Anti-Microbial File Folders
They may have a purpose. But I think we'll pass.
I can't think of any illness that I've contracted from a file folder. Or a stapler.
Reminds me of the childhood friend who claimed to have caught a wart from a Studebaker.

Faith depends upon belief in things that cannot be proved, and I can prove that more people flunk physics than flunk Sunday School.
P.J. O'Rourke about the 'compatibility' of faith and science.
We appear to have a similar track record in physics. Which is alright. He's a brilliant writer. And I...well, at least I don't work at Argonne National Laboratory.

Perfect Storm of Irritation
Jackhammer under my window.
This in the Trib:
Save the planet—have fewer kids.
Some sort of high-pitched saw running to fill in the gaps when the jackhammer rests.
Maybe my head will just explode.

Let's try again...
No big resurgence of passion for the job, but someone's gotta do it.
I want to do things right. At work, at home. And I wind up in such a ball of toxic introspection ("curvatus in se" sounds better, doesn't it?) that nothing is accomplished. So this morning's first prayer, tagged onto a fifteen second morning offering, was "help me get going."

I'll overlook the household flaws that scream "Bad Mother." I figure I'm in trouble any way you look at it. If I don't do things, I'm a Bad Mother. If I haven't properly trained people to do things, I'm a Bad Mother. (Why am I even bothering to work? If I'm such a bad mother, why don't I just spend my days sipping Bloody Marys at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop? Or curled up in a ball watching The Royal Tennenbaums and Little Miss Sunshine? Why? Dedication...mortification...inertia...)
The problem is after the phone is answered. There are things that I just am not able to do.
There are services that our parish cannot render. Really.
I can’t do anything about your friend’s husband’s incarceration*. And the extra 30 days for that violent outburst.
And the missing disability check.
And the poverty, despair, bad decisions.
Really. If I had all the answers would I have just had that call from my bank about the substantial overdraft?

There is only so much that we can do. I pray for wisdom, compassion and control of my tongue. If you think I’m pleasant but ineffectual, you should hear what I’m thinking. But I’m not totally heartless. And the lack of detachment from the callers’ woes is where I get exhausted.

The cleaning lady is in the hall outside my office and she’s dusting the baseboards, so now I’m thinking of home and the baseboards that never get dusted…Curvatus in se meets shame spiral. (BTW, I did find a good use for that floor grabber thingamajig that I had to use for several weeks after my hip surgery. Mildew high on bathroom walls and ceilings can be obliterated by grasping a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser with the grabber and rubbing as vigorously as working with a two and a half foot arm extension will allow. That certainly beats trying to balance on a step stool in a slippery bath tub.

*Incarceration. Why do we have to say incarceration? Jail or prison sounds too low brow? It’s pompous. How about matriculation? Can I tell you about my daughter’s matriculation?

It's Official!
I've lost all passion for my job.
Which job?
Any. All.

Monday Morning von Hubenland Quiz

1. Who said: “She’s imaginative, clever, educated. She knows how to behave...”
a My boss about me.
b Karl Lagerfeld about Carla Bruni
c Fran about her dog.
d Me, about any one of my daughters at any one time.
e All of the above.

2. Why don’t I care about resurfacing our driveway? Especially since I spoke with such envy about the newly resurfaced church parking lot.
a I don’t care.
b Sounds like work. Malodorous work. Call me when it’s over and I’ll bring my skateboard.
c I just don’t care.
d It’s not my driveway. That doubles my anti-stake in not caring.
e All of the above.

3. How will I be spending my spare time during the convention?
a Netflix!
b Waxing nostalgic for 1968.
c In prayer. Asking why I don’t get this so-called ‘alone time.’
d Making little boxes for the craft show.
Varnishing little boxes.
Lobbing little boxes at the telly.
Making Joe Biden a nice little, appropriate box for his rosary.
e All of the above.

