Dear Arizona, please accept this $70 as an offering

I had my first no good, dirty rotten day in Arizona on Thursday. I won't go into too much detail describing it, because I'm sure nobody really cares and nobody really wants to be friends with a downer. So I'll just say that I had an encounter with a couple of difficult clients and difficult clients. I had to turn away a couple in the middle of a screening, just because they didn't meet one of our pretty insubstantial rules. It was heartbreaking. It was also just a wacky day in general, that didn't make a whole lot of sense. It was exhausting.

It all culminated in waiting at our bus stop at the end of the day and being crawled on by a bunch of fire ants. Becky and I boarded the bus, 31-day bus pass in hand, and sat down. We sat down across from a pretty talkative, albeit pretty creepy couple. I then started feeling pain in my foot and realized I had probably been bit by a fire ant. On top of that, the bus started leaking on me, because it had rained earlier in the day and apparently AZ buses aren't particularly prepared for such weather. It made for a stressful bus ride.

Somewhere along that ride, I managed to misplace my 31-day bus pass (probably dropping it when I bent down to look at my foot?). We got off at our first bus stop, and when we went to transfer to the second bus, the bus pass was gone.

Now, in the grand scheme of things I know it wasn't that big of a deal. But when you're already having a pretty bad day, it was just the final straw that broke me. I had been doing okay throughout the day, despite the crazy shi*t that had occurred at work. It was tiring, but I was handling it. But you know those days where they're just bad and the smallest thing is what FINALLY sends you over the edge? Yeah, that's what happened. And my "small thing" was this bus pass. Now, let me explain. These bus passes are actually $55, but CASS gets them at a discounted price of $27.50. And Becky and I got our first 31-day bus pass when we first arrived... and we got them completely free. It was scheduled to last us until Sept. 17th. So the major reason this misplaced bus pass finally broke my day is because I wasn't sure how I was going to go about getting a new one. CASS runs almost completely on donations and giving out bus passes everyday isn't something CASS can really afford. So I was dreading making the admission to my boss that I had already lost mine, within the first 2 weeks of work. Like I said, I knew I was overreacting. But... it was one of those days.

So. There you have it. That was my first dirty rotten, no good day in Phoenix. And I realize that it really wasn't that bad, and I'm sure I'll have far worse days. And I also realize that I promised that I would keep the description of said day brief, and I did anything but that.

Let me make up for it by describing my awesome day.

I think the cosmos felt slightly bad about the previous day, so they set out to make Friday pretty epic.

So since I didn't have a bus pass, I was fully prepared to pay $2 cash to ride the bus the next morning, until I could figure out the bus pass situation. I was kinda bummed because it was $4 down the drain, since I had to pay $2 the previous day for our second bus home (I know this is getting a little confusing, but I'm hoping you can follow it). Anyhow, I got onto the bus Friday morning, with my $2 in hand, and was ready to feed it into the money machine.

That's when the driver slammed his hand down over the money collector machine (what DO you call those things anyway?) before I could slide my 2 bucks in and told me, "Just go!" as he pointed towards the back of the bus.

No paying? Sweeeeet.

It was the start to a good day.

I then got to work and explained the bus pass situation to Stephanie. I told her what happened and how much of an idiot I felt like... and how I would pay for a new one, but I just didn't know how to go about it. I then mentioned that I was an idiot... again. She just looks at me and shrugged. "It happens," she said. "I've done it before too. I'll go get you another one." And she returned about 20 seconds later with a brand new pass in hand.

Win.

But the awesomeness of the day didn't end there. Stephanie came back into my office a few minutes later and told me that I was going toy shopping in one of the sheds at the shelter. Walking the block back from the shelter to the Case Management office with a huge black trash bag full of toys, I got honked at by a pickup trunk. "Hey Santa Claus!" the driver yelled. I think this is the first time I actually appreciated getting honked at while in Phoenix.

For about an hour, I had the sweetest office ever.

Then Stephanie came and took some of the toys for her office, but I still have a pretty nice collection of fun new toys.

