Waiting

Tonight, I had a meeting wherein we discussed readings for the church for Advent. There were several options and we took turns reading them aloud to see which ones spoke most to our souls.

We chose a booklet of reflections from Mother Teresa, which will be wonderful.

One of the other readings, though, is running through my head. We all know that whatever runs through my head must exit out of my mouth (or fingertips).

The writer, Mark Neilsen, asked why, during Advent, we still waited for Jesus to come? Hadn't He already been born, long ago, in Bethlehem? Yes, He had.

We wait, still, for Him to return in the future, as God promised.

Mr. Neilsen then made the point that we don't have to wait at all. We just have to ask. Jesus is waiting for us. Let me repeat that. Jesus is waiting for us, for me. All I have to do is ask and He will be with me. He will stay with me. He will protect me. He will guide me. He will laugh with me, and at me. He will comfort me. All I have to do is ask.

Amazing.

Tattoos

I got my first tattoo when I was 31. I am planning my next one.

Tomorrow, Lily gets tattooed. I know of horses who get tattooed on their lip or their ear or some other part of their anatomy for identification purposes. The Lippizzans are tattooed and/or branded in several different places.

Such is not the case with Lily.

Julie can tell you all the technical names for what her horse is. Her horse is a paint. One of her horse's eyes is surrounded by white hairfurcoat (whatever it is that horses have). Horses whose eyes are thus positioned are prone to cancer of the eye. So, much in the manner of a football player, a black line will be tattooed around her eye to give her protection.

I was campaigning for a daisy or a sunflower. Juls wanted the Gene Simmons eye. Nope. The vet says a plain old line. Oh, well.

I am posting a before picture of Lily now.

OK, this is actually a picture of Julie on Lily. I just like the picture.

This is a better shot of Lily's eye.

The after shots will follow fairly soon, I hope.

Remembrance 2011

We DO remember

Father Mychal's Prayer

Lord, take me where you want me to go;

Let me meet who you want me to meet;

Tell me what you want me to say, and

Keep me out of your way.

—Fr. Mychal Judge, O.F.M.Chaplain,

New York Fire Department

Copyright ©2001 Holy Name Province

While researching Father Mychal, I came upon this picture of a stained glass window in his memory at St. Francis of Assisi Church in NYC.

Please keep all of our heroes, civilian and military, both home and abroad, alive and deceased, recognized and unrecognized, past and present and future, in your prayers.

I posted this last year and I probably will next year. I think that Father Mychal bridges the gap for me between the civilians who died on 9/11/2001 and the first responders who died then and the military who are still dying. He, as a priest, was a civilian. As the fire department chaplain, he was a first responder. As a warrior of God, he was, and is, the ultimate military hero.

How do we honor them?

I have been thinking, today, of tomorrow. Tomorrow will be 10 years since 9/11/2001. There are a plethora of television specials and numerous memorial events, including one at Ground Zero. You know, they can name that holy space any name they want. To me, and I think a lot of other people, it will always be Ground Zero.

It is easy to honor our military. It is easy to honor our law enforcement. It is easy to honor our fallen firefighters. There are rituals already in place, steeped in history and tradition. We know the steps to take, the songs to sing, the prayers to say.

How do we honor those 2735 civilians who died in the World Trade Center? How do we honor those 87 passengers and crew members who were aboard American Airlines Flight 11 that hit the North Tower? How do we honor those 60 passengers and crew members who were aboard United Flight 175 that hit the South Tower? How do we honor the 36 passengers and crew members who were aboard United Flight 93 who died in Pennsylvania, having stopped 4 more hijackers from attacking another building? How do we honor the 64 passengers and crew members aboard American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon? How do we honor the 70 civilians who died at the Pentagon?

I think that we honor them by living.

I think that we honor them, not just by the great and heroic acts that some of us will do, or have done, but by the little things, the every day things.

My husband, with his son, daughter-in-law, grandkids, grandkids-in-law, and assorted other family, will be at the drag races out in California this evening. I do not know what they plan for tomorrow.

I will be at the ceremony to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks just before 8:00 a.m. Sunday at the flag circle at Veterans' Park. I will be at Mass at 9:00 a.m.. Then, I have a horse show (my daughter is riding), a Church meeting, and a Boy Scout family function in the evening. I will take care of my dogs. And through it all, I will remember. I will pray. I will thank God that I have the opportunity to do all of the mundane things that we all take so much for granted.

