A California Thanksgiving

Tuesday night before most of our house was slated to leave for Thanksgiving, a circuit burst in our kitchen.

Tuesday night was full of many other things as well. Where many people, I assume, would’ve preferred packing and such, we gathered to celebrate a housemate’s birthday as well as for our monthly Spirituality night. Both of those things were great! I must stress again how lucky I am that my housemates are such good cooks, and listening to people share their stories is always something that makes me feel closer to them.

But yeah, the busted circuit.

The whole plan was that after our night of dinner and sharing, people would have time to pack. Most everyone was leaving in the morning, between the hours of 5 and 8, and due to the long day of work followed by the busy evening, that hadn’t really happened.

We loaded the dishwasher after our meal and realized it wasn’t turning on, but like, that was before spirituality night so we had to save that problem for later. Only, later, we realized that our garbage disposal was not working either, nor were some of the plugs by the sink, and so the conclusion was that a circuit has gone dark.

(Note me using various words to say that it was broken because I don’t know the actual circuit terminology. Off? Flipped? Blew? That one sounds right. It’s in my head somewhere but I’m too lazy to Google it.)

Exhausted both physically from our day and emotionally from the spirituality night, it was really not the best time for us to realize that not only was our garbage disposal not working, but our sink was clogged. Roughly six inches of standing water filled our sink, along with the dirty dishes that would not fit into the dishwasher, and oh my gosh did it smell bad.

As a house, we mobilized pretty quickly. We knew we couldn’t just let it sit all night. After gathering in the small hallway where we could all see one another, we came to the conclusion that we had to wash the dishes somehow. Three of us would go upstairs into the bathtub to wash some, and four  of us would stay downstairs to use the sink, while also figuring out how to clear the kitchen sink of it’s gunk.

I was part of the downstairs crew, doing most of the actual washing before handing the dishes off to be dried, before I swapped into the kitchen to see what was actually happening. Me and Danielle realized that the sink had been suctioned closed by the lid of a jar, and after moving the lid out of the way we assumed the water would go down. Which it did not.

At this point I was frustrated because I knew it was just a wonky circuit, so me and Christine went traversing down to the weird storage closet washing machine area of our land-ladies place, hoping to find a circuit in the dirt room that we could reset. Of course, we did not, and by the time we returned upstairs the sink was nearly empty. In our absence Danielle had been scooping the gross red/orange greasy water into bowls and dumping it elsewhere, hoping we could just get to the bottom of this.

“Do we have baking soda?” I asked, finally using the power of those Buzzfeed Life Hack videos that are always on my Facebook. “Because we could do a natural sink unclogging.”

Good news! We had baking soda!

I took the tongs that Danielle had been using (who was sick of all the gunk that was in our sink) and started digging down into the actual pipe, pulling out a variety of gross food chunks that on any other given day would have disgusted me quite a lot. The water was going down slowly but surely, and I just needed the actual pipe clear enough to pour down some boiling water from the kettle (which was the first step in the Natural Sink Unclogging we Googled later to make sure we were doing it right). All kinds of food remnants were coming up, but I was a woman on a mission, and promptly ignored the inner urge to dry heave.

Finally, clear enough, we poured down the boiling water, and then we dumped half a cup of baking soda into the drain before letting it sit. I washed my hands in a different sink while we waited because they were orange and covered in grease from the sink and I felt all kinds of disgusting after shoving a shot glass down between the flaps of the drain to try and get some extra water out. Then we mixed a concoction of vinegar and hot water before dumping that down the drain too.

Time for: Sink Vomit!

Danielle and I stood over the sink laughing hysterically as all the gunk that was way down in our drain popped back up. I used my trusted tongs to scoop the gunk out of the way (which included a full, bright green, peapod?) so we could wipe it out, but ohhhh my gosh it was gross.

“What now?” I asked as I pushed all the chunks to the side.

Danielle hurried to the computer to read the next step. “After dumping the vinegar down the drain, find a drain cover…” she trailed off.

“What?” I asked. She laughed. “What! Did we do something wrong?”

Turns out we were supposed to use a drain cover to keep the chemical reaction down in the sink, rather than capture all of the gunk.

