Boz Scaggs and the Mallards

I forgot to mention that on Monday, when we went swimming in Crystal Lake, I was wearing a Lake Ripley bucket hat. Fortunately nobody said, "That's the wrong lake!" I don't know if there are Crystal Lake bucket hats; I do have a Crystal Lake hoodie. 

Yesterday when my neighbor and I went for a walk in the neighborhood, another neighbor greeted us with freshly baked peanut butter kiss cookies!

My neighbor said, "We lead a charmed life." We really do, because they changed the confession time at my church to just before my adoration hour, so it was very easy for me to go. Then after adoration, Travalon and I went to see Boz Scaggs. The last time we had seen him, he didn't do "Miss Sun," but he did it this time! However, about an hour into the concert, the sound level went up to a painful level, so I spent most of the rest of it out in the hall, where I could hear but it wasn't so loud. Oddly, nobody else seemed to notice - I was the only one plugging my ears. He did do his other big hits; my other favorites are "JoJo" and "Lowdown," and he also did "Lido Shuffle" and all his other songs that I know. I really liked a bluesy number with a slinky bassline called "Rock and Stick," which is a cover. 

Time for some DuoLingo bragging!

Today I worked on campus, then Travalon picked me up and we went to watch some Mallards baseball. It wasn't the greatest game - they lost 10-5 to the Rafters, who always seem to have their number - but they had just as many hits and no errors, so the problem was their fielding. The weather was perfect, and I saw this lovely sunset over the stands.

So you can't win them all, and at least we did see the Mallards win (quite decisively!) earlier in the season. They are leading the league, so it's very possible they will have a playoff game at the Duck Pond. Of course, if they are playing the Rafters, who are currently #2, then that might be the end of their playoff run. I don't think we've ever seen them beat the Rafters.

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Very Christmasy Day

 

I forgot to mention that yesterday morning I was a bit groggy at work, despite my usual cup of coffee at home. I went to the break room to pour myself a cup of coffee, and I took one of the little creamer containers, opened it, threw the cream in the wastebasket, and threw the empty container in my coffee cup. Whoops! It's so hard to make coffee when you need coffee. I have tried to make it without grounds, without water, without a filter, and without the pot underneath to catch the brewing coffee.

Today was a pretty good day! I had some time before adoration last night, so I bought little tile coasters with Madison designs on them for my coworkers at one of the small shops on State Street. My one coworker had already given me some boughten cookies, so I knew we were all going to exchange presents. Today my boss gave me delicious homemade truffles that his school-aged sons helped him make, and another coworker gave me a basket full of homemade cookies, some trail mix that is super addictive, fridge magnets, glow-in-the-dark silly putty, Andes Candies, and some other random stuff. Wow! Even the basket is very nice. My other coworker and I were talking about how it was going to be an adventure bringing it home on the bus, but then we each found bags in our office to put the baskets in. Best of all, the faculty gave us all generous Christmas bonuses. 

I was feeling very in the Christmas spirit when I went to confession tonight, and it helped that the organist was practicing "O Holy Night." The person before me was in there so long that I expected a biker with tats who hadn't been to confession in ages, but it was a little old lady. What could she possibly have done wrong that would take that long to confess?? I will admit that I felt sort of pathetic after her, because I stated my sins, and the priest was just like, "Okay," and didn't ask for any details or clarification, and he certainly didn't laugh. Back in the day I could ALWAYS make priests laugh during confession, but now I'm old and boring and don't take hostages in the church parking lot anymore. So I was done in five minutes and sat praying my five Hail Marys, and then when I got home, Travalon was already home. We are now holed up here, with no plans to leave the house until Christmas Eve Mass, or possibly Christmas morning Mass. They are saying we are going to be blanketed by snow, and then there will be fierce winds blowing it around, so travel will be difficult. I can work from home tomorrow, and Travalon has the day off, then we both have Friday off. My exciting snowed-in plans are a Christmas cleaning of this place.

