Monkling’s Blog

I may be taking a bit of a break from blogging. I’m not 100% certain about the break because things may happen that will motive me to blog but right now I have a lot of stuff going on that’s leaving me feeling completely drained & I don’t feel particularly funny.

I haven’t been keeping up with HW, either, so if anything earth shattering happens on the board, someone should give me a yell.

Of course now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably end up blogging 2 or 3 times a day so that I can make a compete liar out of myself.

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No, my title has nothing to do with missing a day yesterday. Nor does it mean I am cursing. Just in case there is anyone left in the world aside from my husband who has no clue what WTF stands for (Uh, no, Janet. I am certainly not referring to you!) it is an acronym for, “What the f_ _ _.” It’s used in text messages and IMs by pretty much 95% of the population. Okay, maybe not 95% but by lots & lots of people.

Anyhow, it seems there were some folks working at the DMV in North Carolina who didn’t know what those initials meant. (If you click the link, it’ll bring you to the news story.) The NC DMV issued thousands of license plates with those initials on them. They are now offering to replace the offensive license plates for free. Frank said if he got that, he’d keep it.

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I counted on there being at least 70 people based on the invitations & the calls we didn’t get (it was ‘regrets only’). With all of Stephen’s “maybes’ counted in, that figure shot up to 85. The actual # was 60. I never had 60 guests before. I don’t think I sat down for more than 15 minutes the entire day.

For the most part, the young adults were outside doing things like tequila shots and the older folks were inside. Turns out it was good that old people were inside because my family is a bunch of trouble makers. When my cousin went out back by the tent, she started a food fight. At another point in the evening, we heard a lot of commotion coming from outside. We looked out by the driveway to see a group of kids running out towards the street and one of Steve’s friends with a hose. The group that was running had picked up one of the tubs that held drinks & ice and had dumped the entire tub on the boy with the hose.

The only bad spot in the day was when my sister had to leave, about 20 minutes after we got back to the house. She has a stint in her kidney and it was either blocked or infected so yesterday she had surgery to replace it. She was in so much pain & she was so pissed that it had to happen then & force her to miss the party.

I pretty much too no pictures. I am hoping some of my relatives got some decent ones. The pictures from inside the church came out awful. This was one of the better ones:

The only photos I got of the gang outside, I don’t want to post because they show everyone’s faces way too clearly but here’s a shot of the tent before the party:

With all the hullabaloo about the weather, we decided maybe we better put sides up on the tent. We got 2 side up and decided it would be incredibly hot with all 4 on.

Overall, it was a wonderful send-off for Steve. And now we begin the count down to when he actually leaves (3 weeks).

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I suspect that people who normally attend the 1 p.m. Mass at our parish and had no clue what was going on were somewhat surprised when they saw the bishop walk out, along with our pastor, 5 additional priests and about 20 seminarians. Then they were probably groaning, thinking, “Well this isn’t going to be any quickie 45 minute Mass!”

As the bishop, priests & seminarians processed in, we were front & center. (Not my usual seat in Church, by the way.) As he passed me, the bishop reached out to touch me on the arm. My first thought was, “Well I’m glad someone realizes how hard this is for me!”

The Mass was wonderful. What made it even more so was that this bishop knows Stephen because he lived with him for the 2 years Steve was at the local seminary before they sent him to D.C. When we went to the open house at the seminary, before he entered, the bishop was not yet a bishop and was the rector of the seminary. He met with the boys who would be entering and the parents of the boys and gave a little talk. Amazingly, I can remember almost word for word one statement he said. “They are all brothers here in the house and I am their Papa!”

Because he knew Stephen, us, Theresa, & had met my father his homily wasn’t some impersonal, generic one. I wish we had someone in there with a video camera.

Basically, it was a regular Mass except with a lot more music & singing because the entire choir was there. And, of course the Rite of Candidacy. This took place after the homily.

We made Mass programs and included in it, what Candidacy is and the Rite of Candidacy. I didn’t put the entire program online but if anyone was curious about what this whole thing was all about, you can see those pages here.

Our pastor had a little reception set up for after Mass. There was even champagne. What surprised me is no one from the parish went. Our pastor announced it but it seems everyone ran out right after Mass was over after greeting Steve. Okay, not “no one” but only a handful.

I’ll be back with party details tomorrow in Part II.

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Very quick post. More to follow. There was no rain, no hail, no lightening. All day we kept checking the forecast and at one point there was one of those urgent messages: “Severe storms coming. Make sure you are not outside. Seek shelter.” Well wherever that storm was, it wasn’t here.

Stephen expressed disappointment in the lack of hail. I ran inside, got a handful of ice cubes, ran back out the door and threw them up in the air yelling, “Watch out! It’s hailing!”

I’ll be back with more after I get some sleep, which won’t happen until the last of the kids leave.

