...$3,800.99 on food.
August 1st we already spent $869...so we are off to another expensive month.
As I told one of the board members..its gonna be a very long summer.

So my thanks to Seneca Meadows for a wonderfully timed fundraiser and also The Cayuga Nation for the Mini Golf tournament they held two weeks ago.Great job and I am sure a huge amount of work. You have no idea how much it helps.

My thanks to all the runners... as you all ran by my thought  was thanks be for helping stock our pantry shelves. I truly said a little prayer for every one of you.

Thanks to all of you who always remember your local pantry.
We need you... we count on you...we would not be able to continue without you.
It is always a community effort.

"There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys...

There's only you and me and we just disagree".
Ah..would that it were actually all that simple.

My sister and I are in a disagreement. Now I write this knowing that she will probably not read this and most likely nobody will tell her to read it. Not that I would say anything any different if I knew she would read it.
This is not a piece where I try to tell you that I am right and she is wrong.
I will tell you we disagree but I will also tell you that there is no good/right answer.
We have spent the last 7 years of our lives dealing with parents with Alzheimer's/ Dementia.
Parents...plural...the freaking jackpot..BOTH of them.

I am the one who has lived close to them, I am the eldest and I am the one who has had the most hands on work to do. That does not for a second mean that I think my sister has not suffered every bit as much as I have. She is still their child.
Anyone who has had this experience of watching a parent lose all sense of who you are, who they are, what anything is, knows that it is a really horrific experience. I have likened it to Night of the Living Dead.
That has never been anything my sister wanted to hear and the fact is that she has always tried to will them into knowing "stuff". Maybe its because she was not around like I was.  But really I tend to think it is more her personality. I am probably more of a realist. She has always been the one who figured if you think hard enough about what you want then it will happen.
I might think that is true to a point but not with Alzheimer's or any sort of Dementia.
NOBODY gets what they want.
All the positive thinking in the world does not change the reality.
The reality is that the whole thing SUCKS.

So once again I have had to put a parent in a nursing home.
Not just a nursing home but a lock down facility. You know, like prison.
 You need a code to get in and out. They put a tracking device on them.
Probably not what they call it but  call it what you will, indeed that is what it is. And they aren't getting out. Its a life sentence.
Now as hard as it was with my mom, not nearly as tough as with my dad. She was very agreeable and frankly way to far gone to know where she was or to care.
My dad that is a whole other story.
He knows he is not home. He knows that there are people in the home that are... in his words," in bad shape" He asks me to " get him out of there."
But, he is not safe alone and he needs 24/7 care and...there is no money.

Money is a big huge factor with elder care.
Basically this is what you do...  go through every single cent that a person ever made in their whole life and then sometimes do a reverse mortgage and when it is all gone you put them in a nursing home and sell their home and the bank takes their cut and the nursing home gets the rest and then..well then its time for Medicaid.
It is outrageously expensive  to have any kind of elder care. Home care  or placement..the money flies out the door. I have known people who I am sure thought they were set for anything that happened, my parents, my aunts being a couple that come to mind but that just wasn't so.
They didn't know. I do not blame them. Used to be people just didn't generally live long enough for all of this to be an issue.
But now it is. Modern medicine keeps us going and going...but at what cost?
I mean really,what is the point of living into your 80's or 90's and not having a damn clue about anything that is going on? If you cannot tend to your own basic needs?
Walking Zombies.
So my mom is gone and had no idea who i was...thought I was the Avon lady for the last few years of her life...my dad is in a nursing home and knows he knows me but does not know why, often thinks I am his sister and soon very soon will probably not even know that much and my sister isn't  speaking to me.

Did I mention that sometimes life blows?
 Sometimes there are no good answers.
There is only what is the best  choice of a bad situation.
Thats what Alzheimers is, a series of constant  decisions between what is bad and what is worse. Sometimes, often,  the choices seem  pretty much identical.

I guess the good news is that I got my dad in where I wanted him to be. It is close to me. I can run in several times a day. It is the best choice of this particular difficult decision.
My sister will either stop being mad at me or she won't. I think at this point its way easier to be mad at me then to be mad at the fact that parent number 2 has Alzheimers.
I am to tired to be mad at anyone for more than a few minutes.
So thats the way it is.
No good guys, No bad guys, and nobody gets to be a hero.
It is just the way it is.

