What Do Catholics, republicans, And Chicken Pot Pie All Have In Common?

Fountainhead by Seyed Alavi

It's been a perfectly ghastly week, and I need to write to Feel Human again. All I have been able to do since Friday night is whimper, take drugs, lie down, and wonder for the eleventy hundredth time Why It Is That I Live Here in this godforsaken weather corridor. And why it is that Weather People cannot tell me what is coming, when, and for how long with any sort of reliability whatsoever. It all conspires to be mighty enough to make me say The Eff Word, almost, and I have been trying So Hard To Quit.

In case you wanted to know what it is like to rise from a Days-Long Migraine Process and try to re-enter Real Life, I have found something that is a little bit similar. Here; try to read this:

“Things must change for our government. Look at it. It isn’t too big to fail. It’s too big to succeed! It’s too big to succeed, so we can afford no retreads or nothing will change with the same people and same policies that got us into the status quo. Another Latin word, status quo, and it stands for, ‘Man, the middle-class everyday Americans are really gettin’ taken for a ride.’ That’s status quo, and GOP leaders, by the way, y’know the man can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then the man can’t ride ya, America won’t be taken for a ride, because so much is at stake and we can’t afford politicians playing games like nothing more is at stake than, oh, maybe just the next standing of theirs in the next election.”

I'd like to echo DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee and simply say, "Thank you." But of course, I can't. This speech by 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain's selection for his Vice President is beyond bizarre, even for her. As she continues to struggle for relevance in any avenue of American life, let's hope that it's not only the Democrats who sympathetically shake their heads and back away, whispering sadly. (Can we talk about it later over cocktails and nibblies, having a guilty laugh or two? Heavens, yes.)  And no, I won't mention her name and dignify her.

You know, here's another shitful thing about Migraineus Interruptus. I was being Such A Good Girl about my exercise regimen, plodding away on my Dreadmill of Punishment and even switching it up by shovelling the driveway (I know!), and then, Migraine. Down for the count. Thank goodness I don't have one of those Jawbone or FitBit thingies that would beep or vibrate or nag at me to Get Up. Like I need that. I bet you anything a Catholic invented those damn things. "Don't you feel guilty for not getting up and getting moving? Did you do your 10K steps today? CHRIST DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOU AND YOU CAN'T EVEN MANAGE TEN THOUSAND STEPS?!?!?!" I'm getting a Monday 5PM Headache just thinking about it.

I think we all Want To Do Better. I really do. Okay, well, maybe not a Certain Bob Evans Restaurant. My friends Leanne and Jim, who live in Southern Maryland, each got sick with a terrible cold. They merely wanted some nice comfort food and were too tired and ill to cook for themselves. They went to a nearby Bob Evans restaurant--slogan, "Down On The Farm"--and ordered right off the menu, nothing fancy. Leanne ordered the Chicken Pot Pie, described as "Slow-roasted chicken, carrots, peas, celery and onions in a rich cream sauce covered with a flaky crust." Here is the teensy picture from the menu:

www.bobevans.com

Doesn't that look good, even though it's pixellated?  I can see why she ordered it.  Sadly, that is not what she got.  Here is what she got:

www.tf?

I think that, after this, they are Down On The Farm all right.

It's snowing here again, despite the odds being 40%.  The forecast changes hourly.  I'm tired of hearing all the new terms for Winter Weather--Snowmageddon, Polar Vortex, Bombogenesis.  I'm starting to think that, here in NEO anyway, if it weren't for Sports or Weather, there would be no "News."

What a lot of Effing Bullshit.  (Strangely, that did not make me feel better.)  Do let's chat in Comments.

What Happens When You Tell Jiminy Cricket To Shut Up? I Have Fewer Pans To Wash!

Now that I'm Old and a Recovering Catholic, I've pretty much given up Guilt.  It's kind of my permanent Lent offering, except that I'm not sacrificing anything, I'm still eating meat on Fridays, and hey, if a Pope can just up and quit his job, doesn't that kind of render Lent a moot proposition anyway?

I remember the first day I began to part ways with Guilt, and I've documented it here.  As I aged, Guilt got quieter and more reticent.  Instead of lurking in every corner of my conscience, ready to tsk with disapproval, it simply sat there, silent and weary.  Years of middle child syndrome, battles with weight and body image, motherhood, and teaching had made Guilt an impotent shadow.  At fifty-four, retired, and at long last relaxed, I find that it's been relatively easy to let go of Guilt.  Most of its origins are gone, anyway.

