A busy weekend.
Friday at the Toronto Marathon Expo
On Friday I volunteered at the Toronto Marathon giving out the corporate relay packages. Working with me was the Melissa, a self employed mortgage broker and Karen, who was also a team Captain for the Toronto Marathon Bicycle Marshals. Karen convinced me to join the bicycle marshal team. –But more about that later.
It was a very cool way to spend my day. I was doing something useful, and I got to do a little networking.
At the expo, working at the “Running Room” booth was George, a guy I met at the “job finding club” I joined back in may. George was someone I would have voted “most likely to find a job faster than all of us” He was incredibly qualified, he presented himself very well, he was very proactive and yet, he has not found work in his field. It made me feel a little better about my own job plight. Here is this man who is doing all the right things, who has all the right qualifications and has had to resort to working retail to make ends meet.
Well if I don’t want to work at star bucks I can always sign up to work at the running room.
Saturday Tea and comfort for Lana.
Very early on Saturday morning My sister in-law’s boyfriend found there Cat “Tom” dead in the ally next to there apartment. It was distressing enough to find her seemingly perfectly healthy two year old cat dead. But even more distressing was the fact that there nasty next door neighbour had made threatening comments about doing harm to the cats.
An examination by the vet showed that the cat had died as a result of some strange and rare growths on his lungs. A relief that Lana’s neighbour is not a cat killer, but still upsetting to Lana and her boyfriend that their furry little child is gone.
Igal and I went over to comfort Lana and Daniel about the loss of Tom.
Sunday Bicycle Marshalling and Poker night at Luba’s
Sunday morning I got up at Oh-God!-thirty in the morning to go meet my team captain and Bicycle team at Young and Eglinton. We were given emergency phone numbers to call, Motrin to hand out to runners who were in pain and Mylar blankets for runners who had dropped out and were cold. My area was from young and Lawrence to St clair and Spadina along the Marathon route.
Our job was to assist runners in distress, give encouragement answer questions and help the cops along the rout direct traffic. Me and another bicyclist had a grand time yelling at drivers who had some how wandered on to the course. “GET OFF THE COURSE!!!!!”
I am not particularly good at chatting up strangers so yelling encouragement to strangers felt a bit odd, but I found that if I could catch the eye of someone who was struggling and they saw my smile the would grin right back and perk up. And I was smiling – all freaking day. So much so that by the end of the day my teeth were cold and my cheeks hurt.
After dropping off my kit at Queens park, lunch, shower, and well deserved nap happened before heading out to Igals cousin, Luba’s house. Lana her boyfriend Daniel, Luba, Serge, Luba’s daughters, and the boyfriends all sat around the table to have a great dinner and afterwards a loud game of poker. It was wonderful. It felt like family should, and we promised that we would do it more often.
I’m looking forward to it.
On Friday I volunteered at the Toronto Marathon giving out the corporate relay packages. Working with me was the Melissa, a self employed mortgage broker and Karen, who was also a team Captain for the Toronto Marathon Bicycle Marshals. Karen convinced me to join the bicycle marshal team. –But more about that later.
It was a very cool way to spend my day. I was doing something useful, and I got to do a little networking.
At the expo, working at the “Running Room” booth was George, a guy I met at the “job finding club” I joined back in may. George was someone I would have voted “most likely to find a job faster than all of us” He was incredibly qualified, he presented himself very well, he was very proactive and yet, he has not found work in his field. It made me feel a little better about my own job plight. Here is this man who is doing all the right things, who has all the right qualifications and has had to resort to working retail to make ends meet.
Well if I don’t want to work at star bucks I can always sign up to work at the running room.
Saturday Tea and comfort for Lana.
Very early on Saturday morning My sister in-law’s boyfriend found there Cat “Tom” dead in the ally next to there apartment. It was distressing enough to find her seemingly perfectly healthy two year old cat dead. But even more distressing was the fact that there nasty next door neighbour had made threatening comments about doing harm to the cats.
An examination by the vet showed that the cat had died as a result of some strange and rare growths on his lungs. A relief that Lana’s neighbour is not a cat killer, but still upsetting to Lana and her boyfriend that their furry little child is gone.
Igal and I went over to comfort Lana and Daniel about the loss of Tom.
Sunday Bicycle Marshalling and Poker night at Luba’s
Sunday morning I got up at Oh-God!-thirty in the morning to go meet my team captain and Bicycle team at Young and Eglinton. We were given emergency phone numbers to call, Motrin to hand out to runners who were in pain and Mylar blankets for runners who had dropped out and were cold. My area was from young and Lawrence to St clair and Spadina along the Marathon route.
Our job was to assist runners in distress, give encouragement answer questions and help the cops along the rout direct traffic. Me and another bicyclist had a grand time yelling at drivers who had some how wandered on to the course. “GET OFF THE COURSE!!!!!”
I am not particularly good at chatting up strangers so yelling encouragement to strangers felt a bit odd, but I found that if I could catch the eye of someone who was struggling and they saw my smile the would grin right back and perk up. And I was smiling – all freaking day. So much so that by the end of the day my teeth were cold and my cheeks hurt.
After dropping off my kit at Queens park, lunch, shower, and well deserved nap happened before heading out to Igals cousin, Luba’s house. Lana her boyfriend Daniel, Luba, Serge, Luba’s daughters, and the boyfriends all sat around the table to have a great dinner and afterwards a loud game of poker. It was wonderful. It felt like family should, and we promised that we would do it more often.
I’m looking forward to it.
posted by veronica at 10:57 AM
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