Knock, Knock!

Dearest, darlingest Carol went to Ireland in October with her church group, part pilgrimage, part tour. She took, she informs me, over seven hundred pictures with her new digital camera, and had many delightful experiences.

One of the nicest things about this trip is that she wants to learn to scrapbook. I already have her sorting through her photos to see which ones she wants to have printed, as well as jotting down things she wants to remember about the places the group visited. She's also organizing all the keepsakes she collected along the way: postcards, brochures and things like that. We have arranged that she will come and stay with us on some weekend in January, if the weather behaves, and then we'll take her to the Most Awesome Scrapbooking Store Ever, as well as to our own Anne, the Scrapbook Lady. After making numerous purchases, we'll spend the rest of the weekend scrapbooking and eating our heads off. I can hardly wait!

I was already excited about this, but I was mystified when a box arrived in the mail last week. It had Carol's return address on it and I had this fleeting thought that maybe she'd mailed a package of stuff to me, to store here for her until she comes in January. Carol and I travel together every summer, and we are no strangers to cars that are packed to the rafters, kind of like the Beverly Hillbillies. So I opened it thinking that I'd be finding a stack of photographs and memoribilia. Imagine my surprise when I found three little packages wrapped in Christmas paper.

Ordinarily, I would have put those under the tree -- this is going to be kind of a light Christmas around here, so far as gifts are concerned, and it's always nice to have a little something extra. But Carol enclosed a very nice card saying that she thought we'd want to start using these during Advent, and with that hint, she was sure we knew what the packages contained.

We did! Meelyn, Aisling and I eagerly tore open the little boxes and found that Carol had bought each of us a beautiful rosary at the shrine of Our Lady of Knock in County Mayo. She'd even had Father John bless them for us, right there on the premises. Well, this kind of thing does one thing and one thing only to me -- this kind of thing makes me cry like a fish. I had exactly the same reaction when our neighbor, Patrick, the Bitter Ex-Catholic, went on vacation to Italy and bought me and Brian rosaries he bought in Vatican City. I bawled then, too.

Coming from Carol, though, these rosaries are even more special. We have used them every night to good purpose, using them to offer up our prayers for this most beloved cousin and our sweet Uncle Graham. They are the only Catholic members of our family, and so we share a special bond with them that has grown so close, even though we're separated by half a state. (Thank goodness for email.) One of the best experiences I've had was going to Sunday Mass with Carol this past summer and going forward to receive Communion with her. I had to restrain myself from drowning right there in the pew.

Carol, knowing how much we all love to read, also enclosed fancy, tasseled bookmarks with the story of Our Lady of Knock on them, which I've typed below:


At about eight o'clock on the Thursday evening of the 21st August, 1879, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of the church at Knock, County Mayo. Beside them and a little to the right was an altar with a cross and the figure of a lamb, around which angels hovered. There were fifteen official witnesses to the appartition -- young and old -- who watched it for two hours in pouring rain while reciting the rosary. Two Commissions of Enquiry accepted their testimony as trustworthy and satisfactory in 1879 and 1936.

Today, Knock ranks among the world's major Marian shrines, having enjoyed the full approval of the Church for many years. It has received privileges from four Popes and the most recent privilege was the visit of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, on the 30th September, 1979.


Here's a website with a fuller version of the story of Our Lady of Knock. (I think it's so funny that the first woman passing in the rain thought "Oh, look! Father got some new statues for the church! But why on earth did he have the leaving of them out in the rain? Isn't that just like a man, now?" It's just so exactly like what I think I would have done and thought.) This website does have a wav. file of the Celtic Alleluia, so if you're at work or you have a sleeping baby nearby, turn down your speakers before clicking the link.

Our Lady of Knock from Catholic Traditions.org

Thank you, Carol! We love you so much!

O Sapienta

O Sapienta -- December 17

Wisdom that comest out of the mouth of the Most High, that reachest from one end to another, and orderest all things mightily and sweetly, come to teach us the way of prudence!

Latin -- O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque adfinem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentae.