There are times, however, that I feel A Little Bit Bad when I do something.  Not so much Guilty, just kind of like a kid does when he sneaks a cooky or like a teenager does when he exploits a loophole in a rule.  That sort of What The Hell attitude.  Or, as today's question asks:

What is your guilty pleasure?

 I wrote about this once before, too, a long time ago, here.  But that was almost eight years ago.  Things can change in eight years, and for me they have.

My Number One Guilty Pleasure is One-Bowl dinners in front of the television.  Doesn't that sound awful and disgusting, like a dog or something?  Or like we are these hideous Neanderthals, hunkered down over huge, heaping bowls of hash-like mashed food, shovelling it into our maws while watching Wheel Of Fortune.  Ugh.

But it's not like that at all.  Once, I made lemon orzo topped with a mixed baby greens salad and roasted shrimp drizzled with lemon vinaigrette.  Or I make a nice stirfry with chicken or beef and a lot of fresh vegetables over rice.  Or campanelle pasta with ham and asparagus and asiago cheese dressed with sage and mushroom olive oil.  Or grilled steak salad with balsamic vinaigrette (homemade, of course).

After twenty-plus years of cooking full course meals for the boys and all of us sitting at the table every night--which we all loved, don't get me wrong--it's nice to have such casual meals for just Rick and me.  And cleanup is so easy.

But my guilt stirs every so often because we aren't at the table, like civilized people.  I'm not serving separate meat, veg, starch, salad.  I mean, when we lived at home and ordered pizza for dinner when Dad was working the 3-11 shift, St. Patsy always made a veg and a salad!  With carryout pizza!

Do you see how deep it goes?  Save me.

Ever since we became Empty Nesters, Rick and I have really appreciated a more streamlined, simpler life.  We eat dinner and watch the news.  We chat and laugh.  Simple pleasures.  What could be wrong with that?

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Losing My Religion: Two Views

Now that our country is in the throes of constantly reminding itself how Puritanical it is, it seems that all things Christianity-based are News, so even if I wanted to remain unaware of the arrival of Lent, I could not.  I am a Recovering Catholic, so Lent is still a Presence in my life, and while I do not traditionally observe it, I use it as a catalyst for reflection and renewed resolution.  This lax attitude would have dismayed the nuns at St. John the Baptist's back when I went to catechism classes, but I blame my mother, St. Patsy, who Longtime Readers have met here before.

My mother, who was born and raised a Lutheran, converted to Catholicism in order to marry my father in a scandalous liaison more than sixty years ago.  She immediately became a pariah in her own family and a better Catholic than my father, who sporadically attended mass, if at all, for the rest of his life.  To this day, however, I have no idea if her Catholic Rules are based in The Church, Vatican II, or simply a combination of Maternal Common Sense And Frustration. Under her spiritual tutelage, all four of us siblings learned the following tenets of Family Catholicism in the Church of St. Patsy:

1.  You could still take communion if you didn't eat 15 minutes before mass.
2.  On Sunday, you could have what you gave up for Lent.
3.  A headband counted as a head covering for girls at mass.
4.  Going to the Lutheran church with Grandma counted as going to mass.
5.  It was okay if you missed confession; you could still take communion. What, did you murder someone?
6.  If you were sick, Lent didn't count.  You're sick!
7.  If your birthday was during Lent, Lent didn't count.  It's your birthday!

As you can probably imagine, these rules were vastly different than Sister Marguerite's rules for Lent.  Sister Marguerite was a tough old nun of choking wimple, voluminous black skirts, and in spite of her impossibly tiny stature, intimidating mien.  Every Monday from four to five in the afternoon, we Public School Children trudged into St. John's classrooms to be instructed in religious doctrine.  Sister Marguerite started every session by telling us that our parents did not love us enough to make the Ultimate Sacrifice by giving us a Catholic Education, so she had to save us.  Here are Sister Marguerite's Rules For Lent:

1.  We cannot love Jesus as much as He loves us.
2.  No matter what we may sacrifice, it is Nothing compared to His. He gave His LIFE!
3.  We must do more.  And then even more.  Is that all we are doing?  There must be more.
4.  Come now.  Think of our sins.  How terrible we are! We will go to confession as a group each week during Lent.
5.  We must tell our parents that we want to go to Catholic school.
6.  No eating after midnight on Saturday before mass and until the communion wafer is in our mouths.  Not even a breath mint or aspirin.
7.  Absolutely no meat during Lent. Ever.
8.  Only mass in the Catholic church counts as mass.  Observe all high holy days, which also do not count as attendance at mass.

