new blog

I've moved onto my own website     RNM44andWOOF.com       see you there!

THE MUSIC MAKERS

I ventured out into the storm last night and headed to Carnegie for Stage 62's production of SWEENEY TODD. Parking is a challenge there and I grabbed my umbrella for a five block walk to the theater...just as I began to open it the lightning and thunder made me rethink my evening...and I walked in the rain. The auditorium was filling up as I arrived, and I sat back for what turned out to be a great evening of musical theater. I have several friends who were involved in the show, directing, conducting the surprisingly large orchestra, playing an instrument or in the cast. The show got great reviews and I understand why. I was amazed at the acting and vocal talent...as good as I've seen anywhere. A heck of a lot of bang for twelve bucks.

Since I had a real aching to "get off the farm" last night, I soaked in a lot more than the desperately needed rain. Three of the guys I knew who were involved with the show have also sung or continue to sing with  our men's choir. All three also teach music, direct the marching band or choral groups. The director is a multi talented young guy who makes the high school plays and players really come to life. Music is a big part of their lives.

I've sung with church choirs since I was ten years old...with my "group voice", and played the organ ( a great imposter ) for years since the eighth grade. The only acting I ever did was when  I had to lip-sink a Louis Prima routine...even though I didn't even know who he was as I danced around to " I've grown accustomed to her face", or when I was hauled off in a van from my all boys high school to a girls reform school to be in a one act play.

I'm in awe of the people who surround themselves with music...from a concert pianist to my beloved nephew who can dance and sing his way into your heart, to the people who teach little kids to sing, to the people who spend long hours on hot days rehearsing and rehearsing. I hope they know that wanna-be's like me truly appreciate the beauty and talent that they create...out of thin air. To all of you...your audience is deeply grateful.

DOING NOTHING

So we have the most unpopular congress in history. The last poll I saw had them at a seven percent approval rating...which is pretty much the same as Satan's. Not that I can prove that last one, but after all he does have a cute tail. When Mitch McConnell announced that he would lead his party with the single goal of making Barrack Obama a one term president, the writing was on the wall....almost four years ago. The right wing of the Republican party quickly rallied around that goal, and there's no way that their constant filibusters were good for this country. When they fought to the very last minute to stop the country from paying it's bills, they caused considerable damage to the whole nation.

The Republican party that my family belonged to for most of our lives is long gone. When I was younger I voted for both democrats and republicans, making my choice according to their policies and their records, and even today I try to vote for the best candidate, not for the party. While there are certainly some whacko democrats, the republican party is loaded with them. People like Michelle Bachmann...Christine O'Donnell ( "I am not a witch")...Rick Santorum..John Boener...Dick Cheney...Rumsfiled...Wolfowitz...Pearl...

Governor Corbett....Governor Ultra-sound.

Rick Perry...(would send troops back to Iraq)...Sarah Palin (who thought Iraq was responsible for 9-11). I'm sure I'm missing some.

Last night there was a ray of hope with the tax bill...followed by a news

segment about Corbett cutting the General Assistance program that gives sick people about 200.00 a month while they're temporarily unable to work because of an injury...or waiting for total disability payments. His gas drilling czar who can overturn any communities laws about drilling comes from the oil industry.

I thought congress represented us? I guess part of the problem is that we don't tell them what we want and what we don't want. Until we find our voice and take the five minutes to call our "representative" they'll just continue to do what's best for THEM not for US. We all think that our one voice doesn't matter, but if everyone who's reading this now would call, write, or send an email to their own representative....someone would notice...and maybe something would change. How's about banning assault rifles...one call versus the NRA...( the MOST powerful lobby in Congress)...might be ignored...

hundreds and thousands might be another story. Saint Francis said that it's better to light one little candle that to simply curse the darkness. Light your candle.

TEACHING A BULLY A LESSON

Every picture I have of our neighborhood kids growing up shows Beecher Kirby with a rope hanging from his waste. I guess he qualified as a bully back then...and he was never really a part of our little group...I guess because Hop Scotch and plays about miracles and dwarfs just didn't interest him very much. Part of me thought he was kinda cool, since he had a convertible and an air compressor.( My friend Susan and I had plans to one day build a blimp that we could ride in.) Most of the time Beecher was just mean and annoying however, and even though he hung out with the older guys like Tommy whom I've mentioned before (the one who would crawl out of his bedroom window and sit on the roof in his underpants smoking cigarettes), and Mike Rome who drove a corvette and was the handsomest guy I'd ever seen up to that point, Beecher picked on us. One day when the girls and I had been pushed to the point of a near nervous breakdown  by him repeatedly squirting away our hop scotch game with a hose, we decided to beat him up.

