Home Base Tecopa

We can’t seem to move on into Death Valley. Here we have wonderful showers, private pools of hot desert springs waters, INTERNET and great people. So—we explore. Yesterday was the China Date Ranch.

First we stopped in Tecopa Proper. Here is the remnant of the old train station. I am a lover of ruins and here were wooden sidewalks, wooden post pillars and train ghosts galore.

Could anyone find a finer example of a classic pick'em up truck?

This wonderful bottle wall is a work in progress. I believe the final work of art will be in the form of a tiara.

Obviously China Date Ranch is a PC version of what it was originally called. But the ethnic settler was run off and a succession of horse rustlers took over the valley. It was lucrative. When the horse thieves made money they were Republicans. When they “redistributed” the land they were Democrats.

 

 The Ranch has so many types of date trees it is amazing. The dates are protected from the birds by wrapping the bunches of fruit in old clothing—it’s a very colorful orchard! In back of the ranch is a wonderful hike back to an old mining site, 2 “rivers” that converge and a beautifully preserved old berm from the Tidewater Tonopah railroad. The waters are the Amargosa River and Willow Creek. The water is pure.

Hiking the 3 miles was a bit much for me and Mr T was great about carrying both fanny packs and yelling at the dogs so I could conserve breath. A cold beer on the desert is like nectar.

Today the sun was gone—cold and overcast and not good for photography. We embarked on a long circle recon trip in the Jeep—90 miles total of which about 60 were on dirt roads. The plan was to circle Kingston Peak.

The Kingston Wash Road started out just fine. Nice wide dirt road and twice as many signs as needed warning us of who and what was allowed and that we could not drive over 30’ off the road. OK—fine—we can comply. The road quickly turned to a Class 2 road. The Jeep took it in stride. Besides, there were still numerous signs and markers pointing out the trail.

THERE IS TOO A ROAD AROUND HERE!

But all of a sudden, we were in rocks and boulders and washes and unmarked desert. It was now Class 3 and there was not a sign to be seen. Back when it had been proto-dirt road, it was government overkill. Now that information was vital, nothing was in sight. Now—try to imagine health care run by the government—that is what it would be like. No TARP signs here.

 

 Worse, we were quickly losing daylight as well as the road. The NavSys showed no roads of any kind so that was no help. We bottomed out, had to turn around, backtrack, guess, get out and scout—but eventually we found a stretch of desert that got us out of that wash just as the sun sank behind the hills. The last 12 miles we drove on a soft sand dirt road in complete darkness.

The Jeep has more desert pinstriping than it did and we bottomed out several times—but all the tires survived. All in all, it was a great day. Maybe tomorrow we’ll head into the Valley. And maybe not!

Into the Desert

We visited the bookstore at St. Andrew's Priory yesterday. It's first class all the way including the prices. We have a new unit of measuring worth--a Netbook. Many of the icons were priced at $250 or the equivalent of one Netbook. Some icons were as much as 4 Netbooks! I think it's a sign of how our world view has changed after being away from the monks for 2 years. The book title that intrigued me most was Levels of Humility--if one is measuring humility doesn't that defeat the virtue? (Mr T was engrossed in Harlots of Egypt.)

We left our wonderfully isolated camp and headed down the mountain and across the Mojave--again in bumper-to-bumper traffic. At some point in Victorville Jeep and Minnie got separated and then we played leapfrog trying to catch up to each other. First attempt was trying to hook up again at the Lynnwood Outlet Mall--THOUSANDS of shoppers backing up traffic and the attempt failed. The 2nd meeting place was supposed to be the Barstow Walmart--failure. No CB traffic but cell phones got us straightened out. By this time Mr T was on I 15 and I was on I 40--no good. We finally caught up to each other at Peggy Sue's in Yermo--one of our all-time favorite haunts on the desert.

