tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53145177153201336642024-02-19T01:01:54.231-05:00Pater FamiliasIn the 25nd year of providing and protectinggeophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.comBlogger398125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-67325718843764502252023-09-12T13:52:00.004-05:002023-09-12T13:52:50.008-05:00The work of a writer<div>#writerslife </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to tell you writers something you know.</div><div><br /></div><div>NOBODY loves your story as you do. Not your editor. Not your readers. NOBODY.</div><div><br /></div><div>So: you're editor will make your story readable? No. HELLS no. YOU will. It's _ALL_ on you, fam.</div><div><br /></div><div>What does this mean?</div><div><br /></div><div>That means any grammar or spelling or syntax errors?</div><div><br /></div><div>You fix them the INSTANT you see them. If you don't then the error in the next print is YOUR FAULT.</div><div><br /></div><div>And infelicity? You rewrite it. Throw out the whole d-mn chapter and start over if you have to.</div><div><br /></div><div>Be ye perfect, writers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Who reads your work the most? You do. Go in there with a red pen and circle, THEN FIX, RIGHT AT THAT SECOND, anything, ... ANYTHING, that doesn't work.</div><div><br /></div><div>The #writerslife isn't easy. Don't pretend it is. Don't ignore your errors. Own up to them and fix them. NOW.</div><div><br /></div><div>I read, then reread, a chapter I publish, 5-6-7 times THAT DAY. I fix every, single error I find, and republish or resubmit that chapter EVERY TIME I find and fix errors.</div><div><br /></div><div>EVERY TIME, lovelies.</div><div><br /></div><div>Every time.</div><div><br /></div><div>How does this work?</div><div><br /></div><div>"Not And Or," ch 8, published 2023-09-03. I reread that chapter today and saw an error on the first page.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxgPcHdrWeTrSi2KDTQkutScr_htqzAIN2eGP0UgM23hswHHde28pGTdUcRmvoWzALnW-WGM9Yt7Ct2FbyJk_vHs3QXk-QZYTWscddpGFTkuz0oJ0vMbySYgd_UJA90ehnN3PTldLLtOlTOOy1oPIOqBGAamZ21OH_QpvCKFsAMH6D4CqF88xd8PO9-eY/s1334/writer-bug.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxgPcHdrWeTrSi2KDTQkutScr_htqzAIN2eGP0UgM23hswHHde28pGTdUcRmvoWzALnW-WGM9Yt7Ct2FbyJk_vHs3QXk-QZYTWscddpGFTkuz0oJ0vMbySYgd_UJA90ehnN3PTldLLtOlTOOy1oPIOqBGAamZ21OH_QpvCKFsAMH6D4CqF88xd8PO9-eY/s320/writer-bug.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>I. was. furious.</div><div><br /></div><div>I fixed that error and republished. NOW.</div><div><br /></div><div>There have been 9 readers of this chapter.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7ELJW__3nh5O50Fkvuz1TlhBnK52J4aXM5NTQYXgEoCH7wS5UNcZNNxD0ElqdlPTCYL1o2i8F-zuWrQzLNlPXFcdV1_I-JLjWxoQ8yZe_NijFyY_7Lqd2zS0jTeSmVpaHoloS7pzV6kMgCmQxyfNrtZc6gPAeggfVaD6MG5tmJysdOYiXGutDtTMWA0/s1066/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-12%20at%202.31.43%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="1066" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7ELJW__3nh5O50Fkvuz1TlhBnK52J4aXM5NTQYXgEoCH7wS5UNcZNNxD0ElqdlPTCYL1o2i8F-zuWrQzLNlPXFcdV1_I-JLjWxoQ8yZe_NijFyY_7Lqd2zS0jTeSmVpaHoloS7pzV6kMgCmQxyfNrtZc6gPAeggfVaD6MG5tmJysdOYiXGutDtTMWA0/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-12%20at%202.31.43%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>All future readers will NEVER see this error.</div><div><br /></div><div>Writing is more than spelling or punctuation.</div><div><br /></div><div>But if those things are wrong, they are distracting, degrading your work, SIGNIFICANTLY.</div><div><br /></div><div>Writers. Your writing is YOUR BABY. You, and only you, love your baby and are proud of her.</div><div><br /></div><div>Your readers need your work.</div><div><br /></div><div>Give them your best.</div><div><br /></div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-68968111741455949482023-05-27T12:20:00.001-05:002023-05-27T12:20:15.649-05:00Peppermint Patty, My dad, and Remembering our Soldiers<p>Dear Dad, Happy Memorial Day, but is it happy that we remember the soldiers who died for … us? Or who died because they died, and that’s just sad.</p><p>I’m thinking of you, every breakfast I make. I made an olive bread/toast olive-cheese omelet sandwich and had bratwurst with that. But I remember your cinnamon-sugar bagels, and those are my favorite breakfasts, because they’re yummy and because they’re made by YOU! 😃 </p><p>Remember how Peppermint Patty would get angry with Charlie Brown, whom she would call ‘Chuck’, but then, when they reconciled they’d shake on it. But she wouldn’t let go of his hand. 🎼”You’re holding my hand, Chuck!” she’d sing gaily and she wouldn’t let go, watching him blush in embarrassment.</p><p>I think Peppermint Patty wanted to be loved, and I think she loved her ‘Chuck’ and wanted him to love her back, but she held all that inside her, this sadness, with a sly, winsome humor, joking with him, but still wanting to be loved.</p><p>I remember you here, looking out for me when I was sick, coughing during COVID, but you still took care of me, but then, I remember how home called you back. You were a visitor here, welcomed and loved, but still a visitor, not at home.</p><p>I hope you’re happy at home. Are you going to visit a Cemetery this weekend, and remember the soldiers? Connecticut is blessed in that you can walk down the road to a Cemetery and remember the dead. That’s what I do, when I visit a cemetery: I say their names and I pray for them. I pray that they are remembered and I pray for their peace in the next life.