Nancy and Loretta  who were twins, ten year olds who were usually nice little girls and frequent extras in one of our garage extravaganzas, suggested that we form a circle around Beecher and on the count of three we'd all charge him and teach him a lesson. First we all sat around chewing on blades of grass and acting nonchalant until one of the twins said the secret word and we all formed a very menacing circle....(well, as menacing a circle as we could muster with about six ten year old girls, me, and my friend Bill who might have been a turncoat all along). A faintly whispered one two three, and wham! Into the circle I leaped....alone. The girls and the turncoat all ran away screaming and Beecher rolled me around a few times and went home laughing. So much for his "lesson". I think I learned one.

Having been abandoned by all of my cohorts, I of course had to punish them.

I immediately canceled the afternoon rehearsals for " The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima", and announced that a new Blessed Mother would be replacing Susan. To this day...fifty years later, she still insists that I coveted that role from the very beginning, and that the failed coup against Beecher was nothing more than a smokescreen. I still beg to differ.

I don't know whatever became of Beecher. I still imagine that he goes to drive- ins with wild looking girls in his convertible and smells like an ash tray.

His name is so unusual that I worry a little bit that he'll read something like this and track me down and try to beat me up all over again. This time I'm going to add my mother and cousins Eleanor and Judy to the circle..THEN we'll see what happens to Beecher Kirby.

PUNISHING THE WRONG PEOPLE

I can't seem to stop comparing the Penn State abuse scandal to the pedophilia horrors that plagued and continue to plague my Catholic Church.

Once again, young boys were victimized by someone they knew and trusted, and once again the perpetrator was the Goliath of a huge and intimidating organization. While the Church had a twisted pattern of simply transferring the guilty person to a new venue, Jerry Sandusky was left to pursue his prey until someone finally took action and the criminal activity was stopped. When some of the victims in the church scandal began to speak...many weren't believed, and many others never saw their perpetrators punished, as the evil moved to fresh hunting grounds.

When Cardinal Law in Boston had exhausted his options after years and years of inaction involving priests in his jurisdiction, he was sent to a new cushy assignment in Rome. At least everyone involved at Penn State is likely to suffer the consequences of his or her inaction. The similarities to the Catholic Church stop there.

I understand the fines...which are probably about what a year of football revenues amount to, and I understand the depth of the investigation and fair trial of anyone who was complicit, but ending the careers of many of the team members seems like punishing the congregation in the pews for what their priest did to the kids. The attempt to change history by erasing past victories seems a little like annulling any marriages or other sacraments performed while Father X was running the parish. Shaming the football team for what the coaches did or didn't do would be like making the Rosary Society and the Knights of Columbus wear scarlet letters to Mass.

Punish the culprits...take the pound of flesh, but remember not to give the whole class detention because little Joey didn't finish his seatwork. The good parishioners and priests who were also tainted by scandals all over the world will suffer enough for sins they didn't commit, and Penn State students and alumni have already had their college experience tarnished. There doesn't seem to be much mercy being dolled out for the innocent bystanders at State College this week.

HURTING KIDS AGAIN

    I don't really know doots about sports...maybe that was evident the day my sister in law and niece asked me to drop them off for a Pirates game and I pulled up to the wrong stadium...relieved that there was so little traffic.  I still remember the way they both looked at me...in spite of the fact that I knew how much they loved me.  I'd rather go to another Wayne Newton concert than sit freezing at a football game or roasting at a baseball game.  My other half...Mr Big Shot was riding to a sports event in Philadelphia with clients when he had to whisper to me on his cell phone..."quick...what sport do the Lakers play...I'm on my way to a game..". That one was easy...I told him I was pretty sure that it was football.

   For the life of me I can't understand the punishment for Penn State handed down this morning.  These guys on the football team didn't do anything wrong...did they?  There are certainly guilty people here...and quite a few of them...and they ought to be punished for sure.  Anybody who hurts a kid, and anyone who knows about it and doesn't do anything about it ought to be locked up.  These kids who play football at Penn State are being punished...hurt...for sins they neither committed nor had any knowledge of.  This would be a whole different issue if the team members had been involved in the crimes...but they were not.  Every one who loves Penn State...and football is also being made to suffer...and even though I'm not at all interested in the sport, and have no ties to Penn State...(HAIL TO DUQUESNE)....I think this punishment is misdirected.  It would make much more sense to me to keep digging deeper into any cowardly adult who stood by while kids were being hurt, but hurting a whole lot more kids makes no sense at all.

