Oblate Letter For May (Excerpt)

From this month's oblate letter, by Sr. Jean Frances. She sends these out once a month to oblates and associates and so on. This year we're reading Michael Casey's The Undivided Heart. Sr. Jean writes:

All good in creation is God’s sole initiative, though we may like to think otherwise! Are you familiar with the saying: “To err is human; to forgive is Divine”? I think Benedict was well aware of this when he wrote in RB4:42-43: “If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.” All of us humans err often despite our best intentions. In owning that, we learn to forgive our self and others. We stumble; we backslide; we’re enthusiastic one day and feeble the next. We do, as Paul says, the things we don’t want to do and don’t do the things we want. We walk under a cloud of depression or discouragement at one time on our journey and then joyously walk out into the light for awhile. We try, and then sometimes can’t make ourselves try.

Growth in holiness is a lifetime process, a journey of ups and downs. We must expect this rather than act surprised. We need to stop looking so much at ourselves, trying to see how holy we’re becoming but fix our eyes, our goal, on becoming Christ in obedience to the movements of the Holy Spirit in us. (RB4:62) “Do not wish to be called holy, but first be holy so that you may truly be called so.”

In conclusion, dear oblates and friends, BE LOVE, because God is love. “Be compassionate because your heavenly Father is compassionate.” Become maturely human (perfect) as God is mature, whole, complete in God’s nature. Be patient with God’s work in you.

God seems to leave us forever wrong-footed, Casey writes. We're never ready for what comes next spiritually, in the growth we need to do. But it's God's work in us. We just have to answer (how easy that sounds).

That's all for tonight--it arrived at an opportune time in my email today.

Being Catholic

My mother is an erstwhile blogger over at Running on Empty. But this, this is worth reading (not that the rest isn't, it's just so few and far between. There's nothing wrong with her temporal lobe...). She wrote an essay for NPR's program "Speaking of Faith" which is reproduced at her entry, Being Catholic.

In a Valley Near the East Shore of Texas

"Wait a minute. You're closing that school and you just spent $49 million on a cathedral? Catholic education is too valuable in this day and time." --Darrel Lockridge, teacher and parent.

The Diocese of Galveston-Houston is closing my high school. Mount Carmel High School was opened by the Carmelite Order in 1956. It is located in a rundown southeast Houston neighborhood. The morning I toured the school before we moved to Houston, there was a bullet hole in the front door. I was a witness at a trial for a gang member who held up one of our basketball players on a bus. A rundown part of Houston.

When I attended, nearly half of the students were on diocesan-sponsored financial aid. This included the boy I dated most of my senior year, who never could have afforded to go to a Catholic high school. We lived Catholic values in our own small way. It wasn't a great school--I was the first National Merit Scholar in its history--but I learned more Shakespeare there than my friends who graduated from private Catholic high schools up here in St. Louis.

It wasn't all good times. I'm not trying to make it seem like a heaven on earth. But the facts are raw: tuition there is about $6000. Tuition at the other Catholic high schools in Houston starts at $10,000. It was the last high school to be run by the diocese. A diocese where the bishop was just made a cardinal and oversaw the building of a gigantic ostentatious Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral.

From the Houston Chronicle:

"I think a Catholic school's needed in this area. It serves the people who need it most," said Bob Buddingh, whose daughter is a freshman and whose son planned to attend the school next year. "This has all the earmarks of being a decision made by the bottom line numbers. If you used the same train of thought in everything the church does, you'd pull all your missionaries out of foreign countries."

Wow, that all sounds so familiar.

The archdiocesan news service says it themselves: While the Cardinal is quoted as saying the school can no longer be the "life giving enterprise that truly Catholic education must be," the superintendent of schools lays it all on the line: "The school’s location contributed to the difficulty of repositioning it." That sounds so familiar, too. Can't keep south side parishes open, you just can't justify it. Smart people move to the county. Why do you persist in your ignorance (read: poverty)?

In southeast Houston, as my theology teacher would put it (counting himself in those numbers), the population is very brown. African-American and Mexican-American are the predominant ethnic groups. My graduating class was very brown. Something tells me Strake Jesuit isn't brown. St. Agnes. Watching the little films on the internet this morning, news clips of this story, the students and parents quoted all have Spanish last names. This was as close to a neighborhood Catholic school as possible. What now?