THE MAGNIFICAT

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He hath regarded the humility of His handmaiden.
For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He that is mighty hath done great things to me,
and holy is His Name.
And His Mercy is from generation unto generations
upon them that fear Him.
He hath shown might in His arm,
He hath scattered the proud in the conceitof their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their throne,
and hathexalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel, His servant,
being mindful of His mercy.
As Hes poke to our Fathers,
to Abraham and his seed forever.

Veni, veni, Emmanuel

Today marks the beginning of the last week before Christmas, which means that we'll be praying the "O Antiphons" (so called because each one begins with the exclamation "O") before our rosary for the next week. Beautiful, ancient, holy. I love being Catholic, love thinking of all the hundreds upon hundreds of Christians who have prayed these antiphons before us, waiting gratefully to celebrate the day of Our Lord's birth; waiting for Him to come again in glory.

antiphon

Main Entry: an·ti·phon
Pronunciation: \ˈan-tə-fən, -ˌfän\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English antiphone, from Middle French, from Late Latin antiphona
Date: 15th century

1 : a psalm, anthem, or verse sung responsively 2 : a verse usually from Scripture said or sung before and after a canticle, psalm, or psalm verse as part of the liturgy


THE "O ANTIPHONS" CROWN OF ADVENT PREPARATION
(From The Twelve Days of Christmas, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN,1955)

The theme of the Advent season has been one of joyous expectancy as the Church, in vigilant preparation, waited and watched for the first signs ofthe coming of the Lord. The very name Advent, and the Masses of the four Sundays with their urgent plea to Christ to "hasten and delay not" have reminded us that we are awaiting His coming in grace at Christmas, and in glory at the end of time.

On the evening of December 17, the last and most intensive phase of Advent preparation begins. On this evening is inaugurated the first of the Great"O's" of Advent. The "O Antiphons" are seven jewels of liturgical song, one for each day until Christmas Eve. They seem to sum up all our Advent longing as they paint in vivid terms the wretched condition of mankind and his needof a Savior.

Addressing Christ with seven magnificent titles, they beg Him with mounting impatience to come to save His people. The "O Antiphons" are intoned with special solemnity in monasteries at the Vesper Hour, before and after the Blessed Mother's great song of thanksgiving, theMagnificat, which is sung every evening as the climax of this Hour of the Divine Office.

Postscript

I got this email from my mother this morning:


Dear Sweetheart,

That white fudge with dried cherries was good.
So shut UP!


Love, Mom
(who still loves you anyway)


Mom, dried cherries kind of look like scabs. So maybe they'd be good as a Halloween candy. You could tint the vanilla fudge with a hint of red food coloring and just a touch of cocoa powder to make it look like a chunk of human flesh. Then add the little bits of cherries disguising themselves as coagulated blood and you have a yucky little dessert that your seven-year-old grandson (the one who likes to eat candy eyeballs) will really love.

Why we simply can't be trusted

As I wrote a couple of days ago, Meelyn, Aisling and I made Christmas cookies with my mother on Friday, spending all afternoon up to our elbows in butter and pecans and some very nasty little pieces of dried fruit that Nanny insisted would be delicious in vanilla fudge.

(They weren't.)

Anyway, when we got home, I wrote that the girls, with Santa hats on their heads, went around to the neighbors and delivered the little cookie tins. But what I didn't add was that we also had a cookie tin for Aisling's piano teacher, who lives 'way out in the country.

Well, there was no time to go out there right then and deliver her cookies, because my husband was going to be home from work shortly. And there wasn't time later, because we watched Christmas movies and went to Wal-Mart. And there wasn't time on Saturday because we ate all the cookies out of her tin somewhere between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

It's the thought that counts, remember. And I seriously thought that we'd take her those cookies. So have a merry Christmas anyhow, Mrs. Wheeler.

Wow, do I ever feel guilty. Now what am I going to give her?

Gaudete

Today we missed Mass as a family for the first time in five years, all due to the weather. Both vehicles were completely covered in snow when we got up, not to mention the fact that they were both wearing thick, icy camisoles underneath their fluffy white garments that rendered them impossible to get into. My husband finally managed to get into his car, mostly because he was very nervous, since it isn't actually his car, but one that belongs to the company he works for. My van is still completely inaccessible. As the day drew on, we were not all that surprised to see that all our county's schools are on a two-hour delay tomorrow, even though no new ice or snow is expected. I was considerably relieved to see that my nephews' school is also delayed in the morning.