HEARTBREAK IN COLORADO

Once again I have my morning coffee with tears in my eyes. It's a rainy and foggy morning, and the "Breaking News" is once again from Colorado. Such a gorgeous state where even the official flower the "Columbine" no longer has the same meaning. For the next few days the news will be of funerals, broken lives and dreams, and questions about motives and warnings. "The Dark Knight Rises" has been the talk of the town lately, having been filmed in our city, and hyped all over the country with it's midnight premiers. Now just as that beautiful little state flower has had it's innocent image tarnished, the movie will also forever be tainted with tragedy.

Lots of us have been anxious to see the film...tempted to head out for a midnight adventure that is such a fun part of the magic of movies, and such a nice escape from most nights with the DVR or Netflix. We'll still go to the movies, critique the story, and point out the landmarks we grew up with, and probably try unsuccessfully to avoid thinking about what happened to a similar group of moviegoers in Colorado.

It's going to be a steamy day here in Pittsburgh, too humid to do much in the garden, too depressing to keep watching the news, and too familiar to be all that shaken by another mass murder. My gentle and incredibly strong and dedicated neighbor at the cottage works with severely troubled kids in Erie. Since we're both therapists by trade, we seem to be able to sense when one of us has had a rough day. Every so often we'll sit together by the lake and just support one another without a lot of words...just a shared understanding of what he calls the wretchedness that is so prevalent in our world. We ran into each other the day after 9/11, and simply exchanged hugs...no words at all that day. I'll see him later this afternoon, and our moods will mirror one another again I'm sure.

Lives were changed in Colorado forever last night. The tears shed there will flow like a soaking rain, and the rest of us will mourn as well. If we were indeed all islands, we'd surely escape the overshadowing grief of days like today, but indeed we are not. I read once where someone asked a question about wars....about whose side God was on...and the reply was that God is on the side of those who suffer...they'll need God in Colorado.

There's a certain wonderful innocence about heading out for a midnight premier of an exciting new movie. Seeing that shattered and lost in a matter of minutes is such a demoralizing experience. ...heartbreaking for every one of us...and all too familiar.

SWITCHING SIDES

Since I've always been a pretty liberal guy, and concerned about social justice and world peace, I've decided that maybe I should continue to evolve and make some changes. I'm thinking of voting Republican in the Fall. The more I listen to certain high profile Republicans, the more I'm convinced that they have a point. Maybe Michelle Bachman has a point about investigating congress...maybe they do have some un American ties to terrorists, especially if they have close connections to Hillary Clinton.

Glen Beck makes a lot of sense lately too...his theories about anti American activity seem more and more plausible...and people like Rush and Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity seem to know a lot more than I do. The more I see my new party wanting to let wealthy people get big tax breaks the more I understand than when they have more money they'll probably use it to make new jobs for people...they won't just hang on to it or invest it to make more.

Our own Rick Santorum made me think twice about a lot of things too. Maybe women ought to stay home and have babies instead of working, and realize that sex is really meant to have kids. The Republican party also wants to stop women from terminating pregnancies..and the best way to do that is probably to force them to undergo a lot of tests and jump through some pretty tough hoops. Using birth control really does go against nature when you think about it.

Mitt Romney also wants to keep gay people out of the military, and would bring back Don't Ask Don't Tell...which seemed to work just fine before. He's also never going to let gay people get married...which is in the Bible after all. When the Boy Scout recently re-affirmed their no gay scouts or counselor policy, I felt bad for my neighbor who was an Eagle Scout and also gay.... he feels awful about this, but I can still love the sinner and hate the sin.

I saw Dick Cheney the other day when he was trying to stop the cuts to the military budget, and all of a sudden, I started to really like him. He still says the Iraq war was worth the money and the blood, and Donald Rumsfield feels the same way, and they aren't exactly stupid people.

All in all, if Donald Trump is on to something about Obama not being an American, and he's also a smart Republican, I wouldn't be surprised if he's right. People tell me that social security is "socialism"...but that doesn't make sense. Rick Santorum always wanted to tie it in with the stock market...and I wonder how much more I'd be getting if he would have been able to do that? I also don't remember President Bush using up any "surplus".  Obama was the one who started all the financial problems as I remember. The economy was fine when George Bush left office...I think.

All in all it seems time to end this blog. I'm feeling a little sick to my stomach and I'll just bet that some of you are too. Tongue in cheek is one thing, but the above nonsense is really what I hear from far too many people. Woof has been reading over my shoulder this morning....and she suddenly looks as if she REALLY has to go out.

