Don’t Touch my Feet!

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Am I the only woman in the world who doesn’t do mani-pedis??

My sister and my niece actually look forward to the pampering; so do my girlfriends.

But not me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve cut, filed, and polished my own nails — all 20 of them! — and I can’t see that changing any time soon.

When I was a little girl, one of my grandmothers chided me for having such short fingernails (hers were long and pointy).

‘But Grandmother,’ I protested, ‘I play piano. I’m active in tennis and other sports. I can’t worry about breaking a nail.’

She wasn’t swayed. In fact, I’m pretty sure she thought I hadn’t been raised right.

That, or I was an incorrigible rebel.

Back in the ’80s, a girlfriend convinced me to try fake fingernails, the kind that are already polished and easily glue on to your nails.

Eeeew, what a mess! Yes, they were lovely to look at, but try doing the simplest of tasks with them — things like picking up a coin or dialing a phone or even going to the bathroom!

The most trouble I had doing my own nails came when I was pregnant with my son. Bending over toes proved a challenge indeed with a full baby-on-board, but somehow I managed.

And I continue to manage, despite my crowded schedule, despite reading glasses slipping off my nose, despite my legs having grown even farther from reach.

While I occasionally go without polish on my fingernails, I rarely ever leave my toenails bare, especially in the summer.

Feet in sandals just scream to be pretty, don’t you think?

Yet despite nail salons sprouting on every street corner and in every mall, I’m still holding out. Call me weird, but nobody touches my feet!

Another Bittersweet Father’s Day

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Sunday marks my third Father’s Day without my dad, and I’m here to tell you it doesn’t get any easier. Time doesn’t heal all wounds.

My dad passed quietly on the very last day of the year in 2008 after a three-year battle with cancer.

His doctor said he smoked too much, though he’d quit decades before; drank too much, though he’d quit that, too, years before his diagnosis and the start of chemo and radiation.

Other “experts” would say Daddy didn’t eat right (he had a sweet tooth, okay, but nobody should have to die for that!), and he didn’t exercise enough (though he practically lived on the tennis courts when we kids were growing up).

But yes, he passed too soon.

He never got the opportunity to see his last grandchild (my son) graduate from high school; never got to see his other grand-kids graduate from college; never got to see his wife re-learn to drive or handle the finances; never got to see the new landscaping around the house.

Daddy and Mama on their Wedding Day

He left before I could soak up his knowledge of running a business and apply it to my own. Before I could ask him to beta-read my novel and see if it’s publication-worthy. Before I could ask his advice about so many things.

I won’t be picking out a Father’s Day card for him this year nor will I plan a special outing. I won’t be grilling or fishing or playing board games or a thousand and one other things Daddy would have enjoyed doing.

But neither will I sit around mourning. Daddy wouldn’t have wanted it.

He loved to laugh and tell jokes and stories; he loved to see his family happy and healthy and active.

He didn’t particularly like tears, especially on the faces of his wife and daughters.

So while a big part of me weeps, the greater part of me rejoices. Daddy no longer lives here; he’s been “promoted” to a new and better place.

A place where there’s no more sadness. No more tears. No more pain. No more heartache.

I’m confident I’ll see him again, too. And this time, I won’t roll my eyes and say I’ve “heard that story before.” I’ll listen to his soft Southern drawl, savoring every word, every moment, and I’ll look into his blue eyes and remind him how proud I am of him and how very much I love him.

Love you and miss you, Daddy.

Oopsie!

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When a person is as clumsy as I can be, accidents, falls, missteps, and a variety of other perils are just waiting to happen.

One happened this morning.

I’d taken out the trash and was walking back to the house when I noticed a pile of dried whirly-birds that had fallen from one of our maple trees into the downspout area of our guttering.

They looked nasty, so I scooped up two handfulls and carried them back to the trashcan.

With my hands full, I used my foot to lift the lid off the can, but the lid snapped right back down. So I tried again.

Uh-oh.

The can moved, I lost my balance, and there — in front of the entire neighborhood — I toppled backward into the street.

My tailbone took the brunt of my fall; however, both elbows, my palms, and even the back of my head decided to get into the act.

Recalling a much earlier stumble (one that necessitated nine stitches), I brought my hands up and applied pressure to my head. Yep, it was bleeding.

My mom (bless her heart for not panicking!) washed the spot with antiseptic soap, assured me it “didn’t look too bad,” and urged me to call my doctor “just in case.”

My son (who hates all things medical) drove me to the urgent care clinic. They took one look at me and rushed me ahead of the others, who didn’t have head wounds.

