Where's Sam?

I am in the process of researching my family tree. I started this project for my son who is an only child and doesn't have much contact with family since many live elsewhere. I wanted him to have a sense of connection to family even though he may not see them or know them personally.

During this journey of discovery, I found out my son related to George Washington. Yep, THAT George Washington, the father of our country. That was a big shocker. George's mom was a Ball and somewhere in the line a Ball married into the family who eventually migrated South during the Civil War and then West and because of the Crenshaw's and the Haas', my son has a whole slew of family specifically located in Texas.

But now, I'm looking at my father's side of the family. It seems many of the men in the family were transient and left for whatever reason or were lost track of which I find sad. I never knew my grandfather on my dad's side of the family who died in 1971 when I was 5 years old. My dad didn't know his father either. My grandfather was a lifer in the Army until his lack of hearing got in the way of him doing his job and then he was rejected during reenlisting. He was admitted to the U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteered Soldiers twice, in 1933 and 1935. And in reading the intake documents carefully, it seems my grandfather had a brother named Sam who lived in Cicero, Illinois.

So how do you find a man who doesn't want to be found? Like a puzzle, you find the pieces and put them back together paying attention to the clues that this type of research gives you.

The first thing I did when I found Sam's address was Google it. I wanted to see where this man lived or even if the house existed anymore. Unfortunately, the address doesn't not exists anymore. It's now a parking lot for a bankrupt grocery store called Delray Farms.

I then matched the address given as a contact, Sam's address, to the 1930's U.S. Census Records. This took some doing because I'm not familiar with the area nor working with census records all that much. I was able to track down an enumeration districts description page on the web which pointed me to the correct block. The address was found to be located in District 2038. The street address was 2308 South Cicero. There were two tenement houses filled with boarders that either worked for the electric works or the railroad which was right near by. Almost the whole neighborhood consisted of these types of housing in 1930. But as luck would have it, Sam didn't live in that specific house in 1930 and probably not for another three years...

Or, there is an alternate idea. I found a Sam Stutz in California. In San Diego County. This Sam Stutz was born in Illinois like my grandfather. This Sam Stutz gained a U.S. patented for a machine that sorted gold from slew. If he were an engineer, that would make sense since many of the Stutz's are big thinking people with highly technical jobs. I'm thinking that maybe my grandfather lost track of his brother and that the address he put down was old and Sam moved on a while ago. That would mean I may have undiscovered blood relatives as close as a two hour drive away I have never met before. It's exciting to think about if you're into genealogy to make a discovery like that. But one step at a time.

Potty Humor... literally

I am the solitary shitter. It's all I really want in life. I would like to shit in peace with no noise, no one around me and no interruptions. I don't think that's a lot to for ask, really. Whether it be in my own bathroom at home, in a semi-private stall like at work or in a public place... I wish people would just leave me he hell alone when I sit down to take a crap.

At home, my cat thinks that when it's my time for me to take a shit, that is the perfect time to get her pet on. She will come into the bathroom and dance around at my feet and rub on me until I relent and pet her until she's content, then go upon her merry way. Now she's even got her sister doing it, too. But it would be too much to ask for if both of them could be in my tiny bathroom at the same time, oh no, they have to come in one at a time - single file please, and perform this silly ' I want attention now because you're sitting down taking a shit' dance. What's funny is they won't stick around until I'm finished. When the shit drops and they get a whiff of it, their nose wrinkles up, the ears go back and they are out of there! quickly running the other way.

In a public toilet, I don't want to be sitting there trying to do my thing and have to listen to your keys jingling, your cell phone conversation with your whiny ass brat or your the mad fuck that you're planning on in the evening. I don't care. Why you have to come into the toilet with three of your closest friends and continue the same inane conversation about some other woman you hardly know, bitching and moaning, whining and complaining is beyond me. I'm there to leave a deposit and go on about my business. I don't need to know yours.

If people had to show their ass to other people more often, maybe if the concept of vanity and privacy were stripped away from the communal toilet experience making it a real public toilet; no walls, no stalls, just isles of porcelain for all to see, then maybe I could shit in peace. These irritating a-holes would then hopefully become the fastest shitters in the West. Speed shite. No time to dilly dally and make cell phone calls to your mother nor the free world. You'd have to actually pay attention to what you're body is doing and get going.

Maybe the Chinese got it right - squat toilets for all!

Now if we could only do something about the germs...

He pushed me aside before he pushed me aside.