How does this live out Gospel values? Something tells me, and I know it's tiresome to say this, but something tells me Christ would rather watch a basketball game in Mt. Carmel's gym and talk with individual people than show up at that cathedral. Or any cathedral, anywhere. Unless it was to show the bishops (pharisees) how wrong, wrong, wrong they were.

Article in the Tablet

Hey look here at the Tablet article I'm quoted in. It's brief (although I'm also the one he quotes without reference about the cleaner house...). But there it is. For those of you who have asked me what an oblate really is, it's a decent primer. From a British perspective.

Stuff Portrait Friday: Towels

Really? Towels? Ah well. This is from two summers ago, a trip down to the Meramec River with neighbors. Sophia and a friend arranging their towels in the little cabana on the rocky sand bar (rock bar?). What I like most about this picture is Sophia reaching down for the juice box. She's five in this picture. Add 15 years (give or take, I'm being hopeful) and she'll be sitting in a cabana on the rock beach reaching down for her beer. And while the friend might be there, somehow I doubt her mom and I will. It'll be boyfriends and boy friends and best friends and that guy's fiance they brought along. And she'll probably take my good towels from the bathroom to boot.

Photo Friday: Electricity

Photo Friday this week is Electricity. The first thing that comes to mind when I consider electricity is July 2006. When we were disconnected from electricity for 4 days. A huge wind and thunderstorm, coming from a freaky direction, knocked trees down all over St. Louis. Countless households were without power.

The first night it was kind of exciting. I remember reading a book by Fr. Dominic Garramone by flashlight, listening to the eerie quiet broken only by emergency vehicles. In the morning, I realized we were still without electricity, and that day was long. That next night was long. It started getting really old. I think this photo was taken the third evening, when we gave up and went to stay at Mary's house. She had recently gotten back on the grid and had air conditioning.

We kept waiting for the looting or the random crime. But I think everyone was just too hot. We're too lazy here in St. Louis to loot.

It was a big week. A big hot wet tiresome week.

Tower Grove Park

Last evening we took a bike ride through Tower Grove Park. Up and down hills on the moderately busy bike paths with the girls literally in tow. Trees in bloom, daffodils still yellow. Softball practice there, a pick up volleyball game here. On our second loop through, we stopped at the playground for the girls. Farsi, Spanish, Vietnamese, something North African, something else Middle Eastern and most definitely Bosnian. Not only that, but a friendly group of teenagers bored and in the playground but not causing a problem. Moms and babies, dads and toddlers. Strollers, bikes. A woman in full Muslim dress with her two little girls.

It has ceased to feel artificial to me. It is part of the background music of life here. We rode home, and as we got to the cypress grove circle, I turned to Mike and said, "This place is across the street from where we live." An odd mixture of pride and amazement at my good luck and just a happiness seemed to surround this statement.

An eastern towhee bid his sparrow and cardinal neighbors goodnight. We crossed Grand and headed up Halliday for homemade bread and butter before bed.

Big Night

Two new things happen tonight.

1) We start receiving weekly pick ups from our CSA, Fair Shares. Mike's bringing it home. It's spring (I saw this wonderful billboard out in the county for Lowes with a row of tulips that read, "Let it Spring! Let it Spring! Let it Spring! Welcome Back Spring!"), so it's slimmer pickings than late summer would be--probably a lot of greens along with the other things that come each week. I'm excited to be a part of this. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

2) Parish Council. It's not new, but we're possibly hopefully embarking on something new about the school building. I hope so. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn to say that bids were due Friday and we're going to examine them tonight. No guarantee that either there will be a good fit amongst the bids or that whatever we gravitate towards will be approved by the hierarchy. But this is a hopeful first step (first step. Ha. It's been 2 years of steps). At least, if nothing else, there will be brownies and good company.

In Other News: The van's in the shop so I biked everywhere today and that was good. Everyone around me is pregnant, it seems (overstatement: there are three recently announced pregnancies at school/work and a very hopeful adoptive couple who received a referral). Mah jongg this Friday. Almost done shoveling out the house. Work troubles are working their way through. I have a mountain of clean laundry to fold. My friend Marita's husband had a stroke and it turns out he has a heart defect and had surgery this winter (I just got a letter from her, we're like little house on the prairie kind of correspondents these days, three times a year when the stagecoach comes through). All the trees are leafing and the redbuds on both sides of our yard (both are fence tree volunteers) are bright purple. The kids are headed to the neighbor's house and I think I'll lie down a moment.

