It was a weekend fraught with technical difficulties. Our usually stable server has been dying at the same time every night. It’s been faced with the Linux equivalent of the Windoze blue screen of death. The root of the problem seems to be some process or another that Dave had tinkered with. Hopefully he’ll have it all straightened out shortly…so my pseudo-sanity can return.
As though I weren’t sufficiently embarrassed by walking around all day with a burn mark on my cheek (self-inflicted this morning while I was using the curling iron), I nearly inflicted sudden death upon my person this afternoon. Whilst eating leftovers at my desk. My co-workers took notice when I started making sounds far worse than any puking cat…as I desperately tried to dislodge a piece of seaweed from my windpipe. How did it get there? Who can say. I’ve been eating on my own for years now, usually without incident. Honestly.
I owe J an apology. I may have overreacted. Just a tad bit. A few weeks back something came up. I’d been working late frequently…and the long days resulted in an aching back. Well, achier than usual. For my birthday I’d received a gift certificate for a one hour massage, but had been too busy to use it. So one day I decided enough was enough and scheduled an appointment. That I then had to cancel at the last minute, as, unplanned, and inconveniently, I had to work late. So I rescheduled. Only this time the little man really needed to get his hair cut, as picture day was fast approaching at school. Suddenly I found we were doublebooked. On the night before picture day. Our appointments were at the same time…and my back was really bothering me. But P couldn’t possibly have his photo taken with such a moptop. J came to the rescue by graciously agreeing to take P, without me, to the salon. When he’d done so another time I was pleased by the results…but I’d told J it could have been, you know, just a little shorter. P’s hair just seems to grow out so quickly. So this time around J made sure that it was shorter. Much shorter. Much much shorter. When I arrived home to discover this I was not in the relaxed, zenned out mood I’d been hoping for. Instead I was just as tense and frazzled, if not more so, than I’d been to begin with. I’d arrived to my appointment to find the masseuse had canceled on me. There’d been a voicemail left late in the afternoon that I hadn’t received. I hadn’t had time to check my home voicemail from work. So I’d driven back all sulky and sullen and disappointed. When I walked in the door to find my firstborn nearly bald…well my coping skills had already shorted out for the day, so I couldn’t conceal my shock. And perhaps dismay. He looked like a completely different kid. With a sense of trepidation I took him into school the next day. Then I pushed it to the back of my mind and didn’t think much about it for a few weeks. But just yesterday I received the results. I opened the envelope from the photographer to find my sweet son smiling back at me. The photos are perfect. So J, I am sorry darling. But I am glad P’s hair is growing back.
I’m going to have to re-think my relationship with the Nicollet Mall. For some time now I’ve been eating my lunch at my desk, more often than not. It’s not some oddball agoraphobia. No, it’s a product of my environment. In my feast or famine workplace, I’m often too busy to leave my desk for long. When things do slow down a bit I usually forget that I can walk away. For a little while. And when I do…strange things happen. This afternoon I had lunch plans. As I was waiting for my friend to arrive two gruff-looking men passed me. I wouldn’t have taken note of them except that, with my super mom-hearing, I happened to catch a bit of their conversation.
“Geesh, y’see that crazy sweater?
She looks like a fucking bird.”
When I realized I was the bird-lady I snapped my head around to look on my critic full in the face. But he hastily avoided eye contact as he ambled on…shifting his eyes as he flicked his cigarette butt on to the sidewalk.
I’ve already pointed out today’s holiday, so I guess I should make mention of that other thing. No, not the new Buffy episode (though it promises to be a funny one). That other deal. The thing that cannot be escaped. It’s in the news everywhere. Even being closely followed in the UK. Yep, I mean the 2002 mid-term elections. The Independent calls it like I see it: “The fighting will be close, the spectacle exciting, the outcome meaningless”. I will be voting, as I always do. But how much does my vote really count? I’m faced with the dilemma familiar to those who share some of my beliefs. Should I look to the future and use my vote to help the Green Party (to capture that crucial 5% of the vote), or to keep the Republicans at bay right now? Not that most Democrats are much better, but I’ll have to move to Iceland if creepy Coleman is elected. Ew. I get the willies thinking about it. But Iceland is great this time of year.
