I Still Knit January 19, 2012
Posted by poopslacey in FYI, Genius, Sticks and String.3 comments
Seriously. I'm not just tossing back malted milk balls over here. I'm WORKING.
I swear to God, I still knit. I’ve been up to my ample ass in special orders, though at this point it seems there’s a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.
Today, I’m officially stalking the mail carrier because she should be bringing me a package of yarn any day now. With that fabulous fiber, I can make the last three orders on my list. I have one more order in negotiations, and then, God willing, I might be able to make some new stuff to list in my shop.
It’s cold as shit here as of late. We had a mild winter so far, then all of a sudden…WHAM. On the plus side, people are ordering woolens from me like there’s an anticipated sheep shortage in the works, but it hasn’t left a lot of time for me to make the projects that are scratching around in my brain. On the down side, this kind of cold is insidious when you have an old house like mine, and even with the pellet stove going constantly, the space heater on in the living room, and the furnace up, my feet are still freezing most of the time.
First up on my list of Fun Things to Make: felted wool slippers for myself. Damn, I’m cold!
SOPA Protest January 18, 2012
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.1 comment so far
It seems weird to protest SOPA by writing a brand new blog post, especially after having nothing to say for so long, and to post it on a day when some of the biggest (and some of my favorite sites) have gone silent for the day in protest of the SOPA bill about to go before Congress.
If you don’t know what it is, educate yourself. I could run it down for you, but I’m protesting here. (Yes, we all know it’s because I’m too lazy to retype all of this stuff, but I can make links all day long, baby.)
I’m opposed to this particular bill. It’s not that I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. I’ve had my intellectual property stolen, and while it still goes up my ass sideways when I think about it, I don’t believe a bill like SOPA is the answer. As Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal put it so colorfully and succinctly, “This is like dealing with a lion that escaped from the zoo by blasting kittens with a flamethrower.” Perhaps the government would be able to use a bill like this to keep internet pirates from cutting into the profits of major movie studios, but under that same law, their ability to shut down my blog, or my Etsy shop, or Facebook, or Google, or any Reddit, or any website they want without due process is problematic. In my mind, there’s a big difference between protecting intellectual property and government-sponsored censorship. SOPA doesn’t draw that distinction.
So today, when you go to look something up on Wikipedia and you can’t, or the black censorship bar on Google catches your eye, remember that those sites and this one and all the other fun and informative places you hang out on the Internet exist as they do because we say it’s okay that they do. SOPA allows the federal government to step in and decide when they should not. Sure, it’ll keep content from being stolen, but from here, the cost of that seems pretty high.
Now, since that post just exceeded my annual limit on discussing politics, I’m going to go cleanse my intellectual palate with pictures of cats with funny captions…
Flat Stanley, Five Guys and a Finale November 26, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.3 comments
Can I get a big round of applause for guest blogger Aunt Bunny? You have to hand it to her: she took the instructions to “tell the second-graders a little something about your trip for their social studies project” and turned it into a 40-page scrapbook. Can you imagine what she’d do with a blog of her own? I’d read it.
Anyway, here is the final installment of Flat Stanley’s Adventures, in which our intrepid paper hero makes it all the way to the Sunshine State. Thanks, Aunt Bunny! Love you!
Stanley is in the home stretch! A quick stopover in Georgia and then home to Florida! Let’s see how this all wraps up…
Georgia
5:15 p.m. We no sooner cross the line into Georgia and we are pulling into the Comfort Inn and Suites located in the beautiful city of Savannah. I wish our hotel was downtown near the river, but we wouldn’t have the time nor the energy to do any sightseeing if we were there. It’s been a long day.
We do a very quick check in at the front desk and begin making plans to grab dinner across the street.
Back to the hotel and Stanley is feeling frisky. I discover him out in the hall trying to climb into the soda machine. I guess he figured that if he got inside the machine, maybe he could just snap the top and drink it sitting inside. I crush his plan and haul him back to the room. Next thing I know he has my shower cap on and is getting ready to step under the water. Stanley’s next stop was bed, with orders not to move.
“Just listen to me.”
Monday, October 3, 2001
7:30 a.m. We have once again inhaled our free continental breakfast and are back on the road. During our 8 minute meal, I had to explain to Stanley how the cereal dispensers actually worked. He was absolutely crushed when he learned that they were filled right there in the dining room. He had somehow gotten it into his head that they were hooked directly to a pipe line at Kellogg’s in Battle Creek, Michigan, and that Tony the Tiger was running the whole show out there. I believe the next time Stanley is told that there is a breakfast buffet waiting for him downstairs, he will enter the dining room with the dry cleaning bag that he snagged from the hotel closet. You never know when you’re going to drive through lunch.
That lady in the picture is Paula Deen and every other word out of her mouth is “y’all,” which is short for “you all,” which is something you hear a lot of down here in Georgia. Here’s a few other examples:
- Ahr. What we breathe. Also a unit of time. ”They should have been here about an ahr ago.”
- Cayut. ”Be sure to put the cayut out before you go to bed.”
- Clone. ”What’s that clone you got on, honey?”
- Dreckly. ”He’ll be along dreckly.”
- Jewant. ”Jewant to go over to the Red Rooster and have a few beers?”
- Retard. No longer employed. ”He’s retard now.”
- Yontny. ”Yontny more cornbread?”
The list is endless. I almost hate to stop.
8. Zit. ”Zit already midnight, Sugar? Tahm sure flies when you’re having fun.”
Sorry, I couldn’t help it, being from up nawth and all. Getting back to Paula Deen. She is a well-known television cooking show host and she has almost reached sainthood right here in Savannah where she resides. I dined at her restaurant a few years ago and enjoyed Southern cooking at its finest. If Bruce only knew how much butter is dished up there, I guarantee that we would have spent last night in the seedy rooming house across the street from the place.
Miss Paula surely does tawk, er, talk with a southern accent. Have your mother turn on her wonderful cooking show to see what I mean. Not only will you see a true southern belle, but you will also watch her make a recipe that requires a minimum 3 sticks of butter. You will also order your mother to stop what she is doing and immediately whip up that recipe. One day I saw Paula make a jello mold and somehow incorporate butter into the recipe. She’s absolutely brilliant, but deadly. She’s married to some old guy named Michael, but everybody calls him Captain. He says very little, stumbles around, and has one eye that droops. Five will get you ten* her cooking gave him a stroke.
As our route takes us south through Georgia, we literally hug the coastline and take in the beautiful scenery of the state’s outer banks and islands. We cross lots of bridges, affording us many chances to see birds and boats and all the homes situated on the river. This area always seems like a lovely spot to stop and visit.
I have been told that Georgia is a terrific state to go hunting in, since you can find wild boars (pigs) the size of a small Volkswagen running loose in the woods. Boars also have front tusks (teeth) the size of a Chiquita banana and since they do not enjoy getting shot at, you really don’t want to miss on your first attempt. You could always take your friend Bubba as backup just in case you miss. If he misses, his hound dog will jump in and try to do something. Anybody named Bubba always has a hound dog that goes everywhere with him, and in this type of situation, maybe you will get lucky and the dog happens to be a pit bull.
Personally, I’d never shoot at anything that had teeth and a temper that big. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t enter any woods south of Virginia due to all the creepy, crawly things you’re apt to run into. Last week in Florida, they killed a 16 foot python on the outskirts of the Everglades (big swamp) and you know what the authorities found when they cut it open? It had just eaten a full grown, 75 pound deer in one bite. Sort of reminds you of good old Mr. Venus Fly Trap doesn’t it? Only this time Mr. Python slithered up from behind and got himself a Big Gulp, not unlike the one that Aunt Bunny gets at the 7 Eleven.
Now, it’s not that it’s not safe to walk in the streets down here in Florida, but if your golf ball rolls into the bushes, you don’t just reach for it willy-nilly. You part the greenery with a golf club and hope that a reptile is not wrapped around it trying to make friends. New Hampshire has tons of snakes. Almost every place on Earth has snakes. However, once you start heading south, they tend to grow longer and become poisonous.
Florida
9:00 a.m. Welcome to Florida, our thirteenth and final state! I didn’t think we’d ever get here. Time for a pit stop, so for the first time in all our years of traveling, we pull into the welcome center.
Now, we grow a lot of oranges and grapefruit here in Florida, but imagine my surprise when I discovered that we hand out free juice samples of the above named fruits! What a lovely revelation, since we purposely stopped at the other 12 welcome centers and were offered nothing but dirty toilets. Oh, I take that back. The state of New Hampshire offered to sell us liquor at discounted prices, sort of like they were saying, “Here, we’ll sell you liquor cheap, now go drive responsibly on I-93.” I hear that next summer NH will be selling liquor at the Loudon racetrack. What a plan! Let 120,000 half-drunk, irritated people spill out of that venue after a 12-hour day, ony to get caught up in a massive traffic jam with a fresh bottle of booze in their vehicle. But then again, V & V always did put a smile on my face.
12:30 p.m. We are nearing Melbourne, Florida and spirits are at an all time high. The car thermometer is reading 85 degrees and I’m down to only one layer of clothing, having lost the jacket and sneakers when we entered the state. It’s shorts and flip-flops and I’m feeling as if I may survive the upcoming winter.
At this point we are less than an hour and a half from home and it’s time for lunch. I would like to tell you that we stepped off the grease and caloric carnival ride that we have been on, but I have to take full responsibility for the next meal. The next lunch is Aunt Bunny’s secret indulgence. Two years ago Bruce had plans to take me to a $28 per person buffet on Mother’s Day and I squashed that deal and made him take me to Five Guys. I saved him a lot of money, but created a monster because I KNOW FOR A FACT he often slides through the one we have in town, whereas I might go maybe once a month. Obviously, when I suggest this place for lunch, I don’t hear a peep about his being on the Atkins diet.
“Remember the grease at Shoney’s?” I asked Stanley.
“Yes’sum, that was some powerful grease I seen,” replied Stanley.
“Uh, Stan, you spent less than 12 hours in Georgia. Lose the accent,” I sighed, continuing on. ”Seriously, after awhile some of those accents begin to wear on me.”
“I get exactly what you’re saying,” Stanley said. ”By the way, where do you store your vehicles in Florida?”
“Oh, we pahk the cahs in the garahge all wintah,” I said.
Since Bruce was swigging water from a bottle, he managed to blow a cup of it out of his nose. I believe it was at this point that the two of them bonded.
“As I was saying, there’s going to be a lot of grease involved in this next meal.”
