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Awake

Writers often keep a pen and pad on their nightstand in case inspiration strikes in the haze of near sleep. Poet Luci Shaw, visiting my college years ago, explained that she can never remember it the next morning, and to prevent that thought from being lost, she keeps writing materials by her bed. Some even keep illuminated pens and tablets, thereby saving their sleep by not having to turn on the light.

Inspiration can even jolt some writers out of a deep sleep, I’ve heard.

Twice in last few weeks, I’ve been jolted out of a deep sleep, but not by anything so pleasant as inspiration. I sit upright in bed suddenly, and there’s not a sound in the house, but within moments, I hear L crying. I rush to her bedroom and find her out of her crib, on the floor, stunned to be there, still half asleep herself. What woke me, K, and even L was the thump of her falling to the floor.

Crib
The heights

“It’s time we buy the foot board to turn the crib into a day bed,” we both say the morning after.

That night, though, it’s all about calming a confused, half-asleep girl, there is only one question: how in the world did she fall out of bed?

The next morning, she shows us. Pointing to the top of the crib, she explains, “I boom!” (She pronounces “I” as the Polish i, which means “and” and is pronounced like our letter “e”. So in fact, she was not saying “I boom” but “and boom.”)

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Re-enactment

Afterward, she points to the floor, adding another “i boom” for good measure. She willingly shows us as well.

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“i boom!”

Thanksgiving Games

In the old days, my family and I went to visit Aunt L and Uncle N for Thanksgiving. It was always a traditional feast, with copious amounts of gibblet gravey poured over sliced turkey, with desserts and snacks through the rest of the afternoon and evening.

The guys might fall asleep in front of a football game sometime in the middle of the afternoon, but by five or six, everyone was sitting at the table, playing games. Dominoes, Uno, board games — you name it. It was a time of family enjoying each other’s company.

This Thanksgiving, we visited long-lost family. The difference was striking. The men set up a television in one room and watched football for the two or so hours they were there while the women watched a dog show.

When dinner was served, everyone loaded up their plates and sequestered themselves anew. After a couple of hours, the guests loaded up and took off, heading to the mountains for a vacation.

In Line

I fancy I can tell a lot about someone from their shopping cart’s contents. Lots of frozen foods or processed packaged foods means little time for and/or interest in cooking. Lots of power tools means new homeowner or generous present. A collection of books on the MLA format means a son or daughter working on a research paper.

Generalizations, certainly, but they’re probably accurate at least occasionally. I look in our cart and I can tell quite a bit. Of course, I have the Cliff Notes to my own life, so there’s not much guess work there.

More revealing, though, can be the conversations in the line. One of the reasons I prefer to Polish in public is the privacy it provides. I certainly wouldn’t want those around me to hear an exchange between L and me like the one I overheard yesterday.

A mother and her two children were piling up frozen foods at the checkout when the oldest daughter — probably around fourteen or fifteen — pulled a copy of Twilight from under a bag of frozen fries and asked, “Do I have to put it back?”

Mother’s response was stunning: “You won’t read it! I’ve never seen you sit and read anything.”

The girl turned the book over in her hands a couple of times, and with a sigh, trudged off to replace the book on the shelf.

The temptations: “Has she ever seen you sit and read anything?” “Wonderful job of encouraging your daughter to read.” The greatest, though, was the most dangerous: as the girl passes me, “Here — I’ll buy it for you.”

Instead, I whispered to L, in Polish for added security, “I’ll buy you all the books you want.”

Shopping cart photo by Dan4th.

Woman Fired For Eating ‘Unclean’ Meat

Has anyone heard about this? It happened back in 2004.

A Central Florida woman was fired from her job after eating “unclean” meat and violating a reported company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises, according to Local 6 News.

Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star — a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News reported.

Woman Fired For Eating ‘Unclean’ Meat – Money News Story – WKMG Orlando.

