work·i·stry \ˈwərk-ə-strē\

It Is Finished

2010-08-22T16:39:00.003-04:00

I finally said my goodbyes and left behind my first full-time experience in workistry on Thursday. The boss didn't shake my hand or give me a hug as he said, "Well, see you." The associate pastor was in a meeting, so I didn't say goodbye to him at all. The ladies were much more thoughtful in their goodbyes, giving me some lovely gifts and hugs as I departed.

On Friday, I along with a wonderful team of movers packed up all of my apartment in about 4 hours. On Saturday, we loaded the truck heading for my new city in 2 hours and then drove to the new city within 5 hours. Today, we unloaded the truck, reloaded the truck, then unloaded the truck again (long story) and started assembling my new life. It's starting to feel more like home now, especially since I'm typing to you from my very own computer desk and desktop graciously set up by H.

And so it goes. Tomorrow is the first day of my new workistry. I await new challenges with a little trepidation but a lot of excitement for all that is shiny and new.

Final Sunday

2010-08-15T17:27:00.002-04:00

One of my first thoughts upon regaining consciousness this morning was, "It's my last early Sunday!" Much to my delight, I won't be rising before dark this winter on cold and rainy Sunday mornings to trudge over to open up the church.

I opened up the church, then planned to attend Mass at 8am. Lo and behold, no readers showed up, so I offered to pinch-hit. Unfortunately, the same thing happened at the next Mass and I was very grateful when the pattern was broken at the third Mass -- I don't think I could have sat through Round 3 of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary!

Even though there were lots of people saying goodbyes, I held it together very well today until a young man with Down Syndrome threw his arms around me and said, "I'll miss you so much!" -- after that I got a little teary. Another little girl in my youth group gave me a gift from her family, a beautiful handmade glass moose, and a very touching card. Above all, I'm really going to miss the young people in the parish. They've been wonderful, fun and hilarious, and I will remember them forever, I'm sure.

After work I scooted out and started on the packing and cleaning again. Four days left. Tomorrow: The final chapter of Summer Camp.

Strip Tease

2010-08-04T18:30:00.002-04:00

This afternoon, after having some keys cut, I went over to the hall to test them. I discovered the custodian cleaning the gym without his shirt on. He explained that, because of the humidity, it was unbearable in there.

At the end of the day, he came by my office and knocked on the door.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

He laughed when I replied, "Okay, but only if you promise to keep your clothes on."

Loose Ends

2010-07-25T17:59:00.002-04:00

I have been tying up a lot of loose ends at work and making sure that as many programs as I can have people to continue them at the parish. Just because I am going, I don't want to see the children go back to having absolutely nothing at the parish. Hence I was delighted today when I got in touch with a possible volunteer coordinator and she agreed to come in - immediately! - and find out what she needed to do to run one of the programs. This is one of our largest and oldest programs at about 45 years and still running, so I am relieved that someone has finally agreed to take over. It was the one worrying me the most. The other smaller programs I created now have great volunteers to run them, and I hope that before I go, I can find someone to do a simple task - altar server coordinating, which shouldn't be too time consuming. I am going to ask one of the senior high school girls who still serves for us.

I came home from work this afternoon and started some cleaning up for the move. I have two giant garbage bags of clothes, some of them virtually new, to go to Goodwill, and I got rid of some broken things that I have had hanging around but haven't had the guts to throw out yet. The next step is to see what things are residing in my locker in the building; I'll tackle that when boyfriend is down to help me load the useful things into his car.

On a totally unrelated note, if you've got some spare time on your hands, I've been reading a fantastic book. It was last year's Giller Prize winner and I haven't been able to put it down: The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre.

Nearing the End

2010-07-19T19:22:00.004-04:00

I have been away for a while on a vacation to visit a lovely part of our continent. The views were incredible:

This gave me a good opportunity to evaluate various circumstances that began to emerge in the past month and shortly before I left on my trip, I notified my boss and a few close friends that I was resigning my position at my workistry.

I came back today and started to inform the parishioners as well. The kids took it fairly well though they were obviously very surprised. I don't imagine it will be an easy few weeks as I bid farewell to so many good people.

So ... big changes. What this means for the blog is that it has run its course, and I will let it rest in peace once I complete my few remaining weeks at my workistry. In the meantime, I would ask you for your prayers as I plunge into this new phase of my life and thank you for your support!

Flags

2010-06-27T17:25:00.003-04:00

The boss was commenting that there are flags from all over the world being represented on cars in our city, but he hadn't seen a Canadian one. I explained that's because our soccer team sucks and that the others represented teams playing in the World Cup.

He replied that he would like to get one Vatican flag and one Canadian flag. He meant for the church, but I pictured him with the flags on his car driving around and honking to support "the team".

A Typical Workistry Moment

2010-06-22T17:29:00.002-04:00

The cook relayed a story from earlier to me, when she mentioned she wondered why she had discovered scratches "on one arm only" to the secretary.

The secretary replied, "You only scratch there when you're lonely?"

The cook tried again, emphasizing, "One arm only."

The secretary responded again, "You shouldn't do that when you're lonely. You should try eating or something else."

The cook got very close to her and enunciated loudly, "ONE ARM ONLY!"

The secretary laughed as she finally got it, but not before the cook added in her usual blunt way, "I scratch other things besides my arm when I'm lonely!"

Oh my.

Field Trip

2010-06-13T18:56:00.002-04:00

I took the youth group on a field trip this afternoon to play laser tag.

I declined to play myself, preferring instead to sit with the pile of sweaters and bags the kids left at the door, all the while checking the score of the Germany-Australia game on my cell phone.

Some of the kids wondered why I didn't want to play. I responded, "I'm actually a professional laser tag player, and I'm currently the national champion, so it's best that I don't play with amateurs and besides, if I did, I would take every single one of you down."

They looked at me, mouths open, and didn't bug me about it again. :)

Four of them surprised me with a bouquet of flowers and a thank you card at the end of the meeting; I was really surprised and touched by their kindness.

Interesting Couple of Days

2010-06-09T19:35:00.002-04:00

It has been an interesting couple of days in the old workistry.

We had a collection container for the youth ministry programming stolen right from the secretary's desk this week. The thief stole the plastic collection container, ripped it open, threw the pennies on the ground and kept the rest. I had told the boss we shouldn't put it there but he refused to listen to me, so my group has now been victimized twice in the past two months.

Today was my birthday. The caretaker was the first to come in, give me a big hug and say, "You're the only one who is nice to me." Aww. I was surprised by a huge arrangement of roses and a balloon from my beau, and the cook cut a couple of roses from the garden and put them on my desk.

I made cupcakes for a lunch we were supposed to have - I felt like a grade 1 student bringing cupcakes to my birthday party! The boss, however, ruined the lunch by failing to take his scheduled day off, so I put the cupcakes in the kitchen for the others to enjoy. When I went to get one after my lunch break, he asked me, "What are you doing for your birthday?" I said I had already celebrated on the weekend with my family, so I had no plans for the evening, but, I added, "I'll take a cupcake, though." He said, "Oh, go ahead," like he was giving me permission, and I pointed out, "I made them, so yes, I will, thanks!" He apologized, thinking the cook had made them. Oh well.

Later in the day, a visiting priest tried to take a resident priest's bedroom when he arrived for a week-long stay. The poor cleaner was ready to pull out her hair.

At the end of the day the cook and I laughed as we noticed the homophobic priest coming in with a huge rainbow umbrella.

And that's just a small glimpse of why it has been an interesting couple of days...

Groceries

2010-06-01T16:48:00.002-04:00

The pastor left a shopping list with one item on it for the cook to procure for him:

"Oak meal".

The cook told him that the grocery store didn't carry it and he was out of luck.

(Head shake)

New Server

2010-05-30T20:32:00.004-04:00

I had one new server start this weekend. I prepped him before Mass, paired him up with a more experienced server, and told him to do whatever she told him. After Mass, I greeted him at the back and asked, "How did you do?"

He looked very serious as he explained, "At first, I was very nervous. Then I calmed down when I realized I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing..." He paused.

Listening to him, I was seeing a major religious revelation in front of me. I was hanging on his every word, and thought to myself, "Wow, here is a very holy child to be serving at the altar of the Lord."

Then he continued, "I realized I was where I should be, up in the spotlight with everybody's attention on me."

I groaned inwardly. So close, but so far.

One Down...

2010-05-30T16:40:00.002-04:00

...One to go. The altar server annual party was a success but the numbers were down a bit from what I had been expecting. I think the kids had fun playing the games I devised for them and the two hours were gone pretty quickly. I also had some very good kids acting as helpers which took a bit of the stress off me.

Unfortunately we had three unwelcome guests appear who wanted pizza or they wouldn't leave. I gave them a couple of slices and told them to go or I would call the police because they were trespassing/loitering at a children's event. Sigh... Inner city parish life is always unpredictable.

One more field trip to organize and then I get a break. Hurray.

Final Day

2010-05-28T18:36:00.003-04:00

Today was my final day of the academic year at my second job. It was good it was the last day because I might not have been too keen to return after dealing with the nonsense I had to face today. At least I now get a four month break before the next early morning phone call comes in!

Things at my workistry have been considerably quieter. We always seem to have lots of meetings, and this coming week is no different as the pastoral team begins to plan the landscape of the 2010-2011 year. I will scratch one year-end event off my list this weekend, and that leaves just one big parish meeting and one field trip with the youth group on my list until vacation. The boss also volunteered me, in my absence, to bake dessert for the parish council so I will have to give that some thought.

On a personal note, I had a lovely visit to my beau's place last weekend. It was a much-needed and enjoyable break away for the long weekend.

Workplace Violence

2010-05-18T20:20:00.002-04:00

I had to attend a mandatory diocesan meeting on workplace violence and harassment today. My favourite part was when the presenter gave descriptors of physical violence including "slapping, kicking, punching, spitting, and eye gouging." Eye gouging! There was also a great slide where he explained "Implementing Workplace Violence" but I didn't take notes because we already have enough of that, thank you very much.

Quiet Weekend

2010-05-17T07:25:00.002-04:00

Now that the sacraments are done at the parish for the academic year, this was an awfully quiet Sunday. I did have the final 'regular' youth group meeting, which still has yet to be followed by two 'events', but all in all, things are really beginning to quiet down.

The weekend was also a quiet but lovely one. My beau made the trip down - back-to-back weekends! - and we managed to see How To Train Your Dragon (I thought the artists had been playing too much Wii Sports Resort, since all of the scenery looks eerily like that of the Resort Island!) and we checked out the farmer's market. While I was at work on Sunday, he was sweet and made dinner, did some cleaning and bought another gorgeous bouquet of fresh cut flowers (yellow tulips and violet freesia).

Coming up is what can only be dubbed the week of the meeting. We have a mandatory diocesan meeting about workplace violence this week, and I have a meeting with my lovely female colleagues for our little support group, which I'm hosting this time. I've also got the annual meeting with the boss where he discusses "my position", only he never enlightens me ahead of time as to wait that conversation is going to entail by means of an agenda.

