The Clam Rampant

Kasia May 18th, 2009

Thursday evening, Canuck and I went to visit with the DJs. (Yay!)

Friday evening, Canuck and I had a wedding rehearsal to attend. (Yay! ono two counts: one, that Peanut and Cletus got married, and two, that it wasn’t OUR wedding! Much more relaxing that way!)

Saturday morning, we went to the Rite of Reader at the Cathedral, then to Peanut and Cletus’ wedding. After the wedding we went to the hospital to see Adam. Then we went to the reception, had a lovely time, and got home…on the early side for a wedding reception, but quite late for us.

Sunday morning: 10:15 Mass, then a talk by a fellow parishioner, then errands and shopping. Canuck wanted to go down to Belle Isle (he’s never been) to do some photography, so off we went, then out to dinner.

Late last night, I found out that Adam died at 3:20 yesterday afternoon. I’m glad he’s not suffering any more, and while the Church doesn’t take a position without miracles and whatnot, with all he suffered I’m confident that he’s either with Jesus already or going to be very soon. But it’s still very sad, especially for his family and his closer friends. (HUGS!)

So now I’m waiting to hear about funeral arrangements for him…and then I heard that one of Canuck’s uncles (by marriage, but still) is in the hospital and not expected to live. (This uncle and aunt were unable to come to the wedding because of the uncle’s health…it’s been coming, we just didn’t know quite when it would be.) Prayers for Mac would be appreciated.

I will try to be back and posting later this week.

(Oh – and be sure to wish my beloved Canuck a happy birthday tomorrow! )

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , Family , Friends and fellow bloggers , Prayer requests , Stuff I do
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Kasia April 7th, 2009

There are a lot of vacant or auction homes right now, and a lot of people without homes or jobs. I’m not sure why this particular auction home makes me so sad, except maybe that I’ve loved this house for years and wished I could buy it.

I don’t think that’s the only reason, though. It’s definitely one reason – here my dream house is going up for auction starting at $10,000 and I can’t buy it. That’s grounds to be a little bummed.

For those who are wondering why not: terms of sale are cash, for one thing; and I already have a mortgage on the little condo Canuck and I are calling home, for another. Unloading a property in Michigan in this economy is the stuff prayers are made of (which is why that house is up for auction right now). Besides, on my salary we’re in no position to maintain a house like that. Even if we got the house for $40 or $50 K, and could finance it, what happens when you need a new roof, or the septic field – which I guarantee that house has – goes kaputt? Old houses need ready cash. (Just ask my poor dad, who has owned several, including a notorious money pit about fifty years older than the house we’re talking about, and a barn of a house from the 1920s that was, I gather, a nightmare to heat.)

Anyway. I can see that that’s part of what’s making me sad.

But I think more of it is that I’m looking at this 100+ year old house – maintained very well if the exterior is any indicator – that someone else has loved and lost.

People other than me loved this house enough to maintain it to last the past 108 years: through wars and the Depression and lots of lean times. And maybe it’s my imagination, but I think it looks like a house that’s held a lot of love. How do you fill four bedrooms, but with family and friends?

But the last someone who had this house…who knows? Maybe they couldn’t afford it when they bought it. Or maybe they bought a different house expecting to be able to sell this one (because it’s been on the market for some time), only to find that the bubble had burst, and they made two payments for as long as they could, until… Or maybe they lost a job – or two, or more - and simply ran out of savings.

I don’t personally know anyone who I know to have fallen in the first category, but I know plenty of people who fall in the other two. And I suppose a lot of what’s making me so sad about this house is that it reminds me of those people. It reminds me of friends and acquaintances who, through bad decisions or bad luck (and in some cases, both) have lost their financial footing and are trying to get it back in other, less economically ravaged areas. It reminds me of others I know who are on the edge, or near it, and who are living every day with the knowledge that that could happen to their house next.

Yeah.

I think that’s why I’m so sad to see it up for auction.

It’s Michigan in a nutshell.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Blessings , Detroit , Friends and fellow bloggers , Home , Perspective
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Kasia January 24th, 2009

…that I marry my best friend and the love of my life.