4. What is the best description of Big Ed’s birthday cake?
a A mind-boggling display of the confectioner’s art.
b Enough heavily colored buttercream to last until his 37th birthday.
c The cause of the tummy ache that made me too cranky to discuss resurfacing the driveway.
d Too toxic for breakfast.
e More sculpture than dessert.
f All of the above.

5. Who (or what) has moved into Martha’s bedroom?
a Scrappy.
b Bridget while her TV was broken.
c No brothers.
d Spare tablecloths, a box of LEGOs, a ladder and a medicine ball.
e All of the above.

6. Name a dispensable part of my summer ‘beauty’ routine:
a Wet n Wild Silk-Finish Lipstick (It makes up in quality what it lacks in sophistication)
b Tea Rose cologne
c Color coordinated hair elastics
d L.L. Bean Maine Isle Flip-flops
e None of the above.

What names are short-listed for our future grandchild(ren)?
a Zuma
b Enid
c Isis
d Romanceo Sir Tasty Maxibillion
e None of the above.

"Max and Erla had a dream with respect to the provisions of their will and if you will it, it is no dream."
I'm with the judge on this one.
And I think it's much deeper than a matter of "pride" in one's heritage.
And people should be able to disperse their estate as they see fit. I think I'm having a bit of a flashback here...low rent, of course. About fifteen years ago my daughters inherited a small amount of money from my grandfather's estranged much younger adopted sister, who left the bulk of her estate to her 'birth' family and a small amount of money to any female R----- family issue under the age of eighteen. (Don't call me girls - mom invested your money in crazy stuff like coats, shoes etc. for you all. No personal gratification was involved.)

It's Not Just Us
No Pets for You!
Our familial self-esteem has not been the same since Orphans of the Storm deemed us unworthy. Based on the fact that we couldn't bring the whole 'famn damily' in to meet them. (What? No home study? No letters of reference? Of course, if they had met us...

I'm not a total philistine...
Maybe a half.
I'd also like to see that Henry Poole movie. But the closest location is Lincolnshire. And the car started to overheat on the way to Vernon Hills, so, well, forget it for now. I'd like to go with the girls to see Brideshead, so we could dissect it. But it appears to be moving farther away. Though Mamma Mia is sticking around. I'm not sure what that says. Is it a good thing? People would rather see ABBA songs abused by Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan than Waugh wound up as a glitzy bodice ripper. Or do people just prefer any ABBA over any Waugh?

It's not like I took the family to see The House Bunny. I have standards.

Elephant House...
A friend and I have been talking about Edward Gorey. She brought this fabulous book in for me to look at. Fascinating. There are few homes that I have seen in print that I immediately felt so "at home" with. Certainly not in Architectural Digest or Martha Stewart. And his library... Some 25,000 books. Makes my home appear to be a den of illiteracy.

Full Disclosure
At the time, I was wearing sunglasses indoors and said to my family, “For the record we’ve been at Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” But I will confess now that we went to the movies for the first time since Iron Man. And it was to see Tropic Thunder.
And we liked it. I liked it.

Yes, there are people who would say that just because the boys have heard all those vulgar words doesn’t mean that we should pay to expose them to a barrage of the same. And they are right. But it was funny. When we spend our days dodging the coprolalia and echolalia minefields at home, there is a certain release in watching others really let-‘er-rip on the screen. (I can imagine one of the boys wanting to be ‘Les Grossman’ for Halloween.)

Fuller disclosure: Eddie, the baby is almost 15. This is not really an excuse, but I hope for a bit of exculpation here. I’m a bad mother, but not so bad. Other boys his age are doing worse things. Of course, they’re not doing them with their mother’s consent and underwriting, so maybe I’m a really terrible mother…

There were a few lines in the movie that did receive my withering glance of sincere disdain beyond the obligatory tsk-tsk that should always be a mother’s reaction.. In the dark Where the laughing boys and their laughing father could not notice it. But I withered nonetheless. And I reserved my revulsion for that Brokeback Abbey sort of trailer for a later discussion of the layers of meaning in satire.

