Bingo

Today was Bingo Day, as it is every Tuesday, so we in the office were working with the background accompaniment of "O-47!"..."B-5!" etc.
Bingo is serious business around here.
Tuesdays are also legal clinic day, and once a month a podiatrist comes in. Today was the day for that too. One of our guys came in the office to show off the new shoes he'd gotten from him.
A nun comes in to do nails on Tuesdays as well.
Thursdays are Movie Days, with the big TV getting wheeled out into the dining room.
Today Sr. Mary Beth brought in Coco, her dog. Coco is very popular. These tough guys here, you know, the ones who have to be guarded all the time, aloof and defiant--they see Coco and crouch down and start baby-talking: "Who my good widdle puppy? Who my widdle Coco?!?"
By the way--I call her Sr. Mary Beth, but she's really St. Mary Beth. Says so on this award she just got--they wrote "St." instead of "Sr." They offered to fix it, but Mary Beth, perhaps not too surprisingly, declined.

Puppy-Pants

I'm not going to write about Our Daily Bread all the time, especially when something interesting happens at home.
Recently at the JesusFreakCrazyCommuneCultHouse we pondered one of life's mysteries--why is the expression "Puppy-Pants" (first employed by T., adopted by the rest of us as the catch-all term of endearment for any of our three resident dogs) so darned funny? Can other words become as funny when they are "pantsed"?
M. and I worked out what we believe are the definitive -Pants Rules. I present them to you now.
1. The "pre-pants" word must be multisyllabic--two syllables are the ideal. This explains why "Puppy-Pants" is funny while "Dog-Pants," while funny, isn't as funny.
2. The accent must be on the first syllable of the two syllable word, or the penultimate syllable if it's multisyllabic. "Renee-Pants"--not funny. "Potato-Pants"--pretty funny. But not as funny as it can be, which leads us to the next rule:
3. The last syllable should end in an "ee" sound: "Spaghetti-Pants," "Angie-Pants," "Sammy-Pants"--all funny.
4. The crowning touch--alliteration. This can trump almost every other rule: "Popsicle-Pants" is funny even with the accent on the wrong syllable and no "ee" sound at the end.
So "Puppy-Pants" is the perfect storm of "-Pants" expressions--we've got the right syllable count, the right accent, the "ee" sound and three "p" sounds in a row.
"Poopy-Pants" works too.

Words

People have been asking me this week, "So, are you enjoying your new job?"
I'm not quite sure how to answer this. Last night M. asked me why. "Is it because you're not sure whether you should enjoy a job that only exists because people are homeless and hungry?"
It's probably not as profound as that. It's because I'm just learning the job. Lots and lots to learn.
Today I learned about old typos on letters we've sent out. One letter apparently was trying to say something about "neighborhood shut-ins"--I bet you can guess the typo that was made on that phrase! Something like a hundred letters got mailed before the mistake was found, too...
Another time a guy said to Cookie (the organization's founder), "I think you made a mistake on this letter you sent out looking for more volunteers."
"Oh?" she said.
"You said, 'It's been quite busty around here lately.'"
She was able to cover the mistake up on that one though. Quick as anything she said, "I meant to say that! I was trying to get more men to volunteer!"
Speaking of putting the English language to creative use, Cookie was just telling us about one of our guests who complimented her on her makeup: "Oh! Your face always looks so pretty! Can you bring in some costume-medics for me sometime?"
I think "costume-medics" is a GREAT descriptive phrase, don't you? Reminds me of my friend D. who works at a place dealing with legal issues for people. She gets calls from folks saying, "Hi, I need to get my record 'sponged." That makes so much more sense--I mean, why would anyone want to get their record ex-sponged?

First Day

This blog will mostly be about my experience working at Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen and hospitality center in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati. Even before I started working here I sussed this experience will be great for a story-gatherer like myself.
Heard this in a conversation with Sister Mary Beth, our Executive Director, at Chipotle the week before I started:
"One of the guys who comes in owned this cat he just loved. When it died we helped him get another one and are helping him with cat food and kitty litter and everything. But last week when his old cat died he brings the body here in a nylon bag, tears just streaming down his face: 'I live in Over-the-Rhine, Sister; I have no place I can bury him.' I agree to help him out. I wasn't gonna bury the nylon bag, so I open it up.
"Now, this man's a veteran. When I look inside—the cat's body is wrapped in an American flag.
"What can I do? When I bury it, I salute."

Mary Beth has seen a lot. At lunch today she told stories of working with three- and four-year-olds at a Head Start-like program. When they were baking homemade Play-Doh one day, one kid took the edge of a piece of paper and started cutting lines with the flour on the table—that's what you do with white powder, right? And another kid, another four-year-old, announced one day, "I know how you get pregnant!"
"All right, how do you get pregnant?" Mary Beth asked her.
"You take the beer out of the freezer, you take the wine out of the refrigerator, you drink the beer, you drink the wine, then you get fat and then you get pregnant."
Other highlights of my first day included a guy who came into the office to sing a belated happy birthday song of his own composition—he was pretty good. I tried recruiting him for my church choir. And the number one question asked by people meeting me: "Can you bake brownies?"
"Yes, I can bake brownies."
"Are they good brownies?"
"Yeah."
"All right, I guess you can stay."
It snowed yesterday. One fella came in asking for some socks. His had gotten all wet in the snow last night.