After that it was just plodding across the desert to the hot springs we like to visit. We take the waters and enjoy the last internet connection until Stovepipe Wells. It's cold, windy, cloudy and generally the last kind of weather we'd hoped for. But it will change soon and we are in no hurry. The space and barrenness are soothing and if we take a few days to recover from the days of travel, no one is complaining.

THE NAVY SHOWER

We are dry camping on the grounds of a closed Christian summer camp in the Angeles National Forest. Amazingly we have 20 amp power and for water, a clear running creek behind the Minnie. We have to watch our gray water tank capacity very carefully. That means no real shower! Now Mr. T, being a mountain man at heart, has fine-tuned the art of the Navy Shower. I have avoided such an insult to civilization at all costs, preferring to take what is known in coarser circles as a PTA bath. I will leave the deciphering up to the individual’s imagination.

But I could avoid this mockery of a shower no longer. Mr. T walked me through the salient points. I insisted on a dress rehearsal.

1. Heater on in bathroom, doors closed, shower door open—check.

2. Towel at the ready, clean PJs warming up, dry towel hanging on door handle—check.

3. Shower cap on and get au natural—check.

4. Put shower head into bucket and turn on hot water(while shivering) and wait for hot water to kick in, add VERY COLD WATER to make semi-warm water, move collecting bucket aside and jump in shower—check.

5. Get wet. Turn off water—BLAH!

6. Soap up.

7. Shower nozzle back into collecting bucket and turn water back on. When you feel warm water again then rinse as fast as you can and turn the water off.

8. Collected water goes eventually into black water tank via flushing toilet.

9. While shivering violently, dry off, cuss out Navy, wiggle into jammies and swear never to get this far away from a KOA again.

The virtual rehearsal was clear. The actual practice was not so good. I got as far as Step Four before we realized that no one had bothered to turn on the hot water heater. DAMN! Cuss out Navy and Mr. T., scramble au natural into freezing bedroom and dig out sweats from bottom of ice box closet and leap under covers, turn electric blanket to high.

After much coaxing and sexist mocking of weak women from Mr. T, I gave it try number two. It worked with Mr T reporting a total shower time of 5 minutes including the water off minutes.

But I refuse to call whatever that was a “successful” shower. As soon as I get back in cell phone contact with the Real World I’m making reservations with Full Hook-ups.

Do RV parks come with room service???

I-5 OR HOW I LEARNED TO QUIT ASKING “ARE WE THERE YET?”

Heavy traffic again today. But we’re heading south down the state’s main traffic artery. The further south we drove the more barren it looked. Pretty soon I realized what was usual neatly prepared and planted fields seemed to be just empty land returning to untended stretches of dirt.

Then these signs started appearing hanging on the fences:

I knew the idiots in Congress had cut off water to some of the fields in the San Joaquin Valley because of a bottom of the food chain fish that isn’t even endangered. Once again the tree huggers exercise power they shouldn’t have with decisions that put humans beneath low life forms. Flush the fish, let the farmers get back to feeding the humans and shoot the ravens just for kicks and giggles. But I digress.

The drive was depressing. Empty, wind-blown fields, bumper to bumper traffic and the allure of California seemed diminished.

Once we cleared Palmdale with its crazy 50 mph city streets and stop lights every eighth mile, we pulled out of the flatlands and began a climb up into the foothills of the Angeles National Forest. I had managed to find a Christian camp that was pretty much closed up for the winter. We drove on roads called “Big Rock Creek” and “Red Gulch Road.” It started to feel like the set of a John Ford western.

We finally found the camp and were greeted by a wonderful woman who showed us where we could park our RV. This is not an RV camp—just kind people who were happy to help out travelers who needed a place to stay for 2 nights. The water pipes had all frozen during the snow a few days earlier but we did have electricity. Alas, no dumping facilities.

Later that evening we had a joyful reunion with our monk friends. Their new temporary digs are very nice and it was good to see the familiar icons and soak up the good smells of the new chapel. At Divine Liturgy back in Santa Rosa we had been admonished not to be seduced by the “pious, religious sentiment” of Christmas Eve. Well, when all you’ve felt for so long is emptiness, “pious religious sentiment” feels pretty good. I sure wasn’t going to knock it! So throw another Yule log on, crank up the carols and revel in sentimentality. Wassail All!