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE

BLUEBERRIES

There's something kinda wonderful about OCD. One of us has it here and it isn't me and it isn't Woof.   My suggestion that he check and see if the blueberries were about ready to be pickedresulted in a harvest of about ten million berries.  It reminded me of the afternoon at the cottage when he borrowed a power washer to clean the cement deck. About eight hours later he had cleaned not only the deck, but the cement walls, the outdoor furniture, the landing, and I swear a little part of the neighbor's rock garden. Give him a vacuum cleaner and he'll really go to town...out the kitchen door...down the steps, out the sidewalk, back to the porch, a quick once over...until either the belt breaks or I run out with the hedge clippers threatening to cut the electric cord.

He is just recently recovered from a fringe phase. He found an old glue gun and an insane woman who runs an old upholstery shop on a back alley in Erie, and he began adding fringe trim to every lampshade, nightlight, and ceiling fixture in the house...then he started on the cottage. When I suggested that he was creating a bit of a Miss Havisham atmosphere he finally relented.

He is no longer permitted to "trim" any living plant in the area. Before I learned of the severity of his condition I asked him if he'd trim back the Holly and the Lilac bushes. Twenty minutes later they had all but vanished, save for a few small stumps...the poor devil just can't help himself.

As I'm writing this a few other tidbits have bubbled up for me...like the dentist telling him that he was wearing the enamel off of his teeth...or how many times a normal person could watch " It's a Wonderful Life" ....or listen to Wayne Newton sing " Danke Schoen". ( That's really how you spell that? ). Everytime I'm on line he'll suggest I look up Steve and Edie Gorme, to see when they're performing...which they never are...and never do anymore. We used to take turns picking a concert to attend at the end of the summer, and when it was my turn I forced him to sit through the Verdi Requiem ( not for the feint hearted ), so the next year he picked good old has been Wayne Newton. Half way through the evening the older gentleman sitting behind us said " He stinks".

Now I'm not complaining....just gaze upon the blueberries in the message to follow and imagine the wonderful pies and muffins and pancakes to come. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can sometimes be a wonderful gift....or just the thing to drive the rest of the world stark raving mad.
  MY SINCERE APOLOGIES FOR NO PICTURE HERE...ALTHOUGH I AM A PERFECTLY ORDINARY PERSON WITH NO UNUSUAL DIMENSIONS TO MY PERSONALITY, I WAS DISTRACTED BY A PANTING DOG, AND AN APPOINTMENT TO PICK UP AN ARC OF THE COVENANT AND A KNEELER.

MANY A TRUTH IS SUNG IN JEST

My high school class reunion is coming up in October....class of 1962. Jeeze.

My friend Ray and I are on the planning committee and a surprisingly high number of our former classmates are sending in their deposits. The list of deceased members of the class is sobering as well...those were also the Vietnam years...with the war just beginning to crank up. My handsome locker mate died early on over in that miserable conflict.

Our team leader in the planning group sent out questionnaires last week for some basic info from all of the class members, and I completed mine last night.

I was impressed that he'd handled the marriage question by asking for our "spouse/partner"s name. I wondered if he had spent some time pondering the wording on that...or if he had assumed that I was obviously not married, or gay, or that his wife had suggested the choice. Since South Catholic was an all boys school, I would have expected a "wife's name" kinda thing.

Funny that it took me a little while to type in my answer. There is this internal homophobia that doesn't go away...maybe it never does. Once I typed in my partner's name, I breathed a sigh of relief and then came out like a rocket when I answered the next question " Can you share a few thoughts about your high school days." .....to which I responded.

" LITTLE DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT WHEN I CONVINCED OUR SENIOR CLASS TO DRESS IN DRAG AND SING " THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A GUY " THAT YOU'D ALL ACTUALLY BE THE CATALYST FOR ME TO COME SPRINGING OUT OF THE CLOSET A FEW YEARS LATER...THANK GOD I GOT OUT OF GYM CLASS."

So when people think that eventually being able to say  " I'm Gay" is the final moment of hesitation and the grand finale to accepting and embracing who they really are..they just might still have a little surprise or two coming...fifty years later.

underpants

There is something that always strikes me funny about underpants. I guess it's partly because most adults prefer to say underwear, and that's generally how I refer to my uncool Jockeys. Yesterday's paper had almost a whole page in the editorial section written by a post graduate college student and her underpants. The gist of the piece was that she'd left the Mormon church and in spite of her family's disappointment, she has stopped wearing her special Mormon underpants.

I learned that the Mormons called their underpants "garments" and that they consist of a white kinda tee shirt, and longish fruit of the loom pants. Part of the reason for these garments is that it keeps their outfits "modest". Part of the picture is also the "sacredness" of the garments...unlike my family where my brother and I were always warned to have clean underpants at all times because we might be injured somewhere and taken to a hospital where we'd be exposed to the world in our underpants, and my mother could end up embarrased.

