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 #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!

7 Quick Takes Friday #18

My second week in a row at home! What pleasure! And now it is time for this week's contribution to the Quick Takes meme hosted by Jennifer Futwiler at Conversion Diary.

1. The saga of the friend that I had to "fire" on Friday continued this week. Last week I promised the ending, and here it is, but first, a recap from last week: "I have to fire a friend, currently working as a junior manager, for poor performance. (I did not hire her; my boss forced her on me against my better judgment. Now, he has some embarrassment, too.) Ugh! Unfortunately, this relatively new junior manager, in three months of training, was unable to learn even the basics of management. I had a team of six people mentoring her on various aspects of her job. All of them came to the conclusion in recent days that not only is she untrainable but also her pride and lack of self-awareness preclude anyone's ability to train her. So, the decision was made to fire." On Friday, she was supposed to see the senior manager, her supervisor, at 1:00. At that time, he would have given her the bad news. Well, instead, she sent him an enote, saying that she was ill and going home. Later in the day, she popped up in my boss's office on another matter, and he ended up being the one to tell her that she was being reassigned as a rank-and-file employee, that she did not have the skills at this time for being a manager. His involvement seemed like poetic justice. On Monday, she met with the senior manager and got the bad news -- again. (None of us knew what had transpired on Friday.) He said she was stoic, but it turns out that she was prepared. A little later, she wrote a note to all her employees, saying that she had decided to leave her position and had asked to be reassigned for reasons of health. Wow, she seemed to have taken it all very well, and if she wanted to save face by announcing that it was her decision and health-related, we were all willing to look the other way. I did not get a chance to talk to her on Monday, but Tuesday, before going home, I dropped by to say good-bye and was walking with her to go out the door when she started sobbing -- and sobbing and sobbing. So, I led her into my office and talked to her for more than two hours. She exhibited a complete inability to look at herself objectively, but I was able to bring her to peace with the decision to replace her. I don't know how I was able to do that, but it really helped that while talking to her I was very aware that God was with us and in her -- after all, a little piece of God is within all of us, that is what binds us as a body of believers, right? Clearly, guidance I had asked for was given, and I am very grateful to God for my sake and for hers.

2. I learned this week that my beloved Fr. Terry, whom I can consult for just about anything, is leaving the area. He will be working as a chaplain at a retirement colony for friars. I suppose it is an appropriate assignment since he is 82 years old, but he acts -- and clearly feels -- much younger and has been very active in our community, at Old Mission, and as director of the local retreat center. Everyone loves him; I cannot think of anyone who does not or who has not benefited from his years and years of experience in walking with God and advising God's people. When I called to say goodbye to him, he told me that I had been "a light" to him in the past three years he has been here." He certainly knows how to make someone feel happy. If these were more than kind words and this were really true, then I am infinitely grateful to God for allowing me to play this role!

3. A sad event took place on Sunday. The mother of Fr. E., our parish priest, died from breast cancer. Fortunately, Fr. E. was able to get home to Ireland before she died and be with her during her last hours. Today the funeral took place in Ireland, and concurrently we held a rosary for Fr. E's mother at Old Mission. People turned out in force, and various parishioners led the service. At the end, Fr. M, the Latin Mass priest, gave a final benediction. Sula, our parish feral cat, came in before the service, came up to me for some petting, then found herself a seat on the pew across from me between two men. Except for nestling on someone's coat during communion, she sat up proudly between the two of them during the entire service, just as if she fully understood what was going on and was participating. Fr. M went over at the end of the service to greet her. I love this parish! (Photo is of the statue of St. John the Baptist on the Old Mission grounds.)

4. I had very good news from my cardiologist today. I was down another two pounds, and he is happy with my rate of weight loss. I am down 13 pounds since mid-January. My blood pressure is also down, and he reneged on this threat to replace my very mild medication with a stronger one. He is also allowing me six weeks before my next visit. He is still concerned about my heart although I am certain all is fine. Anyway, I have never seen him quite so relaxed about it. Yes!

5. I also had a good Arabic lesson today. Since we have a visiting manager from Egypt, who is originally from Jordan and speaks the dialect of Arabic that I knew, I asked him to talk to me in Arabic for a half-hour each morning since I am losing my proficiency in it for lack of use. Often, it feels like pulling teeth to be able to communicate well. Today, however, I surprised him -- and myself -- by spending nearly the whole time, talking about the theology of St. Paul, in particular in regard to his propensity toward dialectic thinking (i.e. thesis, antithesis, synthesis). I was so pleased that I could actually handle a rather complex topic with my limited Arabic, which might become less limited if I had more opportunity to use it.

6. Shane, Lemony, and kids spent the weekend in San Francisco at the Chinese parade and other activities. They go there every year for this celebration and decided it might be okay this year, too. Things are looking up for them, and I will indeed soon get around to writing the Clan Rising post I promised for the Clan of Mahlou blog. It looks like Shane will have a job perhaps as soon as April. A former employer wants him back but cannot offer a job until he passes a security clearance. They have put the clearance process on the fast track and assume that it will be completed by some time in April. (Here is a good example of why it is never a good idea to burn bridges when leaving a job. Shane left under pleasant conditions, and so coming back was a possibility -- and, thank God, they just "happened" to have an opening.)

7. Well, I am going to have to wrap this up pretty quickly and get to bed before the midnight hour fully approaches. Tomorrow morning I have to get up at 5 a.m. in order to travel to north with a team of people from work to an all-day meeting in Los Altos Hills. Oh, joy! A bus ride! (I am packing dramamine!) I have no idea where Los Altos Hills is located other than in somewhat north of us, so I assumed that it must be somewhere around San Francisco (or perhaps closer, near San Jose). Since I am not driving, I suppose I don't need to know. That is good; I already have too much extraneous information in my little head!