Mother's Day

2010-05-11T19:26:00.002-04:00

It was rather amusing the number of times I was wished "Happy Mother's Day!" this past weekend while working at the church. Most of the time I just said thank you to the well-meaning parishioners, but one asked me point blank if I had any kids. I pondered that for a second before replying that yes, I have about 350 kids in the parish, so in a way, I guess I was celebrating Mother's Day too.

Powerless

2010-05-11T07:56:00.003-04:00

I arrived just before 1pm yesterday to discover the whole place was in the dark. The power had gone out before noon, Hydro wasn't aware of the situation when we called, and by the time I shut down our tutoring program at 7:45pm, there was still no electricity.

That's a bit of a problem for trying to get work done. No photocopier to finish the Confirmation programs. No computer and printer to finish the outstanding certificates and nametags. No phone to contact the people whose names you want to verify. No email to contact the teacher at the school next door.

Sigh. Hopefully it's back on today or else this could be an excruciatingly long day.

Jesus Has A Mild Concussion

2010-05-02T21:38:00.002-04:00

For reasons I can't logically explain, our smallest altar server decided she would carry our big cross in the procession yesterday. The cross is actually lighter than the candles we have, but it's a little top-heavy and it's taller than our doorways so you have to walk with the cross like a spear to get into and out of the church proper, lest we whack Jesus' face on the doorframe.

The server did very well all in all. At the end of the Mass, however, I saw her processing towards the door and she seemed oblivious to the fact that the top part of the cross with Jesus' head wouldn't fit through the doorway, so I motioned with my arms for her to bring the cross down and walk with it sideways.

The obedient little girl tried to bring the cross down but misjudged the weight up top, and WHAM!, the cross and Jesus' face slammed into the floor. Her mouth fell wide open while both the presider and I laughed.

I reassured the server afterwards, "It's okay, Jesus just has a mild concussion. He'll be just fine in the morning."

Stop and Go

2010-05-02T18:12:00.003-04:00

Today was my first Sunday shift since last September where I wasn't incredibly busy every second of the day. I came in, opened the place up, answered some emails, and then... wow. Nothing to set up, nothing to rush off to teach, no one to corner, nothing. It felt very strange and very nice at the same time. I am sure the novelty will wear off.

I did have a youth group meeting after lunch. Our topic was a last-minute "Earth Day" theme after our guest speaker unfortunately had to back out. I asked the kids in a trivia game lots of facts about rainforests, how long things take to decompose, and a few religious questions like who the patron saint of ecology is (St. Francis of Assisi) and name a parable Jesus told featuring something in nature. My youngest group member, who is the smallest and yet amazingly the loudest, burst out with, "The time when Jesus turned the fish into bread!" I laughed out loud... I think if I were one of the 4000 or 5000, I would have had to pass on that miracle. "Jesus, there's something fishy about this bread..."

Shopping Spree

2010-04-28T07:37:00.002-04:00

The boss took me out yesterday to what should have been three stores for supplies for the upcoming Confirmation retreat and Altar Server party, as well as some replacement sports items for ones that my kids have destroyed. Somehow we ended up having to go to five stores when the third one failed to have two of the things that I wanted, a basketball pump and gift cards. Three hours and about $300 later, we had everything on my list and my office now looks like I'm about to throw the party of the century.

The boss decided to pull a "We need to talk about your position and I have to make some decisions about next year" comment again. He did the same thing to me last year, which had me all worked up. This year, I'm in a different place, and frankly, he can do what he wants and it won't bother me. That's a nice place to be in. :)

First Communion

2010-04-25T17:00:00.003-04:00

We celebrated the First Communions of 38 children today. They all looked wonderful, were mostly well behaved and their parents seemed happy.

This was my last really busy Sunday and last chance for the choir to sing for six months. They did a stellar job clapping, singing and finally making their voices heard. I was extremely proud of them.

At the end of the Mass, a parent surprised me with a gift of an orchid - I love orchids! - to thank me for my hard work with the choir this year. It was truly unexpected and appreciated.

Bucket List

2010-04-23T19:14:00.004-04:00

I got called into my second job today for the first time in two months. I haven't been in for quite a while because of illness, my primary job, and travel, so waking up to the phone at 7:01am this morning came as not much of a surprise and a relief after spending quite a bit of money on myself last night going to see a movie and then buying a few spring pieces.

The boys kept me on my toes today. I had to teach Spanish, Italian and French; only two of those languages I have studied before. Yikes. A friend on the faculty very kindly helped me print out the "Our Father" in French and Italian for the later classes. I have no idea why the boys seem to be concerned about my non-school activities, and usually I don't bother to reply. One, however, asked me pointedly today where else I work. I told him I was a youth minister, and he replied, "Aww, geez, now I feel like I have to be *nice* to you." If I had known that was all it took...!

After work, I headed downtown to cross something off my bucket list. The cherry blossoms have bloomed and they are simply breathtaking. I spent some quality time wandering around photographing them.

Almost There...

2010-04-21T18:09:00.002-04:00

I have been plugging away all week on Confirmation things: retreat, rehearsal and Mass details. The Confirmation notices from other parishes have started trickling in as well.

Thankfully a few young people are woefully behind on their community service hours so I have a couple coming in to help with the Confirmation retreat, and another one who is going to serve as a personal slave for a volunteer of mine who is running a big program on Sunday and who finds herself very short-handed.

Tomorrow I will be very busy trying to oversee a smooth Zone meeting for the area clergy. I have a little bit of help now, so hopefully, as long as the food arrives, things should be okay. I am starting early tomorrow and leaving early with the dangling carrot I have set up for myself: Survive the day without killing anybody and treat yourself to a movie after work.

Easter Break

2010-04-18T17:13:00.003-04:00

I had a wonderful 3.5 day break away from the parish, visiting my friend who lives 454km away as well as another province. It was so difficult to say goodbye on Saturday morning.

Alas, all good things must come to an end and I was back at the parish this morning, saying goodbye to our Catechetical families and hello to our youth group after a three week hiatus. We had an Easter party (after all, it is Easter season until May 23) and they enjoyed playing the Great Egg Drop Part Deux as well as having an Easter egg hunt. I was dismayed to see parishioners after the last mass run out of the doors and collect eggs - I didn't mind the children doing it, but when I saw ladies in their 30s piling our eggs into their pockets, I sent my group outside scrambling to get what was left 30 minutes earlier than anticipated. Such greed.

Last Day

2010-04-12T08:04:00.002-04:00

I've been such a social butterfly this past week - visits with three friends, and two more to go this week before I take a short vacation starting Wednesday - that I haven't had time to update.

Yesterday was my last day teaching my parent sessions on Vatican II. I did a nice little, inspiring wrap-up (I thought) of the course contents, and the three recurring themes of liturgy, laity and ecumenism. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but my open discussion then turned into a Pope-bashing session by the parents while I tried to tow the party line and protect the Church a little bit. Not quite the happy course ending I had anticipated.

Alas, two days left at the office and I'm off to spend some quality time with the beau.

Respite

2010-04-07T07:31:00.003-04:00

We survived the rest of the Triduum and Easter with only two 911 calls and one physical assault. It sounds like I work at a prison sometimes.

Immediately after Easter, I invested in a new smartphone. It's quite a step up from my basic cell which could receive calls and send texts - but no camera, videocamera, calendar, video voicemail or any other such bell and/or whistle. Last night my man helped me figure out a fairly major kink: I couldn't answer the phone for an incoming call. Which he found hilarious. Hopefully I've got it down to a science now. I also had to figure out why all my text messages l o o k e d l i k e t h i s but somehow I played with enough features to fix that one.

Why do phones have to be so complicated!?

And God Laughed At Me

2010-04-01T21:40:00.002-04:00

One down, two to go.

After I spent 90 minutes setting up tonight's liturgy this morning, I returned in the afternoon to complete the final details and train the altar servers. They did very well, especially thanks to three of them who watched me like a hawk. I sat in the very first pew inventing hand signals for what they should do -- wiggling my hand side to side to tell them when to ring the bells, pointing at the ground when they dropped a host, and otherwise looking like an air traffic controller. They were stellar and I was really proud of them.

Before the liturgy began, I had directed everybody else too. The oils knew when and where to go. The concelebrants knew what to do. The readers were coached. I had everything set, then the presider went and decided to change what I had told them at the very last second. I tried to "fix" it, and he literally brushed me off with a wave of his hand. I was infuriated. I got up to my seat and was grumbling to myself, "First, the guy doesn't help me at all with this massive liturgy. Then, he changes my plans at the last second. And I already *know* he's not going to even say thank you for all of this hard work, none of which is in my job description!"

Fast forward to the foot washing. After a few reluctant moments on the washees' part in getting up to the chairs, only 11 people trickled up. One chair, right in the middle on the top step, stood empty. I turned around forlornly, trying to spot someone moving, but no one did. Finally, painfully, after many, many years of saying, "No way on God's green earth will you wash my feet!", I found myself removing my shoe and my sock in front of the whole congregation. I was not happy then either: "God, don't you know I have ticklish feet?!" Suddenly the same presider who ticked me off before Mass appeared in front of me, washed and then KISSED my foot.

I had to laugh to myself. The server becomes the servee. The thanks is given, in ways completely unexpected and unspoken.

God does have a sense of humour, doesn't he?

"Patience, child. I appreciate what you are doing."

And Away We Go!

2010-04-01T07:40:00.002-04:00

I'm heading into church a little earlier than planned to strip the altar (the first of three times) for the Mass of the Lord's Supper.

Let the marathon liturgy begin!

Holy, Week

2010-03-29T20:52:00.001-04:00

My week got off to an interesting start when I arrived to work this morning, at the beginning of a 12-hour day, and saw the first message in my inbox was entitled, "Bad news". The MC for Triduum backed out leaving my servers and I in the lurch. I suggested to the pastor that I could be the MC, but apparently you have to have male body parts for that role. So, the pastor indicated he would handle most of it, but I could stand in the sacristy off to the sides and whisper things at the kids who are serving. Gee, thanks.

Also today, I taught 60 children how to do the Stations of the Cross, I fielded a question from a reporter at the major local newspaper, I did some planning ahead for our altar servers and my Vatican II course, and I prepared RCIA certificates for six adults. I also verified the validity of a Baptist baptism, and resolved two unfortunate situations surrounding our First Reconciliation celebration tomorrow night. At the end of the day, I found myself with very few children to tutor and on the way home, realized with some sadness that I didn't do the one thing on my list today: to go to the hardware store.

To top it all off, the Triduum looks like it will be blistering hot, and with over 1000 people crammed into an inadequately small space, Good Friday in particular could be rather unpleasant.

Holy, Week.

This and That

2010-03-24T07:41:00.003-04:00

It's been a longer than usual hiatus for me, but things have been a little crazier than usual as well. I had a nice break away at home late last week where I healed up from my flu and did some good retail therapy as well. After that, the beau arrived and we enjoyed a visit with each other, and he was such a good sport he even voluntarily did a presentation for my youth group on Sunday. Much to my surprise and delight, I came home after that long day and discovered he had also made dinner, did some cleaning up and bought me a bunch of bright yellow tulips too. Aww!

