So Far, So Good...

So far, so good...with the lack of wheat thing. Turns out, when I don't eat it, I am not as tired. When I don't eat it, I don't even miss it. The only time I was tempted was when I ate a chocolate brownie at Through the Looking Glass today. Well, just part of one. Really only a bite.

But even with that, my middle of the day immobility arrived at 2pm instead of 12pm, and more as an afternoon sleepiness and not a weird sudden near-paralyzation.

It has been three full days of no wheat, and I can actually feel the difference. I said to Leonarrrrrrdo this morning, while sitting out on our front porch, "I feel like something has snapped for me."

"I felt like you snapped a long time ago," he replied back sipping his French Roast coffee.

"No! That's not what I mean!" I insist. "I mean, that I feel like something has changed. Like I am still tired, because I have no iron, but that I am not nearly as tired as I was three days ago."

"Oh, that kind of snapping. Yeah, you look different."

I have no huge allergy puff eyes when I awaken in the morning. I actually awake before most in my family and make the coffee. Three days in a row, I got up before the kids even knew there was yet a morning, and I showered! True story. In the past, I had been told that I did not have Celiac Disease, and therefore, not a "wheat problem". But I asked my doctor last week, "Could I just have a wheat allergy and not a complete intolerance to digesting wheat? I mean, my immune system is fighting something so hard that I cannot absorb basic nutrients anymore. Just like a person with Celiac Disease."

"Why not?" he asks. "Definitely why not. It makes sense."

And then I wonder why the heck they end up making so much money...

The truth remains to be seen. But I have contacted a specialist in CFIDS (look it up), and I have been given a list of supplements that I need to infuse into my daily routine every day in order to gain more strength.

Again, so far so good. I notice a difference. I have slept much more soundly, and since I have begun this no-wheat-thing, I have not been awakened in the night with terrible leg cramps that last 15 minutes or more. This time, I sleep all night long and wake relatively pleased that the sun has risen.

I already take vitamins every day, as I don't absorb a good portion of them in my normal food intake, but I have also incorporated a few interesting sounding ones now too, and I have seen a difference. What's significantly different is that I no longer crave weird things like carrots and raw broccoli or copious amounts of citrus fruit.

I have long had a sincere passion for medicinal herbs and homeopathy. I found both to work - the former with greater and often a faster lead time than the latter. But homeopathy always rids me of a cold, sinus infections, and respiratory problems much faster than even conventional methods. When I was in high school, I continued to get tonsillitis when I first moved to Central PA. My father had lost his job and my mother did not have anymore money in the budget for another co-pay. So she pulled out her homeopathy kit and gave me some little white soluble pills in decreasing amounts for three days. Within three days, the tonsillitis was completely gone and I never had any pain from it. I have nearly always had this kind of success with homeopathy.

So, once again, I have embarked on a study of it. Informally right now, but soon, I am going to finish that health care degree but from a "natural" angle. Perhaps, my discovery of dangerous grains will also now start to rid me of kidney stones.

Who knows? It has been only three days, but I have more proof of longevity with some of these "natural" methods than with other conventional prescription ones that have always made eager doctors drool when they promise me, "a sure fire way to get your energy back, dissolve all kidney stones, make childbirth painless, cure infections in 72 hours, knock off a migraine within 30 minutes, kick vertigo straight, and keep strep throat out of the system forever!"

They are about as reliable as a politician's promise not to raise taxes even if they come in, both, generic and name brand. Conventional medicine saves lives every day, but it is also often just a rich lobbyist's snake oil. So I don't care that most people who have never been seriously and chronically ill might think herbs and supplements are "unproven". So is God, but I strive hard to throw myself completely into His limitless care and I am encouraged to do so by millions of people who have never seen His face nor heard His voice in a readily available and audible voice. Sometimes the answer to things comes only through trial and silent expectation.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 1:11

Much more saintly and deserving people have wished for far nobler and important, impossible and ridiculous things than my wish to have energy like all the other 35 year olds I know. I think, maybe this time, I walk on the right path.

Imagine If!

I went to see my doctor for a follow-up visit for the shingles infesting my ear (sounds creepy, huh?) this past week.

"I am recovering from my old lady chicken pox, but what I really want is to not see you for, at least, 6 months. I don't want to come in here with my normal fall bronchitis or my December strep throat, and more than absolutely anything at all - I do not want to be tired anymore! My baby just went to kindergarten, my little girl is in 4th grade, my homeschooler wants to learn a sport this year, and my oldest is playing football and starting junior high! I don't want to be too tired to experience their lives anymore!"

He agreed that this sounded quite sane and reasonable, as I tugged on my ear and screamed a little bit (Shingles are tiny very painful recurring chicken pox). I told him that my neuro was sending me into the cancer center for another iron infusion, because I have virtually none in my body suddenly and again. He already knew this. I told him that I wanted to be one of those normal people who just naturally absorbs iron from their Saturday afternoon steak. He agreed that, this too, is very normal to want and a much more normal physical state to be in than I usually am.

So, for one of the few times in my weirdo medical history, I have taken my own care into my dystonia fingers.

"I think I might have a wheat allergy," I said to my doc.

"Why?" he asked.

I have him all the pertinent reasons (which he agreed in his nerdy doctor way are all quite medically sound), and I then informed him that I am embarking on research and heavy self-medication through vitamins, minerals, walking the dog, etc...as is safe.

"Sounds fine to me," he said. "Just let me know what new vitamins you begin to take and who you are getting them from. Some aren't all that good."

But what I have discovered is that every time I take vitamins, with the exception of iron, I absorb them fairly quickly even with the every day drugstore supplements. But I do much better with high quality ones.

For years now, I have wanted to finish my degree, but in natural health. I tried to get my BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) a couple of times, but got sick in the middle of my way up and had to quit about 1/4 of the way there. It was the all the holistic and natural health classes I loved the most though, while other student nurses found dissection or labor and delivery infinitely fascinating. For me, though, it was learning all I could about the true effects of homeopathy (if any at all), and how an herbalist might get better results in a child with ADHD than Ritalin might in some instances. And so last year, around this time (when I was feeling slightly better for about an hour), I applied to a rather prestigious natural health college, but got too sick to enter. They continue to invite me, and the counselor I spoke with sends me tips on energy retainment nearly every week.

"This worked for me, but it might be different for you," he tells me. "Just keep trying. Something will work eventually, even if standard medicine cannot."

Now, I have this insane goal to finally get healthy (God knows I have tried a million fruitless times in the past) and if I can do it (with Our Lord's help), teach others and finish the degree I have been starting over and over again for a decade now (that this really already a masters but completely non-cohesive).

Like Miss Thaeda would suggest in her shrinky way, I even wrote down my goals. True story. And now I pray my gluten-free living for the next few weeks works.

Already, the whey shake has given my quite a bit of energy today. But that could be adrenaline due to the prospect of health, and maybe just maybe...a life without the cancer center!

Imagine if!

Bar Harbor to Leave PA

For everyone who lives around here...I have some sad information with a very slim silver lining.

My pal, Russ, is closing his very excellent used book store in the next couple of weeks, but everything is, at least, 50% off for a while.

If you are in my part of the world - google him and go shopping! You won't regret giving back to your community through this disappearing small business.

Bar Harbor Used Books

Almost Over

For those of who have kept up recently, it has been one heck of a rough summer. Thank God for great books, Divine Liturgy, good pizza, buckets of coffee, vitamins, and friends. Lots of great friends who are really family without the genetic screw-ups.

Anyway, today, I met with an attorney to speak with him about this sudden foreclosure (less than 60 days from threat to actual sheriff sale) to see if there was anything we could really do. I was greeted at the door by a friendly Doberman who led me to an oversized fluffy leather couch where I immediately recognized the secretary and said, "I have seen you before!"

Turns out, I am friends with her identical twin sister - who I was just thinking of and praying for today over morning coffee. The secretary promised to relay my good wishes to her sister - my pal and her twin - as soon as she got home from work that night and could call her.

The attorney was friendly. He immediately shook my hand and said,

"You guys are doing the right thing. You have a strong payment history. You worked hard to keep your mortgage company informed of struggles you were having. You sought out certified financial counseling. You are very frugal. You are selling the home. There is nothing more for you to do," he said looking across the table from me. "And this should probably not be happening to you."