“Well, shut mah mouth and call my momma shocked!” snickered Stanley.
The next thing you know, we’re entering the kingdom of Five Guys.
I don’t know anything about this place except for the fact that I should be their spokesperson. Everything is made fresh. They serve hamburgers, french fries, and fried hot dogs. As you are waiting in line, you eat peanuts and then throw the shells on the floor. Name any kind of topping for a burger and they have it. When they load your order of fries into the bag, they then take another big scoop of fries and throw it into the bag.
The food is so indescribably delicious, you know it’s deadly, but you just don’t care. Don’t look to buy any dessert after your meal here because someone high enough up in corporate figured that introducing sugar to this type of meal would someday lead to a lawsuit in the 9 figures.
This place has more food reviews than Tavern on the Green in New York City. Zagat’s gives it more thumbs up than the Roman coliseum ever had on a busy Sunday afternoon. BUT (isn’t there always a catch?) you will derive absolutely no nutritional value from a visit. Perhaps if you consumed a handful of peanuts and immediately left the building we could call that roughage, which is good when you’re constipated. I know this sounds selfish on my part, but I hope that Five Guys doesn’t come to Laconia so that I won’t be tempted year round.
“Quick, easy, cheap, bright, loud, and fun,” is how the Savannah Morning News describes Five Guys. If you were to add the word “short” to that list, you have just described Grammie Hane.
2:00 p.m. Home! We pull into our community of Hammock Creek, located in Palm City, and breathe a collective sigh of relief. We have driven 1600 miles in three days, through 13 states, not always in the best of weather, but we are back where our hearts really want to be. Even though I was born and raised in New Hampshire, fortunate enough to have gone through the Shaker Regional School System, I am always ready to leave my home in Belmont and head to Florida for the winter.
Bruce did not settle in New Hampshire until the 1970′s, but he feels much the same way I do. We taught our kids how to ski at Gunstock Recreation Area, not to mention how to skate on our many lakes and ponds. But with age comes the desire to seek warmer climates, and that’s what Florida does for us.
Over the winter we will have a few cold spells where frost could become a problem for our delicate plants, but overall, the temperature will stay warm enough so that we will be able to wear shorts throughout the winter. I drive a convertible car and will put the top down in January while you kids are outside sledding. When you school is cancelled due to a blizzard, I will be playing a round of golf.
Florida is the perfect spot for old people and trust me, we’re loaded with them. The nice section of housing that we live in has around 170 homes in the development. I feel that we have a nice blend of families here because quite often you see lemonade stands set up by the curb, as well as many kids playing outside. This past Halloween I gave out candy to about 50 little goblins. However, at least two-thirds of the homes are owned by older folks who are retired like us, some of whom travel north for the summer.
If you have an old-person ailment like varicose veins, glaucoma, bad heart, or skin cancer, you should have a doctor here look at it. Stuff like this is looked at as pesky little problems, since it’s so common. Bad knees and ingrown toenails? That’s like a trip to Hannaford’s.
Just be careful when you drive. You’ll need lots of metal and a minimum of four airbags. Old people stink at driving. If you can afford it, drive a Cadillac.
The time has come that I must now follow the Flat Stanley rules of engagement. I probably should have read them two weeks ago and saved myself a ton of printer ink and the possibility of a bad grade for Emma Bo Lacey. I will begin describing my home state and the little bit I know about it. Prepare yourselves for a picture montage, otherwise info was coming directly from Wikipedia and what second-grader wants that? No fact checking would be appreciated.
That’s Stanley making new friends while he’s here. He was thrilled to find someone his size to play with.
Tiger Woods lives just a few miles down the road from us. He recently moved into his new home and I’m not sure why he hasn’t called to try and make friends with me. I’d have no problem setting up a tee time and showing him around Palm City. He’s probably still going through boxes.
Time to say “good-bye”, Stanley. We enjoyed having you travel along with us on our trip back home to Florida. We made many stops on our 1600 mile journey and we saw many things. We hope that this journal gives a little insight, as well as laughter, into the lives of Uncle Bruce and Aunt Bunny.
Next Memorial Day weekend we get to do this all over again, only this time we’ll be heading north, back towards all of our relatives whom we dearly miss all winter long.
When you get home, please give Miss Emma Bo a big hug and a kiss from me and tell her that I love her. Please thank her for entrusting me with this project. It was a pleasure.
“Where you headed, cowboy?”
“Nowhere special.”
“Nowhere special. I always wanted to go there.”
“Come on.”
–Blazing Saddles, 1974
Stanley, South of the Manson/Nixon Line November 25, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.1 comment so far
How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was excellent, thanks for asking. While I have finished my Great American Novel, the rough draft of which finished up at 50,874 by their Word Count Verifier, and 50,916 by mine, I broke the tape almost a full week ahead of schedule and will be able to resume my usual blogging activities before you know it.
But not before I let Aunt Bunny finish the tale of Flat Stanley’s adventures. Poops would never leave you hanging like that. Take it away, Bun.
It’s Day Two of Stanley’s three-day trip to Florida. Let’s see what he learns about life on the road today, shall we…
Sunday, October 2, 2011
6:20 a.m. The alarm is set to go off, but the only one who has to be shaken awake is Stanley. He isn’t any happier about it today than he was yesterday morning. I can hardly wait for Monday. When I tell him that we have a hot breakfast waiting for us downstairs, his valise gets packed a little quicker.
7:00 a.m. Breakfast. Bruce likes to stay at the Comfort Inn and Suites because a continental breakfast is provided free of charge every morning. They actually put out a pretty good spread featuring eggs and some sort of mystery meat, waffles, cereal, and depending on how far south you travel, grits. Personally, I’d like to go to the first gas station I can find, grab a cup of coffee, a Krispy Kreme doughnut and hit the road. Bruce chows down at these breakfast buffets like we’re going to drive right through lunch. Like that ever happened in his life. Another thing to point out? You’d best be shoveling your food in fast because we are burning daylight. Time is miles, people.
Stanley caught sight of the cereal dispensers and gave an audible gasp. When I explained that it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet and no limit to the cereal, he literally began to tremble. When I further explained the breakfast rules as written by Bruce and that he had exactly 8 minutes to eat, he pleaded with me to either go out and slash one of the car tires or spill hot coffee in Bruce’s lap.
7:20 a.m. Breakfast is over. We have eaten. We have bused our tables and refilled our coffees. We’ve gone to the rest rooms. Bruce has checked out of the hotel and is sitting in the car and I am climbing into the front seat. Stanley is in a daze in the back seat with a Froot Loop stuck to his head. Bruce is giving me a look like I had stopped to read a magazine in the lobby.
“What were those grits?” asked Stanley, after regaining his composure.
“That’s something that Southerner’s eat to put even more fat into their diets,” I explained. ”Think of it as sort of like cream of wheat, only instead of adding a little milk and sugar, down south you add about a half a stick of butter and two tablespoons of salt to one serving.”
“I noticed Uncle Bruce really likes it.”
“It’s a vessel for butter. If he could figure out a way to eat 1/2 a stick of butter off his cell phone and get away with it, he would.”
During our travels thus far, it has been quite cool. When we left New Hampshire, the temperature was in the low 60′s and overcast, and as we continued driving south, the temperature only got colder. By the time we arrived at the hotel in Virginia, the weather was down in the 50′s and the next morning we awoke to 46 degrees. The sun was shining, but for early October in Virginia, we all found this weather to be quite chilly.
North Carolina
11:15 a.m. OMG! I was so excited to find this out about North Carolina! This state has carnivorous plants that grow wild in a few areas. Carnivorous means that the plant will eat something that is alive, like a fly or an ant or any insect that happens to crawl in its mouth.
Let’s say some innocent bee comes tooling along and decides that he’s simply had enough of flying and lands on the venus fly trap plant. Mr. Bee is minding his own business and is simply walking around on the head of the venus fly trap. Then he happens to look down inside of the venus fly trap’s mouth and spots all of that nice reddish area that bees are so attracted to when they are busy pollinating.
Yeah, you’ve all seen PG-13 movies when you shouldn’t have and you know what happens next. Sure enough, Mr. Bee crawls down right inside of venus fly trap and as Emeril has said one to many time, BAM! Mr. Venus Fly Trap’s mouth slams shut and lets Mr. Bee dissolve slowly in his mouth, much as you would do with a piece of taffy in your own mouth.
When I was a kid, I was always buying these things and sticking my finger into its “mouth” just to watch it snap shut. I felt that they were so exotic and mysterious that surely these plants had to come from places like Bangkok and Timbuktu. But Holly Shelter, North Carolina? I didn’t see that one coming.
Check out the picture of the girl bent down near the field of these plants and how they seem to individually rise up and look at her. Then look at a close-up of this plant. Right now that thumping noise from the movie Jaws is looping through my head. Aunt Bunny got the skeeves…
1:00 p.m. By this time of day we have already stopped once for gas and probably twice for bathroom relief. Old bladders and caffeine are not good travel companions. It is also time to eat lunch, as I feel quite certain that Bruce is down at least 2 quarts of grease since breakfast.
I should explain the phenomenon that takes place when Bruce travels for over an hour. It’s a little like being on Gilligan’s Island, playing Monopoly and he is Mr. Howell, who as we all remember only signed up for a three-hour tour. I will be playing the part of Ginger. Seriously, throw me a bone here.
I have been serving this man low-carbohydrate meals for the last 10 years. No rice, pasta, potatoes, or veggies high in sugar. No desserts or breads. He refuses anything that is high in carbs. In a restaurant he will order a sandwich without the bread. Instead of french fries, he’ll get a vegetable. Yum. If I didn’t attend casserole night with my family or keep junk in the house, I would be lying in a hospital somewhere with a feeding tube up my nose.
But put this man on any kind of a road trip and he acts like Mr. Howell with a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to mealtime. Bruce eats like his three-day road trip is going to somehow turn into a five-year excursion and he should approach every meal like it’s his last. I live in Florida, so I know it didn’t take Thurston Howell too long to figure out that a tropical palm fruit doesn’t grow overnight and that there aren’t that many on one tree. But certainly that isn’t Bruce’s problem since we pass enough fast food restaurants on I-95 to make Julia Child roll over in her grave.
Why does he do this on the road? Stress, maybe. Although Bruce goes to the gym religiously every other day for two hours, he never loses an ounce. I go a few times a week if I can squeeze it in to walk for half an hour and I have to eat bags of candy to keep the weight on. Come to think of it, we have Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, Five Guys, and tons of places like that here in town and I never ask where he goes for lunch. Wait a minute. Bunny’s having herself one of those Oprah “Aha” moments. She is also planning on serving spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner.