Hoping that you have a great weekend and will get some more sleep than it seems that I am in for!

7 Quick Takes Friday #15

As I look around me and see that it is Friday again and time to contribute to 7 Quick Takes Friday, a meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary, I am happy to report that I am still in sunny California.

1. (Picture: my friend's dog before additional snow fell!) We had visitors at work this week from Washington DC (amazing that they even got out), who have told us horror stories of being housebound there. One even put a shovel in his trunk so that he can dig his way back into his house when he returns! Did I say that I am glad to be in sunny California at the moment? Did I say that I am thankful to be here? Did I also say that I am being sent to Alaska next week? Wrong direction! Wrong direction! (Well, for this time of year; otherwise, I would be very happy to go to Alaska. My cousin is married to the chief of one of the Native American tribes there and is an artist laureate of Alaska, so going to Alaska is really a pleasure. I suspect, though, that returning from an Alaskan winter experience will be an even greater pleasure.)

2. We have had good news this week from several quarters. Yes, it is about time! The first piece of good news is that my brother's long-vintage girlfriend, who has been struggling with cancer, has just been declared to be in remission!!!!!! Yes!!!!! Now my brother can leave his New England home peacefully for a two-month assignment in San Diego. Two months! Yes! San Diego! Yes! In San Diego he is less than a day's trip from us in San Ignatio. Last year he came to visit, and we are hoping that, given the timing, he will be able to drive up this year, too, just in time for my February birthday. (We may change the celebration day because, in order to work with my brother's timing, it will conflict with Lent -- too many people giving up too many different things to do a good celebration, so I guess this year we will do a "moveable feast" -- or is that moveable birthday?)

3. The second piece of good news is mixed, but good. Noelle, as you may have noticed from my sidebar, is still fighting her bone disease and still staving off amputation of both feet. Several weeks before Ray died, she had been told that there was no choice but amputation. However, a doctor soon appeared on the scene -- a new guy in town -- who had some other ideas. He scheduled surgery for two weeks ago, but for some reason none of us know, when she showed up at the hospital, there was no record of the doctor having scheduled anything at all. She made an appointment and just got in to see him yesterday. The result? The bone disease in her right foot is gone, and she no longer has to do any care for it! Yes!!!!! (She is still scheduled for surgery, date unknown, for the left foot; we will deal with that when the time comes.)

4. I, too, had some good health news although I have not shared earlier that I have had any health issues to manage. Well, I have had them. They are probably of long-term vintage, but they are definitely of short-term knowledge. When I went into the clinic to get my very mild blood pressure pills re-prescribed, there was a new doctor. He did a quick and partial physical exam and heard a heart murmur. That was no surprise to me. I have had a systolic ejection murmur IV all my life. All my kids have the same thing. It is a functional, not a structural, murmur and is quite innocuous. I explained this to the new doc and thought he understood. However, two days later the clinic called me to tell me that he had made an appointment with a cardiologist for me! Sighing, I tripped over to the cardio guy to put the rumor to rest once and for all. I explained the whole situation to that doc, telling him that my heart is just fine. Yes, it goes squish-squish, instead of thump-thump, when someone listens to it, but that is an innocuous anomaly not of any great concern. Th doc listened patiently but insisted on an an electrocardiogram, the first I have ever had. He did not like the results. There is an electrical discrepancy caused by a left branch bunch node (what a name!). Essentially, it means that my heart does not keep up with me. (Donnie says that this is nothing to be concerned about since no one can keep up with me -- why should my heart be any different!) The doc then insisted on checking my cholesterol. I patiently explained to him that my cholesterol was fine (it had been checked a year earlier). He responded, "You told me your heart was fine." Oh! He insisted on the cholesterol test and an echocardiogram. To make a long story short, to the doc's surprise, the echocardiogram showed a functionally strong heart (that goes squish-squish instead of thuump-thump), about which the doc kept shaking his head, not understanding how this could be the case. So, instead of saying that I have a structurally fine heart with a functional anomaly, now I have to say I have a functionally fine heart with a structural anomaly. The cholesterol? At the very top of the normal scale. However, Dr. Doc still fretted, this time about my weight. He told me that if I were to lose 25 pounds, he thinks there will be no more structural damage (which was probably caused by untreated high blood pressure -- did not know for a long time that I had it), naturally lower blood pressure, and naturally lower cholesterol (because of changed eating habits). Ah, diet time! Sigh! I don't particularly like food or eat a lot. I certainly don't crave and sometimes forget to eat a particular meal. However, I get pressed into a lot of social eating because of my job -- guests, especially dinner guests, occur many times a month. Everyone has been understanding, though. I have had to go in for weekly checks, except for when I was in Lithuania (that would have been complicated). So, I lost one pound, then two pounds, then left for Lithuania. Yesterday at the weight check, I had lost another 8 pounds. Gotta go back next week, but I am not getting any more lectures from the doc. Nonetheless, he is still functioning on a doverai, no proverai (trust, but verify) basis! Oh, my! Look how long I have gone on about one simple thing! Sorry!