HERE WE COME A-RVing

Christmas Day and we roll out of Sonoma County at 5 pm hoping to catch a break in traffic through the East Bay. Wrong—very wrong. Freeways were jammed but once again the Minnie and the Jeep begin the long trek to Death Valley via a stop in Valyermo to visit “our” monks during their long pilgrimage as guests of the Benedictines at St. Andrew’s Priory.

Although it was only 3 hours to Kit Fox RV Park it was hard time. Quick showers, a little TV, let the dogs chase a few rabbits and we were ready to hit the sack for a long driving day on Saturday. We were reflecting on how the Pope and I have something in common—we both have been attacked on Christmas Eve during Midnight Mass. I was attacked by a soprano in my choir who suffered a psychotic break and thought I was the devil; the Holy Father was attacked by a nutcake who slipped past security and pulled down an elderly man. What a sick world. I wonder if the red-jacketed woman who went for the Pope was also a soprano?

The weather is not promising but I long to be back on the desert. I will keep you posted on the inevitable stories that travel brings.

Laying Down Electronic Footprints

Wiretapping? Interception of emails? Missing transcripts and birth certificates?

None of the above.

I'm talking about a basic female need to shop without being followed. It used to be very basic--you grabbed your wallet, cell phone and SUV and headed out. Sure, maybe you called over your shoulder, "Gotta run down to the drug store and pick up the photos." as you headed out the door. And then you went to the mall, downtown, Costco, antique stores and boutiques--whatever.

My cousin and I were discussing that those days are no more. Mind you, we are both married to men who love data, spreadsheets and online banking. Now, when we come home we are greeted with:

--Thanks for filling up the Jeep.

--The total at the drug store sure was a lot for just pictures--and $40 in cash?

--Why did you go to the mall? Didn't you just buy a sweater last week? And $30 in cash??

--I didn't know they had a boutique upstairs in the hardware store. And $20 in cash???

--Have a nice lunch at Vladamir's? Was it wise to have 2 glasses of wine at $8 a glass and then drive?

--You forgot to get my prescription for my colonoscopy prep while you were at the drug store.

--What's cloisoinne?

How do they know these things? Because they are FOLLOWING US ON THE COMPUTER!! Every transaction shows up immediately on the spreadsheet and online banking program! Even salting away a few extra dollars in cash is right there before I can even spend it!

How does one shop for Christmas presents? There's no point in trying to keep purchases a surprise for under the tree--forget it. "I see you got a vest in only a large. If that's for me you should know I wear an EXTRA large now."

Is there an App out there that will disguise how the credit cards are really being used? I go to Macy's and it shows up on the computer read out that I got an edger blade at Home Depot? We need more women in science. Forget George Bush. Forget Al Gore. Get me an App that covers my shopping footprints!!

La plume de ma tante est sur la table

As Mr. T has observed, I know just enough French to be dangerous. How right he is!

Part of our family lives in France. I thought Amazon.com was global--just send Christmas presents from California and anything over $25 would get the free shipping. WRONG!!!! A little 10 euro candle cost 50 euros for shipping.

So I was directed to Amazon.fr and told I would already be linked up there. Well gosh and golly--I sure was!! I was greeted Bonjour Toc--and then it was point and click and guess. It was all in French!! No press 2 for Spanish in France. Uh-uh. But I bumbled my way through with what remnants of high school French I remembered and thought I'd gotten to the gift certificate section.

They didn't want dollars--they wanted euros! Provide a conversion feature--uh-uh. Not the French. Side trip to Google to find out what equals what. The number that came up just looked funny in the way that numbers can do. One doesn't give a gift certificate for what looks like $267.43--too weird--so I rounded up and typed in 500 euros. The number that came up looked more like 500,000 euros but it was missing a zero. I figured they just must do numbers differently in France so I clicked on continuer(must be the same, right??)

