7 Quick Takes Friday #55

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

It is so nice to have my computer back and to start catching up on so much that I could do with an old, borrowed one. I seem to have missed the 7 QT last week so I will combine them for this week.

1. A while back I reported on allegations of sexual misconduct made against our priest. The police have exonerated him, and in spite of repeated, highly publicized pleadings from SNAP for others to come forth with their own allegations, no one has. Fortunately, the rest of the people in the two parishes involved are honest. Now, however, the accuser, who hired a big-city lawyer used to squeezing money from the Church whether or not the claims were factual (one research report indicated that 50% of the claims made by this firm were false allegations and one cardinal actually sued for false claims and won) and mistakenly clearly thought that this would be a dandy way to get some money from a small-town Catholic diocese that was assumed to be easy to frighten, has filed a civil suit, not having got one penny from our bishop. He has included the bishop in the lawsuit (I assume because the bishop did not "pay up" as he expected) and the police department, too. Talk about a world gone crazy! I built a website about our priest's situation for our parish where efforts to help, latest information, and research information on false allegations in general can be shared: www.in-support-of-fr-ed.com. As I told our bishop, having been extensively abused myself, I would be the last person to support a real perpetrator of such atrocities (and I know that sometimes it is the least likely person who does such things), but this case is clear. (It helps that I know something about the accuser's real motive but cannot share that until it comes out in court.) The accuser needs prayers, not money, and the anger being expressed by SNAP about this situation does not come from God; it is a selfish and vengeful anger, directed at a hurt that members of SNAP experienced from priests other than our priest. SNAP, too, needs prayers.

2. We closed on a neat house at the end of February and moved last week, the only week I have been home since closing -- I was not even present for the closing. The house overlooks our valley. It has five bedrooms, which is larger than anything we have ever owned. After the kids grew up, I never thought I would want to take care of a large house again, but it was really the view and the fact that it is nonetheless walking distance from the mission that sold me on the house.

3. We had a strange interaction with a rooster when we moved out of our old house. (A reminder here: roosters have the right of way in San Ignatio and are protected by law.) He followed us up onto our deck, pecked at our door, making it sound like he was knocking, and then beat on the window. (You might have to make the picture larger to see him.) He remained there for as long as we were cleaning and even after we left. We wonder if he might have made friends with our cats and wondered where they had gone. In any event, it was a Hitchcock-like experience.

4. Before we could finish unpacking, I headed out on a fascinating business trip to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Now, Fayetteville is not fascinating. In fact, I commented to someone that it looked like it had fallen on hard times, but he laughed and said that it has looked this way for as long as he can remember.

5. We are holding a reverse evaluation (something I introduced) for our southeastern branches. This is where workers get to tell their managers (anonymously through representatives from the various branches) what they do or don't do that make it difficult for them to do good work. It is a very effective way to improve organizations.

6. Tonight I had dinner with the son of friends from Army days. He is now in the Army, a captain, serving at Ft. Bragg. We went to the Mash House and had a great steak meal and even better conversation, catching up on years and years. The last time I saw him, he was in elementary school and was visiting us in California with his parents (whom I have seen since). He immediately crawled behind our sofa and refused to come out for hours. He says that he remembers that. He also remembers that while back there, he found some things under the couch to try putting into the light socket back there. Really?? There are times that, as parents, one prefers not to know what is going on if one does not have the opportunity to intervene. This must have been a case of divine protection because we had no idea what mischief he was up to.

7. Nikolina has been making progress as she approaches her second birthday. She is not walking yet -- still working on learning how to use her braces. Savvy, though, she is. Shane reports that she has figured out how to navigate his iPhone. He gave it to her for a little toddler game with sheep and chickens jumping around, and she pushed the home key and was able to navigate two screens over, click into a specific folder and then open the Netflix app so she could play her favorite movie(s). Just wait until she is three years old!

Tomorrow I head out for Qatar -- some international meetings there at which I need to present. I have no idea whether or not someone will be picking me up at the airport when I arrive at 1:00 in the morning, but I am hoping for the best. Will report on what actually happens next week. In the interim, I wish all a great weekend and good week.

7 Quick Takes Friday #44

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

1. The week started out with a mild but continuing annoyance: every time I answered my cell phone, the call would drop and the phone would take a picture of my ear. At least, I thought it was my ear until logical Donnie told me that this is not possible because the camera faces outward. The phone was taking a picture of my hand. So, okay, I don't know my hand from my ear. That does not solve the problem, though. For now, since I don't have time to deal with that, I have solved the problem in a different way: I have stopped answering the phone. I have an adequate number of pictures of my ear (or hand), already.