A lot of criticism has been voiced by those who think that Tropic Thunder disparages certain groups, the least being medieval monks. Although I don’t think I’ve heard much protest from fat, farty people. Yet. But there is that business about the mentally challenged. (I promise not to digress on how I find that term to be evasively offensive. Shouldn’t we be challenged? What about the mentally unchallenged?)

The way I saw it, this was a film lampooning stereotypes, especially movie stereotypes. There is a spectrum of debasement of certain segments of society. Some would flat out make fun of the mentally retarded. Others just patronize them; diminishing their humanity by giving them attributes similar to the “noble savage” and “magical negro.”

Can’t say that I’m familiar with many savages, noble or not, but I’ve known a good share of retarded people and black people. They’re people. People deserving of respect because of their humanity. But also not possessing any special ‘powers.’ Wholesale glorification takes away much more than it gives.

Our girls have a friend – a black friend – who lived with us for six months. A young man of good manners and pleasant disposition. A real guy. Certainly no “magical negro.” (If he were magical, why would he be living on our couch.? And wouldn’t some of the magic have rubbed off on us?) Nor are any of the other black people we know.
Maybe I could make an exception for Hank Aaron, who I used to see in the local mom and pop grocery store when I was little, back when the Braves were still in Milwaukee. But that’s celebrity magic. Magic on my part – talent and discipline on Mr. Aaron’s.
Another habitué of that market was Junior. Junior was the son of the owner. Today, Junior would be called ‘challenged.’ Back then he was . . Junior. A fixture in the store. And, I would presume, something of a worry to his widowed mother. Able to chat with customers but not possessing the intellect to steer the course of his life, Junior would always need help. I doubt if his mother would have found solace in treacly movies. And those of us who knew Junior were the better for having known another real person. (I cringe to think how pitiable it would be if my children’s experience of their fellow human beings had been limited to their own homogenous family/clique tempered with exposure to Forrest Gump and Morgan Freeman as God!)

Tropic Thunder is a movie with a lot to recommend*. Just don’t tell anyone I said so.

*Except if you can’t stand vulgarities. Puerile humor. Explosions. Maybe if you had a bad experience with fireworks this 4th of July and wound up holding your boyfriend’s ‘guts’ in for forty-five minutes the beginning war scenes might disturb you. But, on the other hand, you might love it.

[Here we have another benefit of homeschooling: I don’t have to worry about Eddie going to school and bragging about how his cool mother took him to the ultra-profane blockbuster of the summer. Of course, if we belonged to a homeschooling group I would have to be very concerned.]

Dolls of Disturbia
They're really called Heavenly Handfuls but I like my name better.
Creeps me out.

Hot Fun in the Aestival Days
Just another plug for the Word of the Day.

Time for a paradigm shift
A passionate call for reform of office-speak and work-talk. I feel so … empowered.
I recently made my first pilgrimage to IKEA. Despite the fact that I like a lot of IKEA junk, I was so put off by their corporate zeitgeist. (That and the unpronounceable names of the products. Just because my children are genetically one quarter Swedish doesn’t confer upon me the ability to pronounce the names of IKEA furniture. Or picture frames. The only name I could clearly deal with was “Swedish fish.” Which are neither Swedish nor fish.) Areas that should have been marked ‘employees only’ said ‘co-workers’ only. Yeah, and I’m a guest at Target, too. That sort of thing leaves a taste in my mouth that calls for more than Swedish fish. [”The biggest lie of all in business speak is about ownership. In order to make it appear that there is a strong bond between customers and companies there is My e-Bay and My EasyJet and - most successfully of all - Your M&S.”]

For me, there is also the whole painful nails on the blackboard ordeal of church-speak meeting office-speak. Like ministry. The word that has lost most of its value through inflation. Everybody has a ministry. Watch my hackles ascend when someone tells me that my job is such an excellent opportunity for ministry. No, I do a job. Anything above, beyond or outside is simply what a Christian woman should do. Don’t call it a ministry.