I think I was doing okay until I got to the credit card part. I didn't realize the French do dates differently. But I realized it early this morning when the bank called saying the charge to our bank card had been denied because a wrong expiration date had been given. Dang! Failure!

Another hour spent today sloshing through the French and making guesses. This time I actually got an email back saying

Merci d'avoir commandé un chèque-cadeau sur Amazon.fr !
Informations sur la commande :
------------------------------------------------------------


Chèque(s)-cadeau(x) commandé(s) (N° de commande
 
The bad part is that I've either sent them 500 euros, 500 euros twice, 500,000 euros, or 500,000 euros twice. Or all of the above. Je n'est pas a single clue! Oh well--joyeux Noel.

The First Thanksgiving Proclamation Thanked God, not the Indians

General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

In Her Cups

I'd forgotten how much work it is getting ready to serve lunch, tea and birthday cake! Fortunately I was able to pick up a great ecru embroidered tablecloth at a local estate sale for a mere $2.00. Costco flowers, fancy lemon girly birthday cake with little violets all around, the GOOD towels up in the bathroom--with stern warnings to Mr. T not to even think about drying his hands on them--it was finally already by Saturday morning.

 In fact, I had a few hours before the guests were due to arrive and I was gazing out my window into my recently-deceased neighbor's back yard--and that's when I saw these beautiful white roses just growing there. The more I looked at them the more I could hear them calling my name. The house is empty, Ernie has "passed on" and these poor roses looked so lonely. How beautiful they would look on my kitchen counter. It took about 3 minutes to convince myself that Ernie was looking down from his celestial perch and urging me to climb over the hedge and cut those white roses for my tea party. So I did.

As I was arranging them in the vase I was suddenly overcome by the uncertainties of life and the certainty of death. This was not good. I decanted the wine and decided I'd better have a glass to make sure it was fit to serve. (This is a pointless gesture for friends who add ice cubes to their white wine and secretly wish I'd serve one of those pink wines.)

Well--one glass of wine, stolen roses, contemplating the deep meaning of life I made the mistake of putting on Merle Haggard on the iPod. Now NO ONE can sing about feeling lower than ol' Merle can. Pretty soon, I was in front of my computer playing Minesweeper, drinking a nice zinfandel and  listening to Merle sing about looking for a soft place to fall. And this is how my first guest found me. Fortunately she took over immediately and got me snapped out of it. No more iPod, no more Merle, off with the Minesweeper, reassured me that dearly departed Ernie would highly approve of me pilfering his roses, and we were ready to have the party!

I feel the house has now been christened. Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion and I enjoyed having so many familiar faces in my home. I just might be up for hosting Thanksgiving this year after all. It could be fun--and what are the chances of setting the oven on fire two years in a row?????

RSVP

The LADIES are coming for lunch--all 13. This Saturday. I have not entertained in 3 years. I have also gone through two moves that produced Major Snits which usually resulted in me giving/throwing things away. Apparently during one of these snits I gave away the large tablecloths, all my cloth napkins, most of my collectible Homer Laughlin china, a fair amount of stemware and everything else involved in giving a LADIES LUNCHEON AND BIRTHDAY PARTY. I am sunk.

On top of this drop in inventory, the poodle has taken up a very bad habit--when I leave he scratches the carpets. He also sits on the back cushion of the love seat in the living room. It is permanently indented.

The sofa is a lost cause but perhaps I could do something about the scratched carpet--he had clawed it down to the backing in places.

The scratches only showed in the deep blue places so I thought why not get a dark blue magic marker and just color over where the backing shows through? Good idea--except it turned the spots a deep purple.

No problem--get a black magic marker and blend it all together. Wrong--now the carpet had big black spots showing up.

Then I had the Big Brainstorm:  FOOD COLORING! And it was a good idea--I just wish I'd put on gloves first. The blue food coloring which was at least 20 years old(sure glad I didn't throw THAT out during one of my snits) worked great. Unfortunately the coloring will not come off my fingers, nails and cuticles. I have 3 days for it to fade or get scrubbed off. On the other hand, white gloves are never out of style and show remarkable good taste in an age that has forgotten the finer details.