So. Round two.

We repeated the process after finding a cup that was about the size of the drain that we could shove down in after pouring the vinegar down (which, now that I’m thinking about it, we should’ve just used the jar from earlier). Once we let the reaction settle for a bit, we poured some more boiling water down the drain, and, voila!

Our sink was finally clear and empty.

All of the dishes (except the ones we’d placed in the dishwasher) were clean and put away, and our sink no longer had standing water, and it was time for us to head to bed.

Time check: 12:30 am.

Cool.

I was lucky enough that I didn’t have to leave for a flight at 5am, but I knew others had, so we altogether dismissed everyone and went on our way. Danielle and I stayed up for a bit pretending to pack (she was going home, I was/am staying at a co-worker’s house in the city watching her cat) before we finally went to sleep a little after 1am.

Wednesday was a very long day of work.

Thursday, I was convinced I wasn’t going to do anything for Thanksgiving. I’d been kind of bummed that I wasn’t going home/didn’t really have anything to do, but I’d accepted it. Thankfully a couple of weeks before the actual day, a co-worker said she’d heard I was going to be around for Thanksgiving and asked if I could cat-sit.

Perfect! Not only am I becoming known as the office cat-sitter, which is like my entire dream, I would get to spend Thanksgiving with a small furry creature that would let me pet her. I miss animals so much. I happily agreed, and slowly started to form my plan of Thanksgiving around the idea that I would be in the city with a cat.

Honestly, not a bad way to spend the holiday.

I was invited to many things. Carly, whose family was coming to SF instead of her flying home for the holiday, told me I could eat with them. Our spirituality mentor was having a friendsgiving of sorts where people like me, who didn’t have the means to travel home, were gathering to just be around one another. Nico, the JV who’s my counterpart at work, even offered for me to eat with his housemates.

They were all great offers, really, but I ended up doing none of them.

I did, however, go with Nico to a thanks-taking in the city for a few hours. Another co-worker of ours named Nick invited us to his organization’s get together, which was more of the same--people who didn’t really have a place to go but wanted to celebrate. The only reason I was swayed was because Nico didn’t want to go alone, so on Thursday morning I woke up, got dressed, and hopped on BART so we could meet up and head over.

All in all, I was only there for a couple of hours. I upheld my Vegetarian Contact that me and Amanda mentally signed (where we said only for Thanksgiving and Christmas would we cave!) and had a few pieces of turkey, but everything else was all vegetarian. Nick, also a vegetarian, had been tasked to carve the turkey, which was weird. There was a man there who kept trying to get us to sing songs for at least 30 seconds. The walls were decorated with cool art. A small dog refused to interact with anyone but kept winding it’s way around the table.

Nico and I ate, had a couple of beers, thanked Nick for inviting us and getting me out of the house, and then I went home.

We didn’t go around the table and share what we were thankful for, but we didn’t have to. The whole point of Thanksgiving and holidays like it are to be with other people.

Even Carly had texted me: “I also know you like your alone but didn’t want you to be alone today” “Even tho it’s a stupid holiday”

(It is a stupid holiday. The stupidest. But she was right.)

I bought a box of oatmeal cream pies at the Walgreens and then made my way back to the cat, where I binge-watched Netflix and played Animal Crossing on my phone well into the night. Not once did I vocally say, or even write out, what I was thankful for. But..

I’m thankful for the ability do to a year of service. Not everyone has the opportunity. I have learned so much about myself and the work that I want to do once this year is over in just a few months.

I’m thankful for my family, for my brother who FaceTimed me and walked me around to see all of my grandparents and the cats that were there.

I’m thankful for friends who push you to leave the house even though you’ve really resigned yourself to staying in and celebrating that introvert lifestyle.

I’m thankful for Kraft mac and cheese and small cats who curl up on your lap after long days.

I’m thankful for the internet (Net Neutrality forever!) and for all the friendships that I have build over it, the people who have encouraged me and helped me grow into the young adult I am today.

I’m thankful that I will have the chance to go home for Christmas.