</p><p>Peppermint Patty: so good at sports, so cool, so confident … I think she’s the saddest Peanuts character: I think Charles Schulz knew that.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMSKS93WJA1z1ODG4BPDt-USYhhRwIkg4BzApMWRof6sXA3tG1KSWWXjrCoIwHIMeI0gXMoJ6cyuk6EBipzBuhWa2-Jwxi_LXuqGP3raHID_cwRRuwmwrB0Q17Vv8F0pN78QDuyfPHzwUB7-p8ujlY0iryr0enemlC_VgqLNVfxq2Qj2UimT_LN4Kx/s1642/peppermint-patty.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1262" data-original-width="1642" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMSKS93WJA1z1ODG4BPDt-USYhhRwIkg4BzApMWRof6sXA3tG1KSWWXjrCoIwHIMeI0gXMoJ6cyuk6EBipzBuhWa2-Jwxi_LXuqGP3raHID_cwRRuwmwrB0Q17Vv8F0pN78QDuyfPHzwUB7-p8ujlY0iryr0enemlC_VgqLNVfxq2Qj2UimT_LN4Kx/s320/peppermint-patty.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>asdf</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-69306378724255391202023-05-16T03:14:00.000-05:002023-05-16T03:14:16.390-05:00A man's a man for a' that<p>I 'love' it when women occasional post that men should be more sensitive, caring, thoughtful, socially-outgoing, ...</p><p>That men should be women.</p><p>Look. Why do men never post the opposite?</p><p>Because men love and respect women as they are.</p><p>Ladies, you love your man because he's a MAN.</p><p>And, sure, it'd be great if he crafted you a crème brulée and massaged your feet and lovey-dovied you to death.</p><p>But don't wish your man to be a woman: you'd eventually hate him for his effeminacy, and you got exactly what you wanted.</p><p>The reason that he's quiet around other people, that he doesn't plan out Mothers' Day, that he has work so you have to go to that function or take care of the family is because he's a man, and he's doing his job, as a man.</p><p>Pining for him to be a woman only brings resentment.</p><p>Instead of finding fault of what he's not, maybe, instead, recognize, to him, verbally, what he is.</p><p>Instead of noticing when he doesn't do something, maybe notice when he does: he's making an effort, for you, to please you, because he loves you.</p><p>Women: you have the power.</p><p>You can build your marriage and your family, or you can wreck it with just one word or just one look or just one tiktok.</p><p>And, yes, it's all on him, too, but as a man, not as a woman.</p><p>Think on these things, then thank God your man's a MAN.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-87753184005907193812023-02-20T21:56:00.002-05:002023-02-20T21:56:19.596-05:00Coffee Liqueur recipe<div>Guessssss who's gonna make dat 'coffee liquir'?</div><div><br /></div><div>If you guessed the ol' el geophf, you guessed right(ly)! 😎 </div><div><br /></div><div>From <a href="https://www.simplyrecipes.com/homemade-coffee-liqueur-recipe-5183908">simplyrecipes.com</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Okay. 1 1/2 cups of ground coffee into a bourbon jar. How are we going to do that without spilling?</div><div><br /></div><div>EASY-PEASIES!</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, take 1, anyway.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/poVaMSXKyNI" width="320" youtube-src-id="poVaMSXKyNI"></iframe></div><br /><div>Okay, NOW we've got the hang of it!</div><div><br /></div><div>Pouring coffee grounds into a bourbon jar, taketh twoeth.</div><div><br /></div><div>No disasters, DESPITE my daughter's snarky predictions. 😤</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jyF2EfQefno" width="320" youtube-src-id="jyF2EfQefno"></iframe></div><br /><div>Coffee and rum, steeping. Now: we wait three weeks.</div><div><br /></div><div>How do we KNOW when three weeks have elapsed?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbhQlxM1rhZeR30tJ-9sDtMXrq__yNbOm00EGtoH9yAN8Sw-LsJRAQNT3Oact6edY6SmG5jf4RCAn-LKJae7wWLTcn8aT15J0OMTYOFQFJUimUtXmdbjXfZi6vF2kpORXPtVcLVSjEgpdyHnMU7tYNox_IaARGKnqTvH2xw4AVS5RGQOYoTLtWkwP/s1200/FpcZ69VWIAIMZWg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbhQlxM1rhZeR30tJ-9sDtMXrq__yNbOm00EGtoH9yAN8Sw-LsJRAQNT3Oact6edY6SmG5jf4RCAn-LKJae7wWLTcn8aT15J0OMTYOFQFJUimUtXmdbjXfZi6vF2kpORXPtVcLVSjEgpdyHnMU7tYNox_IaARGKnqTvH2xw4AVS5RGQOYoTLtWkwP/s320/FpcZ69VWIAIMZWg.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br />#labeling #protip </div></div><div><br /></div><div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Status report</h2><div><br /></div><div>Day 0, and the coffee/rum has turned to clay.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFlsLBI7zFM55QXs_nm-R8nh2LbEcSiCRdVOX0oQ8A_xg-C1SXy98t3PwQfcJHqMeII-fNcccZfjSYkEop_ez3wjyf32hlKXdj1D1_mX5f9VZj6LiEeEZZHzFaK8MqdmEj41rbQKPLk2mVCzn5LisUOE9Bm7D-Dh6C8Ht3iLOkeZ13nkpLbBbWu2dI/s4032/IMG_6042.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFlsLBI7zFM55QXs_nm-R8nh2LbEcSiCRdVOX0oQ8A_xg-C1SXy98t3PwQfcJHqMeII-fNcccZfjSYkEop_ez3wjyf32hlKXdj1D1_mX5f9VZj6LiEeEZZHzFaK8MqdmEj41rbQKPLk2mVCzn5LisUOE9Bm7D-Dh6C8Ht3iLOkeZ13nkpLbBbWu2dI/s320/IMG_6042.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />I'm adding Rum to the mix and checking the seal is airtight.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFVpwRwxxGQaK0EN023Cn1z2bCQyWocdQrVxhehCiiHIeQ2VhmXa_Zbgw3i-839OxPP2h6ZmqvLvz_u6F_5vccrfr1RHv_P2QG1dakUdHwCzn1-GXFDukCwzComZzM2YRLZnuMS2C3nzmyFVyL1J7dxOfgNogFqca3pqOUVezjWhGF5R5YN8Y_Bxy/s4032/IMG_6043.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFVpwRwxxGQaK0EN023Cn1z2bCQyWocdQrVxhehCiiHIeQ2VhmXa_Zbgw3i-839OxPP2h6ZmqvLvz_u6F_5vccrfr1RHv_P2QG1dakUdHwCzn1-GXFDukCwzComZzM2YRLZnuMS2C3nzmyFVyL1J7dxOfgNogFqca3pqOUVezjWhGF5R5YN8Y_Bxy/s320/IMG_6043.