Often I feel as if there is a tight band around my head.
So give me a big ”RCd - dem - Demoralization RC3 - cyn - Cynicism” on the MMPI.
With all due respect to Amy Welborn and her Brigittine Nuns I’m starting to feel a little squeezed. Real life stresses at home and work. Plus every piece of equipment at work malfunctioned in some way. Including the phones, which rang when and where they shouldn’t and didn’t where they should...the highlight being the demoralizing moment when an incoming call sounded like a buzz from another extension and I greeted the Vicar General of the Archdiocese with “Hey, what’s up.” (Yeah, it could have been worse. I could have said “ahoy, hoy” or something really moronic.”)

Rick’s dad wound up in the emergency room (everything is OK now) and Rick spent the day at his parent’s house awaiting the arrival of the family foreign exchange student (circa 1976) and his family who were flying in from Germany and renting a Winnebago for a tour of the Great Lakes. Our house could have used paternal attention, but better that Martin and family go to the in-laws than come to my house. It’s just been that bad this week. Of course, Rick’s afternoon plan included making a last hour payment on the phone bill. So I hustled home to zoom around and take care of that. When I checked the caller ID when I came back I just about plotzed. “ARCHDIOCESE OF...” was the second to last caller. Could the Cardinal have found out what a bad week I was having? Was this going to be some sort of official reprimand? No...just the Respect Life office wanting to get my updated e-mail address. Thanks.

In my hurry to get out with the phone bill, I decided not to check the sacristy to see if there was enough altar bread. (This hasn’t always been my job, but I think I’m phasing into inventory on top of procurement.) I was sure there was enough to get through the week-end. Around 1:00 o’clock this morning I began to have doubts. So I went to Mass at 8:00am with more than prayer on my agenda. It was all good. (There was no imminent danger of disaster anyway. We had about 10,000 hosts in the rectory store room. But it isn’t Father’s responsiblity to jog from building to building looking for things when preparing for Mass. I haven’t forgotten last week’s voice-mail message from the sacristan asking where the new shipment of altar candles went. How should I know? I signed off on the delivery and sent the candles to church with the maintenance man. I mean, how many places can candles hide?)

Halfway through writing this we had a thirty second black-out and I lost my more trenchant thoughts. Perhaps it’s for the best.

I’ll try to have a more positive outlook. The girls have made it to Michigan. They have successfully turned on the water. (That was touch and go....since Dad forgot to tell them to turn off the drain valves before turning on the other valves. So things got a bit damp.) Gold finches are showing up at the feeder. And I’ve seen a few rose finches out front. God’s in his heaven and all is right in this part of the world. As long as I keep my dewclaws away from the technology.

Time to try out my anniversary present. A fifteen decade rosary. No moving parts. Nothing to malfunction.