Is it any wonder I had a debilitating headache each and every Monday?  I could not wait to get home to my mother, who was cooking one of her wonderful, comforting dinners.  I would walk in the side door and into a steamy kitchen, smell mashed potatoes and pan gravy and see my mother in her apron at the stove.  I don't remember ever telling her a blessed thing that happened in catechism, but I do remember telling her the day I made my confirmation that I was never going back.

And I didn't.  To her credit, she didn't even try and make me.  My father didn't even weigh in on the matter.  My religious life was complete, my basic sacraments accomplished, and I was free to coast home on Mondays.  Free!

But those of you who are In The Club know that Catholicism is the original Gift That Keeps On Giving.  Hell, there's even a teeshirt for us.  Despite our best efforts to the contrary, we all suffer (now and then) some pangs of residual guilt.  The whole religion is built on it.  It and its twin, Shame.  Just look at Sister Marguerite's diatribe--and that was primarily for Lent!  She had quite a repertoire of standards at the ready for all occasions, be it Lent, Easter, Christmas, or anything that might arise, such as tardiness, incorrectly defining Grace...you name it, she could reduce any elementary school kid to a blushing, teary-eyed bag of guts with ease. 

Sigh. 

I don't feel guilty for leaving the church.  Not one bit.  That's not what I mean.  What I mean is that, like the Puritanism of colonial times, living the code of a religion that proscriptive, that harsh, that strict...well, it's defeating.  It makes you feel as if you can never truly live in its image, never meet its demands.  You are destined for failure.  That, of course, was the eventual fate of the Puritan church in America.  And while the Catholic church is enduring, it goes without saying that it is gasping for breath.

Of the four of St. Patsy's children, two of us have left Catholicism.  The remaining two are, shall we say, extremely liberal Catholics.  Just like St. Patsy herself.  She would laugh and be dismissive were I to call her a radical, if I were to tell her she was ahead of her time, in the avant garde of the new Catholicism.  So maybe I will tell her, just to hear her laugh.

In Which I Worry Whether I Am A Bad Person Or Just Have A Sick Sense Of Humor

All right! I guess I just need a little bit of reassurance. I mean, as many DoN readers may recall, this recovering Catholic has already gotten over the whole Hell Thing. So, it's not like I'm worried about Eternal Damnation or anything. It's more of a question of whether or not...well...I don't want anyone to think I'm not a Good Person.

Let me explain.

It's this. I'm sorry, but holy crap. I laughed like hell when I read it. Just the lead line alone: "A 50-year old woman from Toledo, Ohio is recovering after a pelican dove down toward her and slammed into her face while she was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico." Are you kidding? A pelican incident? This pelican slammed into her face.

Now I'm not saying that having a full-grown seafaring bird headed straight for your face is not scarytime; it has to be. But come on. There is no way to be prepared for this when you read it in the newspaper, which is where I first saw it. I was in my jammies and robe, holding my mug of coffee, just minding my own business perusing the Cleveland Plain Dealer when all of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, this story slammed into my face!

With, as the news story says, "intense impact."

I once met a pelican. It was in Florida, at a little place called St. John's Pass. It flew down onto a dock rail and perched picturesquely on a post. A bunch of my ladyfriends and I took turns posing next to it. It just stood there, very pleasantly acquiescing to our photo session. It did not slam into our faces, nor did it even look like it wanted to. It did, however, smell terrible. It smelt of rotted fish and seaweed, which is understandable. Once our photo session was over, we wandered away from the pelican and it turned around and faced the water. I'm sure it later flew away, and probably not into anyone's face.

Sadly, the pelican in the news story did not have such an idyllic story. It died from the accident. The woman, Debbie Shoemaker, has a three-inch gash which was closed with 25 stitches. But that errant pelican gave its life.

Yet, I can't stop laughing about the whole thing. And the news stories do not help. One report felt it necessary to point out that Debbie was "not trying to attract any attention or anything of that nature." Were there pictures of fish on her bathing suit? Did she look vaguely codlike?

Sigh.

This is funny. Isn't it? Or am I just a Bad Person?