Demolition Derby

So tonight, while doing some suppertime bickering, the husband says to me " I often wish you were in better health so I could hit you" and I quickly retorted " I wish I had a gun so I could shoot you."

Love...It is not for sissy's.

The plain and simple fact is that the husband and I have a deeply complicated, frequently dysfunctional,and often hilarious relationship.

For example, the theme song to our relationship...something he wrote ( big surprise) is titled " Demolition Derby".
I truly like the song and the fact of the matter is some of the best stuff he has ever written has come when I left him...each time.

This last recording that was made is almost entirely about the cluster f--k of a couple crazy years we spent together and apart.
For smart people we have made some powerfully stupid decisions.

Our relationship started under a cloud and when you have that kind of beginning Nobody really expects you to last...and if you are being honest with yourself you don't expect it to last.

But its been 23 years now. It was 23 years ago that I met him and from the very very first sighting I was gone..done for..it was all over but the shouting.

I remember my very first Kim Draheim sighting. I walked into class and there he was sitting with his legs stuck out in the isle... wearing a long black leather coat..black beatle boots...sunglasses( in class, in winter!)...long hair.
I took it in and stopped breathing, acted nonchalant as I walked by and told my friend that he was obviously "full of himself" when she asked me if I saw him.

I saw him.
He saw me.

Love at first sight.
All that corny crap that neither one of us believes in.
But it happened. At the wrong time, for no real reason, and despite every single reason that it should not have.
AND..
It keeps happening.
I leave, I come back.
I get angry, he writes a song.
He gets angry, I convince him he is an idiot. ( kidding, sort of)

We are old now. Seriously,I really really never in my wildest dreams figure that this kind of crazy romantic drama would happen at this age.
However, since i was reasonably sure I would be dead by 40 I guess that is no surprise.

But here we are...silly old people acting like we are 20.

It occurred to me tonight as I was trying desperately to explain to him my concerns and he was looking at me like I was from another planet...it occurred to me that we are destined to spend the rest of our life together.

It might not always be pretty but...
where else am I going to find someone with who one minute we will be talking about Bob and Tom, followed by NPR, followed by a fight about cat litter and then a heartfelt
" you should be kissing the ground I walk on" dissertation by me...into "hold the baby' I need to finish my blog...and he does.

Fact...he makes me crazy.
Fact...I make him equally as crazy.

So he vows not to hit..I vownever ever to get a gun and so it goes.

"The taste of blood and the smell of gas its a demolition derby and a love the lasts...forever...forever..."

And the password is...

Does anyone remember the game password? I have vague memories of the game. I know there were teams and a password that that one contestant tried to get their partner to guess on basis of the clues they gave them.

I play password every day. I have been playing for over an hour now. The problem is I have been playing with a bad partner...my computer. Lousy ass clues. My favorite food?? I have no idea what I said my favorite food was back in December of 09. At that point I was kind of down in the dumps so i figure it could have been anything..cake..cookies..wine...cakecookiesandwine...evidently not. None of those.

So in order to write my blog I have to remember my password and I don't. So then i start getting clues...Your favorite food..no...Okay your oldest childhood friend..got that ( yay! Lynn) but NO that is not enough and they still want the freaking food or the last password I signed in with?? Well shit if I knew that I wouldn't be playing password with you guys. DUH.

I hate passwords. Do you know how many stupid passwords I have?? Too many. I have one for AOL and one for GMail and one for my HOC GMail and one for my online banking and one for my work online banking and one for pay pal and eBay and don't forget Amazon and it goes on and on and on and sometimes I got to think really??

Does anyone give a shit what I do?
Do people actually sit around and try to get into my stuff?

I mean I can see the banking thing but what exactly are they gonna do with my blog?

Okay here's the thing, most of you know me and if I suddenly start writing a blog that is supporting Rick Santorum or Newt well you all can be pretty sure its not me OR that I have finally had that long awaited nervous breakdown.