2. Halloween was a fun evening. Lemony did a great job on the grandkids' costumes (Above, Nathaniel as Dr. Who is on the left and Nikolina as a little lamb on the right). Doah bought himself an Ironman suit, and I took him around to a few houses. He has not grown up in that respect. Then he came back and helped Donnie and me hand out candy (we have two accessible doors -- each on a different street), so that was very helpful. Then Donnie took him home. It is a different world for all of us now that he lives nearby -- so many more possibilities for interaction.

3. November 1 was Donnie's birthday. It was also voting day (about which I have already posted). After voting, we wanted to celebrate Donnie's birthday at a Grilling and Chilling restaurant before going to a movie. Unfortunately, everyone in town had the same idea. We would have had too long a wait, so we went where the lines were short: Jack in Box, where I ended up with some inedible tacos (no worse than my own cooking, though). There were only a handful of people at the cinema, so we had some excellent seats for Hereafter, a movie I had wanted to see but ended up not really liking. Oh, well, the important part of the day was that we got to celebrate Donnie's birthday and spend some quality time together.

4. After Donnie's birthday, however, the week turned grueling. We had two rehearsals with the big boss for a presentation that we four senior managers will be making at the Pentagon on Tuesday. A Congressional advisor, whom I have known for years, was in town and helped out our boss by listening to the first rehearsal and murder-boarding it (providing ruthless feedback). A truly debonair gentlemen from a nearly bygone generation, he is not capable of ruthlessness. I was second to present and left after that to deal with other work issues. As I departed, I held out my hand to shake goodbye with the advisor; instead, he held it and kissed it. Indeed, a nearly by-gone generation... [image from Tine Kameer gallery; click on image for link to some fine art work]

5. In spite of a crushing workload this week, I did, for the most part, leave my office door open, which is an indication to employees that my open-door policy is in effect. It seemed a big week for a little problems, and getting my regular, introversion-required work done was difficult. I did ask one employee to come to me if he would. His first-line supervisor was about to give him a letter of reprimand for refusal to do a particular task for a short period for another program manager, and I knew him to be an excellent, cooperative, and diligent employee. I asked if he would talk to me if there was some justification for his behavior that he felt he could not share with his immediate supervisors. He came, revealed having been egregiously abused through false and pernicious rumors started by the program manager for whom he would be working, and then said, "If you personally ask me to do this, I will." Wow! Of course, I would not ask for that. I talked to his first-line supervisor and got the letter of reprimand cancelled, and I will be talking to the other manager's supervisor this week. I did talk to the other manager about having to find someone else without revealing the confidential information given to me, but if he is smart, he will figure it out, and if he is not, he will be counseled by his own immediate supervisor. I very much dislike finding out that these kinds of things continue in spite of a servant leader orientation that I insist upon among managers. I have two managers out of about 40 (this one is one of the two) who just don't get it. Both those managers, who otherwise do an excellent job, received negative comments from me about these things on their annual appraisal; I am hoping that those comments will get them to listen to their boss and to me more actively.

6. Speaking of appraisals, they are one reason it has been hell week at work. I had nearly 400 to turn in, of which I was the first-line rater of only six (yes!), but second rater of a couple dozen. The remaining I just had to ensure were completed. Of course, these being all computerized, we had a number of recalcitrant computers (I negotiated with the Personnel Office to turn in some the old fashioned way: hand-signed on paper) and, by the end, we were down to one functional photocopier and that one would take only feeds one page at a time laid on the glass. Everyone should be happy this weekend: hell week is over until next year!

7. Hell week, though, did not end with the appraisals for me. We had four sets of materials to get into the office in Afghanistan where I visited last month. It was a promise, and I always meet promised deadlines. Three teams turned in their materials either early or by COB (close of business). One team told me that they would finish either next week, or if I insisted, on Saturday. "No," I told them, "neither alternative is an option. They are due COB today, and your business day will close when you hand me the materials." They worked until 9:45 p.m. Their managers stayed, and so did I. So, our COB today was very, very late, but the materials did get to Afghanistan within the promised November 5 deadline. I have a half-hour drive home, so I am now truly, truly tired. All I want at the moment is to tumble into bed. My eyes are drooping even as I write, trying to keep them propped open long enough to finish.

I hope that you have had a much easier week than I and that your weekend will be just a whole lot of fun. (Mine will continue in a similar vein: ball for work on Saturday and red-eye to Washington on Sunday -- and a journal to edit before I go. I dream of sleep, but it appears not mine to have for a while!)

