RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Something has occurred to me that seems very strange in a way that I don't think has ever crossed my mind before. 

We, as relatively normal, everyday people all have secrets. Not necessarily bad ones, just private stuff we don't talk about. Some keep more to themselves than others, obviously, and depending on who you are or what has been going on in your life, those things can either be silly or serious.

But what I think is weird, is that if you were to decide to tell someone something that you've never mentioned before, especially one of your very closest guarded secrets, they might think you were crazy, or even lying about it because those secrets can also be very weird.

Maybe only my secrets are weird. All I know is that I can never tell anyone else my very secretest of secrets, because I don't think anyone would believe me.

2) I'm wrestling with a situation.

It's pretty well known around where I work that the people who live in the neighborhood don't have very much. A lot of them have come to or called us asking for us to give them money. Our former pastor would occasionally let people come to the church and do work, and pay them minimum wage per hour for what they did, but anytime we gave money out to help people, word would get out and we'd be slammed with people and their sob stories asking us to pay for rent/bills/gas/whatever else they wanted money for. We finally had to refuse to give anyone cash, and went to a grocery gift card system so that we could be fairly certain the money they needed for food, actually went to purchase food.

I could write examples of the people who've taken advantage of our good will, but I don't want anyone to think I'm just that cynical about people needing help. I know there are people who are in need, and as a church, a lot of people think it's our job to bail people out of their problems.

See, the thing is...we can't afford to do that for everyone who calls and asks for help. But, if we do it for one person, we'd have to do it for everyone. We don't have the resources to pay for rent, phones, food, hotels, and things like that for everyone who asks. It has been that way for the past few years, and unless we get a huge windfall of money, we probably will never be able to do that.

BUT...here is the quandary.  This morning I was asked if I would personally give someone a certain amount of money. This person is a kid our church and they need to pay a cell phone bill that they will not be able to pay otherwise. This particular kid (teenager, I guess, but not old enough to get a job) has very little in life. Terrible home situation, no dad in the picture...that kind of thing. The kid offered to come by the church and do work, but we don't have anything for them to do. Even if we did have something for them to do, it wouldn't be enough work to justify paying them the amount of money they need for the bill. I considered just writing a check and telling the person who asked me to do it (the kid didn't personally ask me) and having them give the money to them, but I realized that would possibly be opening a door that couldn't be closed. I'm not saying specifically that people would come to me for money, but they might start asking the church for money, and if we helped this kid, why can't we help this other person? Or what happens if the kid can't pay their bill the next time? Would the money fairy need to pull out the checkbook every time?

One one hand, I can afford to give them the money. That isn't the issue. I'm not a stingy person by nature, and money is money and it's going to get spent one way or the other. On the other hand, I can't set a precedent of handing over money for cell phone bills or things like that, especially for kids who might mention it to other kids, or even adults, who have needs and then where will it stop? We tried to think of a solution, of inventing work they could do, but even then, I don't feel there is a good way to do this. If it were something more important than a cell phone bill, I don't know if I'd feel the same way or not.

I realize how awful this makes me sound. I just feel icky about the whole situation. I just don't think any of us giving them money is a good idea. We can't open ourselves up for the kind of problems this could cause. We're working on a solution, but I don't know what we actually should do.

3) Our church caught on fire a little bit last Saturday. 

We had a workday to clean out a bunch of junk that had been accumulating in the unused rooms of our church for the past 25 years. I never thought that so much junk would end up in a place that isn't regularly inhabited! 

Only five people showed up, three men and two women (plus two little kids and two ladies who were cooking for a fundraiser) but we hustled and managed to shovel out the worst of the junk from the basement to the second floor in just a couple of hours. While we were finishing the upstairs, the other woman came back from downstairs and mentioned that she smelled something smoky in the hallway. We'd had a door open on the bottom floor so that we could carry junk outside, so the guy who knows things (he really does, that is not sarcastic) said it might be the heat exchange trying to regulate the heat in that hallway (it was a cold day, so it would have had to work harder) and we figured he was right. I went downstairs and smelled the smoke, too. Granted, my sense of smell is so strong that I can sometimes smell lights turning on, if there is dust on the bulbs, but it was a very obvious electrical burning smell. Still, we couldn't find anything, and me and Amanda looked everywhere we could think of for signs of fire. We even opened the closet where the heat exchanger is and didn't see or smell anything in there.  So we walked into the church lobby. We saw a tiny bit of smoke floating near the ceiling, but because neither of us could see where it was coming from, we thought it was just dust burning off of the heater. 