I swear that my computer was getting condescending with me too. Kept saying "You just changed your password 1 hour ago"
Now that sounds a little condescending am I right?
Besides maybe I did but that was only because they made me and then I got busy and well..I forgot. YES IN ONE HOUR!!
Sue me.
Got lots on my mind these days.
2012 has been a little tough.
Now don't get me wrong some really wonderful things have happened..but none of it has come easily.

So, yes I am easily distracted and I have never been a detail gal anyway...so I get locked out of my various accounts pretty much daily.
Some of my well meaning friends and family like to give me tips..things like write the passwords down and put them in a safe place.

Can you guess the pitfalls with that idea?

First, I have to remember to write them down someplace that actually counts..not my calendar at work..with all the other numbers and phrases and pieces of a sentence that I am sure actually meant something to me at some point.

Also, not on any random scrap of paper as it will end up in one of my cavernous purses and be gone until I dump the purse and find like 20 different scraps of paper and stare at them trying to decide what they might have meant at some point.

Once I got a little notebook and diligently wrote all my passwords down and that was great...until I lost the book...which happened in less than 24 hours.

A few things have become glaringly obvious to me this year.

First, the brain can only hold just so much before stuff leaks out and stress aggravates that condition.
I admit I am leaking.

So for all of you whose birthday I may have forgotten or who I forgot to check on after your surgery or who had a special event I forgot...I am sorry.
You are not unloved you merely leaked out and chances are good I even thought about it in the middle of the night but then it slipped away by morning.

Second, the more kids you have and the older they get and the more their family grows the more there is to worry about..to remember and to worry about forgetting!

Third...Once your baby has a baby, you are old. Yes that,coupled with the fact that the more times than I care to say lately I have had people refer to me as
"adorable", that spells OLD.

You get to be adorable when you are a child or a quirky old lady.

Ah well could be worse.

It all could be worse...having too many people who you love...so many that you start to forget some of their events..that's not a terrible problem.

The password problem well I could just make them all the same thing...except for the ones that make me change every 90 days...ugh...

Perhaps the answer is tattoos.. all the important dates and passwords...all over my body.

It will be adorable.

Oh and by the way..I have absolutely NO Idea what the password was that I finally managed to sign in to this blog with...so might be awhile before I write again~

Gods Quarterback

Tim Tebow is making a big name for himself. He is making the kind of name where people who pay little or no attention to the sport he plays( football) still have heard about him.

The boy is making headlines.

Often when a Sports figure reaches that kind of mainstream popularity it has been for some scandalous reason. In recent years there have been players involved with dog fighting, gambling, shooting yourself in the leg with you gun that you took with you on a night on the town, adultery, sending texts of your privates...well you get the point, its that sort of "I am the star" entitlement thing.

Tim Tebows thing is that he is a Christian.

He is a card carrying, praise the Lord, out in the open Christian. Its not just a Sunday thing with him and its not just for family, he is out there. He is a young man whose faith is in the forefront of his life. He prays openly every where he goes and that includes the football field. His drop to one knee stance of prayer has inspired much ridicule and commentary. This apparently does not bother him in the least. Week after week he "takes the knee", not the one usually associated with football, and he does his job. This is a job that by all accounts he is doing very well. Something that the football people in the know, commentators, analyst, all said was not going to happen. They said he was over rated.

Well, maybe not.

It seems that Nay sayers have surrounded this guy since before he was even born. For those who don't know his mother had complications and was told to not have him, that it would jeopardize her life and he certainly would not be okay. His mom didn't listen to the experts, she listened to her heart and prayed.
Makes you kind of see why Tim Tebow is so certain of how prayer should be part of his life.

Now I can just hear some of you saying "well fine, I don't care if he is a Christian, I just don't want to hear about it all the time Don't push it in my face."
Really?
He is praying and he is doing his job and they are coinciding.

He is not saying "I will not go back on that field till everyone in the stadium and on the field prays with me." he does not make any demands whatsoever of the people watching him and the men he is playing with.

Lots of people pray at their jobs.

I pray all the time at my job. I start everyday of my life with prayer, I pray frequently throughout the day and I go to sleep with prayers of thanksgiving for the day I just had...even, when that day was kind of stressful.