After administering a series of weird tests — “follow my finger, raise your eyebrows, smile, frown, stick your tongue out and wag it side to side” — and after talking to me to determine my lucidity and taking my vitals, they pronounced me okay to leave.

No stitches needed.

They offered pain medication, but I said I’d stick with Tylenol (no sense compounding my pain with nausea!).

So I’m trying to lay low for the rest of the day, take it easy, and stay out of more trouble.

I’m fortunate it wasn’t any worse, don’t you think?

Mowing can be Hard Work

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Inadvertently, I’ve found myself in possession of a new job — lawn mowing.

It started simply enough — our wonderful yard man informed us back in the winter months that he needed knee surgery and wouldn’t be able to mow for us this summer.

After calling around, we found a “substitute.” Unfortunately, this man’s work paled in comparison. He wouldn’t edge, wouldn’t weed-eat, wouldn’t sweep the sidewalk and driveway afterward. He refused to show up until at least 10 days had passed (in the summer, our lawn needs cutting at least every 5 days). He wasn’t agreeable to planting extra shrubs, and he charged a ridiculous amount to clean the gutters.

So I volunteered to mow between his regular appearances, spelling him off, as it were.

A week or two passed, then My Favorite Domer arrived home for summer break. Hearing about the problem, he offered to spell me off and climbed aboard the riding mower, heading for our backyard.

He’d made a few rounds when I noticed the humming had ceased. Next, I heard the back door slam.

Uh-oh, I thought.

Fearing the worst, I ran to the kitchen.

My son was white-faced and shaking. “I think I just decapitated a baby bunny,” he told me.

Now I love bunnies. And I hate the thought of a bunny in trouble. Knowing I couldn’t look at what I expected was a gory scene, I told him to take a shovel, scoop up the remains, and toss them far into the field behind the house — far enough away to prevent our Sheltie from feasting on a bunny dinner.

He wouldn’t do it, said he couldn’t. When he appealed to his grandmother, she took care of bunny’s “burial.”

And when he begged me to finish mowing the back yard at least — where mother bunnies invariably safeguard their little ones in ridiculously shallow nests, despite the adult Sheltie who regularly patrols the area — I agreed.

How could I not?

He was so upset and at least for now, has condescended to mow the front yard, assuming that no bunny nests are tucked away there.

I guess I’ll earn that job, too, should he ever see another bunny pop up from its hole!

Prayer

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I tend to think of myself as a praying person, but lately I’ve been wondering how well I pray.

There’s a difference, my non-Catholic friends tell me, between praying and praying.

Too often, Catholics are accused of reeling off mindless prayers. The Rosary, for example, involves recitation of the same group of prayers, over and over in a methodical pattern.

Silently praying the beads or even reciting them aloud in church causes my mind to wander. Something about the almost sing-song chants, the familiarity of the words, and before I know it, I’ve “lost” whole decades!

Not that I don’t love the Rosary. I do.

But “rote” prayers don’t make up my entire prayer spectrum.

Prayer — the kind where you read a portion of Scripture or a devotional and allow its message to slowly sink in and permeate your being —  well, somehow that seems a “higher” form of praying. After all, many times it leaves you rejoicing in God’s goodness, your heart singing or leaping with gratitude and peace, and often what you’ve read seems to address your particular needs right then.

So which prayer is more pleasing to God? Who can say?

Who also can say when is the best time to pray?

I’ve known people who set their alarms early so they can have an hour or so prayer-time before starting their day. Others do their praying in the evening, right before bedtime.

For me, most of the day is a prayer. That probably sounds odd, but I realized a long time ago that I’m unable to do anything good, anything of meaning, by myself, so I pray.

Didn’t St. Paul advise us to pray unceasingly?

But when does “unceasingly” become remote, mechanical, overkill?

Part of me wonders whether God doesn’t tire of non-stop prayers, whether He doesn’t want to say (as I occasionally did when my son was little), “Enough for now. Let my ears rest.”

Jesus’ friends faced a similar dilemma. They begged Him to teach them to pray, so He gave them the Lord’s Prayer.

What a wonderful pattern for prayer in general — beginning with praise, acknowledging God’s Will, making our request for this day’s bread, and asking forgiveness for our failings!

Perhaps all kinds of prayer are acceptable in God’s eyes. The little, quick prayers; the long, deep prayers; the recited prayers, the spontaneous, “made-up” prayers.

In the end, I think, it’s not the kind of prayers or the amount or the time of day. It’s that we pray, and pray often.

What do you think?

Project Graduation

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My neighbor’s daughter graduated from high school last night, and that took me back two years to when My Favorite Domer did the same thing.