The Mountain

This is something I wrote as a quick example for students. The topic was:

Comment on one of the following quotes and how it applies to your life:

  • “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
  • “Success is a journey, not a destination.” – Ben Sweetland
  • “Success is knowing what your values are and living in a way consistent with your values.” – Danny Cox

It seemed we would never reach the top. The winding mountain road in central Slovakia would pose no problem to a motorized vehicle, but after seventy miles on a bike, I was wondering whether we could make it. My wife — then only my girlfriend — probably felt the same way. The journey, even if we made it to the top, couldn’t be considered a success; it was a question of brute survival.

We’d started off in the morning in Poland. The plan was to ride through Slovakia, into Hungary, and spend several days in Budapest. We were a little behind schedule due to rain and an unexpected break as we waited out the cloud burst. For most of the day, though, the road had been easy going: fairly flat, some downhill portions, a climb or two. Nothing serious.

That was before we hit the mountain. It sneaked up on us, really: we felt a gradually increasing incline, and like two frogs in boiling water, we were in danger before we realized danger was approaching.

On two packed bikes, we were struggling fairly quickly after the realization that we were riding up a mountain, not a hill. Each pedal stroke became a battle, and the veins in our temples bulged and quivered as they tried to carry our blood at the furious pace our heart was beating. Our lungs began to burn, then simply went numb as the heavy, post-rain, damp air practically strangled us. Our legs followed suit: first a tingle, then a burn, followed by flames and complete numbness.

With every switch-back, we were sure it had to be the last; time and time again, we were almost knocked off our bikes by the sight of another uphill stretch concluding with another switch-back. “Maybe that one is the last one,” I said to my girlfriend. When it wasn’t, I’d repeat the speculation on the next one, often following it with a skeptical laugh.

What we both knew we couldn’t do was stop. It wasn’t some kind of macho, push through the pain nonsense. No — the simple truth of the matter is that stopping only makes it worse. Muscles cool down and the pedaling becomes more painful after the break. There’s only one thing to do: be macho and push through the pain.

After a while, though, cyclists climbing seemingly endless inclines stop thinking about reaching the top. Goals become short term: “Just make it to that twig that’s lying in the road twenty-five meters in front of me.” The instant disappearance of pain when stopping is tempting, but one makes an honest effort to go a little further: “Before I can possibly consider stopping, I have to make it to that tree.” And once the goal is accomplished, one thinks, “well, perhaps a little further.”

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At that point, a strange thing happens: the pain becomes enjoyable. There are all kinds of physiological explanations for the euphoria athletes feel when the pain becomes pleasure, but at least part of it is mental. The surety of completing short-term goals and the realization of how many such goals have already been reached transforms the pain into a sure sign — symbol, if one wants to get metaphysical — of one’s ability and a confirmation that one’s self-confidence is not misplaced.

It’s something we can apply to life: a series of short-term goals adds up to a large accomplishment. Focusing on the here and now, concentrating on getting through the present pain, we find ourselves enjoying even pain.

We finally made it to the top, and just to the right was a hotel. “We’re staying here,” I said, knowing we were still fifteen miles from our planned stopping point. “I know,” said a voice behind me.

If you’d asked me that night, I would have said that success is indeed a destination. Success is finally lying down on a bed after climbing a seemingly endless mountain. Two days after that, I would have said that success is finally walking down a street in Budapest, looking for a cheap restaurant.

But when I recall the whole trip, I think back to that mountain, and how some part of me wanted it never to end.

Haircut

It was not her first haircut, but what a difference it made. A bit off the back and she goes from looking like a baby

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to looking like a little girl

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“I try to hold on to these moments as they pass”, sings Adam Duritz, and it’s become my mantra. I have to cherish the rare moments that will become ever rarer. When K is vacuuming and L panics, running to me and screaming for me to pick her up, I hold her close; she clings so tightly to my neck that it’s almost difficult to breath.

“Were you scared?” I ask.

“Tak,” she says, relaxing her grip and simply putting her head on my shoulder.