The last two days at work have been long ones: yesterday I racked up a whopping 12.5 hours. When one of the parishioners offered me a lift home, I definitely didn't decline. Today should be a little slower, and tomorrow I have a meeting that I am really looking forward to attending (that's neither sarcasm or hyperbole), before I get to enjoy yet another wonderful weekend with the beau. It should be interesting ... he's going to teach me about motorcycles.

Rising Productivity

2010-03-17T19:36:00.004-04:00

Although my doctor told me I should be off all week, I returned to the office all day today and felt halfway decent most of the day except for a massive pounding headache. (I did work yesterday from home for most of the day after the secretary made me feel so bad about coming into the office; she actually ran by my office door with her arm covering her mouth like I had the actual plague. This continued today, except she kept announcing, "Oops, I touched the doorknob!" before going to wash her hands again.)

I managed to label 45 chocolate eggs, create and publish a schedule for Triduum for our servers, finish a 13-page Triduum Order of Service for the priests, and closed the books on Marriage Prep and that diocesan event. I was proud of all I managed to accomplish, but still felt a twinge of guilt that I was off sick on Monday and will be off again tomorrow for overtime owed.

Sigh.

I was a little slow on the uptake today. I noticed our associate, sometime between yesterday's meeting and today, had a haircut. I commented on this, saying, "You had your hair cut." He responded, "I had all of them cut, actually," and obviously I didn't take it as he meant it because my brain went absolutely awful places trying to figure out what he meant by that. Eventually I realized what he meant and groaned internally.

Clearly I need a day off, one without a fever.

Sick Again

2010-03-15T18:58:00.003-04:00

On Saturday during Marriage Prep when I started sweating and shivering uncontrollably, I was convinced that I had the flu, but I had no choice but to keep on going and conceal it. I even made it to work for most of my shift on Sunday, and left when it became clear I was no longer needed and couldn't have gone on even if I was. I confirmed I had a fever when I got in and stayed in bed the rest of the day.

This morning I woke up after a night of more fever-related discomfort and decided I could scratch today as I had no meetings booked or pressing issues. I called my doctor since I knew the boss would want a doctor's note, and she confirmed what I suspected: I have the flu. She informed me I should take the rest of the week off and I just laughed, noting I have to go in tomorrow. Hopefully I will look and feel a little better then and I won't give my colleagues anything I'm carrying. I must say, it's certainly nothing like the Norwalk last month, so I'm grateful I can at least muster the strength to get myself food and drink.

I think I've had my quota for the winter, now.

Marriage Prep

2010-03-13T16:46:00.003-05:00

For the past couple of days, I have been running our parish's Marriage Preparation weekend. As it was my second crack at running the show, things mercifully went much more smoothly than last year. This was due in large part to many great volunteers, several married couples who were willing to share their experiences, a wonderful, loving and strong man who helped me to get the site organized, and to my own unflagging persistence in dealing with the caterers who caused most of the problems last year. The only unforeseeable glitch was our NFP presenter who showed up 30 minutes late for her presentation, but the main couple in charge and I decided to do the closing exercises first, and somehow we finished almost an hour early (!). (No one was complaining...)

One of the couples shared a great story about their 3-year-old daughter. She was looking at the crucifix in the church and asked her mom, "Why is that man standing on the ledge?" Her mom replied, "That's Jesus when he died." The little girl was completely horrified and asked, "Baby Jesus DIES!?" Out of the mouths of babes...

Almost March Break...

2010-03-07T18:15:00.003-05:00

... which means my Sundays will be really light for the next two weeks. Yay!

Overall the day went well and oddly enough, my parents' class and my youth group both got onto the topic of the afterlife. I'll be following that up with both groups in a couple of weeks.

I was cleaning up from the youth group meeting and the boss came in with some pastries of some type. He offered them to one of the kids who has an egg allergy, and she said, "No, thanks, are you trying to kill me?" He then offered one to me, and I said, "No, thanks, I shouldn't have nuts." He nodded knowingly and said, "Yes, you're nuts."

Gee, thanks a lot.

One Down, One To Go

2010-03-06T18:46:00.003-05:00

One big event is down for this two-week period of craziness; one more to go next weekend before I get to calm down a bit before Easter. I spent almost exactly 12 hours on my feet yesterday hauling bricks, tables, books, icons... it was crazy but fortunately successful, mainly due to a very helpful friend who did absolutely anything I asked, including running to get batteries 20 minutes before "showtime" and who otherwise assisted to make sure I was still sane at the end of the day. I wish I could say the boss also participated in that assistance for my sanity but I won't go there...

I have booked a massage for Thursday. It was a really lovely Christmas gift and I think the timing couldn't be better; I am very much looking forward to it, and the arrival of someone special on Wednesday.

One Day To Go

2010-03-04T18:20:00.003-05:00

Despite being existentially tired today, I managed to do a whole heck of a lot of work on things that aren't really happening for quite a while. I did 40 First Communion certificates, 47 Confirmation certificates, printed and cut out 50 Confirmation Mass flame nametags and printed 50 Confirmation Retreat stick-on nametags. I helped a friend unload a van full of materials for the diocesan event tomorrow night, fielded lots of questions (though the diocesan newspaper has my phone number SO wrong -- only the area code is right -- I have no idea how people keep finding me anyway.) I asked the boss to help me get the materials out of the church basement, but he refused, saying he would ask the caretaker to do so in the morning. Hopefully that actually transpires but I won't hold my breath. We're just over 24 hours away now.

I did put my foot down about one thing. The boss came in and asked me to attend a dinner at a parishioner's home next week on my day off. I told him no. He asked why, and I looked right at him and said, "I have a personal life." He looked a little befuddled and instead suggested we go after Easter instead. He doesn't seem to realize that this is an incredibly busy time for me, probably the most busy I will be all year. While the thought is very nice to invite us to dinner, it has to come at a less insane time, and not on my day off.

It's A Most Unusual Day

2010-03-02T17:39:00.004-05:00

Today was an unusual one. I started off at a Fracture Clinic for follow up about my foot and received the 5th diagnosis -- avascular necrosis and shocker, a fracture. So much for the "it's only arthritis" diagnosis I received from the very same doctor at the very same clinic just a month ago. Avascular necrosis was something he mentioned last time; apparently, for some reason, perhaps because of gout last August, a part of my sesamoid bone essentially turned to dust. Sounds very Lenten, doesn't it? After the X-ray technicians were told they X-rayed from the wrong angle and had to do a "sesamoid view", and not knowing what this was, they had to turn to Google -- I am not making that up! -- the doctor noticed a fracture through the centre of the sesamoid. (This was after they lost my chart and made me wait another 45 minutes until I spoke up). The treatment, thank goodness, is simply to rest. No aircast, no surgery yet. I have to follow up again in June when I fully expect to receive diagnosis #6.

When I returned to the office I worked away on the events coming up in the next two weeks. I also prepared a Triduum schedule for the bulletin for this week, trying to beat the March Break deadline. After I photocopied and folded 500 of these inserts, the boss approached me and said he was going to send it out on March Break anyway. Sigh.

Yesterday I requested a couple of days off for lieu time in April. The boss denied the request indicating he needed help with a visit from the bishop, except I didn't know anything about this particular visit. I suggested a couple of more dates before he showed up at my door and admitted he had the wrong date, and my original request was approved. I booked a trip and told him he wasn't allowed to change his mind anymore. He still showed up at my door as my tickets were printing and said, "I think you should change it..." and I said, "Too late."

I also got the third visit in three days from a bookseller who wants to sell his wares at our diocesan event. He wanted to sell his goods in the church proper, and I expressed that I didn't like that idea. I told him to contact the event organizer and fired off an email to the organizer myself citing: a lack of space, a lack of support for a fundraising project that was likely to ensue, and Mark 11:15-19. The organizer agreed with me and I also ran it by the boss, who said it was my call. It's nice to know some people do listen to my opinions. This bookseller is just a bit too pushy for my taste.

Finally, around 4pm, the cook and secretary came rushing in and asked if I had a particular priest's cell phone number. They claimed his car was parked, abandoned, blocking the church gates. Apparently the boss indicated it was his car, and so I dutifully called him, thinking maybe he was nearby and going to stop in for a visit after some other business. He, on a day off and safely at home, questioned the sanity of all of us. I noted I was just following orders when the others rushed into my office clarifying, "It's not his car!" "I just established that," I said sardonically, and apologized to him again. The rest of them wrote up a notice that they would have the car towed next time since it is clearly illegally parked on private property.

Let's just say after all the insanity today, I'm counting down the 42 days until I will be on a train out of here...

Triduum Schedule

2010-03-02T06:07:00.001-05:00

At our last pastoral team meeting, I pitched the idea of placing a colourful schedule of Holy Week liturgies into our bulletin so people can keep it for easy reference. When I finally won the others over with the idea, I said I would order the bulletin covers and would do a mock-up which they could edit.

All day Thursday I procrastinated about what to say in the inside cover, where typically, a priest writes something uplifting and informative about the celebration. I couldn't think of one single holy-sounding thing to say, so finally, 15 minutes before I was to leave for a meeting, I gave up and scribbled something down about how the Triduum works (liturgically it is one long liturgy with no dismissal rites) and wished everybody a happy and holy Easter at the end. I stuck a Post-it note on it: "I'm sure you can write something better than this - just a sample. Feedback, please."

Yesterday afternoon I discovered it had made its way back to my desk with a couple of grammatical changes, but no changes whatsoever to the content. Ironically, it seems the only one who has anything remotely holy to say around here is the laywoman. That's either a huge compliment to my liturgical knowledge, or a sad statement on the lack of spiritual inspiration emanating from all of us...

Welcome to March

2010-03-01T11:24:00.003-05:00

In my workistry, I have lulls and spurts of activity over the course of the year. In sharp contrast to the "semi-retirement" I have in the summer, I'm now heading into what surely is one of the two busiest periods in the entire year for me. This week we are hosting a huge diocesan event, and I will be spending time getting all of the last minute details arranged before the big night.

Yesterday I was fortunate to have a little slave-boy seeking community service hours come and help me out in a huge way (don't worry -- I ensured he was well fed and even received a round of applause for his efforts from some 80 parents gathered as he kept their children under control for half an hour). He folded about 600 of my 1000 sheets for the diocesan event, but I still have some 400 to go over the next couple of days. I'm also managing the final details for our marriage prep next week, dealing with caterers, missing cheques, arranging keys for various venues, ordering equipment, and the list goes on. After this spurt of activity ends in two weeks, I will have a short lull before the next burst of activity, our sacraments of First Communion and all that comes with Confirmation beginning towards the latter half of April into May.

I would get bored if it weren't for the little spurts of activity, but I am awfully glad for a break when they're done.