This date marks yet another holiday, and no, it’s not a Catholic one. Though I guess it sort of has something to do with Catholicism. Dang. You got me. It’s Bonfire Night in the UK. Back in 1605 Catholics in England were having a rough go of it, so a few of them got together and thought that blowing up parliament might be a good idea (in the hopes they could overthrow the government). One of ‘em was allegedly caught red-handed. But he may have been set up. At any rate, Guy has gone down in history as a traitor, and a tradition was born the very evening he was busted. Effigies of him, and sometimes of the Pope, are burned in bonfires each November 5th.
Remember, remember
The Fifth of November
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
(Anon).
Perhaps this should just be a holiday blog. Every day is likely a holiday. Somewhere. All right, that could get old fast. It already is. Maybe I should try to get some sleep so I can think of something better to post about in the morning. Nigh nigh.
No it’s not from Beetlejuice. Or a Nicolas Cage movie. Or some Evil Dead version of Office Space. The Office of the Dead is the liturgy read at mass each November 2nd, which is All Souls’ Day. It’s also known as Day of the Dead, not to be confused with the unfortunate George Romero movie. On this day many Catholics believe they can pray their loved ones out of Purgatory.
“The Catholic religion is based on works, and the theological idea of Purgatory has been accepted as a means of paying for sins, and buying your way into Heaven.”
As I’m getting older, I’m beginning to understand the workings of the Catholic religion (from the outside) a bit more, which helps me make sense of the often bizarre and inconsistent workings of my mother’s family. For them, the rules are rarely absolute or global. The rules can change daily, or be bent or worked around. If the price is right. The rules don’t apply if you pray, or curse, enough. The rules can be outright broken…if you seem to feel guilty enough, and make a pass at penance. With this wishy-washiness, it’s no wonder I longed for my Dad’s unambiguous rule of law. The clear-cut, ideal morality that he manages to live by, and up to. While I continually let myself down, when I succumbed to my maternal clan’s unique brand of moral relativism. Don’t you love it when you’re writing a post and it goes off in an entirely different direction than you expected? So, moving right along. The next post won’t mention anything about Catholicism. I swear. Unless I break my own rules.
I’ll admit it. I was, half-heartedly, raised Catholic. Though, as Jessamyn recently put it, I’ve never been a big believer in a “capital-G God”. Nor am I a big fan of organized religion. But there is something oddly comforting, and/or intriguing, about the religious rites of my youth. Especially midnight mass. Sure, the celebration is “based on the ancient belief that Jesus was born precisely on the stroke of twelve”. But what’s most impressive about it, really, is that people willingly leave their warm beds…late on a cold winter’s night (well, especially cold in my home state). And many manage to coerce their bleary-eyed children to go along with them. I went grudgingly when my own mother dragged us along. But once there, being in the company of sleepy strangers at that odd hour nearly made me giddy. It was a break from routine (almost on par with the beloved school field trip). But the best part were the luminarias…glowing softly against the snow and the night sky. And the hundreds of candles lighting up the cold church. I haven’t attended any mass in years, but have toyed with the idea of observing a midnight mass. Just for the hell of it. This reminiscing came about as today has fallen on another interesting Catholic holiday, All Saints’ Day. Little mind is given to it in the U.S., despite Halloween’s religious tie-in. The pagan Halloween/Samhain was subsumed by the church as All Hallow’s Eve, the holy evening before the All Saints’ feast…a celebration of the saints who were never cannonized. In recent years Halloween’s popularity has taken off in Europe, much to the chagrin of religious officials. There’s been a push to to play it down and promote All Saints’ Day in its place. Good luck. But I do like their re-branding of the day. Focusing less on the unknown saints and instead describing it now as a day when “…French and several other European countries remember their departed loved ones.” Unless the dearly departed of Europe are more likely to have been unknown saints. Hmmm.
I’ve always been something of a freak magnet. But I can’t let that stop me from going out and about, now can I? Earlier I decided to wander a bit over my lunch break, to prevent myself from nodding off at my desk. Went through the skyway to check out the new movie theater (it just opened in downtown’s most recent example of atrocious architecture). I was heading down the down escalator, as you do, as an odd young man was making his way up it. I must have glanced down at him just long enough (thinking, what the devil is he doing?) for him to take it as his cue to speak to me. Apropos of nothing he told me “hey, last night I saw this guy with a costume made entirely out of duct tape”. Er, that’s nice. It actually would be kind of neat, I guess. Perhaps this guy has some telepathic ability and could tell that, out of the hordes of downtown workers swarming around us, I was the one who would appreciate this bit of information the most.