I know you probably think we are complete idiots, but don't come for my neck, I've never been in a fire before, ok? I smell things all the time. I smell heat, and the ghost of food, and can even smell cold, but we didn't SEE anything other than the smoke, which was such a small amount that it didn't alarm us. So I opened the double doors to let it out so that...get this...it didn't set off the fire alarm. Oy. We went on to do some other things.

I walked into the office to bring some things out we would need for Sunday services, and I just happened to turn my head in the right direction and saw black smoke coming out of one of the air conditioning grates. I honestly didn't know what I was looking at. That sounds crazy, but it wasn't big billows of smoke, it was a black haze coming out of the grate and spreading over the ceiling. My brain didn't register it as even being real at first. I finally yelled out that there was smoke, and the guy (one of our deacons) walked into the closet and realized the exchanger was actually on fire internally. The reason we couldn't see or smell it was because it was enclosed in the housing and the smoke was floating through the ductwork.

We were very lucky that we had people in just the right places to take care of what was happening. The deacon told me to call the fire department (so I got to call 911 for a 5TH! time since starting work here) and he found the extinguisher and put out the active fire, they got the kids outside, and we eventually got everyone out of the building just in time for all of the firemen to show up and make sure all the fire was out.

Amanda and I sat with the kids and kept them occupied and out of the way of everyone, and thankfully the only thing that was damaged was the machine in the closet and some smoke damage in the lobby. It was still rather stressful, but thankfully after the smoke cleared, literally, the damage was minor. I actually felt bad that the firemen came in their whole kit, but I know they had to come and make sure it hadn't spread into the walls or into the second floor.

After that we went home and I didn't let myself think about it very hard until I went to bed, and that's when I realized how badly it could have turned out. The fire happened because a belt broke inside of the machine, and it took three people actively looking, sniffing and being curious to realize it was happening. Ostensibly it happened because the heater had turned on due to the door being open, but since it was a cold day, that would have happened anyway. The ladies cooking downstairs would have been there even if the rest of us hadn't been, so if that fire had started, they wouldn't have known until it was too late, and might have died. The location of the closet where the heater was is perfectly situated that if the fire had gotten bigger, it would have torn up through the cooling system and started burning the second floor, as well as an adjoining room where we keep choir robes.  Also, we had shoveled out a ton of junk from that closet, which would have been great fuel for spreading a fire into something much bigger. I just let myself have a little cry and was very grateful that we were there to catch it before it destroyed the building.

I don't really have a clever way to end this story except I'm really glad our church didn't burn down.

THIS JOB

I've complained about my job a bit in the past.  I don't like to do it much, because I know that I've got kind of a sweet gig here. The hours are decent, what I do is not hard, and most people here seem to think I'm really good at my job and they bring me snacks.  I'm grateful for that, absolutely.  As long as I am safely inside the building, I'm usually good.  Working here has been an interesting experience, and I say that with true sincerity.

But sometimes this place is really freaking weird.

Don't get me wrong, our church is a great place.  We have a loving and close congregation, and it's one of the few southern baptist churches left in our town that have held off on flashy stage lights, worship bands and tattooed preachers.  We are an old school place, with old school members, and with few exceptions that's not such a bad thing. Lately, however, we seem to have wondered into a bubble of complete bat-poop crazy that seems to be holding fairly steady.

*In the past week and a half, as I already told you, we had a guy who was working for us get held up at gunpoint. Our preacher, who decided to pretend to be Barney Fife, started casing the neighborhood for the man, and actually found him and managed to get him arrested.  The man is now being held not only for armed robbery, but also possession and he had a warrant out for him because of domestic violence.  We are glad the guy is in jail, but I'm also very glad the preacher didn't get capped.  This neighborhood isn't good for snitches.

 *A few days later, we had a drunk man stumble up the aisle of the sanctuary (saying all he wanted to do was pray) but he also wanted someone to buy him a pizza. 

*We had one of our special members, a man with a form of autism, have a complete come apart when the worker from his group home asked him to sit with the other men he came to church with. It disrupted things.