Lowest Gal

2010-02-23T18:13:00.003-05:00

It occurred to me this afternoon that I need a promotion so I'm not the lowest gal on the totem pole anymore. I want someone to whom I can delegate the things I don't want to do, like the boss keeps doing to me, but alas, I keep checking and there's no one else there to dump on.

Sigh.

I did three baptism intakes today and had a pastoral team meeting where I picked up several more little tasks to do, in addition to the big jobs I received last week. I also did some work on the Triduum -- yes, it seems I went to sleep one day and suddenly it was Lent -- and finished my Disaster project. There were lots of other little tasks peppered throughout the day: proofreading the bulletin, ordering palms for Passion Sunday, returning phone calls, and so on. And I'm not done yet, unfortunately -- I have to go back tonight and tomorrow night for a parish project too.

Weather Outside Is Somewhat Frightful

2010-02-22T19:54:00.004-05:00

It's snowy and blowy here for the first time pretty much all winter, and it effectively shut down my tutoring program. After the fifth call from a tutor refusing to come, I called the other four I hadn't heard from and told them to stay home. I couldn't imagine that many kids would show up, and I was right. Only the two smallest souls showed up, one of whom I had to send away because of a language issue (none of us who did show are francophonie), and the other I worked with on his spelling and sent him home when he finished ten minutes later.

Two tutors did show up since they didn't get my message, and one very kindly pushed the youth group's donations from the basketball fundraising to $700.01. I'm so pleased with the results, especially after the group collected merely $26 last year for a Lenten social justice project! We've come a long way and the kids worked really hard. I don't think the boss believed me when I showed him the pledges this afternoon.

As I was fighting a weather-related migraine and wasn't feeling that inspired to do anything too challenging, I worked on finding translations of John 6:35-40 for an upcoming archdiocesan event. I am going to run three of the languages by the boss, the cook and the custodian tomorrow to see if they make sense in their native tongues, and I'll have to trust the Internet on the Korean, Ukrainian, Polish and Tagalog translations and hope they make sense the night of the big event.

Social Justice

2010-02-21T17:49:00.002-05:00

I try to bring the notion of social justice to the kids in my youth group in ways that they will understand and appreciate. All year we have sponsored a group in the parish who serve the poor in our own neighbourhood, usually by helping out with clothing and toy drives. Today we raised some money for the organization by shooting hoops -- something the kids already love to do -- for charity. The kids sought sponsors to allow them to participate in our freethrow competition. There were donated prizes for the most baskets made in 5 minutes, the most money raised, and so on. I also ran some ads to get parishioners to donate and help those who had a hard time getting sponsors. One donated to the shortest young person in the group, and three others donated to whoever didn't have a lot or any sponsorships. At the end of the day, the group raised about $400. I was so proud of them! They seemed to have fun as well, with one girl commenting, "This is great! We should do this every year." I agree wholeheartedly, and I hope that the tradition will continue in years to come, and their commitment to social justice will continue to grow as well.

Delegation Abounds

2010-02-18T18:40:00.002-05:00

Today wasn't exactly what I would term an "easy" day at my workistry. Yesterday the boss, looking very pensive, came in and asked me if I could see him in his office tomorrow morning. Having not been exactly employee of the month in terms of my attendance this month, my stomach dropped, and he also mentioned that he needed a sick note for my employee file. Ugh. A few minutes later, he returned, saying he wanted to go out to lunch after our discussion. "Crap," was my only thought which I did not verbalize; he has never, ever asked me out to lunch one-on-one before. "This can't be good," I thought.

I tried not to dwell on it last night but made some contingency plans before retiring in case it was a worst case scenario. Fortunately I was busy all morning and didn't have much time to get too worried. I calmed down even more when I overheard him invite the secretary to lunch with us -- whew! The meeting, as it turned out, was exclusively a "delegation" session where the boss dumped at least six major events on me to coordinate, set up by myself -- tables and chairs included -- and arrange all of the catering, programs, invitations, and so on. I just wish he would learn how to delegate to someone else...

Ash Wednesday

2010-02-17T18:09:00.004-05:00

Today was a busy first day back at work after my second little break this month. I set up our school Mass in the morning and was called on to serve as a Eucharistic minister and also a distributor of ashes. After "ashing" about 150 little faces, I went to visit the JKs and SKs and did the same at the school for our youngest community members. When I first walked in, they all wanted to know my name, and I told them what it was and asked their names. One little girl said, "Ivy, like poison ivy," before she reassured me, "but I'm not poison." Another said her name was Madison, and added, "My mother gave me a most beautiful name."

During the visit, I explained what Ash Wednesday is, I talked about Lent and Easter and offered to answer questions. One child asked if it would hurt their heads, and another asked what the ashes were made of; I was impressed by their questions. Finally, one little girl put up her hand when I asked if there were any more questions and she said, "You're so beautiful." I laughed and another girl put up her hand and added, "I love your necklace!" Seeing question period was over, I got to ashing their foreheads and their teacher stood by with a mirror so they could see the results. They were so amazed; seeing their little faces was so much fun.

Coming back after my mini-vacation, I had a steady stream of phone messages to answer, emails to tackle, and things to organize for youth group, baptism and marriage prep, and a variety of other little jobs to take care of. Despite working 9 hours straight, the day flew by and now I'm home to recuperate and to try to get the ash stains off my thumb...

Weekend

2010-02-16T18:34:00.003-05:00

I just returned from a wonderful weekend out of town with my "special friend". We visited two winter festival sites where we took lots of pictures and ate lots of winter treats, we visited a Cold War bunker and broke most of the rules in sitting in spots we had been forbidden to touch, we watched several movies, ate Valentine's dinner in a revolving restaurant high above the city, and I got to see his work, church, home and meet his family. I even got to practice some Cantonese to impress his folks: Gong Hay Fat Choy, Sun Tie Geen Hong. It was a very memorable and special weekend, and I think we both enjoyed getting to know each other even better over the three and a half days we got to spend in each other's company. I couldn't have asked for a nicer Valentine's Day weekend.

I returned home to real life this afternoon, and I was too tired to accomplish the lofty goals I had set for myself, but I will get them done eventually. Tomorrow being Ash Wednesday means I will be overseeing a school Mass and two distribution of ashes at the local school, among other administrative tasks I have to accomplish in my very short work week.

Valentine's

2010-02-11T18:42:00.003-05:00

A delivery came to my office yesterday while I was still out recovering. Apparently when it arrived, the secretary had them on display on her desk, much to the chagrin of the cook. The cook insisted she put them in my office, but the secretary refused, "No -- there's no light in there!" The secretary later confessed to me that she liked pretending someone had sent them to her.

Finally the boss came along and said with surprise, "What's this?"

The secretary said, "They're 'Get Well' flowers for Workister."

Then the boss bent over to study them closer, looked shocked and shook his head vigorously, "No... They're VALENTINE'S!"

The cook later reenacted the whole episode for my amusement.

Recovery

2010-02-10T12:59:00.003-05:00

Just to prove I don't do anything half-assed, I went and got sick this weekend. REALLY sick. So sick I missed 5 days of work, one at my part-time gig and four at my workistry. I'm not 100% just yet but I am definitely feeling much better than I was earlier this week. I'll spare you the details, but I haven't been that sick since I was a little kid. Gross.

That, however, didn't stop the parish from phoning. Even though I notified the boss on Saturday morning and the e-cancellations and phone calls went out, on Sunday afternoon I was trying to sleep when the phone rang. "Your youth group is all here! Where are you?" Thanks for spreading the word, gang. Monday morning, the phone rang: "Where is this?" Sigh.

I'm going to return to work tomorrow. Wow, a one-day work week before I depart for areas to the north. That ought to impress the boss, though I'm definitely going to have to scale back the plans for up north. Then I return middle of next week and work a two-day week. I'm going for employee of the month, obviously.

Ugh. At least I have recent political scandals to keep me entertained.

The Report

2010-02-04T17:35:00.002-05:00

There is actually nothing to report. The week went as planned, it was steady and I didn't have much chance to be bored, and things fell into place pretty well by the end of the week. I finished all of the handouts and lectures for my Vatican II course, I got most of the notes from our Disaster meeting into the Disaster Manual, and I realized it is time to start brainstorming for the Confirmation Retreat which is sneaking up on me.

I snuck out for a few minutes in the gorgeous, sunny and temperate weather we enjoyed this morning only to find a voicemail waiting calling me into work tomorrow. I had set my heart on visiting a friend and her beautiful daughters but alas, that will have to wait until next week instead as duty calls. On my walk to work I thought seriously about signing myself off the availability list but it occurred to me that if I did so, I was essentially signing myself out for the next 2 months since my own parish projects, my little vacation next week and a few other commitments in addition to the school's March Break schedule will prevent me from being called again until April. The money and experience help too much to turn it down for that span of time.

Overheard

2010-02-02T07:27:00.001-05:00

... at tutoring club.

Tutor: "I don't think that we should play 'Gibberish' Hangman anymore. It's too hard."

After Weekend Bliss

2010-02-01T11:07:00.002-05:00

Back to reality. My newspaper horoscope this morning tells me that I should call in sick today. As much as I concur, I don't have the guts.

The weekend was lovely. I hopped a train home after work on Thursday, and had a delightful visit with my friend and her wee baby girl on Friday afternoon. I was amazed at how many changes had happened in the past 3 months since I last saw her: two new teeth, standing on her own, crawling forwards and not just backwards under the couch :), and eating a host of new foods. Very exciting and she's still got the best gummy smile around. My friends have exciting things on the horizon and it was so great to have a chance to visit before they head out of the area.

After the visit, I returned home and my H. came to meet my parents. He asked me a few days earlier if he should wear a tie, and I told him we were "not that type of people." I told my father about this, and he agreed, saying, "Yes, we're more pajamas type of people." Despite that, H. showed up in a suit, sans tie! He impressed everyone and we had a nice dinner with my folks at their "local" before enjoying a quiet viewing of "One Week" on our own.

On Saturday morning we had a lovely breakfast with the family - my father makes the best pancakes in the world, hands down - before heading back to my home. We went on the hunt for Chinese New Year's gifts for his parents and then headed back to my home to rest after a bit of a whirlwind weekend. (Apparently, oranges are not acceptable as gifts, but mushrooms are ... I learn something new every day!)

Sunday saw me at work bright and early. My kiddie choir debuted two real hymns at the Children's Mass and they did a great job, including my nervous little 11-year-old cantor who was just brilliant. After the final Mass I made a quick exit, walked home with H. and met my brother and sister-in-law for lunch at a nearby pub. They all got along very well, and H.'s introduction to my family was a success. After lunch, my brother drove him back to his car where we bid farewell again and he left to drive home. My brother, sister-in-law and I all went to a basketball game which was my gift to them for Christmas; the home team won, much to my brother's chagrin.

And now, it's Monday. And I have to go to work, though my mind is far away from here.

