Not Everybody Eats Pie

_{Editor's Note: This is the short version, originally posted on 93words -- expanded posts will soon post here.}

Our New Thanksgiving, bookended by gospel music...




and trade show magic...

...produced sights, sounds and impressions -- family story fodder.

The Auto Show? 3 boys PLUS Dad. Mom with new camera. Oddly perfect.

Biggest "re-traditioning" lesson? Not everybody eats pie.

At least, not in the traditional holiday-at-home way. True in the suburbs, it's easiest to verify in the city.

People were everywhere -- playing, eating, volunteering, working. Perhaps, for some, a Thanksgiving time-out. So what. At that moment they were cast in San Francisco's Thanksgiving scene. So were we.

Expect repeat performances.

2 Days to a New Thanksgiving

Turkey Surprise is no longer a Friday leftover.
While I've been focused on New, my husband has been studying the Thanksgiving Safeway brochure the way students scour Cliff Notes.

TIP C -- Foil mittens.

Planned, prepped, and even roasted -- we're ready for our first New Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving

Thursday: Serve turkey at Glide Memorial followed by a family walk through the Tommy's Joynt food line and a SF afternoon.

Tonight: Man vs. turkey.

Tomorrow: Dinner in the dining room with everyday dishes when Campo's gym lights go out, somewhere around 9:30 p.m.

Life lessons? Many.

3 Days to a new Thanksgiving -- making lists

Just started a to-do list: Plan Thanksgiving.

I've been doing lots of thinking, and a little asking around, but basically after I nailed down the "help serve a meal" activity, I pushed the whole thing aside, except to tell my husband in as nice a way as a Thanksgiving Lady Grinch can, that I was unwilling to start any tradition that involved me planning, cleaning and cooking for hours if not days while the men in my life, which is basically the rest of my entire family with exception of Mocha Cat, await a dinner bell and second servings. 

Wouldn't it be nicer, I suggested, if we could start a tradition that could continue once the kids go off to college which (GASP!) is less than 2 years from now for our oldest. Something we could do when it's just the two of us, if ever. Go on an outing, maybe. 

"They'll probably still come home for Thanksgiving then," he said. But he did give the knowing nod.

Then my husband launched a discussion about some brochure that's been floating around the office about "how to prepare thanksgiving in 2 hours," reminding me of the weeks after we first moved to Northern California from Manhattan Beach -- on the 8th day of the school year. It had been a quick move, done even faster to protect a spot in the local kindergarten class. Think witness protection but we got to keep our names. 

My husband was busy starting his new job. Five of us were living in a 2-bedroom corporate apartment 8 miles from my sons' new elementary school while we waited to take possession of our new house. We didn't recognize any faces in the school yard, much less knew anyone well enough to swap play dates. A 180 degree switch from the old neighborhood where my mother network blossomed. 

We were probably on time to school 5 times in the first 14 days. Laundry was three floors down and required massive numbers of quarters. Did I mention the kids were 3, 5 and 7? One day I just broke down -- this move would work, I told my husband. But right now everything was harder, he needed to try to help more. 

I was hoping he might start making lunches before work. 

The next morning, what I found was fresh brewed coffee. A whole pot. Never mind that I'd been trying to cut back on caffeine. It was as if to say, "You have so much to do... let me pump you up so you can get everything done a little faster."

This morning I realized that, if we were doing our usual Thanksgiving tradition, I would have woken up in Room 27, Sea Sprite Motel and Apartments, in Hermosa Beach, to the gentle sound of waves mixed with the soft shoe-sole-to-strand patter of early morning joggers. Life off-season on the beach is quiet and slow and easy, filled with long afternoons on the porch overlooking the ocean, and punctuated by hard food decisions like, "Do you want to order Pizza from Scottie's?" 

Meanwhile, my husband seems to have gone into action. Perhaps he's noticed the lack of harvest decorations, cookbooks and silver laid out to be polished. He stopped at Safeway on the way home from work the other night and called me from the meat aisle. "Do you think we should buy a Turkey?"

Thanksgiving newbies, the two of us.

When he got home, his bag was filled with string beans, raw sweet potatoes and little marshmallows. I took a closer look at his brochure. It's  2-hour Turkey. Not a 2-hour Thanksgiving. What about the sides?  

I can see where this is going if I don't get to work.

So much to do. So little time. Now my list has two things on it.