Briefly, Nikolina

Nikolina is still in the hospital, but we are hoping for a next-week discharge. She continues to be naughty -- refusing to be wired or tubed. That strength of will is probably what got her through all that initial surgery. Generally, though, she is very easy-going, and I thought a picture of her would tell more about her than all the words in the world. So here is photo of Nikolina after being patched up and before going back for plumbing repair!

I have added a section on the right of this blog, called Twitterlets, and I will keep readers updated on routine progress there, but comments are always welcomed on the posts about Nikolina.

Many thanks to all of you who have prayed for her and who are continuing to pray for her. I put her back on the mission prayer list. Looks like this will be an on-again, off-again, on-again thing for a while.

7 Quick Takes Friday #33

Another week, another seven days of work, at least another seven learning experiences. Here are the thoughts that have accompanied this week's experiences. Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler for hosting the 7 Quick Takes meme at Conversion Diary.

1. Last Friday, I ended up at Mass accidentally. I suppose it would have been much better had I ended up there intentionally, but rarely do I have Friday noon available. Work seems to tumble right up to departure time and then spills into the Mass time itself. Last Friday was no different, or so I thought. As I drove into my parking spot, one of my employees approached me to talk about matters in his department. Ah, I thought with resignation as I listened intently to the information he wished to share, one more week without being able to take advantage of Mass being offered at the little church down the road from my office -- or lunch! (The church near my office is a far cry in beauty, historicity, or even numbers of worshipers from the old mission here in San Ignatio and a place where I know no one, but Mass is Mass and I had attended once before when I was able to sneak away from work while no one was looking.) As we were talking, my employee looked at his watch and excused himself, saying that he had to hurry because he wanted to go to Mass. "Oh, take me with you!" I exclaimed, and off we went. The priest who celebrated Mass was an elderly gent who reminded me very much of my beloved Fr. Barry, who was transferred out of our diocese six months ago. It turned out that my employee knew most of the people who regularly attend Mass there and introduced me to them. What a blessing Friday noon turned out to be!

2. Saturday morning dawned too early. We had to be up because the first thing in the morning the carpet cleaner, Eric, who had spent the afternoon cleaning the carpet throughout the house in preparation for two upcoming parties, was coming back to redo a portion of what he already cleaned because because Donnie had brought chairs that he had set on the porch back into the house, dragging them and his dirty shoes over the newly clean carpet without realizing it was still wet. Dark black streaks glared from the white carpet. Eric came bright and early and quickly cleaned up Donnie's mess. He stayed a bit and talked and would take no money for the extra work. That is the way it is in small towns, or at least in our small town. I went out onto the porch to say goodbye to him, then walked back over the wet carpet with socks made dusty from the front porch. There were the black marks again! Well, gray marks. Thank God for Resolve! After the carpet dried, I could take care of my dirty work myself.

3. On Sunday, Donnie and I attended a funeral mass for the mother of one of my employees at St. Mary Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in Campbell, California. What the employee forgot to tell me was (1) the Mass would be conducted in Aramaic and (2) women need a head covering in order to take communion. I probably could have guess both these situations, but I did not think ahead and so was quite unprepared, especially for the Eucharist, which I was unable to take. (I could comment on that, but I won't.) The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Yoshia Sana, who is originally from Iraq and was posted to the Campbell church by Rome. Present-day Chaldeans and Assyrians come from the northern regions of Iraq and the eastern regions of Syria. Ethnically, they are the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Culturally, they are the heirs of the Aramaic language and culture of Jesus; most of the local population in this part of California, particularly those in my employ, speak as their everyday first language modern Aramic (which differs from the language of Jesus's day in that all languages add/drop/change vocabulary and simplify grammar over time). You can read more about Assyrians and Chaldeans here (much of the information is in Arabic, but if you cannot read Arabic, keep digging, there is much information in English, as well. There were helpful missals in all the pews at the church. At first, I thought great, Arabic, but as I looked more closely and tried to read (nary a word could I understand), I realized that there were additional letters beyond those present in the Arabic alphabet. It is rare that I end up somewhere where I cannot understand at least something of what is being said in the local language, but Sunday was one of those rare occasions. We also went to the sitting (an Arabic way of paying respect to the departed that involves men together and women together -- poor Donnie had no way to communicate because none of the men, except my employee, spoke English well enough for communication; at least, I could speak Arabic with the women, but Donnie had learned little Arabic when we lived in Jordan and has forgotten most of what he did know.

4. On Monday, I had the day off! Yes! Happy Fourth a day late! We held a BBQ for my prayer group and others from Old Mission Church. We brought Doah down, and he celebrated with us. Donnie cooked. (No one would have permitted me to cook, given my reputation for burning or otherwise ruining any food I touch.) Shane, Lemony, and kids showed up. It was the first time I saw Nathaniel up close and personal with his new spiked haircut. I almost did not recognize him. "Grandma! You know who I am!" he complained. The prayer group members, who had done a lot of praying for Nikolina but had never met her, were delighted to see her. They were astonished at her progress from nearly hopeless to full of life.