*We had a lady trip over the lip of the doorway and lay in the floor, flat on her back, until I called 911 (again) even though she wasn't hurt and refused treatment when the paramedics got here.  Her sister, a fruit-bat of the first order who believes that she is some kind of long-lost mother goddess who will eventually go to Africa to save children (?) and believes that the African people will see her as royalty, told us she was in the medical field (she is not) and so she would take care of everything (she did not.)  By the way, the sister also told us that she could cure AIDS and cancer with common household ingredients, but she can't tell anyone how to do it or the government will have her killed. I'm not kidding about any of that, just so you know.

*The same man who showed up drunk and wanted a pizza came back here today while the preacher was gone, so I had to talk to him. He didn't remember that he'd just been here asking for stuff, and even though I told him we had nothing to give him, as we are having to reevaluate how we handle things after the armed robbery, he wouldn't leave.  I had to tell him about six times that we couldn't help him.  He also had a tall tale of woe, which I suppose was supposed to make me throw money at him. No idea.

*I was inadvertently pulled in, at least tangentially, to a situation where a man from our church (allegedly) defrauded and was attempting to take over the life/money of a mentally challenged woman. I have had to talk to an investigator for the Huntsville SVU, and will have to give over copies of my notary records, because I notarized the form that would allow him to do this.  I know I can't get in trouble for what I did, but the fact that that skeezy dude got me involved makes me mad.

*And finally, today, one of our more...out there, for want to better term, members came by the church three times.  She didn't say what she was doing, but that's OK, because we know her and she comes by occasionally to pray.  She'd come in, walk into the church, walk back out.  On her second visit, she came into the office and asked if I wanted an apple.  I said yes to be nice, and she left the plastic produce bag with me so I could choose one while she disappeared into the depths of the church again.  When she came back, she told me to keep all of them.  Uh...sure.  She came back one more time, walked back into the church without saying hello and left without saying goodbye.  Huh...OK then!  I didn't think about her again for a while, except to tell people about the weird apple thing, until I walked into the sanctuary to load the pastor's Wednesday night Power Point Presentation.  That's when I noticed that she'd left apples on the altar.  I don't think I need tell you that, as Southern Baptists, we don't generally leave offerings of a tangible nature on the altar, but for some reason this lady had been compelled to leave produce there for Jesus.  I suppose that's who it was for, at least.  She didn't leave a note or anything.  So that's when I realized that she had given me some of the apples she'd brought for Jesus.  She gave me sacrifice apples.  I don't even know where to begin on that one.

These are all real things that have happened in the last 10 days, and it doesn't even scratch the surface of the crazy that goes on here on a regular basis.  I may need to look for other work.

Everyday is an adventure.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Wow, happy new year about half a month late!  I hope you all had lovely Christmases, or whatever it is you celebrate!

Ours was lovely and very low key, thanks for asking.  Steve's dad was in New England with his brother this year, so Steve and I really only celebrated things with my family on Christmas day.  It was nice, though.  I certainly don't mind quiet holidays.  At home I made elaborate Christmas cookies and we watched Netflix junk, and I think we ate pizza rolls for dinner.  Good times, noodle salad.

2) Not a lot of any interest has been going on lately, to be honest.  Time keeps on slippin' (slippin', slippin') into the future, as it tends to do. I had so much I was going to do in January, but it's like I fell asleep on January 1st and woke up and half the month was already gone, so I'm playing catch up as best I can.  Time is weird that way when we get older, isn't it?

At work, I've got all the lovely beginning of the year mess to deal with.  W2 and 1099 forms are due and I haven't even started them, which means people are going to be breathing down my face soon if I don't get started on that!  We have new budget sheets and new pay spreadsheets, and it's really only sucking the life out of me a little bit every time I think of all of that.  I've also been sick for about a week, which is never fun.

3) WHEN SUDDENLY...

Hehe, just about the time I hit save after writing #2, the door to the church opened and a workman who'd been installing cables for us walked back inside the office.  He said there had been a man outside that had a gun and had asked him for his wallet.  I didn't really understand the problem at first, because the guy was kind of calm, so I said, "Do you want me to call the police?"  He said yes.  Of course he said yes.  I'm a doofus.

- OK, before you roll your eyes, I knew I should call the police, but I wasn't sure if I needed to call 911, or if I needed to call the other, non-emergency number.  The guy was obviously OK and the man had run away, so I wasn't sure if 911 was the proper people to call. I also didn't realize that the workman had actually been robbed, because he didn't say that.  I thought the guy had pulled a gun on him and then got spooked away.  Clearly, my brain was working slower than it needed to at that moment.-

So I called 911 for the first time in my life.  That's another one of those F*CK THAT list items you never want to have to do.  I didn't really know what to tell the operator, so I handed off the phone and went to tell the pastor what had happened. We also had to tell the women's prayer group that was meeting downstairs, what had happened and that they couldn't leave just yet.  One poor woman had left early, and she was the one walking out the door when the robber was just leaving, so that scared her badly and even though she saw the guy, she wasn't here when the cops arrived.