So I went from a pretty crappy day to an awesome one, filled with fun toys. Naturally, of course, the list of bizarre Phoenix injuries continues. I managed to pinch my fingers in the handles of my scissors as I was opening one of the toy boxes and wound up with this beauty.

Pretty awesome, right? Blood blister created by the blunt end of the scissors. I've got talent, I tell yah. Be thankful, I'll spare you the details of popping it... ewwwwwwww.

Anyways, yesterday (Saturday) we fought our next battle with Chase bank, which is quickly becoming the Comcast Debacle of 2010... part 2. Hopefully, Chase has finally worked out our Casa Truth house account so that we can finally start receiving our stipends and finally be able to buy groceries, without having to get reimbursed.

Saturday also featured us upholding a Phoenix tradition: floating down the Salt River on inner tubes. Apparently in a city where there really isn't much to do, tubing is a favorite past time. Even the head of the shelter, who is my boss' boss, told me that he goes every year. And was giving me pointers on what to do and what to bring.

We probably should have listened to him a little more closely.

Casa Truth and Casa Bart had an epic time... mostly because we failed so awesomely. One of the pointers Ty (my boss' boss) told me was that we should bring coolers, but not styrofoam coolers. Well, we had 2 hard coolers... anddddd one styrofoam cooler, which fell apart within seconds of getting into the river. We were also instructed to wear "real" shoes, not flip flops. Since most of us brought only a fraction of our belongings, including shoes, we didn't have any real shoes that we felt comfortable potentially ruining in the river. So we stuck to flip flops and bare feet.

Bad idea. We did a lot of slipping and sliding on rocks. And we lost a couple of flip flops to the river. Thankfully, I did listen to the piece of advice where I was told not to bring nice sunglasses, because I WOULD lose them. Some of the other JVs were not so lucky.

Man down.

Man still down.

The worst of it was my fault though. Well, potentially, at least. I was the only person who brought a backpack (why? I'm not really sure). So I became un-official mom for the day and carried A LOT of everybody's stuff. Somewhere during the 2 1/2 hour ride down the water, I managed to lose my SCU Iron Bronco shirt, which was my swimsuit coverup, and two wallets. Thankfully, it isn't as bad as it sounds. One of the wallets was completely empty. The other was completely empty... except for the $70, which we were able to finally withdraw from Chase earlier in the morning. Phoenix, I'm telling you now, that is our offering to you; it's our offering, in exchange for a peaceful and enjoyable rest of our stay. Cuz we ain't getting that 70 bucks back, you Salt River jerk!

All in all, it was a great day, with a lot of fun had by all. Despite encountering some ridiculously intoxicated people (one so much so, that he was actually arrested), the scenery was surprisingly nice. Since the tubing route was outside of the city, there were some beautiful mountains and foliage. I wish I could say we had some pictures, but if we had brought a camera, it probably would have been lost to the Salt River gods as well. It was a lot of fun, even if nobody else in either Casa remembers Scott yelling in a British accent, coaching us along as we got stuck on a batch of particularly tricky rocks. "Don't give up now! That's exactly what they want you to do!"

Needless to say, the combination between the few hours spent in the sun, the river water and the, uh, "spirits," was enough to leave everybody exhausted.

Today (Sunday) several members from Casa Truth and Casa Bart partook in the Brophy "Sunday Fun Day" (I wish I was making up that title, but that's actually for real). Pretty much, Sunday Fun Day is just a high school version of Franktown's field day, although not nearly as cool because there are no water balloon tosses, tug-a-wars, or (most importantly) the Mr. O obstacle course. But there was soccer, volleyball, swimming, ultimate frisbee, and football. Casa Truth and Casa Bart kicked some Brophy ass and dominated in ultimate frisbee. And KOK (that's Katie O'Keefe) and I dominated two boys in a game of 2 vs. 2 soccer. The highlight of the day was jumping in the pool at the end of ultimate frisbee fully clothed and being able to take food home, which will provide sustenance for the next few days free of charge. Free food really is clutch when you have very little money in your wallet.

Oh, and one other thing. Our good friend Edward Cullen, yes Edward Cullen, picked us up and dropped us off this morning. He also has my phone number.

No big deal.