Grads in our town are lucky — they have what’s fondly called “Project Graduation” to ease them through the transition from high school to the real world.

Project Graduation is an all-night, chemical-free party put on for the grads by their parents. And before you yawn or start dissing the idea, you’ve got to know it’s a blast!

Following the tradition of many years past, senior parents work to secure donations from businesses throughout the community. The donations are used to shower the grads with goodies before they embark on life, whether they’re continuing their education, going into the military, or beginning work.

Some of the gifts in the past have included spa baskets, cash, tickets to events, gift cards, outdoor grills, makeovers, computers, and other prizes. The big prize, of course, is a drawing for a new car (or cash equivalent), sponsored by one of our auto dealers and open to the entire community.

Graduating seniors sign up to attend the event, promising to adhere to the rules — no drugs or alcohol, no tag-along friends who aren’t part of the senior class, no leaving once they’re inside the venue. Into the wee hours of the morning, they play a variety of games, including beanbag toss, balloon pop, blackjack, etc. and receive tickets for their win; these they drop into a hat and wait, hoping their name is called for a prize.

Free food and sodas, entertainment, and music are also part of the event, which is chaperoned by senior parents (who run the games). Teachers usually don’t show up, nor do administrators. This is for the kids and their parents.

Some of My Favorite Domer’s classmates were going into the military; some had just received new tattoos; some were looking forward to being on their own at college. They snapped lots of pictures of each other, shared memories of their school years, and behaved themselves respectfully to us parents.

I couldn’t help but be impressed at their new-found maturity.

Or amazed that so many of them tired before us parents!

My Favorite Domer did his level best to avoid my gaming table that night. Who wants to cling to Mom when your friends are around?

Yet, it was reassuring to know where he was, what he was doing, and that he was safe.

And it made for an incredible bonding experience, realizing that we’d endured no sleep for an entire night. But, oh, how good that bed felt after I got back home, and how grand it was sleeping until noon!

 

He’s Back Home

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Guess who’s son just got home for the summer?

Here, I’ll put up a couple of pictures to give you some clues:

T-shirts swinging in the breeze

An explosion of green T-shirts

With as much rain as we’ve had lately, I’ve had to capitalize on the rare sunny and breezy day for drying clothes outside.

Don’t even bother warning me about the high pollen levels! I’m hoping that, by the time My Favorite Domer returns to the college up North, the pollen spores will have miraculously evaporated from everything I dried naturally.

Besides, he really likes that clean, outdoorsy scent — better than most laundry detergents!

As for the unpacking, well, that’s taking a bit longer (as is the job-hunting). I truly feel sorry for young adults these days — the economy is so sluggish and good jobs are hard to find.

Traditional seasonal jobs (fast foods, retail, etc.) are being snatched up by older people who’ve been unemployed for a while; big companies might hire one intern but can’t afford to pay; recent grads find themselves taking any job just to be out of the house (and like as not, it’s Mom and Dad’s house they’re living in).

We can only hope improvements are on the horizon.

Life in the Buff

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Nestled in the woods along one of the roads I travel to and from South Bend is a nudist colony. I know this because one of the other moms of a Notre Dame grad told me so.

I’ve seen cars go in and come out of there, and I can’t help wondering what kind of people are comfortable with that lifestyle.

Think about it. Do they have visitors (family, friends, delivery people)? Do those visitors have to de-robe before entering? Do they have to shield their eyes from staring, or wear a blindfold?

Trust me when I say some nudist colonies have Websites. Some of these places offer special events like tennis, jogging, etc. Some are more suited for singles, but others are for entire families.

What if your mom and dad (or your young adult children) suddenly decided they wanted to join a nudist colony? Would you feel comfortable visiting them, or would you insist they clothe themselves and visit you?

I rather like to think nudists are people just like you and me, only naked. They’re not participating in mad orgies or waiting to jump on each other like animals or finding their jollies in leering at their neighbors.

Or are they? I don’t know.

I’ve been accused before of being a prude. It’s not a label I relish exactly, but it is what it is. So while I’ve been told never to say “never,” shucking my clothes on a permanent basis isn’t something I’d do willingly.

I rather like clothes. They protect my skin from the damaging rays of the sun and from Old Man Winter’s chilling blasts. They hide things I’d rather not show the world, things milk-white from where the sun never shines, or the way none of us is truly symmetrical, if you know what I mean. And they’re colorful to the eye and interesting in texture and, if you’ve chosen wisely, figure-flattering.

But residents of nudist colonies prefer au naturel. Why? What is it about being naked that grownups find appealing? Is it a return of sorts to childhood? Is it a savings of a clothing budget? Maybe they just find it more freeing?

