The Triumph of Evil

I apologize profoundly for using this space to whine about my kitchen and my plumbing and whatever else I've whined about lately. I've tried to make it humorous whining, but today, when Death came to Newtown, I realize I have nothing at all to whine about and I realize not much of anything is humorous right now.

With 20 children and the adults who died today in Sandy Hook Elementary School all over the media, it's hard to feel my life is anything but remarkable.

Two of our grandchildren are 6 and most of the dead children are, apparently, that age. It is impossible to let yourself begin to imagine what those parents are feeling...and even if you began to 'imagine' it wouldn't be anywhere near the reality and depth of their pain.

It's been my experience as a priest that the worse lost anyone can endure is the loss of a child. I once was called to Mary Gray's house in Institute WV when her 64 year old son had died. Mary was in her 80's and when she saw me she burst into tears and said, "Jim, did they tell you my baby died?"

Nothing is worse or more unnatural or more evil than the death of a child.

My son called and I told him to hold those 3 little girls especially tightly tonight and let his heart ache for those people in Newtown who won't be able to hold their children this night.

The victims are all that matter right now. There is no need to try to psychoanalyse their killer, as I've heard so many try to do on TV and radio. It doesn't really matter what drove him to such depravity, all that matters are those who died, too soon, oh so very much too soon.

And it really isn't time to start the raving (which I will eventually start!) about gun control. All that matters today is the victims and the lives they will not get to live, the joys and sorrows they will not experience, the future that Evil took from them today.

And the survivors, perhaps more because their lives are now a nightmare of grief and loss and pain.

That's what matters today.

May their souls and the souls of all the departed, rest in peace.....

The Nightmare before Christmas grows darker...

OK, first of all, the drywall/painter didn't show up today. Jon, our contractor couldn't get in touch with him to find out why. Maybe he was on a binge or maybe he had a coronary. Who knows? Jon said he was usually so dependable. Well, people ARE dependable, until they aren't.

Then, this, we'd been smelling a faint smell of poop for a day or two and thought the cat had done something untoward. But then Bern went down in the basement to where our broken washer is--we hadn't been down there for a while since THE WASHER IS BROKEN....And discovered that stuff was coming out the the drain the broken washer used to drain into until it was broken. Turns out, every time we ran water or took a shower in our bathroom off our bedroom...or flushed the toilet...some of that came out of the drain. Obviously, the main drain from our bathroom, into which the washer used to drain before it broke, was plugged up somehow.

The plumber came really fast (perhaps spurred by my telling the secretary, THERE'S SHIT IN OUR BASEMENT) but it took several hours and he had to clean out all manner of things from the drain pipe to get it clear and working right again. He asked if there was any problem with the kitchen sink. Hah! We have no frigging kitchen sink and on the current time line won't have one again until next Wednesday and it won't be functional until next Saturday. I've developed a philosophy about kitchen sinks, how they are up there with human hearts and central heating in the hierarchy of necessities.

Plus, the cat, who runs into the basement at any chance, ran into the basement and was missing most of the day. Since the back yard door to the basement was open for the plumbers, he could have escaped. A cat whose spent his whole life inside except for one escape 6 or so years ago. When the plumbers left (and we put back the room load of junk we had to move for them) Bern said, "Well, Lukie might be in Hamden by now....And I don't care!" He came waltzing in when it was time for his dinner. God knows where he'd been.

Things were so bad that Bern was most stern with the Puli--who drives me crazy since when workers are in the house I either have to put him in my car or stay with him in our bedroom. I've read 7 books now since they've been working on the kitchen. And Bela lays with me on the bed. Sometimes I read him a paragraph I really like but who knows if he likes it! And every half-hour or so he leaps off the bed and barks at the door for 5 minutes or so....Maddening....

The stove and overhead microwave (both really cool) and dish washer are in now--though the dishwasher can't work until the sink is put in...like a week from Saturday, three days before Christmas!

Jon is a great contractor but the problems with the carpenter--no right angles, no level 162 year old floors--put  him off his game. Then the drywall/painter guy didn't show up today....gosh, I'm repeating myself...which is the least of my psychological problems right now.

Bern is at her women's group. When she left she said, "I'm so glad to be out of here...."

Don't tell me "this too shall pass", I'm soooo over that being a comfort....

Bern and the kitchen sink

Our kitchen is still not done. It's 8 days and counting, We have no kitchen sink and you don't know what it means until there isn't one.

Screw the kitchen sink--Bern had a biopsy on a cyst on her pancreas a week ago Monday,. The results came back late yesterday afternoon.

Completely clear!!!

MRI's every six months for a while, but no need to do anything else.

We don't need any other Christmas presents....

I can live for a long time without a kitchen sink--though it annoys me greatly.

I'm not sure how I could live without Bern.

She does so much.
    
My contributions to our common life is that I take out the trash and recycle stuff, I keep the litter box clean (most of the time), I cook quite a bit and I do my own laundry. Everything else, Bern does: the finances, cleaning the house, cooking when I don't, changing the beds, washing towels and sheets, talking care of everything outside--the yard and all--choosing the kitchen sink that isn't here next.