Update

2010-01-28T07:45:00.002-05:00

I realize I've been a little quiet on the blog because things have been anything but quiet in my personal life. At work, this week has actually been fairly calm and I have had a lot of time to get ahead in some of my projects, especially because two late nights have seen me working in the office when there is no one else around to distract me. In the latter half of next month, things really pick up and there will be no time to think, let alone breathe, so I am enjoying this temporary downtime.

Personally, I've been distracted planning, shopping and preparing for an impending jaunt out of town in a couple of weeks, and anticipating the arrival of a friend tomorrow. I guess a bit of my distraction has appeared at work. Two weeks ago, on the custodian's day off, I forgot it was his day off and my job is to open and close the church. Good thing the boss noticed, embarrassing for me. On the weekend, I cleaned up and was whisked away by one of the kids and her dad so quickly, I forgot to lock the padlock on my storage cage. Good thing the boss noticed, embarrassing for me. No harm done, but I have to try to pay a little more attention, I think.

Prayer

2010-01-25T17:50:00.002-05:00

I've never been much of a fan of Karl Rahner only because I could never wrap my head around what he was trying to say, but this prayer needed no explanation:

God of my Life

Only in love can I find you, my God.

In love the gates of my soul spring open,
allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom
and forget my own petty self.

In love my whole being streams forth
out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion,
which makes me a prisoner of my own poverty and emptiness.

In love all the powers of my soul flow out toward you,
wanting never more to return,
but to lose themselves completely in you,
since by your love you are the inmost center of my heart,
closer to me than I am to myself.

But when I love you,
when I manage to break out of the narrow circle of self
and leave behind the restless agony of unanswered questions,
when my blinded eyes no longer look merely from afar
and from the outside upon your unapproachable brightness,
and much more when you yourself, O Incomprehensible One,
have become through love the inmost center of my life,
then I can bury myself entirely in you, O mysterious God,
and with myself all my questions.

Excuse Me, Sir...

2010-01-24T18:39:00.001-05:00

A man greeted me in the church after the early Mass this morning, "Good morning, Father!"

I said good morning back but thought to myself, my goodness, is my five o'clock shadow that apparent?

Prayers

2010-01-23T17:04:00.000-05:00

I had a little girl say the "Hail Mary" for me this week. She prayed fervently:

"Hail Mary,

full of grapes,

the Lord is with you.

Bless us O Lord, and these your gifts

which we are about to receive. Amen."

Then she smacked her forehead and said, "Oh, that's for LUNCH!" Way too cute.

Say Cheese

2010-01-19T19:03:00.002-05:00

I spent as much of today as I could dodging video cameras which were recording a day in the life of the boss. I spent almost all morning at the school hearing fake confessions from the grade 2s in preparation for their First Confessions. Later I skipped out to pick up some posters for an upcoming mission from a printer downtown. Unfortunately, when I returned, I was summoned to a mandatory fake 2-minute long meeting so all the staff could be on camera. I intentionally sat with my back to the camera, but then the cameras followed me out and the boss struck up a fake conversation about a very real issue which I got a bit passionate about on camera. Yikes. I hope they don't use that.

The rest of the week should be calmer.

St. Therese Novena

2010-01-17T19:47:00.004-05:00

When I was 13, just before I graduated, our grade eight teacher gave all of us a copy of a novena to St. Therese, the Little Flower, who told us to try it. He claimed it worked for him.

In the Novena you pray: 'St. Therese, the Little Flower, please pick me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me with a message of love. Ask God to grant me the favor I thee implore [state intention here], and tell him I will love him each day more and more.' Tradition holds that if you say the novena prayer, followed by five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys, and five Glory Be's each day for five days, you will receive a shower of roses on the fifth day.

Now, not being a superstitious person or having an unquestioning type of faith, I was skeptical to say the least, but I gave it a try anyway. At least four or five times over the intervening years, whatever I fervently prayed for was answered by the receipt of a rose. Sometimes the rose came in unexpected ways, but I was never disappointed. I always knew it was *the rose* I was waiting for, even once when I ran into 3 women named Rose within the space of an hour. Even when I was feeling far from God, I remember praying the novena because I was desperate to know I was on the right path and I received a rose.

Well, I have had a very special intention on my heart, I started to pray the novena again last Monday asking for a special favour that a certain situation would work out. Imagine my shock when this Saturday, my out-of-town friend arrived bearing the ingredients for Chinese herbal tea to help me to sleep better - one ingredient of which is rose buds. A huge, massive bag of I would guess over 200 rose buds.

If that isn't an answer to my prayer, coupled with the mode by which it was delivered... I don't know what is. Thanks, St. Therese.

Wonderful Weekend

2010-01-17T19:04:00.003-05:00

Words can't describe what a wonderful weekend this was. I didn't get called into work on Friday so I was able to get some errands done and do a little shopping for my vacation destination in four weeks.

While in the changeroom, I heard a woman sniffling and crying softly. I bet she was trying on swimsuits...

After I found what I wanted I returned home, did some cleaning and preparation for the arrival of my friend who comes from so far.

When my friend arrived, we had some lunch before setting out on a long walk through the nearby ritzy neighbourhood. It was such a nice day -- a mid-January thaw! We returned back to my place, I filled him in on some research I had been doing for him, then we went out for dinner at my favourite local restaurant. We met up again at the late Mass after I had nearly finished working and listened to the United minister preach during the pulpit exchange. After Mass, we returned home where we jointly made brunch (my omelet creation skills were somewhat lacking, it would seem, but his were divine!), then spent a little more time together before he had to make the long drive home. The hours we spend together always feel like minutes.

Good Day For A Walk

2010-01-14T17:28:00.002-05:00

I had a meeting downtown this morning and managed to get everything for a major diocesan event looked after by someone else. That feels great; I hope it lasts!

Afterwards I took a walk over to my old chaplaincy hang out and visited the current chaplain, who will be acting as a guest speaker for me in a few weeks, and then the director, my old supervisor. She was actually quite friendly with me, which was a pleasant surprise, and she invited me to call her to have lunch one of these days when the stuff of the new year settles down.

Finally, I stopped at the nearby parish to get some materials from a colleague before heading back up to work. On my lunch break I made my second run for groceries in two days so my fridge will be full for my guest this weekend, and in the afternoon I spent a lot of time going over marriage materials for our upcoming course.

TGIF! If I don't get called into work tomorrow, my primary focus will be to rest up after all the walking today!

Whirlwind

2010-01-12T18:46:00.002-05:00

I felt like a whirling dervish all day today. After some hard thinking yesterday afternoon following a disastrous visit to the sports doctor yesterday morning, I decided to make a late start at work and to visit my family doctor's replacement. Her name, I was glad to learn, wasn't actually "Dr. Sick," as it sounded on the phone. Pretty close, though.

She definitely put me at ease, which I needed. Despite my inclination to take the aircast off following six weeks of torture, she told me to hang in there and she would get me into a Fracture Clinic as soon as possible. She also did more X-rays; I'm convinced I glow in the dark following 14 X-rays in 3 months.

I was back at work by quarter after 10 and did not stop all day. A former classmate made a brief visit when the boss had to postpone their meeting. I worked on advertising for an upcoming Parish Mission and our major diocesan event, made notes for several meetings coming up this week, and had a quick lunch between phone calls and emails. We had a Pastoral Team meeting in the afternoon and I came out of there with about just over 300 things to do, which kept me hopping for the rest of the afternoon in between typing up the minutes and following up with various people whose names were raised in our meeting. Even at ten minutes after five, I was cursing at the computer because our national bishops' website wouldn't let me order some brochures I need within two weeks.

Hopefully tomorrow should be a bit lower key so I can make a dent in my ever-expanding To Do list.

Fortunately, despite the craziness, I have something to look forward to this weekend: the boy from the northeast is driving a total of nine hours to spend about the same amount of actual hours with me. I still can't wrap my head around what I have done to deserve someone like that in my life.

Racing Through Sunday

2010-01-10T18:57:00.002-05:00

It was a busy day in ministry today, but a successful one. All our programs restarted today so I taught my Vatican II course, organized the children's Mass and had a youth group meeting. We're now up to 22 students, something I could hardly have imagined just 16 months ago when only four siblings were dragged into the first meeting by their mother.

Today we went a little wild to mark the new year and ran a race all over the property. I had the kids eating strained peas, wearing beards made out of cottonballs and held on by Vaseline, and had them assembling flashlights in the dark to find their next clue. They seemed to enjoy it despite their protests about my gross food choices. At the end, in order to get a couple of kids to sing a song they composed about the parish, a couple of our student leaders had to agree to don cottonball beards. Somehow it never occurred to the kids to try to coerce me into wearing a beard or eating strained peas ... I didn't make that suggestion to them, obviously ;)

And we're back in business. The quiet is over. I start my almost weekly school visits tomorrow and I am starting a course on First Reconciliation and First Communion for a group of older children. Our tutoring club launches again tomorrow too. At least I won't be bored for a while!

Teaching

2010-01-08T15:08:00.003-05:00

I got called into supply this morning and had a relatively easy day with 2 periods of civics and 2 of English, as well as a stint as a library monitor. I even got to leave before 2pm, a real bonus because my foot was hurting like heck after standing on it most of the day.

Now I'm rushing around cleaning and washing and cooking prepping for my dinner party. I said earlier it was going to be an easy dinner - now it's going to be even easier, since I'm beat and didn't have all day to cook.

Free Slavery

2010-01-06T19:21:00.001-05:00

I had the youth group back this afternoon to undecorate from Christmas. We took the trees out, put the manger scene away, packed up the lights and stored everything back in the basement.

When the elderly priest came home he was upset to see the trees outside: apparently we had taken them down 3 days too early, and should have waited until the Baptism of the Lord.

I thought after the Epiphany, we could undecorate. Am I wrong?

Thinking Ahead

2010-01-05T18:16:00.002-05:00

As soon as I got to work this morning I turned around and left again -- and hit a nearby grocery store to buy 20 jars of baby food peas for my youth group for an event on Sunday. I spent the rest of the day working on the logistics of an event that will probably not take more than an hour, maybe 90 minutes. Labour intensive, but hopefully worth it.

I also spent some time on my lunch break thinking about a dinner party I'm hosting on Friday. I think I'm leaning towards being easy about things - doing a pasta dish, salad, bread, and some type of dessert. No need to kill myself this time, I think.

Finally, I booked tickets for a train trip in February. Exciting and scary at once; more details to come!

New Year, Same Old

2010-01-04T17:45:00.001-05:00

After work and after a friend departed yesterday, I undecorated from Christmas. Everything feels so stark and empty after that. January always seems to come in in such a depressing, dark and cold kind of way, in such sharp contrast to the magic of the Christmas season.

Alas, it's back to the grind. I sent out dozens of letters about marriage preparation this morning. This will surely keep my office phone ringing from now until March. I also cleaned up some issues with our new server vestments, finalized some details for my upcoming courses, returned some calls and tickled the ivories to get back into shape for the children's choir. All in all, quite a productive day.

