Independence Days

Kasia July 4th, 2008

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans. Happy belated Canada Day to our neighbors to the north. Happy early Bastille Day to the French. (Why does everyone seem to celebrate independence in July?)

Beloved Canuck and I have settled in to relax for the weekend. There’s a pitcher of homemade sangria in the fridge (first effort - we’ll let you know how that turns out), he’s got a Guinness and the Tigers game, and I have a Lush bath bomb for myself for later (one of my favorite indulgences)

OK, so it’s not a barbecue, but we don’t have a grill. We’ll wander downtown tomorrow for the Taste Fest sort of thing, and just generally enjoy the long weekend. I also have an Independence Day-related surprise coming up, but it’s not quite ready to be unveiled…

Before I disappear for the day, however, I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all the service members, veterans, and military families out there. Since I know y’all, I’d particularly thank:

Bill and Michelle R. (Army)
June Cleaver and Ward (Air Force)
Jaibee (Navy)
DigiStephanie (Army) and her beloved
David and Jennie C. (Army) (just reunited after his latest tour!)
Kit and her beloved (USMC, if I’m not mistaken?)
The Catholic Caveman and his House Sergeant Major (USMC), as well as the other vets at the Lair
Paul the Regular Guy and the Extraordinary Wife (Air Force)
Advinius and his beloved (USMC, now Air Force reserves)
The Curt Jester and his beloved (Navy)
St. Jimbob of the Apokalypse and his beloved (Air Force)
Foxfier, previously Sailorette (Navy, of course)
(If I know you and left you out, it was not intentional!)
and of course,  a quiet “thank you” to everyone who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Revised prayer request

Kasia July 3rd, 2008

I posted about this last night, then took it down this morning. I wasn’t sure about what I had written. I’m still not sure. BUT, if you have the opportunity…

There’s a local story about a woman who checked or was checked into the hospital (precise details vary according to the news outlet), bleeding heavily. She or her boyfriend (again, details don’t agree from source to source) said she’d had a miscarriage, but examination revealed she’d given birth to a six-month-old baby. She then said, apparently, that her boyfriend had thrown the baby into the trash.

No one has established yet whether the baby was born alive.

She is in the hospital in critical condition. Her boyfriend, after a period of being unavailable for questioning, is being interviewed by the police. Detroit police are combing the area looking for the baby.

At this point, the baby is almost certainly dead - even if it was born alive, between being a preemie, having gone almost two days with no food, and the reports that the mother put the baby into a plastic bag and asked her boyfriend to “get rid of it”, I can’t imagine how it could still be alive - though I suppose it never hurts to ask for a miracle.

As it happens, I know the boyfriend. Not well, but I do. He’s the brother of a close friend of a close friend of mine (didja get that?) - they grew up together.

I’d like to ask your prayers first and foremost for the baby. Obviously he or she is the ultimate victim here.

I would also like to ask your prayers for the mother, who as I think I mentioned is still in critical condition. And believe it or not, for the father too. Even assuming the worst (which isn’t really fair to assume based on the available information right now), even if the baby was alive and he abandoned it to die - truly heinous - he is still a child of God and in desperate need of prayer.

I know it’s hard to imagine praying for someone who may have done something so awful. Believe me, I do. But I also know a little bit about how this man grew up to be who he is,; and while respect for the privacy of the family compels me to not share details, I can assure you that knowing what I know makes it easier to pray for him. He should absolutely be prosecuted for any crimes he has committed, but he also is in desperate need of God’s mercy and healing.

Finally, please pray for his brother (my friend’s friend), for his brother’s girlfriend, and my friend and his brother, who will need grace to sustain them as they deal with this.

Thanks very much.

Let them eat cake…

Kasia June 28th, 2008

…at the wedding reception. After all, it’s tradition!

Canuck and I have ordered our wedding cake, deposit and all. Half a dozen of us (me, Canuck, TBS, Jill, and my father and stepmother) traipsed out to Mannino’s Bakery in Sterling Heights (which I highly recommend to anyone looking for a wedding cake or just some yummy Italian-style pastries - based on what I’ve seen thus far, they’re about as good as the fabulous Bommarito’s over here in St. Clair Shores)  for a cake tasting. We tried four flavor combinations: chocolate cake with yellow custard, yellow cake with yellow custard, marble cake with no filling, and cassata (yellow cake with cannoli filling).