I’ll always want to hold her when she’s scared; I’ll only be able to for a few more years.

It will all be over soon…

Just a quote:

In a moment of high panic in late September, the US Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed–a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that “Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice.”

Of equally dubious legality are the equity deals Treasury has negotiated with many of the country’s banks. According to Congressman Barney Frank, one of the architects of the legislation that enables the deals, “Any use of these funds for any purpose other than lending–for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions, etc.–is a violation of the act.” Yet this is exactly how the funds are being used.

Then there is the nearly $2 trillion the Federal Reserve has handed out in emergency loans. Incredibly, the Fed will not reveal which corporations have received these loans or what it has accepted as collateral. Bloomberg News believes that this secrecy violates the law and has filed a federal suit demanding full disclosure.

via In Praise of a Rocky Transition.

Hail Obama, Hail Mary

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman, parish priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church here in Greenville, writes on his blog about being Catholic in a decidedly evangelical region:

St. Mary’s Catholic Church is located less than five miles from the campus of Bob Jones University in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, a part of the world in which many Protestants still regard Catholicism as a pagan cult pretending to be a Christian Church or, at best, a fatally compromised version of the true Gospel. In such an environment, those who are casual, cultural, and cafeteria Catholics quickly become either ex-Catholics or Evangelical Catholics, and that is paradoxically one of the reasons why our congregation and many other Southern parishes are flourishing: the unique challenge for Catholics seeking to live their Christian faith in the South leaves no room for spiritual mediocrity, doctrinal confusion, uncertain commitments, or a lukewarm interior life. (Unexpected Catholicism)

What he said to a Greenville News reporter was sure both to unite and to alienate Evangelicals and Catholics. Hitting upon that common conservative Christian motif of “abortion is the greatest evil on the planet today” and Democrats are evil because they support it, Newman suggested Catholics who voted for Obama might not be fit to receive communion:

The priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in downtown Greenville has told parishioners that those who voted for Barack Obama placed themselves under divine judgment because of his stance on abortion and shouldn’t receive Holy Communion until they’ve done penance. (GreenvilleOnline.com)

The Greenville Times is even putting it on the front page, so to speak:

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This is reminiscent of the calls in 2004 not to give communion to pro-choice Catholic candidates (read: John Kerry). CBS News explained it thusly:

It is unclear if pressure from the Boston archbishop will prevent Sen. John Kerry from taking communion this Easter Sunday in his home city because of the Democratic nominee’s support for abortion.

Amid questions of how Catholic leadership will respond to the pro-choice senator, Kerry’s archbishop — Boston’s own Sean O’Malley — has refused to clarify a statement last summer that pro-choice Catholics are in a state of grave sin and cannot take communion properly. (CBS)

Newman’s letter itself is here.

What next? People who are friends of voters who voted for candidates who are pro-choice have to get aboslution? Parishoners who touch dogs of friends who have friends who have friends who heard about someone who voted for Obama must confess?

This kind of blatantly political crap should be just cause for revoking a church’s tax exempt status.

Yet a few commenters put it in perfect perspective:

  • I am confused. Rev. Newman forgives John McCain for his sin of adultery; he forgives Sarah Palin for her sin of fornication and for raising a child to be a fornicator. On the other hand, he opposes a family man.
  • Maybe the priest should refrain from taking communion until the Roman Catholic Church does enough penance for it’s willful coverup of well over 10,000 child sexual abuse cases for decades.
  • This is the reason why the Catholic Church has no credibility what-so-ever.
  • Sorry Father. I am a practicing Catholic who attends mass each week at your Church. This election was multi-dimensional. I abhor abortion, but there were so many more issues involving human lives at stake last Tuesday. By the way, the headline of this week’s Catholic Miscellany, which you sent me reads “Pope Congratulates Obama on Election Win.” In the article, Pope Benedict says an awful lot of nice things about President-Elect Obama. Did you clear your opinion with Rome?