Ran with the devil, Walked with angels: It's good to get along

5/13/06 Saturday
It is already 4:00 and I haven’t done anything other than sit in bed watching TV. I was up till 3:00 AM this morning. Just was wide awake and couldn’t go to sleep. Cherie had to work this morning so I got up with her and showered. After fixing a nice breakfast I laid back down and caught up on some sleep. Cherie went and did some shopping. We were going to go over to her mothers storage unit to get the twenty plus chess sets I had stored there and move them to our storage unit. Hope they are still there. When Cherie called to get the key she found out her dad is in the hospital. He wasn’t feeling good and had blood in his stool. Not a good sign.

It might be just hemorrhoids.

5/14/06 Sunday
It is already 3:00 today. I didn’t post anything yesterday and really don’t remember much other than I ran to Allen’s at 8:00 or so for a couple of hours. I just needed to get out as I had been in the house all day.

Cherie called over to her folks house to see how her dad is doing. The hospital will keep him one more night to do some tests on his colon. Cherie had called to see about getting our stuff out of her mom’s storage unit. Her sister, Cathy, answered so Cherie talked to her for a bit. Cathy had a key and called mom at the hospital to get the new code. The code had been changed because of problems with Jeremy that stemmed from him not paying for the storage unit he had. There’s more to that but there always is. Anyway Cathy is to meet us there to let us in so got to go.

I didn’t know what to expect. I haven’t talked to Cathy since the blow up when I made the mistake of talking about what goes on in that household. I haven’t been to the house since and was told I was not welcome to come over. I was surprised when there was no visible animosity from Cathy at all. She was bright and happy and talked freely. That is good. I never wanted there to be problems and am glad that at least she is OK. Now her son Nate may be another thing but we will see.

Cathy and her youngest son, Joshua, helped us get the twenty plus glass chess sets I had bought for a buck apiece loaded into our car. After that I invited them to come over to our storage unit where I showed her the desk I had recovered from my old warehouse. This came up after I saw the mahogany desk in Mom’s storage unit that I had stripped in preparation to refinishing it. That desk had belonged to Cherie’s grandfather but I was unable to finish it because I was no longer able to get to it in the garage and was no longer welcome over there. Kinda made me sad as I had looked forward to making it a gift to dad.

Cathy was impressed with my handiwork and we enjoyed talking about things like the farm and sustainable living. I didn’t know or at least didn’t remember that Cathy has a degree in agriculture so she is very knowledgeable about that kind of stuff. She made some suggestions that I can’t recall now but that’s how it is in Bob world.

While we were there the lady who manages the facility came up and asked Cathy how she got in because a bill hadn’t been paid for two months. Come to find out she mistook Cathy for someone else who will remain nameless for now. Cathy got upset pretty quickly and was getting more upset as she thought of this so I calmed her down.

I helped her understand that the manager was just doing her job and it was not a personal attack or insult. It is however one of the results of other’s actions that end up on Cathy’s shoulders. She expressed her desire to get away from these things that are not her responsibility. Escape can be a good thing. We talked a little more about Texas and I told her that I was glad we got along. I am glad. It is a relief.

I’ve been doing some blogging the last couple of days, something I haven’t done for a while. Chased down some of the links to others who visited my blog as well as some attached to the “homesteader” blog I visit. There is a large community of those who believe in and practice sustainable living as well as organic farming and the like. It would be good I think to connect with this community. One of the ones I tapped into is a Christian agrarian group.

I found some interesting theological positions as I read. Concepts that mirror some of my own regarding the church as a whole and how it evolves. While I have serious doubts and issues when it comes to religion I at the same time have a clearer understanding of these things than many who attend church regularly.

This comes from not only having a degree in theology but from my years as a minister. What a paradox. To not believe yet understand more than many who do.
The owner of one of the bogs showed some picrures of a woodcarving project, I think his first one. But anyway I figured I would post some my woodcarving in case he comes by to visit.

Eileen called me. She has been unable to eat without throwing up for weeks now. When I heard that I remembered an old herbal remedy that is prescribed in eleven states for this kind problem. I have been thinking of visiting Weenie (Eileen’s nickname) for a while so this would be a good time. I stopped by Allen’s for a bit and he gave me a gift for Eileen that surprised me with it’s generosity. “I know she’s a good woman so tell her happy mother’s day for me” he said.

That surprised Eileen also when I got to her house. She didn’t look too awake and I could tell that she wasn’t feeling well. Allen’s gift brightened her up quite a bit. We talked about old times and Eileen told me stories of the years she worked for me. They were often new to me and I asked her again to write them down for even now as I write this I cannot remember what she told me an hour ago. We had some good times and strange days like when I had to call the police to have Thor removed from the premises.

Thor worked for me and got the idea he owned a percentage of the company. I had told him that if we ever went public I would give him shares of stock. This was a pipe dream but I figure the incentive to grow the company to a state going public couldn’t hurt. It went to Thor’s head and there had been an rising tide of tension as his ego led to rebellion. I told him “Thor, enough of this. Your fired”. “You can’t fire me, I own part of the company” was his belligerent reply. Some how, in his delusion he believed this.

Thor continued peering at his computer screen as he kept doing what I had asked him to discontinue. Stubbornly he kept stabbing at the keyboard with his two finger typing skill. Eileen tells me that I had reached out, grabbed the monitor off Thor’s desk. And flung it to the ground with a resounding crash.

This is in full view of everyone in the two banks of telemarketing booths in my main phone room. They had watched this heating up all day so with this everyone ran for the doors. Claudia, a sweet old black woman, was yelling “Eileen! get me out of here! Oh My! The’re going to kill each other”.

When he refused to leave I called the police. Now it gets interesting. The police arrive. “Good, now I’ll end this nonsense” I thought to myself. The officers come in the office and as I get up from my desk Thor runs in from his desk where he had stayed in his defiance. Before I can get a word out Thor yells “You can’t throw me out. I own half of this company. Throw him out”. Now the cops are at a lose. I could see the wheels moving as they try to wrap their miniscule minds around this. Didn’t seem to work.

“Sir, we can’t remove him from the premises because he’s an owner” I was politely told. “What the hell do you want!” I screamed inside as I pointed out “Look at the sign on the door. It says WESTBROOK MARKETING. I’m Bob Westbrook. I own this company”. Not good enough. Nope. Now this is a pickle. Here I am in the office of the company I had founded and built from scratch in front of everyone that works for me and can’t make Thor leave.

Thor reared his head up as he swelled with his own pride. Then as he gloated, pretty much gave me the finger with his eyes, I got an idea. I looked at the two cops, who were not having fun, and said “I’ll be right back, stay here please”. With that I ran out of the office downstairs to the offices of River East. It was their building, they are my landlord. I had noticed one of the things the officers had told me, something about I didn’t own the building so couldn’t force Thor to leave. I explained things to River East and some one came up with me to talk to the police. They said that it was their building and they would like Thor to leave. BAM! BAM! I loved it. Thor’s face screwed up with his rage as he unleashed all that was boiling in his mind. He was then informed that to return to the building would be trespassing and he would be jailed.