Suddenly there is a squeal of tires and we are coming off an exit ramp practically on two wheels. Remember that thumping noise from Jaws just before the shark hits? Okay, restart that music. Bruce has spotted the ultimate buffet and he’s going in for the kill. God help us, he spotted a Shoney’s.
“Why do you look so worried?” asked Stanley.
“Oh, no, no. I’m just fine,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Any reason why you just made the Sign of the Cross?”
You’ll know in a minute, I thought to myself. Bruce manages to get the car into only one parking spot and in we go.
In the past I’ve eaten at some moderately okay Shoney’s where I felt that perhaps only half of the buffet offerings would give me food poisoning. Not this one. A skull and crossbones flag should have been flown high above this location, large enough to spot from the highway. You know the highway signs that are used for Amber alerts that give out dire information? The state of North Carolina should have had one flashing for this place.
I took a look at the buffet and then I thought in an effort to save my life, why not have something cooked fresh? After I perused the menu and found 1/3 of the items blacked out with Magic Marker, I opted for the all-you-can-eat $5.99 buffet. I think they had hot dogs in the kitchen older than our waitress Tanya. When she offered Bruce a menu, he laughed in her face. At this point, his eyes had begun to glaze over.
“Y’all can start while I go get your drinks,” said Tanya, prompting Bruce to hurtle out of the booth, causing Stanley to hit the floor.
“What happened?” asked Stanley, as he crawled out from underneath the menu.
“Round one,” I answered. ”Quick, get up off the floor because he’s heading back!”
“What exactly are you afraid of here?” asked Stanley as we walked towards the buffet together.
“Well, normally it would be just a small case of diarrhea, not too severe,” I answered. ”But in this place I believe that we could be flirting with salmonella or possible ptomaine. I really don’t know how great the hospitals are in Georgia, but I know that a lot of people named Bubba work in them, so we need to choose wisely.”
After circling the lukewarm steam tables and trying to find something edible, we pass by Bruce as he is already on Round Two of his meal.
“I LOVE this place!” he hollers out as he dashes by us with a plate of pulled pork, bacon, and mac and cheese.
I settle on vegetables and dessert. I have never heard of anyone having to have their stomach pumped from consuming anything like this, no matter how dirty the kitchen. When it comes to eat my desserts, imagine my surprise when I’m less than enchanted.
I have chosen for my culinary treat: bread pudding, banana pudding, roasted apples with strawberry sauce, and whipped cream. I have provided a picture below for ease in description.
Starting at the top and going clockwise is the bread pudding. Where I come from, we have been taught to put eggs in the recipe. Lots of them. I’m not so sure this recipe called for any since I was unable to cut it with a steak knife. At the 3 o’clock position we have the banana pudding which usually involves adding fresh bananas. Again, not in the Shoney’s recipe file.
Sitting at the six o’clock position is what the buffet sign described as the apples in strawberry sauce. I was not sure where these apples came from because upon biting into the first one I felt compelled to spit it out. The strawberry sauce turned out to be reduced strawberry Kool-Aid. This was nasty, however, I thought it very clever on the chef’s part. Who knows what else you can to do to Kool-Aid?
If you check out the 9 o’clock position, you’ll spot the whipped cream. What can possibly go wrong, you ask? Turns out to be whipped butter. The 8 x 13 tray of it was sitting right smack dab in the middle of all the desserts. Not near the bread and veggies. Nope, right there in the middle of the sweets. I’m beginning to think that perhaps Bruce sits on a Shoney’s advisory committee for food placement. When he finished up Round Four and looked over at this plate of food, want to take a stab at the first place Bruce’s fork began to head?
“Don’t worry, Stanley, we’re gassing up across the street and I’ll grab us a big bag of Cape Cod potato chips to tide us over until dinner,” I told him as we left Shoney’s.
“Why do I feel so dirty?” asked Stanley.
“Think of it, kid. You’re made of paper.”
“Hello?” He said, rolling his eyes. ”Grease spots.”
1:40 p.m. Lunch is over and the car is once again full of gas. As is Bruce. Pulled pork and greens will do that to you. The sun is shining bright as it has been since early this morning and it would appear that all that nasty weather is far behind us. The temperature is still hovering in the high 50′s and low 60′s.
South Carolina
2:30 p.m. We are crossing our eleventh state line and Bruce announces that he can’t keep his eyes open and a nap is required.
Well, we certainly give new meaning to the words defensive driving. We stop and stuff our faces with food. Next we hop back in the car and resume the book on tape that has been droning on for the last 8 hours, usually with the sun beating down on us as we drive 80 mph. All while trying to stay awake. Maybe I’ll start packing water bottles with sprayers and we can blast one another if the drowsiness becomes obvious. I wonder how hard it is to post bail money when you’re traveling out of state.
We are never long in South Carolina so I know very little about it. It doesn’t help that we went to the bathroom less than an hour ago so we don’t stop a the welcoming booth along the highway. Oh, wait a minute, we did stop and there’s nothing much in their booklet. It’s all about golf here in South Carolina. Myrtle Beach is where you want to go to find a bazillion golf courses.
Since your Uncle Boo has retired, and being the excellent golfer that he has become, I feel quite certain that he will probably begin to visit here. Boo hits his driver like no one I’ve ever seen and his iron control is unbelievable. I have tried for years to emulate his chipping swing, but alas, I cannot do it. Perhaps if he invites me to come play golf with him at his new private golf course…
“No need to be coy, Roy.”
The only other place I know about is South of the Border. This is kind of an amusement park, tourist trap kind of a place. When you are going down the highway, you see this huge tower rise up and on top sits a Mexican sombrero. It always grabbed my attention, so I would imagine that it would get a carload of kids crying if you drove by it without stopping. It took me six years to get Bruce to pull over and stop and I’m married to him. turns out that you can climb to the top of that tower and walk around that hat and take pictures or whatever. After getting a good look at the place, if I had to work there, I would walk to the top of that sombrero and jump.
Now, there’s not a chance that you’re going to drive by this place and somehow miss it. Billboards begin showing up by the side of the road at approximately 127 miles before you reach the pit stop. In fact, the minute I see the first one, it’s imperative that I call your Grammy Hane and advise her of my location. Sometimes it’s only a simple text. I don’t know how we got into this habit, or why, but if I do not make contact I believe the State Police would become involved.
“I’m 97 miles away.”
“You stopping?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Bye.”
The one time I did stop, I bought Hanie a coffee mug from the gift shop just to prove I’d been there. It’s been for years and I’m still reeling from the fact that Bruce actually pulled over and stopped. I also remember thinking that the snack bar reminded me a lot of Shoney’s. I’m trying to come up with another place that I can begin to nag about stopping at for future trips. I’m pretty sure I saw signs for a snake and reptile zoo in Georgia.
Next time, Stanley gets Georgia on his mind…
In Which Stanley Visits Maryland and Doesn’t Get Crabs November 21, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.add a comment
In this installment of “The Excellent Adventures of Flat Stanley as told by Aunt Bunny,” our intrepid adventurers are halfway through their first day on the road, have just filled their bellies at Cracker Barrel and have crossed into the great state of Pennsylvania. Let’s read…
Pennsylvania
2:00 p.m. Lunch ended and within not too many miles we cross into Pennsylvania. I’m actually glad that we ate lunch at Cracker Barrel because should we end up in a multi-car pile-up on I-78 and die, I will have at least checked out with a belly full of grease and biscuits. It is now raining very hard and both Stanley and I are staring straight ahead since you cannot see very much looking sideways.
“I bet you could sleep if you would put your head back and close your eyes,” I said to Stanley.
“Just like you’re gonna do?” snickered Stanley. ”Are we almost there yet?”
“To what, exactly? Sudden death or arrival at the hotel for the night?” I asked.
“What do you say we get off at the next exit and you just mail me home from here?”
“I could also crumple you up and toss you in that old Dunkin’ Donuts bag,” I warned. ”I promised Emma that I would give you a three-day trip and that is what you’re going to get.”
“Is it going to be like this on Sunday?” whispered Stanley.
“Absolutely not,” I laughed. ”Tomorrow you will have had a bad night’s sleep and your butt will be sore.”
Now, I kind of like Pennsylvania. Not today, particularly, but pretty much in general. I have friends that I have known for years who live in Williamsport, which is located in the middle of the state. It is a nice little city and also home to the Little League Championship which is held there every August. This is where teams from all over this country and the rest of the world come to play to see who is the very best in the game. There is an old saying that states “There’s no crying in baseball,” but not here in Williamsport PA. These kids are aged from 9 to 14 and play with the hearts of professional (except for the Boston Red Sox) players.
I love watching these games because these are kids from small towns all over the United States who range in size from 4 to 6 feet tall. The kids respect and listen to their beloved coach, so when a player makes an error and starts to cry, that same man goes over and gives him a big hug and tells him “It’s going to be all right,” because he knows that young boy did his best. Pure respect. Baseball at its finest.
We’re still traveling through the Keystone State. It’s good sized. It is also home to the city of Hershey, the sweetest place on Earth. This is pretty much where all your candy is made. Name a candy bar or gum and the Hershey corporation owns the brand. I have been told that the smell of chocolate is in the air when you walk around this city, which is terrific when you’re in second grade and outside playing in the yard. I don’t think that it would be a stretch by my saying that this phenomenon must create total havoc when you are dieting and leaving your weekly Weight Watchers meeting.
Imagine sitting for an hour trying to garner enough will power to make the correct dietary choices for the upcoming week, you walk outside and “POW!” you get a full frontal lobotomy with the smell of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. As a former member of the “Hefty Honeys” quasi diet club, I can guarantee you that will power and common sense are non-existent. Common sense and will power are talking to each other just like Scooby Doo and the next thing you know you’re sitting at Dairy Queen with a Blizzard in your hand. That’s why if I lived in Hershey, I would open ice cream stands near Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig store fronts. Seriously, it would be just like the free booze scam at Foxwoods Casino. Stand back and watch the profits roll in.*
Although chocolate is hazardous to a diet, there’s no denying just how good it tastes. It should also be pointed out that chocolate, at least in the female population, has long been considered a life-saving drug. Women are prescribed estrogen and progesterone for an assortment of lady issues, but if the truth be told, without chocolate, PMS and menopause would be a plague on mankind. Seriously. It would not be safe for men to look directly into their wives eyes and and then actually say something for possibly three days of every month. It also comes in pretty handy when you’re dealing with children. It would not surprise me to learn that Mrs. Clifford has a stash of Hershey’s Miniatures hidden in her desk that she hits while you kids are at recess.