So Tired of You

The House Tour went fabulously. I think my dad's ego has expanded tenfold. But not in a bad way. He's done all the work--all the bookcases, the kitchen rehab, the front hall oak paneling, the third floor hideout. It's really quite nice. It is. We forget, knowing it every day like we do. But it is beautifully done. And it's odd what people think is spectacular. The exposed brick wall in the kitchen, for instance, I'd say 80% of folks who walked through just adored. I don't even notice it. And the shelves hidden next to the fridge by the window--"A place for all that stuff you don't have a place for!"

Someone asked if the owners had taken the photographs in the family room. No, they were done by Ansel Adams. But I just said, "No, they're just prints they picked up somewhere..."

People were awed by the dining room table (built from a tree my great-grandfather planted). The only negative comment we got, actually, was for the use of light blue in the living room (sort of a wedgewood blue). "Too much light blue. What, are your parents 80 years old?" Other than that, all was really well.

So it's been a week of cleaning, prepping, helping them finish up little things. Vacuuming. Lots of vacuuming. My sisters helped as house workers, my husband stepped in to be house captain for the morning shift on Sunday while I went on a girl scout field trip (which was LOUSY--we made it good, but the Zoo totally set us up for failure. More later when I'm ready to rant). My dad and I drove out to pick up Chinese food after it was all over on Sunday. Best Crab Rangoon since Golden Dynasty shut down.

And then, sitting in my dad's chair, exhausted and sunburned from the field trip and from smiling all weekend. I thought about the coming week, about everything I needed to do at my own house (it is a PIT), with work (can't talk about work), with school and girls and van and church and ugh. I looked around at my sister, my mom, my dad, and said, "I am so tired of all you people."

"Me too," Bevin answered.

"Was that what you were just thinking?" I asked.

"Yup."

It's a beautiful day. We totally played hooky this morning. Nobody went to school. I thought seriously about it...and then thought again. I'm trying hard to get this house under control. And this life. Girls are not helping. Not.

More After This

As they say in public radio.

Too tired to write tonight. More after this.

Photo Friday: Cold

Cold. This is the 2006 ice storm. We lost three American Basswoods on our street in one day. Lots of neighbors and friends were without power, just as we had been that summer (which would be my entry for "hot"). It was cold. Cold and still with flashes of light as transformers blew up, with crashes sounding like breaking mirrors as limbs fell from the trees.

Welcome, Winter.

Earthquake Part Two

The 4.6 aftershock is the red square inside the blue square, which represents the 5.4 we woke up to at 4:40 this morning.

It isn't New Madrid. It's the Illinois Basin Ozark Dome. It's all related, from what I can gather, but this part isn't very active. My neighbor Larry remembers one in 1968 that my mother also mentioned remembering. She would have been in high school here in St. Louis, it was just about the same as the one we had last night.

The one at 4:40 this morning was felt in southern Ontario, North Carolina, northern Michigan, Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska. Someone even reported to the Geologic Survey from Choctaw Beach, Florida.

And of course the way I freaked out, Sophia will now be replacing her usual panic games she plays with her friends, like "Power Outage" and "Orphanage" with "Earthquake."

Oh No.

So I was fighting with the cat. The little cat. I didn't want him to lie on my chest and purr in my face. So I kept gently tossing him away. Back. Back. Back. And I rolled over to look at the clock. It was 3:50 in the morning, April 18. The next thing I knew, I didn't have any clue what the hell was going on. We have a brass front to our fireplace in our room, and it was rattling. It rattles just a bit when a big truck goes by, rare, but it does. Except this time it rattled for, oh, about thirty seconds. And I realized holy crap, this is an earthquake.

I ran into Sophia and Maeve's room. Mike grabbed Sophia, I got Maeve, and we went down the steps. I mean, it was without thought or discussion. We were out on the porch before I could completely focus my eyes.

It is the first earthquake I've felt in St. Louis. Ever. I've felt one in Cairo, Illinois, one that woke me up as well, but my trigger is a little light the past few weeks. But only because I've been reading about the New Madrid Fault and freaking myself out. I do things things, why again? Why do I spend my time reading about soil liquefaction and what will happen to my masonry foundation 3 story house when a big one comes?