5. Yesterday was an enforced eating situation, but I was careful. Two of our Chinese specialists married Chinese mates, and we had a pre-wedding ceremony Chinese style, replete with very tasty but fattening Chinese food. It was interesting to see the differences between Chinese and American weddings. Some things, such as cake cutting and rice throwing, were the same. Other things, like the men telling the women in front of everyone why and how they loved them were not only different but touching. Then everyone took turns making a short formal well-wishing speech, including yours truly. (That caught me by surprise and because I was the senior person from our office in attendance, I had to go first, having no idea what I was supposed to say. Well, some good words I did say, but I missed the traditional ones that everyone else there, all of whom knew the culture, said, such as wishing the couples a marriage sweet as honey, a life as strong as diamonds, and a career like gold. Or something along those lines -- my presence made it a requirement to translate everything into English, so I know I miss some things entirely and some details in other cases. Unfortunately, Chinese is not one of the languages I speak.)

6. My "son" from Jordan is back in town. Briefly, "ibni" (the Arabic expression for "my son" - ibn is son; you may have seen that word, another variation of which is bin or ben; -i means my), which is what I call him in person and in writing, became ibni when my office sent a delegation to Jordan in 2006. Ibni is one of my lower level program managers, and he was in the delegation. We visited his family who had made a marvelous Jordanian meal for us. Like all Jordanian meals, however, it was so much and so slow-paced that we were there from noon until evening. The others in the delegation wanted to see the Dead Sea, 45 minutes away, and the sun was dropping. However, we had not begun dessert, and leaving early would have been rude by Arab standards. Donnie and I, who had lived in Jordan for two years (Donnie was still living there at the time although I had already returned to the USA), offered to stay with ibni's parents since we could handle the Arabic on our own (ibni had been interpreting for everyone) while ibni took the others to the Dead Sea. Ibni's mother, a traditional Arab woman, who conservatively dressed in black abaya and black hijab, broke down and told me how much she missed ibni and how she worried about his safety in the USA. (There is a general sense in Jordan that life in the USA is unsafe; when I had a residency permit there and would travel back to the USA for visits, Jordanian border guards would tell me to be careful because it was dangerous in the US). I promised her that I would be in loco parentis (or is that in loco matris?) for her son, and her relief was so deep-felt that I have taken the mothering role seriously. He is the age of my own children, and he has come to know them through family outings. He also comes to Mass with me, and on this past Wednesday he came to Bible Study class. He had been coming to Bible Study with me two years earlier until he was assigned to Cairo, Egypt, so everyone there was happy to see him on Wednesday. (He will be working here on a temporary assignment for a month.)

7. Shane and Lemony decided to take the kids to Disneyland. It was a trip planned before he lost his job, and the first that they have been able to get away in two years because of all the medical issues with Nikolina. It will be Nikolina's first trip out of reach of Stanford University Hospital, but she is doing very, very well -- unbelievably well, considering her very difficult start and very tentative initial hold on life. She is now a bouncing, inquisitive, happy, clearly smart 9-month-old baby, so off they head south for some fun, finally. On the employment front, California Highway Patrol, where Shane worked for 12 years, has offered him a job at his former level of seniority. He had left because of the low pay, and the pay is still low, but the benefits that he needs for Nikolina are good. He will manage. Money isn't everything, as the Mahlou clan well knows!

I hope that your week has been as good as ours, and, if not, that your next week will be!

7 Quick Takes Friday #13

As I started to write this post, I noticed that it is my 13th Quick Takes Friday, a meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. I was a little unnerved, seeing the number 13 so closely associated with Friday! Ah, well...here we go, anyway, in no particular order.

1. Stealing Doah. Yesterday, by request, I posted an excerpt from my book, Blest Atheist, on the Clan of Mahlou site about how many years ago Doah was dying at Renboro Hospital (name changed) and with Doah's pediatricians' implicit consent (not explicit -- he would not have been able to give that kind of encouragement), Donnie and I literally stole Doah from the hospital in a very dramatic, made-for-the-movies episode in our lives. It's a story that Doah never tires of hearing. Here are the first paragraphs. If you are interested, you can read about the whole story, including how once again God was able to bad into good, at the Clan of Mahlou site.

Told by doctors at Renboro Hospital that Doah would die for certain, the trail ahead of us to bring him into adulthood seemed hopeless and far, indeed — except that I simply have no idea what the word, hopeless, means. To me, where there is life, there is hope. Clearly, though, to maintain that hope, we would have to do something about the attitude of the doctors and hospital in which Doah was being followed.

We did not have to think long. Matters quickly came to a head at Renboro Children’s Hospital. Our knock-down-drag-out fights with doctors there pitted parent against doctor in a war that was not going to serve Doah well. In June 1980, that cold war heated up rapidly. I refused to sign papers for a fundoplication, an operation that would repair Doah’s hiatal hernia at the risk of losing him because of his breathing difficulties from a subglottic stenosis (narrowing of the trachea) that were treated by a tracheotomy. (Nowadays children's with tracheotomies have decent survival rates; back then, most of the children died.) Doah’s pediatrician, Dr. Paul, was one of our strongest supporters. He would come to the hospital, mediate disputes, and provide me with his medical opinion. Dr. Paul researched the surgical procedure. He learned that the operation (in 1980) had only a 25% survival rate in cases like Doah’s and, if the patient survived, there was only a 50/50 chance that the surgery would take care of the problem. In any event, the surgery would have to be repeated every few years. (Over the years, the surgery success rate and survival rate has approached nearly 100%, but the surgery does still have to be repeated every five years.) Given these statistics, the pediatrician agreed with us that surgery was not wise.