I will remember.

I love words!

When I was a little girl, back before Pizza Hut was invented and when no one ate frozen foods (except vegetables and stuff that your mom made and froze, like pies) my mother bought a pizza kit called Appian Way Pizza. It came in a box and, as a special introductory offer, with it's own cookie sheet.

You made the dough, spread it in the cookie sheet, put the canned sauce on it and then the special package of cheese, which didn't melt. Very scary stuff. The scariest part was that it wasn't round! Everyone knows that pizza is round. That pizza was just wrong. I think we only had it once.

Fast forward to tonight. I wanted pizza for dinner and, since our local pizza place does not deliver south of the tracks, I took my refrigerated pizza dough out of the fridge. It was kind of stuck in the tube thing so I pried it out, pieced it together and cobbled together a dough that sort of resembled South America. I drizzled it with olive oil and then layered on sliced green olives, bacon crumbles and the custom blend pizza cheese from the great mart of Wal. Seventeen minutes later, I had a wonderful pizza.

No, it didn't have sauce. No, it wasn't round. No, it wasn't wrong.

It was artisanal.

Hearing Tests

I was reminded today by a friend's prayer request of this little bit of family history. It actually explains so much.

When Moose was 2 months old, he and his mom and his dad and his four sisters all came to our house for Christmas. It was the first time that Shorty had met Moose's dad and siblings. Duck, also, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Anyway, the girls had the back bedroom and Moose's crib was in with his parents and Christmas was basically EVERYWHERE in the house. It was a wonderful, crazy, stressful, happy time and to say that Moose had everyone wrapped around his pinkie was an understatement.

Having said that, there was just something about the baby that didn't seem right. Juls and I had followed my mom's example from the day the baby was born and put him right in the middle of the house. No silence for one of our babies. Babies need to get used to the world. I remember when Juls was little and Mom put her in the middle of the living room and vacuumed around her!

Moose was a very good baby. He slept. He ate. He pooped. He slept. He ate ...well, you get the idea. The one thing that I didn't think he did well was respond to noise. I would stand over his little crib and clap my hands. NO REACTION! Absolutely none. I panicked and, being the sharing person that I am, spread this panic to his parents and his grampits. Moose's dad was in the Navy at that time and, after they got back to California, took the little man to the doctor for tests. By this time, Juls and I had already planned what steps we would take for her poor deaf baby for the next 18 years. We had researched schools and camps and therapies. We were prepared for anything.

Except the actual diagnosis.

The Navy doctor, after checking out the Moose and running some tests, said (and I quote), "His hearing is fine. He's just the youngest as*hole I've ever met".

Too much noise and stimulation, evidently. He didn't care for all the hoopla so he just checked out. That's a lot of control for a 2 month old!

So, today, please pray for my friends' grandson, Will. With all love, I hope that he is just another as*hole!

**the picture is from 2 years later. I just like it!

The Help

When I first heard all of the buzz about the movie, "The Help" based on the book of the same name by Kathryn Stockett, I immediately ordered the book for my Nook.

While I like movies, I love books. I love the detail and the nuance often contained in a book and missing from a movie. I have to tell you, I loved this book.

I was a child of the late 50s and early 60s. I was as insulated as a middle-class child of that era could be. My parents did not have "help". We had my mother! None of my friends' parents' had "help". To be perfectly honest with you, I did not personally know a black person until I was in high school. Much of this book is foreign to me.

We did study current events in school, though, so I was aware of the civil rights movement. The physical manifestations of it just did not occur where I lived.

I have, since I have grown up, travelled a great deal across this country of ours. I have witnessed occasions of prejudice, though few and far between and not always against persons of color. I have heard the criticism of this book, chastising the author for daring to speak in the voice of a colored maid.

I think we should just thank her for speaking. If you have seen the movie, read the book. If you read the book, please stop and think. I know our world is not perfect. I know our country is not perfect. But can we not appreciate the fact that 45 years after Medgar Evers was killed in Jackson, MS a black man was elected President? I am not suggesting that we, as a country, sit on our laurels but can we not, just for a moment, appreciate the strides that have been made?

I am climbing off of my soapbox now. I am going to get a cup of tea, a slice (or two) or chocolate cream pie and sit and re-read my book.