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />I may need a lot more rum, which sounds like not-a-problem, right? ... until I serve 185-proof coffee liqueur, and everybody be like: 💀smh. 🙄</div></div><div><br /></div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-72132061663083726122023-02-20T20:56:00.005-05:002023-02-20T21:48:25.548-05:00Irish Cream recipe<div>Okay. ('Ope' as my daughter, Li'l Iz, now says)</div><div><br /></div><div>I'mma makin' di Irish Cream.</div><div><br /></div><div>Stand back, people, and watch. #ProAtWork</div><div><br /></div><div>Recipe from <a href="https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23534/original-irish-cream/">allrecipes.com</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>My slight alteration: </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnOk5FtzoC34SBFWoaDM8_3ad71Xg-BCto8nHf-w2UDanmQ8sFKKK7GZkEWAE86psGOxFCxae66XNlnKmOmGo_rHT7eX9AsO5sOnSZSOvVsPVe0iDRoSkLmUztS-d6vQQrCPQgo2VlTBn188IQxhXfalt6R_JLKoNDLuzlMgPwuGvJ5vksTterXLzV/s1200/FpbvS-rXECEcNQV.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnOk5FtzoC34SBFWoaDM8_3ad71Xg-BCto8nHf-w2UDanmQ8sFKKK7GZkEWAE86psGOxFCxae66XNlnKmOmGo_rHT7eX9AsO5sOnSZSOvVsPVe0iDRoSkLmUztS-d6vQQrCPQgo2VlTBn188IQxhXfalt6R_JLKoNDLuzlMgPwuGvJ5vksTterXLzV/s320/FpbvS-rXECEcNQV.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br />I’m using peppermint syrup instead of almond extract to make peppermint Irish cream.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><ol start="3" style="text-align: left;"><li>Pour Irish cream into peach schnapps bottle. </li></ol>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7iO8LGAiIKg" width="320" youtube-src-id="7iO8LGAiIKg"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>
<ol start="4" style="text-align: left;"><li>Wait for my cara spoza to make what she thinks is a fuzzy navel.</li><li>Run.</li><li>Hide. 😅</li><li>Have self-preservation kick in, and label the bottle correctly as “peppermint Irish cream.“</li></ol></div></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8-zx_k9MOYG7MBvP_v91WFKNo1maNSEx7B_Uoy4Tw-xxUIeP5GRDEc7g2VFE2o5vaXK8ITeqCp9hFD9nEZki4ZB-zrD9V7j7EA43GvNgdVwG1Q_W5tnGIXSqabPKlq3zShhCnsBAtaHVT780eFIbP3ovXSmq-zLRjFe2TjwAuS1Hx4cc_x6g3wrz/s1200/FpbxSYqXEBo6uQv.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8-zx_k9MOYG7MBvP_v91WFKNo1maNSEx7B_Uoy4Tw-xxUIeP5GRDEc7g2VFE2o5vaXK8ITeqCp9hFD9nEZki4ZB-zrD9V7j7EA43GvNgdVwG1Q_W5tnGIXSqabPKlq3zShhCnsBAtaHVT780eFIbP3ovXSmq-zLRjFe2TjwAuS1Hx4cc_x6g3wrz/s320/FpbxSYqXEBo6uQv.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><blockquote>Why is there never scotch tape in the house? 😤 #TheRealQuestion.</blockquote><div><br /></div><div><div>The result kicks like a mule. I added coffee ice cubes and coffee, and that kicks like a mule too! #Whiskey.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtgFGX5WYDtGHib8QDf1EO-jXXtVNbvUc-FR0RPB5Bf_eZ0OvuxMOHt-eBeXT7Oo4urvIZ20hJzDXtbEoDId6zs-p_7vxx1YiqtVMIaYkARTF-UxyeGykqw8oREDgNTDFxfHDbZcWKuZqxOZn7cZbu6mwTQa2NcQGAWauWlYvQReJn4j3wm1ghUim/s1200/FpbziVEWcAk6IXP.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtgFGX5WYDtGHib8QDf1EO-jXXtVNbvUc-FR0RPB5Bf_eZ0OvuxMOHt-eBeXT7Oo4urvIZ20hJzDXtbEoDId6zs-p_7vxx1YiqtVMIaYkARTF-UxyeGykqw8oREDgNTDFxfHDbZcWKuZqxOZn7cZbu6mwTQa2NcQGAWauWlYvQReJn4j3wm1ghUim/s320/FpbziVEWcAk6IXP.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br />The. End.</div></div><div><br /></div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-19623422815480812312023-01-29T15:34:00.001-05:002023-02-20T20:31:35.120-05:00Drambuie recipe<div>HOW TO MAKE DRAMBUIE!</div><div><br /></div><div>a recipe by geophf from <a href="https://www.seriouseats.com/diy-drambuie-make-your-own-honey-scotch-liqueur-recipe">seriouseats DIY</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Step 1: 1/3 cup honey. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx2U5kEihvh4szdYGPn2KM_UQi38vz6cJWqihUwzTWujp-lr534k_Mh-x3Fr7uzxnm3UlxGEknPSk5IWp7mTtjv_sf2bWNUJIzA6vm2xpVRhKiNt503dZRkafIMwMHbqjjkvIzjHbnZtAOtVlIoUJd6vv2l4aAk_Er2Gk592rB-IbTnnvCO_DHKeHD/s4032/01-third-honey.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx2U5kEihvh4szdYGPn2KM_UQi38vz6cJWqihUwzTWujp-lr534k_Mh-x3Fr7uzxnm3UlxGEknPSk5IWp7mTtjv_sf2bWNUJIzA6vm2xpVRhKiNt503dZRkafIMwMHbqjjkvIzjHbnZtAOtVlIoUJd6vv2l4aAk_Er2Gk592rB-IbTnnvCO_DHKeHD/s320/01-third-honey.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />... if the honey doesn't come out of the jar, run water continuously over it until the honey starts to flow.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not that I had this problem ... 🙄</div><div><br /></div><div>Narrator: He did. </div><div><br /></div><div>Step 2: 1/2 cup filtered water.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT22t_hE9dH2ixHJjmi5XRbo3rMZH4hZU1CglYoKel1ljsO8EesJZlTgOC2P97bkyGG10PR5TTtAtmnQE67Ws9Lgz7V7J54b-aqRoka-RwRWxvHdPLQ0IWzQGjDEsi72Fs_ZG3ol-DhvHPSTAApV4FjgoQBRQVuLcDEqWi0cNVqn22UeI-joZ_m7E0/s4032/02-half-water.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT22t_hE9dH2ixHJjmi5XRbo3rMZH4hZU1CglYoKel1ljsO8EesJZlTgOC2P97bkyGG10PR5TTtAtmnQE67Ws9Lgz7V7J54b-aqRoka-RwRWxvHdPLQ0IWzQGjDEsi72Fs_ZG3ol-DhvHPSTAApV4FjgoQBRQVuLcDEqWi0cNVqn22UeI-joZ_m7E0/s320/02-half-water.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />The better the quality of water, the better the drink. </div><div><br /></div><div>Step 3: 1 tsp ground or crushed fennel seeds.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbroiVQ1_3V2nOPsR-MhOx8ShbHtGlN57Z9AXa1RpwQevq237mveSYSOBIxAuIjYEg4WVQmEO_t6r3mIuYXU1RLQnyycuwr5I3rCVG_bIJ0nyAal7ZLEK55bSJS9629TShJtPAjqwu03UTNmHnxpX9EEK9CucUlOLEkpEKA3BfuAiDbttfbYrqou7h/s4032/03-tsp-fennel-ground.