Happy Thanksgiving. Today is a holiday and it's one of the annual holidays where we try to do a special meal to commemorate the holiday being celebrated that week. For Thanksgiving I usually roast a turkey as part of a traditional meal, but this week, I decided to serve ham instead, only to discover that a significant percentage who showed up for dinner expecting turkey do not eat pork and I ended up having leftover ham. Live and learn.
I don't care to cook holiday meals twice the same week, so since I started doing this I've either accepted invitations to celebrate with various friends & family, or on a few occasions I've elected to observe the holiday quietly on my own.
I'm currently relaxing with a cup of coffee at a local fast food place - and it's seemingly just another day gauging by the number of customers here stuffing themselves with burgers and fries. Maybe I'll ponder that on another day, but today, for many homeless, it's not just another day, and that distinction is even more obvious on a day where the temperature is currently a freakish 91 degrees. A lot of the people who come for dinner spend the day at the library; aside from the ability to recharge their phones/laptops, etc. the library also provides a respite when it's especially hot or cold outside. But the library is closed today and will also be closed tomorrow. In cases where the library is a regular haven, holidays end up being more like a penalty day.
It will get even more complicated over the course of the next five weeks or so. Beyond the normal bump to the tax base due to the holiday season, Pasadena also benefits from the tourism that's tied to the Rose Bowl. In an effort the maximize that benefit, the city employs a few protocols to minimize the visibility and overall presence of the homeless in Pasadena. For example, park sprinklers that routinely go off in the early morning hours to maximize absorption will go off for 15 minutes at 8pm during the holiday season; the wet grass becomes a deterrent to those who might otherwise try to sleep in the park at night. I can't blame the city for taking steps to protect their tourist season, but the result is that we now routinely go on hiatus the last two weeks of the year. In past years, we've been at the park the weeks of Christmas and New Year only to have fewer than five people show up for dinner, and I couldn't in good conscience ask volunteers to sacrifice their time during the holiday season to try and prepare a holiday meal. This year, we'll probably do an informal poll among the people who come for dinner and decide based on the response.