Tomorrow I am on a mission to find baby food for a major youth group event I am running on Sunday. I'll leave the details of that to your imagination ;)

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T08:58:00.004-05:00

Happy 2010, everyone! I attended Mass last night with my friend for the feast of Mary, the Mother of God where the presider told us to let go of past indiscretions, mistakes and pain, and bring in the new year and decade with much joy and hope in our hearts. That is my prayer for everyone I know and care about this year.

After Mass, we went out for dinner at what turned out to be a bit of a questionable spot for a romantic themed dinner, but we had fun because of the company despite the loud music and quasi-suspicious food. Instead of going downtown to celebrate with fireworks, we opted to avoid the crowd, the rain and the cold and instead share a cozy night in with wine, truffles, board games and fireworks on TV. It was lovely.

This morning I "rang" in the New Year in a rather unexpected way -- at 8:25am the fire alarms were blaring throughout the building, jolting me from a restful half-sleep. I went out on the balcony to see if I could see any flames pouring forth like last time, and I could not, so I opted to stay on the balcony rather than attempt to transverse over 20 flights of stairs with a cast and a broken foot. Most of my neighbours did the same, and 20 minutes later the alarms were silenced and we're back to normal.

Happy 2010!

2009 In Review

2009-12-30T07:40:00.000-05:00

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before? Took a cake decorating course. Taught myself the basics of guitar. Ran a diocesan-wide event on my own. Had major surgery on something other than my eyes. Broke my foot. Directed a Christmas pageant. Saw a meteorite. I kept a written journal for every day of 2009 in addition to my bloggy journal.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Indeed! I got a library card and I actually use it, and I found a hobby: cake decorating. I will make some more practical ones for next year.

3. Lose anyone this year? My uncle.

4. Where did you go that you haven't been before? The islands and Winnipeg.

5. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory? September 27.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I would have to say the strides made in my personal life -- must have been that four leaf clover from Andrea. ;)

7. What was your biggest failure? The inability to relax and shut off on my days off.

8. Hardest decision I made: How to deal with a long-time 'friend' who was not truthful about his past.

9. Best decision I made: Keeping my sense of humour as I go about my life and ministry.

10. Compared to this time last year, how did you think the year went? The latter half was better than the first half in most areas.

11. What do you wish you'd done more of? Had more fun and traveled.

12. What do you wish you'd done less of? Worrying about things I have no control over.

13. Did you fall in love in 2009? As a Magic 8 ball would say, "Signs point to yes..."

14. What was your favourite TV program? 30 Rock, hands down.

15. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? "Hate" is such a strong word... dislike intensely applies, though!

16. Mistake I won't make again next year: I want to say "summer sports camp," but I have a feeling I will have no choice about that mistake again next year!

17. Personal change I am proudest of: I think I'm wiser about ministry than I was this time last year. Some are little things I picked up along the way, and some are bigger things.

18. Who did you miss? My newly ordained friends who have moved state-side, especially MEN.

19. Who was the best new person(s) you met? H.C.

20. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009: Keep your hair a safe distance away from the votive candles.

21. Most difficult situation I resolved: While there were many through my workistry, the stuff of #8 probably qualifies most.

22. Strangest moment of the year: Between having a crazy doctor, a crazy boss and generally crazy people where I work, there are just too many options. Perhaps it could be encountering the priest in the ladies room, but probably it would be my frequent, increasingly awkward encounters with the bishop whenever he was having intimate medical procedures done. What can I say? It was a strange year.

23. Insight of the year: Practice makes perfect.

24. Top News Stories That Caught My Eye This Year: The H1N1 virus. Barack Obama's inauguration. Michael Jackson's and Brittany Murphy's deaths. Tiger Woods. Mariam Makniashivili.

25. New Year's Resolutions for 2010: I think I'd better go back to the one I had two years ago: no hospital stays! I will add no broken bones, and I want to travel more.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-29T11:25:00.004-05:00

I am back in the big city after spending Christmas 2009 with my family. It was a very nice celebration together: quiet, festive, fun and much laughter. I transferred all of our family videos from VHS to DVD for my brother, sister-in-law and parents for Christmas, and that seemed to be a real hit with everyone.

I'm back today to prepare and bake a cake for my visitor from Ottawa who arrives tomorrow. I've never been one for New Year's festivities, but I think this year will be especially memorable.

My Favourite Christmas Blooper

2009-12-25T09:00:00.003-05:00

During the homily the children of the parish were called up to the front to sit and listen to Father, and answer some of his questions. Halfway through his long sermon, a little girl put her hand up.

Father said gently, "Yes?"

She asked, "Can I go now?"

My sentiments entirely, kidlet.

Christmas, Christmastime is here

2009-12-24T10:36:00.002-05:00

The Christmas marathon is about an hour away from commencing. I have been up, done laundry, cleaned, packed, cleaned myself up, and am putting the final touches on things here before I head to work for our annual Christmas luncheon. The boss has agreed to drive me home afterwards, pick up my crutches and take them over to the office for me.

I will rest for a couple of hours before I return to the office for Christmas Eve dinner followed by our Family Mass, of which I am in charge. I have a little Mary and Joseph to dress up, five altar servers to dress up in their new vestments, and a choir to lead through "Mary, Did You Know?" I am very much looking forward to it.

After that Mass is done and cleaned up, I will have a couple of hours of downtime before we prepare for midnight Mass. I will head home at 12:01am once those servers are confidently dressed in their new gear, the Mass is underway and I have said "Merry Christmas!" 1000 times, sleep for about 5 hours before I return to open the church for our early Mass and to say "Merry Christmas!" 1500 more times over the next four Masses. I already know in advance I will be head usher at one Mass and an Extraordinary Minister on special assignment to the choir loft at another Mass, and I'll be on hand to dress up our servers and fill in for vacant ministerial assignments as needed throughout the rest of the day.

After all is said and done, I will be on my way home to my family for Christmas and Boxing Day celebrations, and a long winter's nap.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Unexpected Encounters

2009-12-22T17:43:00.000-05:00

Today seemed to be a day for unexpected things. Just after lunch I answered the door because our secretary was not back yet, and it was a rather unusual fellow, known to us, who insisted on doing a hands-on blessing of my foot for healing. As he noted, it was an act of faith -- you just never know if he has a gift of healing. I sure hope so.

Shortly afterwards, I went into the church to transition our altar server outfits from our ratty albs to our new-to-us cassocks and soutanes. I happened upon one of my smallest servers, only 9 years old, coming into the church by herself. I was surprised and asked, "What are you doing here?" She replied, "I love the church." I wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so I stuttered something about that being great and to have a good visit, and then I went on with my server wardrobe switch.

In the morning our boss gave us all a Christmas bonus - a very pleasant surprise - and in the afternoon, a parent dropped off the biggest gift basket I have ever seen. One of the girls laughed and asked me how I was going to get it home; it is so incredibly generous. The pastor kindly offered to give me a lift home from the staff lunch on Thursday if I make it there on my own. That will work well as I will be doing a 5-midnight shift and his offer of a lift will give me a chance to rest up in between the first and second walks to the parish.

Christmas Preparations

2009-12-21T17:24:00.003-05:00

The youth group came to decorate the church for Christmas today in exchange for community hours and free food. I liken it to legal slavery.

It actually looks really good and took us under two hours to complete with only a few mishaps. One was a can of Coke accidentally kicked over in a pew, which the kids called "Clean up in aisle 1!" Another was discovering one of the lambs in the Nativity Scene was missing a foot. No one took credit for the accident, so it is possible it was damaged in years past, but I ended up calling that "Only one wooden animal was harmed in the making of this Christmas display." One Christmas tree ended up being erected in the wrong spot, but it was moved to its proper place before too long, and one kid made herself sick on pizza. Overall, a very successful and fun afternoon.

Last year, just before Christmas Eve Mass, the presider informed me that the Baby Jesus was missing. I sought out the pastor because he was present for the Christmas decorating, and he informed me that he had put the Baby Jesus in a very safe spot. Only it was so safe, he couldn't remember where. I ended up searching frantically in drawers all over the church looking for the most important part of our creche, and we wound up finding him in the sacristy, but not before I got laughed at by multiple kids for asking, "Have you seen the Baby Jesus?" This year, since I'm in charge of his arrival on time to the creche, I put him safely in my office with the clothes Mary and Joseph will be wearing so there will be no Christmas Eve freneticism.

All systems are go for the 24th...

Peaceful Advent IV

2009-12-20T18:09:00.002-05:00

With no parent course to teach, no children's choir to conduct, no gift bearers to choose, and no youth group to lead, my Fourth Sunday of Advent was very peaceful.

We wouldn't be our particular church without a few little glitches along the way, which included a broken furnace and a very interesting conversation I had with a priest. He is going to take over my parent course for one week while I am otherwise engaged, so he arrived at my office door to learn more about his assignment. I filled him in on the audience involved and told him which Vatican documents I had assigned to him.

What happened next surprised me: he argued with me about how there were no Vatican II documents written about priests, and I disagreed with him, citing Presbyterorum Ordinis. He told me he had taught courses on Vatican II for years and that was a post-conciliar document. Finally I had to prove to him it was a conciliar document by pulling up a list of the sixteen documents on EWTN. Seeing the list online, he sheepishly admitted that he would have to do his homework in giving the talk instead of just winging it, and if there was a question raised he couldn't answer, he would direct the students in the class to ask me the following week. Ha!

Mini-Break

2009-12-19T11:27:00.003-05:00

I decided this would be a good weekend to go home and visit prior to Christmas, so I headed home right after work.

Can I just say how *rude* people are in this city? I was on the train with my obviously injured foot, holding two crutches, and NO ONE would give me a seat. None of the 20- and 30-somethings avoiding eye contact by staring at their Blackberries. At the big transfer station, people ran past me towards emptying seats so that I was spinning around like Kramer unable to secure a seat. I was utterly exhausted by the time I got to the second train where I did, thankfully, manage to secure one of the last seats.

I had a restful stay with my folks, and did a little New Year's Eve shopping. Now I'm back in the big city ready to take on the next 6 straight days of workistry leading up to Christmas Day.

Vaseline and Chocolate

2009-12-15T17:39:00.002-05:00

Since it was relatively warm and dry today, I decided I would head out to get some of the things I need to run my first youth group event in January -- "The Amazing Race!" I have them doing some very interesting challenges to earn their next clues, so I made up my shopping list. As I was walking out the door, the pastor offered to take me by car, so I took him up on it.

I showed him my shopping list: 10 jars of baby food prunes, 500 cotton balls, 5 large tubs of Vaseline and 10 flashlights. Despite the list, he agreed to go to the dollar store with me, where I found everything except the Vaseline. He suggested we go next door to a drug store for the Vaseline, where I loaded up our cart with five large tubs of it (the kids have to slather their faces in Vaseline and stick cottonballs on it to make a Biblical-looking beard). As we were getting close to the checkout, he decided he wanted chocolate for his confreres, so he threw a giant Toblerone, a couple of boxes of Pot of Gold, and a box of Turtles into the cart also.

I laughed and had to walk away from the checkout when the cashier's eyebrows went up and her expression said it all: "What the heck are these two going to do with four boxes of chocolate and five extra large tubs of Vaseline?"

