Be Not Idle

My guardian angel is Phred, a name I came up with in the fourth grade or so. It was shortly after a babysitter asked me for help with her homework, coming up with words that had a “ph” in them, like “dolphin” and  ”Delphine” (my aunt) and “phunky chicken” (there was a dance, you know…)

I used to pray the old Guardian Angel prayer every day when I was a kid. In the first grade classroom, Sister Agnesita had a print of an angel watching over two children crossing over a rickety bridge.  The angel was female and dressed very prettily. However, I thought of my Phred as male - a nice young fellow who wasn’t ready to clobber me like my brothers.  I also figured Phred was kind of plainly dressed and silent, ready to jump into action. Except when I was taking a bath. Then I thought he waited outside the bathroom door (with the dog) and I’d have to holler for Mom if I got my big toe stuck in the faucet or something.

But for many years (decades) I completely neglected to talk to or even think about Phred.  There was also a New Agey “angel movement”  which seemed to infiltrate even retreats. It marketed guardian angels as subservient beings, at worst a tool for getting one’s desire and at best a Jeeves-like personal assistant, constantly pulling his master out of a scrapes. I felt sort of embarrassed to be talking to him, as if I’d catch some  sort of cosmic cooties.

But I began to rediscover what angels are and how blessed I am to have Phred. And I’ve been thinking a lot about angels, especially since I started making clay sculptures that incorporate Christian symbols. (More on that later.)

And so, for old time’s sake, Phred…

Angel of God,
my guardian dear,
to whom God’s love commits me here,
ever this day,
be at my side
to light and guard,
to rule and guide.

I was reading about Palinsanity - a term coined by Althouse to describe the vicious attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain’s pick for vice-president. The Anchoress (see my blogroll) has a good round-up of stories and opinion.

Personally, I went from flabberghasted to incensed in less than a day. Yesterday I read the sick rumors that Gov. Palin’s youngest child was secretly her grandson (some people need to lay off the romance novels). Now that the Palin family has revealed their oldest daughter is pregnant - and therefore can’t be her brother’s mother - the pundits and opinionated cranks have a whole new bag. The gist of these comments seems to be that 1) because the youngest child has Down’s Syndrome, the Gov. needs to go home and be a mother; and 2) because the 17-year-old is pregnant and preparing to marry the father of the baby, the Gov. needs to go home and be a grandmother.  

Oh, irony!

This weekend I enjoyed visiting with my niece and her husband. They are happy about moving into their first home and are expecting their first child. And they’re 19.  Are they children? No.

Today after school, I ran into a former student who was married this spring. She’s expecting her first child this coming winter. She’s 16 and her husband is 24. Are they children? Heck, no!

The irony is that if Gov. Palin’s daughter had chosen to abort the baby, our society would consider her grown-up enough to make that choice. She needn’t have consulted with her mother, either. A 17-year-old is considered old enough to have sex and deal with the consequences on her own.  Parental consent laws are debated endlessly as a controversial limits on “choice”, aren’t they?

But when it comes to politics, suddenly the lip-service feminists (including the men) have become reactionaries who know that the governor’s ovaries dictate that she must step down.

Bernie and Diane are humble, unpretentious people…. They had everything they ever wanted, they said. Except for a daughter. But the more they asked about Danielle, the more they didn’t want to know.

She was 8, but functioned as a 2-year-old. She had been left alone in a dank room, ignored for most of her life.

There have been some truly horrific stories about children in the news this summer. This story is about a neglectful mother and child abuse investigators who ignored signs, but it’s also hopeful.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838 .ece

Last night my sister and I were sitting in the den and I said to her, “I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a
bottle to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life at all… if that ever happens, just pull the plug.”

So she got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.

Of course, I laughed at this joke, but then I wondered if it were true. This sounds like something her sister would do to her - and my brother would do to me!

Via the Curt Jester, a MySpace poll shows the Catholic Church is out of touch with young people. He writes:

Of course what most of these poll (sic) indicate is that people think that the Church is out of touch with the morality of the modern culture, that it is not an echo chamber for current societal ethics. The only thing the Church needs to be in touch with is the Holy Spirit.

If the Church were to bend with trends, it would be no use to anyone - least of all young people. The world is full of “rebels” who are easily swayed to follow trends or parrot conspiracy theories, or gossip about anti-celebrities (who are really just celebrities with anti-establishment reps). The easy way to get them to do what someone else wants? Make them think that someone, somewhere, is against them and they can rebel. (Advertisers took lessons from Satan, eh?)

My “baby” brother told me about a girl he met at college. He found her annoying because she looked down her nose at hicks, geeks, and the out-of-touch. At a party, she went on about a tattoo she really, really wanted to get. He asked her why getting a tattoo was so important.

“I want to be different,” she said, “like everybody else.”

Then she got angry when he laughed his butt off.

http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/2008/07/o ut-of-touch.php

Ambrose-a-rama (see blogroll) wrote recently about how she misses American-style kitchens in which family and friends gather. By her description, it seems as if Chinese kitchens have the same utilitarian and closed-to-guest qualities as a laundryroom. 

That got me to thinking about how, until I moved into this house, most of the kitchens I’ve been in have had a counter or “passthrough” separating it from the dining area. That doesn’t mean that people didn’t gather in the kitchen; it meant that they usually stood up when they did.   The passthroughs kept a nice distance between the busy cook and her guests.  (Holidays weren’t complete until Mom snapped “Get out of my kitchen!” to a would-be moocher, most often Dad.)