As a writer, I might need to know the answers to questions like these. A nudist colony could be a fascinating setting for a novel! So anybody with answers (factual or fictional), help me out, okay?

Divine Mercy Sunday

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Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday.

That’s a relatively new celebration on the Catholic Church’s calendar, initiated in 2000 upon the canonization of Sr. Faustina, a Polish nun, who said Jesus Christ appeared to her in the early 1930s with a message of Mercy for the world.

Recited upon the beads of a Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet contains special prayers for nine days of intentions, beginning on Good Friday and ending on the Saturday before the second Sunday of Easter.

Among those prayed for are priests and religious, the faithful, those who don’t know God, the meek and humble, the souls in Purgatory, and those who have grown lukewarm in their faith.

Reception of the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion on that feast day grants a plenary indulgence, complete forgiveness of sins and the punishment they deserve. You’re washed 100 percent clean — how great is that?!

Now there’s plenty of controversy over this feast. Some claim that Catholics, by honoring the image of the Risen Jesus that Sr. Faustina said she was told to prepare, are in essence idolizing a graven image.

Sure, we Catholics have statues in Church, but we don’t worship statues. They’re there merely to remind us of the people (and good deeds) they represent. Everybody knows a statue, in and of itself, can’t heal or help anybody!

Others claim that the “pyramid” on the Divine Mercy image is Satanic, likening it to Freemasonry, Scientology, and New Age occultism. Seriously?

Sr. Faustina said she asked Jesus what the pale and scarlet rays emanating from His Heart meant; He told her they signified His blood and water shed while hanging upon the Cross to His Death. Hardly sounds Satanic, does it? Nor does it look like a pyramid.

Still others claim that praying the Chaplet upon Rosary beads somehow lessens the meaning of the Rosary itself, or that it’s one more example of Catholics mindlessly repeating prayers.

Sorry, those arguments don’t fly either. Most people who have devotion to the Divine Mercy Chaplet don’t fail to have devotion to the Rosary; they honor both. Nor do devout Catholics “mindlessly” repeat prayers, any more than devout members of other religions “mindlessly” recite Scripture or their prayers or perform ritualistic washing.

Say what you will — an opportunity like this comes around only once a year, and everyone who can should take advantage of it.

Just think: having every sin you’ve ever committed being completely forgiven by Jesus, and every punishment deserved for those sins to be completely put aside!

Don’t Hold it Against Me, But…

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I’m a murderer!

There, I said it. Confession is so good for the soul.

No, I didn’t kill a person, so don’t send over the sheriff. Nor did I spoil someone’s dreams, or slaughter a piece of writing, or even slay a dragon.

The object of my wrath was a garter snake, a striped green-and-gold beast slithering in my backyard yesterday afternoon. For anyone who hasn’t seen one, here’s a photo (thanks to Wild Wisconsin Web):

Garter Snake

Garter Snake

This isn’t the one I killed. Sorry, but I didn’t have presence of mind to grab my camera — I was too busy running for a murder weapon!

Let’s get this straight once and for all. I don’t like snakes, any kind of snake. But as long as they’re minding their own business, far from me and my business, I’ll leave them alone.

But let them threaten me or what’s mine, and we’ve got a whole new ballgame.

Snakey was curled up in the grass, taking advantage of a brief spell of sunshine. His head was raised so he could look around and enjoy the newly sprouting leaves and flowers.

Perhaps it would’ve been easier to chase him off, but then I’d never know when he’d come back, taunting me and my dog with his flickering tongue and shimmying tail.

So I raced to where we keep the hoe, grabbed it, and hurried back to where Snakey lay.

Oops, he’d slithered off!

No, you don’t, I thought, as I gingerly stepped off the patio and searched for his coiled body.

There!

As my Sheltie watched with interest, I pounded Snakey with the hoe.

Again and again.

The darn thing refused to die.

First one part, then the other, kept flopping around and trying to get away.

But I was determined.

Over and over, I chopped into Snakey’s body. When I saw blood spurt out, I knew I was succeeding at last (though I must confess, I felt more like throwing up than continuing the battle!).

At last, Snakey quit writhing. All was calm.

I scooped up as much of him as I could with the hoe and carried him across the yard to the back fence, where I dropped him most unceremoniously into an empty field.

Back where he probably came from.

Sheltie wanted to investigate the collateral damage to the grass — and see if any food happened to be left behind.

I merely wanted to vacate the scene and let my brain stop shaking in my head from all the pounding.

That, and find a way to get the hoe sharpened for the next time!

Because I’m sure there will be a next time.