Monday, October 31, 2005

Good Bye Mrs. Leary

My Mom called yesterday and says that Mrs. Leary died unexpectedly in the night. She was 75 years old.
Mrs. Leary, for those not in the know, ran a day care in her home before the government got all involved with child care. She would have between 12 and 20 kids of all ages. She provided no lunch or educational stimulation, save a rotten peanut butter sandwich and TV. She made the older kids clean her house while her son Jeff teased the rest of us to tears. She was known to lock the kids in backyard for all day in the summer come rain or come shine.
I remember being there and hating it. I was scared for my life on many occasions. My mother did not believe the conditions or treatment we suffered until year later when the group of us who met there kept telling the same stories over and again from our own vantage.
She had a Black Lab named Caesar who was HUGE and he would chase us an tackle us to the muddy ground. She had a pool table that we were not to touch, but did. She had a single cup in the bathroom for drinks of water. We all used it.
One time when I when to climb the toilet to turn on the bathroom light my leg went right on b/c someone had left the lid up.
Once I got stuck in the cement mixer. I got my first bee sting on the front porch. Mr Diemer snorted Lime Kool-Aid out of his nose, a nose I later bloodied in a heated debate about whose father has the best. Mr. Woodruff stole my green sneakers. Sasha showed me her under things and her under the under things thing.
Mr Diemer and I convinced the girls to play spanking machine on picture day b/c they were in skirts.
Anyway,

I am conflicted about my feelings regarding Mrs. Leary's passing. On one hand, I don't recall her as sweet woman who opened her house to care for children. In my mind it was much more Dickensian. But I did meet a huge number of the friends the I still have today. With these friends came a vast chest of memories that was a large part of my Leary childhood. When I think of it that way Mrs. Leary's part in it was by accident. She never intended to mold children or what not. She watch kids for money and watched them at a (sometimes) safe distance. If not for her I might not have become as independent as I am. I might have relied more on others and been an entirely different person.

I am going to her calling hours to say good bye. I think her passing affects me, because a physical reminded of my childhood is gone. I am now in my 30's and have a child of my own. A child who is the about the same age I was when I started with Mrs. Leary.

So for good or ill, but mostly good,

God bless you Mrs. Leary.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Post Number Hooray II

Karma.
I wrote about the Christian group yesterday and last evening who should show up with a cake? They were very nice and talked more about, at least attempted to, the Browns and sports and child care and so on. I watched Top Model and felt a tinge of guilt what with all the gals in their underthings, but not too guilty. And then they did not talk about God.
These people seem so nice, that it is hard to brush them off. But I can't help but fell like I did when I went to an interview to sell off brand perfume in parking lots. It is all very confusing. Usually I would say in a firm manner that we were not interested and move on. And the truth is, I am not inclined to become involved with them. I am conflicted because they are nice, and I think they might think I was mean and I hate for people to think I am mean. Especially nice people with potentially good intentions.
We have already tried not answering the door or phone calls. We only went to "church" once but they keep after us. I think we will have to get enmeshed in some other church and say this is where we are.

This could all be related to my problem accepting new people. Save for Mr St A I am not friendly to new people, and even less so to friendly people. Maybe because Mr St A is not so overly chummy is why I don't mind him. But I digress....

The point of this is, if you want to stop by without an appointment, bring a cake.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Post Number Hooray

I am not a frequent poster. I am fine with this. I read so many of my friends' blogs that I waste all my good stuff elsewhere. Anyway...
I sometimes think I should make a ranting post ala lawyer Mike or Mr St A, and many of you know I am capable of a rant. I have thought of an amusing story like KRS-10 aor Ray's dog. I have been known to be a good story teller. I have even thought to whine like Big Jimmy in NYC, but that is his thing and he is sensitive and I wouldn't want to take that away from my buddy Jim. (Some may see this as dig on the "Bach-man", and it is in the way I do b/c I like him).
I could write about the little things that happen during the day and bore you all to tears, but that is rude so I will not.

So, for Post Number Hooray I will ramble. First let me tell about my search for God.