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Random Religious Ramblings

 

Tonight I went to Confession and asked the priest if leaving during Adoration was a sin, and he wasn't sure either, but he said it was good that I confessed it. He asked if there were other people in the chapel when I left, and I said yes, and some of them spoke Spanish but they didn't say anything to the guy who was loudly praying in Spanish. I had wondered if it was pride that made me leave, so that I could say I got in my daily rosary, and he said maybe next time (if it happens again) I should stay in the chapel and just finish the rosary later. Though he did concede the guy was the real jerk, praying out loud in a silent adoration chapel. They had adoration at this church right before Confession, and the priest has a good voice but can't really carry a tune, which is a fascinating combination. They were singing "O Salutaris Hostia," and I didn't have the words in front of me, but there were a few lines I remembered better than others so I would sing them more confidently. Then I realized that on those lines everyone would stay in tune, because they must have been following me. If I'd only had the words in front of me, I could have led the singing. I was the first in line to go to Confession, then I did my three Hail Marys and left. Was that gauche? Adoration was still going on, but there were plenty of people there... and not one of them praying really loudly in Spanish, or any language. I just wanted to get home before Travalon did.

So you guys, I have to tell you that the camera on this computer seems to be able to take a better picture of those windows in my new rosary than my cell phone camera did. (I found that out when I held the crucifix up to the camera for Jilly Moose to see it.) Maybe I can make a short movie showing each of the Seven Sorrows of Mary! I can put it on YouTube and get 23 views! Wouldn't that be awesome?

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I Confess

They say people don't go to Confession any more. What they don't say is where this place is, unless all the people who still go are following me around and rushing into line ahead of me. Because, seriously, I can hardly think of a time when there were less than three people in line ahead of me for Confession, and half-hour waits are not uncommon around here. So I really wish they would reveal the location of this mythical place where nobody goes to Confession, so that I could go there.

Ironically, people are not very kind when it comes to waiting in line for Confession. I have had more little old ladies actually cut in front of me in line than I could count on both hands even if I were Ann Boleyn! An observation, not a stereotype: little old Italian ladies are the worst about this. In Lourdes they kept cutting in front of us to get into the baths, and it got so bad that we weren't even moving in line, so we just gave up. At least in the confessional line, the timing is good, because then you don't have much time for that mortal sin: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, including plotting to kill a little old lady."

At my church there are a number of families who have about 600 children, more or less, and they ALL get in line for Confession. There's nothing like standing behind a bunch of tiny kids, knowing you could go straight to Hell if you died because your sins are so serious, yet you have to wait for all 600 of them to confess about how they didn't pray the Rosary yesterday and said No to their mother last Tuesday. And this is on regular Saturdays! On the First Saturday of the month, or during Lent, you can just forget about getting anywhere near the confessional. I once saw a line at my church (fortunately I was not in it; I was up in the choir loft, practicing music for Easter) and it snaked around one whole side of the church, and a bunch of people were still waiting in line two hours later when our choir practice ended. I think there should be two lines: one for us craven sinners who really need it, and another one for little kids and people who don't really have anything serious on their consciences but are just going for some devotional thing. They think they will skip Purgatory if they go every First Saturday - great, but if I'm going to Hell so you can skip Purgatory, how fair is that?

I have, as so many of us do, an Archirritant (Richard Bonomo says she is not my Archenemy), and she is right up on top of my list of causes for having to go to Confession. I pointed out to RB that it would be more economical, sin-wise, for me to kill her and then confess that, then to have to go to Confession every week because I was mean to her, gossiped about her, etc. He didn't think too much of that logic, and someone else pointed out that I would just find a new Archirritant. (Another example of my logic that caused RB to practically fall off his chair laughing: he said the federal government might print more money to help offset the latest economic crisis, and when I said, "So how is that different than some guy cranking out 20's in his basement?" he said - once he stopped laughing - that one is legal and the other isn't. I knew that, but abortion is legal and infanticide isn't, yet the only difference there is in one case the baby is in fluid and in the other it is in air.)

Speaking of abortion, just a quick reminder: half of all people involved in them die. I would think this would disturb feminists, especially since a great number of those people are being killed specifically because they are female. Yes, that is the #1 handicap that causes babies to be aborted in many parts of the world. As a TRUE feminist, I find this outrageous.

So please, if anyone out there knows of a place where nobody goes to Confession, let me know.

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