Monkling's Blog

When the young men are considering entering the seminary, they can attend an open house. In Stephen’s senior year of high school, we attended the open house. There are a lot of details that are faded in my mind already. This was, after all, 6 years ago and I can barely remember one year ago.

One thing I remember very clearly, though. The rector (now, one of our auxiliary bishops) said to us, “In this house, the men are all brothers and I am their Papa.” He instilled in them that sense of brotherhood, something I think is very important & I see evidence of this whenever I see the seminarians together.

God willing, in 3 years, my son will be ordained. But even if he’s not, I am so proud of him for even considering this life. Equally, I am proud of all these men. In a world that seems increasingly self absorbed and selfish, they are willing to sacrifice their entire lives in the service of others. Our lives have been so blessed simply by knowing them.

In Sept. of 1999, my son entered high school. During that first year, we got to know the students, the faculty and fell in love with the school. One boy we met that first year was Danny. Like Stephen, Danny loved music and played the organ. Danny was the school organist and Stephen joined the choir, helping out at the organ.

I will never forget our first Mass at the Prep, the first time I heard all those male voices singing those hymns. It was pretty much the first time I ever heard an all male choir and it was beautiful. But I digress…

At Danny’s graduation, Stephen played the organ since, obviously, Danny couldn’t be playing it. Since Steve was just under 15 at the time and didn’t drive, we were at the graduation, as well. At the graduation, something was announced that we already knew – Danny would be entering the seminary to further discern a vocation to the priesthood.

Danny was the first seminarian classmate of Stephen’s that I knew. It also seemed that Stephen was following in Danny’s footsteps – from playing the organ in high school to entering the seminary, being sent to D.C. and then to Rome. (Then there is also that they are both Italian and both uh.. on the small side.)

The ordination was on Saturday, Stephen’s 24th birthday. Steve couldn’t be there because he’s not allowed back in The States until next summer but we were there, bright and early.

Three men were ordained that day. The seminarians, priests & bishops processed in. Seeing huge smiles on the faces of our 3 almost-priests, was just so cool.

The ceremony itself was amazing, as it always is. In a way, it reminds me of a wedding. You walk in single. You leave changed, bonded by the sacrament of marriage. Here, too, these men were changed up on that altar. They received the sacrament of Holy Orders and they are now priests.

One particular part of the ceremony I love is when all the other priests attending lay hands on the newly ordained priests. What I found especially cool that day was seeing our parish priest, who was only just ordained himself last year, laying hands on Danny.

Saturday evening, we attended the reception to celebrate Fr. Danny’s ordination. I don’t think I stopped smiling the entire night. So many priests were there, so many seminarians, my boys.

We were sitting with family of other priests & seminarians. I’ve met some parents before but had never met any of these people. I found out it works both ways. These boys I like to call “my boys” because I have a special affection for all these young men but there is also a bond with the other families. It’s like we are all connected. These men are brothers and, so, we are all one family.

It was just an amazing weekend. Stay tuned. More tomorrow.

That is the title of a song from Barnum. It’s also how I’m feeling today – grateful that the only thing wrong with me is being 51.

You see… it started with this pain in my knee. My normal plan of attack for pain is to ignore it. Usually 1 of 2 things will then happen: it’ll either get better or it will get worse. The knee was starting to get a little bit worse so I figured I should get it checked out.

Before going off to an orthopedic doctor, I figured I’d see my regular one first. She took some blood. (Doctors like doing that.) The results came back with a high rheumatoid factor. So now, while waiting to see the ortho doc, I was busy worrying about whether or not I had rheumatoid arthritis.

Oh, let me look up the symptoms. Hmmm…. symmetrical, eh? Well my knees don’t both hurt but I do have 2 deformed pinkies. Wait. Am I more tired than usual? Yeah, I did feel just a bit stiff getting up lately. Ah, yes, the imagination is such a grand thing!

Then I’m thinking, “Okay, I cannot have some autoimmune disease that’s going to cripple me. One handicapped person in the family is enough. What are we going to do when we’re old? Have wheelchair races in the living room

This afternoon, after a few x-rays & stuff, it turns out I don’t have any of the symptoms of RA, despite the high blood results. “That pain in your knee is just a 51 year old knee. The cartilage behind the kneecap is worn away.

That is the first name of the surgeon who was able to perform a successful laparascopic appendectomy so I really shouldn’t be making cracks about her name. But I just can’t help myself. Hey, she doesn’t even use her first name, opting to use her middle name instead.

One thing Theresa thought was particularly funny on the discharge papers was the fact that she was not allowed to drive, do any heavy lifting, or return to work/school for a week but she was allowed, however, to have sex. “Mom, who on earth would even want to have sex after surgery on their stomach??”

On the day she had surgery, last Thursday, she also had a test in a summer class she’s taking. Since we did not know at the time that this was appendicitis, she went to class and then came back home in so much pain she could barely walk.

“I have no idea how I did on the test & I just don’t care. I was in so much pain I could barely think.”

It turns out she got 100 on the test.

Then she was concerned because this is her last week of the summer class and she has a final on Thursday. Theresa got in touch with her professor who told her not to worry about getting to the remaining classes, she is exempt from the final and she’s got an A+ in the course.

Okay, so how did I give birth to a daughter who goes to math class nearly doubled over in pain and pulls a 100? Seriously. I can’t even add without counting on my fingers. I think someone switched babies.

This past week, we missed a couple of promotion/graduation things. My niece ‘graduated’ from 5th grade on Thursday. We were supposed to be going to my brother’s house to celebrate that rather than the ER.