"But this is all happening so fast," I insisted. "Is that legal?"

He said it was, that the foreclosure is ocurring in record time, because it is the most economical response from the point of view of the mortgage company.

"This will effect your credit, but it won't rock it like some foreclosures would. It's not that kind of a foreclosure. It's not the end of the world, and it is clear that you have done all you can. That matters."

He gave me some more advice, shook my hand again, told me we would be okay, refused to take a dime for the consultation, and then wished me a great week. His dog followed me to the door and begged me to toss around a dog bone with him.

I drove home relieved.

It's almost over. It's not fun. It is not without a great amount of stress. It has been painful. I cried last night like some freak, because I realized we had a home that we will never be going back to. The home holds a lot of our memories over the past four years. That is all that hurts anymore. But even that is fading. I never knew I could muster up a backbone so fast, or rather, that Our Lord could create one in me just when I really needed it.

It really is All of Him and None of Me.

The attorney and his dog are right - there are more important things in life that the home that is soon no longer to be ours, and we did all we could. And we didn't neglect our responsibilities. Things just happen. And God always does All- which is so much more than our unperfected minds can fathom. So much more. The picture I see today is not the real picture. I see only a shadow of a shadow. A sliver of a color. But not the whole picture, and so I believe this to be about us surviving the shocking and sudden foreclosure of our house, but it is about even more than that. This is something big that has something to do with the salvation of our souls. Grace is the center of this experience. And that is all my small human brain can comprehend. And so I must trust that this was allowed for some much greater purpose.

All things work together for the good of those who love God and who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

You lose some and you win some. I feel like we have won. We are together. We have friends. We can go to Church on Sundays and celebrate Movie Night in our new living room - rented to us by our dear friends who come down the street to give us zucchinis and tomatoes from their garden. And prayers. We have a ton of prayers surrounding us and they have encouraged us to pray even more. And through it all we have realized the much greater needs of others, and through Grace, we know we are saved - and not by anything else.

He has won, because He is and was and is to come, and what is not nearly as important is nearly over now...and life begins anew each day.

Lessons That Can Save a Life!

I had a sudden and wonderful lunch with Catholic School Sister today. Comida Mexicana! It was great.

We were so excited to have the brief afternoon alone that we kept tripping over each other (well me mostly tripping in my big shoes) while making up our minds and then changing them again - regarding a lunch location. After lunch we wandered through town to shop and discovered this great quote on a plaque...

There are two theories about arguing with women.
Both are wrong.

I am purchasing this plaque for my husband to hang over his home office (and then to transport with him to work and to carry around his neck when he is home watching football and such).

It is a great lesson every man should WISELY learn.

Now!

Sisters of the Church - True Story!

Definitions:

Cradle/Cradler - To be born into a faith. Example: A cradle Catholic or Orthodox never had to convert to Orthodoxy or Catholicism because they were born into their faiths.

Convert: An adult who converted to a new faith. Example: Too easy. No example needed.

Recently, I have been able to have a beautiful conversation with a cradle Orthodox about the Eucharist. It has been such a blessing to me, and to her. She is far from an Orthodox church where she lives and finds absolutely very little in common with her Bible Belt neighbors. Not that they are not kind to her, but they just do not fast regularly or use the words "liturgical season" very often. And she is unable to take the Eucharist very often, as she has only Catholic churches near her. The opposite of my recent predicament with Orthodoxy. Come to think of it, strangely, I have had this kind of very pleasant exchange with more than one cradle Orthodox recently - the inability to get to the Eucharist regularly, but not for lack of want.

I completely understand their pain, and what is cool, is that no other faith can fully grasp this kind of longing for the Eucharist.

This recent personal Orthodox/Roman conversation is significant, because I have had many a slap in the face from converts to Orthodoxy in the past couple of years. The converts don't mean to appear cruel. This is the convert's last intention. But this is the result of much of their anti-Catholic remarks.

AKA: Really Evangelicals in Eastern disguise.

Love them. Do not love the sharp Protestant smell their Fire and Brimstone approach often gives off at Mass (or Divine Liturgy), where they are always ready to correct the priest on his "watered down homily" or "wrong offering of the Eucharist". Not that they are incrrect. Most of the time they are 100% right. It's just that they talk like the return to what-should-be is so very simple and "duh!" and somehow their recent invasion has nothing to do with the push against Catholicism to embrace Vatican II. They were the ones who incouraged us to speak in tongues and instructed our small groups....Now when they convert, looking for the Early Church, they treat us like half-witted foreigners who think the statue of Mary in our living room does our laundry when we are asleep at night.

And I am certain that the Orthodox Church is forever grateful for their numbers as well and their sincere fervency. I know they have similar distress though. We Romans are grateful for their conversion as well, because they create all our apologetics material and our nifty websites and TV programs. And I think their constant desire to spread the Gospel even in the grocery store is what we Catholics need - seriously need. But it is not always easy having them in our ranks. We Romans get a little tired of their slappings of us. They have no other enemies. They are kind of like bitter drill seargants who just got demoted to train kindergarten failures.

The cradlers though - the Orthodox naturally - they have become some of my best "Catholic" pals. I say "Catholic", because as a Roman, we are to consider them part of the Church as well. They - officially in Constantinople and Moscow - may not consider us familia, but we consider them as such. Valid Sacraments and all. Legitimate and same Eucharist. The only other place where Christ is fully present in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.

Anyway, even when lifelong Orthodox say something that is contrary to Catholic teaching (not very often) it does NOT rub me even slightly the wrong way, as in this beautiful conversation I have had via email with a cradle Orthodox pal. I don't care when they disagree with me. It's never a problem.

We are sisters in the Church, and even though it may tick off a few old men in vestments in both of our worshipping locations, we refer to ourselves as such. We began in the exact same location 2000 years ago. We accept the same Eucharist each Sunday.

And we are the only ones who do.

So why did I not become Orthodox?

Because of all the darn Evangelicals who have invaded the place with their anti-Catholic ideas still fully, and sometimes even more ferociously, intact than before their conversion. This happens even in Roman Catholicism with Evangelical converts to Rome. True story.

They enter with the Evangelical belief that they are privy to some secret contract with Jesus that the rest of the world does not have. Even as Roman Catholics, they often treat cradle Catholics as though they are the ignorant slugs who need their Evangelical wisdom and intelligence imparted to them. It is often as though we original Romans are morons and the original Protesters are the geniuses of the Faith who have arrived to make everything better, shinier, and less "special ed". Now don't go sending me emails about making fun of special ed. I have a son with special needs, and this is exactly how I feel Evangelical converts to even my own Rome treat cradle Catholics: As though we are in need of a hand-holding when we cross the street to Mass.

"This is how it should be done, and now that I am here, I can explain it all to you. Thank God that my clear Evangelical thinking has been reluctantly dragged over to your slow Catholic thinking."

And they are often the bane of my Catholic existence. I guess this is the thing that "sends me to the bin" as my old pal, Fr. Straka would say, more than any other confessional item.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned in my angry thoughts toward the know-it-all Evangelical converts to Catholicism again..."

Father always sighs - any father - and says, "I know they are hard to deal with..." I have had more than one - Catholic and Orthodox - priest say to me, "Sometimes I am not certain they are always good for our future. Sometimes we spend a lot of time cleaning up the pain they cause in our parishes."

True story.

And I don't say this because I believe them to be evil or wrong or bad in their conversion. I want that everyone, even the Orthodox, can unite with Rome and become One Church again. I just think their personal lesson should be to leave the "holier than thou" former Evangelical attitude inside the bin where I leave my cradle Catholic "what's it to them!" fighting Irish anger management methods.

Not all converts are like this. Some come with the very pleasant attitude of, "What the heck is going on here? This is all totally new to me?"

Nice.

Because this means they are really Catholic or finally Orthodox. Because this is how the Saints were from the moment they began to serve Christ. Completely unworthy.

And this is the reason we Catholics drink so often, I am fully convinced. Not because we are these lovers of sin, but because we realize how little is in our control, how much bigger God is than our mediocre human existence, how much we fall short of even an inch of His glory. Again, our coping mechanisms are old world - 2000 year old world. We need instruction in this area, but we don't need the missal handed to us in a Dick and Jane reading fashion.

