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My dad was a member of The Serra Club.  It got its name from Fr. Junipero Serra and its mission was to promote the vocations of priests and nuns in the Catholic church.  Once a month on a Thursday night he would attend their meetings, and on occasion he and Mom would go to the yearly convention.  You don’t hear much about them any more, but back in those days it was a very active group.

Shortly after Easter each year the club would host a family breakfast at a private country country club that some of the members attended.  The group was predominately upper income – lots of doctors and dentists living in big houses.

And then there was us.

Mom would be a nervous wreck prior to this event, making sure we had nice outfits and that we knew to mind our manners.  “And you boys better not try any funny business,” she’d sternly tell my brothers.  “I’ll be watching you the whole time.”

On a Saturday night prior to our annual pilgrimage, Mom wanted us girls to try on the dresses she had sewn for us one more time.  She got one whiff of Jean and said, “What in the world………..?”  Jean had a fondness for garlic salt and had been pouring it into the palm of her hand and licking it over and over.

I thought Mom was going to cry.  Her sure bet – The Girls – had just thrown her for a loop.  “Look at me,” she said to Jean.  “Don’t you get to close to anybody tomorrow, do you hear?  You and that garlic need to stay next to your brothers and sisters and nobody else.  You’re going to reek for days.”

Mom was right.  Jean smelled like a garlic farm, but we scarfed down the hash browns we only ate once a year at the swanky, members only club while The Boys crammed their pockets with dessert mints. 

******************

In the group’s promotion of this line of work, they would put on pageants at local churches which my dad was in charge of for years.  Stacked in our utility room were boxes of the miniature habits of priests and nuns that kids would get chosen to wear for The Parade of Vocations.

It was Toddlers and Tiaras for The Catholics.

When it was our church’s turn to hold this event, my dad (who with my mom shlepped those boxes around the Chicagoland area for years) made sure I was picked to wear the habit of the nuns who taught at our school – The Congregation of Notre Dame.

At nine years old even I knew it was an honor.

I was dressed in the starchy, uncomfortable habit that made turning my head impossible.  Being a nun required putting this on every day?   Sheesh, no wonder The Serra Club had its work cut out for them. 

I whined to Mom as she and the other helpers got the kids ready in a 4th grade classroom.  She would have no part of it.  “You get out there and smile and do your best.”

“But Mom……”  I cried.  “My butt really hurts.”

“What???”

“My butt.  It hurts when I walk.”

“Oh for God’s sake……..,” Mom said as she marched me to the back of the line with the other miniature priests and nuns for the big clergy parade.  “Act like a nun and pray.”

When it was my turn I smiled and tried to look in the direction of the audience but that starch was stiff as a board.  I couldn’t see a thing on either side of my head, but the audience seemed to love the pint-size version of that familiar habit.  Unbeknownst to them was the fact that I was miserable with a delicate problem underneath the heavy, black robe.

I followed Mom’s advice and prayed to Mary to miraculously heal my burning butt, but with each step I took around the gym another revelation unfolded before me.

I knew that I was born into a family that had no business trying to get into the convent or the country club.

                                      

Well, haven’t we had a nice full week of lewd comments, lewd texts, lewd pics, lewd behavior, lewd men?  Although, in the case of Anthony Weiner who is running for NY mayor and Bob Filner, the mayor of San Diego, lewd is a rather tame word for their blatant, offensive crimes against women and civility.

They’re not the only ones.  I would recommend staying off of Huffington Post during your lunch hour seeing as how they had a story this week about employees of Subway putting their penises on the bread of the sandwiches they were making.

I know.  I didn’t even read it and still it caused my to lose my appetite.

When I was 19, my friend and I used to go biking a couple of times a week out to the forest preserve and back.  While stopped at a traffic light some guy hung out the passenger side window and smacked me on the backside so hard I nearly fell off my bike.  The car full of boys drove off laughing.  Since my friend was ahead of me she didn’t know what had happened to me until we stopped.

I still remember the sting – physically and emotionally. 

I have never been on the receiving end of anything so physically blatant since then, but there have been comments and touches that have made me uncomfortable and that I have passed off as “you know how he is”………

………..the message being that it is okay even when it is not.

Ever.

Nobody said it better this week than Helen Mirren.

“If I’d had children and had a girl, the first words I would have taught her would have been “f*** off” because we weren’t brought up ever to say that to anyone, were we? And it’s quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say, “No, f*** off, leave me alone, thank you very much.” You see, I couldn’t help saying “Thank you very much,” I just couldn’t help myself.”