My hair is (basically) done, and the make-up artist should be here in half an hour.

Needless to say, things have already gone very wrong (from the standpoint of how planning is translating into execution). As an example, one of the groomsmen has been wretchedly ill, and though he is feeling somewhat better and is still coming into town (yes, I argued with him), he will not be standing up – he and his wife will just try to avoid getting too close to anyone, and we’ll find someone to stand in for him.

I’ll be back to blogging after the honeymoon.

It’s gonna be a beautiful day.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Friends and fellow bloggers , My Beloved , Stuff I do , Wedding
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Kasia January 7th, 2009

“What do you mean, the restaurant doesn’t have our reception reservation?!?!?!?!?” (They have it now, and no lawyers needed to get involved, thank Heaven.)

“The florist called. He can’t get the one and only kind of flower that he thought would work perfectly with your impossible-to-match bridesmaid dresses, so he’s talking about buying white flowers and dyeing them. When can we go look at a sample?” (That would be “Tomorrow after work, Alex”!)

“This is the hotel where you blocked rooms. One room for your block has been reserved. The block will automatically lift today. Please contact any guests who might need rooms and encourage them to book quickly.” (I know darned well more people were planning to book rooms, but with the last two things, I didn’t have time to deal with it, and begged a 48-hour extension.)

Yes, this was all within a 24-hour span. The last 24 hours, to be specific.

(Jill, I’m running low on Cosmo and Canuck couldn’t find it at our Kroger. Think you could score me a couple more boxes? I’ve still got a bar and a quarter of Sympathy, but the way things are going, that could change quickly…)

My cycle is all wonky. I’m afraid I’m perimenopausal. Canuck thinks it’s stress. He’s probably right.

I’m feeling broke, helpless, and anxious. And I have to go to Confession.

Oh – and I’m still calling people who haven’t RSVP’d. I’m not sure how much credence to give the claims of never having received the invitations, but anything is possible.

Did you know my sister thinks I’m about the most laidback bride she’s known? I’m very afraid of the other brides she’s known…

I’m not sure I can catch up on all the Jaibee challenge missed days in one night, so let me just list off a few things and we’ll see what else I have to add on tomorrow and the next day:

Today (T minus 17 days and counting): I love that he “gets” why we’re doing this, and keeps redirecting me to the bottom line. Which, of course, is that even if the flowers are nonexistent, the reception venue breaches their contract, and we get a whole bunch of un-RSVP’d guests…we’re still getting married. If my dress doesn’t come in, we can still get married. If someone has a psychotic break and runs through the church singing Edelweiss, we can still get married (after we have our burliest guests remove the unfortunate person from the church and restrain him/her).

We’re getting married. Period.

The other thing that’s been at the forefront of my mind today in terms of what I love about him is how good care he always tries to take of me. He can’t always do it – sometimes it’s just beyond human capacity – but he always tries, and he usually does a really good job.

So that’s Day 16.

I’m too tired to come up with more right now. I’ll try to do a couple extra tomorrow. I’m off to have more Cosmo and Sympathy (that’s actually Symphony, but I like Sympathy as a name), and to snuggle up with my poor under-the-weather sweetie.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , My Beloved , Perspective , Wedding
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Kasia January 3rd, 2009

I think I had forgotten what it felt like to sleep in. Feels pretty good. But don’t worry – I won’t get used to it.  :-p

Canuck and I are making progress in getting him settled in. However, we’ve agreed to minimize the unpacking/finding places for stuff this weekend and try to just have some quiet time together.

The stove is here! It’s bee-yoo-ti-ful! I’ve never had a brand-new stove before.

I’m having trouble stringing ideas together into a coherent post, so I’ll be back later…

• Autobiographical ramblings
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Kasia December 31st, 2008

Well, that’s not true, actually. I have plenty that I could do.

But my beloved is in the shower, and I am in my fleecy robe and jammies, sipping a Coke and wondering how I should spend the rest of the morning. I have to admit, “very little” sounds very good; it’s rare that I have a not-too-busy day to sit around and daydream.

