Valentine's Volunteering

Even with an extra Leap Day for Leap Year I've found little time to write.

The end of February came and went quickly, with a return to volunteering with the Vancouver International Wine Festival I've posted on in the past here and here.  This year I was a team leader and had four days of helping pour for all the seminars, working with my excellent crew.  This year's focus was Italy, and I enjoyed some prosecco but frankly feel a bit ambivalent towards the reds, even the orange-tinged ones from 1997 that the others ooh and ahh over - for lack of a better term, they just taste like wine.  I prefer the juicy purple roundness of the New World wines.  To each their own.
 
This year through a friend's relatives I had an opportunity to volunteer for the Variety's Show of Hearts Telethon, answering phones and taking pledges for donations to Variety that enriches the lives of children with special needs.  I'm not a big fan on talking on phones as my strength is writing more than speaking, but was eager for a new experience and glad that I could be of service to someone.  Our shift fell right on Valentine's Day morning this year, but we were compensated fairly with both breakfast and lunch catered by White Spot.  The 'work' was a pleasure, brief conversations with donors who were happy to give us their money, it's like the happier side of working in retail.  Between taking calls we watched the interviews and flashback clips from past years, and were subjected to the Rubber Ducky song from Sesame Street, becoming an earworm in my head for the rest of the day.