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Here it is, almost midnight and we’re just finishing off cutting up cheese and veges and dry sausage. I let the kids finish up because my arm aches from slicing and dicing and cleaning.

Not only is it supposed to rain tomorrow. It is supposed to be a nice little storm with lightening, thunder, and hail. When we were watching the forecast on the news, Steve says, “Yes! This is going to be the best party ever!”

Frank & my sister both pointed out to me that the day Stephen was baptized, lightening struck a pole just outside the chapel. It downed a wire. Sparks were shooting everywhere. My father in-law was playing traffic cop to make sure no one got electrocuted. Apparently it’s just a tradition with my son that religious ceremonies, followed by parties must be accompanied by storms. I guess that means when he’s ordained, there will be a tornado.

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In case you were wondering just how distracted I am with all this candidacy Mass & party stuff…

This morning I counted the chairs out back that we had delivered yesterday. We ordered 50. I counted 40. I counted them again. And again. Three times I came back with 40 chairs.

Okay, this is not good since the number of party people keeps rising. I called the company & they apologized, saying they’d send someone with the 10 missing chairs.

Later in the morning Theresa got up. I complained about the chairs. “Dad counted them yesterday when they were delivered and there were 50.” No way. I counted them 3 times. I couldn’t be wrong. I went outside and counted them again. Magically, there were suddenly 50 chairs out there. Guess who was apologizing to the company when I called back to say they didn’t screw up?

Next mess up - I decided to make pizza for dinner. It was easy because I had dough in the freezer that I had made a while back. I had sauce in the refrigerator. All I needed to do was defrost the dough & then throw on the sauce & cheese. As I’m going for the mozzarella, I find out there isn’t any. Ask me how many trips to the store I took today before I discovered I was out of mozzarella. I’ve lost track. I figure at least 3,485. This was trip 3,486.

This is worse than having a wedding at your house. I swear it must be worse. Luckily the ordination is still 4 years away. And I am not having the party at my house, afterwards.

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All right - everyone who prays, in any way, shape or form, I need prayers. It cannot rain on Sunday. There is absolutely no way on earth I am going to fit 75 people in my house. It is physically impossible. Therefore, it simply cannot rain.

Every damn time I check the forecast, I see little clouds and lightening bolts. The days ago forecast said rain only at night. Now it’s saying rain on & off all day. Sure the tent will help some but not entirely, especially if it pours. Not to mention that the main table with the food won’t fit under the tent.

Okay, I need to get back to getting that program made….

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Much too tired to blog or to be funny. Last night my son was stressing out because he never ordered prayer cards to give to people after the Mass Sunday. I said Kinko’s. He said where the heck will we get a picture. Darling Artist Daughter to the rescue. So today was the Kinko’s run, ordering a cake & trays of cookies, getting wine, getting more soda & water, and watching the men put up the tent.

Tonight I was out back with Theresa stringing white Christmas lights all around the inside of the tent. That should be really great for attracting tons of moths, don’t ya think? (Note to self: buy a bunch of citronella candles & insect repellent.)

I learned that it’s probably not a good idea to climb up a stepladder that’s on grass until you check to make sure it’s level first. I did, however, manage to keep my balance. It would not be good to get injured yet.

I still have to finish the programs for the Mass, replace the torn shades in the dining room with the new ones I bought today and de-fur the house. I am so glad I decided not to cook. We are either going to run out of food and drinks or we will have so much left over that I will need to have another party. The guest list keeps growing because Stephen knows about a million people. I didn’t even invite anywhere near what I would have liked but, as my husband pointed out, it is his party. He must have used Facebook to invite 50 people.

If there’s no sign of me until Monday, it just means I passed out from exhaustion someplace & I’m just lying motionless on the floor.

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The Daughter Saga: “Mom, my left foot feels colder than my right foot. I think it looks blue.”

I examine the injured foot & assure her that no, it is not blue & it’s not likely to fall off during the night while she sleeps. She apparently thinks I’m colorblind and consults with her brother. This all, by the way, takes place at the top of the stairs. He looks at her foot and agrees with me. She is still concerned. I ask her does she really think I’d brush it off & make jokes if I thought there was something wrong. I was told I always make jokes so I said, “Yeah, they will probably need to chop it off.” She hits me on the arm. I then say, “What are you trying to do? Push me down the stairs.”

“Yeah, revenge!” my son chimes in. (A reference to yesterday’s blog post in case you missed it)

The Son Saga: I told him we need to get his car checked out because he had told us there was a problem with the signal. “Yeah, and the steering wheel had smoke coming out of it.”

“What?!?!”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

Guess whose car he is out with right now. That would be mine. Luckily, I don’t normally go traveling anywhere at 10:30 pm. Unless it’s an emergency room because someone suddenly develops gangrene in that foot…

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