Two weeks ago I sat in my inlaws' church down in Cairo and thought about devastation. I mean, I've been ruminating. I mean, I wrote about it on my 365 blog. Here.

I hate it when that coincides with reality.

It was a 5.4 magnitude, centered near Olney, Illinois, 4:38 a.m.

I'm awake now.

Stuff Portrait Friday: Hero

I claim this land in the name of Sophia!


What is this about? Stuff Portrait Friday

Ordinary Time Preview

We had a meeting last night. Yes, after the hearing at city hall, I went to church cleaning and a meeting about ordinary time.

Ordinary time is thus named because it is counted, not because it is every-day or dull. We name Sundays in the seasons like thus: Third Sunday of Advent; Second Sunday of Easter, etc. But Sundays in Ordinary Time are thus: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We count. Check it off. Keep going.

Sr. Mary called together a group of us to think about what Ordinary Time will look like this year. OT is green. Atrium calls it "Growing Time." And this year, it truly is--the longest single chunk of OT possible. Starts May 18 and continues all the way through November until we get the Advent calendar out and start thinking about the close of the year. It's almost impossible for me to consider how to treat this as a single chunk.

So it's not, really. It's gradual. It goes from the fullness of spring, finally, there are green leaves on the trees and it's time to cut the grass, all the way round the hottest parts of summer, the break in the weather in September, and the frosty November mornings.

What to do.

Sr. Gen said, "What if we had a banner somehow enfold through the summer, becoming more and more of itself through the summer and fall?"

More as I work on the design. I think I know what I want to do, and some of it is sparked by the latest issue of the AQS magazine that I had read right before going to the meeting. Organic, reflecting the Tree of Life, green, replacing fragile spring things and greens with darker richer greens.

I have been challenged. Now to sew. And to go to Hancock's In Paducah and go wild.

Halliday Parking Pad SNAFU Continues

So I had to go talk to the Board of Adjustment today about the parking pad problem on our corner. A teeny bit of history is here at All Over But the Shouting, or at Of Course It Would Be a Quaker Phrase or by clicking on the Halliday tag. Today, though. Here's what I had say....


On Halliday, we have been dealing with this problem for a year. It was a year ago that Mr. Heyer illegally paved the driveway in front of his apartment building. We have tried negotiating with this man. We have tried meeting him more than halfway. But in the end, we must rely on the statutes and codes of the city, rely on you, because we have learned we cannot rely on goodwill. We cannot rely on our alderman, who obviously counts the interests of a developer from Chesterfield more heavily than those of the homeowners and voters of 3500 block of Halliday.

It is most frustrating to me that as a resident of this block, of this city, a supporter of neighborhood organizations, a parishioner of a local church, as someone deeply ingrained in city life, my opinion and those of my neighbors do not seem to count. It is shocking that a non-resident, whose children do not attend our schools, who does not shop at our stores or go to our churches, can snub his nose at the rules we abide by as members of this community and do as he pleases although the results could be disastrous.

The last time we met here in this room to attempt to reach a fair conclusion, my greatest concern was about safety. That has not changed. After Mr. Heyer withdrew his appeal, but before the concrete was taken out, my daughters and I went walking. My younger daughter was not quite 3, and we were planning for a walk in Tower Grove Park, which sits just across Grand from our lovely block. We walked west on Halliday past neighbors’ houses, neighbors with children, and our route was to take us up Grand to the light at Magnolia, crossing Grand there and then entering the park. But as we approached the four-car parking lot Mr. Heyer illegally paved, a car pulled out in front of us, a half a car length away from where we were walking. The driver waved at us, sorry, didn’t see you. And I thought to myself, well, thanks be to God this issue is resolved and it’s only a matter of time before we have our clear access returned.

And you could tell me that instead of walking down the public sidewalk, I could have crossed Halliday in the middle of the street, walked down the south sidewalk, and then crossed again at the corner to avoid the parking lot. Sure. But what about the mothers who don’t live on our block, who walk down Halliday from the east to go to the park? What about the students and elderly who get off the bus on Grand and walk up our street to their homes a few blocks away? Are you suggesting we put up warning signs in front of Mr. Heyer’s building so that they know this is a danger?

