Starbucks: Not Open Late

9:40 PM. The local time as I begin this next blog post. About 30 minutes ago, I left my apartment at the shelter to go to Starbucks where I could use the gift card my sister bought me as a Christmas present. I dropped my roommate off at Subway down the street, stopped for $15 worth of gas to last me ‘til my next paycheck on Friday, and followed my GPS to the nearest Starbucks that I thought might be open late. (I found out a couple weeks ago that the closest one to me closes at 9 PM… far too early for a coffee shop to close in my opinion!)  Well, it led me to a grocery store which isn’t ideal when I need a table, chair, and Wi-Fi to do my blogging. So I put in the next nearest one, and as I approached I saw the chairs atop the tables like freshly cleaned teacups placed upside down and waiting for the next seating. I turned around and started to head back to my normal hang-out: Barnes & Noble which is always open until 11 PM but whose Starbucks café won’t accept Starbucks gift cards… very lame. But of course, why in the world should Barnes & Noble permit Starbucks to profit from their patrons??

So here I am, back at Barnes & Noble as usual because no Starbucks in Glendale is open past 9:30 PM on a weeknight. I wonder if I’m becoming a fixture here, like the four old Armenian men who sit at the exact same spot every weeknight, or the security guard who always gives me a weird look whenever I walk in the store with my backpack or my tote bag carrying my laptop. I’m thankful that at least I can count on Barnes & Noble to be open late.

An Ecclesiastes Week

Just got in from chasing down some residents who were still socializing in the hallway after curfew. It's a bit of a confusing role to be a girl in my twenties telling 30- and 40-year olds to "straighten up." It's certainly not my favorite thing about the job. But I have surprised myself. I have the capacity to do a lot of things I'm not initially comfortable with. Along the same line of thought, I was super proud of myself today when I checked a resident's gas heater that she couldn't get to work and figured out how to get the pilot light lit again. I did NOT want to have to call the gas company if it was something I could fix myself. So I read and re-read the instructions, praying I wouldn't blow up the apartment. It worked!

I got my own toolbox for Christmas, too. I'm becoming my own handyman. 

It's been a bit difficult the last two weeks, going home for Christmas and then returning to a busy workplace, all while reflecting on the multitude of changes that happened in the past year. I graduated from college, spent two months in a European squatter settlement, then moved across the country to start a new chapter of my life, with a new job, new people, new pace of life, new friends, new climate, new responsibilities. My family is also entering a new season. All these changes continue into 2012, so I enter into another year of great change.