I'm at my parents house right now because my little brother is desperate for $$ (he lost his "job" helping a friend deliver papers) so he's washing my car. I'm okay with that :D
Just a quick recap on my volunteer work and how small of a town this is. Thursday, as previously posted, I was at the Badminton venue. I was on duty with a young girl named Taylor. As normally happens with volunteers in a quiet setting, we chatted back and forth about a variety of things. I found out that she goes to my old highschool, so we compared teachers, family structre etc. At one point she asked if I had had a chance to attend the local summer concert series downtown. I mentioned that I had (I blogged about it briefly in my mentally exhausted post). Anyways, she mentioned that her mom was there working. I was like "Who is your mom?" Turns out, Taylor's mom is a lady who I've known professionally for many years and who is the other new member of the advisory board I started with on Tuesday. Remember the "My Big News" post? Where I said I had been asked to sit on the board of directors for my old job? Well I started that involvement on Tuesday along with Taylor's mom. Small world!
Taylor had been at the Badminton venue all day and the host before me was according to Taylor "a 73-year old woman who yelled at me and talked A LOT". To make her feel better I told her about this old woman who used to live across the street from me. She was the most unhappy person you've ever met, always complaining about the neighbour kids and door-to-door solicitors. As kids we avoided her as much as possible. When I started volunteering in 1995 it was at the local Agri-fair (maybe that's why I have such an affinity to it) anyways, my first year, I arrived for my shift and guess who I was stationed with? Yep, this unhappy scary old neighbour lady! Thankfully, once you got to know her she wasn't too bad.
Back to the present, Friday night my volunteer duties were hosting the banquet for the athletes. It was my job to make sure that they didn't rush the buffet line up and then directing them where to go after they had eaten. My cheeks got VERY sore from smiling so much. Has anyone seen the outtakes at the end of "Toy Story"? With Tourism Barbie, or Ariline Stewardess Barbie or whatever she is? When she's smiling and waving "Have a nice day, thanks for travelling with us, thank you, good bye, good bye, good bye....are they gone yet? My cheeks are KILLING me!" Yeah. That was me on Friday night. There were 3,000 athletes registered for the games plus spouses and invited guests. That is a LOT of people to greet.
It died down around 8:30 and people started to head out. At that time I wandered over to the other part of the hall where they were serving dessert. Guess who was stationed there? You guessed it. The cranky old neighbour lady that I had told Taylor about!!! Of course she recognized me so we chatted for a bit. She's a grandma now, and still doing lots of volunteering. Oh, and she asked me to say "hi" to my mom for her. It was funny that I'd run into her after all these years when I had just been talking about her!
This morning (Saturday) I was at the Ice Hockey venue for 65+. There was one player that was 77 years old!!! Today was the medal rounds. The first game was for bronze, the second for gold and silver. The second game tied, went to a shoot out after overtime and was won by the 10th shooter! Very fun to watch.
Alright, it looks like is just about done with my car so I'll sign off now. Hope you're having a great weekend!
Heidi
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