The passthroughs were the perfect height for leaning, or were short enough to be accompanied by barstools.  Cleaning up afterwards is a group project, with the table cleared of dirty dishes and immediately filled with whatever game is beginning.  Most nights it’s either a card game or a cribbage game. And there is always talking back and forth. 

My father recalls his mother and aunts in the kitchen, laughing and chattering like magpies. He gets a happy smile on his face when he talks about it.

The exception to the passthrough was the old farmhouses like the Kennedy home and, until recently, my eldest brother’s house. Those rambling houses had a breakfast table in the kitchen and a diningroom adjoining.

But whether the kitchen had a table or not, one rule held true for Michigan houses: The most-used door was the kitchen door. It didn’t matter where the front door was. Family and friends entered by the kitchen door.  My grandparents’ home in Marquette had a nice porch and a portucus leading into the livingroom.  My father would bring the luggage in and out through that door, but that was it. The rest of the time, we dashed up the walkway past the garage and bounded up the steps to the kitchen door. The smell was always a combination of cooking and a clean underlying smell. 

At my maternal grandparents’s house, the front door was treated more like a really big window.  We’d walk into the garage, then through the mudroom that led to the kitchen. My grandmother made her own bread, and that scent mingled with the ever-present ghost of cigarettes.

My house is set up differently than those I’ve loved in my childhood.  The front door leads into the livingroom, which leads into a kitchen with a dining area.  The kitchen door is a sliding glass door that locks from within.  One of the things on my To Do list, which my parents have also mentioned, is to replace the existing door with a regular door that I could open from the outside.

 Why?

 So everyone could walk past my front door and come in through the kitchen! 

Memo to everyone: Neither dogs nor cats are children.  As lovable as they may be, taking them to work will not teach them to apply themselves more in (obedience) school so they can follow in the footsteps of their Old Man (or Old Lady, as the case may be).  To do that, you will need to “engineer” your pet a la the Underpeople in Cordwainer Smith’s excellent stories. 

Yes, yes, I know that “Take Your Dog to Work Day” was originally conceived as a way to encourage people to adopt unwanted animals. But really, I think it would be counterproductive. When I worked in Cubicle Land(tm), the last thing I’d want was a pet after comforting my co-worker crying because our manager’s dog had killed and eaten hers.

This segues nicely to a clip on WUSA (Channel 9 in Washington DC). The blonde babe in the sunglasses is my cousin Anne. She loves her dogs (or “brown dogz” as she calls them) but knows they’re not kids.

http://www.wusa9.com/video/default.aspx?aid=62191&storyid=73 037

According to a survey I took at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering, I can take 30 five-year-olds in a fight. Thanks, Heather, for the valuable insight. I now know I should seek counselling for my inner Hulk. :) 

On a more peaceful note, the youngest of my nieces, Miss Christine, is having her First Holy Communion the weekend before Mother’s Day. One of her older sisters, Miss Kelly, is getting married the weekend after Mother’s Day.  Neither of them can take me in a fight, unless their wicked dog Bandit gets involved.   

* sobrinos = nephews and nieces; sobrinos nietos = great-nephews and great-nieces

Looks like I’m going to be “doing Easter”, as we say. I have never cooked a turkey before, so it looks like ham wil be the main course. Unless I find myself with enough time to make lasagna - even though that’s breaking custom. Lasagna, as everyone knows, is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner.

Oh, you didn’t know that? 

It’s funny how things will become customary very quickly. Sometimes the traditions have little to do with the point. What the heck is up with those “Easter” bunnies?  Why do “spring cleaning” when coal-caused grime is no longer an issue? When was the last time anyone kicked a football made from pigskin?

But I digress…

Lasagna began its ascent to Christmas Eve glory because my mother wanted something she could cook ahead of time and set aside, rather than adding to the volume of cooking - and stress - of Christmas Day. Still,  there is an elegance and ceremony to it. Everyone dresses for church and the table is neatly laid with the best linen, “good” dishes, silverware, and candles. Wine is served (St. Julian’s winery in Paw Paw, Mich. is a favorite source). The lasagna travels from oven to table in a casserole basket woven of gold-toned wire. Afterwards we go to Mass and - before or after - we open our presents.

My father made pancakes on Christmas Day - the simple yet festive breakfast of the lumberjack camps.  Although he had moved out of the U.P. (the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), no doubt his Yooper blood gave him the power to make the special blueberry pancakes. Mmmm…

My family doesn’t pig out on Shrove Tuesday, not being of Polish descent and therefore bound to consume paczkis (POONCH-keys), otherwise known as the Donuts of Doom. Imagine a jelly-filled donut with enough lard to choke an ox. In the Detroit Metro area, it’s a cross-cultural event.  Self-deluded locals call it “Paczki Day” because they can’t bring themselves to call it “FAT Tuesday”.  (And nutritionists wonder why Detroit is one of the fattest cities in the nation - it’s all the paczkis!)

 To my family, the end of Lent is marked with a feast.  It’s the blow-out. The appetizers range from cheese to pickles. Beer and pop (aka soda pop) are the beverages of choice. The dinner, served at 2 o’clock, is arranged on a circuit through the kitchen and into the hallway. First are the meats, usually a ham, Swedish meatballs, and sometimes a beef dish. Then comes the salads: greens, mixed bean, coleslaw, and potato. There’s zucchini bread (courgette bread to my UK friends), fluffy rolls dusted with flour, real butter…. The desserts can be anything from dirt pie to bunnycake - and frequently both. 

 Supper comes later, when bread is brought out and everyone makes sandwiches of their choice. I especially miss Grandma O’Rourke’s homemade bread, which has seldom been matched by any baker.