Earlier that week, my nephew/godson ‘graduated’ from pre-K. When they were all here yesterday for Father’s Day, we were filled in on that graduation. It seems that Christopher almost had his parents convinced that he was not supposed to wear the cap & gown like the rest of the children. No. He was going to dress up like a clown. He would then throw pies at the other kids and spray them with water.

Yes, my nephew thinks he is a comedian. I don’t know where on earth he gets that from. It couldn’t be his father. Or me. Or his godfather, Stephen.

One day early last week, before the appendicitis attacked my princess, she accompanied me to the local Food Warehouse. I love shopping there and getting the giant sizes of everything. Maybe it’s because I’m little?

They have a self checkout there now so you can scan your own items. I don’t usually do that when I’m by myself because when you have a lot of stuff, the belt thingie gets backed up too quickly. That, however, is not an issue when I have Theresa with me.

I scanned things & she made sure the belt was cleared. Then I got to an item that wouldn’t scan easily. The stupid machine starts talking.

“If you are done scanning items, please select Complete.”

Me: “No, I am not done scanning items. Hold your horses!”

So how many of you also talk to machines? Don’t be telling me I’m the only one who does that.

At around 5 a.m. on Thursday, darling daughter woke me up complaining about stomach pain. I figured she had a stomach bug, sent her back to bed and I think I may have mumbled to Frank, “The only reason she should be waking me up at 5 a.m. is if we need to go to the emergency room.”

Guess where I was going 8 hours later.

Darling daughter is taking a class over the summer & had a test on Thursday morning. She came home from school at almost noon, barely able to walk. I thought she felt warm and took her temperature, which was a shade under 100. For 10 minutes I debated whether or not to go to the ER just to make sure it wasn’t appendicitis. These were all the symptoms for it but they could also be symptoms for other, less serious stuff, as well.

She didn’t want to go because it would be embarrassing if it turned out to be nothing. Luckily I decided the heck with it. Off we went, out into the monsoon, to the ER. It seems the weather deterred the frivolous ER cases so we were taken right away.

By 8 p.m. Thursday night, she was off to surgery. Nothing like emergency surgery to make life interesting, eh? They were able to yank out her appendix by laparoscopic surgery so recovery should be fast. She’s home now, drugged up & resting.

Meantime I’m cleaning and cooking because… why yes, I am insane, thank you very much. I am having most of my family over tomorrow for Father’s Day, as planned. I can’t let a little something like surgery change my plans, after all.

I’ve heard of trails of breadcrumbs. I’ve heard of hiking trails. I’ve heard of trails of marshmallows, thanks to The Secret Life of Bees. However, this is one trail I have never seen or heard about before:

In case you are not quite clear on what that is, it is socks. A trail of socks. I’m not quite sure why there is a trail of socks on my bedroom floor. If they were dirty, I could see a reason. Maybe they were making a break for the hamper. But they’re clean and folded.

Who left the trail and why? Did someone in the house run out of clean clothes and didn’t know to look in the laundry basket? They, therefore, decided they must leave a trail of socks for other family members in search of clean clothes?

Since neither I nor Frank had anything to do with it and the old dog is incapable of going up the stairs, much less moving around socks while having them remain clean, that narrows the field down to exactly 1 suspect: Darling Daughter. The questioning will have to wait until tomorrow. Since turning 21, she’s taken a liking to going into the city with her friends. I’m okay with that as long as it’s not to the bar that was handing out coupons that said something about bikini bull riding.

This post falls into the “People Are Stupid and Lazy” category. Y’all will recall that I live across the street from a school. You may even recall me complaining about people who pick up their kids and park in my driveway, in the middle of the street, and all sorts of random places.

This afternoon, Theresa went outside to see this:

The gray car on the right is her car. Well, my car that she has temporary custody of. The green car on the left belongs to a parent. Now wouldn’t you say they are parked just a wee bit close to my car?

I was hoping to give the woman a bit of a scare by being out there with my camera. She was unfazed and unapologetic. Another woman who was about to park in my driveway, however, thought better of it and drove further down the block to a real parking spot.

The offender, on the other hand, was belligerent and acted as if her parking skills were perfectly fine & that she did nothing wrong. What was I worried about? A slightly crushed license plate? I couldn’t help remarking that, since it wasn’t raining out and was, in fact, rather nice out, that I didn’t see the necessity in trying to park as close as possible to the school doors instead of finding a legitimate parking spot. I didn’t add the next part – that she certainly looked like she could use the exercise that walking 10 extra feet would give her.

Her rational in parking so close to my car may have been that she thought she was clearing the driveway of my neighbors. If that was the case, then she needs her eyes checked:

It seems to me that she’s hanging into their driveway by a good 2 feet at least. Judging by her crumpled license plate, I’d assume her parking skills could use a bit of work. Meantime, I’m thinking it sure would be fun to post the license plate numbers of people someplace on line, with their pictures.

Over the past few days, I learned a couple of things that I thought I’d pass along.

1. If you are using the back end of a putty knife to bang shut a container of spackle, clean the spackle off the blade first. Otherwise, it will spray all over you.
2. Sanding a ceiling is not a whole lot of fun, no matter how small the section is that you’re sanding.
3. Paint always dries darker than what those little strips tell you it will look like or what it looks like in the can.

I went with a lighter shade of pink When we were talking to my son tonight, I told him I painted the dining room.

“Guess what color I painted it.”
“I have no idea.”
“Pink”
“Dad! Where were you when this happened? You let her paint it pink??”
“But pink matches the vertical blinds in the living room.”

He didn’t care. I then told him no doubt it would fade and be a completely different color by the time he’s back home.

Oh, item #4 – when you paint the ceiling in 2 rooms and a hallway and paint the walls of 1 room it makes everything else look really, really bad. I suspect I am not quite done with the painting yet. One day I hope to be rich enough to hire people who will paint for me.