Too Many Weddings, So Little Time

Maybe I found this so funny because everything lampooned in this "typical" wedding story I have witnessed personally during my life as a church organist. In fact, if anything, these examples are quite sanitized.

The link for this comes from Don't you just love weddings?

Editorial Note:

Warning: THIS EPISODE OF THE REV. KNOW IT ALL IS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE. IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW. PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE. THE REV. KNOW IT ALL IS NOT OPPOSED TO ALL WEDDING CELEBRATIONS. HE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR WEDDING WHICH WAS A TRIUMPH OF PERSONAL SANCTITY AND GOOD TASTE. HE IS PROBABLY JUST HAVING A BAD DAY.

Dear Rev. Know-It-All,

I visited your church once and am thinking about having my wedding there. How long is your main aisle?
Mary O’Burne

Answer

Dear Mary, 
I am often asked that question, and never quite understand it. Are brides curious about the length of the aisle because they think a longer aisle may give them a few more minutes to back out of the whole thing? Or, as I suspect, does a long aisle prolong the glorious promenade of which a young girl dreams as she thumbs through bridal magazine as she contemplates her special day, when all eyes focus on her as she approaches her enchanted prince and all the world thinks she’s gorgeous and knows that she has bagged her man just as surely as a Wisconsin bricklayer bags a deer and ties it onto the roof of his pick up truck? I have certainly seen a few grooms who look like a frightened deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Why is it that weddings cause people to spend so much time, energy and money? And more money. The average American wedding costs almost $29,000, according to “The Wedding Report”, a market research publication. $29,000!”  Oh, by the by, the usual donation to the church is about $200.00. That $200 goes to the church, not to the priest. The usual gift to the priest is a hearty handclasp. The usual cost of the photographer is $2,000.00. All this tells me that the photographs are one hundred times more important than the grace of the sacrament, in most peoples’ estimation. The usual fee for the DJ is $1,500.00. I am consoled by this. It means that painful, occasionally obscene music loud enough to cause brain damage is only 75 times more important than the grace of the sacrament.

You must be thinking why is this guy so down on weddings?  I am down on some weddings because I am very “up” on the sacrament of matrimony and really in favor of marriage. That’s why the modern method of marrying and the wedding industry make me crazy. They militate against marriage. Here is the heart of my complaint. IT IS STUPID TO SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING THAN YOU DO PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE!!! I have known people who are still paying the credit card bills generated by the wedding years after the marriage is over.

The Modern Method of Marriage, a Reprise. The following is taken from my own experiences and things people have told me (outside of confession, you’ll be glad to know.) Here goes.

A young man and a young woman meet and have a few dates. They go for a weekend at a bed and breakfast where they bed one another, and then have breakfast. If he isn’t too much of a jerk and she isn’t too picky, they are then an item. She goes to the doctor gets a prescription and goes on to a more permanent form of birth control. At some time during this stage, the uncomfortable meeting with the parents happens. Everyone is polite and “supportive.” Secretly the father of the young woman who knows exactly what’s going on, contemplates buying a gun and the mother of the young man begins gossiping with whomever will listen about how her little boy could do better. After a while, if things hold up, they begin to have the conversation about taking their relationship to the “next level” by which they mean shacking up, as we used to call it. Now, I think it’s called moving in together.  

Mom and Dad buy housewarming gifts in an attempt to, once again, be supportive. They don’t want their little dears to hate them and besides, it’s what everyone is doing these days, so it can’t be wrong. They have vague thoughts about getting married at that point and mom explains to grandma and to friends at church that they are just doing it to save money for the wedding. At this stage an engagement ring may appear. At some point, when they think about getting the house and the kids, because that’s what you do, they decide to have the wedding. They rent the hall and then go see the priest. He tells them there are four other weddings that day and they respond, “but we’ve rented the hall already.” Someone suggests a garden wedding if the church is occupied.