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbroiVQ1_3V2nOPsR-MhOx8ShbHtGlN57Z9AXa1RpwQevq237mveSYSOBIxAuIjYEg4WVQmEO_t6r3mIuYXU1RLQnyycuwr5I3rCVG_bIJ0nyAal7ZLEK55bSJS9629TShJtPAjqwu03UTNmHnxpX9EEK9CucUlOLEkpEKA3BfuAiDbttfbYrqou7h/s320/03-tsp-fennel-ground.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />Now, some use mortar and pestle, which is totally fine. I use my coffee grinder (after cleaning it thoroughly), which gets the same results: fennel seeds cracked open and powdery.</div><div><br /></div><div>Step 4: 1 Tbsp fresh rosemarie leaves.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAT-Xm-OVEZbw4n6vEUiYpFAtd9Nd00QQiTyhzxTzMk8Sdn_gtKd_8gWGhXF6tfwJWBjrC7IvftVglg3oQtEOLK8xk5iVy4RQruY5wr-2MtkKXJjTKN-bhM5MQ_X0HxhrHRcxfVEYGK2Ojd2YO6QKB2EQs9Kp14FG_5LrGYWpwMvQ9vylUkFWYlfZ/s4032/04-Tbsp-rosemarie-1-sprig.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAT-Xm-OVEZbw4n6vEUiYpFAtd9Nd00QQiTyhzxTzMk8Sdn_gtKd_8gWGhXF6tfwJWBjrC7IvftVglg3oQtEOLK8xk5iVy4RQruY5wr-2MtkKXJjTKN-bhM5MQ_X0HxhrHRcxfVEYGK2Ojd2YO6QKB2EQs9Kp14FG_5LrGYWpwMvQ9vylUkFWYlfZ/s320/04-Tbsp-rosemarie-1-sprig.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />It turns out to be about one sprig's worth of leaves. </div><div><br /></div><div>Step 5: combine ingredients and heat until integrated into a syrup, swirling continuously.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A-QEYc46BqQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="A-QEYc46BqQ"></iframe></div><br />This all happens pretty quickly: 5 or so minutes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Step 6: pour everything into your bottle, don't filter anything, you want this all to steep. Add 3/4 cup Scotch or Whiskey, ... the cheap stuff is fine for this recipe, as the herbs really make their powerful presence felt in Drambuie.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwiq_Ddk_oQ2daTCcHMKaoiaQ3z0KEejzKNhzK3cj8q8APphA5PYFD6Fty11mGtvbNoThumpQXhCUWrdwL775bVmh7TGyyjWtv2o42KMJSQLK-IraMT7WyJGk6JR1w6w5Ti-mfm3t4Kf7iSCvryTbzPdl81-AjybpWQYkpgtvddZDig4JdCihNQCv9/s4032/06-pour.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwiq_Ddk_oQ2daTCcHMKaoiaQ3z0KEejzKNhzK3cj8q8APphA5PYFD6Fty11mGtvbNoThumpQXhCUWrdwL775bVmh7TGyyjWtv2o42KMJSQLK-IraMT7WyJGk6JR1w6w5Ti-mfm3t4Kf7iSCvryTbzPdl81-AjybpWQYkpgtvddZDig4JdCihNQCv9/s320/06-pour.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />Step 7: let steep for 3 days. Then: filter. Then: drink. Can be refrigerated for up to 6 months (???).</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZz8yWGdEkzKJdFdOToaUeEt7CTZYQcmG32UqTQOmwJek7z_kTL28n9fLy_J5vHYwVjqhRMJMw-pg3hu1InHHzJFtyVh84uvQ1rr8QcAVo1mqwApJm8FrLpvomMxFWvk9-YeOVa_klPnvF1wC1B5Sgq4G_WsIsSfr0FMJlSEHzesxsAjrneXt2QsJ/s4032/07-let-sit-3-days.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZz8yWGdEkzKJdFdOToaUeEt7CTZYQcmG32UqTQOmwJek7z_kTL28n9fLy_J5vHYwVjqhRMJMw-pg3hu1InHHzJFtyVh84uvQ1rr8QcAVo1mqwApJm8FrLpvomMxFWvk9-YeOVa_klPnvF1wC1B5Sgq4G_WsIsSfr0FMJlSEHzesxsAjrneXt2QsJ/s320/07-let-sit-3-days.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />I don't refrigerate Drambuie, and my last bottle lasted for over a year in the liquor cabinet, but you store it however you like.</div><div><br /></div><div>The. End.</div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-61032139477750954182022-10-10T10:44:00.005-05:002022-10-10T10:49:41.045-05:00Christopher Columbus and Fr. McGivney<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTmy1GVluH1Wc-1idzQbpPbOeR9QaCQ1xzvrLwrMs6A7K8oSZsE5lIwhkcKfhmpgB8l9tMXUGEIRbFT0_L0R9MjInGBu2GyQgb2GdlT6-y_I2YGcL6838lDFa3PhMYneC6QlKFdBvFkM36WoA5SLPropr_L3VTTHMZWVtrXW0Nh_lXyFPFVsD4OnJ6/s3088/geophf-pink-tie.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTmy1GVluH1Wc-1idzQbpPbOeR9QaCQ1xzvrLwrMs6A7K8oSZsE5lIwhkcKfhmpgB8l9tMXUGEIRbFT0_L0R9MjInGBu2GyQgb2GdlT6-y_I2YGcL6838lDFa3PhMYneC6QlKFdBvFkM36WoA5SLPropr_L3VTTHMZWVtrXW0Nh_lXyFPFVsD4OnJ6/s320/geophf-pink-tie.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br />Guy with the (PINK!) tie, wishing you a Happy and Blessed Columbus Day, 2022, says hi! 👋<h2 style="text-align: left;">Christopher Columbus</h2><p>The story of Christopher Columbus is a funny one:</p><p>He failed.</p><p>He set of to round the world for a shorter route to India, and never made it there.</p><p>God said: "No. I have something better for you."</p><p>You don't get what you pray for, because God has something better for you.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Rest of the Story</h2><p>The story doesn't end there.</p><p>400 years later. FOUR HUNDRED YEARS LATER!</p><p>Fr. Michael J. McGivney, of blessed memory, said: "Men need a quest. Men need nobility." He created the Knights of Columbus.</p><p>It is the world's largest men's Catholic, and therefore, Christian, organization</p><p>The acts the Knights of Columbus have accomplished, by men, charitable, giving, caring, noble men, by the Grace of God, are staggering. They have raised BILLIONS of dollars. They have put food on tables. They have cared for and carried, even to the grave, the lost and lonely.</p><p>They are an 'insurance company,' but that's just a front: a front to help widows and orphans, a front to provide scholarships to kids so they can go to school and better their lives, and give hope to their families.</p><p>Men.</p><p>Caring men.</p><p>Men with a purpose.</p><p>Men, by the Grace of God.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Honor History; Make Mistakes</h2><p>This all happened because why?