The other cool thing about Pennsylvania is the Amish community. The Amish are a group of people whose religion states that they are to live a life of simplicity. They grow and make absolutely everything needed to survive. They seldom go to the store. They do not have electricity. They all dress alike in the clothes that they have made for themselves. When you get home tonight, take a moment to sit in your bedroom and count all of the things that you would not have if you were Amish. Right off the bat, your television and play station are gone. The lamp is gone, replaced by a kerosene lantern The Hello Kitty bedroom ensemble and the Miley Cyrus collection? Gone, replaced with a beautiful handmade quilt. Oh, and when the Amish have to take a trip in to town for medical reasons, they travel by horse and carriage. No cars allowed.
Want to know how kids entertain themselves? They all go outside and play together. Imagine that. I feel quite certain that they climb trees, throw rocks and sticks at each other and pretty much have a grand old time because there is always somebody to play with since nobody is inside flopped on the couch watching television.
Another cool thing about the Amish is the fact that the women never cut their hair and the men all wear beards. So if you’re a 12-year-old boy and able to grow a beard due to puberty setting in early, well, by golly, you get to keep it. I don’t believe you see a lot of 5th and 6th graders sporting beards at Belmont Middle School.
I bet by now you’re all saying “yuck.” Yes, children of the Amish are expected to work and do their chores diligently without whining and carrying on. This is how they are raised. But the nice thing about their way of life is that you always work as a family. When it’s time for a project, everybody helps. It’s sort of like having Old Home Day every weekend, but instead of eating fried dough and watching a parade, something is getting accomplished.
Could I go live with the Amish? I’m to settled in my ways, I think. If there was Direct TV, I might give it a week trial as long as I had a round trip buggy ticket to get me home.
“Altoona, come in. You’re on the air.”
(Regis Philbin impersonating Larry King)
The last thing I know about Pennsylvania has to do with Groundhog Day. It happens every February 2nd in the city of Punxsutawney. The town officials get dressed up in tuxedos and top hats and haul this poor groundhog named Phil out of his warm little burrow and drag him out into the cold. The story goes, if he should see his shadow, well then we have 6 more weeks of winter. If Phil should see no shadow, well then the theory is that the country will experience an early spring.
Bear in mind that this process happens whether it’s sunny, rainy, or snowing outside. Not what you would call an exact science, but all of the major TV networks broadcast the proceedings and report back what we can plan on paying for home heating until April. All because a wild animal, in a very bad mood due to his being roused from hibernation, is forced to look for his shadow, even on a cloudy day.
I like to tune in just in case Phil gets a chance to bite someone. Now that would be responsible broadcasting and I would hate to miss it.
Maryland
4:40 p.m. The rain has finally stopped and we are beginning to see blue sky in the distance.
West Virginia
4:50 p.m. You may have noticed how I said nothing about the state of Maryland. That’s because we were only in it for ten minutes. I got nothing. You go there to get crabs. Brace yourselves because you are going to get just about the same amount of information from me about the state of West Virginia since we’re going to be in this state less than 30 minutes. They are famous for coal, the Hatfield & McCoy feud, and a song made famous by John Denver.
“Almost heaven, West Virginia. Blue ridge mountains, Shenandoah River.”**
Virginia
5:20 p.m. We are getting close now. I have been informed by the GPS, as well as Bruce, that the arrival time to the hotel will be in less than 10 minutes.
5:30 p.m. Welcome to the Country Inn and Suites for the night! Well, we managed to make it through the first day in the car with no crying and no one puking. Nobody snarled and pointed their finger at anyone in particular. I don’t remember anyone threatening to not get back in the car tomorrow, so I believe this ranks as one of my best travel days ever. Dinner must still be consumed, but I believe we should be able to get through it without incident.
We unpacked the little bit of stuff we hauled into the hotel for the evening and I took Stanley down to the pool for a quick swim. Upon arrival, Stanley, of course, runs directly for the deep end.
“Don’t jump, Stanley!” I yelled.
‘Why not?” he hollered back over his shoulder. ”This looks easy enough.”
When I explained about swim lessons, drowning, and the fact that I would not be jumping in to save him, he seemed both disappointed and confused. I suppose it’s hard for a little kid to understand that when you’re traveling, one does not take the time to fool with your hair in the morning. Especially Bunny, when her hair dryer and curling iron are packed deep in the back of the Sequoia.
We moved over to the whirlpool where I introduced him to another kid. His name was Elijah and he was very familiar with the Flat Stanley story, so he swore that he would take excellent care of Stanley.
We had an early dinner at a restaurant right across the street from the hotel, so we managed to crawl into bed at a pretty good hour of the night. Lights are out by 9:45 and the snoring begins.
*Remember Connecticut?
**Ask Mama or Tanta to sing it for you. Just make sure that you allow plenty of time because you’re likely to get songs from the entire album.
In our next installment, Stanley learns about which is more deadly: a Venus fly trap or Shoney’s.
Don’t Let Flat Stanley Drive the Bus November 19, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.3 comments
Since I’m tearing through my 50,000 word magnum opus like a raped ape and am well on my way to winning NaNoWriMo for the first time, let’s talk about books.
It’s reported that I could read by the time I was four, which I honestly don’t doubt. Both the girls could read by the time they entered kindergarten, and Dave at three, while he can’t talk, acts out books he knows by heart, so I know he’s on his way to being an early reader, too. And I think that is awesome.
But here’s the damnable misery of it. It’s the books you have to read over and over again. I know that it’s a normal part of reading development, and it’s for damned sure they come by it rightly anyway. Part of the weirdness of being me is that I can read a book and months later not remember much about it. I have no real powers of retention, especially when it comes to fiction.
It sucks hard when it comes to having to remember what I’ve read because it’s information I need to absorb. Believe me though, if I’m interested in what I’m reading, it does tend to stick with me. But fiction? Not so much. I have taken books out of the library, all excited that there’s a novel that sounds like something I’d like very much, only to get home and realize that part of it seem oddly familiar to me. And sure enough, when I get back to the library and ask if I’ve ever had it out before…yep. You have. Twice, in fact. In two years.
The librarian thinks I have a brain injury.
But it’s not familiar enough that I can say “Hey, I’ve read this. I know what happens!” Usually, I pretty much don’t. I get a lot of mileage out of my favorite novels that way. Do you know how many times I’ve read James Michener’s Hawaii, Gone with the Wind, or QBVII by Leon Uris? Lots, man. Lots and lots.
Coming up fast on books I’ve read more times than I can count is the Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. It’s an awesome picture book and it’s Dave’s current favorite, and if I’ve read it once today I’ve read it fifty times.
I took three more of the “Pigeon” books out of the library last week, so I’ve spent the past 8 days rotating the first one with The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay up Late, and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. I’ve read them so many times that I’m starting to change the words just to amuse myself.
“Hi! I’m the bus driver. I have to go smoke a bowl right now, so could you keep an eye on the sauce hound passed out in a pool of his own urine until I get back? Great, thanks! Oh, and remember, don’t let the pigeon drive the bus!”
It’s not like Dave can repeat them at school and prompt a visit by CPS. Which is good, especially in light of my rendition of The Pigeon Solicits a Transsexual Prostitute.
For Mary it was Goodnight, Moon and we read that every night until my eyes bled. I read that so often that I actually hid the book. I hid it so well I still can’t find it. Luckily for us, Emma didn’t have that kind of literary OCD, so we got a reprieve with her.
No, Emma’s in the middle of the annual second grade Flat Stanley project. For the uninitiated, Flat Stanley is a book about a little boy who gets squashed flat, and when the airline won’t let him fly (because he’s flat), he gets mailed to his destination instead. As a tie-in social studies project, the kids cut out and decorate a Flat Stanley of their own and mail him somewhere, where he has adventures with the person he visits. Then he gets mailed back full of information about where he’s been.
Mary’s Flat Stanley went to New York City to visit Bob and never came home. My theory is, if the pictures are any indication, that he’s joined the road company of Wicked and is living with a Brazilian chorus boy who speaks little English and has a penchant for light bondage.
But I’m just guessing. He never writes.
Emma’s Flat Stanley went on a road trip with Aunt Bunny. Bunny and Bruce are snowbirds and when the weather in Belmont gets chilly, they get the fuck out of Dodge. This year, Flat Stanley went with them and saw most of the Eastern Seaboard from the window of the Sequoia. Aunt Bunny just sent her Flat Stanley material back and it should be noted for the record that she may have surpassed the project requirements a bit. It’s more than 40 pages of travelogue, and quite frankly, it’s entirely too good to just send to school without sharing. So while I’m pounding out the last 15,000 words to my novel before November wanes completely, I’ll let Aunt Bunny entertain you with the story of Flat Stanley’s trip to Florida.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome guest blogger, Aunt Bunny.
The Adventures of Flat Stanley
as told by Aunt Bunny
(with circles and arrows and paragraphs explaining what everything is)
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Belmont, New Hampshire
6:00 a.m. Beep, beep, beep! The alarm clock sounds and no one is thrilled with the early hour, especially Stanley. As he wiped the sawdust from his little paper face, he informed me that, whereas he certainly was looking forward to his three day road trip to Floria, he felt that perhaps a 10:00 departure would be more to his liking, and promply rolled back over in bed.
“Yes,” I replied, “as as much as Bruce would love to see you and I heading towards the airport right now, whatta’ya say you go run an eraser over your face and we go climb in the car?”
“But I’m going to miss iCarly at 9:00!” cried Stanley.
“Uh huh. Guess who’s missing Project Runway this weekend?”
“Let’s go!” hollered Bruce from somewhere within the house.
“Just get on the bus, Gus.”
7:00 a.m. Gone! Goodbye to 29 Highcrest Drive. See you in eight months after the the snow and sleet have pummelled you like Ali did to Liston at the “Thrilla in Manila” back in the ’70′s. I’ll be in flip-flops and shorts beginning this coming Monday while most people n New England begin tearing apart their closets looking for their fur-lined flap hats.
7:05 a.m. First pit stop, Dunkin’ Donuts. That didn’t take long. I believe this set a bad precedent for Stanley as he thinks that perhaps this is going to be standard procedure. Oh, nay nay. Stanley would like a large black coffee, but settles instead for a hot apple cider and flat bread sandwich, the irony of which seems completely lost on the counter girl. Soon we are back in the car, buckled up for safety, and our journey begins.