Canuck, TBS and I all went to IKEA together last night. It felt like we’d bought out the store! We got a new TV stand that will better accommodate all the electronic gadgets he brought; we got him one of those funky Poang chairs that he’s wanted for years, which is a Christmas gift from me; we got him a desk chair, which is his Christmas gift from his mother; and he splurged a little and got me a drying rack that I’d wanted for ages but had never found anywhere until IKEA came to town.

You are officially old when a drying rack seems like a fantastic gift.

We’ve also gone ahead and purchased a new stove, which should be delivered Friday. I will, unfortunately, be back at work by then; but assuming they deliver it before about 4 p.m., he can have a nice dinner waiting for me when I get home.    I have already begun the “Honey-Do list” of things he can be working on during the days while I’m working; and with his help, I am thinking I will go back to riding the bus in the mornings. I’m terrible about getting out of bed, which means I drive nine days out of ten. (I will still have to drive one, maybe two days out of five, but if I can reduce the wear and tear on that poor old car, doggonnit, I will.)

Tonight we have plans to go to a New Year’s party in Rochester, unless of course the weather turns nasty – it’s a long drive on what my mother calls “Amateur Night,” and if bad roads get thrown into the mix, I might chicken out. I hope not, though; I’m quite looking forward to it!

Funny story before I sign off for the moment: yesterday we went to go meet with the priest who’s celebrating our nuptial Mass, and he was telling us (in his Slovak accent) how he, his associate pastor, and his former associate pastor were all riding together out to Toronto for a fellow priest’s birthday party. They get to Canadian Customs and are being asked the usual questions: where do you live, where are you going, whose car is this, what do you do for a living.

Three Slovak citizens in a car together. Illinois plates on the car (the former associate pastor is now at a parish in Chicago). Two say they live in the Detroit area, one in Chicago. Going to Toronto for a birthday party.

“What’s your job?”

“Saving souls.”

Customs agent looks at them – I’m surmising they weren’t wearing their Roman collars, but he didn’t say one way or the other whether they were. Customs agent writes “Saving souls” down on the yellow referral form and sends them straight to Secondary for further questioning.

These are the times that try Customs agents’ souls…kind of like when I told the U.S. border agent I’d bought a “missal”. I recommend saying “book”, if you are ever faced with that situation…  :-p

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , Cars - they eat at the table with you , Catholicism , Funny things priests say , My Beloved , Silliness , Stuff I do
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Kasia November 20th, 2008

Sunday night I had my downshift from “It’s so far away – it’ll never get here!” to “OH I WILL NEVER GET EVERYTHING DONE IN TIME!!!”

That was disturbing enough.

Then Monday night I had my first…well, I dubbed it my “forest-for-trees” moment, where I bit my beloved’s head off for something that was really so not worth snapping at him over. Yes, he’d goofed up; but the reason I called it the “forest-for-trees” moment is that our relationship is the point, not whether every single detail of the day is perfect.

Today I had to take deep breaths and refrain from snapping again. It doesn’t help that I’ve got other stressors going on at the same time, though that’s not an excuse either.

I am going to have ice cream for dinner.

Lots of it.

Seriously - I never thought I’d turn into Bridezilla, but I think I might be on my way.

So depressing. This definitely calls for ice cream.

** UPDATE **

So last night I was on the phone with Canuck, having nearly chewed through my tongue to avoid snapping at him again earlier in the day. I asked him if it would be in the budget to go out for a nice dinner on Saturday (not Friday, because that doesn’t really fit in the spirit of penitential Fridays).

He said sure, he thought we could work that out. Then he said:

“It’ll help, right? I mean, if you’re still going to be Queen B*t*h afterwards, why bother, right?”

Yes, he was joking. Yes, I laughed. A lot.

