Deputy's Girl's Blog

Conflicted emotions

Last Friday, I received the church bulletin from my home parish in Texas.  My sweet friend, who is the church secretary, sends it to me via email each week.  As I hang on its' every word I discover that there will be Irish step dancers performing at a luncheon in March to raise money for the local order of nuns, and that there was a guest priest celebrating mass last week.  Plans are definitely under way for the pancake supper the Knights of Columbus host every year on Fat Tuesday and Shay is asking for volunteers to help with the set up and clean up of the Wednesday Lenten lunches and Friday Lenten dinners. 

It was difficult to read the rest of the news for the tears welling in my eyes and slowly coursing down my cheeks.  It's hard to believe that it still hurts so much to miss out on this parish life. 

I love my husband, I love my home - there's no place I'd rather live than on the side of our mountain in Alabama.  My life is almost perfect, except for the lack of a proper church in which to worship.  The Catholic churches here are an effront to the faith.

I want incense, I want Our Father and the Creed in Latin, I want a George Oldroyd type mass setting with beautiful historical liturgical music, but most of all I want the holiness and reverance to which I am accustomed.  It sickens me to attend a church where the only altar server is a) female and b) wearing flip-flops.  There is no choir, the flowers on the altar are artificial, garish and dusty and the new priest delivers his homily pacing around in front of the altar like a TV evangelist. 

It breaks my heart.

 

 

Death and Taxes

I can't remember exactly how the saying goes, but it's something like: "There are two things no one can avoid, death and taxes".  However, this year we get to dodge the tax part! 

After all the years of paying exorbitant taxes, I fully expected to be scrambling around on April 13th trying to figure out how to cover the check I was certain would have to be written.  When our CPA called to say that we were going to get a refund I very nearly dropped the telephone.  Poor man, he must think I'm either, a) stupid  b) hard of hearing or  c) demented because I simply could not seem to grasp the concept.  "What!  You mean we're going to get money back??"

That's not to say that the money isn't well and truly needed or appreciated.  When you live on a place the size of this one there's always something that needs to be fixed, fenced, hauled, dug, chopped or mowed.  Lately we've been having a considerable amount of trouble with trespassers.  How can they NOT see the fourteen *no tresspassing* signs posted at the bottom of the drive?

About a week ago, Dennis even confronted one on the front porch!  That man has no idea just how close he came to losing his life.  My Pal does not kid around.  Therefore, I know exactly what our tax refund will be spent on:  a gate.  Which in turn will require a keypad, which in turn will require a solar battery, which in turn will require a fence, which in turn will require............well, you get the picture.

You say it's your birthday......it's my birthday too

When I was a kid I didn't much care for my birthday because, well frankly, I always had to share it with my sister.  She was born three days before my first birthday.  That birthday was to my certain knowledge, the last one I ever got to have growing up on my own.  It's not that I don't love my sister, I do, but every single 'birthday party' picture my mother has features both of us.

The funny thing is, now that I am an adult I love to find other people who share my birthday.  A friend of ours down the road, who grows gorgeous ferns, shares my birthday.  I recently discovered that I share the day with some seriously famous men Jules Verne, James Dean and Jack Lemmon were all born on that date.  

This year it was a thrill to discover that my girlfriend Traci's middle daughter, Abby, shares the same birthday - she'll be two.  So, to celebrate, Abby and I are going to have our birthday party together.  We are all going to one of those places that have the giant inflatable jumping things.  I am going to jump, climb, slide, act silly with the kids and generally embarrass any other adult in the building.  It'll be a blast.  Getting to share an otherwise unremarkable birthday with a beautiful, dimpled, curly headed toddler seems like a pretty good deal to me.  It sure beats sharing it with a bunch of dead guys.

 

 

 

As Yogi Berra said: "It's deja vu...all over again"

Last night when I checked my email there was a note, with pictures attached, from one of the men who had been in Dennis's platoon in Vietnam.  The pictures were blurry and grainy.  Despite that, I could easily pick out the dirty ragged boy who became my husband.

The thing that overwhelmed me was their youth.  They were babies.

My Pal never had many pictures from the war and the one or two he did have somehow got lost along the way.  As Dennis sat in front of the computer trying to put names to the teenaged faces of the boys he once knew, I felt an overwhelming sense of pure white-hot rage wash over me.  How dare our government send children to fight their bloody God-awful wars.

Dennis was 18 years old when he was sent to Vietnam.  He wasn't old enough to vote.  He wasn't old enough to drink.  In fact, he didn't even get to pick up his own high school diploma.  However, by government decree, he was deemed old enough to die.  

When the rest of the kids in his class were walking across the stage to shake hands with the principal and revel in their newly aquired freedom, my husband was living in the jungles of Southeast Asia purportedly defending it.

As far as I can tell, the war in Iraq is shaping up to be no different from Vietnam.  Ultimately it will serve no purpose - and the politicians will somehow manage to adopt new foreign policies guaranteed to make the thousands of lost lives and broken minds a futile sacrifice.

The one thing the kids coming back this time are spared;  they aren't being spit on as they get off the plane.  

 

 

 

 

Morning has broken.....

Broken being the operative word around here today. 

• One half of my kitchen resembles the black hole of Calcutta because the ceiling fixture on that side of the room bit the dust a couple of days ago - who knows when it will be replaced. 
• Sadie sicked up in her puppy box at midnight last night.  Dennis just threw the bedding out onto the porch to be dealt with this morning - not by him. 
• Naturally the puppy sick made a big puddle on the porch where it froze solid and is therefore stuck. 
• It rained all day yesterday so there's mud everywhere from little furry feet. 
• We've been to Walmart about three times in the last two days and I still don't have my prescription refills. 
• And just to round things out, the brand new porch rockers I spent weeks searching for are still in pieces out in the garage because my spouse didn't like the glue that came with them.

My husband is a dear, loving, smart, handsome and good man.  He drives me crazy.

What is it with men?  Even the best ones, and I have one of the very best ones, are totally incapable of understanding that broken, messy, half done things drive us nuts.  How do they not get that?

It has to be genetic.