Oh, I do handle taxes, but she saves the receipts and checks and all that I need.

I haven't written more than half a dozen checks in the last quarter century.

From the moment I heard the two words "growth" and "pancreas" I imagined my life changing in ultimate ways that were not acceptable to me, but inevitable.

Deep breaths. Several.

I could live forever, I truly believe, without a kitchen sink.

I'm sure I would live on without Bern--the love of my life for 48 years and my wife for 43 years next September--but I'm not sure how or in what way or why.....

I don't need to ponder that for now.

But I do wish we had a kitchen sink.....

Frankie

Today we drove to Providence and back with Mimi and Tim to be at Bern's uncle Frankie's 90th birthday party. Then drove to the train station to send Tim and Mimi back to New York and us back to Cheshire. A great day. A very great day.

Frank is one of the most gracious, generous, friendly men you'd ever meet. And he has a great, great sense of humor. And he is sharp as a tack, correcting details for his daughter, Francis and son, Anthony when they were honoring him.

Frank is much more computer literate than I will ever be. He is on the Internet about as much as he is in dialysis each week--which is quite a lot. And physically, if you can over look  his kidney problems, he is fine except for the neuropothy in his legs that makes it hard for him to dance, which Fran invited him to do, but he can walk with a cane.

I've known Frank as long as I've known Bern--since I was 17--and I'm older than than now.

Here's something interesting that will tell you something about Frank--two of his doctors, one of his nurses and the dietician and social worker from the dialysis unit came to the surprise party. I don't know any of the medical people I deal with who would come to a party for me! Everyone falls in love with Frank, and for good reason.

He was Bern's father's youngest brother. Born in this country, his parents--Bern's grandparents--were from Bari, Italy. Both Dan, my father-in-law, and Pete, were Italian born. Frank was born here and though he speaks and writes and reads Italian fluently, he has a West Virginia accent and 'Americanized' in ways his older brothers never seemed to.

He is charming, almost courtly in manner and when you talk to him you have the feeling that he thinks you're the only person in the world with something of interest to say. My wife loves him dearly, as do I, as do most everyone who ever met him. He is a man without enemies. A man who never met a stranger. A man who, in the 1950's in the coalfields of West Virginia, objected to the separate showers for black and white miners.

He's always been amazing to me. And equally amazing was his Croatian wife, Annie, who died 7 years ago. Frank's children thought he would fall apart since Annie did everything--laundry, cooking, even balancing the check book even though Frank was an accountant for US Steel. But he didn't fall apart. He learned to do all those things and helped everyone who loved Annie to get through their grief....

There is so much to tell him about him that I don't have space or time. I'll just use a story Tony told when talking about them. In 1959, when Tony was 9, a steel strike shut down the coal mines just before Christmas and things were lean all around. Frank took Anthony with him to Welch, the only place in McDowell Country that passed for a 'town'--6000 people and the county seat. Fran went a day or two before Christmas when he usually did last minute shopping, but he didn't do any shopping that day. Instead he went to the bank and exchanged paper money for silver dollars and filled his pockets. Then he and Tony walked through town, meeting person after person who they knew, and Frank gave all the children they stopped to talk to a silver dollar for Christmas instead of buying gifts for his family. The coal miners were out of work, but Frank was management and still had his job.

When they got back to the car, Frank had one silver dollar left and gave it to Tony, telling him, "what goes around, comes around...."

Tony kept that silver dollar for over 50 years and had it framed with the words, "What goes around, comes around" and gave it back to his father.

No dry eye in the house. I'm getting that feeling in the back of the throat you get before you weep just writing about it.

That generous, compassionate, good and true man, has something now to remind him that is it True with a capital T that 'what goes around, comes around....'

Happy birthday, Frank. And as many more as you can have.....

Plumb was not true in 1850

So, our cabinets are almost in, but not without issues. Our house was built in 1850 when plumb was not yet true and 90 degree angles did not yet exist and floors were never level.

The carpenter had to call the contractor--and Jon, who was also the contractor who painted our house and saved us thousands of dollars by talking me out of two coats--came and consulted with the carpenter and is committed to making the kitchen look right in the end.

Today I was held captive in my own bedroom by a Puli named Bela. Our dog only likes 12 human beings (making him a bit like Jesus as I think about it.) He loves Bern and me and Mimi and Tim and Josh and Cathy and the three granddaughters (Morgan, Emma and Tegan) and our friends John, Sherry and Jack. Anyone else he would gladly bite. So when there are people working in the house, I have to stay with him in our bedroom. I read a book on Tuesday and another on Wednesday and one and a half today. I was glad to read so much, but it feels like prison to be in a room with a Puli who sometimes is content to lay on the bed with me and sometimes barks at the door incessantly until I throw my book at him or give him a treat.

At this point it looks like the kitchen sink won't be back until next Thursday at the earliest. They have to come and install the appliances and take moldings for the counter and sink and like that. Never mind that nothing is plumb or straight or on line.