And mission statements? Of all places, the Church doesn’t need no stinkin’ mission statements. Can we top the Great Commission? Should we waste our time trying?

Another inflated word, in all sectors, is passion. Employers ask for passionate employees and resumes tout a worker’s passion for work. [“This is a lie. Actually what the bank is seeking is competent people to follow instructions and answer the phones.”]
Damn straight, guys. That is where my passion is. Going forward within the paradigm of high competency. (i.e. I follow instructions and answer the phones.)

“Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn't really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office - unless things have gone very wrong indeed.”

After all...today is another day
Right?
No one will find out they need oral surgery.
People will talk to me when they have good news.
Someone will remember to empty the kitchen garbage.
Mom will feel good.
There will be no funerals. And no altar servers who don't show.
(A little part of me dies when a server doesn't show. Yes, I know I should detach once I've done my job, but...well it's a problem. The kind of over-attention to detail that may well have helped take years off of my mother's life. I'm working on it.)

But if you try sometimes you might find...
Yesterday was another one of those days that just reinforce my inclination to prepare for the 'worst.' As much as we (OK, maybe just Rick and I) wanted to attend the 7:00pm Assumption 'Gregorian' Mass, that little voice that that whispers those scenarios of any ten basic ways things could go wrong suggested that we all go to Mass at 8:00am. Then, if things permitted, Rick and I could still go back at 7:00 just for the pure joy of it. When Rick called home after 6:00 to let me know he was still in Elgin (or some such far off suburb) on a computer pick-up, I knew we had made the right decision.

A parishioner had lent a very old dormition icon for the morning Masses. I was able to look at it for about a minute, wishing I really had more time. (This minute did not include the time I watched the boys look at the icon - don't get too close, don't sneeze, don't bump the candles, don't bump anyone. The boys are teenagers, not toddlers - but my worry reflex is very sensitive!) Rick and the boys took off quickly for their busy day, the celebratory breakfast money having been slipped to them in the driveway to avoid giving a parking lot display of what would appear to be mother paying people to go to church.

I had only been at work a few minutes when Fr. mentioned that the icon had not yet been picked up. The rosary group was close to finished (I would say late in the fourth mystery) and he didn't want the icon to be left unattended. So I said I would sit with it until the owner arrived. There was a bit of a delay and I managed to have a good forty-five minutes, most of the time alone, for prayer and contemplation. On the clock. How good can work be? Like the song says... you get what you need.

"Mentoring is the ultimate teaching. Model the kind of adult you want your students to become: carry books around with you, don’t swear, discuss world events, etc."
So I've been known to swear. I must have made up for it by carrying lots of books around. This solid piece of advice from 50 Things New Teachers Need To Know.
A lot of us could probably have written this advice back when we were in junior high (25. Avoid group work. They’ll usually just copy or play around. Or both. People who insist that students need practice “cooperating” and “working with others” are wrong. They already know how to manipulate such systems and blend in. ) Some of the other advice makes me glad to be a homeschooler. Either we're glad to not have to deal with this stuff or it's something we've learned a long time ago. (20. # Every subject should require a lot of memorizing. Not just names and dates, but entire poems and speeches, etc.)

What's the count?
It's official. I have totally disabused myself of the thought of any potential as a card counter. Working on the status animarum worksheet this morning proved that I could not keep the count of confirmandi if there would be the slightest distraction. This is not rocket science. This is not MIT BlackJack Team mathematics. It's counting pages while wearing one of those little rubber finger thingies.

