My children have been permitted to use my computer this past week.  I gave up on even checking my email during the hours of 8 am to 8 pm.  They will be so sad to return to our normal “no TV or computers Monday-Friday” rule tomorrow. 

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I cleaned some of the garage yesterday and pulled the storage bin marked “Advent” out to an accessible location.  I was going to make this the first year EVER that I had the Advent wreath out and ready to go before the first Sunday of Advent.  As I lay in bed last night, I remembered, suddenly, that I did not get the wreath out after all.  I have high hopes that I won’t be scrambling at dinnertime tonight.  But instead of getting it now, I’m blogging. 

Priorities.

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Sometimes I can really step in it.  As we adults were going around the Thanksgiving dinner table remarking on things for which we were grateful, I happily noted the presence of my two sisters who were not with me last year, and mentioned the absence of my brother and his family, whom we miss. 

Then my sister pointed out that I failed to mention her husband who is deployed in a war zone right now.

“Uh, but you are one!” I exclaimed.  Lame.

Happy 13th anniversary today to her and her Bill.

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Note for next year: if we’re going to do them on the same day, best to do family pictures first and then go to confession.  I mean, it’s like vacuuming the van before going to the beach if you do them the other way. 

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Do you compare penances after going to confession?  Fritz, Billy and I got three Our Fathers.  Bill was supposed to say something nice about someone else (I hate those kind of penances…too abstract).  Katie got four Hail Marys, which I think is comparable to three Our Fathers.  Then Jenny said she got five Hail Marys.

“Holy smokes, girl, what did you do?” I asked her.

This is the same young priest we went to last month.  Last month, I walked into the confessional and all I saw were black high-top Converse sneakers.  I wasn’t surprised when I got a whole decade of the rosary to pray.  The younger they are, the longer the penance.  By the time they are a Monsignor, they tell you to think nice thoughts about people for a few minutes.

It’s amazing that this same guy, a month later, was only doling out three Our Fathers.  But this time, we were in line before he got there, so he saw the whole family.  Since the kids went before me, maybe he took their confessions into consideration when assigning me mine.

Of course, Bill was last, and he only had to say something nice about someone else.  What does that say about my confession?

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I have six baskets of laundry that need folding.  Ugh.  Unfortunately, at this point, I think that chore falls into the necessary category.

a poem not written by Lewis Carroll

Bill doesn’t usually make it home in time for dinner, but he did last night.  It was the typical chaos along the lengths of each side of the table, with he and I at the ends, sitting and just looking at each other.

“Why are you staring at each other?” asked one child, momentarily distracted from the banter.

“Your dad and I can talk, just by looking at each other,” I explained.  “See, I’ll show you.  Bill: I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 100.  What is it?”

Bill pressed his hands to his head, closed his eyes and said, “Sixty-two.”

“YES!” I said.  The kids were impressed.  “Now you try it.”

“I’m thinking of an animal,” he said.

I thought for a moment, melding our minds.  “A giraffe!”

“YES!” he agreed.  And we laughed.

Oh, but one clever child is now old and wise.  “What number am I thinking of?” he demanded of his younger brother.

Billy guessed, “Twenty-five?”

“YES!” he responded.  “AMAZING!”  And he laughed, too.

“One is too smart for us,” I told my husband.

“Yes,” he agreed.  “But just one.”

Today in the mail, I received a request for donations to an organization for whose destruction I pray every day.  As tempting as it was to rip it in half and toss in the the recycling bucket, I opened it instead and found a postage paid return envelope.

I am a bit gleeful.

You see, if that envelope is used, they have to pay for the postage.  It’s a reduced bulk rate, but it’s money nonetheless.  Now, if I sent in a donation, that gift would easily cover the cost.

But if I return it empty…or better yet, filled with prayer cards…it costs them a tiny bit.  But if you do it, too, it costs a bit more.  So watch that junk mail carefully, folks.  Let your least favorite “non-profits” know how you feel about them.

For anyone who doesn’t have a sister who is willing to leave her husband for a month and fly across the country to be with her during a time of need, there is Operation Special Delivery:

Words can not convey how awesome I think this service is.

I’m pondering this column on Stuff today as I think hard about Christmas shopping.  I’m also thinking hard about moving, since we should be doing that soon…very soon…although I don’t know where or exactly when.  I am tempted to do a partial do-it-yourself move where I would box everything and get somebody else to load it up, truck it, and unload it.  If you have to wrap and box everything, you think long and hard about how badly you want it.

But then I couldn’t blame the movers for the missing kid things.

Really, though, I don’t see having the time to do all that work, so I’ll have to purge beforehand as much as possible and then finish it at the other end.

In the meantime, my Christmas wish list is mostly to replace old or broken or not-quite-right things I already have, and the items on my gift list for others are being scrutinized for necessity or usefulness.

Except for books.  There is never a restriction on books…

Husband: Peter!  Coffee!

Peter comes running.

Me: Did you just tell the 6 year old that the coffee is ready?

He stands there, silent, pondering pithy responses, and coming up short.

