Sledding

A brilliant Saturday morning. Cold. But, with birdsong in the air. With Ash Wednesday just around the corner, can Spring be far behind?

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After Mass, I spent an hour or so outside, working in the garden. I pruned the dogwoods behind the sun garden. It was cumbersome work due to my having to wear gloves and a winter coat, but once I got into the swing of things, I really enjoyed the work.

Since there were no leaves to contend with, I made significant strides in trimming down these unruly shrubs. I will be interested to see whether they become more dense over the next few years.

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The day’s highlight was going to the park and watching Arianna use her new saucer. We were outside for almost 90 minutes. Arianna enjoyed every minute of it. And, although she was initially anxious, after sliding down the hill a couple of times, she expressed a desire to sled even higher hills.

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While Arianna and I were at the park, Sharon drove her Dad to Weaver’s Music, where Bruno wanted to inquire about trading in the old Wurlizer for a new piano. In fact, Bruno bought a new piano, a digital piano – a GEM, which is made in Italy.

R.I.P.

Miss Kitty died this morning.

I carried her into the basement and laid her on my old sweater that lined the basket in which she slept prior to my departure for the office around 6 o’clock. After I made her comfortable, she raised her head and looked at me. I stroked her head for a few minutes, said good-bye, and drove to work.

Sharon called to confirm her death around 10:30. Since she had seen her alive an hour or so earlier, she believes Kitty passed while she was driving Arianna to school.

Miss Kitty was my companion since January 1993. She listened to me while Sharon was at MU, and later – after we relocated to Kansas City – whenever Sharon chose to spend time away from the house to socialize with her Falun Gong friends. I will miss her.

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On the way home from the office, I stopped at Ace to buy Arianna a snow saucer. With the additional 5” of snow that dropped on Chicagoland yesterday, she’ll have an opportunity to give it a try this weekend.

Witness

Miss Kitty is dying. Her demise is not altogether unexpected, but throughout the week her intake of food and water has diminished to such an extent that she can barely hold up her head. She weighs next to nothing and is skeletal in her appearance. Still, she derives a semblance of pleasure from having her head and cheeks brushed and laying on top of my stomach.

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Sometimes the flush of parental pride takes hold at the most unexpected of times. After playing a hand of Uno, Arianna was able to tally the total of number of points reflected in the cards she was left with.

Blue Monday

Blue because of the frigid arctic air that has a strangle hold over Chicagoland.

Blue because of the Bears’ failure to execute in yesterday’s Super Bowl.

--Which is not to say that the latter impacts me personally. The only emotion the Bears’ loss elicited from me was regret: “This was what I spent my evening doing?” That notwithstanding, I think Grandpa enjoyed the company (if not the game).

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Arianna is sick again. {sigh} Fortunately, St. Catherine’s remained closed today. So she didn’t have to miss another day’s learning.

Arctic Blast

Were Arianna not sick, I would have hesitated to let her accompany me to Mass this morning. When walked to the street to fetch the Sunday Tribune, the mercury read five degrees below zero.

Weather like this makes it difficult to make a case for global warming.

First Friday

The full moon hung bright and heavy over St. Catherine’s as I pulled into the nearly empty parking lot this evening. Upon entering the Chapel, only five people were seated before the monstrance. By the time the Benediction prayers were begun, only three of us remained.

When I arrived home from Eucharistic Adoration, Arianna was anxious. She was afraid that it was too late to watch Groundhog Day. For a number of years now, we’ve gotten into the habit of watching Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day. It’s corny, I suppose, but the movie does have some funny bits in it. So – despite my later arrival – we watched Bill Murray relive February 2^nd over and over and over again.

Little House

We finished Farmer Boy and have begun Little House on the Prairie.

Laura Ingalls Wilder may have been writing for young girls, but she illuminates themes I find compelling. At the end of Farmer Boy, when Almanzo is asked to decide whether he wants to apprentice as a wheelwright, Mr. Wilder characterizes the occupation as having financial advantages – but only inasmuch as one can accept the fact that, in town, one makes a living that by and large is the result of providing a service to others. A farmer, on the other hand, is wholly dependent on himself (and the weather).

Obvious as this is, especially for a person shackled to a corporate job, what’s curious to me is when and why we as a nation decided that self-sufficiency was no longer in our best interest. –Of course, one needn’t think too long or hard before one realizes that we seem to have forfeited the whole idea of what’s in our (national and cultural) best interest.

What doesn’t fail to strike me as we begin to read Little House on the Prairie is the characteristic American restlessness. It’s hard to imagine Pepin, Wisconsin being over crowded. Particularly in the 1870’s. Yet, ol’ Charles Ingalls sites “overcrowding” as a fundamental reason for his desire to head west and quit the little house in the big woods.

And we’re still trying to get away . . . from others, our neighbors . . . .