In my defense, it is not a task as easy as it might sound. First of all, the parish registers run according to calendar year but the the statues animarum is done on a fiscal basis, so years have to be split, so to speak. The confirmation report might have been the easiest if I had finished entering all the names in the register, but that is a daunting task that is usually spread throughout the summer when things are quiet. Burials are the trickiest, since they have to be broken down into burials in Arch. of Chicago cemeteries, burials in other cemeteries, cremains buried in Arch. cemeteries and cremains elsewhere. When I totaled those up I was off by twenty one (funny, huh?) when I compared the total of the four categories against a raw tally of all burials etc. I counted one group twice, I think. But it all worked out.

I finished the worksheet before the rest of the morning unraveled. Fran called me to say that Rick was coming home early and wanted to go the Highland Park ER because he was having trouble breathing and didn't want to keep taking his inhaler because he was starting to feel like his heart would explode. Still feeling guilty about the last time I left him in the hospital while I kept on working, I checked out and said I'd meet them there. Moral support is good, plus Fran couldn't stay there forever and he would probably need a ride home. His doc decided to keep him overnight, so once they admitted him I dashed back to work. (A nice lady asked for his religious affiliation and wanted to know if they should call to let his pastor know that he is in the hospital. I let her know that I told the pastor as I was leaving work. And decided against telling her the rectory's alternate number to call in the middle of the night since the phones have been doing some wacky things. You know, because the phones will probably be fixed by tonite. And I don't know how reassured he would feel by my spelling out for the nurse how to find a priest if he should take a turn for the worse. I'm the kind of person who might find that reassuring. Rick is not.)

That's the day so far.
Lots of other small disturbances. Paid too much for gas by having to stop at the Shell in Lake Forest on my way to the hospital. Chewing gum caught in my hair.

This much I've learned. "Always account for variable change."

Cloned Booger Mormon sex slave, pit bull mink-lined handcuffs naked Mt Everest carnation up my nose
Scanning the news does not make me feel better. I'm now not even sure if I am awake.
Eyes crossing, head pounding, trying to pull myself together after a night of exhausting dreams. Must be better in time for going-away family dinner for Martha. Or I will never live it down.

For the second time in a week I wish to take a sick day. Didn't go to Mass at 7:30. When I told Rick that I was sick and tired plus guilty about not getting to Mass he said, "Well, you should be." The little hiccupy crying I started made him take notice. I just rarely cry. Rarely take a sick day and very rarely cry. About anything. Very rarely. (And this crying jag was the lachrymal equivalent of the perfunctory drop or two of urine that one might produce before boarding a plane for a six hour flight. Legitimate but hardly significant.)

On my way back to bed I decided to check my email and scan the news. Why I would even click on a story about cloned puppies must be a symptom of my post-prednisone malaise. Combine my low opinion of anyone who would pay to clone a pet with my disdain for a pet owner who would 'pick' a name like Booger... Quite a rewarding less than human interest story.

(And to think I was worried about the poor Mormon missionaries who found Bridget sitting on the front porch. She listened politely while they did their little pitch. Then they listened, in response to the question of what her job was, to her Jagermeister pitch. 56 herbs and spices. No deer blood. St. Hubert, don't you know. No converts were made. But I can imagine the colorful impression he now has of Cathlics.)

Just Rip Out My Endocrine System...
Adventures in the Neuralgic State of Decline
But that probably wouldn't help either.
This hasn't been the most productive week. When I saw the rheumatologist last week - another less than enlightening visit, but he takes our insurance so I'm not complaining too much* - we decided the prednisone was causing more trouble than it was helping so we're tapering off. Which consists of trading one set of unpleasant side effects for another.

So I feel crummy, my mind wanders and I'm more than a little irritable. I took Monday off from work but I won't try that again. Instead of resting, I just kept finding more things to feed my irritability. Blech. In this situation work is a pleasant diversion. And when I'm feeling too bad, I can just stare at my computer for a few minutes until it passes. Tomorrow I have to lead the rosary during our Assumption novena. I think I am up to 15 minutes of focused effort. And I hope I'll be feeling better next week.