5. Tuesday I attended an all-day, in-house, mini-conference for everyone within the organization. We have one a year. I am not actively involved in setting them up; there is a committee, overseen by my boss, the local head of our organization, that does that. I arrived at the plenary session promptly because a friend and colleague, someone I have worked closely with for nearly 30 years, was coming from the East Coast to be the keynote speaker. Delighted to see me, he immediately made plans for us to get together the next day to discuss some things of mutual business interest, and we did. The best part of the day, however, was an incidental discussion with one of the junior leaders of another division. She had worked for me years ago when I first worked at our organization. (I worked there from 1989-1993, then left for 13 years, returning in 2006.) She told me the history of the annual conference -- me! I was astonished. We had done such a conference on a small scale in my division years ago. A couple of years after I left, she happened to be working on a project where she was in a position to make a recommendation to an advisory committee that the whole organization pick up on this idea and conduct an annual in-house conference, and management agreed. This has now been going on almost 15 years. When she saw me, she said, "Look what your conference turned into!" I did not understand until she explained. Oh, my, it is good to feel that one has made a contribution somewhere! (I do realize, however, that it took many other people with as good or better ideas really to turn it into the major event that it is today.)

6. Wednesday I had my first Pashto lesson. One day not long ago when I was handing out cookies to employees on one of my famous MBWA (management by walking about) afternoons, one of our Afghani employees, learning that I have been involved in some Afghanistan-related projected, offered to teach me Pashto. I emailed him, thanking him for the offer and taking him up on it if he was still inclined to help me. Indeed, he was! He came to my office on Wednesday, nervous as all get-out. After all, he is one of our traveling employees so I don't know him very well, and I am his boss's boss's boss. That lengthy chain can unnerve some folks although most, given my open-door policy and occasional afternoon cookies, have become used to interacting with me. Jamal perched nervously on one of the chairs at the conference table in my office. Seeing his nervousness, I took a slightly lower chair, so that he could look down on me, not up to me. That seemed to do the trick of throwing us into the proper teacher and student roles. Pashto is the 18th language I have studied, so I do not find it difficult. Jamal expected to teach me part of the alphabet that first day and was quite surprised to learn that I already know the alphabet (except for three letters). The alphabet is the same as the Arabic alphabet, which I have known since my days of living in Jordan. He quickly taught me the three letters, the days of the week, greetings, numbers to 1000, all the pronouns in the language, present tense of some verbs, sentence structure, possessive prepositions. In one hour, we were already communicating in the language albeit in short, limited sentences, banal questions and answers. Jamal left his glasses behind; when I contacted him to return them, he said it was because he was so overwhelmed by all the work we had accomplished in such a short time that he lost his head! :) We had our second hour today (well, actually, 30 minutes is all I could squeak out, but now I can talk about things in the future and past tenses, can describe my town and state, saying such things as "San Ignatio is a beautiful, historic town located in California in the southwest part of the USA," "I will be going to Jordan on the 19th of August and returning on the 25th," "I come to work every day at 7:00 in the morning but today I came at 7:30," and "I have seven children, four boys and three girls." Jamal is so excited about having an experienced language learner that he came in from vacation today and is coming in again tomorrow to teach me. I guess he got over his nerves!! The downside? I don't do homework (no time for that), but I warned him about that in advance.

7. I finally got around to reviewing a book proposal for Cambridge University Press. They tend to ask my opinion before giving contracts for new books because the two books I have published through them have been their most successful. Unfortunately, I could not give even one thumbs up to this particular book. I always feel a tad guilty when this happens because I know how hard it is to put a book proposal together and how disappointing it is to get a negative response. On the other hand, the editors/authors should have done their homework a little better and been a little humbler in their presentation. They claimed that the whole world would be excited about their book. Well, probably not. In fact, I suspect that only libraries would buy it and then only if it were to carry the CUP label. They claimed that their work was seminal. Well, no, they even listed others who had written on the topic in their bibliography. They listed someone with a well known name in the field as writing the final chapter. Well, perhaps he would do that but they had not included an abstract, so clearly he had not cooperated with them on a deadline and, while famous (and a bit infamous), in my opinion, he does not have enough experience in the narrow field about which the book editors were collecting chapters to make reliable and valid commentary. While I always dislike giving a thumbs down on proposals, it is not fair to either authors or the press to encourage the publication of a book that is likely to be a bomb. That, I suppose, is why I have a reputation for honest and frank reviews, which I would prefer to retain.