“Make a new plan, Stan.”
Massachusetts
8:15 a.m. We’re making good time, being Saturday and all, but it has begun to mist. Trying to bring a little bit of state trivia into the trip, I decide to chat it up a bit. As we spend the next hour and 15 minutes driving south and fending off the highly renowned Massachusetts driving force, I attempt to explain to Stanley the monumental collapse of the Boston Red Sox during the month of September.
By the time we are passing through the charming city of Worcester, Stanley is zoned out and doing origami with his Dunkin’ Donuts napkin, and the volume of Bruce’s talk radio keeps growing louder. At this point, we are so close to the Connecticut border I give up on my effort. I don’t even bother to mention Paul Revere, the Big Dig, or the New England Patriots. I’m thinking that perhaps I should have opened my discussion with Chinatown and the Combat Zone.
“You want table or boof?”
Connecticut
9:30 a.m. Of course it started to rain harder; we’re on a road trip. Not much to say about this state except a lot of my ex-husband’s relatives lived in a city called Meriden. They were nice people, but the city was kind of a dump, so I’m happy that I don’t have to visit there any longer.
About the only other place in Connecticut that I have ever spent any time at would be Foxwoods Resort and Casino. Now this casino is quite lovely, but please be forewarned that one goes there with one purpose in mind: gambling. When Aunt Bunny and her girlfriends were there, we were offered free alcoholic drinks so that our common sense would be affected, making us want to spend tons of money on slot machines, blackjack and craps. This free booze scheme actually worked on 3 out of 4 of us.
Now I’m not saying that gambling is a bad thing, because you can sometimes make money while betting. However in checking last years records, Foxwoods Casino paid out one billion dollars and raked in 27 billion dollars. This is what we call “lousy odds.” Sort of like if Mommy drove you to Groveton and dropped you off and told you to walk home all by yourself. Odds are pretty good you wouldn’t make it. If I have confused anyone with odds, etc., you should check with your parents because odds are very good that they themselves purchase scratch tickets and play meat bingo at the Elk’s club. Oh, and don’t worry about being driven far away and being abandoned. I’ve got money that says it’ll probably never happen to you.
“Run, you number seven dog, run!”
New York
11:00 a.m. We enter New York State and immediately drive past the Reader’s Digest Headquarters Building. Very impressive and very big. Stately, almost. When I was a kid, I used to look forward to having the new issue arrive at the house, where it was to remain in the bathroom so that everyone could receive their fair amount of time to peruse it. At first glance, this seems to be a very fair policy, but when one considers that four daughters and two parents had to share one batrhroom, the actual working of this plan was terribly flawed.
The first few weeks of every month, there was an increase in yelling and tap-dancing outside of the locked bathroom door due to unnecessary lingering on the toilet. As chance would have it, all four of us turned out to be excellent dancers, but, I will quickly mention, that we are also plagued by hemorrhoids. I do not believe that childbirth gave me or any of my sisters hemorrhoids. Actually, one of them never had kids! In fact there was a time…wait, where was I? Anyhoo, I used to love the magazine with its three page stories and all the jokes. I have not picked up an issue in many years. I may just may go back to reading this publication since I find that I have developed the attention span of a gnat. Were was I?
I told you all about the RDHB, but I failed to tell you that it is located in the town of Chappaqua. This is where former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton reside. Hillary is currently our Secretary of State, which means she is never home because she is always overseas trying to keep the peace between countries that have been shooting at each other, mostly over land and religion, ever since time began.
The US has been sending ambassadors to try and help out ever since someone started taking notes or began watching cable television. You would have to ask Anderson Cooper. Or better yet, wait until tenth grade because it will be a required subject. You’re going to hear much more about Bill Clinton in ninth grade civics class as well, but once again, I don’t really want to delve into that.
Stanley thought it would be great to swing by announced. Let’s see, Hillary is more than likely gone and Bill is home alone? I think not. Pretty soon we are crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge and heading towards Joisey.
“Remember me to Harold Square.”
New Jersey
12:00 p.m. Did I mention that it’s still raining? You know how we refer to New Hampshire as the Granite State? Well, New Jersey is called the Garden State. Certainly not due to the route we are on, or the New Jersey Turnpike, and least of all the city of Parsippany, where Bunny was forced to spend two weeks while training with FedEx many years ago. It is a tiny little state, but evidently quite fertile, because it manages to produce a ton of fruit and vegetables that we enjoy while waiting for the 12 feet of snow to leave our fields.
One very exciting thing about New Jersey is that it is illegal to pump your own gasoline. So what, you say? I can have my gas pumped right here in Laconia if I want. That is correct, but you will also pay right through the nose for it. But here in New Jersey? It’s cheap! No more rain, snow, sleet or hail. No more below zero wind that blows up your skirt so bad you curse yourself for not wearing a snowmobile suit to work that day. No more 97 degree days where you wish you could pump gas wearing only your underpants, but you know you would be arrested on indecent exposure charges. Trust me, kids, it’s always good to sit in your car. Unless, of course, there is a runaway propane truck barreling down on you, then you might want to think about leaving your vehicle.
It was so easy to delicately slide my credit card out of the window and quickly withdraw my hand back inside. ”Oh my goodness, was that a raindrop that just hit my hand? Please step back, Mr. Gas Station Attendant Guy, so that I can quickly roll up my window so that my hair does not frizz!” I love this feature! Just not enough to make me move here. Free gas and lights wouldn’t get me to move to New Jersey.
I’m just saying.
Clinton, New Jersey
1:00 p.m. Only six hours into the trip and everybody seems to be getting a bit touchy. I use that word loosely. Empty bellies are starting to grumble. Stanley has his face pressed against the wet window. I have a sore hip from braking, even though I’m riding in the passenger seat and Bruce has announced that he’s tired of Sirius radio. Yes, that Sirius, the one with 200 stations. Yup, it’s time for lunch and a book on tape.
Drastic measures are in order and I need to dig deep, but I have no other choice: Cracker Barrel.
The home of the 20,000 calorie serving of anything. The gift shop with so much potpourri that a migraine will instantly hit you the minute you step foot onto the front porch. It’s a place where a quick lunch can drag to over an hour. Where I’m always told to find a “really great” unabridged 14 hour murder mystery in the space of five minutes, when there are at least 200 books to choose from The place where I inhaled my lunch in order to find that exciting book, only to be told later, three miles down the road, “Oh, I read that one.”
But not this year. Nope. Nada. I ate; I read the jacket covers and found the perfect book. I also lost track of Stanley in the immense candy section. Melissa and Jesse who work there were kind enough to help me finally nab him in the Halloween candy section. There was a chase that ended only after Stanley had wound his way through the Christmas candy section, the Olde Time candy section, the lollipop section, the chocolate candy section,the miniature candy section, and was getting ready to bolt for the candied nut section when he was finally brought down.
“I LOVE this place!” said Stanley. ”Will we be eating lunch at Cracker Barrel again tomorrow?”
“Only if I slip into a coma just before noon,” I said. ”Besides, tomorrow we have to eat at Shoney’s. It’s Uncle Bruce’s favorite, so I suggest you try and get a good night’s sleep and rest up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will tomorrow. Any chance Emma made you a helmet?”
To be continued…
Well, Something’s Flowing Around Here November 11, 2011
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Turns out I might be better at this word-spewing thing that I previously thought. I’m on day 11 of NaNoWriMo and I’m more than 20K words into the story. I’m a full day ahead of schedule, which is good because it gives me a little breathing room for days like tomorrow when I’m going to be at a craft fair all day and knitting and shilling instead of writing.
I like doing craft fairs, but it’s not going to be a good year for me. Part of it is that I just don’t have the inventory on my table. Again, with the custom orders taking up all my time. My usual modus operandi of cranking out stuff, dropping it into a box, and selling the hell out of it at a later date. Not so much these days.
But before I forget, THE BRAIN HAT WENT NATIONAL.
I made it for the lovely and effervescent April Winchell of Regretsy. She posted one night that she saw a picture of a hat like that and wanted one for her upcoming trip to Finland. So, I made it and sent it to her. And she talked about it a bit on her little website. (The password to get in is “cf4l”.) And she linked to my shop, which is where I’ve been fielding requests for brain hats all week. I had to put it in my shop announcement that I’m not making any more for the time being, and then respond to the 30 or so people asking for one of their own.
I’m not a sweatshop. Never will be.
I’ve taken a few more non-brain special orders and I’m officially booked for Christmas gift giving.
So tomorrow’s fair day will likely be less about sales and more about having time to do nothing but knit, with no computer in front of me to lure me into writing more of my lil’ novel thingy. Of course right now I’m finding myself ready, willing, and able to keep going right now, but I really have to start loading the car to go set up.
I wonder if Jane Austen had to deal with this kind of shit.
I’ll Take “Things I Said I’d Never Do Again” for $400, Alex November 3, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.add a comment
I decided to give NaNoWriMo another go this year. And this year I’m going to do it totally legit. Too legit to quit. That’s me. Word. Or in the case of NaNo, 50,000 words in novel form by the end of November. I may just be a leetle bit crazy.
I’m off to a commanding start so far. Last year I did a bunch of short stories and blog posts and stuff. Lots of writing about different things because I already have two half-written novels in the works and didn’t really need to add a third. Plus, just writing and not editing as I go along isn’t how I work, but I figure what the hell. I’ll do it this way and see what happens. I need the boost to my creativity. I’ve been down, and sad, and find it’s not particularly conducive to my creative juices.
I feel bad that I don’t even have much in the way of knitting content to show you. Everything I’ve been making lately has been special orders, and I don’t get jazzed about them because there’s so little creating involved in it. But I’ve got a pair of mittens on the needles that I like so much I might keep them, and I am ridiculously proud of this brain I made. 
Here’s to brains, using them to their full capacity, and writing the best damn novel EVAH.
The Best Wake Ever October 18, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.2 comments
On Sunday, we had a little get-together to say good-bye as a Parish to Father Albert. By “little” I mean there were so many people there that we were getting concerned that the Fire Department would shut us down, and by “get-together” I mean a tribute to a departing friend and priest that I won’t forget for a long time.
In Father’s own words, “It was the best wake I’ve ever been to.”
We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more, and we came together as a Parish family. I realized how blessed I am to be part of such a large, loving, welcoming community. My cup runneth over to an extent that I almost had trouble grasping. And when I consider that I might not have been a part of that if it hadn’t been for Father Albert, my gratitude knows no limits.