Bent on what we assumed was their pursuit of medical training and the chance to do what was then a relatively new procedure, the doctors insisted that Doah have the surgery. Part of me wondered whether they just assumed he was going to die, anyway, and therefore he was a good candidate for “training” surgeons on a new procedure. In any event, the doctors did not accept my refusal to sign papers authorizing surgery and took the case to court, requesting that the court grant custody of Doah to Renboro Children’s Hospital so that they could do the surgery. We were not told about this court proceeding; apparently, we were going to be deprived of the opportunity even to be in courtroom and defend our rights as his parents. Shades of American democracy as it sometimes perverted by evil forces! I found out about this intention because I read promiscuously —- books and journals and articles and medical records: all Doah’s surgical reports, all the nurses’ notes, all the medical entries of any sort. And that is where I found it. In Doah’s four-inch-thick file was a scrawled note about our being unfit parents because we would not sign for the surgery and the date of the court proceeding. The date was only two days away.

What to do? A daring plan entered my mind: steal Doah from Renboro Children’s Hospital and take him out of state to Beanton Children’s Hospital where Noelle had been treated for her spina bifida and related birth defects three years earlier. I trusted the doctors because they listened to me. The doctors I knew there even liked me. I quickly found out more about Noelle’s former urologist, Dr. Colodny, and learned that while he was at that time specializing in lower GI problems, he had at one time worked in the area of upper GI problems. He could be Doah’s doctor, I reasoned. That thought comforted me, but we still had to get to Beanton.

We developed a step-by-step plan to steal Doah from his hospital room. I shared the plan, but not the details or the timing, with the pediatrician. He looked at me thoughtfully. Then he said, “I cannot condone what you propose. However, if you do happen to end up in Beanton, please be aware that Bob, the son of my partner, is an intern there. He can provide the link back to us and make the transition of records and information smooth.” He disappeared from the room and came back in a couple of minutes with Bob’s phone number. The pediatrician’s implicit encouragement was all that I needed to put our plan into action.

The next day, the doctors were in court, and we were at the curb outside the hospital. Charles kept the car running in a “standing only” zone. What I was about to do would not, could not, take a long time, we reasoned.

Click here to read what I did: continuation of Stealing Doah.

2. The intensity of it all. As I write, I am exactly half-way through an entire semester's course, taught in 5 days! Today the students take their midterm. This is clearly a whirlwind course! For me, too. As soon as I finish the quick takes, I will have to prepare the mid-term, but I also have 8 students coming by this afternoon for short appointments about their research papers, which they will be able to write after I leave and turn in during the rest of the "real" semester, after I am comfortably back at work. I hope that they do better on the midterm than on their "surprise" quiz yesterday, which was not a surprise but seemed to be, based on the failing grades of 1/3 of the class. I went over the results with them before they went home, and I will do an hour review before the midterm today. Hopefully, some of this information will start to gel for them. Linguistic research is not an easy topic.

3. The note in my pocket. I had loaned my warm winter coat to Sr. Maria right before coming here and did not have time to go pick it up. Sister is not young and does not drive (does not have a car), so one of my friends offered to pick it up after prayer group, which I had to skip in order to take Noelle to see Ray -- glad I did since he died soon after. After I arrived here in Lithuania this past week, I put my hand in the pocket and found a note from my friend, saying "Have a safe trip and know that I will be praying for you and your family while you are gone." How nice, a warm touch from home in the cold and snow of a Lithuanian winter!

4. Shane. Good news came for Shane this week. He will be able to get COBRA. Of course, his unemployment check covers only his rent and COBRA would be 50% of that cost, so he would not be able to afford it, but it looks like Donnie and I can pay it for him by tightening our already cinched belts considerably more. The irony is that the company that fired him in order that their insurance premiums not go up due to the 2-million-dollar medical marvel of Shane's called Nikolina will have to pay twice as much as Shane for each premium. Firing Shane may not help them achieve their goal of protecting their low premiums after all. Seems like poetic justice.

5. Shane again. It has been only two weeks since Shane was fired, and he already has an interview for another job. Woot, woot! It is in the tech field; he had been working in dispatch. He wonders if the firing will not be a kick forward since he is skilled in tech and has always been the tech specialist for dispatch wherever he worked. The entry pay is lower than he was making as a supervisor, but the pay would quickly catch up. Where a door closes, God opens a window? We don't know if this is the right job for Shane or just an encouraging fluke, but he did get called back for a follow-up interview next week, a very good sign. So, he ends the week on a hopeful note.

6. St. Casimir's. On Sunday, a friend (the one who has enticed me to come to Lithuania two winters in a row) and I attended Mass at St. Casimir's. St. Casimir is the patron saint of Lithuania, so it is no wonder that the church is Baroquely grand, made of marble, and, in the winter, very, very cold. I could barely walk all the way to the front of this huge church, colder because few people were there to warm it with body heat, for the eucharist and really happy that here the Eucharist is served on the tongue only. My hands would have been far too inflexible to take it in hand. But the church is incredibly beautiful, and I, incredibly, have no pictures of it. I did not bring a camera! :(

7. A cold in the cold. Since last night I have felt a cold trying to seize me. I have been downing all the Vitamin C tablets I can get my hands on, but I may need to buy more. I don't know if it is the cold outside, the cold inside (it took a few days to locate a space heater so I spent a lot of time under blankets, typing with frozen fingers), the cold at work (now I have a space heater there, too, as do other faculty members), or the one time I went out into the cold with wet hair (something that I would not have been able to do in some countries where I have lived because of the cultural inappropriateness but here it is okay; I forgot my hair dryer -- along with, unfortunately, my long underwear -- back in California where I need them far less). Or maybe, it is the late hours I keep. I no sooner finish my evening classes here than my Blackberry is jammed with emergency messages from work, some of which I do have to handle, making for limited sleeping hours.

And now, I had better go write that midterm!