7 Quick Takes Friday #27

In reviewing this week, looking for some quick takes to share with you and with Jennifer Futwiler, who hosts this meme over at Conversion Diary, I realized that for the first time in a long, long time, I had a fairly normal week. Oops, come to think of it, I didn't. I just think I did. But, heck, wait a minute, you judge!

1. On Friday, I cut work and spent the morning at First Friday (Day of Recollection) at St. Francis Retreat Center in the morning, where the co-director presented us with a history of the Virgin Mary that contained much that was new to me. I love it when I learn new things! In fact, much of the history was new to many people there. We were all enthralled. Mass was simple and special, as always. Then I had to leave. I wish I could have stayed for lunch and the afternoon session, but at least I had a morning reprieve. I am grateful to have had those special hours because even though I returned to work, the spirit of the morning stayed with me the rest of the day.

2. Donnie and I joined Shane, Lemony, and Nikolina for Nathaniel's baseball game on Saturday. Our little budding scientist is definitely not a budding sportsman, but he likes the game and has fun at it. I posted some pictures from the game over on The Clan of Mahlou: Life Goes On - In Pictures. It was a modern, city game, with real bases. I remember my childhood games. Let's see: the clothesline was first base; second base was the swing set; third base was the apple tree; and home was a flat piece of wood we threw down on the grass at the appropriate spot. My, how times have changed! Or, maybe it is just the location that has changed. Following the ball game, Shane left for work. The rest of us went to Jerry's, a local diner-style restaurant for a relaxing lunch and time to talk. Lemony told us that Nikolina is finally starting to crawl. Her legs are very weak, but the doctor has said that it is possible that she may walk; Lemony is betting on that. (See The Clan of Mahlou: The Awesome Power of a Mother's Love for details.) Nathaniel forgot all about his baseball game when I told him I had bought him a glow-in-the-dark jigsaw puzzle of a tiger. In fact, he badgered Shane about it for two days until Shane brought him to our house to pick it up. Now, the question is, will he be able to sit still long enough to finish it?

3. Sunday. Mother's Day. I woke to the thought of being pampered and spending a day bathed in a calm spirit and pleasant thoughts. Well, that last just about 20 minutes. Before I had struggled all the way out of bed, Noelle called in tears. Her best friend from college, also a young woman with spina bifida, had not woken up Sunday morning. At 4:00 a.m., her husband had found her dead. He called Noelle because he knew she would want to know. (More details are posted on The Clan of Mahlou: Boueversee.) So, on Sunday, I skipped my plans for being pampered; I broke my promise to attend the renewal vows of friends who were celebrating their 50th year of marriage; I drove to Salts with to do what mothers do: console her disconsolate child. Indeed, Sunday was Mother's Day.

4. On Monday, our prayer group met as we usually do on the second Monday of every month: at my house to watch an inspirational movie. Various people bring munchies. We share some updates on our life and our history of the movie. Then we watch the movie and end the evening with prayer. Agnostic Donnie typically joins us for the munchies and the movie. During our prayer her retires to our office. This week we watched Padre Pro, a Cristero martyr. We preceded the movie with reading about the events of 1917-1930 in Mexico, the revolution, the communist influence (including Trotsky's exile to Mexico from Russia) and the Christian martyrs, many of them priests, who fought back. Two of Padre Pro's brothers were jailed with him: Humberto and Roberto. Humberto was shot, as was Pro. Roberto, however, survived to tell the story. I highly recommend then movie to anyone with an interest in maryrs or Mexican history. (Note: the film is in Spanish, but it does have subtitles; we tend to be a bilingual group.) After the movie, something unusual happened. Donnie stayed for our prayer. An awesome statement in its simplicity. (See Modern Mysticism: Promises for a description of the significance.)

5. I came home right after work on Tuesday, as opposed to mid-evening as usual. Within minutes, one of our neighbors knocked on our door. He was gathering information for the census. Given the size of our town and how well he knows everyone, our neighbor could probably have answered most of the questions without dropping by. Nonetheless, this way the details are accurate. Following the few questions on the census form, we talked a bit. I suppose that is what happened at all the houses: a little data gathering and a little chatting. That is what happens in small towns. One of the oddities about the very small size of our town is that no one got the census forms in the mail. There is no home delivery of mail here, so when the forms were mailed to our homes, the post office sent them back because it would have taken far too many hours to sort them out (more than the two people who work there could manage). As a result, our entire town had to be canvassed in person. Just one more unique thing about San Ignatio...