The priest says we can’t do garden weddings. (More on this later.)

The young couple begins to complain about how narrow-minded the Church is with all these rules and regulations. They eventually pick a date. Then the bottom drops out. It seems the groom is not Catholic. He was baptized in the First Reformed Church of the Druids, though he never practiced. This means there must be a dispensation for the marriage, another irritating Catholic invention, and the wedding date cannot be confirmed until the dispensation is received. The bride goes back to her doctor, this time for a prescription for valium. Her mother joins her on this visit. Finally the dispensation is granted, The groom’s druid will do one of the readings at the wedding, the loans are taken out, the banns are published.

Then there is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The best man comes to the rehearsal drunk out of his mind, the groom only slightly tipsy. The bride is furious at everyone for some reason known to her alone.  Probably because the groom is far more interested in drinking and watching the football game on his hand held computer thing than he is in gazing lovingly into her eyes in anticipation of the great day. In fact they haven’t been, well... friendly in weeks. It is, after all, football season.

The special day comes, the best man is still drunk, the groom is hung over, no one knew about that interesting tattoo that the maid of honor had way low on her back, now revealed by the plunging back of her dress that is held up only by wishful thinking. Grandma, upon reading the logo of the maid of honor’s tattoo, has fainted. Somewhere in all this the vows are exchanged, and quite a few of the wedding party receive their first Holy Communion that day, however one of the ushers puts the host in his suit pocket not having a clue what it is. (This actually has happened to me twice.) The pictures have been taken. The noise level in the church reaches that of an English soccer match after the riot has broken out. The children are jumping off the altar and the priest is scowling at everyone. Now on to the pictures in the forest preserve, a “must” at every wedding. There the wedding party is attacked by mosquitoes, one of the children falls into the lagoon and the bride is having a hard time smiling for the photos. The best man passes out. On to the reception.  

The bride loses it because the shade of fuchsia in the floral center pieces clashes with the shade of fuchsia in the wedding party’s outfit. The groom adjourns to the bar where the game is on the television. The wedding dinner is served as music is played at a mind numbing volume. Grandma is better now. She has turned off her hearing aid. The priest is seated with the pious relatives in plaid suit coats and leaves shortly after the grace before meals. The best man makes the toast which drones on about how he loves the groom and one begins to wonder. The college roommate/maid of honor does the same for the bride, going on for fifteen minutes about how she knew the bride would find eternal marital bliss the moment she met her in the third grade and they have been like sisters ever since.

Then at some point, there is a video presentation of embarrassing photos not unlike the ones that are now shown at wakes. The bar opens up again. The music reaches levels that cause blood to drip from some peoples’ nose and ears. The joyous event ends with the bride and groom being the last to leave the hall. They are slow to go up to the room they have rented in the hotel because nothing new or beautiful awaits them there. The groom promptly falls asleep, being heavily sedated already, and, as he snores away, with his shoes still on, our blushing bride, having shed her dress of virginal white, thinks back on this day, her special day, the most important day in her life, the day she has dreamt of since she was a little girl. They will stay an extra day at the hotel, but cannot afford the time or money to go on a honeymoon because on Monday they will both be back at work in order to pay off the colossal bill that their special day has incurred.

For some reason, the bride is depressed. Perhaps she is realizing that the high point of her life is now past and the rest of it will be spent with the lump that is now snoring beside her with whom she has never really had a serious conversation, except about the proper shade of fuchsia for the floral centerpieces. So it is that we celebrate the marriage of Christ and His Church in these enlightened and tolerant times.

Remember, none of these things happened at your wedding, thank God and don’t think from reading this that I am down on marriage or even weddings. I love a wedding celebration when there is something to celebrate. Also, it is never too late to begin again by taking Christ and His gospel seriously. 

PLEASE SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE THAN YOU DO PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING.

