Martha, Mary, and online Mass

Today being Sunday I got the trusty tablet and I heard Mass from St. John Cantius in Chicago. Remember, that was the church I went to that time where they gave me a holy card in the confessional.

I tuned in to this Mass last week and I liked it. It is live at 9:30 Chicago time, 8:30 Buffalo time. It is a Low Mass. There is a High Mass but it is something like noon, and that gives other things time to get in the way. One of these Sundays I will try the High Mass but today was not that day.

Instead I parked myself at the dining room table with the tablet. The Wi-Fi is good in there.

Everyone tells you to watch Mass online but it is easier said than done. Do you stand when you are supposed to? Do you kneel? How do you behave? I have decided the best thing to do is sit with my missal and I follow along. St. John Cantius is a huge and gorgeous church, rather like our dear departed St. Gerard's. I found myself just enjoying the pleasure of it all. It is actually a luxury to be able to follow along so carefully. At our usual in-person Mass I am so distracted by coffee hour and choir it is hard to think.

After all these years of being a Martha...

... I am turning into a Mary!

Mary is the one in the center of the picture at the top of this post. With her prayer book before her, like me.  I love the details and humor in the picture. The elaborate buffet in the foreground. The people eating in the other room. The birdcage! Of course there is a birdcage!

It's sweet how the artist captures St. Martha complaining about doing all the work and St. Mary just sitting there piously, having chosen the better portion. I always did have sympathy with Martha. Someone has to do the work. Also you have to remember that Martha is a great saint, as is Mary, and there is a high place in heaven for them both.

I did a little digging and the artist is a Renaissance German master, Georg Friedrich Stettner. I should have guessed German. We Germans, we love our food. And everyone in the picture looks German. I mean look at Mary, with her blond hair. I love the palette, the muted tones contrasting with that beautiful rich red. Nice work, Herr Stettner! Terrific job.

Back to my Low Mass. I am sitting there and Howard comes in to feed Jeoffry.

"Don't pay any attention to me," he said, getting on with his work.

So it was funny, all there was, was this silence. A Low Mass is quiet! There was nothing but silence and whispering and occasionally the tinkling of a bell. Once in a while a floorboard groaned.

Howard said, "I like the sound of this."

I did, too!

I can tell you what the Gospel was about. Go on, ask me. I know what the Secret Prayer was. I knew that it was the Fourth Sunday of Easter, alleluia, alleluia.

I miss being at actual Mass, that goes without saying. The situation can make me terribly uneasy when I think about it because I have not seen the like in my lifetime and I pray that when this is all over I never shall again.

But you cannot and should not ignore the blessings that are there!

Curtain up!

One small step for anyone else, one giant leap for me with my chaotic life. I have purchased kitchen curtains.

Ever since I moved into my house, and I am not kidding, the kitchen has had these ugly blinds. They have gotten dirty and I cannot clean them. And they block out the light.

Because I have been preoccupied with a lot of things, putting up curtains always seemed like a big impossible deal. I do not know how to do it, is one thing. And the preparations for this step was amazing. I think it was three months ago I stopped by K Mart and bought curtain rods, made in China. They are the adjustable kind with the suction cups.

Then I went to Amvets to look for some cute vintage curtains.

Well.

That is more easily said than done. It is hard to find cute vintage curtains! You have to buy them on Etsy or something. I am too cheap.

But I did not give up. For weeks, when I went to Amvets, which I often do after church, I kept watch. Never anything. I would move from the curtains on to the record department, which adjoins it. Finding Leonard Pennario records is rare but not so rare as these curtains.

Then, Sunday. This past Sunday.

My friend Lizzie and I met up with each other at Mass -- remember, she baked the zucchini bread -- and then I magnanimously invited her to join me on my weekly trip to Amvets.

And my ship came in!

Sears Perma-Prest.

I was nervous and did not trust my taste so I went and found Lizzie in Bric-A-Brac. I asked her how she liked these curtains and she approved! Later she did that sketch up above of me hanging my new curtains.

Oh, what the heck, I am ashamed at how messy my kitchen is but here is a bigger picture.

The old blinds are still at the top -- as Howard said, abandoned in place. But I will tear them down and put up valances. I have two valances! One is longer than the other but you cannot have everything. I can fudge things so you do not notice.

Now I am excited about finding other curtains. It is an easy way to change the entire look of your kitchen even while finishing the biography of a great concert pianist. Speaking of which, I also washed the kitchen windows. On an 85-degree day. I know how to make a September heat wave absolutely unbearable.

The sense of achievement...

Unbelievable!

Chutes and ladders

I took the picture of my lunch today because it is one of the last days at my old desk. I must soon be moving!

We are all moving. I am sort of looking forward to it. I like my co-workers and I likmeane the thought that I will be more in the swing of things instead of around the corner where I have been with just a few other people. On the other hand I will miss the view. Plus I am nostalgic. This desk was right where I was sitting when I spoke with Leonard Pennario for the first time. There has been so much water over the damn. Did I write damn? I meant dam.

One thing, I am a slob as I admitted the other day, so it is good for me to have to start afresh.

There is all this old stuff that has to be moved including stuff I stuck into drawers and forgot about. It makes me think: Could I move my desk at home too? I should. There is all this stuff and it gets away from you.

Sometimes I fantasize about one of those big chutes you see at construction sites. I want one hooked up to my window. And I will just pile all this paperwork, early drafts of my book, mean letters from mean people, and it will all go Schlooooop! into this chute and be gone.

Wouldn't that be great?

Could I have one of them hooked up at my home permanently?

What I should do is move constantly around my house. That way things would not collect. From occupying the south bedroom we could switch to the east bedroom. From the east bedroom, to the west bedroom. The west bedroom is full of junk so that would have to be moved. The east bedroom also has its share of accumulation.

Furniture would have to be moved so that means that it, and the area under it, would have to be dusted and cleaned. I would be traveling light, in my own home.

Perhaps this is an idea I should patent.

Perhaps I am onto something!

Curtains

I have this plan to get curtains in the kitchen, such as the ones picture up above, instead of the blinds that are there.

The blinds have been there as long as I have had the house and they are really dirty from having been in the kitchen so long, with the kind of cooking I do. They cannot be cleaned. I have tried.

So I thought, curtains. I really do not need blinds, you know? I would rather have half-curtains that would block out the sight of me from outside but still let in the light from the higher panes. They would brighten up the kitchen.

Howard said: "But the neighbors would still be able to see you."

I said: "How?"

He said, "Well, from the upper floors." Meaning, if they went upstairs and looked down, maybe they could see me.

I said, "Well, they can knock themselves out."

If it is worth running upstairs to get a glimpse of me listening to Leonard Pennario and stirring things with wooden spoons and swearing at my back issues of Cooking Blight, so be it. I still want curtains.

With that in mind I went to Kmart after work. I got those springy curtain rods that fit the windows without you having to screw them in. I am not a hardware store person. Kmart is a whole other story I will have to get into another time.

After Kmart I went to Amvets all bright and hopeful that I would find cute vintage curtains.

Alas, no luck. They had tons of bath stuff, such as those furry covers that fit over your toilet, haha. But no kitchen curtains that I could find. Darn, and I had such an image of cute curtains with geese and strawberries and rolling pins and whatever. Oh well. Perhaps I will learn to make my own curtains. Meanwhile I did get a great deal on a Food and Wine cookbook that I love. It is Food and Wine Herbs and Spices!

Already I have made a recipe out of that book. I made Cod and Potatoes With Thyme.

Still with dirty blinds.

Great things take time!