And so it has been really nice sharing emails from a cradle Orthodox - rouge sister of the Church - who has the same hang ups and trials as a dumb Roman might have. Nice. Refreshing like a huge water ice at a hot church festival in the dirty parking lot. She makes the converts so much easier to take in at a sudden Catholic Bible study.

New Stuff

Regulars will notice the new gadgets and such on my blog. I had time on my hands tonight while my son and husband watched preseason football...I should be getting that article together for the paper....

Blessings From the Angels

A few weeks ago, my husband was speaking candidly with a financial counselor - really by accident - and she recommended this great grocery ministry called Angel Food Ministries. It is not income based, and you can order as much restaurant quality foods you want each month for less than 50% the normal sale price. The whole idea is to fit the Gospel into a grocery box every month for a family interested in buying excellent groceries at a discount price.

Anyone who knows me knows that my greatest adrenaline rush comes from serving my family. I am completely "made" when I am baking something warm and buttery from scratch, or roasting citrus chicken one Saturday evening after the 4 o'clock Mass. Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning heralds in fresh everything - the biggest fast-breaking brunch the world has ever seen. These traditions come from my Catholic Italian stepfather and my Russian/Hungarian great grandmother who owned and operated her own boarding house and restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. Her genes are as strong in me as my stepfather's years of pasta cooking lessons were.

Early on in life I knew that I would be a writer but that, unless I became a mother and a wife, I would feel truly unfulfilled. I realize this is not everyone's vocation, but I knew it was mine. And so each time I roll out cookie dough with my daughter and my five year old son, I am reminded of how God has blessed my every prayer request just to have a happy family of my own one day.

So...grocery shopping is one of only enjoyable versions of shopping (true story), because I know that from many pertinent ingredients come hours of family satisfaction. My kids actually get excited - akin to being promised a movie night or $10 bucks to spend at the Dollar Store - if I tell them I am baking their favorite pie or making them chocolate fudge walnut brownies for dessert. I call my sweetheart ten minutes before he leaves every day from work to give him the dinner menu, so that he has something to keep him awake on the ride home. No matter the stress he endures in a myriad of meetings, when he is home eating his favorite Sephardic Rice Pilaf or Baked Chicken Parmesean, he is a happy man.

I love cooking and serving and making people fat, dumb, and happy. Well, maybe not dumb. Too book nerdy for that. But I love a happy crowd of people who fear fatness because they are so overjoyed at what they have just eaten in my home. It's a love language - to cook unto happiness.

So, when "cheapo/from scratch" me heard that there was a ministry (God-inspired) that would allow me restaurant quality ingredients for even cheaper than my beloved Aldi and in a greater abundance...I had to check it out.

We placed our first order a week ago. We picked it up last night. For $60.00 we came home with two laundry baskets full of...

3lbs Ribeye Steaks

6 lbs Split Chicken Breasts

2 lbs Boneless Center Cut Pork Chops

4 lbs Mac and Beef Dinner Entree

3lbs Breaded All White Meat Chicken Nuggets

2lbs Lean Ground Beef

2lbs Fish Sticks (We cooked these for Fishy Friday last night and there was not a smidgen of grease to be found. There were absolutely the best fish sticks I have ever consumed, and generally, I hate fish sticks! But these, I actually missed when the cookie sheet was empty of them)

2lbs of Fresh Frozen Corn

2lbs Fresh Frozen Baby Lima Beans (Made these Southern style with butter, onions, and a dash of black pepper. Everyone devoured these FIRST. True story.)

2 Heads of Lettuce

4lbs of Fresh Sweet Potatoes (Made these Southern style as well last night - with butter and a dash of brown sugar. They were scooped up in less time than the fish sticks).

30oz of Pork and Beans

2lbs of Rice

2 32oz Cartons of Milk

2 Dozen Eggs

2 Boxes of Baked Apple Tarts (every month Signature Box gets a dessert)

My family had the most wonderful home cooked meal last night, and when we were out school shopping today and had to eat out because of the heat and lengthy drive from home, everyone enjoyed lunch but commented on how much they enjoyed their meal from the night before at home so much better. Cheap and satisfying. How can I ask for more? They wanted my "sweet taters" more than Chili's chips and salsa.

The Signature Box is the monthly menu, but there are organic and vegetarian boxes, food allergy boxes, senior boxes, an amazing fruit and veggie box that I will be ordering with my boxes next month. We only have to get lunch supplies from the grocery store now- most of which I make from scratch for school lunches - so our new grocery bill has shrunken from $150.00-$200.00 a week to about $80.00 a week for a tremendous amount of nutritious food that we are loving. Remember, there are six of us in this family and only two of us are female. Lots of food being consumed around here - and now we have a teenage football player. But our Signature Box is enough!

Angel Food Ministries is for absolutely every income. We saw Mercedes outside the beautiful 100-plus year old UCC Church where we placed and picked up our order. The director told me over the phone when I called with inquiries, "There are families here making a hundred grand who buy 8 or more boxes at a time each month." It is such a savings and it's a ministry...who doesn't want to be part of this? I am going to see if I can get my equally beautiful Eastern Catholic parish involved.

Go to the website by clicking here Angel Food Ministries. Hope to see you on the September distribution day.

The Insider

Since I now live in town I am trying to pretend that I am outgoing and extroverted. I accomplish this by smiling and offering a wave whenever someone actually spots me in my dark corner on my front porch. I much prefer the back porch on the old swing where no one can see me, except. old Mr. Brogan who only goes outside to fall asleep on his folding lawn chair next to his tomato plants.

Anyway, last night the noise of my house became too much for my shingle ears. (I have CFIDS, so I catch a lot things quite often, new reader, so this is why you will read..."now that I have pneumonia" or "because I got that toe infection last week" etc...) So I went out to my front porch with the pleasantly dead porch light bulb and I stole the quietest, most invisible section of my porch in which to sleep without bother from neighbors. Come to think of it...the old man next door probably likes me alright, because I am like an old man myself in many ways - though I am young and a woman. Must be a writer thing...

I watched teenagers nearly get hit by a car, a young couple run past falsely thinking that a diner would exist or be open in our small town at 10pm. A drunk hick from somewhere up the mountain drove his beat up pickup up and down the street, swerving like active vertigo, from the Old Jail to Through the Looking Glass. He tossed a Pepsi can out of his car and screamed something about health care before retiring for the night.

My brother eventually joined me on the porch in his dirty unmatching socks.

"I can smell those things from here," I said to him with my eyes closed. He was waiting for our mother to pick him up and take him back to our old home on the Mountain. He is house sitting for us.

"Thank you," he said, resting his feet on the Ottoman so that I might get a better look at the crusty critters.

A couple of teenage girls passed us as attempted to flirt with him, giggling about their hair.

"Really? Him?!" I said after them, but neither my brother nor the girls responded.

After several minutes I could hear the noise of my Latin husband and half-Latin children die down a bit.

"Everyone must be asleep," I said to Leonarrrrrrdo as he came out to join us on the porch.

"No. They are totally disobeying me, but because I have threatened them sufficiently they are disobeying me silently," he said leaning back into his cushioned rocking chair.

"Shouldn't you go back to deal with them?" I asked him.

"No way! This is what I wanted. For them to be quiet," he said. "It was all part of my plan, because I know that no one listens to me, so I tricked them into not listening to me but SILENTLY."

He whispered the last part.

"Whatever," I said, hearing the indoor thumping of our five year old as he attempted to spy on us from his "sneaky" place on the hall steps.

After a while my mother drove up. "I didn't even see you there," she said to me as she greeted the men.

"I know," I smiled. "I am the Insider. Sitting invisibly on the porch is as close as I can come to actually engaging with the world."

"I see," she said. "Come on, Dave. I have to get home and go to bed."

Nearly 40 and my brother is still somehow convincing my mother to give him dinner and transportation on a whim.