I’m hoping to get my hands on the video of the presentations we made. I made one speech on behalf of the Altar and Rosary society, and I helped with the choir presentation, and until I can get the tape of the event digitized and downloaded, I’m printing the text of my speech and the words to the song we wrote and performed by popular demand.
Bear in mind that this was meant to be read aloud, and while I was speaking I had audience reaction to feed off of, and of course Father Albert in the seat of honor making comments as well. It was a more enhanced version, to be sure. But here’s what I said, in a nutshell:
Eleven years ago, on a hot summer day, I was visiting with my Aunt Elaine at her house. At one point during our conversation, I found myself staring out her big front windows that overlook the rectory driveway, and I watched the guy mowing the priest’s lawn.
I’d already seen him out there a few times, always hard at work. He had on a sweaty baseball cap, a college t-shirt, shorts and sneakers, and I remarked to my aunt, kind of off-handedly, “It looks like the priest hired a new kid to mow the lawns.” She just looked at me, and laughing a little, said, “That kid IS the new priest.” I couldn’t believe it either.
If you had told me 11 years ago that I’d be standing here in this church today saying good-bye and thanks to Father Albert as a member of his Parish, I’d have been skeptical.
If you had told me that I’d be standing here in my official capacity as President of the Altar and Rosary Society, I’d have laughed in your face.
If you had told me eleven years ago that saying good-bye to him would be one of the hardest good-byes I’ve ever had to say, I’d have wanted to know what you were drinking, and could I please have some.
Because I’m here on behalf of the ladies of the Altar and Rosary, I asked them at our last meeting what it was they wanted me to say today, and I took some notes while they talked. Every woman in that room had a story, or some memory, or some thing she was thankful for.
They talked the most about his compassion. They talked about his kindness. Some told how he made them feel welcome here. They said a lot of really nice things about him and my plan was to capture those sentiments and share them now.
But when I sat down at my computer with my notes and started to put together a tribute, I’m not kidding when I say that I wrote thousands of words but none seemed to hit on what we meant. I mean, sure, he’s compassionate. And sure, he’s kind. But he’s a priest. Not for nothing, but it’s kind of in his job description to be compassionate and kind. It’s like thanking a firefighter for being good with a hose.
Then, as I sat staring at the screen, about to delete everything I’d written and just tell the joke about the priest, the rabbi and the horse, I finally figured out what was missing.
I remembered that I have the key. I know why it’s so hard to find the right words to describe what kind of a priest he is, and why it is we’re so very grateful that he’s been our pastor. And why it’s hard to explain in words exactly what we’ll miss about him. I know the secret to Father Albert.
See, if he decided today to chuck the whole thing, which at this point wouldn’t really surprise me, and send in his letter of resignation to the Pope–if he hauled his lawnmower and Family Guy DVD collection across the driveway to Robin’s third floor; even if he got his dream job at KFC, he’d still be the same guy.
He’d still be a daily, living example of Christ’s love in this world.
If he never again cracked a Bible, he’d still preach the Gospel every day just by the way he lives his life.
He would continue to be a model of compassion, kindness, and love, even if he traded in his collar and his habit for a hairnet and a name tag.
He is an amazing priest because he is an amazing person, and it is the person that we are going to miss.
The truth is, Father, and everyone in this room knows it, that priests come and priests go, but it’s the man inside the cloth that leaves his impression on a Parish, and you are forever an inexorable part of this place.
We are better for having known you because you know what is important, you live your life in the light of that knowledge, and once we know it too, we can’t help but follow. If we know Christ, it’s because you’ve shown us his face.
And as much as I wish the Bishop had completely forgotten that you were here and left you with us until we were both drooling into our tapioca, we all know that there are so many people out there still searching for that light, and like you did here, you’re going to bring it to them.
And if we seem to smile smugly when we talk about your new Parish, it’s just because they have NO IDEA of the blessing that is about to land in their front yard.
I bet they’re going to be as surprised as I was to find it’s mowing the lawn.
Despite not being sure it would happen, I managed to get through the whole thing without a single tear. I was strong, I kept it light, and I think two glasses of wine might be the key to me being a public speaker.
Of course, I had to catch my breath before going up to be a public singer as well.
Jeanne and I came up with the idea of changing one of the songs we do during Mass as a tribute to him, changing all the words to things that we’ll remember and miss. So we recruited Sistah and the three of us went over to Jeanne’s house one Sunday night, drank some margaritas, and once Jeanne hit on using our Lenten penitential litany, “Hold Us in Your Mercy” as the base tune, it was ON.
The song is comprised of 11 couplets followed by the community’s refrain. Jeanne sang “Hold us in your memory,” and then we set to work brainstorming things about him that were funny and would make good song fodder.
Then we just made them rhyme and fit the music, and in a couple of hours, I was half in the bag and the song was in its draft form. I tightened it up the next morning once my headache went away, Sue P. was brought in to sing it with me, and the rest, as they say, is Parish history.
It’s really meant to be seen, or at least heard, but for the people reading it who were there and wanted to see the words, here they are.
Hold us in your memory (Hold us in your memory)
Hold us in your memory (Hold us in your memory)
As you’re called by the Holy Ghost, (Hold us in your memory)
Here’s what we will miss the most: (Hold us in your memory)
Mass starts at eight, not eight-thirty; (Hold us in your memory)
It runs long when you get wordy. (Hold us in your memory)
Who just fainted in the back? (Hold us in your memory)
Blood sugar or a heart attack? (Hold us in your memory)
Christmas lights sure set the mood; (Hold us in your memory)
Public Service loves you too. (Hold us in your memory)
It’s fifty-five, I have a chill. (Hold us in your memory)
Did you ignore the oil bill? (Hold us in your memory)
So much incense I feel woozy; (Hold us in your memory)
I go home smelling like a floozy. (Hold us in your memory)
You dunk babies that we bring, (Hold us in your memory)
Then reenact The Lion King. (Hold us in your memory)
Four hour Vigils take their toll; (Hold us in your memory)
It’s our Catholic Super Bowl. (Hold us in your memory)
Brides and grooms don’t dare be late, (Hold us in your memory)
Your lawn and gardens just won’t wait. (Hold us in your memory)
Thou shall not sing Amazing Grace, (Hold us in your memory)
You’re all too white–it’s a disgrace. (Hold us in your memory)
Changing lyrics is a breeze; (Hold us in your memory)
Lift High the Scotch and Tasty Freeze. (Hold us in your memory)
The Christmas Fair we all adore; (Hold us in your memory)
It looks like Little Bangalore. (Hold us in your memory)
We’ll miss your Benedictine black: (Hold us in your memory)
Once you go monk, you don’t go back. (Hold us in your memory)
Hold us in your memory
Hold us in your memory
Hold us in your memory…
When I get video, I’ll post it. It’s really pretty funny. And rather poignant, because that litany is sung by Father Albert during Lent. He comes in and after starting the incense, he kneels before the altar and sings it with the choir and community singing the refrain. It’s really very powerful and beautiful, and someone at rehearsal said that this parody was going to ruin the song for us come Lent.
Jeanne pointed out that we might not be singing it this year at all, and that swift, sudden knowledge that we wouldn’t hear Father Albert lead us like that again led to a few unexpected tears.
The things I’ll miss keep coming up like that…hitting out of nowhere and taking me by surprise. One minute I’m fine, and the next minute I’m sitting here with tears running down my face. It’s getting better, I swear. And I know it won’t be long before I’m thinking of other interesting things to write about.
But if one can’t be self-indulgent on one’s own blog, what’s the point? Right?
Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen October 9, 2011
Posted by poopslacey in Genius.7 comments
How do you say good-bye to a friend? Personally, I’ve always like the way the French say à bientôt. It’s less of a “good-bye” and more of a “see-you-soon.” It’s a hopeful phrase, one that lets the hearer know that this is good-bye for now, but not forever.
After eleven years in Belmont, Father Albert has been transferred to a new Parish. It happens. A dozen years is really pretty much the maximum shelf life for a priest in any Parish anywhere, and I guess we all knew in some way it was coming. It doesn’t mean we’re ready. He’s going to a Parish that needs him, and he has to go where he is called to go, and while I know that and I know it’s selfish of me to wish that he could stay here until we’re both old and senile…well, fuck it. I’m selfish. There. I’ve said it.
How do you say good-bye to someone who has been your priest, your neighbor, and your friend for eleven years? I can tell you from where I sit, it’s not easy. Not easy at all.
If Father Albert had been only any one of those things, perhaps I’d feel differently. Perhaps my heart wouldn’t feel so terribly sad right now. I’m reminded of one of the final lines of Charlotte’s Web, when the narrator tells us “It’s not often that someone comes along who was a good writer and a great friend. Charlotte was both.” I find myself overwhelmed by the knowledge that it is truly a rare blessing when someone comes into your life who is a great neighbor, an amazing priest, and a true friend. Father Albert is all three to me.
I met Father Albert when he was newly assigned to St. Joseph…well, that’s not entirely true. We didn’t exactly “meet” for some time. In fact, one day when he was fresh on the scene, I was visiting with my Aunt Elaine at her house, which is directly across the shared driveway from the rectory. The lawnmower was in full swing across the way, and I looked out the window and casually mentioned that it looked like the Parish hired a new kid to mow the lawns. Aunt Elaine just looked at me in that are you mental way she had honed as a teacher, and said, “That’s the new priest.”
You’re kidding me. Riding around on the lawnmower with his baseball cap and his college t-shirt. Really. He’s wearing shorts. Priests don’t wear shorts. Do priests have legs? I’m pretty sure even thinking about a priests legs is a sin in some way. *crosses self* How old is he? This guy’s not old. Priests are supposed to be old. And they sure as hell don’t mow their own lawns.
But yeah, that was him. The New Guy. I got to know him as a neighbor first, and I’ve really come to believe you can take the measure of a man by how well he shares his driveway with you.
I was happy enough just to find out that he was friendly, but it was within only a matter of months that we found out that his easy-going and warm personality was outmatched by his generosity, and there are kindnesses you don’t easily forget. It’s why his first winter here sticks in my mind most of all. It wasn’t too long after he arrived in Belmont, Aunt Elaine fell and broke her hip. The next day, in what has gone down in history as the scariest Halloween ever, my dad had a major heart attack. I’d stop by the house every day to check in with Aunt Elaine to make sure she was okay and take care of little things she needed done, and she would tell me about her day: how she was feeling, who had dropped by and stuff like that, and she’d always tell me when Father had paid her a call. He stopped in pretty regularly, just to say “hi” and see if she needed anything and to see how she was healing up.