</p><p>Because one guy, Christopher Columbus, finally, bravely, talked to a monarch would would listen, Queen Isabella I.</p><p>He missed the target, by half the world.</p><p>But he did it, and brought Catholicism to the New World.</p><p>1 BILLION people from 1 mistake.</p><p>I am a Maronite Catholic.</p><p>And I am a Knight of Columbus.</p><p>Don't be ashamed of your History. Be proud of it. I am.</p><p>Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make mistakes: God works through them. God works through you.</p><p>From your mistakes, you learn.</p><p>From your mistakes, God creates New.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-4982663749888774232021-07-25T13:01:00.002-05:002021-07-25T15:54:59.082-05:00Diane's 35th birthday<div>HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZyV9KvfZajDm4G4bTcg19S3ySbf__qKNPmoqn-CZeH0IQmuXznI4YMM-MVPqIt2UXYOAOFBd4QgLEn3PYWRZWg_13_zYpqyeM5C3YkRfxr1oq7uex5fFvP7svqtW-rx52kHaHlqzWzA/s680/Diane-2021-bday.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZyV9KvfZajDm4G4bTcg19S3ySbf__qKNPmoqn-CZeH0IQmuXznI4YMM-MVPqIt2UXYOAOFBd4QgLEn3PYWRZWg_13_zYpqyeM5C3YkRfxr1oq7uex5fFvP7svqtW-rx52kHaHlqzWzA/s320/Diane-2021-bday.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dearest Sweetie,</div><div><br /></div><div>It's been a hard year. Time after time people come up to me and ask: "How is Diane?" and I tell them, and then they get these wonderful ideas, especially my dad, "Oh, did she try botox? Have they found a Cure?" and Beki: "what remedies is she trying?"</div><div><br /></div><div>There are no easy answers.</div><div><br /></div><div>But there's you. Every day I see you struggle, and every day, you don't always win, but you are always there, and you always get done what needs to be done, and you take care of yourself, and you take care of us.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's not fair. You are an outgoing, witty, vivacious, expressive person, and this disease doesn't let you smile, or ask the screen: "Okay, what's happening here?"</div><div><br /></div><div>But it does let you rely on us to buy the wine at Wegman's, and to buy you pizzas at Costco, and to buy you Banh mí at DC Sandwich shop, right next to Pho 75, and to buy you A&Js to assuage you when you pick me up from the airport on my return from Vermont.</div><div><br /></div><div>This year hasn't been an easy year, but it's been a happy one, because you've united yourself with the Suffering Christ, and you have us, who love you, day after day after year after year.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, Elena Marie says she needs more hugs, and Li'l Iz is ready to take another turn about the parking lot. Our kids are all grown, and it's all thanks to your firm, loving, guiding hand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Happy Birthday.</div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-68482467907087391162021-07-19T09:33:00.002-05:002021-07-19T09:33:11.614-05:00My Dad's speech at the Newport Vets Town Hall, 2021<p>Hello, my name is Rod Auclair. I'll be 82 two months from today, and I find that the real pleasure and treasure of being elderly are our memories. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwBqgUNf1TUbrQC3QF0AbcVjcn23YnHCynA1r1UeBVBIfUdSl8LJCA2yUiHtHZt667ay736KzQdrYjwfExOD4-Ij2FlBEAlu3tqX-fC0DB8Aw8kffDx7ZYXMHkr653wOS80RDRw_R1sg/s2048/dad-speechifying-about-Thule.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwBqgUNf1TUbrQC3QF0AbcVjcn23YnHCynA1r1UeBVBIfUdSl8LJCA2yUiHtHZt667ay736KzQdrYjwfExOD4-Ij2FlBEAlu3tqX-fC0DB8Aw8kffDx7ZYXMHkr653wOS80RDRw_R1sg/s320/dad-speechifying-about-Thule.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>God knows, we don't have a lot of time left to make new ones. "Young men shall dream vision and old men shall dream dreams," it says somewhere in the Bible. And some of my best memories came from the beginning of my service in the U.S. Air Force in January, 1962 in enlisted men's basic training at Lockland AFB, San Antonio, to its end as a captain at Stewart AFB in Newburgh, NY in Dec, 1966. Four months before our son, Douglas, was born, his crib, a dresser drawer on a 3rd floor walking opposite the police station on 77 Ann St., Newsburgh.</p><p>I started as a weapons controller, better understood as a defense fighter aircraft interceptor director in a 4 story block house, two stories of which housed our giant IBM 2000 computer, no chips then, only very hot and very many glass radio tubes that were our 0101 on/off computing switches. And it worked and we watched those antique fighters (and their pilots) that you once could see lined up outside the gate of Vermont's ANG (Air National Guard) at Burlington, the tubby F-89 Scorpion, the Delta winged darts of the F-102 and F-106, the fantastic F-16. I was a gold bar 2nd Looey then, and learning to direct fighter pilots with no flight experience myself was stressful and scary, but I remember the smile and congratulations from a Korean War vet captain who patted me on the shoulder and said, "Congratulations, Auclair, you got your first [vulgar word deleted] when I and my younger airman ?/c guided a real fighter to attack a real mark inwards, probably a T-80 Korean war vintage Shooting Star.</p><p>The affirmation from that good-hearted captain, the lasting affect of what affirmation must mean to all of us. That we had worth, that we have done, and can do, well. This was something special that I found in my military service, for more than in civilian life. And I would find it so even more when I was puzzled to find I was assigned to a year's remote tour to Thule, Greenland, after I had asked for duty in West Germany. THULY? UltimaTule? which translates roughly to "the end of the world."