It's a strange world. But it's Friday and I am going to clean my house invisibly and then spy on my neighbors from my porch swing later on when I get sick of organizing the play room. And what is really cool about this old house that I am beginning to love in a way I could never love a new house (nerd, remember?), is that there are so many stinking awesome creaky crooked 1865 rooms that we have room for a playroom for once! Like an academic's wife, I can say things like, "Oh, my goodness! There is such a mess in the playroom!" when I am on the phone with suburban/new house friends. I imagine a great amount of jealousy when they hear my lilted, city curbed, excessively large, antique house resident excitement. I can't say "owner". The house I still actually own is not nearly as cool and not at all an ice breaker in a boring conversation unless I begin with, "What did I do for my summer? Oh, I lost my house."

Booknotes

My Daddy (people of Southern birth do not use the word "dad") sent me a great cozy mystery recently. Knowing I was completely stressed out, knowing that I had been through a million things he could do nothing about, he sent me a book. Nerds comfort in their own special way. Luckily, both Daddy and I are nerds, so I immediately understood his intention when I discovered my mailbox overstuffed with a book.







The Body in the Attic by Kathrine Hall Paige. Love it. It has lots of New England dark cornered houses, a long lost creepy collection of love and terror letters, a hint of ghosts, and the main character is a pastor's wife who has to "up and move" so her sweetheart can fulfill his dream of teaching at Harvard Divinity. It's a great read, and I love my Daddy for so many reasons, but one big one is because he is the guy who taught me how to read and gave me my first novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. I will never stop loving good old fashioned mysteries before all other genres. It is his fault.



Under the Radar by Fern Michaels. A thriller about four formerly abused women who rescue presently abused women by completely illegal means. Their methods are controversial, but their motives are not. The main victims in this novel within a series are underage married teenagers from a Fundamentalist LDS polygamy group. It is not the greatest writing on earth. You won't be reading this story for its prose, but its message is clear, and I enjoyed the early morning distraction it gave me over coffee and before the children woke to demand breakfast.

Not fun, but more rewarding than a Boston Creme Doughnut and almost as satisfying as Mass on a Sunday morning...

The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It is the chronicle of a scientist sent to a "soft gulag" for the purpose of harvesting his genius and arresting his free spirit and sense of God. I love everything Solzhenitsyn writes. He is a true genius of modern Russian literature, a Gulag survivor, and a devout Orthodox Christian. However, his words - unlike so many great Russian writers' - are not hard to decipher and you won't get confused trying to understand what he is saying. You will fall easily into the layman's terms for everything, and into the difficult rhythm of Soviet prison life. It is really one of those 600-plus page novels that you will not be able to put down. With each page, you will need to know what happens to this sufferer and that. He sucks you in by vying for your human compassion.

So...enjoy my booknotes. Soon, my latest Reading Stupid For Fun group will meet on my front porch for lemonade and to laugh at how easily our American brains can be amused.

Reconciliation - A Rare Gem

I am not speaking of the Sacrament here. I am speaking of the human act of reconciliation.

I confronted one of the anti-Catholic remarkers yesterday. She replied admitting that she did not intend to judge or offend Catholics, that she knows the veneration of relics and Saints is not worship. But she said she was tired and frustrated in her non-Catholic ministry, and the words just came out without thought.

The Orthodox remarker said, "I know I have a lot of old prejudices against Catholics...", the Baptist said nothing at all, and the Evangelical said, "I know Catholics love Christ..."

It was nice to hear that, for once, (because it does not happen very often), that a non-Catholic Christian is sorry for their anti-Catholic words. I was not surprised that this would be her personal response, because I had a sneaking suspicion that this particular non-Catholic (an Evangelical missionary) did not really believe what she had said. Often, the worst words spoken are the farthest from our true intention.

Isn't it in anger where Satan gets a foothold?

I suggested to the missionary that maybe if she did not work against the Catholic Church in a country whose population is nearly 90% Catholic that maybe she would find allies in her desire to spread the Gospel. Maybe they would even support her where she feels without aide and friendship. We Catholics are known for our life support systems...education, healthcare, social services, religious instruction...we like to get into the middle of things and start handing our sandwhiches or Bibles. Heck, we like to encourage non-Catholics to live in peace inside their own faiths.


Perhaps, there is hope for Christian unity after all. I must admit, as a lifelong Roman Catholic, I do not believe in its existence much. I believe unity will come only in heaven, only after human death. Otherwise, I have been rarely impressed with the non-Catholic response to Catholics (like me) saying, "Hey, just try and understand us at least before you condemn..."

Perhaps, some people do not believe that because they know a few key Bible verses they know everything.

We reconciled...Yay God!

Dream of Mine

I had a long post about several anti-Catholic remarks I had to deal with this week. Well, I suppose I could have ignored them, but that would have "okayed" them, and I don't okay anti-Catholicism even more than I don't okay most liberal politics. My Church comes first. Because to attack the Catholic Church is to attack Christ.

And it is to attack me too and Pope John Paul II and Blessed Mother Teresa and St Francis of Assisi and Saint Paul and Saint Steven of Hungary and Catholic School Sister who reads my blog and my four beautiful Rosary-praying/Jesus loving children and my wonderfully faithful husband and my extended family and the sweet old lady who lives next door and goes to Mass and promises to pray for us every Saturday night and the priest who waves at my on Friday mornings when he opens the gates for worshipers and the priest who offers me the Eucharist on Sunday morning...you get the drift...or maybe in your ignorance and separated version of Christianity, you don't "get unity".

I am sorry if you don't understand that...

There is a dream that I truly have had since I was a little girl in a Catholic school uniform. With a Protestant mother and a Roman Catholic father, you can get to feeling this way in life. I think daily I repeat out loud to God, "Thank you for the Sacraments. Thank you for my Roman Catholic baptism way before I could read or reason." All that is left of my earlier post is the statement below. If I could just shrink it onto a bumper sticker...

People can be so hateful with a hefty amount of Bible verses on their lips and a way cool worship guitar in their hands. If I could accomplish one thing in life it would be to convince one know-it-all anti-Catholic/non-Catholic Christian to just try and understand who we Catholics are and to leave the condemnation or salvation of our souls to God alone who is worthy of all praise and in charge of all the universe.

Now it's going to be a permanent quote on my blog sidebar. I like it that much.

Random Thoughts To Start the Week

Someone asked me the other day why I don't post a million pictures of my children on my blog. My reasoning is quite simple - because they are mine and not yours and I won't share. And there are a lot of freaks in the world. I don't want them seeing my babies.



I have shingles for real this time. A year ago I was misdiagnosed with shingles when what I really had was an abscessed tooth. I complained that it was my tooth to absolutely no end. Finally, a dentist believed me and a small portion of my jaw bone was removed on my 34th birthday when my tooth was repaired. That was fun. I cried while my family ate Kentucky Fried Chicken in front of me. Now I have real shingles, and I cried last night when my pain medicine started to work.

It is not necessary to have a backyard to have fun playing. Our new backyard is just a patio and a flower bed. We are going to fill both with our patio furniture and sunflower seeds. Lee is bring his BBQ over soon. We shall celebrate all our family's upcoming birthday celebrations with all that great grilled Caribbean cuisine that Leonarrrrrrrdo is so good at.

Fat old labs can't be retrained. I have decided that my Dixie is just an old dog with strong ideas about who needs to be chased and where it is most pleasant to relieve a lunch's extra nutrients...if you know what I mean. She is loud when she bothers to bark, has a thing for bicyclists and thinks that if she randomly offers to shake hands that chocolate cake will be given to her at will. She smells, but we love her. She has rolls on her rolls and her neck even looks fat, but we love her. She ate her dog tags and so we need new ones since we live in the Borough. But she slept on the floor next my place on the couch the whole time I came back from the ER with my Shingles. I even woke to her licking my head at one point. Either I had chocolate in my hair or she really loves me. It's a toss up. She has an addiction problem, so her motivations are all mixed up.

Fall is coming. It has been excessively hot and humid here lately - like one of those summers I spent in Oklahoma City visiting my grandmother in her big Victorian home. Those were the summers of biscuits and briskets and lots of laughing and sitting on the oversized porch in rocking chairs. Anyway, this home reminds me of that one and this summer often finds me mentally going back to hot Southern summers with Virginia-Lee dictating my chores in the kitchen and around her big old house while my brother explored the servant's quarters with my little sister. Recently, I had lunch with Grandma and I reminded her of that home and noted how I was always amazed that no matter how many funnel clouds threatened us there each summer, her house was still standing. "Oh, they (tornadoes) don't blow down everything. Just the weaker places." When I told her I had made sun tea in my backyard she was rather proud. "Now don't forget to add the lemon. It is so much better with lemon."