But really, I’m especially thankful for a house full of people who will blast Hamilton well into the night, frustrated but still smiling, while we do science experiments on our sink the night before everyone goes their separate ways for the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Introvert Saturday

My house is pretty evenly divided in terms of introverts/extroverts.

I claim to be an ambivert most of the time (we exist!!! Stop the binary!!!) but if you look into the main difference between introverts and extroverts - it’s where they draw their energy. So, for the sake of this post, I’m embracing the full introvert title.

Quick recap of introverts/extroverts: introverts draw their energy from spending time alone, while extroverts draw their energy from spending time with other people. Forget everything about shyness or exhaustion or Type A vs Type B people, and just focus on that. The -troverts is all about where you’re getting the energy that can push you through the rest of your day.

For this, I am definitely an introvert. I like being around people, I really do, and I can be loud and excited and involved in crowds, but when it comes down to it I need time alone. I need to grab my laptop or a good book and just be by myself.

It’s vital to my existence. Having that space for me to be myself is vital to my existence. I feel strongly that introverts are wrongly represented in the world. They’re often seen as lazy and quiet and maybe a bit selfish because of their lack of desire to like, do things, but it’s not true. I love to do things. I just have to be at like, an 80% charge if it’s in a big crowd or super active. If I don’t have that time to sort out my thoughts and just decompress, I can get super anxious or super stressed. Sometimes our house dinners get so long that I feel the need to stand abruptly because I can’t do it anymore. It feels like sensory overload even though nothing’s really happening, but many people are talking. That’s just how I function.

It’s important for me to write all of this out because I know, for some people who don’t function this way, it can be super difficult to understand. It’s just not how they maneuver the world. Many extroverts can’t even fathom the idea of spending time by themselves, let alone enjoying not interacting with other people. I don’t know how many times I’ve explained this part of myself to people to hear, in response, “I just had no idea.”

Which is fine! Communication, explaining feelings, these all lead to good and functional societies that we live in. The more we educate about what introverts needs and how they feel and how they exist in the world, breaking down the stigma of being an introvert, the better. Hence my rambling.

Anyway, today was my second Introvert Saturday that I spent with my housemate Amanda, who is also an introvert.

A little background on Amanda: she also worked as a summer camp counselor. We know many of the same songs, but we know different tunes. We once sat on the couch for like an hour giving each other camp riddles to figure out. We both love Target more than we should admit.

A few weeks ago we had our first Introvert Saturday, which came after a rough couple of days. We boarded the train around 1 and spent most of the day in San Francisco. I hadn’t been to Fisherman’s Wharf so we walked around to see the seals, enjoying the nice weather. Our goal of going into the city was go to Patagonia and to buy some tea. We did a little more than that.

On our way to Patagonia, Applebee’s $1 margaritas distracted us, so we ended up sitting in the bar in Applebees for longer than intended. We only had one marg, but yes, they were only one dollar, and yes, they were very good. The two of us spent a very long time trying to get the Applebee’s workers to explain to us the catch, but there wasn’t one! Just, $1 margaritas! It was amazing.

From there we hiked over to Patagonia where we spent an absurdly long time deciding what to buy. Ginny had sent me a handy Friends and Family Discount so we weren’t paying full price for their cool gear, but we tried on a million different sweaters/jackets until deciding what we wanted to buy. We even befriended one of the workers.

It was his first day, and we asked him two questions. The first was - where are the rain jackets? He redirected us to them and told us all of the great features, mostly that they were waterproof, and then he left us alone. Then we found some cool sweaters and we found him again asking - does this shrink in the wash? To which he responded, no of course not.

“This is actually my first day and that’s, like, the only two things I know about Patagonia so far so I’m glad I could be of assistance.”

“Oh, we know,” Amanda said. “Your parents actually paid us to come here and make you feel good about getting a job.”

We modeled for the mirrors and joked about modeling for Patagonia to which our new friend told us they actually had open positions for Patagonia models, so keep an eye out for the latest Patagonia ads and you might see some familiar face!

Just kidding. Maybe. We won’t let the joke die, so who knows.

From Patagonia we took the bus all the way to the mall where we bought some tea and some pretzels, and then from there we went to Target where we both probably spent WAY too much money but like, Target is a place of dreams so who cares. (I care, oh my God it was too much money, I hadn’t been to Target in MONTHS and had so many things I needed.)