7 Quick Takes Friday #12

I arrived in Klaipeda, Lithuania just in time to contribute to the 7 Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. This, though, is only because while it is near the end of the day Friday here, it is the high point of the day in the USA. It has been an eventful week, beginning with sadness last Friday with the death of Ray, only one day after Shane lost his job, and ending on more positive tones. So, here is a quick round-up, not by day exactly, more like by topic, of this week.

1. Mass. Thanks to Martin Luther King Day being a holiday, I was able to go to daily Mass twice in a row: Monday and Tuesday. I had taken Tuesday off because I had thought I would be flying at that time, but the situation with Ray threw some of those plans out of kilter. I even had time on both (!) days to have coffee (milk for me) with friends who had also been at Mass. I have been traveling so much they had forgotten who I was (not really), but catching up is always fun to do, especially when there is no real time limit.

2. SFO. Sunday I attended our Secular Franciscan meeting. I have not been in a few months. November I was in some state/country or other -- forget exactly where. December was cancelled. For some reason (well, actually because I brought up some requests), it turned into a prayer fest (inspiring), followed by a delayed holiday exchange of gifts (fun). Everyone had brought food donations for a local project, and I offered to take them to the project director. Good intentions rarely going unpunished, I managed to back the car into a tree when I backed up to get closer to the door for loading the food. Inconsiderate tree! It just did not seem to want to move out of my way. So, I have a dent in the back bumper that proves to Donnie that I really am as bad a driver as he thinks I am.

3. Prayer Group. I always look forward to our Monday night prayer group. I co-lead with a spiritual director, Robert, who comes down from the St. Francis Retreat Center. Actually, he does the leading, and I do the shepherding in the sense of networking, reminding people, gathering the clans. Since I had not expected to be in town Monday, I did not send out the routine notices, and I learned how important they are: no one showed up except Sr. M and me. From a selfish point of view, that was great. I love Sr. M and learn a lot from her, and we had two hours or more to share scripture, experience, and prayer. What a great way to end the day!

4. Shane moving forward. Shane has spent the week recovering from the shock of losing his job in spite of just having received a raise for outstanding performance. Although the Human Resource office has forbidden his supervisor, who disagreed with the decision, from telling Shane the reason, it would appear that little Nikolina's $2 million insurance bill accompanied by the significant amount of leave that Shane had to take at one time was the reason. The reason does not matter as much as finding insurance coverage for Nikolina, and surprisingly, Stanford University Hospital offered to try to help. Apparently, there are programs now for people in such dire circumstances. So, Shane spent some time in Palo Alto this week. I will provide an update to the Clan under Siege post on Clan of Mahlou once I get settled in here on the cold Baltic Sea.

5. A Matter of Attitude. The United Airlines plane that was supposed to carry me to Frankfort for transfer to a Lufthansa flight to Vilnius did not leave the San Francisco Airport on Wednesday. Flight 900 was simply a doomed flight, all because of as broken PA system. Apparently, planes cannot fly without a way to communicate between crew and all passengers, not just those in some of the cabins, and since the plane we were on had a PA system that ignored the back rows of economy class, we returned to the airport three times after trying to take off while mechanics scratched their heads over how to fix the system. They wanted to turn off the broken speaker but did not know which circuit breaker to pull. As a result, they pulled us -- off the plane and into seven hours of waiting for another plane. People became cranky, as did some of the customer representatives. (I think I shall send some suggestions to United; Shane used to work the complaint counter at Sears when he was 16 and did a better job of not personalizing the comments of frustrated people than did some of the senior airlines people on Wednesday. Patience is a virtue in such cases.) Of course, it is a two-way street, and not being cranky usually gets one a better deal. For me, it paid off: a hotel room in Frankfurt and dinner. Yes, I was a day late in arriving, but at least I arrived during the day. The alternative would have been to debark the plane in Vilnius at 0001 in the morning, with no place but a snowbank for a bed, Klaipeda being four hours away, the driver snoring away in the comfort of his own home, and the only nearby hotel having closed its doors two hours earlier.

6. Frankfurt. Oh, the lark of it! Yes, I was stranded. Yes, I was supposed to start teaching Friday. Yes, both the students and I would have to make up the missed hours. Nonetheless, there I was in Frankfurt, speaking German. Rusty German, to be sure, but I was able to practice it at check-in, dinner, the ticket counter in the morning. I rarely get a chance to speak German (although a trip earlier this year did help to refresh my memory), and for me the practice and renewal of the language was worth the irritation of an interrupted flight. Oh, and did I mention that the duck dinner was sumptious?

7. Klaipeda. Finally! I arrived in Vilnius in the early afternoon on the coldest day in history for that date's temperature, easily picked out the tall driver from the university, clambered into his station wagon, and proceeded to chat for the next 3-4 hours, the length of the drive from Vilnius to Klaipeda. The driver did not speak much English but was quite at home in Russian. A chance to practice another foreign language although Russian does not seem "foreign" to me. The only difficulty was my lack of a four-hour bladder, four kids having demolished the only bladder I ever had with constant kicking throughout pregnancies. Fortunately, we found a roadside facility about an hour from Klaipeda, and I was much more lively after that.

However, now I have to go to bed (yes, I know it is only noon in the USA), so that I can get up and prepare to teach six hours of class tomorrow (down two hours from the eight hours that the dean had promised (threatened?) the students. We can get in all the hours required for the semester in the next two weeks with only six hours a day on weekends. Only?? It will be interesting to see if the students can match my fortitude for work. And so, without further ado, good-night!

What Is Better Than Money? Merry Christmas!