Ukrainian Independence. I am not Ukrainian. My ancestors from Eastern Europe are Russian and Hungarian. Jews and Gentiles - but by far mostly Russian. However, they all moved to the US from Ukraine. True story. So this weekend, while it felt as though someone was randomly shoving a pen in my left ear (Shingles), I decided it would be an excellent idea to go to Ukrainian Fest after Divine Liturgy. My Puerto Rican husband was quite skeptical of the fun potential of this. But he drove us and my much taller little sister to Ukrainian Fest. We pseudo danced to accordion music, ate bags of chips because we came without enough money for Perohys. We bought two Psanky and I am actively wearing a rubber arm band that reads, "SAVE THE DOMES!" An old man's church is loosing its onion domes unless I donate my one available dollar. We met a Russian Icon dealer. True story. He was highly unfriendly and wanted to bargain actively with me in Russian. I pretended only to speak Spanish. It was fun. We were tempted to jump into the pool with all the happy young Slavs, but instead we drove to Rita's and ate copious amounts of Italian Ice. We promised next year not to show up an hour before the festival ends when all the old ladies are wrapping up their hand painted tea glasses and embroidered shawls.

Today we go to the library. The books I checked out last week are all duds.

Oh, and the most exciting news of the week? I unloaded all my goofy thrift store accumulated cookbooks this past week! I found the 1950's one that suggests all manner of dinners made from Cambell's Soup. It is dedicated to, "Mrs. Homemaker who spends many a happy hour creating family cuisine from convenience foods!" True story. I am going to make a recipe from it every week. I am even going to try the "Happy Husband Souper Lunch Pack!" menu that lists a different soup and weird hearty sandwich for each work day for a full month. I warned Lee last night. He seemed mildly interested in Cheese Soup Served in a Wide Mouthed Vacuum and Swiss on Rye with a Fruit Cup.

The Angelus and Such

I spent the good portion of my Saturday happily pulling weeds from the cracks in my new sidewalk. I love living in town. It feels much more normal to me than the middle of bear country where we have nearly and completely vacated now.

While bent over in the dirt, pulling mint and thistle from the ground, I heard Russian, Spanish, people from England, an Austrailian, lots of New Yorkers, and an Eastern European accent wishing me and my fat, happy Yellow Lab a nice afternoon.

People offered me kind encouragement as I worked the ground. My youngest son spent most of the day with me, slashing at the taller weeds with an old butter knife and weaving tales of two-fingered aliens who can't be trusted when they exit their spaceships in silence.

Each time the sun became too hot we rolled my big red patio umbrella into our path to guard us from the sweltering rays. Every now and then we took a break and drank sun tea while swinging softly on our new porch swing in the back. We have a view of the whole side of a mountain. The kids always complained that at the other house we were actually on top of the mountain, so we had no actual mountain view. Now we do. At night we sit out there in silence, a few of us, drinking ice tea and listening to the creek run below our feet.

People who knew us honked as they drove by today, discovering that we lived in their neck of the woods now.

"You've come over to the Irish side!" yelled a friend who works at the pharmacy.

"Yeah!" I yelled back. "Those Germans on the other side were just too darn happy for us!"

She immediately got my sarcasm and drove off laughing. "Stay away from that grouchy parish!" she warned, jerking her thumb in the direction of the parish we left over a year ago.

"Don't worry about it," I assure her.

I hear the bells from the Catholic Church down the street three times a day for the Angelus, 8am, noon, and 6pm. They ring for Holy Mass as well. I love it. If you aren't Irish (I am 3/4ths) or Catholic, you are so "out of the loop" around these parts.

It's strange to be something everyone else is for a change. It is strange for Catholic to be the "in thing" to be. I laugh every time I think about it.

A Russian family passed me today as I was pulling grass up from the patch of dirt that holds the tree in front of my porch. They were arguing furiously. When they saw me they stopped and smiled, greeting me in Russian. The teenage daughter eyed up my oldest son who noticed nothing except that his father was yelling at him not to drop the dresser they were carrying out of the truck and into the front of the house.

I like it here. I don't care about it over there anymore. It's all gone now. All that sadness and worry. And three times a day, I am reminded to praise God and ask Him for His blessing whenever I find myself pulling weeds in front of my new house.

The Angelus

V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.
R. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.Hail Mary, etc.

V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
R. Be it done unto me according to thy word.Hail Mary, etc.

V. And the Word was made Flesh.
R. And dwelt among us.Hail Mary, etc.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY
Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the Incarnation of Christ Thy Son was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Moving Right Along...

I have gotten a few emails asking where I have been on my blog this week. Usually, I blog every day, but sometimes I actually pay attention to important things and get distracted by the "ordinary things of life..." (see Joyce quote in sidebar).


This week?



Still moving...Still uploading and unpacking boxes...still driving between two houses and cleaning between two houses.



I pulled weeds in my new backyard. Convinced my brother to mow my old backyard. Broom swept the new carpet remnant in the living room at the new house, as I continually forget the vacuum cleaner each time I go to the old house...



Found out from the investor who wants to buy our house that the sheriff sale has been scheduled for September 15th. That's so funny, because absolutely no one from the mortgage company has notified us of this yet. As far as our lender knows, we know nothing. Good thing most things are gone - except my brother and my parents and sister who takes turns hanging out there with my brother sleeping over.



The bears can get very suspicious.



I will be so elated when all of this is over. I actually love the home our dear friends have rented to us. I feel more at home here than I ever did at the home we worked so hard for...just to lose in the end. Never again will I put so much stake in a house.



I have slept very little lately. Still adjusting to no central air. It doesn't bother me while awake, but I am guessing that the sound of the continually buzzing 40-something year old window fan my stepfather bought shortly after his return from Vietnam keeps my nervous system humming all night as well. Nice of him to gift it to us...but I think it should have probably gone down with the fall of Saigon.



Lack of sleep, annoying shots at the doc...I have a massive ear infection left over from a sinus infection caused by the medicine from the annoying shot offered for pain. I have treated the infection with loads of garlic pills, willow ear/garlic oil, echinacea, elderberry, vitamin c, and some major Arnica. I added some Tylenol as well. Can't hurt to back up the pain fighters. My head feels like half of it is spitting somewhere over my ear. I should be better by morning. Hopefully, tonight, I will sleep and tomorrow's post will be something great to behold.



Blessings to all...thanks for reading...I am signing off with a Stupid For Fun next to my veteran window fan.

A Night Out - Velez Style

On Friday night, the Velez Family usually celebrates "Movie/Game Night". Most often, we just get very lazy and watch a movie and eat junk, but sometimes we play a game as well. This past Friday, we decided that we had suffered a lot these past few weeks and needed to go to a double feature at the drive-in. The new Harry Potter was playing, and so we were off with our cooler of goodies, our pillows and blankets, and our dirty minivan.

Leonarrrrrrdo decided that it would be a great idea if we added ice to the cooler. But it was a Friday and on Friday Catholics don't eat meat, so we had egg salad sandwiches and tuna salad sandwiches - along with brownies and fruit - in our coolers. Since I have not yet had the chance to do any major grocery shopping since moving in, I have forgotten some paper/kitchen items. I had to wrap my sandwiches in tinfoil. Tinfoil is leaky when ice begins to melt on a hot summer night...

We arrived, eager and excited, at the drive-in. Parked. Set up our chairs and blankets and arranged who was going to sit in the car and who was going to sit outside. It was warm, so we all gathered around the back of the open minivan. Leonarrrrrrdo pulled the sandwiches from the cooler, because everyone had heard they were there and suddenly decided they were hungry. All but one was a drippy eggy/fishy mess. We ate brownies and - even though Lee insisted that he was going to eat all the sandwiches rather than waste them - we all marched over to the snack stand and bought burgers, chicken fingers, nachos, and hot chocolate. Oh, and mozzarella sticks. From the time we had unwrapped our draining sandwiches to the time it took to get to the snack stand, we had forgotten it was a Friday. This is very unusual for us. But I guess the devistation of trying to be cheap, but failing, was too overwhelming for us.