Wishes for Santa

2009-12-14T20:50:00.003-05:00

It was a slow night at tutoring tonight; I had 7 tutors call in for various reasons and almost as many kids fail to show up. (Somehow the Holy Spirit always balances our numbers for me. I have no idea how she does it, but I really appreciate it!)

Since it was a movie day for the upper grades at the school, only three of the usual eight showed up and they wanted to play cards. By the end of the night, their tutor was teaching them Blackjack. I assured the parents it was teaching them numbers and how to count to 21... all important numeracy. Ahem.

I asked my favourite little "boyfriend" what he wanted Santa to bring him for Christmas. He smirked as he said, "I asked Santa to make me rich and famous!" Then he added with a smirk, "And to bring me a girlfriend." I guess I have been replaced ;)

Last Busy Day

2009-12-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

Today my last program ended for a Christmas break, meaning I have the next four weeks to look busy even though there's really nothing pressing to do. I'll do some planning ahead for my Vatican II course, for my youth group and the like, but things are going to be pretty slow around here.

I guess it would be a good time to realize that we're more than halfway through Advent and I have paid no attention to it whatsoever...

Pageant Day

2009-12-13T16:58:00.003-05:00

I arrived just before 7am to set up for the Christmas pageant and to organize the rest of the day which included the Youth Group Christmas party as well as a regular Sunday schedule.

Ex-haust-ing.

The pageant went quite well with a few cute little glitches. One of the kindergarten students said she wanted to give Baby Jesus the gift of "nookie" for Christmas. Hmm. The MCs were supposed to pass Mary the Baby Jesus doll and that got forgotten until I whispered to the narrator to do it and a plastic Baby Jesus flew out of the wings and into the arms of Mary. It was a miracle delivery.

The associate did a great job on the piano, my choir wasn't too bad, and I managed to find a little Mary and Joseph for Christmas Eve mass from those in attendance, so we're good to go.

The youth group Christmas party was a little ... chaotic. All of them seemed to be on too much sugar and were screaming too much, fighting too much, whining too much and generally being uncooperative too much. I'm glad it's Christmas break for them -- I think we all need a month to recollect ourselves.

One of the dads very kindly gave me a lift home. After 9 hours on my foot, I am in quite a bit of pain so I plan to do nothing but sit on my behind for the next 20 hours or so.

Weekend

2009-12-12T17:11:00.002-05:00

I have enjoyed a full weekend of domesticity these past couple of days. I baked a cake for the youth group Christmas party and did lots of cooking and just staying in. I returned the cast sock that won't work in hopes of getting my friend a partial refund, and did very little else. Nice.

The Best Laid Plans...

2009-12-11T16:02:00.003-05:00

The day started out okay. In between trips down to the laundry room, I baked an allergen-free cake for my kids for Sunday's Christmas party and looked after some work-related catastrophes like no food for 300 people for the other party on Sunday.

Then I missed a phone call from 450km away about where to deliver the elusive cast sock. I let him know that home would be best, and while I was waiting for the delivery, around 1pm, the phone rang and the company said they goofed - again - and had delivered it, finally, to work. So, I waddled on over to work, opened it up and was dismayed to find it was a large plastic bag meant for bathing, showering and swimming while wearing a plaster or fibreglass cast.

Sigh...

I called the company when I got home and they told me that they were very clear with my friend that there were no refunds. Of course, having not had any part in this purchase, meant only to make my life easier, they agreed to look into toe warmers or something for a walking cast and said if I paid for a courier to send it to them, they *might* issue a refund to my big-hearted but slightly misguided friend.

Now I have to break it to him without sounding callous or putting my foot in my mouth that his week-long Good Samaritan project was completely without legs, and hopefully he won't feel like a heel...

TGIT

2009-12-10T19:26:00.002-05:00

Just like clockwork, the boss arrived at my door at 8:45am to take me to work. I was extremely grateful when I saw that all of the water laying around yesterday had turned to ice.

I did some work on the youth group for January throughout the day and waited for a sock for my cast that didn't arrive. In the mid-afternoon I trekked up to our school on the invitation of one of my little ones to see her perform in a play. It turned out that I knew just about every child in the whole play either through altar serving, our tutoring club or the youth group, so it was really great to see so many of them singing and acting. They were fantastic and it was a real honour to see the child who invited me to hear her sing all three verses of Silent Night all by herself in front of the entire school. She is so shy and has such low self-esteem, but she got up there and shone -- what a treat.

I'm delighted that it is my weekend. I am going to lay low after a week of lots of physical exertion just to get around in the weather conditions. About the only benefit I have noticed to this whole foot thing is that I have lost a little weight with all of the hauling and slugging to get myself around with the very heavy cast and my crutches. I have to make a cake for my youth group's Christmas party this weekend but otherwise things should be pretty low key.

Oh, Snow!

2009-12-09T17:10:00.001-05:00

We finally got hit with some snow in this area for the first time this fall. I bagged my sock, then I bagged my boot and finally donned my hat, scarf and mitts, grabbed my crutches and off I went. It took me three times longer than usual to walk to work but I arrived in one piece. During the day I used my crutches to jump large puddles and small ponds around the property, but the boss had pity on me and offered me a lift home. He even offered to pick me up in the morning which was incredibly kind.

Thanks in part to the weather, I assume, things were painfully quiet in the office. I managed to get a few loose ends tied up for this weekend, dealt with some concerns a teacher expressed to me, belted out our greatest hit with the associate pastor, and then worked on a major youth group project for our first day back in January. The thinking and paperwork is done as far as that is concerned, and I have made a fairly simple list of things I will need to purchase from a dollar store for the event. I think the kids will really love it and I'm excited about it.

Christmas Pageant

2009-12-08T21:43:00.002-05:00

The associate and I looked like quite the sight this afternoon, I am sure, as we ran through the music he agreed to play for us for our Christmas pageant this coming Sunday. He sat at a chair much too short for the piano on our stage -- very Glenn Gouldesque, actually -- while I stood beside him singing along. He kept insisting, "Sing louder so I can get the hang of this melody!" and eventually I was really belting it out while he played. We plan to give repeat performances tomorrow and Thursday until it becomes more natural for him and before we debut my choir and his piano skills to the audience on Sunday. By Thursday afternoon we'll be selling tickets, I think!

Funny Day

2009-12-07T20:39:00.002-05:00

Three of us in the office ended up in tears from laughing so hard this afternoon. I was in the kitchen with the cook and our substitute secretary and I noticed the cook's tag of her shirt sticking out. I asked, "Are you intentionally wearing your shirt inside out?" and she laughed and said, "No!" before turning it right way around.

A few minutes later, I got a phone call from my new friend who lives 450km away. It threw me right off but he very kindly had investigated and located a waterproof sock that will keep my foot warm and dry in the snow, and asked me for the circumference of my boot. He is going to have it sent to me this week. I asked the cook to confirm the measurements I had taken and as she was leaving my office, I saw a logo on a rather unusual spot on her pants. Eyeing the logo on her rear end, I asked, "Are your pants inside out too?" She assured me no, she had been out in them in public all day, and then she checked herself in the mirror. She burst out laughing and said, "My kids are going to lock me up!" as she slammed the bathroom door shut to change her pants the right way around too. Apparently somebody had better pay the electricity bill so she doesn't have to get dressed in the dark!

Wonderful Weekend

2009-12-06T15:43:00.002-05:00

Despite having some ambulatory issues, I was so touched that a new friend of mine wanted to come, visit to see if I was okay and to help me out if I needed anything. He arrived around 4pm yesterday after a long drive and we had some tea before heading out to a very nice Chinese restaurant on the waterfront. He was concerned about where to park so I wouldn't have to walk too far and was just a real gentleman with such a great sense of humour the whole time. We returned to my place afterwards as he had made me a chocolate cheesecake -- a 'get well' gift -- which we both enjoyed for dessert. Somehow we talked so much and had so much fun that we were aghast when we looked at our watches and saw it was past 11:30pm, and I had to get up for work at 6am.

Being tired today at work was worth it. :) Getting back after holidays wasn't too bad - 7 voicemails, 40 some emails - and a Christmas pageant rehearsal to coordinate which was more than a little chaotic. Right on time, after the last Mass, my friend appeared from among the congregation and we went for brunch/lupper nearby. He drove me home so I wouldn't have to stay on my feet much longer - my Sundays usually consist of non-stop standing for seven hours - and he checked and double-checked that I didn't need any groceries or anything else before he set out on the long drive home.

Despite having some ambulatory issues ... what a wonderful weekend.

Lazy Day

2009-12-04T19:24:00.002-05:00

Today was my last vacation day before I return home and prepare for a busy week ahead. I watched the FIFA World Cup draw -- go Germany! -- as well as a couple of decent movies (C'est pas moi, je le jure! and The Deal, both very enjoyable flicks), and went shopping for very warm socks since my toes are exposed in this boot contraption as well as Yak trax, which sadly wouldn't fit over my boot. I also picked up the Christmas gift I purchased yesterday, and got a cute little card to go with it since I will probably only see the intended recipient this once before Christmas.

Crutches

2009-12-04T07:42:00.002-05:00

I turned to the only other person I know who has more non-fatal injuries than I do, my brother, and borrowed his personal pair of crutches (!) from him for the duration of my convalescence. Although the aircast is great to get around in once you get the hang of it, after 12 hours in the thing I just want to get it off, so the crutches will be a good back-up system for use at home.

Christmas Shopping Made Easy

2009-12-03T13:50:00.003-05:00

I ordered my last Christmas present online a few minutes ago. While my other shopping was done in mid-October, this one last gift was unanticipated yet easily accomplished after comparing the prices at eight different stores online and purchasing it from one large retailer who was offering a $40-80 discounted price. Nice.

In other news, I'm getting a bit better at walking around in this aircast. It's a matter of rocking on the cast, heel to toe. Stairs are still the most problematic, but I have a system for them and when six weeks is up, I should have some pretty amazingly toned thigh muscles! Vacation provides a lot of opportunity for sitting, which is also helpful.

I see from my work emails that I have been cast as the director - not just the music director, as I had been previously told - of the Christmas pageant for next Sunday. I have never directed a play in my life; this should be interesting for all of us!

Out of Air

2009-12-02T21:44:00.003-05:00

When I was adjusting to my cast on Monday, I thought it seemed rather loose especially as I tried to climb up and down stairs in our parish hall. My foot kept shifting inside, which I thought was a little strange, but I didn't realize what was going on until I got home yesterday afternoon and took the whole thing apart.

One of my airbags wouldn't inflate.

After trying to get help in my parents' hometown, I ended up having to make a whirlwind trip back to the big city to get the defective bag replaced. Four hours on public transit later, the cast is fitting more snugly and I have better support.

Back to my convalescent vacation tomorrow. I'm going to keep my foot elevated as much as possible and plot a weekend with an out-of-town visitor without too much walking required. The visitor called last night and was so concerned about my foot that he insisted on driving all the way here to see me this weekend. Pretty cool.