We just want our street to be safe. A four car parking lot doesn’t fit with that desire.


Thanks to Steve at Urban Review St. Louis for giving this some focus for me last April and May.

We will see what happens next....

Albums You Can't Listen To #6

The Thorntons' third album, appropriately, The Sacrament of Confirmation, marks their debut into the world of serious folk music. Included are such classics as Carry It On and The Rooster, but they make their own mark as well with the tracks Grace and Maggie, an obvious spiritual child of Bob Dylan's Maggie's Farm, and the lovely, haunting Farewell, the track that ends the album. Produced in 2006, The Sacrament of Confirmation is indeed a confirmation that good things can come of rocky beginnings (namely, the Thorntons' first two albums, In the Backyard and Heidi's Songs).

[What the heck is this? Look at the beginning of this series for an explanation of how I currently waste my time]

On Your Mark

Thus begins yet another harried week. Girl scout meeting today followed by finance committee at school. Tomorrow I frantically clean my parents' house for the house tour. Wednesday, I haven't even figured out how to make Wednesday work. Sophia has piano at the same time as a hearing downtown for an appeal by the lying liars on the corner (they want their parking lot back). The thought of fighting this issue a year after it all began makes me so so tired. Wednesday night is a church meeting about Ordinary Time church set-up/decorating. Thursday is more frantic house prep. Friday is a brief pause (meaning more frantic house prep) and then the weekend is the house tour. Oh. And a girl scout field trip on Sunday in the middle of the house tour.

Things calm down for a minute Sunday night.

Time for school...

Photo Friday: Fragile

Photo Friday this week is Fragile. This picture was from Summer '06 on a bike trip down by the river Des Peres. There's a little outcropping of rocks by River Des Peres Blvd., and Sophia wanted to stop to climb around. I thought, oh, sure, climb on the faux cliff. Then I hear it: MOM!

Of course, I'm thinking, crap, she's fallen, needs stitches. I turn quickly and see her pointing down at the rock. Then, the urban dweller kicks in. I'm thinking, crap, she's found drug paraphernalia or worse. But I walk over and see this. A nest, a duck's nest, filled with eggs. A duck that depends on the dirty nasty River des Peres. And on the goodwill of passersby and fast cars on the boulevard. They're eggs, so of course they're fragile. But doubly so, in my mind.

Papa Ratzi's Visit

Whispers in the Loggia has all sorts of things to say. For my non-Catholic readers, the pope is visiting Washington, DC, and New York. And the theme of his visit is "Christ Our Hope." It could be interesting to see what he has to say. Or not. Anyway, WITL says this at the end of his latest post:

Bottom line: for not a few, the visit won't so much feel like "Christ Our Hope"... but "Benedict Our Traffic Nightmare."

I am glad I'm safely tucked away out here in Missouri.

Stuff Portrait Friday: BAD

Ok, I'm totally hooked. And it's all ~Easy's fault. He's sent me over to Stuff Portrait Friday. Random and Odd gives a topic and then on Friday, everyone who plays puts a photo on their blog of that topic. Since I have all these pictures nobody ever gets to see...I like it.

Friday's topic is BAD. Whatever I think BAD is. And I thought this was pretty bad:

Three Billion Dollars A Week

I don't usually don't post about politics. I'm shy about politics. But something on the radio struck me the other day during those hearings that were on nonstop. The figure was stated, casually, that we spend 3 billion dollars a week in Iraq.

Three Billion.

It seems like a big number. It does. And it is. But how big, anyhow? You can look at it as it is written: 3,000,000,000. Wow, it's long!

Could I count to 3 billion? Probably not. But you could count to a million. If you count one number per second, for instance, and you decided that to avoid going insane, you would only count one number per second for, say, 10 hours a day, it would take you the entire month of February in a non-leap year. That's just about 28 days. Not so bad, really, I mean, it's only February (I should have done that this February instead of going crazy).

But how does that turn into 3 billion? Well, a billion is the same thing as a thousand millions. So that's 27,778 days. In terms of years, easy math, is 76 years. So, if you wanted to work your whole damned life just counting, you could count to a billion.

You can't even count to 3 billion. Not without the help of at least two friends.

It just seems like a big number.

Some days, I wish for a perfect church

Some days, I wish for a perfect church.