6. Wednesday, day of joyful surprise! Padre Julio came to town. He had wanted to be assigned to one of our local parishes after his year back home in Colombia, but local politics prevented that. (Read local politics as disagreements with the bishop who apparently was opposed to Padre's work with Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia, the organization that Padre founded to help children of Colombia who were in danger of being pulled into the insurgency and criminal activity). Therefore, after returning from his home country of Colombia, he settled in Chula Vista, just 30 minutes from where his brother is living in San Diego. (In every cloud there is a silver lining.) Although we received word of Padre's arrival at the last minute, all of us who had been part of his work while here showed up for a party and prayer. Padre told us that the school supported by Por Amor is now operational and the self-sustaining farm is coming into being. Dreams realized! Before sharing all this news, Padre introduced me to the group. While I knew those of them associated with Por Amor, there were other folks who had come from distant towns who had been in one or another of Padre's parishes. Padre expressed so much gratitude for my family's design of Por Amor's website and for my teaching him English that I did not know how to respond. Fortunately, after a bit he moved on to other topics, information sharing, and prayer. There were a number of children there, and I loved watching Padre move among them, blessing each of them and even taking one of the teenagers aside for confession. For me, Padre is the quintessential priest. He is that for many, I am certain. That is why some traveled nearly 100 hours to be present and why no one complained about cramming dozens of people into a small house. What a wonderfully special ending to what started out as a very ordinary day.

7. Thursday brought such a wonderful bill. That's right: a bill! In fact, a bill from the IRS. Now, I suppose that ordinarily not many people would be looking forward to getting a bill from the IRS, but then my life is not particularly ordinary. In this case, the bill was for the last payment on a 5-year payment plan for miscalculated taxes from the nineties. Four years ago, I had no idea that the IRS could go back that many years and re-calculate taxes, then charge late fees and fines covering the in-between years. It was a nightmare, and we had to turn to a tax accountant for help. However, it all worked out in the long run, and, except for the unpleasantness of finding old calculations re-figured and having to pay whopping fines because of the number of years that passed, the IRS has been generally kind throughout the process (well, at least the people of the IRS have been kind; I am not sure that I would consider the regulations of the IRS have been kind -- moreover, the timing was such that we did not qualify for any of the special reduction or forgiveness plans that the IRS has offered others). Thursday's bill was for the last few dollars on the payment plan, which, thanks to some bonuses at work and some healthy tax refunds, we have been able to pay off a year in advance. So, happy ending to the day; happy ending to the week; happy ending to the near-half decade! Meanwhile, lesson learned: I no longer attempt to do my own taxes, given my proclivity for miscalculation. I turn everything over to the tax accountant (and get better refunds, too). As for that final bill, I cannot yet imagine what it will be like not having the hefty monthly payment over our head!

With that happy ending energizing me, I am going to head over to Jen's blog and take a look at others' quick takes. And yours? What has happened in your life this week?

Beyond Why Not Me

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

For this week's post, I chose When God Says No, God Means No, a story of a clash of wills: mine and God's. God won. The story seems appropriate for a Sunday. (The priest in that story, by the way, went into cancer remission for three years, but now he needs prayers again because the cancer has returned.)

7 Quick Takes Friday #24

This has been the first "slow" week I have had in months. Being sick slowed me down for four days! Yikes! I am not used to staying in one spot for so long. I am better now, thank God! Here are the "takes" on this week, looking back on those events that did occur. After reading them, head on over to Jennifer Futwiler's Conversion Diary, the host site of the 7 Quick Takes meme, for some interesting thoughts and events of this week from some more folks.

1. Saturday we attended Nikolina's first year birthday party. Well, the immediate family minus me attended it since I was sick and Nikolina still needs to avoid germs, especially foreign ones). More pictures from the party can be found on my Clan of Mahlou blog. There was much to celebrate in addition to Nikolina successfully reaching the end of her first year, with a bright little brain and a chipper little attitude, knowing that while she has many more surgeries ahead, her life is as secure as any of our lives are -- nothing life-threatening ahead, just life-enhancing. After the party, Doah went to church with his friend, Bennie, who works in the Old Mission gift shop. Bennie is always kind to Doah, taking him fishing and entertaining him on other ways; with me being sick, it was helpful to have Bennie on Saturday. Doah loves to go to Mass because Fr. Ed is always good to him. He came to Doah's birthday party, involves him, and always has a hug for him. People like Fr. Ed and Bennie are God's little grace (uh, maybe big graces) to us.