We cannot put up a Christmas tree (real or artificial) because one of our cats, Intrepid, eats all kinds of plants and nearly died once from ingesting a lot of plastic branches. (Thanks to a concerned vet who rushed to our house, he is a wonderfully fine herbivore today.) We can, though, note Christmas in many other ways with decorations outdoors, Christmas cookery, finding fun gifts for colleagues, and shopping for the kids and the grandkids.

Ah, shopping for the kids! That is a relatively new and wonderfully pleasant experience. When they were growing up, we never had money for shopping for them. Medical expenses for Doah and Noelle always robbed us of that particular pleasure, and visiting them in the hospital -- Noelle was there Christmas day for a number of years in a row -- meant little time for shopping of any kind had we had any money to engage in that popular activity.

Nonetheless, we have many pleasant memories from Christmases past. For example, one year we had moved into a new place with a fireplace. Donnie had built a warm fire on a cold Virginia night, and we sat together, enjoying the evening while the kids were sleeping. Five-year-old Doah, however, woke up and crept downstairs. Seeing the fire, he began crying loudly.

"What's the matter, Doah?" we asked.

"Ho-ho burn butt!" he sobbed.

For the sake of Santa Claus's posterior, we put out the fire. Doah went off to bed quite happily, satisfied that he had finished his task of ensuring a safe entrance for the deliverer of gifts.

Then there was the year that we had no money at all. Christmas celebrations of the traditional variety were seriously out of the question, especially since we were moving at the end of December. The day after Christmas, as we were taking our first load of household goods to our new residence, we happened to drive past a Christmas tree lot and noticed that the lot had been abandoned. In the back of the lot was a lone, sickly-looking, leftover Christmas tree. Lizzie and Shane jumped out of the car and delightedly dragged it over to Donnie, who lashed it to the roof. Off we went, pleased with our acquisition, although we got strange stares from passing cars. We later decorated our puny little tree with our traditional ornaments, turning it into a festively proud fir. Homemade gifts in the form of food items were the theme of that year. We decorated the tree with cookies, fudge, and other favorite items of the kids that they removed and ate New Year's morning, the day we had decided would be "Christmas" that year.

Other examples of special Christmas events abound. I will share some of them:

(1) Our introduction to Christmas with kids came when Lizzie, our oldest and at barely two years old too young to know anything about Christmas yet -- or so we assumed -- stood in her pajamas at the window as dark settled around our apartment on Christmas eve and suddenly announced, "Santa Claus is coming tonight!" Oh, no! There were no plans for Santa to come that night! Donnie dashed to the car. It was nearly 9:00. The only store still open was a Five-and-Dime, and all Donnie could find in it were little socks for Lizzie's doll. It was enough to make her happy, and from that day we began the practice of one present per child for Christmas.

(2) We tried to make the one gift something very special, but we could never predict our children's strange requests. For example, Lizzie at the age of eight, a precocious fourth grader (she had skipped second grade), asked for a college textbook on genetics. Her interest came from attending the university Russian courses I taught on those days when she had no school and spending the hour in my intermediate Russian course solving problems passed along to her by one of my students who was majoring in genetics. (He also proudly dragged her to the honors program director, who invited her to attend some lecture-form university courses, where she promptly fell asleep. Nonetheless, the director offered to "enroll" her in the honors program as an aspiring college student, but doing so became too complicated. She had to wait another four years before taking her first college course for credit.) When Lizzie, who did become a genetics major for about three years before changing her major to cognitive neuroscience, received her Santa-delivered genetics textbook, she ecstatically raced from house to house in our small neighborhood to display her treasure, then returned home, plopped down beside me on the sofa, and mourned, "None of my friends like my gift! They think it's dumb."

"Well," I asked her, "What do you think? Are you happy with the book?"

"Yes. It's exactly what I wanted, and I really like all the problems at the end of the chapters."

"What did your friends get?"

"They got dolls. That's dumb!" I don't remember Lizzie ever playing with dolls other than the one that needed socks when she was little, a soft pink lamb that my grandmother gave her as a toddler and that she has to this day, and a monkey that my grandmother made for her out of a sock that she eventually wore out.

(3) One year, no one had been in the hospital all year, and we had money for Christmas! It was enough to buy bikes for Shane and Lizzie, pre-teen and teen at the time. Donnie and I were as excited as children to be able to get those bikes for our kids. (Noelle, who is paraplegic, and Doah, who is mentally retarded, never were able to ride a bike, but they got gifts that they had asked for.) That year, Shane and Lizzie had made no particular gift request, and we played a very cruel trick on them. We hung only the bike-lock keys on the tree and hid the bikes behind the house. The keys blended into the ornaments, and after the other gifts had been given out, Shane and Lizzie had nothing. In true Shane and Lizzie fashion, they looked around the tree one more time and said nothing.

"Did all the gifts get passed out?" I asked innocently.

"It seems so," said Lizzie. "Shane and I don't have anything, but that's okay. We don't really need anything. We didn't ask for anything this year."

"Really?" I asked. "Are you sure there is nothing else?" Donnie pulled one of the keys off the tree and handed it to them.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Shane exclaimed, "We have a bike!" Clearly, he assumed that Lizzie and he would be sharing.

"Go look out behind the house," Donnie suggested, and they took off running. We regretted not taking a camera with us when we saw the look on their faces when they caught sight of TWO bikes! They were extraordinarily understanding kids. They knew what it had taken for us to gather the money for two bikes, and they were grateful to us every time they rode them. That was a special Christmas. Donnie got a bike the following Christmas, and for years the three of them would ride together on Saturdays while I spent the day with Noelle and Doah.