Peter grins.  And then he searches for the flavored creamer in the fridge, which is, alas, all gone.

Earlier this morning, Fritz requested that I buy some French vanilla flavored beans.  This is not normal.

For the record, we serve the java heavy on the latte. 

The nation-wide 40 Days for Life Campaign, a prayerful vigil outside abortion clinics, is wrapping up this week.  The day my church was scheduled to support the vigil was weeks ago, and they had plenty of volunteers for that day.  I decided to go “some other day” later in the campaign, but week after week went by.  Things kept coming up.  I had other priorities.

Last week, the woman responsible for coordinating time slots called me, and I promised her a day and time – yesterday from 2 to 3 pm.  I figured if it was definitely on my calendar, I would not be “overcome by events.”

This is Savannah’s first year participating in the campaign, and they only tried for 7 am to 7 pm, instead of the 24 hour vigils encouraged elsewhere.  Despite more than 90 churches in the area and the reduced hours, the campaign could not get the 960 people needed (12 hours x 2 people per hour x 40 days), and many hours meant no prayerful presence at the clinic.  I, and I’m sure many others, were praying at all hours of the day and night as we went about our busy schedules.  But still, a physical presence means more. 

Sadly, I think we fight apathy more than anything.  I don’t think many people are really in favor of abortion.  I think the vast majority of people just don’t care about the issue – they don’t think it applies to them.  I don’t get that.  Ho, hum, thousands of babies dying every day in America…not my problem.  I’m too old to have babies.  I’m happily married.  I’m a man.

And we criticize China for ignoring one 2 year old who was hit by a car and left on the street.  Not my kid…not my problem.

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So, yesterday, school is in session and I’m trying to get reluctant students to get some work done, and I’m trying to get the kitchen cleaned up before we go, and I’m refusing to get discouraged, and I’m letting go of the idea that I will be remotely successful in these endeavors.  My priority is getting to the abortion clinic by 2 pm, as promised.  Nothing else matters.

I get the kids fed lunch; I have them fill their water bottles and pack up some books; I tell them to saddle up.  I get myself a cup of water and head out to the car.  Everybody is loaded and buckled.  I put the key in the ignition and hear a click.

No.way.

I try again, not because I expect a different response, but because I can not believe that I got that response in the first place.  Click click click.

“Stay put,” I tell the kids and head inside to call AAA.  But first I have to call the vigil coordinator to tell her I won’t be there.  As her phone rings, my disappointment, frustration and shock all reach a boiling point, so the message I left on her machine went something like this:

“Blubber blubber blubber…my car won’t start…blubber blubber blubber…can’t believe it…blubber blubber blubber…will try to get there as soon as possible..blubber blubber blubber…I know it’s silly to cry…blubber blubber blubber….”

Then I took a deep breath and made a very calm phone call to AAA.  Fifteen minutes later, the coordinator called me back.

“Are you ok?!?!?”  {sigh}  Yes.  I’ve cleaned up all the puddles.

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AAA came.  My battery was so dead that it took 10 minutes of charging to get it to run by itself, and the nice guy followed me to the local car supply place to make sure I got there ok.  They have a device that checks your battery for you.  It also checks the starter and alternator to see if they are draining the battery.

Everything was fine.

 I just wasn’t supposed to be at that clinic at that hour.

*********

Better late than never, my small band of protestors showed up and occupied the tiny patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street.  I tried to pray, but had to deal with a constant barrage of questions from “Why would someone want to kill their baby?” to “Why can’t we storm the building and make them stop?”

Mary is, apparently, a natural-born protestor.  “They kill babies here, Mom?” she asked.  When I said yes, she picked up a sign, held it over her head and waved it at anybody who might be passing by.  There was nobody passing by, but that did not matter.  It was so cute I had to take a picture.

She doesn’t know what the sign says, but that doesn’t really matter.  Billy, meanwhile, is contemplating the fall of Jericho and wondering if we march around the abortion clinic for 7 days and blow trumpets, if it won’t just fall down.  I suggested that since no Angel of the Lord had appeared to him, the chance of success of in that was slim.

We made it 45 minutes before Mary had to go to the bathroom.  She actually suggested that the little patch of grass was fine for her, but since I support laws against public urination, unlike other protest movements, I decided that our occupation of Savannah was over.

If the host of an event tells the crowd to put their hands over their hearts for the playing of the National Anthem, and you notice the fiftyish woman next to you not doing so for the duration of the song, is it OK to punch her?

The event was a 5k to benefit wounded warriors. If she hates the country so much, why would she participate in the event?

My time was 28:23, which is not as good as the one I did last month, but Bill wasn’t running with me. Despite that, the smaller venue meant I finished 2nd in my age group. It’s pretty cool to place. The top female was 39, and ran it in 17-something.

When your 10 year old declares, “I have enough toys” in a discussion unrelated to Christmas, that’s a hint that 1) it’s time to purge and 2) we may be moving into a new phase where “other than toys” outnumber the toys under the tree.