During one of my daily visits just before Christmas, I noticed a new poinsettia plant next to her on a table, and as it was a really beautiful specimen of plant in a color I’d never seen before, I complimented her on it. She said Father had brought it to her. And he told her that with Dad out of commission and unable to move snow around, and herself temporarily grounded, we were not to worry about clearing the driveway. He told us that he would see to (and pay for) having it plowed, and there were many snowstorms over that winter that he and I would be out there together after the plow had come through, bundled against the cold, running our snowblowers in tandem and shoveling out the tight spots. We’d lean on our shovel handles to catch our breath and complain about the snow, but right about the time we were both starting to threaten to move to Tahiti, Spring always came.
Spring meant it was time to work in the garden, and back then he tilled one small garden just behind his house. Aunt Elaine cultivated her own garden, and as Mary grew from baby to toddler, she shared their love of digging in the dirt. Aunt Elaine passed away in 2003, and Father took over planting her garden, and quickly put in a second one next to his first one. Eventually he added a raised-bed plot near the back door of the house as well, and between the four gardens, the riotous flowerbeds that ring the rectory, and keeping the lawn neat and tidy, he spends as much time puttering in the yard as he does in his Roman collar. Maybe more, even. His hard work has kept the food pantry full of fresh vegetables for a blessed few months out of every summer and fall, though I’m almost certain at this point that the number of zucchini plants he put in every year was exactly calculated to get the maximum effect in what can only be described as a twisted bid to piss off the neighbors.
The man is a zucchini ninja. He sneaks around in his black habit, skulking around after dusk, and leaves zucchini where you least expect them. On your porch. Inside your house if you’re careless enough to forget it’s zucchini season and wantonly leave your door open. I’ve found them on the front seat of my car first thing in the morning. I believe, though I have no proof, that he has hidden in his office somewhere a complex spreadsheet of elaborately numbered schemes and Venn diagrams full of creative ways of foisting them on us.
At first I used to be worried that my kids were bothering him as he went about his work. He’s a Benedictine monk and I know that prayer and work–ora et labora–are their two “things” and I didn’t want them getting in his way or interrupting his time with God, if digging in the dirt was indeed how he was communing with God. Honestly, who can tell with monks? But I’d go out to the garden to check in and possibly retrieve my little interlopers if necessary, only to find him patiently guiding their hands, showing them how to dig the hole, set the plant in firmly, then loosely pack the soil to “tuck the plant in and put it to bed.”
My kids have spent hours and hours side by side on their knees in the dirt with him. I’ve never heard him talk down to them. Even when they’re talking about the things kids like to talk about, he discussed it as if it was the most serious concern he had at that moment. When they had questions, he answered them, and always in a way that they could understand, but also in a way that gave them something more to think about. Sometimes they would be out there playing in the dirt, just being silly about the things kids are often silly about, and he would fall right into line with them, adding his own brand of silliness and teaching them some really bad jokes.
It turns out there are lots of different ways to pray.
Because Mary was only a baby when they first met, and she had only seen him working in the gardens or on the lawn, her toddler ears heard “Farmer Albert” instead of “Father” and by the time she was three, half the Parish referred to him as Farmer Albert.
I don’t remember him ever being too tired or too busy for them.
My favorite days were the ones when I’d walk up the lawn and at the crest of the hill, just out of sight but within earshot, I’d stand and listen to them singing. My kids have my freakish ability to remember the lyrics to songs, and Father’s made it a point to enlarge and expand their repertoire for me. He did admit to me just recently that perhaps Emma might have been a bit too young for some of the vintage Blink 182 he shared, but he figured that since it’s in Dave’s IEP that I want his first sentence to be “Go to hell, Lois,” he was probably going to be cleared of any wrongdoing in the Court of Mama. At the very least we are surely going to share a seat in the handcart.
They’ve acquired a colorful vocabulary, for sure. One Sunday morning, Emma woke up grumpy and spent the whole time we were getting ready for Mass with a hair across her ass. I don’t know why, or what it was about, but she was cranky. We took our place in the front pew and Emma got a pen from my purse, and using the missalette as a lap desk, she bent over her children’s gospel activity page and with furrowed brow, began writing. I prayed, and read the bulletin until the kids’ whispers next to me got heated and more frantic.
“Give it to me!”
“NO.”
“You have to show it to Mama.”
“NO. She’ll be mad.”
“I’m going to show it…”
I interrupted and hissed through clenched teeth for Emma to give me the paper. Teary-eyed, she handed it to me.
She was all of five years old. I still have no idea why she was mad.
I stifled a belly laugh, and hugged her tight to let her know that I was far from mad. Now, I have a mouth like a longshoreman. I admit it. You all know it. Have my children picked up some colorful language from me? Fuck, yeah. But “bastard” isn’t an expletive I toss around very much. Not much at all, in fact. No, I knew exactly where she’d picked that one up, and he was in full vestments getting ready to come down the center aisle.
When the Mass was ended, we filed out and waited our turn to shake hands with Father Albert as he stood just outside the open doors under the portico. The girls got hugs, enveloped as they so often were in the folds of his chausible, and then I produced the paper. ”It seems,” I said in my most grave and stern voice, “that Emma was having a bad morning.”
The swath of destruction left by a very greedy woodchuck. Bastard.
He looked at it and laughed long and hard. ”That one’s on me,” he confessed. ”I take full responsibility for the introduction of the word ‘bastard’ into her vocabulary.” Not that I needed confirmation, but I appreciated the acknowledgement, anyway.
That was the summer of the woodchuck, and that fat, hairy bastard had been systematically eating vast quantities of cabbage and broccoli, and had been declared persona non gratis on Parish property. ”Stewardship of all God’s creatures” be damned, it was no secret to anyone in the Upper Village that Father Albert considered the woodchuck a greedy, destructive bastard, and that son of a bitch had to go. There were other epithets for the ‘chuck, but as some of them were in Arabic or Greek and possibly had to do with the woodchuck’s mother’s virtue being questionable, I can’t repeat them here. I would, but alas, I don’t speak Greek or Arabic.
Dad eventually got the bastard with the .22, which is a minor miracle, since I have it on good authority that Father Albert was mixing up several molotov cocktails laced with napalm in the rectory basement.
All three kids have developed a bat’s hearing when it comes to knowing that lawn and garden equipment is in use. They’d tip their heads like a dog hearing a whistle, and on realizing they heard the tractor or the lawnmower, and they’d shoot out across the lawns to see what he was up to. No matter what he had to do, or where he had to be, he had time to put a kid on his lap and take a ride down the driveway, down the street, up our front lawn, behind Tanta’s house, and back to the garage. Each one of my kid’s growth can be measured in being too big to sit in his lap and steer. In fact, he was saying just this summer that Dave was barely squeezing onto the seat.
He told me on Monday night that he sold the tractor. I tried not to cry. Will Dave even remember this?
One hot, summer day, the girls had been missing for quite some time, and I hadn’t heard the tractor running in awhile. Don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t worried. The kids have always had run of the property, and I knew they didn’t go farther than the rectory on any given day. But when my dad didn’t answer his phone, curiosity got the better of me and I went next door to see what they were up to. Dad was sitting in the barn in the shade, watching the waves of heat shimmer on the pavement. I asked where the girls were, and he pointed towards the rectory.
I walked in and Miss Adrienne was sitting at her computer, working. Miss Kathy was sitting at the long table, bent over a stack of paperwork. Father Albert was sitting on the office floor, a girl on each side of him and a box of chocolate donut holes open in front of them. With fists and cheeks full of chocolate-y goodness, they all grinned up at me from the carpet. ”It’s donut time!” he said, as if this was what happened in the Parish office every afternoon.
Truth be told, I was to find out later, that he actually added things to his shopping cart just to have something on hand for when the girls would stop by and come over all peckish. After months of neither of them eating their dinner and wondering why they’re never hungry at suppertime, I finally weaseled out of them the information that they had snacks almost every afternoon with Father Albert. I mentioned it to him, and suitably chastised for ruining their dinner, he instituted by mutual agreement the Did You Have Supper Yet? rule so that they wouldn’t fill up on junk.
Emma, of course, would not be deterred by trifling things like rules.
One night, after pushing her plate away untouched and declaring that she wasn’t hungry, I beat gently pried a confession out of her. Häagen Dazs individual ice cream cups. Casually, I mentioned it to him when I happened, purely by chance, to show up in his yard later that evening, kid in tow.
“I did ask,” he insisted, and turned to Emma. ”You told me you had supper.”
“I did have supper,” she said. ”Last night.”
They’re kindred spirits, those two. It’s hard to stay mad at either of them.
New growth level achieved: big enough to drive the tractor solo.
It’s hard to figure out where the line between him just being a good man and being a dutiful servant of God is, though. He wears his vocation so easily and so casually that I’ve found it nearly impossible to separate the two. He is a man who has been gifted with a great faith, and as I’ve grown to know him as my Parish priest and as a religious brother, I’ve come to realize that even when we’re laughing hysterically at completely inappropriate things at wildly inappropriate times in truly inappropriate places, I still know I’m in the presence of someone who truly understands what is important and who lives every day of his life in the light of that knowledge.
I caught the first glimpse of that in a very profound way after Aunt Elaine died. He had come to know her in his first three years here and the two of them had had casual, friendly visits in the way that neighbors do. She passed away on Holy Thursday, and I didn’t know it at the time, but the period of time between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday, the Paschal Triduum, is the busiest and most demanding time of year for Father Albert. Robin and I had a short meeting with him to set up the funeral details and he scheduled the funeral for Easter Monday. Then he went back to what I would later find out is the Herculean task of getting the Church and himself ready for the biggest day of the liturgical calendar.
Defiance.
On Easter Monday, we gathered at St. Joseph’s and for the first time I heard Father Albert celebrate Mass . In the midst of my grief, in all the hubbub that surrounds a loved one’s passing, I found peace.
When he delivers the homily at a funeral, he steps off the altar and talks right to the family members in a very personal, compassionate way. He came down and stood right in front of our spot in the front pew and he spoke to us of Aunt Elaine and shared some memories of her that he held dear. He spoke of her as a friend and a neighbor, and since we had told him that she was Catholic (information that surprised him immensely since she had never thought to mention it to him) and had spent time in a convent, he captured parts of her spirit I don’t think I would have caught, and I knew her my whole life. He reminded us of the Easter promise and assured us that Elaine never forgot it in her own life, but he did it in ways that weren’t couched in official Church-speak, and without using any of the tired, trite, words that we tend to fall back on at times like that. He spoke with surety of her resurrection and place at God’s table, and was sure that whatever differences she and God may have had, they were certain to work them out, and that in due time God would come around to her way of thinking.