Now, I shan’t tell you which flavor we settled on (though they were all quite tasty!), but I will tell you that despite their all being very good and tasty cakes, the votes were unanimously for the agreed-upon flavor. And Mannino’s had an excellent staff member (a member of the family - she couldn’t have been 25 or I’ll eat my hat, but boy did she know her stuff!) helping us, and we came up with a combination of two designs that I think is going to be simply gorgeous.

What I found funny: my stepmother knows me too well. She knows I would have to be browbeaten into buying a pedestal cake plate for this (and if I did it I’d grumble the whole time about how it wasn’t really necessary) - heck, I’m being browbeaten into wearing a headpiece with my veil! - so she wrote down all the particular dimensions and is going to go shop for one and buy it for us. That way she gets the satisfaction of seeing it look “just so”; I get the satisfaction of seeing it look “just so” (even though I probably wouldn’t have missed it to begin with); and no one has to listen to me moan about it. Win-win-win.  :-)

I think I may dream about that cake tonight…

The Infamous Mother’s Day

Kasia June 25th, 2008

My beloved reminded me in the combox about Dogdini and DJ of a particular DJ story that just screams for its own post. What can I do - I aim to please…   :-)

Several years ago, when my mother still lived in Detroit, TBS had a brilliant idea for Mother’s Day. And I mean it: it was really a great idea.

We had been in the habit of ordering Pizza Papalis (mmm…) for Mother’s Day. It was quite popular, but also quite expensive. TBS said, “Why don’t we cook her a nice meal for Mother’s Day instead? It can be less expensive AND more thoughtful.”

I thought that was a lovely idea, but there were two big drawbacks. One, we both lived in small apartments and didn’t really have room for guests. Two, I was even less proficient a cook then than I am now.

“No problem,” said my intrepid seester. “I’ll handle most of it. I’ll do the prep work at home, and the grocery shopping; and then you cut me a check for your share and help with what needs to be done at Mom’s.”

So she spent her weekend chopping and dicing and slicing and otherwise slaving over a hot countertop, and on Mother’s Day she came over with the lamb chops and the side dishes and whatnot, all ready for last steps. I came over with myself and my checkbook.

First TBS discovered we had to scrub out the broiler, because my mother (and you can bet this is where I get my propensity to do things like this) had apparently forgotten to do that the last time she used it.

Then TBS instructed me on how to start the broiler and put the lamb chops in. In all things, I am her sous chef. The most complicated thing I think I’ve ever done on a project with her is knead dough (which I think I’m actually pretty good at - I learned from my beloved) when we made stollen. Meanwhile, she’s bopping around the kitchen doing all sorts of kitchen-madonna type of things, and instructing me on something else to do after.

After a short time we notice an odd smell.

We wonder what it is, but dismiss it.

It grows stronger.

For some inexplicable reason, it occurs to one of us to have me check the oven.

There is a giant blue blob in the oven. I have no idea what it is. I shout, perplexed and frustrated, “Who left a candle in the oven?!?”

My mother comes running and looks.

It’s not a candle. It is the dishpan they keep their recycling in. The plastic dishpan they keep their recycling in.

Now, you may be wondering why my mother would keep her recycling in a plastic dishpan, much less put that plastic dishpan into the oven. That’s a fair question.

She kept her recycling in the dishpan because it was easily stored and moved to places where DJ the incorrigible Brittany spaniel couldn’t get to it and chew up all the recycling.

But she didn’t usually keep the plastic dishpan in the oven. (Of course not. That would be silly.)

She usually kept it in the microwave.

It was not in the microwave that fateful Mother’s Day. She had moved it out of the microwave to use the microwave for something, and we, her unsuspecting daughters, did not think to ask “Mom, is there, perhaps, some chance that you might have put it into the oven for safekeeping?”

In fairness and in hindsight, I should have checked the oven before turning the broiler on. I usually check the oven before preheating it; it just didn’t occur to me to do so when using the broiler.

In equal fairness and hindsight, it was probably not one of my mother’s more intelligent decisions to put a plastic dishpan into the oven for safekeeping, especially when she knew other people were coming over to use her kitchen.

