The Political Potato

Working in a thrift store, I can find what I need or want, or what friends want or need... eventually.

i. Teak

Marz had no furniture when she moved into her new studio apartment. She furnished it almost entirely from my workplace for about $250 (incl. delivery!).

The final thing she needed was dining table chairs.
I nabbed these teak ones for her. (The store had already provided two mid-century teak table lamps.) The chairs are, I think Danish, 1960s,  by Erik Buch? or, in the style of.
The upholstery is dirty, but ten bucks for the pair?
A steal.

Mostly, my coworkers don't know about and the customers don't care about mid-century modern design (mostly). Mr Furniture might have thrown these out, because they're dirty.

ii. Potato in the Park

The chairs might have ended up in the mini-park next door, where people are living. At least they'd get used instead of broken up in the Dumpster, which also happens.

People took these chairs, below, from the dumpster area to the park.
                                     ("12" = police)

In my quest to get sanitation services for this little park that has no water, no trash pick up (after my call to 3-1-1 a couple weeks ago didn't work), I sent this photo, below, of a potato to the City Council member for the ward.

I thought a light touch might work, and it did at least get a response.
The councilor is famously useless, or even corrupt, but she passed my email on to an aide, who sent the trash collectors to the park!

The aide wrote that they would put in a trash can too, but also said that the City is going to fence the property, so people can't go in, "unless there are objections."

I HATE POLITICS. I mean, the elected officials side of things. Lots of what I do is political, but I never go to meetings, and I never want to join committees, etc., or even talk to politicians.

But what could I do?
I tossed and turned all night.

If the city fences off the park, the people there will be forced to move---again. I would love the people to move out of the park, because they are, many of them, armed and dangerous.

But the city is doing this all over town, and not taking care of the root problems---not that it's easy to address homelessness, addiction, poverty.
Pushing people from one park to the next is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

In the morning, I wrote to the aide and said, I object, unless there's a larger PLAN to help the people in the park... and the neighborhood.

I even suggested some actions (because criticism without ideas to improve is useless):
Besides sanitation, bring in social services, and hold meetings WITH the people who live their.
They are citizens. They should be listened to.
And the neighbors too.

Sigh.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

iii. Coworkers

Meanwhile, I am loving my coworkers.
We are stressed by the increased danger of coming to work (!), and management is pretty useless, with no plan to help anyone, but everyone's being kind to one another.

The board held the annual (except for Covid 2020) thank-you dinner for staff and volunteers of both thrift stores on Sunday.
I've never gone because I hate the board (they're subservient to the exec. director--it's his show), but I went this year to be with my coworkers after the hard past year and a half.

Here are some of us at the dinner. I'm in the center, wearing my favorite white linen shirt and blue Crocs. I love that shirt, but next year, I'm going to dress up--nab some outrageous dress from the store!

 

 

(I had to reclaim my Crocs from some little pesky dolls who were using them for speedboats.

Held in an events room of an Italian-American restaraunt, the thank-you dinner was serve-yourself spaghetti and meatballs.
The whole thing was a cheapskate affair (the board is ungenerous and short sighted)--not even flowers on the tables, and dessert was American cookies. 

"Where are the cannoli?" I asked. "Leave the thank-yous. Take the cannoli."
But no one had watched The Godfather.


But it was a great evening!  Complaints and great ideas that are going nowhere notwithstanding, I am in the right place with an amazing group of people.
Not that any of us knows what we're doing, but who does?
Not the City Council either.

WHERE ARE THE COMPETENT GROWN-Ups???
I'm afraid, it's just us chickens.