(1) Brew coffee

(2) Plan Thanksgiving

Ahhhhh.... Needed!

Reason #839 why you should never give up when it's something important! The weekend volunteer sign-up frustration was really just a tech glitch. Lucky that I sucked it up and dialed Glide Memorial today to see why I was such a Loser Volunteer. Honestly, you couldn't help but feel bad for Shirley Cherry, Glide's Volunteer Resource Program Administrator. She sounded a bit tired when I spoke to her this morning. She didn't know what happened, she said. "It was working Friday."

When I talked to Shirley, she was still working on the problem but promised to send an email when the the situation un-glitched. And she did. (Thanks!)

Hello,

GLIDE has been experiencing technical difficulties with our Volunteer website. It has been corrected.
Please go on-line to schedule your holiday volunteering with GLIDE.

Thank You!

GLIDE Foundation
Volunteering Office

So now our family has signed up to volunteer. We've even received our confirming emails! Ahhhhhh... Thanksgiving Volunteer Sign-up -- mission accomplished. Now we're looking forward to starting our Thanksgiving morning at Glide, helping serve food to others.

After that .... I guess we need to do a little work on that. Compared to this volunteer sign-up hurdle, though, I've got to believe that will be easy.


Are you looking to volunteer in San Francisco this holiday season? Our family brought the number of volunteers shifts in the 10:30 a.m. slot on Thanksgiving from 111 to 106. But as I write this, there's still space in that and lots of other shifts. But hurry. Shirley Cherry says they do fill quickly -- just not as quickly as it seemed Saturday morning.

Our Wants v. Real Needs -- Volunteer Blues

I have been trying for weeks to find a Thanksgiving outreach opportunity for our family, and it's getting hard not to feel like a complete loser.

A quick web search came up with very little on-Thanksgiving Day options, with those that looked appropriate already fully-staffed, e.g. they already had the 8 volunteers they figured would do the job.

But I'd asked around and had my sights on San Francisco's Glide Memorial which has an extensive holiday outreach. Literally -- hundreds of shift slots. The website was organized -- but outlined how the jobs would be listed in detail and appropriate sign-ups could begin on November 1st. I then called Glide last week to confirm that signing up early was critical.

So I did what any determined-to-get-a-slot volunteer would do. I checked the website about 12:30 a.m. Yes -- shortly after midnight. The job listings were up. There was even a form to volunteer. So, feeling a bit smug, I put my information in and hit the VOLUNTEER button.
Back popped an error message, something in computer ease talking about line 172 and a backslash. But I pushed forth anyway, ultimately signing up all five family members, each of which got the error message. Then I emailed the Volunteer contact and described what I had done, just in case it took.

I got up at 6 a.m. and did the same thing. Ditto at 7:30 a.m. or so. By 8 a.m. I'd left a message at the info line, just asking if the computer program was having issues.

But then, disaster.

When I checked a forth time at 9:13 --- all the Thanksgiving Day volunteer shift slots were filled. Gone. Like all the seats to much anticipated rock concert. Plus, all the Xmas-related ones, too.

Under each heading, there was a "no shifts available" notice. Store closed. As if to say, nice try. But we don't need you.

Move along.

Loser.

So, I sent another email asking what I had done wrong. I'll let you know what I hear. If nothing else, I'd like to know what to do better next year. Perhaps those close to the situation -- read "have volunteered every year and know that the lines open at 9am even if the website is silent on the issue" -- had an inside track. And deservedly so.

Regardless, the truth is this: Glide's responsibility is to help the needy, not to build would-be volunteer self-esteem. They are generous by dividing their needs into shareable slots.

Still... this whole find-a-way-to-volunteer failure is beginning to feel a little desperate. Like we're Volunteer Losers with no dates to the dance, and not even a prospect of going with the next door nieghbor's second cousin. Twice removed.

It's as if we should post our own volunteers-needed sign, drum up some business.

Help Wanted: Volunteers to pretend to NEED US

Perhaps we should just be happy that either there are so few who need or so many willing to help. Take your pick.

But word to the wise -- if someone is asking for ideas for spending some or all of Thanksgiving, easy on the servings of "Volunteer at a foodback" or "Serve homeless people dinners." It's probably not very hard to do that on the odd Wednesday morning in June, but on Thanksgiving Day, it's a pretty tall order.

That having been said, I'm still looking... so if you have any specific ideas for Thanksgiving outreach in the San Francisco Bay Area, let me know.