</p><p>We were a special squadron, given the task of "bluesuiting" [militarizing] the operations control center of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, ironically acronymed "BMEWS"ed, which it wasn't. We would take over from very highly paid RCA contract people to run the monster radar arrays out there, away from the seaport airbase of Thule, formerly the home of Inuit Native Greenlanders who were moved across the icy bay, our whole base including us out in booneys, powered by generators and steam from a permanently moored WWII Liberty Ship.</p><p>But the magic was I served with officers and enlisted men who were WWII-Army Air Corps (brown shoe) vets called back to duty for the "Korean" police action of the fifties, who decided – what the hell! – might as well get my 20 [years of service] and retire, courtesy of Uncle Sam. And they (mostly) were a hoot! They had this perspective of "you gotta be kidding" to razing each other by making midnight phone calls (when it was our shift cycles) to their buddies asleep back in the BOQ as the 2th clk, GMT.</p><p>11:11 "TOOTHPICKS!" or 22:22 hrs "TRAIN TIME! [too-too:too-too!]" </p><p>Your tax dollars at work.</p><p>But the most exciting moment was when Major Lynn F. Walker, Senior Space Surveillance Officer and I, his assistant officer on duty in Ops with our enlisted crew, headed by a very competent and calm Senior M. Sgt, picked up what looked like bogies [missile] coming in our only, huge scanning radar which was about 4 stories high and groaned like one of monster dinos from Jurassic Park. when it moved and locked onto a threat. Alarms went off from Greenland to North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in Atom Bomb-proof control center mounted on giant springs in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs. The system console that controlled this radar (alarm lights flashing) to use that the lunar cancellation switch had not been thrown. We were tracking the moon! Sarge reached up and flicked the switch and all became quiet, except for the dripping sweat.</p><p>Major Walker and I remained friends for the few short years he lived after he retired. He was so often homesick for his wife at Thule. His wife was Catholic, and he became so also at Thule, and I, half his age, was honored to be his God Father.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-51126486901961457332021-07-19T08:57:00.001-05:002021-07-19T08:57:04.160-05:00My Mom's Letter to my Dad, ... on my Birthday<div>4/26</div><div><br /></div>Dearest Rod,<div><br /></div><div>Thank you so much for calling me at work this morning, at 9 a.m., the twenty-third anniversary (to the minute) of our son's birth. Giving birth – giving <u>life</u> – to Douglas was one of the finest things I ever did, and I couldn't have done it withoutyou.</div><div><br /></div><div>That, by the way, goes for a lot of fine things I've done: I couldn't have done them without your cooperation, help, and support. Sometimes I try to imagine what my life would have been like w/o you and <strike>let me tell you, it's not a pretty picture</strike> I don't see anything I can admire. You know you were a turning point for me. I have <u>never</u> regretted finding you, chasig you mercilessly, marrying you.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because, you know this – I admire you, my love.</div><div><br /></div><div>me</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXOF6uZr1wD5m8HZkWVo6MHBwddSrL8FDe1sTSNeNHK5Ip9nopBgpKesfe_sQsSfl6cjN4v29rjqrjp8dKVn_sD9HXqOR8R9mzpymF1RHnwiSiGxq3D1y4il9z5xc_xUBT-XGFG54BdE/s1280/mom-visit-2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXOF6uZr1wD5m8HZkWVo6MHBwddSrL8FDe1sTSNeNHK5Ip9nopBgpKesfe_sQsSfl6cjN4v29rjqrjp8dKVn_sD9HXqOR8R9mzpymF1RHnwiSiGxq3D1y4il9z5xc_xUBT-XGFG54BdE/s320/mom-visit-2016.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-14732835436261075572021-07-18T09:53:00.003-05:002021-07-23T23:11:43.120-05:00The Military (Combined post) <span face=""Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #eeeecc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">Hi.</span><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">My name is Doug Auclair, and I served, Active Duty, as an officer in the United States Coast Guard from 1989 to 1995 after graduating from the US Coast Guard Academy.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLTvYh4ItS6VK12ZGWVuLkVirBJdR3P2FDz9jNXZJedaUVEteaEkHgdGtfC2LZ0wozeCOSNiH6mFckiAEoafC4TnjWi0fuRWF4JGv-c8UZhOlLj-_g04TA3GNzR3ijrchZp1PmK63hmI/s2048/VTH-2021-Newport-DouglasAuclair-scaled.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1508" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLTvYh4ItS6VK12ZGWVuLkVirBJdR3P2FDz9jNXZJedaUVEteaEkHgdGtfC2LZ0wozeCOSNiH6mFckiAEoafC4TnjWi0fuRWF4JGv-c8UZhOlLj-_g04TA3GNzR3ijrchZp1PmK63hmI/s320/VTH-2021-Newport-DouglasAuclair-scaled.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">When I told my wife that'd I'd be speaking here at the Newport Vets Town Hall 2021, ... IN VERMONT, she asked me: "Why? Are you special?"</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">And I'd like to think about that question, because I'm not special. And I'm sure many of you think something similar. I bet many of you think: "Hey, I served. I did my duty, and it was an honor to serve. I'm not special. I just did my job." Because it's hard, isn't it, when people say: "Thank you for your service." To just say: "You're welcome. It was an honor to serve." Because it's not something special. It's just something you and I did.