Reflecting

2009-12-01T12:13:00.002-05:00

The only things my boss said to me yesterday about my new cast were that I would get lots of questions about it, and I would have to slow down.

"But I don't like going slow!" I moaned.

It took me 20 minutes to walk to the subway this morning, a journey that usually takes ten if I dawdle. I was sitting on the bus this morning thinking about the timing of this thing. I find out on the First Monday of Advent about my broken foot even though it has been fractured for three months.

Advent is a season for anticipatory reflection. I'm going to have a lot more time for reflecting now that I am forced to slow down and getting from A to B requires a whole lot more effort. God's sense of humour at work? Perhaps.

Finally, An Answer!

2009-11-30T12:01:00.003-05:00

After suffering from foot pain -- once debilitating and lately just annoying -- for almost three and a half months now, I finally saw a sports doctor this morning. I must confess that I was not prepared for what happened. He sent me for X-rays, took a look at them immediately afterwards and told me I had a fracture of my sesamoid, just below the ball of my foot, which is essentially a chronic stress fracture that I have been injuring and reinjuring since August.

A website I found says: "A chronic sesamoid fracture is a stress fracture—a hairline break usually caused by repetitive stress or overuse. A chronic sesamoid fracture produces longstanding pain in the ball of the foot beneath the big toe joint. The pain, which tends to come and go, generally is aggravated with activity and relieved with rest."

Bingo. And we finally have an answer, folks.

What this means, unfortunately, is that I could either use crutches for six weeks -- no, thank you -- or wear an air cast. I bussed myself across the city to pick up my oh-so-fashionable bootie and am finally home to eat lunch before I return to work at 1pm.

All I want for Christmas is to walk again...

Priest Abuse

2009-11-29T19:11:00.004-05:00

The words of apology by the Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin hit really close to home for me this week.

"No words of apology will ever be sufficient... One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the Report is that while Church leaders – Bishops and religious superiors - failed, almost every parent who came to the diocese to report abuse clearly understood the awfulness of what has involved. Almost exclusively their primary motivation was to try to ensure that what happened to their child, or in some case to themselves, did not happen to other children. Their motivation was not about money or revenge; it was quite simply about that most basic human sense of right and wrong and that basic Christian motivation of concern for others... The damage done to children abused by priests can never be undone. As Archbishop of Dublin and as Diarmuid Martin -- a person -- I offer to each and every survivor, my apology, my sorrow and my shame for what happened to them. I am aware however that no words of apology will ever be sufficient..."

No words of apology will ever be sufficient, no.

Yet, all we can do is pray -- for the victims, for their parents, for those heads of the Church who have had to deal with all of this fallout, and for the good priests out there who abide by their vows and live their lives in a holy and upstanding way. And yes, we have to pray even for the priest abusers who, in many cases, are very, very sick human beings. And finally, we must pray this never, ever happens again to another person.

Advent Joys

2009-11-29T16:51:00.004-05:00

I'm not going to talk about how rough today was and mention all of the silly people blaming me for everything and tearing a strip off me in front of my choir and making silly assumptions and trying to break all of the rules and more or less driving me completely around the bend.

No, it's Advent, and it's time to wait in joyful expectation.

So, I will dwell instead on the hug I got from one of the girls in the youth group, and the excellent presentation by a guest speaker friend of mine, and how good the choir sounded today ahead of our concert in two weeks.

Mademoiselle

2009-11-27T15:47:00.002-05:00

I played a pretty convincing French teacher today, if I do say so myself. Oh, sure, the majority of what I said was in English, but when the kids asked to go to the bathroom or for a drink in French, I responded in French (not just "Non!" either!) and when they asked me grammar questions in French, I was actually able to help them.

Overall, the day wasn't bad. The boys seemed better behaved than some classes I have been in, though there's always one or two I have to avoid murdering in the parking lot when I see them after school. Today I confiscated an iPod, and the student asked if I was going to give it to the Disciplinarian. I didn't answer. After the period was over, I had had time to think about it and decided I didn't want to cavort with the Disciplinarian, so I handed it back, saying, "You're only getting this back now because you were actually not the most annoying kid in class." That was true.

Supplying is rough. Classroom management skills go out the window because you know the kids will show you no respect whatsoever. A friend has often told me, "Be ruthless!" and I try that but sometimes that won't work either when you get kids dropping F-bombs and just a complete lack of disrespect all around. I go around and around the room putting out little fires as they come up, but it doesn't calm the noise level down much and usually their voices are much louder than mine. Some days are really tough, even in the best of schools. Today, though, after one particularly excitable grade 11 class - the regular teacher had warned me about their talkativeness - I thought to myself, "What would people say who saw these guys in action?"

Just as I was starting to breathe again after the bell went, one kid who had stayed behind said, "You know, Miss, you do a lot better at keeping control than the other supply we had."

After my shock wore off that a kid would actually say that to me, I thanked him. Somehow, Mademoiselle wasn't as bad as she thought -- either at French, or at classroom management.

Confession

2009-11-26T17:21:00.000-05:00

I am taking a group of about five young people to confession tomorrow night. It should be interesting to see their reactions since most of them have confided in me that they haven't been to confession since Confirmation some four or more years ago.

In the meantime, I have been putting together an Advent Penitential Service for the parish. I was Googling for some liturgical inspiration -- whatever did we do before Google? Actually read the Bible, maybe? -- when I came across an article by a man explaining communal penance services and noting one of the very amusing takes on the Act of Contrition that he heard one time:

O my God,

I am hardly sorry for having offended Thee,

and I digest all my sins because I dread the lusts of heaven and the pains of hell,

but most of all because I defend Thee, my God,

Who art all good and deserving of all my sins.

I firmly resolve in spite of Thy grace

to confess my sins, to do penance, and to end my life.

Amen.

I do remember one particularly intimidating confessor I went to once who asked me to say an Act of Contrition. It threw me off guard a bit, and I admitted that in that moment, I had forgotten how. He said to just say what was on my heart, and I said, "Jesus, I'm really sorry, and I'll try to do better." He told me it was one of the best Acts of Contrition he had ever heard.

Hopefully I will be able to remember one tomorrow, and I'm working on a little cheat-sheet Act of Contrition for the kids as well.

Holiday Lunch

2009-11-25T16:20:00.003-05:00

The morning was a busy one as I tried to get ahead on multiple tasks before taking a few days off next week. Shortly after noon, several of us piled into the cook's car and headed for "Thanksgiving Lunch" at a nearby Italian restaurant.

Now, there are no Americans in the house so I wasn't sure if we were celebrating 7 weeks late or being multicultural in our celebrations. The lunch was apparently a front for a birthday surprise for someone who didn't show up at all.

Lunch was very good and four of us shared the little birthday cupcake that we bought for the missing guest of honour. After paying for lunch for us, the boss told us all to go home early. There were no complaints. The secretary and I walked back home together and everybody else scattered faster than I could keep track of.

But, I'm Not An Athlete!

2009-11-24T20:52:00.000-05:00

I went to see my doctor for the fourth time about my aching foot. She is finally sending me to someone -- a sports doctor. I laughed when she said it only because I am not even remotely an athletic person.

However, as she pointed out, the wait would be much shorter than to see an orthopedic surgeon. In fact, they phoned me two hours later and voila, I'm going on Monday.

After the visit this morning, I hit the mall where I spent the rest of my Christmas money on beautiful clothing. In a very timely way, I also broke my watchband while trying on said beautiful clothing and so I got that replaced too -- it was well overdue for a change.

The rest of the day was spent trying to find my desk. It's under all that paper... I am sure of it.

I also realized with some considerable shock that I have vacation scheduled next week, and now, apparently, two weeks of work to do in two days. Let the fun and games begin!

New Request

2009-11-23T20:30:00.002-05:00

The student secretary came into the kitchen when I was having my microwaveable dinner carrying an empty bottle of wine. I raised my eyebrows as he explained, "It's a different request. The guy at the door wanted a big glass of water, and I said I would give him the biggest paper cup we had. He didn't think that would be sufficient, so he fumbled in his bag, pulled out the bottle and said, 'Use this'."

Naturally, I asked if he was planning on turning the water into wine...

Switching from Pessimism Mode for a Moment

2009-11-22T17:14:00.003-05:00

I noticed that the tone of the past few posts has been rather on the pessimistic end of things. Last week was a difficult one, so it's somewhat easy for me to slip into that mode and not realize its pervasiveness in how I think about my ministry.

So, as a deliberate effort to switch to a more optimistic tone, I will share some highlights of the day:

- In addition to the spontaneous applause, several parents told me how great the choir sounded today.

- I invited a group of teenagers I know to a confession event next week. I simply put it out there, saying I wanted to go, and they could come with me if they wanted. Every single one of them agreed to come. On a Friday night. To Confession. A-maz-ing!

- I was talking to a couple about marriage after Mass when I felt someone tugging on my sleeve. A little boy I know was there, smiling up at me and waving because he didn't want to leave without saying hi.

Those are the moments I have to try to hang onto, instead of the ones that threathen to drive me crazy.

Tough Day in Ministry

2009-11-22T14:50:00.003-05:00

Today was not an easy day to be in ministry. I arrived and found out that one key person had missed the baptism course yesterday. I emailed to see what happened, and she told me she phoned yesterday to explain her mother had just died. Thanks to whichever secretary didn't bother to pass that message on.

Next I brought out some Advent materials that several parents had pre-ordered in advance so they could have them in time for Advent. Unbeknowst to me, a bunch of others jumped in and took those that belonged to others. Now, we're eight books short and I have no idea how I am going to rectify this by next Sunday.

Our coordinator was absent on a family emergency, and relayed me a message that he needed volunteers for a Christmas pageant. I asked the parent group for volunteers, and some kindly did offer to help. Unfortunately, I found out afterwards that they actually wanted child volunteers, and one of those who did volunteer chewed me out for having her volunteer then reneging on it. Honestly - you'd think she would be relieved to be off the hook.

Finally, out of my choir of ten, only three showed up to sing at Mass. I told them they had to be loud and they really stepped up to the plate. Much to my surprise, the congregation burst into applause for them after the second song. I wasn't sure if it was pity applause, "Wow, you guys are brave!" applause or genuine applause, but the kids were all sufficiently embarrassed by it so it worked, whatever it was!

I hope tomorrow goes more smoothly.

Geek

2009-11-22T06:33:00.002-05:00

Yesterday that H1N1 shot took a bit out of me. I was grumpy, feverish and sore. (Still only about a 3-4 on the pain scale, though, when I let the Tylenol wear off). Finally feeling better this morning after another crazy 9.5 hour sleep.

You know you're a geek when you're extremely excited to go in and teach the next phase of the Vatican II course: Sacrosanctum Concilium. Definitely my favourite, and in a sense, I have saved the best for last -- it's the last thing this term, anyway, and we will conclude our exploration of it in January to set a good tone for the rest of the documents for the rest of the year.

What's the difference between a terrorist and a liturgist? You can negotiate with a terrorist.