The roads weren't much better, and the wind howled like something out of a Brontë novel. This has been the strangest day -- I think I could count on one hand the number of vehicles that have driven past our normally bustling intersection, here by our corner lot. I have seen one pedestrian today, and he was tottering down the slippery sidewalk, grasping a gallon of milk in one gloved hand, while holding his parka hood and scarf on with the other, trying to protect them from the mean teasing of that wild wind.

I got up to cook breakfast, and I have to say that it was very pleasant and cozy there in the kitchen. The family came downstairs, lured by the smells of eggs, sausage, toast and coffee. I warmed the plates and buttered the eggs and we all sat in the living room, eating while watching more Christmas movies. Aisling, by the way, preferred oatmeal and toast with jam, although that didn't stop her from asking for several bites of my egg on toast.

Meelyn's first Christmas dance was last night, so we were all still basking in the happy glow of a lovely party. I'll have to write more about that later, because that is a memory I definitely want to keep fresh.

Each bush, each tree branch outdoors is graciously bearing its own little burden of snow. The wind is whisking sparkling snow into the air, flinging it like scarves across the lawn. The Christmas tree is glowing and the first Advent candle in the wreath on the coffee table is growing very, very short. It is a cold night, a beautiful night, with a sky overhead like polished pewter. All is calm, all is bright.

There's snow adventure like a Snow Adventure

Bad winter weather was forecasted for this weekend, blizzard-like conditions and ice on the roads and piles of snow like unto which we, the residents of a Midwestern state where even elderly grandparents drive Hummers so that they can safely get to bridge club, had never seen before.

I have always scorned the people who hear a storm report and madly rush to the grocery to buy milk, eggs and bread. Because if I have to spend a few days completely snowed in with the kids, I'm going to go to the store and buy, like, a gallon of Bailey's and any time-consuming DVD that is displayed near the check-out stand. Never mind if it's rated R and titled Dawn of the Brain Eating Zombies - if it has a running time of over 90 minutes, it is ours. Get your priorities straight, people. You can eat a turkey sandwich any day you want to, but how many times a year can you traumatize your children while cocooned in a pleasant Irish buzz?

So. The four of us watched our local news at 11:00 on Friday and as the meterologist gave us the somber news, a little niggling thought kept tormenting me, right at the back of my brain, in that special place reserved for your brother's telephone number and the combination of your locker at the YMCA. Something urgently wanted to be remembered, but what was it?

Then I remembered.

We had precisely four rolls of toilet tissue in the house.

"We need to go to the store, like, now," I said to my husband, standing up and stuffing my feet into my sneakers without untying them.

"It's eleven-thirty!" he protested. "It's cold outside. I'm very tired. We have plenty of food..."

I interrupted him in the middle of his litany of complaints. "Yes, and when that food nears the end of the digestive process, are you going to be okay with using a cleansing handful of snow to finish things off?"

"Oh," he said. And got up to put on his coat.

The girls preferred to stay home, since they wished to shower, put on their pajamas and loll in front of the television watching Christmas movies instead of coming to help their aged parents wrestle a twelve-pack of double-roll toilet paper to the ground and drag it home. So my husband and I set off for the twenty-four hour Super Wal-Mart, congratulating ourselves that since it was fifteen minutes until midnight, we'd have the whole store to ourselves.

Boy, were we ever wrong.

Wal-Mart was total pandemonium. The parking lot was full of trucks and SUVs restlessly cruising to find an empty place, any empty place. Like maybe on top of a dumpster out back, or maybe across the four-lane highway at Blockbuster. We travel armed with a placard that allows us to park in the parking spaces assigned to the handicapped, so we felt we had a sporting chance, and sure enough, we were rewarded.

"I am so glad I was in that car accident all those years ago and broke everything," I said fervently. "Because look how handy all those injuries have made things! We got a really close parking space in an entirely full parking lot and all I had to do was break nearly every bone in my body, slam my head through a windshield and spend two month in the hospital learning to walk again! Whew!"

My husband never appreciates this gallows humor and gave me the stink eye as we got out and proceeded into the store to get a cart, pressing forward through the crowds to get pick up the toilet paper and several bags of potato chips. Because, our priorities? They are in order.