It’s gonna be a long two months.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Cranky Clam , My Beloved , Wedding
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Kasia November 14th, 2008

There’s a title for the ages…

It hit me this morning as I was driving to work. The last few days – well, really, almost a week – I’d been having little pity parties. Poor me this, I’m so ill-used that. You know. We all have them – at least, every person I know does – and hopefully we do our best to keep them to a minimum and in reasonable check.

When I was finishing my undergrad, I was researching a paper that dealt with the Serbian Orthodox Church’s responses to the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. I never ended up writing the paper – long story. However, the research I was doing included delving into a lot of European news services of the time, and reading all the stories related to the conflict and the region more generally. (I was looking for evidence of whether the church had spoken out, and if so, what had been said.)

Anyway. So I’m burying myself in news reports of the time, which (not surprisingly) are dripping with quotes from Serb leaders from Milosevic on down, plus the commentary from the church (which was, also unsurprisingly, pretty Serb-friendly), all of which goes on and on about how the Serbs are the real victims here, yadda yadda.

When you’re that immersed in propaganda, it’s hard to keep perspective. At one point I found myself getting very indignant on behalf of the poor beleaguered Serbs. I mean, what did they really do, anyway?

And then I shook myself and said, “Hello, self – Srebrenica?!?!” (Among other things, of course, but that was the one that jarred me back to reality.)

Now, my point isn’t that we should all hate on the Serbs. My point is that, given sufficient exposure to deceit, one can sometimes succumb to it and deceive oneself. Sometimes one needs a reality check.

And that’s what I’d been doing with my little pity parties.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit down and make myself remember at least a dozen big blessings in my life. I have a job, for one, and it’s even one that I like. I have a roof over my head, and a car to drive between home and work (and hey, gas prices are down!). Food in my cupboards and the ability to buy more. A much-beloved fiancé, who has already received his visa to come here and marry me. The freedom to marry him in our church, without having to post guards at the door to tell us if government agents are coming to shut down the service and arrest the attendees. Family and friends whom I love and who love me. Two very sweet, very affectionate (if sometimes obnoxious) cats, and several more critters in my extended family. The prospect of children. Both parents (and step-parents) still living and reasonably healthy.

And that’s just a start. Anything I might have to complain about seems pretty meager compared to all that.

• "Sin makes you stupid" - Mark Shea , Autobiographical ramblings , Blessings , Perspective
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Kasia October 21st, 2008

…upon receiving a prompt and reasonably courteous negative response to a question you e-mailed only the day before, but had originally e-mailed two months before and had never heard back on, your gut reaction is not “Oh, that’s a bummer,” but rather “And you couldn’t have told me this two months ago??!? YOU STINK!!!!! WHY ARE YOU SO FREAKIN’ BAD ABOUT ANSWERING YOUR E-MAILS?!?? AND THIS ISN’T THE ONLY E-MAIL OF MINE YOU’VE NOT RESPONDED TO, EITHER – I KNOW I’M NOT THE ONLY PERSON E-MAILING YOU, BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OF COMMON FREAKIN’ COURTESY?!??!? GAH!!!!! AND HEY, WHAT’S WITH YOUR ATTITUDE, HUH? HUH?!??!”

Ahem. At least Bridezilla has not taken over to the extent that any of that made it into my reply…thank heaven for small favors…

** UPDATE ** Please note that this post is not about anybody that has ever, to my knowledge, read this blog. It is about a wedding vendor, not a friend, family member, or anyone like that. (I feel compelled to mention that because I suddenly realized that I have friends who have been behind in their e-mail correspondence too, but I promise that nothing anyone on here has said or done has elicited that response.)

• "Sin makes you stupid" - Mark Shea , Autobiographical ramblings , Catholicism , Stuff I do , Wedding
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Kasia September 22nd, 2008

As my post last night apprised you, we made it home safely. Deo gratias!

En route, we stopped at my dad’s house to drop off the GPS unit he’d lent us for the trip. (That thing was an absolute lifesaver. Canuck and I were so enamored of it that we’re going to register for one, just as soon as he can do the research on which one we want.) More on the stop at my dad’s later. It’s too much to tangle with right now.