The first picture began, our bellies were full, and the sun went down. It dropped about 10 degrees and we all started freezing in our short sleeves. By the time five hours had passed, somewhere around 1:20am, Harry Potter had accomplished absolutely nothing, I had snored my way through half the last movie, and one of the back seats that Lee had taken out of the van for more snuggling room, had gotten stuck in a nearly backwards position.

Every other car in the drive-in had long gone except for workers and a man who wanted to know if we had jumper cables. After about 15 minutes of Lee shoving the car around, while trying to fix the seat, I finally convinced him to just let the stupid seat sit askew as it was and drive home in our now weird and dirty minivan.

We all drove home screaming at each other because we were tired and irritated and angry for Harry Potter, who we all agreed - is really a complete priss who manages only to get beaten up, let at least one good guy (a film/book) die, and allow the pure evil bad guy to get away. But he has friends. Lots of them, and they are as boring and wimpy as he is.

We are done with Potter, and our car finally got fixed the next morning just in time for us to go to, Knoebel's, the biggest redneck amusement park I have ever experienced. There were lots of gap-toothed smiles and mullets and balding women, but we had a blast on all the rides and with our hands continually inside a 3 lb bag of PA Dutch Kettle Korn.

We hope to stay home for the next Movie Night.

We, the RiffRaff

Last night, my husband and I got to drive (ALONE) to our old house on the mountain to pick up some filing cabinets and utility cabinets for the bathroom in our new home. Lenya - our gracious pal - agreed to stay behind in the new house to watch my tired and overfed children (as long as we returned with a selection of decent ice cream).

Thank you, Lenya:)

Leaving town for the mountain is weird. Leaving anywhere for the mountain is weird. In town, my favorite restaurant of the past 10 years since we have been coming to or living in Jim Thorpe has live jazz blasting as you pass slowly by in your car. The tattoo parlor is blinking obnoxiously. There are children on the sidewalk playing everywhere. Even very young children, and the schizophrenic lady a couple houses up is pacing up and down the street talking to herself and rubbing her Thorazine patch.

But the mountain is dead silent. We pulled into our driveway and stood for a moment just to watch the fireflies light up all around us in the bear-saturated forest. The last two days we spent living on the mountain last week, we had more than 6 bears walking through our yard and driveway. We had two coyote pacing hungrily in our backyard. We had to keep the kids on the deck and watchful. In town, the dangers are very different.

"Are you sad anymore about leaving this place?" I asked my sweetheart.

"Not sad anymore. It just feels like I threw away $40,000.00," he sighed, speaking of our down payment.

"Like we saved for nothing," I said.

"Yeah. For someone else to live here much cheaper than we did. That's irritating. And there are all the comforts of living in a house that is brand new," he said. "Central air, excellent insulation."

It has been said to us, by an attorney, that the investor behind the loan probably doesn't want the Spanish name in his neighborhood where he also invests in several other mortgages. Who can prove it? I don't know. But it is not hard for Lee or I to believe.

We both remember the times in our 1905 house, before the new one was purchased in 2005, how difficult it was to heat without a pellet stove. How we lost our heat for four months, because we just did not have the $400-plus a month to heat the leaky place. We learned some tricks, but all utilities on the mountain only totalled $225.00 at its peak through any season. Those things are hard to give up.

"And the kids had all the room in the world to play," I noted. Our five year old has become very difficult as of the last 7 days. He has nowhere to run around when he becomes cantankerous. We have to walk to the park or drive there for him to have all that play time. That can be hard when you have medical chronic fatigue as I do. But, we have already walked to our favorite library in the world without having to pay for parking for once. We have gotten pizza at our favorite pizza shop a couple blocks away. Our children are haggling for ice cream from their favorite candy shop. So, our disadvantages have been replaced with advantages.

But none of these issues are the end of the world. None of any of this is the end of the world. It isn't even the end of our world. We know that most of the stresses we are currently experiencing will be gone the minute our home is sold to the investor who is very eager to purchase it.

What irritates me, and has finally begun to irritate my husband, is the pure discrimination we have faced with home ownership and renting since that day in July, 1995 when we got married.

Our first place assumed that we were not married and openly said so, "Because your husband is 'Spanish', we just thought you were living together. Does he have any children who will be visiting?"

What? It was assumed at our first apartment that we could not be married, because a Hispanic was involved in the relationship. It was assumed that the Hispanic had other illegitimate children hanging out somewhere who might need to be put on the lease in the future. I was incensed at these thoughts. Lee just ignored them.

The second place was fine, because it was in town and full of Hispanics and African Americans and immigrants from Eastern Europe and Africa. They didn't even notice Lee and I or my brother when the three of us moved in. A great place to live, and we had friends there and a huge courtyard.

The third place put us in an unready apartment with no updates, because they "assumed that it would not matter to us, because surely your husband grew up in the city and would be grateful for what he gets." You can argue such things, but every attorney I have ever spoken to says that white America still very much denies their prejudices, and it would be our word against theirs. That's not evidence.

We were poor and had a baby by now, so we just lived there with all the bug infestations, the bees who made a nest in our master bedroom, the mice we had to kill ourselves - even though our friends lived in the same complex (as did my brother) and they had all these great updates and services and paid less than us to live in a much better four walls. Even my pal, Yulia from Gorky, (Russia) said, "Why is your apartment so dark and ugly? I have white everything. New everything. I think they do not like Hispanics here."

And they didn't. Lee got a new job an hour and a half away and so we moved there. This time, into a beautiful town home community. Everything seemed fine until we went to sign the lease. The manager had written up a new clause just for us. "We need you to sign this agreeing that there will be no loud music, none of those low rider cars, and no riffraff. We absolutely will not tolerate any riffraff."

"I have a degree in Music Education from the second best school of music in the United States, ma'am. I am a claims adjuster for Allstate Insurance. I don't have any riffraff."

The crooked haired woman looked dubiously at my husband and just tapped her hand on the paper. About three months later, we got a continual pile of literature on our front step from the American Nazi Party and the Aryan Brotherhood - located just 10 miles away. I called the office and told them to have this stopped. They were quite incensed that I should bother them with such a command. They insisted they could not stop someone's freedom of expression, but they promised a white neighbor whom I had shown the literature to that they would stop it at once. "We do not want our residents feeling uncomfortable in any way!" the same woman from the office insisted.

When we moved out, we had the carpets steamed, the place repainted - all at our own very tight expense. But they refused to rent the place for several months after we left, replaced everything and charged us for rent and fees for months after we had moved out and purchased our new home. "I said no riffraff!" the rental manager wrote on one of our bills.

Our first home was humble, built in 1905, but we were immediately excited that it was our own place finally. Behind us lived a nosy PA Dutch couple who spoke to me and the kids at every chance. They offered us their Sunday papers after they had finished reading them. "Then you can just recycle them for us," Eva (as I called her) suggested. I really didn't care to read the newspaper, but I wanted to be neighborly, so I agreed. The minute Eva spotted my Leonardo coming home from work in his dress clothes and tie, she withheld the newspaper and all conversation for the next 5 years. She told our realtor how disappointed she was that he had sold the place to a "dirty Mexican with a gaggle of loud children".

We had three kids. The American average, and we weren't home very often. No matter that my husband is not Spanish or Mexican. He's Puerto Rican. How hard can it be to get that simple fact correct for an educated American public? The neighbors were rude. Eva and Adolph, as I called them proudly.

We moved to "the mountain" and all of our neighbors, immediately, refused to speak or wave to us. Except for an Italian-American girl at the bus stop and her Puerto Rican husband. Their house had been burned down by the adult son of a local township board member, when they tried to move in, and homemade signs like, "Spic Trailer Park!" lined the road leading to their home. Our road.

My husband is big, and so no one ever threatens him personally. But our very rude neighbor next door has never returned our waves or face-to-face conversation. Now all the rude people who never acknowledged us even when we were speaking to them, see our home almost empty, us moving, and they wave and smile uncontrollably.