The lamb chops had melted plastic drizzled onto them, but we scraped it off and finished cooking them on the grill. They were salvageable. The oven, on the other hand, was not salvageable.

We had to air out the house and put DJ outside (where he tried desperately to get at the grill with the lamb chops). The cats hid in the basement, so we had to hope and pray that they didn’t asphyxiate from the fumes before the house was fully aired.

Poor TBS. She worked like a maniac trying to make a nice Mother’s Day, and that’s what happened. She was…shall we say , less than happy? I felt awful for her.

By the time dinner was ready the house was not yet fully aired, so we ate al fresco at a card table in my mother’s back yard, to the sounds of neighbor kids playing basketball and neighbor parents good-naturedly asking why we were having an outdoor dinner.

The oven was ruined. My mother had to buy herself a new stove for Mother’s Day.

And all because she had a Brittany spaniel.

It sucks to be the water table around here right now…

Kasia June 25th, 2008

Well, not as badly as in, say, Iowa. In fact, all things considered, we’re doing quite well here in southeastern Michigan. You know, apart from the near-collapse of the domestic automotive sector and the resultant economic chaos that’s wreaked.

No, natural-disaster-wise we do pretty doggone well. We get tornadoes from time to time, but nothing like they get on the prairies. We get an occasional tiny tremor, but if you even notice it, you usually think that a big truck just went by. We did have some flooding out in Clinton Township what, last year? But all in all, pretty good.

I’m really just taking a bit of a dig at myself. I live quite close to Lake St. Clair (hel-LO, fish flies!), and for some reason, presumably having to do with the waste-water treatment infrastructure, my condo association asks us not to do laundry when it’s raining.

Except that I am about out of work-appropriate clothes that I can bring myself to wear. And I stayed home from our parish novena tonight to do laundry, so that I can dress appropriately when I go tomorrow (and read the Scripture reflection, eek!).

Speaking of reading the Scripture reflection, the verses I’ve been asked to read are from one of the Gospels (specifically Luke 11:9-13). I know that within the context of the Mass only a priest or deacon with faculties should proclaim the Gospel. Does anyone have any particular knowledge of whether it’s appropriate for me, as a laywoman, to read from the Gospel from the ambo at a parish devotion like that? (Friendly neighborhood canon lawyer, I would surely appreciate it if you were to pipe up on this…)

Luke 11:9-13
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
9And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?

Beloved’s Blog

Kasia June 25th, 2008

My sweet Canuck has moved to a new blog, and being a very devoted Clam, I am taking this opportunity to pimp his blog here.

I’m updating my link - give him some traffic, would you please? Much obliged!  :-)

Luke 11:9-13
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
9And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?

Mmm…doughnut…

Kasia June 25th, 2008


You Are a Powdered Devil’s Food Donut


A total sweetheart on the outside, you love to fool people with your innocent image.

On the inside you’re a little darker, richer, and more complex.

You’re a hedonist who demands more than one pleasure at a time.

Decadent and daring, you test the limits of human indulgence.

What Donut Are You?

Curtsies to Mac at Mulier Fortis and Karen at Gem of the Ocean.

Luke 11:9-13
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
9And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?

Augh! They’re everywhere!

Kasia June 25th, 2008

So I JUST YESTERDAY finished and prepared to mail the letter to Bank of America asking that they close my credit card account because I can’t in good conscience do business with them as long as they support Planned Parenthood…

…and today I see on Yahoo news that Countrywide (my mortgage lender) shareholders have approved a takeover by…yes, you guessed it…Bank of America.

I hope I’m not morally culpable for supporting them when they take over pre-existing debt…

Luke 11:9-13
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
9And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?

Dogdini and DJ (no, not that DJ, another DJ!)

Kasia June 24th, 2008

About a week ago, I stumbled onto a blog that I’ve been enjoying. Maybe some of you have been clicking the link from the sidebar for Snarkolepsy? Those of you who haven’t, by all means check it out, though I will warn you that some of the language there is not safe for children’s consumption or for sensitive adults. Be ye thus advised.  :-)

Anyway, I got sucked in by pictures of cute bunnies, and the next thing you know, I was reading a post about the neighbor’s dog, a.k.a. Dogdini, who has an uncanny knack for getting into the Snarkoleptics’ yard.