I used to work with this darling, young girl who waited on a customer once and who became so enamored with her that he frequently came in asking for her.  The manager devised a plan to get her off the floor when he came in the door because she was so freaked out by him.   Obviously, we weren’t able to tell him to f*** off, but in hindsight I have to wonder why any business has to be polite to a predator and why we women are so hesitant to say the two words that will change the game.

The other night before I went to bed, I checked the news online and read that 19 fireman were missing and presumed dead.  I didn’t think that was possible.  Surely by morning they would be found and safe at home.

The morning brought no such news and I watched a wife talk about her husband and their four children who are too young to even comprehend what their future will be like without their father.  Like everyone else, the enormity of the loss has weighed heavy on me these past few days.

There were also stories about Edward Snowden, George Zimmerman, Paula Deen and Kim and Kanye’s baby.

Voting rights and marriage rights.

I suppose there is an audience for the former in a culture that is enamored with the celebrity of the moment, regardless of the unseemly behavior that got one there.  There is also an audience for the politician who vehemently opposes or supports the latter, although those opinions are strikingly predictable.

Thankfully, though, the majority of us live in the middle and avoid the fringes.  Mildly amused, irritated or angry with the daily news or the state of our country, but very well aware of the people in our communities who run towards the very things we run from, and whose claim to fame breaks our heart.

                                

As I’ve grown older, I am very aware of my spiritual self.  It may be my grounding in Catholic school and parents whose lives were steeped in that faith, or maybe it’s due to age and experience giving me a view of things that repeatedly defy explanation.

Whatever.

I have always believed in a higher power and a new life after this one.  My faith is not in step with my parents or their generation, however, for decisions made by the Catholic Church have become more and more to difficult to accept.

***There is the continuing pedophile scandal that has been so grossly mishandled by educated men (even to this day here in Kansas City) that it sickens and enrages me.

***The obsession with women’s reproductive organs as if we are no more or less than a uterus.

***The political bent of this church with admonishments from the pulpit every election year to vote in the interest of the Catholic church.

***The ridiculous public lecture the church hierarchy gave to the nuns last year to stop focusing on the poor and to fall in line.

Sigh.

For a free will kind of girl seeking a deeper meaning to life, it’s all I can do sometimes to show up. 

******

On Saturday night Mark and the kids and I all went to Five Guys to grab something to eat.  While we were sitting at our table I noticed a man in traditional Muslim clothing going up to get his food.  Then I noticed the woman he was with.

She sat at a table twenty feet from us completely clothed in black, including her gloved hands.  Only her eyes and nose were visible.  When her partner brought their burgers to the table she took her gloves off and tried to eat.  Every bite and drink was consumed under her veil, slowly and carefully brought towards her covered  mouth while he chomped away unencumbered.

As I watched this I felt like crying for the indignity of this stranger trying to eat her dinner under a veiled mouth that was nothing more than a roadblock to satisfying her hunger………….or maybe I felt like crying for myself and many other women of faith who have long tried to dine at a spiritual table that seems to only be reserved for men.

When I was a little girl, my best friend’s family would take me on camping trips with them as company for Nancy. 

I didn’t love the camping experience, but I loved getting away from the crammed house I lived in with all those people.  For Nancy’s mom, it seemed to me to be a lose-lose situation with her having to pack half the house to go live in the woods for a week.   As a frequent guest, I was treated like family and required to participate in chores.  Early on I figured out that pumping your water, heating it, pouring it into a tub, scrubbing the dishes, rinsing them in another tub of water that you had to pump from the ground and then drying them seemed stupid when there was a perfectly good dishwasher at home.

I knew I wasn’t cut out for the camping life but I married somebody who was. 

When the kids were little The Big Daddy started to entertain the idea of getting a camper.  A Winnebago.  Are you kidding me?  Do you know how much those things cost?

“But it’s the perfect solution.  Everything you need is right there.  It’s not like your roughing it.”

I wasn’t on board.  Ever.  When he said the RV Show was in town and that we should go take a look……”you know to see what’s out there”……..I told him I wasn’t participating.

The years passed but his interest never waned until the summer we were driving through Idaho.  Going up a mountainous road we were waved over by another driver who was FA……FA…..FA…..FREAKING out.  It smelled like smoke and within a few minutes you could hear the wail of the fire department sirens.

The Recreational Vehicle doesn’t much like those steep climbs, and what seemed to have started with smoking brakes turned into A Smoking, Flaming Winnebago up yonder.  Everything in the traveling home burnt up real good with the stunned owners helpless on the side of the road.

We sat on the shoulder for nearly two hours surrounded by the most picturesque scenery you could imagine.  I read Tuesdays With Morrie and boo-hooed and blew my nose all the while we were stuck.  The Big Daddy said, “Pass the Kleenex,” and  wiped away a few tears of his own.