When we were moving into this new rental home (which we are very grateful for) we were warned that the old grouchy man next door might not like Hispanics. Sure enough, he doesn't. He liked me until he saw Lee. Now, he doesn't even wave to me. He smiled at my oldest son - who is my coloring, but he doesn't acknowledge my darker children who look more like their father.

Recently a friend asked me, (and she is not the only one who has asked me this), "What do I say to my children when they hear people speaking Spanish in the store? What if they are illegal? How should I suggest they treat them?"

"Mind your own business," I said to her. "If they were speaking English it would not be your business what they were saying."

"But what if they are taking American jobs?"

"You mean crawling through mushroom fields, changing old people diapers at a nursing home, working far below minimum wage to build a multi-million dollar suburban home for some American family?"

She just looked at me, "Yes. What if the economy gets so bad I need those jobs one day?"

I just laughed. "Be serious. If you could live with less you not be overtaxed and overspent like you are now in every area of your American Dream life. You would not be worried about illegal immigrants, desperate for a better life, eager to take your job."

Whatever.

And three out of four of the women who have asked me this very same, very strange, question in the last couple of years, are way behind on many of their bills. Way behind on paying their credit cards. Way behind on making church attendance a regular part of their lives. None of this bothers me, none of this bothers their credit scores too much, but Leonardo has to reach so much further just to get the respect most of them were simply born with. The ones who have asked me this who are up-to-date on all such things told me once that when she sees her Puerto Rican neighbor walking down her street, she runs inside to lock up her antique silverwear. These people are supposed to be my friends, and they wonder why I sometimes find it hard to spend a lot of time with them.

Leonardo is getting kicked out of his home and he paid his mortgage, paid off his cars, pays his credit card bills, pays his tithes, has served every church he has been to, is a proud son of a US War Veteran, and is a proud American - as all Puerto Ricans are. Americans.

And I grew up in Los Angeles where 1 out of 3 people are foreign born. But I have yet to meet an immigrant - outside of most Canadians (but not all) that I have known - who didn't proudly call themselves American and dream of becoming a citizen one day, even if they did so desperately, coming here illegally and speaking Spanish. The language that made up half of the US long before the South West belonged to America. Think about it...Texas (Spanish for "tiles), Colorado (Spanish for "brown"), New Mexico (duh), California (Spanish for "beautiful island"), Nevada, Arizona...all Spanish and Spanish/Indian names. Long before there was a Baltimore or a New York City there was a Nuestra Senora La Reina de los Angeles (The City of Our Lady Queen of Angels - or LA as we white people shorten it and call it).

I wish I could just tell bigoted America to grow up. But it is stupid and has a long way to go. And I assume that Lee and I might face such further insults in the future. If I could encourage just one American - non-Hispanic - to view the language and people they don't understand as human beings looking to care for their family just as good native-born Americans do - to see Hispanics as mostly Christian with pro-life values and an extremely strong, unmatched work ethic - then, perhaps, I will have accomplished something for my Hispanic children in the future.

I do not like all her politics, but hats off to Judge Sotomayor for working her way to the Supreme location of the land. My olive-skinned/Indian-haired 9 year old daughter cheered when she saw the news last night. "Look, mommy! She is Spanish like me and she is a judge on the Supreme Court!"

I didn't even know she had been paying attention. "Why isn't she pro-life, mommy?" my daughter asked. "Isn't she Catholic and Christian like us?"

It is a true rarity to see a pro-choice Hispanic in either party. And it is just as rare to see the Republican Party not slamming Hispanics at every turn. My party - the Good Old Party. In the last election, out of respect for my husband and my children, I had to turn off the radio - turn off Rush and Beck and Hannity, because every show was about how Hispanics (all of them are illegal or refuse to assimilate according to these shows) are the greatest threat to the American way of life.

I am assuming these conservative Americans do not know the truth? That the largest number of illegal immigrants in America live on the East Coast and are Russian Jews or Israelis. A far greater number of illegal Chosen People live in this country than Catholic Spanish speaking ones. I wonder how many conservative Christians would hear Russian, see a Chassidic black hat and think, "That rabbi refuses to speak English and he is going to take my job in the drycleaner/deli/or Yeshiva!"

An Open Public Thank You

Thank you, pals, Bob and Jennifer for the use of your home! It is beautiful - even with us in it:)

Thank you, pals, Bob and Jennifer for the recommendation to the investor who may purchase our home.

Thank you, Bob and Jennifer for the clawfoot tub. I feel like a millionaire in the golden age of Hollywood even though I just got kicked out of my home:)

You are beautiful friends (especially Bob with is Larry the Cucumber T-shirt), and we appreciate you more than you know:)

Soon, we will have you over for dinner or something edible...in your kitchen. (There are going to be a lot of jokes like that. Just warning you...)

Chicken Ice

I had a doctor's appointment today. A visit to the pain specialist who had helped me two months ago very successfully and without to many meds. I was thinking of cancelling the follow-up since I was feeling so much better with regards to my back/sciatica/crookedness/dystonia...all exactly the same thing with various names depending on the location of discomfort and the doctor involved.

Anyway, I did not want to pay the "failure to show up" fee either. Usually that's pretty high. So...I drove contented to the office 45 minutes away.

"So you still have some pain?" asks the doctor.

"Sometimes."

"So it's not complete relief?" he probes.

"Not complete, but what in life is perfect?"

"I recommend another shot."

Now I am not one to shy away from needles - God knows I have had my share of spinal taps and I get iron infusions for hours at the cancer center at my local hospital all the time. I am the queen of kidney stones and get IVs at the ER several times a year, even if I don't get anything in the IV.

But...I didn't want another shot. I told the doctor so. He recommended again anyway, suggesting that the pain would be completely gone if I were to get one. This is the point where the smarter patient starts to hear equally faulty statements inside her head like, "This won't hurt at all."

In less than 10 minutes I found myself lying flat on my stomach with an 8 inch needle in my spine. Last time it hurt a tad, but within minutes I had very minimal discomfort from the procedure. Today? He did not numb me adequately and I could feel the jabbing of my vertebra the way I have in one of those many spinal taps or epidurals. Only with those procedures I am often given a heavy medication to make me think of sandy beaches and flying penguins. Today I got nothing but a fast talking humming doctor.

When it was all over I was told to go home.

I could barely walk across the room, drive home, or even cross the street to my house. I prayed - the entire 5 minutes or so it took me to walk the 20 feet from my car to my front door - I asked God not to let a car pass while I hobbled along.

I took a very slow walk to the top of the stairs, popped completely inadequate pain meds, and lay in front of the television in my bedroom (placed there against my loud better judgement), and yelled occasionally, "Mother of God, save me!"

I asked my sweetheart (who is a true cranky heart when he has to care for children alone on a hot summer day) if he could make me or get me an ice pack when he went for pizza. Because I was flat on my side (never again my back) then, he saw no reason to assume that his family might eat dinner.

"What are we going to do for dinner?" he asks me.

"There's ground turkey and BBQ sauce. You can make sloppy joes."

But he did not like this suggestion, crying that it was too hot, and so when his work from home day ended, he drove the block to the pizza shop to buy extra large pepperonis and cheeses with an order of hot wings. The place is very cheap, so that was my consolation.

I read lots of children's books to occupy my five year old, and I let my daughter watch some stupid "I woke up pregnant, but I don't how it happened," Lifetime movie with me. But mostly because I could not move over to reach the remote.

I got up every few minutes, hoping that movement would keep me from stiffening. But I have a strong sense that the lay flat for 4 hour rule that applies to spinal taps applies to this procedure as well. I could have called my doctor to demand stronger pain meds, but I have a feeling that this will all be gone tomorrow, and I can returned my three year overdue books to the library on a short walk tomorrow with the kids.

Since I am still waiting for the ice pack from my easily distracted husband, I hobbled for 10 minutes down the stairs to make my own pack. Realizing that I had no Ziplocs with which to zip my ice collection, and no ice because the trays had been emptied in my absence from the kitchen today and never refilled, I grabbed 3 lbs of iced-over chicken tenderloins and now have them thawing behind my back. They come in their own handy Ziploc and so I grossly wrapped them in a stained kitchen rag and every now and then I think how disgusting I have become today.

I am not allowed to shower for 24 hours and I smell like rotting jiggly chicken.