For a little review of the weekend…

Thursday was reasonably uneventful. After being off half of Tuesday and all of Wednesday with a bad cold, I knew I had to go in for at least half of Thursday, if for no other reason than to convince myself that I wasn’t a Dreadful Employee for daring to get sick the same week I’d planned to take two days off for an out-of-town wedding. So I went in for the morning, picked up the Canuck from his noon train, and came back to work until 1:30. Then we booked over to my house so I could finish packing, went and got some dinner, and I dropped him off at Starbucks to wait out my two back-to-back ENDOW classes (Mulieris Dignitatem and Edith Stein). He got bored about halfway through and decided to walk up to the church, which he thought was less than a mile away. It isn’t…but he survived the walk in good cheer. 

Then we headed for Kalamazoo. All things considered, that leg of the drive was pretty uneventful, though because of construction it did take us a little longer than we’d planned to complete it. Got to Red Roof K’zoo a little before midnight (probably about 11:45), got checked in and settled, and tried to sleep; then took off the next morning for Chicagoland.

First, I would like to say that if the north stretches along 94 and 80/90 are any indication, Indiana is up there with Jersey for the rudest drivers in the country. I didn’t remember that from my previous trips to Chicago, but then again, I’ve only been the driver along that stretch a few times. I don’t remember anywhere near this level of rudeness when I went to Valparaiso to visit my friend at law school there, but that chunk of road had some seriously obnoxious jerks. So Indiana: you’re on notice!

Then we took 294 up to go get checked in at the hotel, but since it was still quite early (not even noon Central time), we decided to stop off at Marytown in Libertyville and visit the national shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe. All I can say is: gorgeous church, but you can tell that the Franciscans’ charism isn’t hospitality. (Ahem.)

Off to McHenry after that to check in…and I had the silly thought of trying to take a nap. You know, since I’d been in and out of tears all day?

I had only been laying down for a few minutes when the drilling started.

So OK – no nap. Instead, we went across the parking lot to Dunnhill’s to get a late lunch and some peace and quiet.

Wow – already almost time to get to the church for the rehearsal! So off we toddled to Grayslake. Apart from the rehearsal being conducted on what I will call “Southern European Standard Time” (the groom in particular is not noted for his punctuality, and his trip was compounded by the fact that he accidentally backed into his future sister-in-law’s car on the way out), it was pretty uneventful…though by the end I was fully prepared to respond to the priest’s perpetual confusion about my status as a “groomsmaid” by saying “Yes, Father, the affront to Mulieris Dignitatem.”

Rehearsal dinner was in Mundelein, then back again to McHenry to try to sleep (and my post of Friday night). By Saturday morning, I was a wreck. Then my beloved called the hotel in Glenview (our Saturday hotel) one more time to see about an early check-in…

HALLELUJAH!!!

Oh, mercy! You do not even know how relieved I was to hear that we could check in at noon!

Off then to Buffalo Grove for my hair appointment, then lunch at IHOP, and moving along to Glenview to check in…back up to Grayslake for the wedding (with only a short detour to get change for the unexpected toll road), and out to Spring Grove for the reception.

Kit, we passed through Palatine several times, and it’s funny you mentioned it – we had just decided it must be the center of the Chicagoland universe, because last time we visited Chicago we stayed in Palatine, and this time we drove through it about half a dozen times…we’re pretty much figuring that if we ever move to Chicago we will end up living in Palatine, just because it seems to be the hub of the suburban universe there.  :-p

I cannot tell you how good it felt to go to bed Saturday night.

We changed our Sunday plans about a dozen times all told, but finally decided to drive home and go to an evening Mass on our side of town. Then the stop at my dad’s happened…and then I was really tired…so yeah. First time since I entered the Church that I’ve completely missed Sunday Mass. Come to think of it, only the second time since I started RCIA…

Post on my visit with my dad to come shortly…lunch is over and I need to earn my keep. And commentary on the actual wedding, and how I feel about one of my dearest friends being married, will come thereafter.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Chicago , My Beloved , Stuff I do , Travel
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