True, my job is not in the public eye..but...I would do the same thing if it was. I have no problem letting people know what I believe in and that I am here by the grace of God, and I do what I do with only God's help.

When i was having my "Match" days I was hitting it off with a man until the day we were going to meet. That day was a Sunday and I told him that i would meet him after Church.
Well that was the end right there. He told me he couldn't date a Christian. I actually thought he was kidding at first but then i realized that he was dead serious. So I said to him,"Are you that afraid that just being near me will cause a conversion of your atheism? You must feel my "make-believe God" is really powerful."

Football Fans are notoriously outspoken, in your face, staunch, loyal, people. They have Jerseys proclaiming there allegiance, they have hats and coats and gloves with their favorites. Sometimes they even paint their faces or even their bodies with the team colors and logos.
None of that offend me. I don't feel the need to ridicule, I don't feel the need to be outraged, and I certainly would defend your right to do this at each and every game.
If it did offend me for some unknown reason...I would simply look away. Pretty simple solution.

I have no idea how things will play out on or off the field for Tebow. Maybe he will have a great career and maybe he won't. Football is more often than not about how healthy you can remain.

I was very glad to hear Tebow say without reservation that he does not believe that God cares who wins or loses a football game. His prayers are not for winning.
His prayers are for thanksgiving.

Some are calling him "Gods quarterback".
I bristled a little when I first heard that thinking that people meant that God picked him to be best and maybe that is indeed what some people mean.
However, upon thinking about it I think there is some truth to this.
If the "I am a Christian and not afraid to say it message" is the football then Tim Tebow is scoring all kinds of points everyday...and especially on Sunday...and in this day and age that is probably exactly what God would have his Quarterbacks do.

Two very different churches one message

So today I went to church at Trinity Episcopal Church in Seneca Falls and then I went to Bar Church at Swabys in Auburn. Using Outward appearances they were dramatically different.

Trinity is a very old church just celebrated its 125th anniversary in its present location. It is a beautiful,much photographed church with stain glass windows some of which are actually Tiffany windows.

Swaby's is a bar on South Street that has its own unique charm. It has all sorts of prison memorabilia up to and including an electric chair. It is dark and there are two small windows that appear to be stain glass in the room that church was held in. I am sure that had nothing to do with why church was held there anymore than the fact that the electric chair is in that room.

Trinity has an older congregation and it is pretty much comprised of people who either have gone there for their whole lives or just about. I was away for a couple years and there are a few people that I do not know who are there but mostly people know each other.

Lake Church at Swaby's was a very young group. I am very sure I was the oldest person in attendance by several years. I also figure I was one of the few without a tattoo but I didn't check around.

Trinity has a beautiful old pipe organ and a wonderful choir led by the very capable Doug and Susan Avery. The songs are traditional church songs that can be found in the "new" 1982 hymnal.

Today at Lake Church at Swaby's there was a head banging female fronted band from Saratoga Springs...Silversyde was their name and they were hard rockers. Bar Church promotes itself with "the energy is high and the music is load" They weren't lying.

In Trinity it is very easy to tell who you are by what you wear.
If you are in the Choir you wear one kind of robe, if you
are an acolyte you wear another type of robe and if you are a lay Eucharistic minister you wear an other and then the priest wears yet another plus the collar and the stole.
The congregation has no robes.

At Lake Church I never had a clue who was who...as a matter of fact I thought that the minister(?) worship leader..still not sure what he likes to be called... was the bartender.
Seriously.
The band kind of looked like a hard rocking band but there were several young people who had that same look so again...no clues there.

Trinity Seneca Falls follows a prescribed format. There is a lectionary that all the Episcopal Churches use so you can be sure that everyone is hearing the same lesson in all Episcopal Churches everywhere.
Trinity also uses the Book of Common Prayer and it has all the services for every possible occasion and the way they are to run right down to the sitting, standing and kneeling. This again pretty much makes it so you could go into just about any Episcopal Church and be fairly certain how things are done...if you know the Episcopal format that is. I did not when I started and it took quite some time to be familiar with it all.

