Irma and Janice

Now, I understand that at first glance I probably appear to be one of those indiscriminate hoarders. But it taint true attall. Nope, the things that I hold my greedy mitts onto for years on end qualify in one of the following categories: They are either

1. beautiful


2. functional; or


3. delightful
   

Irma; placed resolutely before her large bowl of asparagus is not particularly beautiful or very high functioning. She is, however, delightful. I bump into Irma every so many years as she slips out of a stack of other delightful things I have hoarded/stored/protected around the place. Most recently, she found her way onto my sewing room table and I grin inwardly whenever I set eyes on her.

The postcard was a note from my sister, sent to me while I was a hopeful (misguided? misplaced? nearly dismembered?!) volunteer for the Mennonite Disaster Service. The only available disaster back in 1988 or so was the entire city of Wichita, Kansas. I only served to confirm that status in the five months I found myself attempting to pour my areas of giftedness into a non-profit housing company that did helpful things like replace doors and windows, blow insulation, paint rotting wood, and apply caulking to thin sheets of glass that served as window panes. I think I may have actually been glueing the bits of glass to rotting wood, just to buy the homeowner a month or two of reduced windchill values.

It was a disaster from start to finish. And not only in my pathetic attempts of becoming part of a construction crew with zero training, zero confidence, ineptitude with numbers (turns out that doors need to be trimmed and measured before getting attached to house-type structures). Lucky I was blonde and had nice boobs at the time. It spared me from having my teeth knocked out with a set of donated wrenches.

Why am I posting an ancient postcard from the shadows of my failed MDS days? Well, it's twisted and wrong, but it's because one of my favourite commenters- Janice- is headed off on a MDS mission of her own. I know that her experience will be an absolute success, and I look forward to hearing about it, in hopes that it will replace the current mental file that I have marked: Disasters! Mennonite! First of all, Janice is not a kid. It wouldn't take her five painful months of faking it for her to find her voice and say aloud; "Hey! I ASKED! And you promised that I would get training!!" (note the excessive use of exclamation points. This means that I'm getting pretty riled up. Call the paramedics if you don't hear from me within forty-five minutes).

I'm also going to assume that Janice doesn't eat half a dozen donuts, washed down with milkshakes. Nope, from what I understand, she washes down books with a bedtime glass of wine, instead.

And that's waaaay healthier.