Chicopee

Not yesterday, but the Friday before that, the Summer Program team went to Chicopee to do some team building stuff. We played volleyball, did tug-of-war with a giant elastic around the waist, slingshotted each other around with the elastic, played frisbee golf, walked on tightropes and balance beams, climbed rock walls and the Vertical Playground (a mess of ropes, beams, and tires).

I mentioned that last year I only got up a few footholds on the rock wall. Well, this year I did significantly better. I remember going for this one blue foothold over and over and only barely touching it when I did my best. This year, I got my foot on it on the first try, then glided up the wall like nothing as I pushed off. And from there I climbed at least a body length, and I think more (I'm using my own body for that measurement, so 6'3").

My coworker that is returning from last year as well said I also did better on the Vertical Playground, but I don't really think so. I think I made it to the same point I did last year, but I did it faster that's for sure.

Whole different game this year. I still didn't do the best, but I was significantly better this year, so I'm proud of myself. I won the tug-of-war, and even though it's not quite as much of a personal achievement, I was better at frisbee golf too.

When I was doing my student placement, sometimes I would find myself running late and dashing out the door before I could make myself a lunch. When I did that, I'd go to Central Fresh Market and buy a sandwich from the deli. Whenever I did that, I felt like I'd failed my first morning ambition, and put money from what I'd allotted to groceries to eating out. But eventually I realized that Central is a grocery store, which means that when I buy lunch there, it's not "recreational", it's grocery shopping! I can budget it under groceries. Still costs the same, but for some reason it gives a little mental relief to think of it that way.

We got new Extend-a-Family staff shirts. Last year they gave us four, which meant that I had a shirt for four of the five day work week. This year they only gave me one because I still had my shirts from last year. So I got fewer shirts, but at least now I have a shirt for every day of the week! They designed a new logo, so four days a week I'll still be advertising the old logo.

Extend-a-Family's symbol is always four stick figures standing together, holding hands, with one in a wheelchair. I guess it's hard to figure out a design a stick figure so that it immediately sends the impression of a wheelchair to the general public. A while back, they used an image where the image of a wheel was placed in front of the stick figures, but it didn't really make sense because that would mean the wheelchair was sideways and the person in it would have to be contorting their body to hold hands and face forward. Then they did another one where the person's legs were shown in two vertical lines to simulate a sitting position, with larger vertical lines on either side to represent the wheels. That's the one on last year's shirts. This new shirt shows the wheels simply as curved lines on either side of the person.

It's neat to guess why people make changes like that. For instance, aside from the change in the chair, a few other changes have been made. Instead of one figure showing the outline of a skirt and the other three without, this new image shows the body as a simple line that narrows on the top, expands in the middle, and tapers to a point. This means that this image is gender neutral and doesn't make use of tradional gender indicators that are now out-of-date. Also, each figure is the same height, including the person in the wheelchair, whose "body line" just ends where his waist would be, and his wheels replacing where his legs would be. By making each the same height, it makes the image less hierarchical. That's my take on it, anyway.

I use hangers from the dollar store in my closet. The dollar store sells white, grey, and black hangers. When I started, I bought a pack of each, to give my closet diversity. As my wardrobe expanded and I needed to buy more hangers, I would rotate which colour I would buy at a time. One time a while ago, I needed a new set and took a guess at which hanger colour's turn it was. I thought that it was white's turn, since I usually lean against white in decisions like those. But when I got back I realized that the last colour I'd purchased was white, so I already had more white than the other two colours, and now I had even more. I was so angry. Now my closet has a strong white hanger majority,

I built an extension on the garden since I felt my crop this year had been so disappointing, and I put some partially-grown tomatoes with the old part. It's not quite as bad as I first thought, though. After some weeding I realized that some of the plants had a different shape of leaf than the weeds, and I soon realized that those plants were sunflowers! There are also a smattering of zucchinis that are still small. My new garden extension has just zucchinis and sunflowers, since those are what I wanted most, and both have just started to grow.

Of my original batch of indoor plants, some failed to grow and I set them out in their jiffy pots and continued to water them just in case. But I'd put them outside and those pots aren't really meant to stand against storms so they became victims of the elements. Due to their inactivity and haven gotten knocked around, I gathered them up and threw them in the shed. Weeks later, I went into the shed to get a tool and notice that, without water or sunlight, one of the plants had sprouted. As I looked through them, I found two more like that. I've brought them indoors and have been watering them. I want to reward these plants, who showed such a determination to grow under the worst possible circumstances.

Almost feels like foreshadowing. Three opportunities will come because of actions made long ago and which I'd given up on.