I went on a date Thursday night right after work with a man who, in hindsight, if I knew the details of his life, such as his impending divorce (red flag) and difficult child custody schedule (red flag) or health issues, I would of never went out with him in the first place. Bad move #1 was he manhandled me to order his smoothie (red flag). No, I take that back. It was when he sent me a text me saying, "If you still want to meet with me, let me know." (red flag). More shocking to my senses was that he was a highly educated man too ashamed to admit his own reality unless I questioned him on it (red flag) and then I got an earful for two hours (red flag). I emailed him telling him, "I think you're looking for someone to talk to" I mean, especially since he said he wasn't looking for sex immediately and then he replies back he's not looking for someone to talk to (red flag). Whatever. Seems to me he doesn't know what he wants but it surely wasn't me. Next...

CA Supreme Courts uphold Prop. 8 Banning Same Sex Marriage

Read: CA Supreme Courts uphold Prop. 8 banning same sex marriage

My feelings stir when I heard about proposition this initially. I am a single mother of a 21 years old son. Even after all this time and the fact that I never married my son's father, it bothers me that same-sex relationships want the same rights as I have. Their situations are not the same and will never be.

Marriages were registered and regulated by the government for the social welfare of women and their natural born children. Outside of marriage, paternity existed to prove a man's relation to a child and named him at least a financially responsible party, as well as rules were established for inbreeding so that retardation and birth defects would be prevented. Without these, women and children became financial burdens upon society and had the ability to draw welfare payments from the government. And that was me. After being neglected then beat-up, once I was not living under the same roof as my boyfriend... the father of my child, I filed for welfare in order to take care of us. My son was 10 weeks old, paternity was established and I continued to collect a check until I was able to earn enough to support the both of us, which happened as he entered school. In a time when it was expected for women to take care of their family and not work at all, financial responsibility was crucial to the survival of family unit, even if it was a one parent home.

In the state of California, where civil union is recognized, where a third party must be utilized to bare children with at least one parents genes and adoption is carried out in this regard or to adopt a child outside of the relationship all together, why do same-sex relationships demand the equal availability to marriage? It's not about the right to bare legitimate children because that only can occur in a monogamous heterosexual relationship. It's only about the sentimental value of the ceremony itself and you can't go through the ceremony without a marriage license. Merriam-Webster's definition of family is (2a) a group of persons of common ancestry: clan. You marry, you consumate, then procreate. I tend to agree.

The Social Persona Test

Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)...

The Rarity (QTAF)

Quirky Traditional Alpha Female

You have an unusual and unbelievably precious combination of traits, especially in a woman. Not only are alpha females extremely rare, but traditional ones with nerdy/geeky interests are even more scarce. Unlike the other types, I can't give you a description because I'm not sure if you actually exist.

PS: I know this is not a compatibility test, but there is a very good chance you are the girl of my dreams. Not to sound desperate or anything, but please, oh please message me! (Assuming, that is, that you are between 20 and 30 and live in New England).

--Bookwyrm85

You are more QUIRKY than NORMAL.

You are more TRADITIONAL than LIBERAL.

You are more DOMINANT than PASSIVE.

When picking a date, consider: Lord of the Misfits (QLAM), The Late Bloomer (QTAM), The Snowball's Chance in Hell (QTBM), or The Manga Geek (QLBM).

(Image from http://folk.uio.no/thomas/lists/amazon-connection.html)

Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?) at HelloQuizzy

A Memorial Weekend

It's 6-something in the morning on Sunday and I was up before the dawn watering my tomato plant which looks successful up to this point, checking the cat water and food and brushing my teeth. I am sick of my clutter which I am coming to find out is so much less than what it could be compared to what other people's ideas of what clutter is but yet unacceptable to me because it's an in-my-face example of disorganization and I don't consider myself to be a disorganized person. I usually have things put in their special place so I can find them again and my clutter breaks that trend and creates a certain amount of havoc and frustration in my life. Once, I was trying to cope with my clutter by saying I was out growing my condo since I have lived here for ten years as of March. Once even, I tried to justify that I was just too tired to deal with it due to me dealing with a cronic disease let alone my daily grid. But after watching an episode of Clean House from St. Louis, I felt like, yeah, I could kind of relate as well as agree to the fact that I'll do things to make myself feel good and not necessarily the things that need to be done because they are not fun and considered chores. And so my slightly cluttered ways continue to a degree.

I'd decided that I need to locate my paperwork from the last time I put together a loan submission package while applying for a refi and I need to locate my notary certificate. I think these documents are located within two plastic gray trays of assorted clutter that at one time landed on my desk, but now that the desk has been changed and organized, have been relocated into my gray trays. These gray trays were once considered under the bed storage when I first moved into my condo. They are actually trays from Smart and Final like the ones bus boys use to clear your table after having eaten in a restaurant. They were cheaper than plastic bins specially made to be under the bed storage and I'll go cheap if it's functional so that's why I bought them. I think there are 6-8 floating around in various areas of my condo, but for the most part I believe they have been retired to the right corner stacked up in the bottom of my closet waiting to be utilised again.

