Okay, here is my second blog after two years since the pilot blog. Guess you may wonder where I have been these past two years. Well, let's see what I can remember from then.
As of 22 November 2018 -- which happened to be Thanksgiving -- my older brother made me an uncle. The little guy is named Nathan Jerry Charles Bender: first middle name after the paternal grandfather and the second middle name after the maternal grandfather. Even as I write this blog, my sister-in-law is becoming a mother to a second boy this coming June. Nephew Nathan was born in New Jersey where my brother landed a job months prior in teaching at the Middlesex County Community College (MCC) what he had learned in order to obtain not just a teaching degree, but also his doctorate degree in English. Way to go in becoming the second-generation in becoming an educator in the family, Brother! After my sister-in-law's first maternity leave was over and could return to work as a Delta Airlines stewardess, my brother and nephew have been joining her on some of the domestic and international flights. While I couldn't make it to Nathan's "christening" -- which was compromised to do in Utah instead of New Jersey, Washington, or California -- because of my own employment at a donation trailer for The Salvation Army, only Dad went, but at least Nathan got to spend his first Christmas with his daddy's family and I held him who was sleeping in heavenly peace like the Christ child in a manger -- throughout church's Christmas Eve worship service. Then in the late summer of 2019, Dad and I went to New Jersey to visit my brother's family for a few days: a New York Giants football game (though nephew didn't have his own entry ticket; sister-in-law took him and herself home while her husband and male-in-laws watched the game), strolling the streets of Philadelphia, seeing MCC, having dinner with an old childhood and college friend of Dad, seeing Menlo Park whose famous resistant Thomas Edison on whom I once did a fifth grade report, a Revolutionary War site, walking along the shore, and other things.
Mid-summer 2019 was a shocker. Had an emergency meeting in Portland, Oregon with The Salvation Army and everybody -- trailer attendants, truck drivers, beneficiaries for the Army's adult rehabilitation center, (ARC) supervisors -- had to attend. We usually have a monthly meeting to discuss progress and safety and the like, but this was different: giving donors receipts make their donations deducible form taxes, but also to fund the ARC. Sadly, the Army was having financial problems and that wouldn't be easy to also run the donation retail stores. So from end of the meeting until the end of September, everyone was going to have their donation trailers pulled away and not replaced; you'll have to be reassigned to another site until the lay-offs happened. I had been working with The Salvation Army donation program since Christmastime 2013 and I had worked in the Vancouver area first in Orchards -- which was awfully far from my apartment and I had parents or acquaintances to take me to/from the site on my scheduled days as I don't drive -- to close-by-walking Salmon Creek, back to Orchards, and then finish off at Evergreen; Salmon Creek was pulled away a few years ago because it had been too much accumulated with unattended, ransacked donations, and I learned to how to take three buses to/from Orchards and Evergreen on the weekdays, but had parents or acquaintances on Saturdays as the first bus wasn't operational on weekends.
So I became unemployed all throughout October while applying elsewhere. One place was doing donation and thrift store rival to The Salvation Army or any other second-hand shop Goodwill since it was also kind of near my apartment, but a little further away. Tried Costco and Target, but then I'd have to learn the bus routes. The hospital doing cleaning and other non-medical chores, but wasn't sure if I was confident enough. Grocery store Winco as well as Walmart -- albeit next to each other -- were also one or two bus routes away and, again, first bus in my neighborhood isn't operational on weekends. Then there was this place: the Fred Meyer whose parking lot once had The Salvation Army's Salmon Creek donation drop-off center. Got an interview I think mid-month and they said they'll have someone else call me for a second interview. Never had the second interview, but I went back to describe the situation and it turned out they let that one person go (I forget already what happened; they were fired or relocated to another branch store of the company in the city) and go someone new which they seemed to fail to tell me, but at least I finally got to meet them. Then as luck and the grace of my Heavenly Father would have it by the end of October, I was hired! I originally applied to help out in apparel or stocking the shelves, but working graveyard shift probably didn't work for me. When asking if I could be a parcel clerk -- gathering the carts, gathering the garbage, gathering the recycled plastic bags, cleaning the bathrooms, help customers take their groceries from the cashier to their automobiles, giving customers a tank of propane, taking their perishable groceries on which they might've changed their mind of buying after paying for it back to the item's designated location, etc. -- I accepted. And that is where I am today for the past four months. Of course I don't do this position alone, there is a secondary parcel clerk who could cover for me and I for them when either one of us is on lunch break or doing other tasks seeing as this Fred Meyer is a bit big for only one parcel to handle on their own. How do I like Fred Meyer compared to The Salvation Army is what I'm at times asked by those who knew I was with The Salvation Army. It's a little more fast paced, I say. I also get to go in when they schedule me for when they want me to come in and for how long to stay for the day.
Now as you're aware, the worldwide pandemic of COVID 19 struck in late November and that really got me working fast paced due to the shoppers' panic buttons getting pressed, making them hoard grocery stores' shelves of certain items not just some foods but like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, etc. which made it not easy to restock once the freight trucks come in. With fingers crossed, it seems like the pandemic is mellowing down and it will take a little while do get the shelved fully stocked again ere this crisis began. So I'm still working at Fred Meyer (just not today as it is not only a scheduled day off, but also the Sabbath) alive and well, for sure haven't got the bug, but still social distancing the best I can with my family and social circle so none of us can catch the bug nor die therefrom. I will be glad when the coronavirus is over so people can get back to their lives: going to school, going to church, dining in restaurants, attending sporting events and concerts, seeing the doctor for non-coronavirus issues, traveling the world, and specially hanging out with their friends and loved ones. So with that note, I continue to pray for each and every one of my fellow earthlings to be safe. Hope we can meet in person again in the future.