A few months ago, some nice youngish people knocked on my front door. After I got the dog to settle enough to open the door, while the enthusiastic people rang the bell 3 times, I met some fellows trying to start a church in Cleveland Heights. For some reason, I spoke with them on my porch for several minutes. I filled out their survey and thanked them. I did give them my home phone number. I mean what if God called?
I did get several calls from the members and even more visits. They dropped off a package of diapers for the baby. Huggies!! They invited us to their church meeting at a local hotel and we went.
Mrs. Bebout and I worked out a code if we felt like this was a cult. It was Hey man, this is a cult. RUN!! We did not use our secret code and ended up at a member's house for a great Korean-style lunch, with sticky rice and everything. It was an odd day and Mrs. Bebout and I needed to discuss our day in private.
And we did.
As osme may know, we come from different backgrounds, and our views on faith and religion differ. Also, our understanding of what church is is different. Mine is reserved and quiet where the minister does all the talking and the congregation does the listening and then we all go our separate ways until next week. Mrs. Bebout is different where the people actually talk out loud in response to the minister with all manner of Amen and yes and what not. They don't say what not but you get the idea.
At this joint, they participated with a frequency that felt forced to me. It felt like I am so Christian I will say Amen every time this dude talking takes a breath. They also throw in a lot of yes Lords. Either way I felt odd.
So the search will continue.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

At Long Last




Here are some picutres of Mr. Bebout. I had a whole lot more about him and our weekend with my mother and how she is sweet granny now, but technical problems with our system have ended that. So here you go.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

What goes on here?

I have nothing very good to report. I suppose I could rattle on about nothing of importance, but that is rarely very fun.
Good Day. I said good day!

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Remote Posting

I am not at my normal work station and this is, I think, as exciting as psoting on a blog can get. I can not mention where I am because if I do, heads may roll. Let's just say, I am not supposed to be bloggin now, but I am such an efficient orker that I completed my assigned tasks and am forced to wait. I feel like a guy who went to a bad party with someone else and now I have to wait for my ride home. So, I found this work station not being used andwent to town. Ihave checked all kinds of inappropriate web sites with content that is not at all PC. I hope they higher-ups check it out.
I doubt they will though as they don't has passwords on their computers so I doubt they are too concerned with web traffic.
I would post a new photo, but as I am being covert I think the less I do the better.
I feel very much like a spy looking for files to take over the world. So far all I found were pictures of a kid, most likely the workers child.

On another note, John Edwards was on the Daily Show last night and once again establidhed the reason the Dems lost. When asked what the Dems could do to win, he said some poli jargon about creating a unified front. This is fine, and they should, but what gives me the red ass is that he, and other Dem leaders are unable to say what the focus of their unification is. I mean all they have to do is say, "We are for a balanced budget and reduction of spending". Then from that point on, every other topic, military defence, drugs, abortion, what ever, all they have to do is say we are for defence but not at the cost of unsound financing. We can spend X amount that we have or we can spend Y amount which we don't have. If you feel we need to say put baggage checkers on the Federal pay plan then answer the following: Do you want your grandchildren to pay for this or would you like to borrow more money from China? If you would prefer to remain economically sound, then perhaps we don't go apeshit crazy checking shoes and toenail clippers and then out grandkids can go to college.

The is a guy in the office I am borrowing using the phone. He asked if it was OK. I said sure, you might have to dial "9" to get an outside line.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

I am a lazy Blogger

I do so much enjoy reading everyone's blogs and I feel like a free rider for not updating mines daily, or multiple times per day, but I am a lazy blogger.
As many of you may recall, I was for the longest anti-blog. I mean really, how much do you care what my day was like or any other crap that ends up in a blog. My day stinks. I am at work and enjoying my time not working. I have done a lot of work already and took a second. I did costing for a potential restoration project. It is as fun as it sounds. I am now writing an exterior building evaluation report with photos. Are you jealous?
After that I will produce a report about the overall water absorption rates of the same building. Then I will go to some job sites and take a look-see and report the progress of the jobs.
I think I may go to Frank & Tony's for a "Roman Style Burger" with fries. It is wonderful !
I plan to go to the gym after work today. It has been since late July that I worked out and I am not happy about it. But now that Mrs. Bebout is up and around again I don't feel quite so bad not rushing home after my 10 hours at work and 1 hour of drive time. She is an understanding and lovely person and I am lucky to have found her, as I am not understanding nor lovely and it rarely seems to bother her too much.
Our son, Mr Bebout, is doing well. He has infantile acne which, according to 2 doctors looks bad but is normal and doesn't hurt the baby. He is already growing out of his 0-3 month old clothes and I think he is about to move up to size 2 diapers. He spends a lot of time with his eye open looking around and making faces. Usually the faces mean he has just pooped but until the smell comes it's nice.