At the end of the day I can pull things together enough to work on some of the little boxes I've been making. Fran and I might do a craft show or two. I hope I can find more discard classic children's books at the library book sale next month. The Goodnight Moon box that I had envisioned several years ago finally started to come together last night. The hard part was locating the missing spare copy of Goodnight Moon and the right size box. The rest is easy. If I don't sell the boxes I'll have some nice little things to give to my friends for Christmas, so I either way I come out ahead. I'll probably have a lot done since I've made any of my junk TV viewing contingent upon working while watching.


*We can't even agree on how to pronounce malaise. Rick thinks I'm being fussy over the lack of communication, saying I'm not dating him. True. If that first visit had been a blind date, I would have had to fake devastating neuralgia and bail. But there has to be a modicum of communication. Right? Huh? Do you hear me? Am I still alive?

Fr. Robert Barron on Batman!
Interesting.
Even though I'm not especially interested in superhero movies.
(The Dark Knight is pretty low on my "to see" list. Somewhere after Step Brothers and even Brideshead. Actually, I'm having a pretty good summer with just the NetFlix. 21 was fun. I've been reading Bringing Down the House, so I've scratched my plans to add card counting to our curriculum. But the movie did make it look appealing...

Mmm Cakegirls!
So (relatively) close to home.
As seen on TV.

Hello, Officer...
...it’s the right tail light, right?
I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t know it was out. But I have a really good explanation.

You see, a couple of years ago my husband was doing some computer work at a parochial school in Waukegan. I think that’s where it started. So, anyway, he and my sons had such a good time with this stuff - don’t ask me to describe it - that they decided to form a not-for-profit foundation to help recycle computers and provide technology for the underserved. Yeah, the name might sound familiar. I do think my husband gave one of your comrades a business card when we were stopped last year for having one headlight.

You’ve probably heard of heads of not-for-profits who pull down seven figure salaries. My husband is not one of them. We can’t afford to buy a car now, so we’re using this van which technically belongs to the foundation. Yes, it has 270,000 miles on it, the windows won’t roll down, the air-conditioning only works half the time, and the muffler is patched together, but I’m not really complaining.

To get back to the tail light? OK, the back hatch doesn’t open, either. Rick was going to ask our Bridget’s boyfriend Aki, a lithe and limber part time model and part time mechanic , to climb through the van and change the light. Because Rick’s mechanical skills are as good as anyone’s, but 30 years of of marriage and 6 children have left him not exactly lithe and limber. And this was right around his 55th birthday, which he found to be something of a bummer. Personally, I’m not bothered by birthdays that end in odd numbers. I didn’t get him a very significant present (nor did I come up with anything stunning for our 30th anniversary which was the day before. He gave me a pitcher and bowl that looked like tomatoes.) and the least I could do was not ask him to demean himself by worming around the back of an ancient mini-van.

Now, this is where it really gets complicated. Bridget and her sister Fran decided to lead a pack of their friends on a field trip to the family farm in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula. I had misgivings about this for a variety of (good) reasons, but everyone else - including my cautious and conservative father-in-law - thought this was great. So there.

Since two girls, their entourage plus two dogs, were out of town, I took off with the other two girls and my son-in-law for a spontaneous road trip to see my sister. I’m not spontaneous, but Dr. ‘Big Ed’ wants to help me work through these issues. And I have been a wretchedly bad sister. I had only been to visit her once since her wedding four years ago. I mean wretchedly bad. She had cancer surgery two years ago and I sent flowers. Oh, I did call, too. But, we’re like the Last of the Mohicans in a way. Just the two of us. And I sent... flowers?

While everyone was scattered about the midwest, Rick was chilling and playing WarCraft with the boys. And the tail light would be changed when Aki returned from the farm. But that’s complicated.

Fran called home before I left town. She sounded vague and asked for her dad. Mothers can pick up on these things. I rationalized that she was tired, hung-over, something normal. But yeah, I knew something was wrong.

The road trip - the first four hours - was fun. Em and Big Ed have a new car. Very nice. Lots of amenities. Working amenities.