Now I know all religions have some kinda quirky ideas...like us Catholics who have St Christopher medals in our cars even though they tossed him off the official saint log a long time ago, or those godly Baptists who picket fallen soldiers funerals, but having my underpants considered sacred seems really unusual. Woof and I were talking about it in bed last night...like how Mrs Romney was able to sort the laundry with all those men in the family who wore exactly the same underpants...maybe by size at least until the boys were all teenagers.

The woman who wrote the article left the Mormon church for an undisclosed reason...but it definitely wasn't about her underpants...she made that clear. When I see Mitt Romney now I hardly listen to what he has to say...I spend more time wondering if he's hot with those jeans on with his special underpants. My partner and I went to a wonderful concert at Chatauqua a while ago when the Tabernacle choir sang...and they were magnificent. While I only thought of them with the Battle Hymn of the Republic, they actually did great old show tunes and a wide range of perfectly blended music. I talked with a few of the handsome young tenors afterwards and told them that they were so good that I'd decided to vote for Romney. One of the singers whispered to me "stick with Obama". I don't know...sacred underpants just might be that one issue that I'll end up running with in the Fall. I hope these thoughts don't offend any Mormons...I also learned that they have a thing called " blood atonement"...or execution. Maybe I should hit the delete key.

HANDY MAN

Neither my father nor I was ever "handy"...you know like being able to fix simple things..or hammer a nail.  First of all we never had the right tool to work with. ( I always used an old hammer with a loose head that would sometimes fly off...until a lesbian friend of mine stopped by and nearly had her head knocked off while I was making some repairs on my outdoor manger...which sent her to her one thousand piece Craftsman set in the back of her truck for a real hammer which she said to keep.
 I suppose my lack of skill was partly due to being afraid of most of the men who lived near us when I was a kid...either they were building really intricate victorian fretwork for their porches which looked like it was going to be a lifelong project, or they were like Beecher who lived next door and could fix all kinds of motors and stuff...all of which looked explosive and capable of exploding.  He'd sometimes invite me to help him in his garage with a giant compressor or something, and he'd yell at me the whole time and tell me about some dirty pictures he wanted to show me from a National Geographic.  The pictures seemed almost as scary as Beecher was.  It wasn't long until I hid from him in our forsythia bushes when I heard his car screeching down the street.  He always had a knife with him and a piece of rope hanging from his jeans. Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to him....actually I'd like to beat him up.
  My Dad and I once tried to build an addition to our dining room table which was actually an old table with two tapebig sheets of plywood on top...(covered of course at all times with a gorgeous lace cloth....after all we weren't exactly savages ).  My partner was entertaining his college friends and as the guest list swelled my dad and I decided we needed an extension for the table. Since we couldn't find anything to work with except for a hacksaw and a hatchet. We both were like two morons sawing...hammering nails (with the hatchet) that were way too big, and both using words we didn't normally say in each others presence, and giving up the whole project about fifty times. HOWERVER...we did make this thing...attached it to the table with duct tape (naturally)...and out came the good china and the over the top centerpieces and the fake silver candelabras. The crowd came and ate like field hands...drank everything in the house, marveling the whole time about the big spread...while I was sweating bullets...imagining an eminent collapse and blood curdling screams. All went well....the crowd finally dispersed, I cleared the table...anxious for the post mortem discussion with my mate, then of course when I slightly moved one of the chairs the whole marvelous addition collapsed in a heap.
   My dad and I never did a project again...but we talked about our big semi achievement for years...and future elegant dinner parties had definite limited numbers for the rest of our lives.

Just in case you missed this the first time!

John Beale, Post-Gazette photos
Dick Marshall and his dog, Woof, sit in the chapel in Marshall has built inside his home in Crafton.
Click photo for larger image.
As the plaster saints, stained glass and carved oak disappeared from Catholic churches, Dick Marshall watched sorrowfully.
"These things brought you closer to God. They're part of our culture, our history," said Marshall, 60. "You used to walk into church and something special happened. It rarely happens anymore."
Marshall now gets that feeling in his own home in Crafton, in the chapel he added three years ago.
The 12-by-29-foot- vaulted space contains eight large statues, seven stained-glass windows, four small pews and nearly two dozen smaller statues, candelabras, fixtures and other items, including holy water receptacles, Communion bells and two wrought-iron votive candle racks.
Adding to the contemplative mood is a stereo playing traditional hymns and Gregorian chants. Overlooking it all is a tiny loft that holds a 1950s Hammond organ. Marshall has been a part-time church organist since he was a teenager and has sung in choirs since age 10. He currently sings in the men's choir at Epiphany Church, Uptown.
"All of this was soothing for me as a kid," he said, looking around the chapel. "I have always loved it and collected it."
One of his first purchases was the organ he had played while growing up in Green Tree. St. Margaret of Scotland Church sold the organ, which is now in Marshall's library, after building a new church in the 1950s.
Few shared his interest in religious items.
"People think it's beautiful, but they don't want it in their homes," he said. "It's been a rescue mission, saving this stuff from people's basements, antique shops, auctions."
The Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese used to auction or sell stained-glass windows and other items when churches closed. Marshall bought one ornate votive candle rack from a Braddock church at an auction about 20 years ago. But for the past 15 years, the diocese has tried to make sure that religious images are sold or donated to other Catholic churches. Still, some items end up on the market anyway.