With the smell of pine all around us, I fell in love with the charming Morrie Schwartz while The Big Daddy was watching his ongoing plan to seduce me with the pleasures of a Winnebago go up in smoke.

                                           

Maggie and Nathan are in the process of buying their first house.  Maggie is beside herself with excitement while Nathan tempers that with worry about making this leap into home owning. 

We told them how we found and bought our first (and only) house which in every step was dumb luck.  We knew nothing about the neighborhood, the schools or the basement that has flooded more times than I could count.  We only knew that when we were in it we loved it and thought it was perfect for raising our family.

Over our 21 years in this house I have been frustrated, especially by the lack of money to do the things that would make it better, but I have never fallen out of love with it.

After we had made our offer and it had been accepted, we would drive by the house all the time.  Up and down the street we would see our soon-to-be neighbors and their kids everywhere.

It seemed like there was a Fisher-Price Cozy Coupe in every driveway.

There are a few of us long-timers that have stayed put while younger families come and go for the lure of bigger closets and tonier zip codes, but the pendulum is swinging back and our beloved street is filled with young families again.

Our kids had the good fortune of having many friends right outside the door, and their memories of those days make me happy for them and for the serendipity that led us to this street.

Two weeks ago, one of those friends died suddenly.  It was a shock to everyone and his parents and sister are heartbroken.  They are one of those long-timers.  The kind of neighbor that you can depend on to show up for the good and the crappy with a bottle of wine and a helping hand.  Always.

When Maggie was expressing frustration with the home-buying process, I told her that it takes faith to make a leap of faith.  Things have a way of working out like they should I said, but for some families nothing they could ever fathom lands on their front porch in the middle of the night and life changes in ways it never should..

If you happen to be the neighbor of that kind of family, you sit and cry.  Alone in your house, while walking the dog, at work when you tell your boss you need a few hours off, with their other friends and family at the services and most of all when you are with them………

………….for words of comfort fail to roll off the tongue and the work of faith takes enormous faith.

When I was a little girl, I would spend a good part of my summer day killing flies.  They liked the side of the house where the sun would beat down and I’d go out with the flyswatter and kill them.  48, 49, 50…………

I’d run in the house and give Mom the casualty count and she’d say, “Good for you.  Now get back out there and don’t stop until you’ve killed them all.”  Looking back, I think she might have been trying to get rid of me.

I’d run back outside and there would be more flies on the sunny side of the house and I’d swat and count for hours.  Apparently, I lacked friends.

Even as a kid I hated those things and since getting married The Big Daddy has given me a detailed scientific account of what flies do after they’ve sat on a poo-poo platter.  It’s disturbing.

That early experience of killing flies was a precursor to what our first home was like after we said, “I do.”  We lived in the basement apartment of a complex that catered to students.  You could say that it lacked charm but it was cheap and I got used to looking out the window and seeing dirt.

It wasn’t long into the honeymoon period that I found out we weren’t alone.  We had The Cucaraches and they were everywhere.  Like my fly-killing days, I’d go on the hunt for them with a can of Raid and spray them to kingdom come or with a swatter and beat them to a smeary mess.  Before long, I’d see another one and jump to action with my killing tools.

They never stopped coming in and Mark said he could smell the Raid in the parking lot when he got out of the car.

I would rather lay all night in bed awake than have to go into the bathroom and turn the light on and see those disgusting things scurrying everywhere.  We ended up having to put baggies over our toothbrushes because they’d sit on the top of the brush and eat the dried toothpaste.

I was teetering on a nervous breakdown.  Eyes darting looking for signs of movement, cans of Raid in every room, calls to the landlord constantly.  If this was the married life I wanted out.

The Big Daddy told me to calm my frantic ass down and put down the damn can of Raid.  Hell, he said, everything we eat around here is starting to taste like Raid.

Mom, who’d only heard of roaches but had never actually seen one, said he needed to get me out of there – that was no place to live.

We were only months into a year long lease when one night I was awakened by something.  I flung my arm over and that something landed in the chest hairs of The Big Daddy and he jumped out of bed, jumped up and down and started screaming.

“I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.  I CAN’T TAKE THESE SON-OF-A BITCHES ONE MORE DAY.  I.  CANNOT.  TAKE.  THIS!!!!!  THIS IS BULLSHIT! 

He stripped all the sheets and blankets off the bed and was beating them up and down on the floor over and over, and if there was still a roach amongst the percale it was going for a ride.