Lake Church at Swabys had pretty much no actual format. I mean I am sure they decided that the band would play x number of songs and the then there would be a message and then some songs but...that was about it. It was loose. It started late. Well It started when it started but it said 12:00 so I was there at 11:45 because that's what i am used to. The band was still setting up, the sign was being put up and the chairs...which few people used...were being set up.

So different?..yes very very different.

Except for one similarity.

The message.

Priest Polly and Josh( maybe)not sure it was his name they both had the same message no matter how they got there.

Polly's lesson began with the lectionary.
Her core message...and lets be very very clear...this is what I got out of it and for the person sitting next to me or in front of me it may have been very different...was that we need to focus, in this 21st century we are distracted, tempted and we can lose ourselves and our place with God if we do not stop. God is our core but it is so easy to lose sight of that.

Josh( again if I am wrong on his name I apologize) his message was about Camping. Well that was his story but the bottom line and again...what I heard as the bottom line..was watch where you set up camp.
You can have all the best stuff and all the education and all the advantages but you need to set up camp in the right camp grounds or risk having it all disappear.

The focus, the camp, are both with God. God is here for us and all we have to do is be open to it and put our trust in God.

God is love and we are All, every single one of us, called.

And that is a message I can embrace with formal robed church or informal Bar Church.

Amen,Alleluia.

26 and counting...

It has been a rough couple of days. Work is busy.
Wait...Make that... WORK IS BUSY!!!

There were 26 families in for food today...today between 9:30 and 3:00...26 of them.
Oh and then there were the 5 others in for other things..gas money, (no I am not supposed to do that anymore and I did), the woman who needs beds for her kids...the woman who needs a bed for her bad back...the woman who needs help with her rent as she is almost two months behind and the woman who just...as she said...needed to hear someone nice and get a hug.

I could say i don't get paid enough but the truth is I often am fairly sure that I get paid too much.

I get paid for being kind and listening and giving food.

The giving food part is actually often the least of what we do.
Its the part I can track..I can tell you how many came in for food in August( 306 families) and by the way today one of the largest single days ever...I can tell you how many were families and how many were single and how many were what age.

However,I don't actually keep track of how many pep talks we give, how many tissues we hand out, how many people invite us into their lives, how many hugs we give or are given.
Those are the things that makes this a job worth doing and indeed makes it a job that surpasses all others for me.

I have looked around for other jobs. Jobs that pay more...that have benefits..you know that stuff.
I do not get paid a lot, more than the people who work with me but that's not saying much.

I have worked most of my life in Human Service fields and I am 56 with NO Pension..No retirement...and I would have no health insurance except I am married to a guy who has it.
That isn't great and I know to some that is a definite lack of "success".

People who are called to this sort of work do it despite the lack of money, despite the lack of long term security, despite the endlessness of the job, and despite what is often a lack of respect by those who have "real jobs" that make "real money".

Here's the thing...
We actually work on a hug a meter. You tell me how many CEO's of major companies get hugged during their day? Virtually none I bet.
Too bad so sad...
Would I like to be more financially secure at this point in my life? You bet.
Would I change anything that i have done up until this minute? Not really.
Sure If I could wave a magic wand people, all people, would get paid enough to live and live well.
Not rich necessarily..but well.
You would have money for food, for your home, for your family.
Nobody needs to roll in it. Personal opinion? Many of the problems today are due to unmitigated greed. People hoarding money and stuff. To what end? Who knows?

You really can't take it with you.

I worry often about "the state of the world"...I thinks that means I am getting old.

My dream? To live in a world where resources are shared and people, all people, look out for one another.

We aren't there yet.

Probably not in my lifetime...but who knows?

You see those of us who work in food pantries and the like, we are hopeless optimists. We actually believe that " the sun will come out tomorrow".
Oh,We have our moments where we whine, and falter, and grow weary and then...
then we get our hug a meter filled by someone and off we go again.

Feel free to join us..any food pantry, nursing home, literacy group,lunch program, senior center, boys and girls club, big brothers big sisters, the list is endless.

And indulge me a bit a moment of corniness...I have had a long couple of days...
You won't make money but you will get rich.