A church where it is understood that the best response to a "crisis" of sexual abusive clergy members is not a film series to force-feed the laity.

That's my current wish. I took that class. Protecting God's Children. Now, I am all for getting folks checked out against criminal records. Of course. I did that as a teacher, got finger-printed for the state. Just in case I was someone else. And I'm all for some kind of awareness campaign, although I don't know what rock you've been living under if you don't know signs that a child is being abused or that a certain adult needs to be kept under surveillance.

I'm just not so sure I understand the point of Protecting God's Children (the class, not the idea). Is it so we can identify potential abusers and report them? I thought maybe. Except the class I took a few years back really didn't do that (hell, I could have taught that class, just based upon teaching in the real world). Or is the point to convince the sheep that the hired men running the pen really have their best interests at heart?

It's like that old catch phrase that starts "guns don't kill people..." which I actually have never heard the real second part of. I've always heard "guns don't kill people, bullets do" or "guns don't kill people, I do..." Those sorts of things. It's like the films at PGC are trying to convince us "priests don't molest kids, creepy skating rink owners do..."

Thing is, creepy skating rink owners probably do. And neighbors and family friends. I do actually know two survivors of clergy abuse, though, so you can't fool me. It happens. And if the best you can do is produce a film series telling us everything we already know, I think I need to keep wishing (I mean, it's a room full of PARENTS. What is your top ten parental fears list like? Isn't this one of them???).

Keep digging, boys. Maybe eventually you'll strike gold.

Of course, this isn't only our problem, by far. By FAR. And a small non-denominational church is just as at-risk to be fooled by a minister as a big city parish is to be fooled by the associate pastor. Or the boy scout den leader. Or the softball coach. Or the fifth grade teacher. That's just it, really, or part of it, at least. Watching these films doesn't end child abuse. I don't even think it's possible it could make a dent. It's not like people molest kids by accident "Holy crap, look what I did! If only I'd attended Protecting God's Children last year!" And it's not like a movie is going to change anyone's predilections. It seems to be simply designed to punish the rest of us. To deflect responsibility.

Protecting Our Rear Ends, more like.

Why does this come up right now? Because I'm in charge of Children's Liturgy of the Word. And half my catechists were just stricken from my list because they haven't paid the piper yet. And I'm having a hard time bringing myself to care very much. Not that I'm going to break the rules--it's their playground, their rules. I'm just not so willing to play anymore.

The Time of the Nap Has Ended

Yesterday, Mike got home around 4 for a change and I was exhausted. I looked at him and said, "I'm going upstairs to nap." He shrugged.

"I think I'm going to get the trail-a-bike's tires pumped up and Sophia and I will go for a ride in the park."

I told him that sounded great. I went upstairs. Then Maeve's voice: "I want to go on a bike ride too!"

I was already sitting on my bed in my dark bedroom. I could have gotten an hour, easy. But I heard her say that and the little narration in the back of my head kicked in. It's spring. If you don't get on your bike today, how long will it be before you actually do? Poor Maeve, stuck inside while Sophia and Mike go out. Nap? Really, Bridgett?

I put on bike clothes (meaning I changed out of jeans, I don't wear biking clothing). I walked downstairs and helped get the bikes out and set up. We did an easy loop in the park, no big thing, a few miles. Stopped at the bike shop at Arsenal and Morganford to get more tape for my handlebars (my old tape was damaged when Mike flipped my bike last September). On the way up one of the stealth hills in Tower Grove I thought to myself, it is spring. The time of the nap has ended.

Starting late but here's more to obsess over

~Easy participates in a weekly photography challenge called Photo Friday. I've been looking at his pix for a couple of weeks now, and realized the little tag was active. Went over to Photo Friday. Read about it. And thought, well, here's something else to occupy my mind. Cause that's what I need. Obviously, it's not Friday, but better late than not at all. I'll start on Fridays this Friday.

Each week has a theme. This week's was "Far From Home." I knew this was the one I wanted to post. It's on US 50 in Nevada. We stopped to rearrange the girls' situation in the back of the van (put a new movie on the DVD player? Feed them? Who knows?). And the place where we'd pulled over had a potted cactus sitting on the side of the road. All by its lonesome.



US 50 is not known for its potted plants. It is desolate, two lanes, nothing between Ely and Tonopah. Except for every weird thing possible. It made me a little crazy. It was the first day on our trip in '06 that made me think, holy crap, where are we? What was I thinking, leaving the safety of St. Louis?