After that we came home and Amanda dyed my hair (if you noticed it’s been reddish in some photos lately, that’d be why!) while Carly sat by, joining us for the tail end of our evening, and we drank wine and we put on face masks, the perfect end to an Introvert Saturday.

Today was more of the same. We’re bad influences on each other. Money is rare in an LVC year and yet, we find ways to spend it. Today we ate at The Melt, which is just like, a grilled cheese place and was so freaking delicious, and then from there we went so I could buy a new pair of boots, and then after that we went bra shopping for way too long before ending the evening with Starbucks.

These are fairly detailed accounts of what we did on our Introvert Saturdays, but that’s not what makes them important. What makes them important is that, as we meandered through the city of San Francisco, is there was no rush or urgency. To be honest, there wasn’t even much of a plan. We could go this way if we wanted or that way, we could stop and listen to the man outside of the mall as he sung while his friend played the drums, we could do things without having any real expectations that the day would end up a certain way or not.

It feels like so much pressure these days is put on Getting Things Done, and Introvert Saturday is not that. There’s a vague notion of what we want to happen, but that isn’t the point. The point is to catch up on the week, to feel like a functioning member of society, and to mosey around without those feelings of needing to go-go-go! Introvert Saturday is about being yourself, an introvert, with another introvert who knows how you feel when there are too many people in line at the Starbucks.

I’m lucky to have a human who understands the needs of being an introvert and is willing to make a full day out of it, embracing the title rather than pretending we’re something that we’re not.

So, take care of your local introvert! The one-on-one bonding of a filled but relaxing day is the best way to have the best of both worlds. Make your walks through the city, spend too much money, and then don’t get too upset when your introvert disappears to their room immediately after. It’s not because their day with you was rough, it’s because their day with you was great and now they need to recharge for tomorrow.

TYOT and Other Various Random Doings

I’ve never really been known for my spontaneity.

At least, I don’t think so, seeing as I’m not a really spontaneous person. Maybe I do things without any real warning or whatever but generally it’s not who I am. I like to mull over situations for a while and weigh my options and then, usually, make excuses as to not do whatever it is that I’ve been thinking about. Doing things is hard.

But recently I’ve decided that I just need to start doing things. So maybe the idea of doing things spontaneously was not a spontaneous decision, but whatever. I’m getting off track.

I’ve decided that Tuesday, when my house schedule works out, will now be dubbed TYOT. AKA Treat YOself Tuesday.

This past Tuesday I took myself to the movies. We live right by the coolest theater in the world and on Tuesday, tickets are only five dollars, and I wanted to just do something by myself. When I was in college I had to eat a lot of meals by myself, but that was more due to the fact that no one ever had free schedules to eat food with me and my group of friends was limited. This was an intentional choice, me taking myself out on a date, and it was great.

There’s something incredibly freeing about going to the movies by yourself. For reference, I saw Thor: Ragnarok, which was totally worth it and very funny. At the end of the movie there was no pressure for me to turn to whoever I was sitting with and ask how they thought, there was no need for the conversation of which scenes were the best, about what could be done different, etc etc etc. It was just me and my thoughts and my walk back home. It was nice.

Ideally I’ll start doing lots of things like that on my own, like meals or walks or something, but we’ll start small. Previously I have gone thrift shopping on my own a few times (and, I must admit that I broke my previous decision of only buying clothes from thrift shops during this year (Target was having a sale and I’m weak)) which has been nice but I still want a little bit of something more.

On Thursday my placement went out for drinks to celebrate a guy who’s leaving (and before I am scolded, we didn’t have work Friday, so Thursday night drinks are totally allowed) which was a lot of fun! But afterwards, me and a couple of co-workers hopped on BART and rode the train up two stops so we could visit another bar, to see another co-worker and her band play. The rest of the night was also pretty random. We’d walk the streets and see somewhere to stop for food, so we’d swing in for pizza, and then we’d walk some more, pretending like we were going to the train, only to end up in another bar so we could dance.

There weren’t any expectations to the night. We’d just go where our feet would carry us without any real plans in mind, and that was the best.