But the cabinets and drawers that are in close with just a push and silently. Some marvel of doors and drawers makes them close so wondrously it makes my heart leap within me. Especially since a whole host of doors in our cabinets were held shut by rubber bands before and some of the drawers required all you strength to open and close. Heaven.

But I urge you to ponder this: notice how often you use your kitchen sink and the garbage disposal there. Just notice and ponder that for the next week while we don't have either. And realize how altered you life would be. This is a valuable exercise that will put you in touch with how blessed and fortunate you are to have a kitchen sink and a garbage disposal when much of the world can only drream--and probably can't--about having those marvels that we take for granted.

I look forward to taking them for granted again soon.....

Cheshire is going Green and I'm pissed off...

We got this new recycling bin, larger than a trash can and since the town way transitioning they picked up no recycle stuff or garbage during the week of Thanksgiving. Which, for us, meant two weeks before a pickup.

We recycle like it's a religion. Now the town is only picking up recycling stuff every two weeks. We normally, in a week have two little bins and lots of stuff in blue recycling bags. We'll fill the new big bin in a week.

Today I put out one of our little bins to see if they'd take it along with our new big bin. They did take the stuff in it but they also took the little blue bin, thinking, I imagine, we were turning it in.

They should pick up trash every two weeks and recycle stuff every week instead of the other way around. I didn't tell you yet that I put half of a big bin worth of recycle stuff in our neighbor's big bin since she's away.

Here's the nightmare, we want to recycle and do, but if the town only collects it every two weeks I'll be putting stuff in neighbor's bins or in our trash....Our trash can was full today, but considering trash hadn't been picked up for two weeks and Thanksgiving happened....well, this whole thing isn't working for me and I'm pissed off.

The Pancreas and the Kitchen Sink

Sorry to be away so long--Thanksgiving happened and the Pancreas stuff and the Kitchen sink and all--so I haven't been faithful to my blog. Again, sorry.

Thanksgiving was glorious. Our children and their partners and our three grand-daughters and John, our great friend, and Hanna who we've know forever. It was just great and profound and wondrous. Maybe I'll write about it sometime.

Then there is Bern's Pancreas. There's a growth on it--medical people seem to use 'cyst' and 'tumor' as synonyms when they talk about it. Found by accident when Bern had siaticia and thought she had a kidney stone.

Disagreement between doctors and radiologists in two opinions. And then, the second, more hopeful opinion doctor did a needle biopsy yesterday at Yale-New Haven Hospital to hopefully show that the growth (no matter what you call it) is benign and harmless. All went well except Bern, in the operating room, had a conflict with the anestesiologist, that, if we had it on tape would go viral on UTube.

(An aside here--my spell check has gone haywire and I am not in control of the correct spelling of anything right now. OK?)

So, it was a day trip to New Haven. We arrived at 12:30 and didn't start back to Cheshire until 6:15 or so. I wandered around, trying to find a place where I could smoke and since blocks of New Haven are property of YNHH and their signs are unrelenting and harsh--you can't even smoke on the sidewalks--the sidewalks for Christ's sake--anywhere on the five or six square blocks of the campus that is the hospital.

(Sometimes, when people are giving me grief about why I smoke, I tell them, "I am a Priest of the Lord, and as a priest I stand always with the oppressed. And who, in our society, are more oppressed than smokers?)

 So Bern had this ridiculous argument in the procedure room with the anestiseologist about how she was going to put to sleep for the procedure. The Dr. had been clear it would be that stuff Michael Jackson used to go to sleep and not general anesthesia. But the anestiseologist, insisted she was in charge. Bern, never someone to let someone she disagrees with 'be in charge', got in the 'go to sleep' doctor's face.

As Bern tells it, she said to the anestiseologist that she would not have two tubes down her throat since the procedure required a tube down her throat.

The anestiseologist said, "But they go to different places...."

And Bern replied, "But they enter in the same place...."

Apparently there was much back and forth and Bern's doctor came in and held Bern's hand and the anestiseologist finally was overruled by her supervisor and Bern got what she wanted. But it only goes to show, you have to 'manage' your health care.

I was to have a biopsy on something or other in my bladder my urologist did not understand and when I was moved to the operating table from the gurney, the anestiseoligist in charge saw a throat lozenge wax covering on the gurney.

"Did you eat that?" she asked harshly.

"No," I said, "I sucked on it because I was coughing."

She called off the proceedure.

My doctor told her is was "bullshit" and "crazy" but anestiseoligists have absolute, almost god-like powers.

I went upstairs and had the procedure in my urologist's office with a local. I would have preferred being asleep, I assure you, but the cough drop didn't make it a bad experience..

Besides all that, they tore out our kitchen today. We have no kitchen sink for several days. You never know how valuable a kitchen sink is until you don't have one.

I encourage you to join me in pondering the remarkable, incredible, life-giving characteristics of a kitchen sink.

Just imagine, if you can, how much you don't even realize you need it. Astonishing, I assure you, to have no kitchen sink....