Hold On To Those Stones Out There

Once, I became suddenly fixated upon the idea that I was going to hell. For some reason, it began to occupy a lot of my Active Worry Time. I shared this concern with my breezy, largely unconcerned friend Roger who said this to me, and it changed my life in a massive, monumental way: I don't believe in Hell, and you shouldn't either. And, that way, you won't have to worry about going there. It doesn't exist.

(Actually, there was a ton of stuff in between the first sentence and the second, but it was extremely philosophical and Existential and spanned several hundred years of history and all that, and really, it's the remaining text that is germane.)

The effect of his speech on forty-something years of Roman Catholic guilt was liberating. It was almost like a hit of nitrous. I remember laughing and laughing. He was smiling indulgently, like a childless uncle at a baby's birthday party when the kid goes right for the cake. He stood up from the table, put his hands in his pockets and said, "Okay! See how much better you feel? Hell is nothing but a load of crap. You want hell? Come in and teach my third period class. See you later."

So, I don't believe in Hell anymore. I'm a recovering Catholic who's trying to get over years and years of nuns smacking me around with Guilt. Guilt over my parents not sending me to Catholic school. Guilt over not going to confession every single week. Guilt over not feeling like I was really a horrible person because I couldn't recite the definition of "grace" word for word on command. If there is a Hell, I truly think it was Mondays from 4 pm to 5 pm in St. John's School at what was then called CCD, now PSR (what do all those letters stand for anyway?) when Sister Marguerite used to drill us in Religion tempered by berating us as Public School Children. I left there every single week with a massive headache from first grade through sixth.

But, confession is still good for the soul, is it not? And in case there is a Hell--Roger's avowals to the contrary notwithstanding--here are some of my sins. I'll confess to seven, in keeping with the tradition.

1. I do not have a "baby book" for either of my children. I have not set down for posterity their first words, the date of their first steps, first haircuts, or first time on the potty. I am a terrible, terrible mother, I know.

2. I have not dusted my fireplace mantel in many, many years. I keep a tapestry runner on it to avoid it. I have eleventy billion family pictures on it that I dust twice a year: when I take them down to put up Christmas decorations, and when I take down the Christmas decorations to put the pictures back up. If you have a problem with that, come on over and dust for me.

3. I am not all that sentimental. I would rather clear out the toys, crib, baby furniture, and baby clothes from my kids than hang onto them like grim death. I have pictures of all of those things in use. The objects themselves do not retain any of the smells or any feel of the boys when they were babies, so what's the big deal? Get rid of it. Unless the item was handmade by someone, and even then, I might still pitch some of it.

4. I have a horrible swearing habit. I have a really hard time coming back to school in the fall and controlling my mouth after a summer of swearing freedom. I never swear in the classroom, but I am on constant guard. My husband hates that I am profane, but he knows I have been trying to clean it up in deference to him. I used to have a real thing against the F-word, but something happened and suddenly, it made an appearance, and it has been around ever since. I blame my friend Leanne who I don't see often, but whose R-rated emails do nothing to discourage me.

5. I don't take pictures. At all. Consequently, I have almost no pictures of my children at any milestones of their lives, and they have no pictures of me. This is a horrible thing for a ton of reasons, I know. Don't berate me and don't give me dire warnings in the comments, all full of predictions about how when I die the boys won't have any favorite photos for their memories and how they won't have any pictures of themselves to show their own babies and yadda yadda yadda da da da. I know all that and I'm already wearing an enormously prickly hair shirt provided by my sister for that.

6. I don't clean behind my appliances. If any single one of you does, then you should be canonized. Or hospitalized for OCD. Because, really, don't you have something else to do, like build low-income housing for the poor? Or come and take pictures of my family?

7. TravisCat threw up on my computer chair and all I did was (A) scrape off the big chunks, (B) put a towel over the rest of it, and (C) tell Rick that I need a new computer chair because I am sick of the cats vomiting on everything and I am not washing a freaking $30 chair when I can go to Office Maximum and get a new one on sale. Which will be VINYL OR LEATHER so that cat-yak will be more readily removable. (Honestly, the cat threw up on the futon, the rug, and my bed last week. WTF? But I digress.)

So, there they are, My Seven Sins. Are you suitably horrified? I'm glad there isn't a Hell now. Any or all of these would surely land me there.

Just remember what it says in John 8:7...