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">My sister challenged me, too, to be brave, maybe even to be fearless, sharing my experience here.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">And, I'm sorry, Beki, but I don't know how to be brave. I just did my duty. That's all. 22-hour days, some days, continuously, too, in the Bearing Sea, north of Alaska, saved 150 lives, but ... it was just me, and everybody else aboard ship, just doing our job. And I got that from my Dad who served in the Air Force, stationed in Greenland and Turkey, watching the skies, day after day, year after year, why? So the people he, you, and I, love here, at home, were able to go to bed, knowing that we were ever vigilant in the execution of our duties. For my dad, it was the air, for me, it was the seas.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">Coast Guard Fore'er: we go out to sea, but it doesn't mean we get come back. Some of us didn't. I did. Why?</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">Some of you feel that way, too. I bet. "Why did I get to come home when my ship-mates didn't? Why are you thanking me for my service, when I got to come back? Why can't we honor the ones who didn't?"</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">But maybe, we are special. </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">And maybe we are brave. </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">And maybe bravery comes easily and naturally for you, maybe bravery is a fire in your heart, and more than just doing your job. But maybe you just did your job, like me, ... but that's needful, too. The warfighter can't be brave, without the rest of us supporting the effort, all day, every day. There is bravery, and honor, in 'just doing your job.'</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">Because why? Because you did serve. You did do your duty. And you do honor your fellow service members, the ones who didn't come back, you honor them today with your memory of them and you honor them with your life, your example, and your witness.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">One thing I learned in the Service is this: we are family. We have a shared experience that's ineffable. When, going through TSA at Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. to get here, I met an Air Force Academy grad, class of '90. We had a connection, a bond, that none outside the service will ever have. Suddenly, and instantly, we were brothers, and he cared more for me, and I for him, more than anybody else at the airport, and we had each other's back, just like that. </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">Because we served. </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><div>I talk how the military is family, it's a way of life. And nothing gets you thinking about life more than death. I came up to Vermont because the headstone was laid for my mom just this week. And, I am at a point in my life where my friends are dying. It will be my turn someday, too. This past year, I went to the funeral of my best man, Mike Malovic, Master Sargent in the US Army Chorus, and I accompanied my dad's friend, Lt Commander, USN, to bury his friend, Captain Jim Mathews, USN, both at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. with full military honors. </div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't know Jim, but, he was family, because of a friend of my dad in the military. But I got to know Jim in how his son and daughter honored him, Irish wake-style, and through the stories his comrades-in-arms told about him as they served together through the Vietnam era.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I wonder: how will we be remembered? Family. For some of us, our closest friends are in the military, and they, and you, hold the stories of our lives in those moments of hard work, hardship, and comradery. For us in the military, how we live is important, but also, how we are honored and remembered when we die. I saw so many young people in attendance at both those funerals, seeing, perhaps for the first time how the military honors its own, with dignity and respect. </div><div><br /></div><div>Are our young people today honored with dignity and respect? Some young people have to be asking themselves that question. Were we treated with dignity and respect in the military?</div><div><br /></div><div>Hell no! We were worked hard, then, pulled out of the rack after two hours of sleep, and worked hard, again. Were we thanked? Hell no! We did our job and were upbraided if we didn't do it right, and were rewarded with even more work if we did.</div><div><br /></div><div>But where else do you get that hard line? I had 300 fellow shipmates' lives in my hands every day as the engineering duty officer, and I had the US border to protect, laws to enforce, and lives to save. And I did all that. Where else in the world can you have a job where what you do matters? In the USA, there are less and less places that people can contribute in a meaningful way. In the military, you can drive a desk or clean the latrine, sure, but you can also put your life on the line, or you can support the warfighter or peacekeeper who does put their lives on the line. Their lives directly depend on you doing your job.</div><div><br /></div><div>Where else can you say that? And, where else can you do that with your shipmates that will build friendships that will last the rest of your lives?