I’m reading, and I’m laughing, and I’m scrolling down. And then I saw the picture. And the pieces clicked together, and the heavens opened up, and there was a sort of a light and “LAAAA!” song by the angels…because I suddenly understood exactly what the Snarkoleptics are going through.

Their neighbor has a Brittany spaniel.

This may get confusing, because I have often referred to a friend of mine who frequents this blog as DJ, and his wife as Mrs. DJ. Forget that, for the moment. The DJ I am about to tell you about is NOT my dear friend with the awesome wife and the four great kids, three of whom are special-needs. No. Not that DJ.

The DJ I’m about to tell you about is a dog. A Brittany spaniel, to be precise; and as long as I’m working on precision, I may as well use the past tense. DJ was a Brittany spaniel. After a long, full life of raising Cain, he died and is presumably flailing against the gates of Heaven while St. Peter stares in shock at this dog who is actually going to scale the gates.

DJ stood for Dakota Jewel, which was his AKC name. My mother had fallen in love with a Brittany at a pet shop a scant week or two before getting a call from a friend, asking if she could take a rescue Brittany.

My mother knew nothing about Brittanies except that the one in the shop was beautiful, and so sweet and playful! She took the dog. And much as I loved that dog, many was the time each of us rued the day she took him.

Shortly after she adopted him, she took him to the vet to get him checked out and vaccinated. Her vet, a charming man with a fabulously dry wit, said “You do know that saying a Brittany is hyperactive is like saying Attila the Hun was assertive, right?”

On top of “normal” Brittany energy, DJ had been crated for most of his puppyhood. Crated during the day while his owners were at work, let out for three or four hours in the evening, then crated again overnight. That’s a recipe for trouble with just about any puppy, much less a high-energy, good-sized one. And they wondered why he was so frantic when he did get out of the crate. Gee, I wonder.

And Brittanies are seriously high-energy dogs. For a Brittany to be happy, you really need a high-energy person or set of people who will engage with it and keep it active. I mean taking it out for runs a couple of times a day, a lot of play and attention, etc. They’re unbelievably sweet dogs, but I have yet to see anyone really give a Brittany the attention and activity they need. And when a dog is bored, that excess energy is going to translate into inappropriate behavior.

With Dogdini, that inappropriate behavior seems to primarily manifest in getting into the Snarkoleptics’ yard (over a six-foot fence). With DJ…well, let me count a few of his more notable escapades…

1. He had a habit of getting into the kitchen trash. My mother started putting a luggage strap around it, which did confound him for a few years. Then one fine day he figured out how to get the luggage strap off the trash can, and all bets were off.

2. He ate cockroach traps. Seriously - those Combat things? Yeah. Chewed up a box. No ill effects that we noticed.

3. He ate the lion’s share of a wooden spoon, and chewed up a metal frying pan.

4. Like many dogs, he thought the street was part of his territory. So every time the mailman (or anyone else) would come, he would wail out the most unbelievable series of barks you ever heard, and hurl himself against the foyer door. The <i>leaded glass</i> foyer door. One day - you guessed it - the glass gave out and he crashed right through it. Not a scratch on him. When my mom replaced the door, she had to have the glass covered with Plexiglass.

5. I am given to understand that someone I know (neither TBS nor I, and no, not my mother either) left some quantity of a herbaceous controlled substance within dog’s reach. Nobody saw it happen, but the ganja disappeared, Baggie and all, never to be seen again. We can only presume that DJ was a very happy puppy that day…

6. Although his behavior improved for several years with shock-collar training (yes, shock collar - it was the only way my mother found to get him to behave, and she was on the verge of getting rid of him before she found what we dubbed “The Hand of God”), after about age 10 he started to regress. I think it was senility. One day he actually ate vegetables that were roasting in the broiler RIGHT OUT OF THE PAN IN THE BROILER. One might have thought that would shock his system, but apparently not…

7. What finally did him in, after fourteen years of insanity, was - believe it or not - cat food. He broke into the room where the animal food was stored, broke into the metal trash can that held the cat food, and ate about seven pounds of it. You know how dogs will eat until they pop? Well, he didn’t pop, but he did throw his stomach, pancreas, and various other organs waaaayyy out of whack. He was on chicken and rice for a month, was slowly recovering, and then had a stroke in the backyard one day.