Expectations, I feel, are something that ruin a lot of things.

Following the theme of spontaneity, me and my two co-workers who I’d been wandering around San Francisco with, decided we wanted to go hiking on Saturday. None of us are very good with logistics.

I ended up leaving my wallet at home, Nico got on the wrong train, and the bus schedule was totally screwed up because a street was closed. At first, because it wasn’t really planned out, I was worried that it wasn’t going to be great. But the whole time we were on the bus (which was a pretty long time) we kept saying, “It’s not about the destination, it’s the journey!”

Which is cliche, but true.

The three of us, me Nico and Maria, went to Lands End, and I fell in love with the west coast all over again.

We listened to the waves crashing against the rocks and we took an absurd amount of photos and the three of us talked about life for the entire day. We hiked down and we hiked up and we stopped at every bench possible because some of us weren’t made for hiking no matter how beautiful the weather was.

Afterwards we found a place for food, where we sat around for an hour talking about life some more, and then we went to Nico’s house and continued to talk about life some more, and then I went home.

Nothing about the day was planned, and yet everything fell into place.

I’m not naive enough to think that life will always turn out that way. Sometimes things need planning. But I’m learning that you don’t have to schedule everything out to still have a good time. While I’m not always a spontaneous person, I’ve always been pretty adaptable, and that was what I needed. A weekend of just doing whatever it was that our feet led us to.

Once I got home, me and Carly walked down the street to the piano karaoke bar where we drank cider and listened to people sing old songs we didn’t know the words to. On the way back we sang Part of Your World, just the two of us, because the bar didn’t have it on their list of songs.

Opportunities aren’t always going to step up and present themselves to you, and when they do if you sit around for forever thinking about it then you won’t get anywhere. So take yourself on a date, and go into the random bar that had some fun dance music, and sing Disney songs on the walk home. You never know what it’ll be unless you give it a shot.

Fighting for Tenants

I have said it a billion times before and I will continue to scream it from the rooftops until I am proved wrong -- my placement is the absolute best.

Between the most supportive coworkers who make me feel loved and competent and uplifted, to the clear energy that radiates through the building, I’m lucky. I walked in on the very first day knowing that I was lucky. The people that I work with shine in all aspects, their hearts truly dedicated to keeping people housed and off the streets. Whether it’s in the rental assistance division on my end, where we try to get them the money they need before the unlawful detainer, or on the other end where the legal team is working through lunch to respond to get their papers in on time, you can feel it. These people really care.

I was lucky enough to be with EDC for their annual fundraiser - Fighting for Tenants in the Sanctuary City. There was free booze, and so to be honest, I may have had a bit to drink. However! That wasn’t due to my fear of being around all of these great people who have done and supported great things, but rather the fact that I’m a mess of a human who’s bad at social interaction.

Nonetheless, the night was amazing. It was in a beautiful space in the city that had a great outdoor balcony and mirrors lined along the inside walls. I got to spend the first half of the night darting between my coworkers and my housemates, who came along to help for a volunteer aspect of the night.

Again, though, due to the booze, I was easily the weirdest. It’s just that when I have alcohol in my system (a lot of alcohol in my system) I get really excited about the things that are going on, and the opportunities that are presented, and the fact that life can sometimes just be really really cool. So I was drunk and weird, which I just have to roll with, because I was mostly just excited about the fact that I was living one of the best versions of my life, surrounded radical people.

I danced to my coworker’s band and I took some rad photos and I got to swipe for ~$400 in donations to the organization. It was cool. I never imagined getting to do something that was simply just that cool.

On the way home my housemate plugged in Hamilton to the Uber and we probably scared the poor guy to death, but whatever.

It was a good night.

The point of this post wasn't to hound myself for drinking too much (which, again, whoops!), but rather to just reflect on how seriously thankful I am to be placed where I'm placed. There are some nights that you don’t really feel like you deserve to be part of, or nights that happen that you were sure your path would never lead you to, and that was one of them. I’m proud to be serving with an organization that is full of humans who glow with how much they care.

Thanks, Eviction Defense Collaborative, y’all are changing lives.