2. On Sunday, I was finally able to drag myself out of bed in the early afternoon. Actually, I started to feel almost normal. I attended our SFO (Secular Franciscan Order) monthly meeting feeling a little guilty because I have pretty much made the decision not to profess. In fact, I have been invited to attend the Carmelites. They meet quite a distance away, and SFO is only a five-minute drive up the hill on the edge of town, but there is a considerable story behind this. I told Part I recently on my Modern Mysticism blog. Part II is still coming because I am still trying to discern where I can better serve God and develop in ways that God would like, and that is not yet clear. After the meeting, I took off (at nearly midnight) for Omaha, where I spent a day of work and then, as I explained in my Tuesday post, commuted back to California. One of my friends wrote the following comment, which I found quite funny, on my Facebook: "Using simple math, you are in constant motion, traveling more than 1 city block every minute of the day. I have to take a nap just thinking about this."

3. In addition to the slow days of Saturday and Sunday, life slowed down again on Tuesday and Wednesday when I found myself sick once again. It was the same germ, coming back for another visit. I did have time to enjoy Fr. Ed's homily at Wednesday Mass, followed by the rosary. That was supposed to be followed by a cholesterol test at the hospital, but I forgot about fasting, so, oops, I will have to go at another time.

4. Wednesday night, after attending Bible Study class, I returned home to find a neighbor visiting. She told us that two gang members from Salts where the police are beginning to round up gangs, which are currently out of control, drove into San Ignatio and took a pot shot at a man walking down the street, hitting him in the leg. We have no local police force, but one of our residents is a deputy sheriff for the county and patrols our streets a couple of times a day. He happened (happened?) to be in the right place at the right time to see what happened and chased the gang members at 100 miles an hour all the way back to Salts a half-hour away (well, I guess it became a lot closer at 100 miles an hour). He ultimately forced them to crash, and when they got out of the car, he arrested them! That will teach them to mess with San Ignatio! It is interesting that the deputy was right where he needed to be. It makes me wonder if God was perhaps protecting His prayer-saturated town.

5. Today was a two-course day (lunches, that is). I first had lunch with a friend from UCLA who happened to be passing through town on the way to a professional meeting in Santa Clara. Several other colleagues from local colleges joined us, as did a former Foreign Service Officer who has recently retired here. We met at the Red House Cafe near the ocean. It was great fun!

6. I rushed away from that lunch to join my staff and our administrative assistant to celebrate Administrative Assistants' Day. One more meal! Now, there's a slow day -- one does not have to be home to have a slow day! It was really a pleasure to be able to take our assistant to lunch, buy her flowers and chocolates, and otherwise spoil her on this one special day since she spoils all of us on the other 364 days of the year.

7. One of the advantages to a slow week is that I got the grading done for the students I taught this semester in Lithuania. They did their finals by Skype (an interesting and successful experience for them -- it is not the first time that I have conducted exams over the Internet). I had been trying to find time to read through their projects, papers, and exams, and finally I had it. I think being sick may have made me somewhat generous. I seem to have ended up with a class with higher grades than the students at the same university in the same course last year.

I wish you all a slow week this coming week. It is a marvelous thing. But I hope you will get the slow-down without the accompanying illness!!

Sabbath Sunday #18: Happy Birthday, Nikolina!

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

For this week's post, I chose not an old post, but a new one. Yesterday I posted pictures of Nikolina's first birthday party on the Clan of Mahlou site and thought that BA readers might enjoy them, too. Here you go: Happy Birthday, Nikolina!

Have a blessed Sunday!

7 Quick Takes Friday #19

This week has been so concentrated on preparation for our annual review, entertainment (well, most people considered it hosting and briefing, but I find visitors entertaining), and conduct of the meeting all day Thursday that I wondered if there were even seven different "moments" to write about. But apparently they were -- barely. In fact, the time for this week's contribution to the Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer Futwiler at Conversion Diary appeared all too suddenly; it just stole up on me.

1. I might as well start with yesterday's potted plant duty. That is what the three other directorate chiefs and I call those kinds of meetings, hosted by our CEO and board, where all we are required to do is come and sit for hour after hour while the CEO briefs the visitors. Thursday was no different. A full day of sitting is difficult for me because I am hyperactive. At least, there was one interesting interlude where one of the regulators put the CEO on the defensive and the barrage of questions was turned over to me to answer; the answers were accepted, even liked (God always seems to give me the right words to use in these kinds of tense situations -- a quick silent prayer helps a lot), so it was important that I was there, if only for that one talking plant moment. (Photo from Jeg's web.)

