Today was the day. I got rid of Ernie and his workmen, watched them get started, and then plunged into assembly by clearing off the table and cleaning it.
The photos below showed me hard at work, but Sweetie was there every step of the way. Believe me, it turned out to be back-breaking work. My leg muscles are especially sore this morning from over-extending when I bent over to put fruit packages or plums into the bags.
First we assembled 120 pieces of bread ...oops, couldn't do that because the table isn't big enough. So we did three-fourths of that, and then continued when they were done. We had to have a place to put the bagged sandwiches, though, so I opened up all the paper bags and placed one sandwich in each bag. Soon the bags were taking over the kitchen, then, as I transferred them, the living room.
After the bread we placed two slices of breast turkey on them. Then we placed a slice of cheese on them. (I'm skipping the cheese the next time -- too much extra work!) Then another slice of bread, then bag them in ziploc bags.
After the sandwiches are placed in the bags, we placed plums in each one. Then we placed the fruit snack bags, followed by the chips bags in each paper bag, each time checking to see if everything was in each one. We found a few that weren't complete, and corrected them. Then we placed a napkin over everything after once more ensuring that everything was in each lunch bag.
We didn't have enough cardboard trays, so we took a break for lunch (this is after working 3 straight hours), and then swung by Costco to pick up more boxes to act as carrier trays.
We loaded the remaining bags in the trays and put them in the car... soon recognizing that they wouldn't all fit in the car. Oy vey. So, Sweetie was kind enough to come again to the rescue and volunteer her car to transport in addition to mine. We counted one last time as we loaded them in the cars: yep, 120.
We loaded them all in and headed for Clay and 16th.
We parked illegally, as there was no parking on that street. I couldn't find anything with an address (but then again, I didn't look across the street). We finally found the place, and the friendly guy at the desk called a guy named Glenn to come down and bring a cart. Glenn never showed up, but he told us to circle around the block and take the two spots (white curb and blue curb) that just became open. We did, and he and another helper came out to carry them in. We got them all in, they thanked us and we took off.
Whew. Six-and-a-half-hours later we finished the job.
Karmacally worth it, but exhausting. And we do it again next week! This time we'll go over to Sweetie's place with the big table and less bending over. Still, there will be issues. But we think we know better ways to do this.
Good luck, you folks at Henry Robinson Multi-Center. I'm glad we could help out for today's lunches.
Ruth arrived a good 10 minutes after I did, timing which actually worked well. I took my lunches in and waited for her. I used the loading zone, and she parked 2 cars back from me. We had no one to take the lunches into the center this time, so I took all 14, one by one.