Far from home.

Morning!

Amen. Spring is here. Good morning, earth.

SPV Blogging?

Hmm. So two things have happened in the past week that strike me that I need to finish my St. Pius V windows project. First, a parishioner at the Nativity of Our Lord in Noel, Missouri (how cute is that pairing?) contacted me to ask permission to use the photo of our Nativity window as research material/option for a banner he was in charge of designing for the church. Secondly, a man who attends St. Francis de Sales here in town, which is where the Latin Mass community is based now, happened upon SCM when he was looking for information about Emil Frei and stained glass windows. Read a bunch of stuff here. And started his own project. They have several windows dedicated to saints who have churches named for them in the St. Louis archdiocese, and he has started writing about the saints and their stories one at a time. He had some questions about how our windows were put together, the structure, and we talked a few minutes about Munich style pictorial windows. He invited me down to see their church, told me how I might get in contact with him. If they let me take photographs, I might take him up on the offer. It's been forever since I've been in de Sales (probably 1997 or 1998) and the only window I remember vividly is the St. George one. I'm eager to see more.

Oh, and there was another thing. Almost forgot. While I was down in Cairo for Leo's funeral, I looked around St. Patrick's church there. Their windows are smaller than ours, but done in a similar pictorial style. They are all saints except for two large ones of the Nativity and the Crucifixion, and two smaller ones of the Sacred Heart and of the Annunciation. Their saints are paired, loosely, with a Joseph and a Queen of Heaven; Peter and who might be Paul; Anthony and Margaret Mary. And so on. Up above the altar are Joachim and Ann. Michael and Gabriel are painted on the apse ceiling (the apse, right? the semi-circular space above the altar?), and another Peter and definitely Paul this time. And then, opposite Joachim, is Patrick, the church's namesake, after all, and a young woman. Dressed in brown, holding a book and a crozier.

Now, she's in brown. And brown often = Franciscan. Which led us at first to think Clare of Assisi. But she is almost always depicted holding a monstrance. This woman held a book and crozier. Actually, she looked like a the depiction of Hildegard at Clyde. But I figured St. Patrick's in Cairo probably wasn't going to get that in-depth and specific. Plus, she'd be in black. So would Gertrude. And it's not Teresa of Avila or several other well known women saints (unless it's a poor depiction).

She stands next to Patrick. It's an Irish church. I think it's Bridget. She was an abbess, hence, crozier. She is depicted writing in a book. It's not her common depiction--she's usually placed with cows (which always makes me think of the Robert Frost "Mending Wall" line: Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows) or a pail of milk. Look here. And here. Next time in Cairo, I'm taking my camera. You can decide.

It is spring. I feel so much better. My brain works again.

Like Flynn

Today was the open enrollment deadline for City Garden Montessori. And I had all my stuff in so no cursing. Everybody who applied was accepted--a total of 48 children divided up into two classrooms with two teachers each. Sophia will be in the 6-9 room, and there will be a 5-6 room as well. So the stress headache about this is over. Nobody got turned away, and there are still two spots in case a few hangers-on get their things in later.

I asked Sophia tonight, half-joking, if she'd rather homeschool next year. Vehement head-shaking. "And I don't want to go to a school that has desks!"

Sophia will technically be a 2nd grader next year, and City Garden goes through 6th. Maeve is also in, once she is 5, due to sibling preference. After 6th grade...well, that's a while from now. I'm going to rest my brain.

Flood

Wish I'd brought my camera to Cairo. There were parts of the road there when the road was this gray strip surround entirely by water. We saw a bald eagle swooping down for a quick bite in the flooded farmland. The Point, which is where the Ohio meets the Mississippi, was completely submerged. The levee was closed with the metal gate, but you could peek over the top and see the water lapping at the edge (of the levee, not the wall on top of the levee).

When Ruth, our choir director at church, talks about Cairo, she mentions that she used to be the principal at the grade school there. Small world, always. And she said when she went to visit (probably in 1973, I know that was a big flood year), they should her the commercial district, just next to that same floodwall. And above the wall was a barge floating. It was above the city.

Well, the barges weren't entirely above the city, but it was disconcerting to see the tops of them. And tugboats. Miracles of semi-modern engineering.