I have to admit that I miss him. He really was one of the most loving dogs I’ve ever known, and to this day I can’t see a Brittany without asking the owner if I can pet it and telling them about DJ.

The few of you who knew DJ, please feel free to add in any other stories about him that I’ve left out in the combox. Those of you who didn’t know him, how about some other dog stories? I’m feeling doggy and nostalgic…

And say a prayer for both the Snarkoleptics and their neighbor, eh? I think they’ll both need it.  :-p

Luke 11:9-13
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
9And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?

Boom, boom, diddum, daddum, waddum, CHOO!

Kasia June 23rd, 2008

Actually, emphasis on the BOOMs…

Either the City of St. Clair Shores has scheduled its Independence Day fireworks for tonight, or else the big downtown fireworks are carrying magnificently up here to Lake St. Clair. Either one is possible, and I’m not particularly concerned which it is.

All I know is that the cats think we’re under siege. Which is actually sort of cute, but I feel sorry for the poor guys - I can’t exactly explain it to them! Miko in particular is quite discombobulated. Poor kitty.

So since sleep is probably a lost cause right now, I’ll take a few minutes to tell anyone who cares (Matt) about our associate pastor’s farewell Mass and reception yesterday.

We had a pastoral transition last summer, and this summer it was our associate pastor’s turn to move on. We’ve been assigned one of the new ordinandi, who will be starting July 1; Father D, however, will be taking a new assignment.

For those of you who don’t know him, Father D is one of those guys you can’t seem to help but love. He’s a sweet, gentle, boyish man with a moderately thick Slavic accent. I still get an inappropriate chuckle when I hear him distributing the Eucharist:

“The BAH-dy of Christ.”

“The BLOOOOOOD of Christ.”

It’s very cute. I love accents.
Anyway, he’d been away for a while, and came back to have a farewell to and from the parish.  I have to admit, I choked up a bit hearing him celebrate Mass. One of the most endearing things about him is his awestruck wonder at the Sacred Mysteries; and hearing him yesterday drove that home again. I love hearing him be amazed by God. And I got a little teary when I realized that it was very possible that I’d never hear him sing that husky, slightly off-key “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith” again.

The Mass was lovely (even apart from the woman next to me holding my shoulder during the Lord’s Prayer). Father B concelebrated. Father XYZ got up to do the homily and said, “While I was away, I had plenty of time to write a VERY LONG homily for you…” to many chuckles from the pews. (Father D is not known for his homiletic brevity.)

But then he went on to say that he had torn it up, and that he just wanted to say some things to us. And as anyone who knows Fr. D would suspect, it wasn’t short! But it was one of those rare moments when hardly anyone seemed to notice how much time was elapsing. I know I didn’t.

He told us how much he loved us. He told us how much our parish meant to him. He told us how much love our parish had shown to him and to others.

And he told us not to be afraid.

It was one of those odd things, that his final Mass happened to be on this particular Sunday in this particular year. Because the readings were, I think, uncannily appropriate.  Jeremiah 20:10, for one thing. And Matthew 10:28. (My apologies to those of you who aren’t familiar with our parish; I’m being intentionally circumspect, both to protect some individuals’ privacy and to avoid sinning by detraction against anyone.)

Never be afraid.

The parish gave him two farewell gifts: a large framed picture of Christ knocking at a door (”Behold, I stand at the door and knock”) and a stole with the very distinctive parish installation cross embroidered onto it, so that every time he wore the stole to celebrate Mass he could remember that he was in our prayers, that he was loved by us, and that he was always welcome back.  And Fr. B read a blessing that had been composed especially for the occasion by our former pastoral associate, who had to return to the mother house because of health issues.

All in all: a lovely Mass.

And Matt, under the circumstances I wouldn’t worry too much about whether you fulfilled your Sunday obligation…I’m pretty sure being in the narthex counts. God understands cranky children.  ;-)

Luke 11:9-13
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
9And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?
13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?
Jeremiah 20:10
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg LXX Hebrew
10For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side: Persecute him, and let us persecute him: from all the men that were my familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may be deceived, and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him.
Matthew 10:28
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
28And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.

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