Marshall noted that many windows and statues bear the names of parishioners who paid for them. He wondered why the diocese doesn't try to give them to the patrons' families.
"These are sacred things that people loved. I'm sure they would love to have them."
People who know of Marshall's chapel sometimes give him items. A large hand-carved crucifix has on its back the name and photo of the nun it once belonged to, from the Sisters of Divine Providence in Ross. Marshall was a driver for the nuns as a teenager.
"They said she had died and had no family. 'Can you give it a home?' " he recalled.
The nuns also have given him two statues, both of which stand in his large, meandering garden. It's filled with a variety of lilies -- his favorite -- and dozens of plants that he brings back by the carload from spring vacations in Florida. Because many are not winter-hardy here, he digs them up in the fall and stores them in his basement.
Marshall has also restored his 1898 brick house in Victorian style. Many of the religious pieces were displayed in the house until he built the chapel three years ago.
"It's really sacred space. Next to the garden, it's my favorite place to be," he said, adding that he comes regularly to meditate. Three Masses have been held there.
"I needed this on 9/11. The church was locked."
Marshall said he decided to build the chapel when he acquired a large altarpiece from a Lutheran church that was too big for any other room. On a friend's recommendation, he hired Rich Riberich of Riberich & Sons in Forest Hills. They had no blueprints, only a small mock-up Marshall had made from cardboard and Scotch tape.
"I had the whole thing in my head my whole life," he said.
His cousin, Jack Repine of Rosslyn Farms, laid the marble tile that was bought by friends as a birthday present for Marshall. His boxer, Woof, likes the tiles' cool surface in the summer and the radiant heat beneath it in winter.
Marshall said only one person has ever reacted negatively to his home chapel: a Christmas party guest who was offended that people were drinking wine while viewing it. But generally, both Catholics and non-Catholics seem to appreciate it, he said.
"People gasp when they walk in the door. One non-Catholic friend said: 'I can't believe your courage, to do something that most people would never do or understand.'
"When some people hear about it, they have this idea that I play priest, that I'm making fun. It's not that at all."
Older Catholics seem to understand best, he said.
"It reminds them of something that in many ways is lost."


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sectionfront/life/religious-items-find-new-home-in-crafton-mans-chapel-590550/#ixzz20QAU6eBg

WHAT I LEARNED FROM GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

"Make new friends but keep the old...one is silver the other is gold". I read that on a box of girl scout cookies about a hundred years ago. (My cousin and I were both cub scouts by the way...but we only stayed long enough to make our birdhouses...we were afraid there were a few too many mentions of going to "camp"...a word that had always terrified both of us...too much emphasis on sports...and competition ...and scary things like dirty old sleeping bags and mean men yelling out orders...plus we were busy planning to put on a production of Snow White in my garage as soon as we could schedule auditions...we were much too busy that year to be bothered with oaths and good deeds. We were already nice little boys...strange little nice boys.)

At four AM this morning I drove down to the Amtrak station to pick up two good friends visiting from Japan. ( At least I vaguely remember driving down there..I was so half asleep that I worried for a few minutes that I'd picked up the wrong people and brought them home. Just kidding. Being the only car on the road seemed really weird...like I was in one of those end of the world movies like "The Road".

I met Lee the first day of my first teaching job in LA in 1970. We've been friends ever since, and her husband Peter replaced me in my teaching position when I left California in a VW bug after my first boyfriend split. Even Tim and I remained friends for the rest of his life. I'm always fascinated by what it is that connects us to another person so quickly sometimes, and for me, usually means that we'll be friends forever. I think it has something to do with authenticity. Sometimes we meet people and just like them immediately....without knowing much about them at all. For me, I think I sense a "realness"...and a transparency...and an honesty about their presentation. Right off the bat, what you see is what you get, like Lee and Peter. As I've gotten older I've also learned that there are lots of people who can really connect...but are unable to sustain the connection. That's a biggie.