He went on like that for awhile before he calmed down and we put the sheets back on the bed.  All that screaming must have worn him out and he was soon sound asleep.  Those summer days of swatting flies had prepared me for that moment and I stared at the walls and counted the roaches…………..seven, eight, nine………….until the sun came up.

Within the month we’d sublet the apartment to two unsuspecting students, left all the cans of Raid under the sink and lived happily ever after.

                                                               

I went to the post office Friday which has to be my least favorite thing to do, but remarkably the line wasn’t out the door.  There was only one couple at the counter. a Muslim couple, and they were having a communication failure with the postal clerk.  She couldn’t understand where they wanted to send their package and their English wasn’t the best, so she started yelling louder as if they were deaf instead of confused.  I thought I heard them say Saudi Arabia, but she didn’t acknowledge any such thing because listening wasn’t her strong suit.  She gave them a piece of paper to write down the information and when it was indeed Saudi Arabia, she told them to step out of line to fill the necessary forms out.  A glimpse of her nice side finally started emerging which seemed to take much longer than necessary.

While I watched all of this unfold in front of me, I wondered if the shoe were on the other foot how in the hell I would mail a package from Saudi Arabia to Kansas.

That night I was watching the local news and there was a story of a 24 year old medical student who went out for a jog and hadn’t come back.  He was not carrying his cell phone or wallet and due to his age he wasn’t likely kidnapped, but he’d been missing for a whole day and his parents were distraught with worry.  He lived at home in an upscale neighborhood with no obvious problems.  The family was of middle-eastern descent and his mother sobbed when she talked of him.  I couldn’t imagine where her mind was going in this confusion of a missing son.

Buried in today’s paper was a very short story of this missing jogger found dead.  Off the trail, no obvious signs of trauma but an autopsy is pending.  Page six?   Two nights earlier his family sat on the couch in front of a news camera and begged for help to find him.  The outcome of the biggest crisis in their life ends on page six? 

Would the story of this kid be more breaking, more urgent, more front page if he were white?  I’d like to think not, but we daily separate who is worthy and who is not, who deserves courtesy or immediate help and who gets yelled at or dismissed for not understanding…………as if God has personally assigned Americans his chosen people and therefore immune from doing unto others.

Be it mailing a package or going for a run, it must require nerves of steel and a daily dose of bravery when you decide to make a life in the land of the free.
                                                           

When my kids were young, I didn’t buy into the let’s-keep-the-kids-real-busy camp.  We tried soccer with Maggie and she was so painfully shy when she was young that she cried and cried at the thought of getting out on a field in front of all those people.  Will didn’t fare much better.  We didn’t even attempt it with Mallory until she was in 4th grade and she loved it.

At some point, Maggie started dancing and then played basketball.  In high school she was in track.  Will was in Scouts and cross country.  Mal did dance.  On Mondays, they all went to religion class and in the summer they took swimming lessons.

Besides the expense of extracurricular activities, I hated the driving.  Dropping off for an hour practice and coming back and waiting for them while hoping my dinner wasn’t burning at home made me pissy.  We were fortunate to live on a street that had more than thirty kids, and so they preferred to run the hood with their friends after school playing kick the can, ghost, hide-and-seek or tag.

This felt like my childhood and that’s what I wanted for them.  Outside making things up.  Laying in the grass looking at the clouds.  Running like gazelles when they heard the ice cream truck coming.

I often felt like an outsider in these thoughts, but over-scheduling my kids over-scheduled me and that didn’t work.  I might have mentioned a time or fifty to Mark that how-busy-your-kids-are must be the new status symbol.

He gets it.  The house could fall down around him and he can sit forever on the back porch with a glass of wine looking at the birds.  He knows them all by name, makes sure their feeders are always full and they sing to him their gratitude.

That makes me crazy – for as much as I never wanted my kids to be busy, when it comes to this house I can think of a hundred things that should be done on the weekend before you sit down with a glass of wine and do nothing.

I’m working on that especially hard this year.  Maybe if I ignore the peeling paint, grab a book and a glass of wine the birds will sing to me.

                                      

Last week’s snowfall of 12″ just wasn’t enough and so round two came through overnight.  Work was cancelled for both of us, schools were closed and everybody stayed home which would have been all cozy and lovely had the power not gone out at four a.m.  By nightfall, KCPL (those beautiful lineman literally trudging in snow up to their butts) brought the lights and heat back.

It was a winter wonderland right outside the door……………..

And The Big Daddy working the shovel with our neighbor like he was Michael Bloomberg..

And my snow garden…………

We warmed up for a few hours at Maggie and Nate’s and when we came home I finished reading this book by way of a battery-operated tea light. 

Snow days……….I’d love one more but all good things must end.