The most special Christmas, though, was not one when we had money for gifts but one when we did not. It came two years after the bike Christmas. That year, multiple surgeries drained our coffers dry. Fortunately, we had an artificial Christmas tree with which a relative had gifted us a few years earlier, so we put up the tree and decorated it. Christmas eve ultimately came, and we knew we had nothing for the children. Donnie and I contemplated another year of cookies and fudge, but before Donnie got down to cooking (something he had to do alone -- I am such a bad cook, I would have wasted the ingredients in preparing inedible foodstuffs), one of us -- I don't remember which -- had a scathingly brilliant idea, to quote Hayley Mills' character in The Trouble with Angels. Donnie had by then begun working as a computer graphist, and we conceived of making coupons for each of the kids for one-on-one activities with Mom or Dad: a snack at McDonald's, a special lesson in one of our specialties, private walks, an activity that the child would choose, and so on. Each child received a book of twelve coupons that could be redeemed at will during the year. They loved them, and they used every one of those coupons! That year remains our favorite. In spite of our annually increasingly brighter financial status, no year matched that one for that year Christmas lasted not one day but twelve months.

The end: As I was writing this post, nostalgia made me turn to Donnie and start reminiscing about that very special Christmas. We want to repeat it. So, we have just decided to give our children and grandkids coupons for future joint activities this year. As for the money we had set aside for gifts, we are now excitedly planning how to get rid of it and have scads of ideas about where to distribute it. I will add a PS later, once we have decided where it will go.

Oh, this year is going to be such a great Christmas!

Vsyo v Papu, or Just Like Dad

I think it is time for a light post, so I am sharing here some things that my 7-year-old grandson Nathaniel has said/written in the last week. (Above is a picture of him in the local Christmas parade.) For those who follow only Clan of Mahlou, I am double-posting.

#1

Yesterday, my daughter Lizzie was IM'ing with her nephew early in the morning. I report here word for word the conversation that she shared.

Nathaniel: Are you at work?
Lizzie: Yup. I am at work. :-(
Nathaniel: Awwww. Don't be sad. I can help.
Lizzie: Really? How?
Nathaniel: "Easy peasy. Do you need anything?
Lizzie: Yes! I need coffee!!
Nathaniel: "Error code. You WANT coffee."

#2

Recently Nathaniel has been singing his own self-made-up version of Twelve Days of Christmas. Actually, he stopped counting at 10. Here is Nicholas' version. This works best if you sing it to the rhythm of the original song:

10. Defribillators
9. Mechanical Pencils
8. Ambulances
7. Doctor Pages
6. Payments
5. Gloves
4. Operations
3. Intellivues (for those not in the know this is a heart monitor company)
2. Ambulances

and a Paramedic in a Medical Treeeeee ...

Now that is evidence that Nathaniel spent too much time in NICU with Nikolina.

#3

And finally, about a week ago, Shane took Nathaniel to school because Lemony was ill. Nathaniel was not pleased with how Shane made lunch or the way he handled the drop-off, and he complained about it.

"Well, Nathaniel," Shane reasoned, "maybe now you will appreciate your mother more."

"Dad," Nathaniel responded firmly, "I wish you would get it right so I could appreciate you!"


The Russians say that a son is vsyo v papu (literally, everything in Papa), which means like father, like son or just like Dad. Nathaniel is absolutely vsyo v papu. When Shane told me about the interchange, I replied, "Now you know what it was like raising you!"

Welcome to one member of the Clan of Mahlou! God has blessed us with quite a character!

G'night now!

7 Quick Takes Friday #7

Although it has been a week full of events, I cannot believe that it is Friday again already and time to contribute to the 7 Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. I am grateful to Jennifer for coming up with this meme; it is about the only time I truly look back on the near events of my life and take stock, which is a bit easier to do, sitting quietly in a hotel room in Georgia than in a corner of a frenetic room at home (the center of frenetic activity these days being our cats).

1. The week started out with lots of fun. Saturday night we held a joint birthday party at our local pizza parlor for Donnie and Doah, whose birthdays are two weeks apart, so we split the difference. The party began right after mass. Doah, Donnie, and I were there, of course, and some of our friends from church. Shane, Lemony, Nathaniel, and Nikolina showed up. Nathaniel was a tad hyper; after all, he was surrounded by game machines and lots of people, so he kept darting back and forth betwixt and between. Fr. Ed came -- it took him a bit longer to get there because he had to greet parishioners after mass; we did not. This was his first chance to meet little Nikolina who has been on the parish prayer list for months. He was delighted to see how happy she was -- until he got really close, making her bawl. (He said he has that effect on all babies!) Also part of the group were friends and their kids from Morocco. The Muslims and the Catholic priest hit it off quite well, and the two kids charmed Fr. Ed, and he charmed them. Doah took lots of pictures, but he seems to have taken his camera back with him without downloading them to our computer. If I come up with any, I will add them to the pictures on the post about Doah at Clan of Mahlou (and announce in the sidebar). Fr. Ed is very good to Doah, and Doah was pleased as punch when Fr. Ed announced Doah's birthday to the parish at the end of mass.

2. Sunday ended in calm splendor. A friend and I attend a contemplative prayer group, followed by mass, both conducted by Fr. Kevin Joyce at St. Lucy Church, quite some distance from us, but the once-monthly experience is always worth the drive. We are reading Christian Mystics by Ursula King, and that is informative. More important, the lectures and teachings of Fr. Kevin are formative, highly so. I wish it could be every week. No, let's be honest. I wish it could be every day! But life goes on, and we don't get those kinds of wishes. What we do get every day, though, is the opportunity for lectio divina, for contemplative prayer, and for spending time in the presence of God. God is never too busy for us; it is we who are too busy for Him.