Yours,
Rev. Know-It-All

P.S. Garden weddings: They look good in all the bridal magazines but they are just opportunities to feed biting insects and suffer from sunburn. It is however amusing to watch the bridesmaids sinking in the mud as they try, after a few margaritas to maneuver the newly laid sod in spiked heals. The bride is generally exhausted from not having slept for three weeks as she worries about the weather reports which are promising a 50 percent chance of typhoons and earthquakes that day. And destination weddings. Don’t get me started on Destination Weddings! You want to be married with just your closest friends on a beach in Maui. That means that Grandma can’t go because she hasn’t flown since the Hindenburg Disaster, and is thinking of cutting you out of the will, and all the friends and relatives who aren’t with you on the beach in Maui realize they aren’t very close to you after all. And I haven’t a clue how long the aisle is here at St. Dymphna’s.

Golf To A Different Swing

I'd had it. The golf course beckoned and I wasn't going to be kept down any longer. After all, a doctor is just another person with an opinion, right? So---with back corseted tighter than anything my great-grandmother could have imagined, elbow strapped up, both thumbs and wrists velcroed into nearly rigid claws, I pushed the golf cart with my forearms down to the Pro Shop. I noticed only a slightly-raised eyebrow as the cashier took my money and handed me a scorecard.

This was my reasoning:  the doc had said no REAL golf for several more months. He had given a half-hearted okay to chipping and putting. It took me a few weeks of mental juggling to figure out that what I was doing wasn't REAL golf.(Remember "what is the definition of 'is'?")

First of all, what I normally do out on the links couldn't be called REAL golf by any stretch of the imagination.

Second, if I only used a 9 iron and a putter there's no way that could be REAL golf.

Third, since I've never been able to take a full swing with that huge galaxy-sized driver anyway, that would surely disqualify my game as REAL golf.  Great! Full justification acheived.

I was told I could wait for approximately 37 foursomes ahead of me on the front nine or tee off with a stranger playing as a single on #10. Duh! I flew out to the tee and simply told him I was joining him for teeing off. He looked very puzzled and I could tell he wasn't that pleased. I just told him to tee off, wait for me to "tee off" and then we'd go our separate ways. Kind of like a one night stand only it was daytime.

After seeing me use my driver with a quarter swing and sending the ball into someone's back yard BUT ACROSS THE WATER HAZARD, he scurried ahead of me and out of sight. Mission accomplished. I was once again alone on the golf course.

Golf is a very interesting game when you are only using  a 9 iron and a putter. It's made even more interesting when your right elbow is constrained and your right thumb is not in the game. Add inability to grasp the club with much more force than moving your fine wedding china from cupboard to table, the only variable left is making the ball go straight.

Okay--so I took 10 strokes on the first hole. I was getting used to the new grip and approach. And yeah, I ended up in the same creek on the 13th hole twice--don't ask. Other than that, my score was only a few strokes higher than it had been 3 months ago. I was never in the rough and I never landed in a bunker. The new putting stance I've worked out--left toe pointed towards the pin and right toe pointed at the ball--makes putting without much wrist movement pretty accurate. I one putted two greens, three putted two greens and the rest were plain old two putts.

Here ends the first installment in Gimp Golf.

The Blog Is Not Dead But It Does Gasp

One is barely coping.


On top of a boneyard-dead desktop computer and loss of two years' worth of photography, a much-loved camera falling out of the Jeep onto the street and shattering, a lost cell phone, a new one that I hated, a found old phone, a return to old phone, a new Mac, dislike of Mac and giving it the boot, a new PC whose video card immediately quit, new video card, PC switching which hard drive from which to boot and going dead in the water, hauling of CPU back and forth to Geeks, the heartache of dealing with an aging mother whose mental lapses cause all 'round confusion and THEN--the final bitch slap by fate--tendonitis from golf!

Both thumbs, hands, wrists, forearms, right elbow and lower back are in braces and trussed tighter than the Thanksgiving turkey. One is not pleased.
One has despaired.

One will return.


But not just yet.