I was surprised how fast everything happened after that.  We soon had a bunch of cops and a K9 unit here.  They set up a perimeter in the neighborhood and went looking for the guy.  I was very impressed with the man who actually was robbed.  He was very calm, a good observer, was able to tell the cops what he looked like, and the exact model of gun he had used. Apparently the guy is a gun enthusiast and knew specifically what the guy had.  He was also able to keep his head when the guy held him up.  The workman was on a ladder when the guy (who had walked by twice before and asked for change and was told no) came back up with the gun. The workman, who's name was TJ so I'll just call him that, took out his wallet and only handed him the cash inside instead of handing over his whole wallet. 

I'm not sure how long all of this took. I stayed outside with the pastor and TJ until things settled down. We asked all the ladies to leave while the police were still here, and believe it or not, TJ went back and finished up our install!  I think what happened finally settled into TJ's head after it was over, because he seemed to be more nervous afterwards.  Poor guy. The police haven't caught the robber, as far as we know.  Of course, now we're all super vigilant about the people we see and who we let inside the building.  There had been an active shooter situation in this neighborhood on Monday, but our office had been closed for MLK day.  Things seem to be getting worse around here and I'm not feeling as safe as I wish I did.

So that was our excitement!  May the rest of the year be just as exciting, but maybe in good ways instead of bad ones.

Yeah, I think I'm going to start seriously looking for another job.

4) Steve is officially a deacon now!  They did the voting last week and all three men considered were voted in.  It's all very weird to me.  I mean, I'm proud of him for taking on the role and all that, but I certainly don't feel like someone who should be married to a deacon.  People keep telling me that now I have to behave myself.  Maybe they're kidding, but I don't know for sure. I didn't sign up for this, Steve did.  Personally, I think I'll just keep on being whoever and whatever the hell I want, but that's just me. So now I feel like I should go out and do something rebellious and not-at-all deacon's-wifely!  We'll see how it goes from there. :)

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

OK, so adventure seems like a strong word to use here, but whatever.  Anything can be an adventure, right? :)

I'm on my way (or, at least I will be soon) to the financial workshop I mentioned in my last post.  Whee.  I finally got in touch with someone who would tell me where I needed to go when I got there, so that helped me out tremendously!  Now I know where to check in and where the thing is going to be. 

I've realized that I am not as laid back as most people would be about attending something like this, or at least that's the impression I'm getting.  I don't like not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing!  If this were a vacation or something I wouldn't care. I don't worry about about schedules for that kind of thing.  However, someone paid for me to go to this workshop and I'd rather not be moseying in two hours late to something because I'd been circling the compound, going from building to building asking where I'm supposed to be.  It's been 17 years sense I've been to this place, and since I was in a big van with a bunch of other teenagers, I wasn't exactly paying attention to what was going on when we got there. 

I think I'm way more anxious about this sort of thing than I need to be, honestly.  Part of it is that I don't tend to drive long distances by myself very often (and ever since I ended up in that person's barn, I'm not sure I trust the GPS completely.)  The next part is that I'm worried it'll all be over my head.  Damnit, Jim, I'm an artist, not an accountant!  What if I can't retain anything?  The other part is that I'm a complete flake and I'm worried that I'm going to do something dumb.  That probably speaks volumes about my self esteem, but seriously, I do dumb stuff all of the time without realizing it and I don't want to do anything that reflects badly on my church.  I'm rarely ever appropriate, especially when I get awkward, and since I'm going to be in a room full of people I don't know, I'm going to get awkward. Oy.  Can you get excommunicated from the Southern Baptist Convention?

This is the first time I've ever traveled for work, for any reason.  I've never even stayed in a hotel by myself before, so this is a whole new thing for me!  All I want is to get there and back safely, and hopefully learn the hastared computer program/financial stuff in the process.

Anyways, so there you go!  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  I'll either come back a tiny bit more comfortable with the idea of dealing with our church's finances, or I will have been chased from the place with torches and pitchforks. 

Of course, maybe I'll just skip the whole thing and make a detour to Auburn to watch football with some friends.  Would that be so wrong? :)