Thank you, husband.

Thank you, children for using the ice as hockey pucks and the empty trays as space ships...so says my five year old who has been dressed in an Iron Man suit all day while running up and down the stairs fighting evil spiders.

Tomorrow is a new day! Amen!

New Bishop in Town

We, in the ever-increasing churchless Northeast, have a new RC bishop in our diocese. I am quite excited about this. I have heard he is a "house cleaner". Finally! Even though I am switching rites. I have had enough. In fact, the more I try and attend any one of the local RC parishes within walking distance of my home - either home - I experience something sharp and painful and I am reminded why I love the Divine Liturgy and of why I have left the West for the East.


I had so hoped to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, partly because Orthodox priests had warned me that the Byzantines "could not be trusted", and I was told that I could still love Il Papa and pray my Rosary daily. I would just need to keep it secret - on the Catholic down low. I took this information to a Byzantine priest - identical in liturgy and feasts to that of their brother Orthodox - and he said,

"The Orthodox have had a burr up their butt for centuries now. "

It made me laugh and I realized that I believe this to be true as well. Though I love EO, I love hearing, "We pray for our Holy Father, Benedict..." as a regular part of the Divine Liturgy. So, I am switching rites and not churches. I just can't get over the words I continually heard in the EO, "We have long memories." Everyone else, it seems is bound to forgive their enemies, except, the EO who is allowed to keep a long list of the wrongs committed against them. Now, I am certain they would argue this point, but since my Catholic Church is the brunt of their struggle and anger...I have to scoot quietly out of the room. Too Roman. Too Roman...

Thank God. Because I just cannot leave Peter behind. No way.

I love my new priest. So does the rest of my family. He is smarter than 10 priests I know. Forget about rabbis and pastors. He blows them all away. Whatever question I have, he just answers with that Catholic authority that seems to be lost on may of our RC parish priests around here these days. He reminds me of why the Truth is the Truth even if you twist, detract from it, make it all your own...The Truth stands aside from our opinions or personal revelation and authority.

"On this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it..." So said Christ. You can cut yourself off from it, reform it, protest it...but the Truth is still the Truth no matter what winds of change are blowing or selling these days.

"I am not here to help you get in touch with your feelings," my new Byzantine priest says about the Sacrament of Confession - too rarely practiced by we Catholics anymore. "Just tell me what you did and how many times you did it. If I need to talk to you about it, I will. Otherwise, get over it, quite sinning, and move on in grace."

Reminds me of the priests of my youth. I am old now - 35 remember? Memory is becoming rusty in parts, but not in the parts that matter. I remember what a priest is supposed to act like. That he is supposed to love his job and make his focus Christ and not employment and career advancement.

So...have fun with the new bishop, my fellow RCers. You won't see me around all that much. Not since I started making the Sign of the Cross from the opposite direction. Enjoy all those guitar Masses. Enjoy all those hippies in collars. Not that any of you will notice I have not been in attendance in months. I have the Dormition of the Mother of God to decipher and fast through now. I am busy moving and praying and begging God for all the help He can spare me.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a big, fat sinner.

You Can Still Go to Heaven

So said Brother William to me about 20 years ago...



I was notoriously excellent at achieving the highest grades possible during my high school academic career. Especially at my Catholic high school in Southern California. Not the Evangelical one just a year before, and not the public high school my senior year. I was okay at both those locations, but I hated both equally and therefore, did not "apply myself" to the standards of anyone who was paying attention.



Not too many adults were paying attention...except for Brother Edward and Brother William and Fr. Barney and Mnsgr. O'Gorman (Fr. Charlie to my family) and all the nuns who taught me music and art and morality and sacraments and Earth science, etc...

They were my teachers at my Catholic high school, and while my grades excelled there, I sucked at math. Royally. In fact, until I had to budget a grocery bill for the Velez family which formed in 1995, I was convinced that I could not even add. Now I can add the price of every item, including the occasional tax, down to the penny every week. I am that talented at being cheap with sausage and bread. If Brother William were alive today, God rest his Latin soul, he would probably sob with shocked pride.



But, in my junior year, in my Geometry class (should have been Algebra II, but I took Algebra I twice and never got beyond a D), Brother William from Amsterdam was filling in for Brother Edward (also of Amsterdam) until his sudden vacation back to Holland was over. For two weeks, I had Brother William - the ever smiling monk - frowning and actually wiping sweat off his forehead each time I scooted in my Catholic school girl uniform to his desk with a confused look on my face.



"Brother, I don't understand this," I would say about adding 2 and 2 or multiplying 1 and 3. "This doesn't make any sense."



He would stand up at the edge of his desk, bend over with both hands behind his back and search my paper for answers. Then he would look up at me,



"Teeefahnee, you are a special girl."



Then he would smile at me knowingly, as though I should understand why the subject suddenly changed.



"In all my life I have never known anyone as confused as you with simple math."



And then I realized he was talking about "special", not exceptional.



It went on like this for a while. Finally, a midterm test came and Brother William (who was often the brunt of stinky European jokes and would find a fresh bottle of deodorant on his old wooden desk with a red bow around it) would invite all "special children" to join him for a late afternoon study session.



He would call Fr. Barney to bless us, and then we would work for two long hours underneath the stern missionary face of the Fr. Serra painting. Everyone obtained "ahah!" moments except for me. I would leave with a fake smile on my face, but without any understanding still of adding 2 and 2 or multiplying 3 and 1. I could not fool Br. William (of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy).



In fact, the day of the midterm test came at some point in autumnless Southern California, and I remember wearing a red sweater and my lucky ill-fitting brown leather shoes my mother had bought me at some Dutch (truly Dutch, not the PA version) from some store in Solvang.

I was the last to complete my work, and I was so engrossed in my mathematical equations that I failed to notice everyone was waiting for me to finish so that Brother William would let them leave for the day. It was as though I had been involved in one of Brother Edward's Church History courses like any other young nerdy liturgical addict might be. I had studied to the point of forsaking all TV and hang outs at the A&W across from the Fox movie theatre in Ventura. I prayed more Hail Mary's and Glory Be's and Our Father's than I had ever allowed to accumulate outside of Mass and Stations of the Cross.

But I failed none the less. Turning in my test long after even the other "special children" had done so. But I had the utmost confidence in myself.

"We shall see," Brother William said as he took my test from me.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!" I yelled inwardly while everyone else planned their drunken Catholic high school bashes for the weekend. God would not let me down, as I was the star of all the religion classes. Every nun and oblate loved me above all others.

But I failed.

Did I mention that I failed?

Worse than I had every failed, even with Brother William's undivided sweating and aide.

When the day came, a week later, to hand out the tests in the order they had been received, Brother William had the widest smile on his ever-smiling face that I had ever seen.

He carefully placed my paper on the cira 1940's dented wooded school desk as though it were my life thesis on the Shroud of Turin.

"No matter what, Teeefahneee, you can still go to heaven, and you are truly a special girl."

F

The only F I ever obtained in high school. Yay me!

But Brother William's words echo inside my head today as I fight with my credit score to make it raise above the place it lived just after I left Hannemahn with a $60,000.00 a day hospital bill for several weeks of Guillian-Barre treatments in ICU. I should have an excellent score by now. But it has budged very little. And I cannot figure out why. Perhaps, I will always be "special", but at least, if I accept all graces given me and go to confession this weekend, I can still go to heaven.

Yay God!

To Him, I am worth more than my mathematical failures or my credit score. And in this present family crisis, I had to admit that this last parting line of Brother William's to his "most special" student of all, is the one that comes to me at night when I am most conflicted with stress. Even more than he was a consultant to NASA, and a few other highly important mathy locations, he was a Catholic brother and he put the eternity of my soul above my incredibly low math score. He knew of my potential in other areas and in the fervency of my crazy amount of Hail Mary's. He must have seen me at the chapel during the morning break and in the library every lunch (nerdy me). High school is not fun for the liturgically obsessed, but it is memorable and we Catholic obessed tend to remember the life-enriching parts.

Cause we were not fun enough to create any other sort of memories...

*I tried to find a picture of Brother William with his genius hair and eteral blue faded sweater, but no luck so far. I will keep hunting.