I am determined to create a save or throw pile comprised of the things in my two clutter bins before I go and read the newspaper this morning. I don't actually read the entire paper. I don't think anyone does these days. I rather skim for what I find as interesting and then read that article and then continue skimming again to the next subject that sparks my mind. I love to go through the ads. I think it's for the color but moreover to find a bargain. I love the Target ads, even though we know that Walmart has better prices and for this reason, rarely produces a paper ad.

I'm procrastinating now about going through the rest of the bins since I have found my loan submission package and have calculated my interest rate change. I'm looking forward to the rate drop as I have a hybrid note that I don't even think they offer anymore and will adjust to be lower than my start rate, or so I hope. Now on to locate that certificate.

I barbecued hamburgers yesterday which came out excellent. I also made homemade salsa as well. Yum. Even though I went to Sprouts and Ralph's and spent $95, I need to go to the grocery store again because my pantry has been depleted and I need cereal and milk.

My neighbors are entirely too noisy for this time of day.

A Dangerous New Trend... Mom Blogs

Mom blogs. The conception of a new blogging experience, I feel, should never coincide with childbirth. Sure, you'll gain a lifetime of experience, especially with you're first child... your so-called practice child. This is the child that will prove to you you've made the right decision by choosing to have offspring -or- create more havoc in your life than you ever provided your own parents and then make you second guess why you bothered to have children in the first place.

I believe a mom for the first five years should dedicate her life to the raising of that child and I think blogging gets in the way of that. It can be time consuming and reveal things like how you actually ignore your child instead of dealing with the problems at hand. Generally speaking, you're pretty exhausted from the lack of sleep and you need to be awake when your baby is awake for feedings, changing and bathing. How you're going to get all that done and housework, too, while blogging is beyond me. Maybe you have a Nanny. Who knows.

I don't know about you, but it took me 11 days just to leave the house for the first time with my son and then I only went to visit his great-grandparents. The baby wanted to sleep, I wanted to sleep, so it was a good time to sleep. I bonded with him by having him sleeping on my chest. That tiny little guy was a long as my thigh bone when I took him home. Now he's taller than me at 5'6". But I digress.

More later...

Medical Runners

I found an article this morning that went along with the NPR story I heard about how President Obama and Congress are working out the plan for universal health care for all.

Read: Report: Senators mull 3 health-insurance plans

I know that when you seek any kind of medical treatment, you have to consent to it. What I don't understand is these people in New York state that go to the ER, get seen and then refuse treatment because they start to think about the bill. In California, we don't worry about the bill so much because we know everyone will be treated in the ER regardless of your ability to pay or not. Anyway, here is the link to the article.

Read: Too broke for the ER, patients flee

3AM Cat Dance

As I was going through last weekends newspaper, this idea popped into my mind that people should take a queue from nature and be more like their pets. Take my cat, for example. Girlie decided 3AM was the appropriate time to wake up. She danced around on my bed, nuzzled with me for awhile, then got up and got a drink of water. She straightened up up the fur left ruffled after I scratched her little. She then went out side, went to the bathroom and did some stretches. After letting me know she wanted to come back inside, she got a snack and went back to bed.

I wasn't even half as productive as my cat was this morning. I couldn't sleep anymore after my cat woke me up dancing all mover me and my bed so I turned on the TV and watched some news. I figured out what I wanted to wear today and then put some laundry away. I located my shoes and last weekends newspaper I didn't find the time to go through and took out all of the coupon sections and the target flyer because I love Target. I also browsed the Pacific Sales flyer for ideas and deals. As well as looked at what stuff Fry's was selling on the back of the sports section that I probably don't need all that much.I also segregated out the Parade because I like my information delivered to me in little bits and pieces so this mag suites me fine in that respect. I somehow managed to make my self a bowl of oatmeal in the microwave and eat that, but it was so early in the morning, I don't remember where.

And then I decided to re-use the bag from what covered last weekends newspaper instead of throwing away and make it into a kitty poo from the box holder. Cleaned that stinker out and knotted up the one end of the bag and now my dining area is much, much fresher smelling.

Now I know why I eat slow...

I always wondered why I ate so slow as compared to my mom or my friends. Maybe this is the answer. I'm a quarter French (Canadian) you know...

See: Sleeping and eating - the French do it best