Lee and Peter don't live quite close enough for us to hang out together very easily...but Peter takes gorgeous photographs which he sends out periodically, and Lee writes to me faithfully about every ten years. We've always sustained our connection with Christmas cards...or birthday greetings, and my promise to visit them someday. My life is blessed with lots of authentic people...some really UNUSUAL ...but undeniably authentic people. Woof of course helps keep me connected by sleeping with many of my overnight visitors...usually curled up in a single bed with them. My friend Lou from Naples is the only one who honestly likes that. ( So much for authenticity.) Lee has already put her foot down about waking up to dog breath, but I think Peter is hoping for his chance tonight.

So I do make new friends as we all do...and those magical first moments keep happening, as I work pretty hard at sustaining those relationships. My partner has tons of friends as well, many from childhood, and college...but worries that I'm a little too eager to keep expanding our Christmas card list. When he's waiting in the car for me at the Jubilee Food Market near our cottage. he's often worried that I've been chatting too long with the new lady in the Deli...asking me on the way home if I've invited her for dinner after I tell him how much I liked her. Our standing joke is about me inviting some strange little handyman who cut some bushes down for us to our annual Christmas party. I secretly put his name in my address book so he can be a surprise guest at our wedding someday...maybe  as my best man. 

A COUPLE OF SERIOUS QUESTIONS

I have a couple of questions that I would like to hear the presumptive republican candidate for president answer. What would Mitt Romney do about the war in Afghanistan? Would he close the Guantanamo detention camp? Does he still consider transporting a dog on the roof of a car to be an acceptable way to travel? Is he serious about "getting rid" of Planned parenthood? Would he try to reinstate the " Don't Ask Don't Tell" military policy? Would he do anything to deny equal marriage laws in the country? Did he think it was the right thing to do for the US to attack Iraq? Was that preemptive war worth all the American blood and treasure? What would he do about Syria...and Yemen...and Iran? Does he believe that a twelve year old girl who is raped by an escaped psychotic criminal should not be allowed to terminate a pregnancy? What would he do to reform the health care system if he replaced "Obama Care" ?

Now perhaps he has already answered some of these questions, but I'm not certain about what his responses were. I think a lot of independent voters may be unsure of his stances as well. Jobs and the economy and tax cuts are all important....but so are these issues, at least for a guy like me.

A DAY OF DAYS

It finally cooled off enough for Woof to take me for a walk last night. I spent the last few days keeping her cool and keeping my mother comfortable as well. (wrong order?)

Just venturing out to water seemed like a dangerous thing to do as we had a heat index over one hundred, and as Aunt Katie would say..."it really takes the starch out of you". The sweet peas like bright sun but cool air...so the pictures I sent out might represent their last hurrah.

I've taken to planting geraniums (boring as that sounds) anywhere that's hard to keep watered. I guess that's why people plant them in the cemeteries all the time. Seems like Vinca will also take heat and dryness pretty well. All my gardening friends have been bemoaning the fact that we've had so little rain. There's such a relatively small window to get things planted...that I've taken to canceling plans and rescheduling work when we have a good "planting day".

Some of my zinnias have been driven up to the cottage with a promise of growing and blooming by the lake shore only to be taken back home a few times because it was too hot to plant them. They seem to like the ride.

The big gardenia out by the back porch is happy as a lark..about five big blooms right now and the shiniest leaves I've ever seen. Woof thinks it must love the heat. I fertilize it with MIRACID about every two weeks and that seems to be the "trick". Some of the hydrangeas are bluer than blue this year...once again it's the MIRACID that makes them blue. We saw some last night that were a deep deep purple. Same trick...just more of it.

The garden paths are becoming jungle- like right about now. Crepe Myrtles are beginning to show their pinks and reds, and the lilies are still perfuming the whole yard. It's one of those glorious mornings when I'll soon get a call from my cousin who will proclaim this a " DAY OF DAYS ". Woof is ready to finally tackle some weeds...and my partner returned from the lake yesterday with about two billion blueberries that we need to start freezing. It won't be all that long until I take some out of the freezer in January and think back to days like today and wonder where the time went. Somehow shopping with my buddy Bill yesterday and seeing Christmas on display made me wonder if the months might fly by a little less quickly if people would slow it down a bit. Like the guy in the movie said " No wonder they call it the Human RACE ".

MONKEYS

I think my monkey period began when I was about ten years old. Waldameer park was a short walk up a dusty path from my grandmother's cottage in Erie. It's a nice little amusement park that has survived the times, and in spite of a new water park addition, and a harrowing new roller coaster called the " Ravine Flyer ", a lot of the park hasn't changed since I was a kid.