2. In the evening, I got to expend some of my pent up energy by leading the Stations of the Cross with our catechism teens. We went to the garden walk where we have a set of the stations. It was a bit chilly, but these are teens; they always seem to have warm blood. The kids loved the fact that Suli, the parish's feral cat whom everyone watches out for and who sleeps in the garden and attends Mass, was very interested in our prayers. She walked from one station to the next with us, sat down and waited as we did the readings at the station, then moved with us to the next station, just as if she were truly understanding what it was we were doing. After we got back to our classroom, our faith formation director found out what we had done (we have done it every year, but I guess no one knew) and told us that we are not allowed to walk in the garden with the kids because of potential liability issues. Someone might get hurt. Huh? What has the world come to?! Donnie and I used to take Girl Scouts 8-10 years old, on multiple-day canoe trips and backpacking trips deep into the wilderness in the "old days." There was great opportunity to get hurt; no one would ever think of suing us or the Scouts. Sheesh! Let's turn the clock back!

3. Yippee! Shane passed his security clearance late last week. On Monday, he got a conditional job offer from California Highway Patrol, where he worked for 12 years when he was in his early twenties (started at age 19, the youngest dispatcher ever accepted at CHP, and immediately won an award given to him personally by the governor of California for saving the life of a fellow dispatcher who had a heart attack while dispatching a three-county chase and for successfully taking on the dispatching in that two-person office so that the police officers had no idea that he was also doing CPR; the other dispatcher lived and the criminal being chased was caught); he clearly has a solid reputation there. The conditional offer is contingent on passing a medical exam, which he took on Tuesday. Everyone knows the dilemma with him needing medical insurance for his two kids with birth defects, so they have been kindly pushing the preliminaries rapidly. It looks like he may be able to start work on April 1, just about the time that Donnie and I would start to struggle with continuing to pay his COBRA.

4. Several months ago, Lizzie took on a personal trainer at her local gym -- she is a professor in South Carolina these days. She has dropped so much weight (and gained muscle and tone) that she had to have all of her clothes taken in this week. I have lost two dress sizes, as well, and now I can pass along my outgrown clothes to her because she has dropped to what I was. Donnie is now intrigued, but he wants to lose weight a third way (I count calories and Lizzie trains). He bought some kind of diet plan that he is following. We shall see how well it works. I think the old-fashioned ways are probably best: eat less and exercise more.

5. Saturday night Donnie and I had a pleasant good-bye Mexican-style dinner here in one of our beloved San Ignatio restaurants, Los Jardines (the gardens). This particular employee has been stationed in Egypt for two years now, so he makes it back here very rarely. I had needed him to direct a new project until we could get a permanent director in place, and he willingly came back for three months. He is young and from Jordan, where Donnie and I lived for a couple of years. I met his mother once, and she was very worried about his safety in the USA. (Just like Americans tend to think of the Middle East as an unsafe place, so do Middle Easterners think of the USA as an unsafe place.) His mother was quite relieved by my promise to be her son's American mother. I know she took that promise seriously, so I, too, take it seriously. We enjoyed the dinner, but it was sad to say good-bye again.

6. As part of the regulatory board meeting, I had two visitors to my office this week. One was a two-star general, who was the most pleasant person; it turned out that we had a lot of experiences in common. I heard later that he was very impressed with my directorate's work. That is always a double-edged sword. First, one does like to be appreciated, and it is often a relief when someone with great authority considers one's efforts at least competent. Second, and on the other hand, it often means being given increased responsibility, more programs, and more money (but not more resources!), creating a greater span of control and even more stress. The second visitor is a very high-ranking person within the US government and someone I met many years ago when I was working for the US government in a consulting capacity. So, I have trouble being highly serious with him; I just enjoy talking to him, bringing him up to date on our activities, and sharing funny stories of our getting into and out of trouble. He told me that whenever we meet or he is briefed by me, he leaves on a high note. Aww! :) Maybe it is because I don't worry about making a good impression on people; I only ask that God splash His love onto them through me -- and God seems to answer that prayer a lot.

7. Nikolina has a new pastime. I posted the pictures that are here earlier this week on the Twitterlets, but those will be replaced with new pictures over time, so I am including them here to preserve them, as well as to explain them better. Nikolina is entering such a fun age as she approaches the end of her first year, surprisingly healthy and on target for all developmental milestones. All her surgeries and months in the hospital seem to have taken little from her. Rather, she has developed quite a sense of humor at a very young age. It reminds me of both Noelle and Doah, who spent most of their first year in the hospital yet were very happy babies, toddlers, children, and teens and are adults whose personalities are dominated by a sense of humor and enjoyment of life, even the wonder of it all. Shane captured Nikolina at her bottle-throwing game. She heaves the bottle, watches it fall, then cracks up at herself for doing it. It's a joy to watch!

And now I wish all of you a joyful weekend!