He made us laugh, and he made us cry, and he cried with us a bit. Letting us know that his heart hurt too was one of the best, most meaningful things he could have done for me as a priest.
After the funeral, perhaps a day or two later, Robin and I were standing out in the driveway of the big house talking. Father saw us and came over. He told us how on Saturday, on the day when he’s running around like a madman trying to get everything in place for the big Easter Vigil, he had some extra flowers left over after finishing the planting outside at the church. He said he was halfway across the driveway with a flat of plants that he thought Elaine would like for her flower bed, before he stopped in his tracks because he remembered, as he said, “Oh. She is risen.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that it caught me off-guard. He didn’t say, “I suddenly remembered that she’s not here” or “she died” or “she had passed.” No. In his mind it was a simple matter of fact that she was indeed risen. He said it in the same way he would have said, “I suddenly remembered she was on a cruise.”
She is risen. The combination, I think, of the fact that those words were the first ones he chose to describe why she was not at home on Holy Saturday, and the absolute certainty that those words were true, was the first real indication I had of what kind of a priest he is.
If he had shaded the words even a bit differently, if I had felt that he was saying something comforting for our benefit, I might not have noticed it. If I thought he was saying what he had been trained to say as a priest, I would probably have let it slide by in the way platitudes usually do.
But he didn’t. He wasn’t trying to make us feel better, I don’t think. I think he was just sharing a little bit about what losing his neighbor meant to him to two people who knew how he was feeling. I think he was letting us know that he was still adjusting to her not being at home, too. He was her neighbor, popping across the yard to let us know that she’d made an impression on him and that he missed her.
After that funeral, I guess you could say that having had a taste of the kind of Mass Father Albert celebrates whet my appetite for more. In the midst of the funereal circus, he had made an impression on me. Not in a “Hey, that was cool!” kind of way, but in the way you leave a fingerprint in wet clay. I was changed and it was only the beginning.
I had at least three people come up to me at the after-funeral reception and tell me that they thought it was the most beautiful funeral they’d ever been to, and that it almost made them want to go back to church, ha ha.
There was no “maybe” about it for me. I knew I was going back to another Mass. I decided I was going to hit the 4:30 Mass that Saturday and check it out, see what a regular Mass at St. Joseph was like in his hands; maybe give the Parish where I received my own baptism another shot.
I found a spot kind of nestled in the middle there and tried not to look out of place. People were smiling and talking, shaking hands with each other as they found their seats, smiling at me in welcome. I hadn’t felt at home in my own Parish for 16 years, so the warmth I felt was refreshing, and the whole atmosphere of the place was far more embracing than I had felt within the walls of any church in a really long time.
I don’t know how to describe adequately what makes a Mass celebrated by Father Albert stand out from that done by any other priest. I think the best way to begin is by saying that one of the first impressions I had of him as a priest is that he must have had some theater training at some point in his life. That’s not to say that the Mass is a performance in any way, or that he’s “showy”, but rather that a liturgist, like an accomplished director and actor, knows that the Mass is a public celebration, and in the same way a good play draws the audience into the world it has created, the Mass was from the very first day meant to do the same thing. The community is meant to be a part of it, not a passive lot of observers.
Father Albert knows that every word of that Mass means something, and he knows exactly what. He knows how to say it so that we know what it means. He knows that every gesture he makes is there for a reason, and he makes each one deliberately. He does not rush, because he understands that the silences and the stillnesses are as important as the words and the motions. Bob remarked once at his ability to take us right to the very edge. Any more and it would be over the top and he’d lose us, but he knows just where that sweet spot is and he nails it, every time.
He has an incense fetish that might be bordering on the pathological, but he knows that sense memory is powerful. One whiff of Easter incense brings you back to that joyful season, and you recall the Easter promise all over again. When he sprinkles the congregation with holy water, he doesn’t dick around with a wee little splattering of water. As they say in the amusement parks, “You will get WET on this ride.” That water reminds of us our baptisms, that we’ve said “yes” to God. A delicate drop or two won’t do. If you’re going to say “yes”, SAY IT LOUD.
At the end of the baptism ceremony, Father holds the child up and introduces the community to "Our newest Christian, born today of water and the Spirit, KUNTA KINTEEEEEEE." (Not really, but I wish.)
Father Albert is a master homilist. Or as Larry said, “I’ve never once wanted to take a nap during his homily.” Now that’s some high praise right there. That’s what you call a Ringing Endorsement from a man not prone to listening to speeches, sermons, or lectures.
The man can talk. I have seriously considered bringing my camera into Mass and secretly videoing his homily so that I can post it here. I can’t tell you because I’ve quite lost count of how many of those homilies have hit home in such a way that I really wanted to share it with the people who didn’t have the good fortune to be at Mass that weekend. I think he needs his own YouTube channel.
I don’t know what makes him so good at it. Part of it I think is just pure, unadulterated talent. God gives us gifts, and right before he was sent here to Earth, God touched this soul and blessed him with the ability to move people with his words. As Dave, my friend and fellow cantor said to us on the day Father announced his imminent departure, he always makes us think. We might not like what we’re being asked to think about, and we might not like what we find, but we cannot do any less.
As with my own kids, he never talks down to us as a community. He has an uncanny ability to address both young and old, bright and dim, educated and illiterate, and make us all understand what he’s getting at. But he also makes us work harder, too. He asks us to consider things beyond the basics, beyond the simple and the facile. He reminds us that nothing about the Gospel is easy, and that being a disciple of Christ is a pretty big job to take on. But somehow, knowing that he’s there to guide us, makes it seem doable.
Mary Catherine receiving her First Eucharist. Mary: Did he just say 'the cup of my butt?' Me: No, he said 'the cup of my blood'. Mary: Oh. That's GROSS. Me: *sigh*
And it is. Knowing Father Albert has helped grow my faith. After that first Saturday Mass during Easter eight years ago, I’ve missed maybe a handful of Masses, and all with good reason. I feel empty when it’s not part of my week. I believe that Christ is fully present in the Eucharist, and when we talk about being “nourished at the Lord’s table” I mean it. I mean every word of it. I know what it means, because that simple act of taking and eating, taking and drinking, feeds something deep inside of me. It adds fuel to a fire that was once only smoldering. Father Albert doesn’t know it, but he unlocked that mystery for me. I finally understood what I was doing. It was at his hands I realized what the word “communion” means after all these years.
I believe that if it wasn’t for his skills as a liturgist and a homilist, I might not be a card-carrying Church Lady today. I walked in those doors for the first time with one tiny, smoldering spark of faith to my name, and he–just by being good at what he does–fanned that spark into a flame. That’s where it all started. He appealed to the part of me that responds to beauty and intelligence. Then he taught me by his example that being a Christian means more than just pretty ceremonies and standing, sitting, and kneeling at the right times. It means rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty. It means washing feet and serving other people with the talents you’ve been given, whatever they are. If God has given me a voice to sing, I should put it to His service and join the choir. That move changed my life in so many ways. If God has given me talent as a planner and arranger of things, I should perhaps step up and lead the ladies of the Altar and Rosary for awhile. If God has given me a love of theology and for His Church, I should set aside my fear and share my faith with young people.
Paco receiving his blessing with his mamacita Jeanne during the Blessing of the Animals on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
Of course I know that all of that is just the Holy Spirit at work in the world. People come into our lives all the time, and while I don’t think the Holy Spirit moves them around like pawns on a giant cosmic chess board, I do think that He opens our eyes and ears and hearts and minds to the message they have for us.
She is risen. I took notice, and I have been rewarded and blessed over and over again because I happened to be paying attention.
Still, I refuse to go to him for confession. I pointed out that after all these years he already knows my best stories and has laughed with me at some of my best sins. My problem with confession is that at some point in the recitation of my sins I realize I’m just bragging. Hell, I’m not even sorry, so he couldn’t grant me absolution if he wanted to. And as he so succinctly put it one day, “Besides, you shouldn’t piss in the company pool.”
It sounds flip, but theologically and spiritually, it’s sound. Sometimes it’s not until later that he’ll come out with something like that and I’ll miss it the first time around, and then later when the house is quiet and I can think, his words come back to me and all of a sudden I’ll get it. And that’s only one catechism lesson I learned that was initially disguised as sheer smartassery. There have been so many more besides.
It’s testimony to him that as I sit here working all this out in the only way I really know how, part of me is looking forward to meeting his replacement. Father Albert has taught me by his example how to be a good neighbor. I’m going to go up to the rectory, introduce myself and my family to The New Guy, and welcome him to the Upper Village. I’m going to be myself, but better, because I know how to be that person now. He’s shown me how.
I’m ready as a Church Lady to help my new priest get settled into his routine. I know what is important now because Father Albert has taught me that. He set the bar for liturgy ridiculously high, but because I know that, because I understand what makes the Mass a beautiful celebration, I can find it now easily no matter who is presiding. That flame of faith is burning brightly, and it’s that faith that is going to sustain me. I know God holds me in his hands, and as He has always done when I’ve needed him, he will be there to help all of us deal with the transition. Especially Father Paul, God help him. The poor guy has no idea that knowing me is a dark ride, and you will get wet.
The hardest part of saying good-bye in all of this is saying it to the part of him that has become my friend. My friend. It’s the part I’m having the most trouble accepting. At the end of the day, I have no idea if our friendship is going to be one that he takes with him when he goes, and that uncertainty makes me sad and scared, and no matter how much I try to leave that in God’s hands and accept things as they unfold, I feel very much like I’m losing a friend, and it hurts.
The more I’ve thought about him leaving over the past couple of weeks, the more I’ve come to realize how big a part of my life he’s become. I don’t know if he fully understands what he means to my family…what he means to me. He’s someone I respect, admire, and have learned so much from. He’s been a spiritual guide, a teacher, and a hell of a good time. He is funny, so very smart, and as generous and kind as he is sarcastic and snarky. He is a contradiction in terms and I treasure every conversation we’ve had sitting in the grass beside the garden, the stories we’ve related standing in the church kitchen between Masses, and the laughs we’ve shared in the sacristy before Mass.
He is my friend, and I hope before he goes I’m able to tell him in my own voice just how very much I am going to miss him. I can’t just yet.
I’m not ready to say good-bye.