They still have some of the kiddie land rides that I squeezed into until I was about 18, but the monkeys are long gone.

The monkeys lived in a cement shelter surrounded by a moat, which was surrounded by a smooth cement wall that was just the right height for a kid to rest his chin on. My cousin and I went to the park every morning...long before the rides opened....just to watch the monkeys. I think there were about 25 of them, and they entertained us for hours and hours. The big mean ones were the most captivating...as they had bad tempers, especially when we'd toss some food to them that they had to go into the water to retrieve. They'd make a real mean monkey face at us and yell something that was untranslatable. They spent a lot of time grooming each other...picking something or other off their backs and then eating it. My cousin would yell "oooh" and they'd all turn and glare at him and look like they were going to swim over and climb the wall and eat him.

Every once in awhile one would escape...like the one that chased our cousin Janet while Aunt Katie chased him...(so goes the tale that none of the relatives could actually swear they'd witnessed.) Usually the renegade monkey would be caught up in a tree, and I'd tell my cousin that he was the reason for all the fuss...a few of those monkeys had it in for him.

Other than the time a giant tree caught fire when the park had fireworks, the most fun we ever had at the park involved the monkeys. We did ride the Old Mill although we were both afraid that the giant belt that made the boats go up the hill was eventually going to snap and send us hurling over the trees into the monkey pit where we'd not be treated very well.

Since I was always the instigator (crowned as such by my wise godmother)...I brought all things monkey-like into our daily lives at the lake. A lot of the really young kids thought I was part monkey myself...as I could ( AND still can ) make really good monkey noises. My cousin Carole was about two at the time and we communicated mostly like monkeys. She  now has grown children, but a place in her heart for monkeys...maybe because I bought her all sorts of stuffed monkeys instead of teddy bears, and because she once took a real one for a walk on a leash when her unusual neighbors were away. She loves dogs and has always had a couple of them, but I know what she'd REALLY like to have.

The monkeys are long gone...someone said they all went to the space program...but I doubt that. I still go to the park...still obviously think about the monkeys, and spend lots of time looking for old post cards from Erie...just to prove that a kid could have a wonderfully memorable time at an amusement park without ever getting on a ride.

DISTURBING THE PEACE

When I was a kid people had to go somewhere to see the fireworks...like to a local park, or as we got older, to downtown Pittsburgh....and that was once a year...and the fireworks were really special. Now it seems like they're an all year display, and they're all over the place. Woof hates fireworks, as do a whole lot of other dogs. Watching her pant and shake while the local community celebrates for 30 minutes or so is one thing, but when the neighbors are shooting them off almost every night in the summer, it gets real old real fast.

Sipping an ice cold Limoncello on the deck while watching the full moon rise above the lake just looses some of the magic when the cherry bombs start to rattle the cottage and the sky starts to look like Bagdad during Bush's "Shock and Awe" attack. Woof runs for cover, my mother starts looking for the local police phone number, and another neighbor storms out in his pajamas ready to strangle someone because he has to get up for work at six...and it's only July 1st. Since it hasn't rained for weeks, and bonfires are banned all over the township, watching loose rockets of fire land in the trees is a bit disconcerting to peace loving dogs and people.

Somehow I don't remember the supermarkets selling fireworks until recently, nor do I remember having much more that "sparklers" and "snakes" until a few years ago. Woof et al. suggested we pack up and go back to the city last evening...to avoid what promised to be firecracker bedlam on the beach, so we spent the prime explosion hours on the highway...munching on dog biscuits and chocolate chip cookies, arriving just as the crowds were leaving our local park after the fireworks. We were still getting out of the car when the ground began shaking from all over the neighborhood. The sky was orange and red and blue...Woof's ears went back, and I used the name of God in vain.

By midnight the last of the skyrockets had detonated, we all breathed a sigh of relief and climbed into our beds just as the sky began to flash all over again and the thunder made the house shake once again. There's no way I could have been punished that quickly for just saying two words...but then again I've always bet that He/She has quite a sense of humor.

15 things to do today.

This blogger has decided to do the following today instead of writing a blog.

1.  Put his feet up on the deck and have another cup of coffee.

2.  Take Woof for a walk on the beach.

3.  Water the garden.

4.  Have lunch at a lakefront restaurant.

5.  Order a glass of white wine.

6.  Finish reading " Sense of an ending".

7.  Take a nap.

8.  Freshen up for cocktails.

9.  Have dinner on the patio.             

10.Write a letter.

11.Play the piano.

12. Watch the sunset.

13. Write a letter.

14. Throw this laptop into the lake.

15. Fall asleep listening to the waves.