It was the highest I'd seen the water there. I say "seen" on purpose--Mike and I started dating in 1993, but by the time we went down there in October, while we had to drive along the levee and it was scary, it was also dark. I didn't actually get a look at the water.

More rain today. And tomorrow.

Stuck in the Middle

I realized something the other night, while we were waiting for our table at the Melting Pot (which is an odd place, I mean, fondue? But it's fun and if you have 7 hours to eat dinner, well then). We were listening to the muddy sounds of the cover band in the next room and I recognized a song. Wait, who sang that?

Bevin let me know that it was the Counting Crows. And Mike asked me if I'd seen the poster for the Dave Matthews Band concert, with the Counting Crows, for sometime this summer. Yeah, I had. I really like DMB. In college, I liked them a lot.

"But I'm too old to see Dave Matthews in concert," I said wistfully. "And I'm too young to see Jimmy Buffett in April. I'm stuck in the middle here."

But I did say offhand that if Robert Earl Keen or Willie and Family came back anytime soon, I didn't care how old I was.

Hush Puppies

Tuesday night we got to Cairo, staying over so we could go to the funeral without being in a rush Wednesday morning. Jeff made fish, which he fries in a cornmeal batter. Lovely. And he makes hush puppies, which are yummy as well. Lots and lots and lots of people there. We made plates for the girls, they sat with their cousins, and I went off to the guest room to do work (which is a topic for another day...).

On the way home Wednesday, Sophia asks us, "what was that ball on my plate last night?"

Flipping through my brain, I can't figure out what she might be talking about. We wait for more explanation.

"You know, that brown food ball thing."

"Oh, yeah, that was a hush puppy."

Brown food ball thing.

Leo

Mike's uncle died this weekend. Leo Baudino. He was weakened from a bout with lung cancer a few years ago, and then he got the flu or some kind of upper respiratory thing, and then it just tumbled down from there. He's actually my mother-in-law's uncle. The last of the Italians, I suppose. He'd drink real wine at dinner while the rest of them drank asti. A former English teacher with a van dyke that came to a point, snow white.

So we're off to a funeral tomorrow morning. It's not a bad funeral. I think he had a good life, a full one. No visitation. Doesn't want everyone standing around crying all night. No fuss. I was thinking about this the past few days, about how Sophia had ridden his horse, how Mike and he used to talk about jazz. We'd talk church politics. And one time he called Justice Scalia a "Nazi Wop."

Well, then.

I have hidden depths

So to randomize my morning, dear husband sent me a link to find out what Greek God I am. You know these quizzes. Fill out 10 questions about random preferences and then they match your answers to one of the options in their category (for instance, my Inner European is Irish and I'm in Dante's Purgatorio).

So I 100% expected my answers would produce Hestia. You know, the boring goddess of the hearth. I didn't consider any other choices, no wistful hope for Aphrodite or Athena.

I got Hades. Huh.

I am the Ancient Greek God:

Hades

Greek Gods Quiz

I went back afterwards and tweaked my answers enough to produce (conjure?) Hestia. So she was a choice. Just not me.

Hades.

April Fool...Or Not? You Decide

So out of the blue, Miguel sends me an email.

Miguel was part of my SLU social crowd. An often angry, more often depressed, hyperactive Venezuelan. Over time our relationship waxed and waned from really close, almost sibling-level intimacy, to pure seething hatred (also almost sibling-level). He went home to Venezuela several times, attempted to come back, failed at that (his sister is a citizen, and she's brought her parents here, but he's still trapped in Caracas).

Last time I saw him was in early 2005. Which seems so long ago. Then he dropped off the planet. He'd done this before. I always await the phone call: "I'm at the Galleria, I'm coming over." Because it's happened before. And it will again. Maybe.

So then, there's this email. Vague. How are you, I am fine. Good job, crappy country. I have attached some pictures, I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Well, Miguel has sent me pictures before. Like of his brother Hans pretending to be in the army and saluting in front of a helicopter. Weird random stuff. So I open the file half seriously and find this:

I demand explanation. He provides it.

But I'm not convinced yet. Hopeful, tentatively happy, but not ready yet to send the stemware to Caracas. I mean...it could be an elaborate hoax. If you know Miguel, let me know what you think. If you don't...stay tuned.