While we were there, we grudgingly gathered up a couple gallons of milk, some eggs and the last two loaves of bread, assuring one another that we were buying these items not because we were mindless lemmings running for the cliff, but rather because we intended to make a hearty meal out of bread slices soaked in egg, served in a bowl of milk. We trundled the cart off to the check-out lines, realizing that the people we were passing in the long lines that stretched so far back into the store, we could practically see the curvature of the earth, were the check-out lines.

"These are the check-out lines?" my husband said bleakly, straining his eyes to see the employee scanning the purchases of the first customer in line, approximately three-hundred eighty six carts ahead of ours. "Do you have any binoculars in your purse?"

"No, but I have a deck of cards," I said. "Let's make a table top out of this package of toilet paper and play two-hand euchre."

We called the girls to let them know we were going to be a while and settled down for what turned out to be an hour's wait in that line. When we realized that we were going to be home after 1:00 a.m., we called the girls to tell them to pray their rosary and settle down on the couch to snooze, that we'd be home as soon as possible. They were very pleased at this and reported that they were already snuggled up with the dogs and some pillows and blankets, still watching Christmas movies.

"If I'd known it was going to be like this, I would have just had you stand in line with an empty cart while I went around picking stuff up and bringing it back," my husband said. We eventually got too warm in our coats and took them off, chatting lazily about this and that as we stood, moving forward in line, tile by tile.

"I think we should pray our rosary," my husband, reaching into his pocket. "We're going to be way too sleepy when we get home. You start, and we can pray back and forth."

You have to love a husband who is completely un-self conscious about praying a rosary in Wal-Mart. It was really noisy in there, what with all the people bustling around and the Christmas music playing over the store's speakers to keep everyone cheerful. That was probably one of the nicest, most meaningful rosaries I have ever prayed, meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries and praying for all the people around us, for our families, for the bad weather approaching, that everyone would be safe and warm and fed.

And that they'd have all the toilet paper they needed. Amen.

Take me down to cookie town

Kayte and Katie will be happy to know that I am typing this from my parents' house, where the girls and I have spent the afternoon baking Christmas cookies. We have made English toffee bars and Scotch shortbread -- if I only had an Irish coffee and a copy of poet Dylan Thomas's perfect little book, A Child's Christmas in Wales, I would feel that the British Isles had been very well represented.

The Ka(y)t(ie)s were horrified to find out that I, Ebeneeza Scrooge-a-licious, bake cookies from scratch with my children once a year: at Christmas. Any other cookie that enters our home is either baked by the Keebler elves or the fine people at Nabisco. Sometimes we do "bake" them ourselves, using the break-and-bake kind found near the canned biscuits in your local grocery; when I mentioned this, the Ka(y)t(ies) both turned pale and had to shakily sit down.

That is not, they told me sternly, baking. It is faking, and it causes health problems in children.
Because presumably, they might run off and marry an elf someday and catch a cold living in that damp hollow tree.

By the way...

The girls and I did get to sing in the church choir at 10:30 Mass yesterday. It was slick, but only because of rainfall, not because of ice.

We sang "O Come, Divine Messiah" in four-part harmony, as well as "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." The closing hymn was the English chant "Savior of the Nations, Come" and during Communion, we sang the Gregorian chant, "Rorate Caeli" with lyrics taken from Scripture, so beautiful that they wring my heartwith gladness. I can't sing the words "Consolamini, consolamini, popule meus" (Be comforted, be comforted, my people) in that haunting melody without tears coming to my eyes.

Here, from Cantate ey Iulilate Deo a hymnal of Gregorian chant published by Scepter Publishers: "The text of this hymn is frequently used in the Mass and Divine Office during Advent. It is a plea of the Prophets, the Patriarchs, and the entire Church, all of whom long for the coming of the Messiah. As dew comes down from the sky and quenches the dry earth, only to evaporate back, so too will the Messiah come to sae his people and return to heaven. We recall our past offenses and sins and seek forgiveness as we await the birth of Christ for our redemption, a redemption that will bring the waters of life to desolate Jerusalem."