We stopped at a Dairy Queen west of Milwaukee because Em and Martha wanted a Thin Mint Flurry. A friend of Martha’s was working there. That was strange.

And we stopped for gas later in the afternoon near a diner that had an incredible oversized rooster out front. My fascination with large fowl was indulged with a quick photo opportunity. And then everything started to unravel.

I remember the how relaxed I was feeling. How totally relaxed. Carefree, enjoying the pleasure of time away with adult children. I was sitting at a picnic table while Em and Ed were buying dinner. Martha was in the car finishing a chapter in her book. Then I saw her answer her phone. This just reinforces why I hate cell phones.

A friend of a friend called her to say that she heard from some other friend that Aki had been seriously maimed in the most delicate of areas (away from the cranium) while setting off fireworks. She made a few more calls. By the time she was done the story was that Aki had been hurt while affixing a large explosive device to his... Well, you can imagine.

Martha tried calling Fran, Bridget, home. Any place reliable. While my mind flipped quickly between prayer and the mantra, “I told you something would go wrong.” I must admit that I laughed intermittently, also, since the whole story became more and more absurd with each telling.

Rick knew. But he didn’t want to ruin my trip. (And he probably wanted to delay the “I told you so’s,” for as long as possible) Of course, with chronic cellular communication, how can anyone expect to keep anything a secret? It wasn’t until we were almost at my sister’s house that we received clarification.

Some idiot had used a rather powerful firework while lying on the ground in some sort of ribald pyrotechnic pantomime of male functioning. And it was so freakin’ funny that Aki decided to try it. Only things were improperly loaded and it fired the wrong direction. Like 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

By the time I had the full story it was about eighteen hours after the fact. Aki was going to live. This was a transitional time for everyone involved. Bridget and Fran spent 45 minutes compressing his wounds while waiting for the paramedics. Covered in blood, Fran gave the details to the police while Bridget rode in the ambulance with Aki. Initially, Ak’s prospects were dim. Then there was the surgery. And the good news that it missed the femoral artery. And his bladder. And all other essential parts. The shrapnel was removed. It would take a week in the hospital but he would make it.

Let me brag here about my girls. They held it together. Fran has had a lot of experience with hemorrhaging dogs and other grisly scenes and it served her well. Bridget may act delicate and prissy on a day to day basis, but she showed her real stuff when needed to hold her significant other’s inner stuff in with both hands. They’ll never be the same. There is something about looking in the abyss - both figuratively and literally - that changes a person. Especially when you also have a hand in the abyss.

(And I’ll give Martha a bit of credit here for having a ‘bad feeling’ about the trip to the farm and acting on it by staying home.)

While I was still reeling from this shock, my sister asked Em and Ed when they were going to have children. Em said, “How about January.” OK, so now I’m going to be a grandmother. Of course I’m excited. Shellshocked but excited. Praise God for so much good news. I think the third miracle of the evening was the fact that I didn’t slip into a full swoon.

Between the good news and the scary news and visiting my sister and the Mall of America, well, I kind of forgot about the tail light. Aki is healing nicely but I don’t know if he is up to climbing in the back of the van. The girls might be good with blood and guts but I haven’t thought to buy a replacement bulb and ask them to perform first aid on the car. Maybe I’ll just do it myself...

Dog Day Week-End!

Wham!
Village and Township now want Armenian Church records from George Michael. (In these here parts, the George Michael. I get them confused. Our George Michael does not appear to have a history of falling asleep at stoplights. As far as I know.)

The Revenue Department approved Michael's request on the basis of sworn affidavits, copies of weekly church bulletins and other information that supported his contention he had converted his home into a church in 2007, a department spokesman said."

So, I'm wondering if his church sells advertising in its bulletins. And has Mr. Michael (the Rev. Mr. Michael?) been invited to join the local monthly 'Ministerium' meetings? When would be his turn to host? His church does have some great amenities.