3. On Monday nights, my prayer group from Old Mission meets. This Monday was our first film night. There are so many good Christian films that have come out in the last ten years that we cannot possibly see them all. After complaining about the fact that we just don't have time to watch even a few, we decided to do something about it and turn the second Monday of every month into a film night. We meet at my house -- Donnie got a good deal on a huge flat screen television last year -- where we can crowd around the TV on the sofa, chairs, bean bag, and floor of our small living room (the television takes up the entire wall, not because it is that gigantic but because our living room is small). Physical closeness makes for good comradeship, or emotional closeness. We watched Faith Like Potatoes. I would recommend it to anyone who has not seen it. Donnie, who is still agnostic but leaning ever more slightly toward believing, joined us. Yes! Then, when the movie had finished and we settled down to prayer, he retired to his office. Our group leader, a spiritual director, gave everyone a little book of advent readings and prayers. He left one for Donnie, too, and yesterday I noticed that Donnie had been reading it. Yes! Oh, my, God is patient, and in this respect, so am I. I know that the two of them will one day meet.

4. On Tuesday, I participated in a Veterans' Day ceremony that involved hanging a beautiful wreath at the "Berlin Wall" at work. (We were gifted years ago with actual slabs from the Berlin Wall after it was torn down; those slabs now stand on our campus as a memorial.) Since I am a veteran (Vietnam War era), the ceremony was very meaningful to me although originally it came about to honor the vets from WWI (the so-called "War To End All Wars" -- if only! We are still only dreaming about world peace and keeping the only home we have, i.e. planet earth, safe.) After the ceremony, I returned to work and found that one of the senior managers had offered a junior manager position to someone who worked in another of our directorates, someone with whom I have had an ongoing monthly lunch and discussion of spiritual matters for quite some time. She wanted to know whether we would have to give up that colleague/friend relationship and activity up if she were to take a job two echelons down from me in my directorate because if that were the case, she would turn down the job offer. "Don't be silly," I assured her. Our directorate is pretty flat, and I have these kinds of relationships with everyone from the senior managers to the rank-and-file. Moreover, we are a happy group of people, and spirituality, while we are supposed to separate religion and work, infuses our directorate. I think that is because we don't put up any barriers to God coming to work with us and helping us out.

5. Wednesday, wonderfully, was a holiday, the real Veterans' Day. While errands crowded in on me -- with all my traveling recent and upcoming, I had many things to catch up on and put in order at home -- I had a moment of peace at my oasis, Guadalupe Chapel. Daily mass is celebrated not inside the mission church but inside Guadalupe Chapel, a much smaller and more intimate place. Whenever I have a holiday or can play hooky from work, I come to the chapel for mass. The chapel is old; the aged, open-beam wooden ceiling tells the age. The cracked stucco walls tell the age. The rough-hewn cross on the wall tells the age. The lack of heat (we bring coats) tells the age. Built by the local Indians about the same time as the rest of the mission and the mission church under the direction of the Franciscan friars, in particular Bl. Junipero Serra, Guadalupe Chapel served as the primary church for some years until the mission was completed. It is peaceful there. Fr. Ed's homily touched home, Sr. M was back from out of town, and a friend from our prayer group who generally does not attend daily mass was able to make it, too. It was a small gathering of about a dozen people -- typical for the daily mass -- and a special half-hour: the oasis between a busy morning and a busier afternoon, a wonderful interlude with God. I wish I could have more of them.

6. I definitely doubled my pleasure on Wednesday. First, there was the noon mass, and then there was the weekly evening Bible study with an elderly member of our parish and Secular Franciscan from the chapter where I am a candidate. It is an interesting gathering and includes some teenage girls, their parents whose first language is Spanish, Sr. M, some other members of the English-speaking part of our parish, and a couple of non-Catholic outsiders. (Once, when we were discussing some aspects of the Hebrew scriptures in depth, one of my assistants, who is an recent Orthodox Jewish immigrant from Israel who studies daily with a leading rabbi in New York [I allow him to come a little late to work and work into the evening so that he can do this] came to our Bible study group and answered questions on interpretation of the same scriptures from the original Hebrew.) As a result, we end up reading the same texts in multiple versions: American Catholic Bible in several versions, Santa Biblia in several versions, the King James translation, and some other Protestant translations, and, on the one occasion, the original Hebrew. One does not come planning to relax but to study in the meaning of the word associated with the religious universities of Old Europe and the Middle East of yesteryear. What a blessing to have this opportunity in our tiny little town! Oh, but it is a mission town; that makes such a difference!

7. Down to the last day of the week: Friday. It is here, and I am here. Here is Georgia. I left early Thursday morning and arrived just a few hours ago. I was here in August, visiting one of our branches. They have some new things that they want me to see, so on the plane I hopped and here I stopped. It is more exciting to be here now, though, because in August my daughter and son-in-law, Lizzie and Blaine, moved to a city in South Carolina near the Georgia border where I am right now, she from New York and he from Illinois. Finally, they are working in the same state again! Funny how kids follow in their parents' footsteps. Donnie and I have spent a lot of time in our nearly 40 years together working in different cities, different states, and even different countries. I understand the stress of separation all too well. So, I look forward to seeing them back under one roof, along with recently "repaired" Princesse, the cat from Tunis, and her sidekick, Woods -- a huge Siberian woods cat who was found stranded in Illinois years ago. Yep, just like her mother, Lizzie is a cat rescuer!

And now I need to take a breath and get on with the rest of Friday. I wish you as good a day and weekend as I plan to have! :)