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Be not angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity :
behold the city of thy sanctuary is become a desert,
Sion is made a desert. Jerusalem is desolate,
the house of our holiness and of thy glory, where our fathers praised thee.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

We have sinned, and we are become as one unclean,
and we have all fallen as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away
thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us
by the hand of our iniquity.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

See, O Lord, the affliction of thy people,
and send him whom thou hast promised to send.
Send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth,
from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion,
that he himself may take off the yoke of our captivity.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Be comforted, be comforted, my people;
thy salvation shall speedily come;
Why wilt thou waste away in sadness?
Why hath sorrow seized thee? I will save thee; fear not:
for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.


Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

Ne irascaris Domine, ne ultra memineris iniquitatis:
ecce civitas Sancti facta est deserta, Sion deserta facta est:
Ierusalem desolata est: domus sanctificationis tuac et gloriae tuae,
ubi laudaverunt te patres nostri.

Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

Peccavimus, et facti sumus tamquam immundus nos,
et cecidimus quasi folium universi;
et iniquitates nostrae quasi ventus abstulerunt nos:
abscondisti faciem tuam a nobis,
et allisisti nos in manu iniquitatis nostrae.

Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

Vide, Domini, afflictionem populi tui,
et mitte quem missurus es,
emitte Agnum dominatorem terrae,
de Petra deserti montem filiae Sion:
ut auferat ipse iugum captivatis nostrae.

Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

Consolamini, consolamini, popule meus:
cito veniet salus tua:. quare moerore consumeris,
quia innovavit te dolor? Salvabo te, noli timere:
ego enim sum Dominus Deus, tuus, Sanctus Israel,
Redemptor tuus.

Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

I Saw Mommy Committing Adultery with Santa Claus

Let's face it: There are a few times during the holiday season when Santa comes out of things looking like a man whose name ought to be at the top of his own Naughty List.

The primary blot in his copybook comes from the movie Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is one of the worst movies, like, ever. My family, including my parents and brother, is well aware of my disdain for this holiday blight, which includes Rudolf being mercilessly bullied for being different and then being shunned from the reindeer games by none other than one of Santa's Famous Eight. This leads Rudolf to run away from home and I feel that we're all lucky that we were spared scenes of Rudolf's selling himself for drug money on the corner of North Pole Boulevard and Snow Street. Just when you think it couldn't be worse (because of an abominable snowman's having his teeth wrenched out of his head without any apparent use of anesthetics), Santa appears on the scene when it looks as if Christmas will have to be canceled because of poor visibilty for low-flying aircraft. He proceeds to make use of Rudolf in an arrogant way that I find appalling. Yes, Rudolf, we banned you from the reindeer games because of your repulsive nose, but now that it turns out we need to light our way through the snowy skies, please feel free to let me harness you to my sleigh. Giddy-yup.

I watch the movie every other year or so, complaining bitterly through the whole thing, but holding out that small shred of hope that Rudolf will say with dignity, "Santa, your hypocrisy astounds me. How you can look me in the eye after the way I've been treated requires a degree of boorishness that I simply can't fathom. Now, if you'll excuse us, Clarice and I will be leaving; we're moving to Greenland to start our own combination reindeer dairy and Christmas bulb factory. I give you good day, Santa. I said good day, sir!"

The other Christmas song that delivers an entire sack of coal to Santa's stocking is the classic "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." I found this song horrifying as a child; imagine, something as beautiful as shiny-wrapped gifts under a sparkling tree, tainted with your own mother's illicit love affair with the jolly old elf! I thought Santa was supposed to come to kids' houses to eat some sugar cookies and drink a glass of milk, not paw their mothers under the mistletoe. What kind of world is it when SANTA cheats on Mrs. Claus and gets a little somethin'-somethin' from your mom? How many moms is he doing this with, the nasty old pervert?

Does Santa keep a second list in addition to the well-known Naughty & Nice one? Is it a list of mommies who serve up something more tantalizing than cookies?

Eventually, of course, I realized that the "Santa" in question was actually the little boy's dad dressed up in a costume because the parents knew the little boogerhead was going to peek through the balusters on the staircase. It gave me a profound sense of relief and I was able to stop obsessively trying to compose the lyrics to a festive song I planned to call "I Saw Daddy Administering a Righteous Beatdown to Santa Claus, Right There On the Floor Underneath the Mistletoe."

Incidentally, I wonder if the cost of renting that Santa costume was worth the price of the therapy that kid no doubt had to undergo as an adult, all as the result of seeing Santa feeling up his mother. It's a shame, it really is.

Someday, if I work up the energy, I'll relate my thoughts about Tim Allen's vile movie The Santa Clause.

Granny and Mamaw

I have two new elderly companions, two dotty old bats who drive me nearly 'round the bend with their incessant complaining and bickering among themselves. Their names are Granny and Mamaw and they're the kind of old ladies that make you want to take them to Bingo down at the AmVets hall and leave them for four or five hours. Or forever.

Granny and Mamaw are with me constantly, their querulous voices hounding me throughout the days, strident over the clicking of their knitting needles and the repeated bangings of their canes on the floor. I can't even go to the bathroom for a private, relaxing wee without them standing outside the door, insisting that I listen to their litany of grievances. I have tried turning on the exhaust fan and even the tub water; I've even stuck my fingers in my ears and hummed "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," a song for which I ordinarily entertain a very limited fondness, in an effort to drown them out.

But I can still hear them. And let's face it: You have to come out of the bathroom sometime. no matter how often you plead with your husband to just push a peanut butter sandwich under the door; try as you might to be content with your water supply and access to towels and blankets. And when I come out, they are there waiting for me to run their gauntlet:

"Mommy, why do I have to wear these dumb boots? I hate boots. They make my feet feel all sweaty."

"She took my hoop earrings, Mommy. She didn't even ask. And she'll probably lose them, just like she loses every other thing in the world that isn't nailed down."

"Mommy, why do we have to have stupid chicken for dinner again? I'm sick of chicken. What do you have against chickens, that we have to eat them all the time?"

"Make her stop, Mommy. She is the worst pest I have ever known, like ten thousand mosquitos. She jumped out of the closet and scared me and so I pinched her and now she's upstairs crying like a big baby and saying she's going to 'get me.' How am I supposed to stand this?"

"Mommy, she is so mean. She is the meanest, biggest, dumbest big dumb head I have ever known, just like a big bunch of buttered bees. And you want to know why?..."

"Mommy, why do I have to read The Yearling? Why? Nobody else in the world has to read this stupid book except me. I hate it. All about this...this...fawn. And this boy. And they are so boring nobody could ever care in the world about their dumb swamp and...."

Is there someplace in Florida that I could send these two too? Or better yet, is there a place where I could go? I would even consent to go to The Villages, Florida's Friendliest Hometown for People With Leathery Suntans and Unattractive Tennis Visors. Just for some peace. P-e-a-c-e.

I don't want to tell you. Okay, I'll tell you.

Why am I awake, typing this post at 5:05 a.m.? I can't tell you. No, really, I can't. Because it's a little bit pathetic.

It's partly because Kayte sent me an email that made me wince, titled as it was in all-caps: IT'S BEEN TEN DAYS. She is a stern taskmaster, and has no truck with paltry excuses like "The dog ate my keyboard."

But that isn't totally the reason why I'm awake. It's so silly. So promise not to roll your eyes.

I'm awake because this is the second Sunday of Advent and the new choir at our church has its debut this morning. We have practiced . We're due to practice more this morning before Mass. And Noelle, the choir director...well, talk about your stern taskmasters. She makes Kayte look like Glinda the Good Witch, with the pink dress and the wand and everything. Noelle has us singing page after page of Gregorian chant and a number of other ambitious songs and to be honest, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it.

However, freezing rain is forecasted. It hasn't started yet, but I jerked awake about an hour ago thinking "Rain? Here yet? Roads bad? No SINGING? None?" And I went to the window to check out the sitch. It was not raining, but I just had one of those feelings, located precisely in all the bones I broke in that car accident back when I was 21, which is to say "almost all of them."

I had that achey, rain's a-comin' feeling. So I came down to the computer, and sure enough, it is raining west of us.

This feeling is familiar from childhood. It's the worry that Santa might not get through because of a snow storm. I know it's silly, to be up and awake with my anxious face scanning the weather radar for central Indiana. But that's just how I roll.

There is some rather special pleading being sent upwards to the place where, as I've heard, Gregorian chant is very much appreciated.