</div></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">We are the American Fighting Men and Women. We serve in the forces that guard our Country, and our way of life. We were prepared to give our lives in their defense.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">And that is something that we were given: a blessing, an honor, a burden, and a privilege. And I thank God for that honor and that privilege, and I thank God for you, my brothers and sisters, who served in our Armed Forces.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px;">Thank you for your service.</div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-62774037294024440532021-07-18T09:42:00.000-05:002021-07-18T09:42:01.022-05:00Comrades-in-armsThe military is family, it's a way of life. And nothing gets you thinking about life more than death. I came up to Vermont because the headstone was laid for my mom just this week. And, I am at a point in my life where my friends are dying. It will be my turn someday, too. This past year, I went to the funeral of my best man, Mike Malovic, Master Sargent in the US Army Chorus, and I accompanied my dad's friend, Lt Commander, USN, to bury his friend, Captain Jim Mathews, USN, both at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. with full military honors. <div><br /></div><div>I didn't know Jim, but, he was family, because of a friend of my dad in the military. But I got to know Jim in how his son and daughter honored him, Irish wake-style, and through the stories his comrades-in-arms told about him as they served together through the Vietnam era.<div><br /></div><div>And I wonder: how will we be remembered? Family. For some of us, our closest friends are in the military, and they, and you, hold the stories of our lives in those moments of hard work, hardship, and comradery. For us in the military, how we live is important, but also, how we are honored and remembered when we die. I saw so many young people in attendance at both those funerals, seeing, perhaps for the first time how the military honors its own, with dignity and respect. </div><div><br /></div><div>Are our young people today honored with dignity and respect? Some young people have to be asking themselves that question. Were we treated with dignity and respect in the military?</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Hell no! We were worked hard, then, pulled out of the rack after two hours of sleep, and worked hard, again. Were we thanked? Hell no! We did our job and were upbraided if we didn't do it right, and were rewarded with even more work if we did.</div><div><br /></div><div>But where else do you get that hard line? I had 300 fellow shipmates' lives in my hands every day as the engineering duty officer, and I had the US border to protect, laws to enforce, and lives to save. And I did all that. Where else in the world can you have a job where what you do matters? In the USA, there are less and less places that people can contribute in a meaningful way. In the military, you can drive a desk or clean the latrine, sure, but you can also put your life on the line, or you can support the warfighter or peacekeeper who does put their lives on the line. Their lives directly depend on you doing your job.</div><div><br /></div><div>Where else can you say that? And, where else can you do that with your shipmates that will build friendships that will last the rest of your lives?</div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-50411961630989264012021-07-17T20:25:00.007-05:002021-07-17T20:51:26.073-05:00Thank you for your ServiceHi.<div><br /></div><div>My name is Doug Auclair, and I served, Active Duty, as an officer in the United States Coast Guard from 1989 to 1995 after graduating from the US Coast Guard Academy.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I told my wife that'd I'd be speaking here at the Newport Vets Town Hall 2021, ... IN VERMONT, she asked me: "Why? Are you special?"</div><div><br /></div><div>And I'd like to think about that question, because I'm not special. And I'm sure many of you think something similar. I bet many of you think: "Hey, I served. I did my duty, and it was an honor to serve. I'm not special. I just did my job." Because it's hard, isn't it, when people say: "Thank you for your service." To just say: "You're welcome. It was an honor to serve." Because it's not something special. It's just something you and I did.</div><div><br /></div><div>My sister challenged me, too, to be brave, maybe even to be fearless, sharing my experience here.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, I'm sorry, Beki, but I don't know how to be brave. I just did my duty. That's all. 22-hour days, some days, continuously, too, in the Bearing Sea, north of Alaska, saved 150 lives, but ... it was just me, and everybody else aboard ship, just doing our job. And I got that from my Dad who served in the Air Force, stationed in Greenland and Turkey, watching the skies, day after day, year after year, why? So the people he, you, and I, love here, at home, were able to go to bed, knowing that we were ever vigilant in the execution of our duties. For my dad, it was the air, for me, it was the seas.</div><div><br /></div><div>Coast Guard Fore'er: we go out to sea, but it doesn't mean we get come back. Some of us didn't. I did. Why?</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of you feel that way, too. I bet. "Why did I get to come home when my ship-mates didn't? Why are you thanking me for my service, when I got to come back? Why can't we honor the ones who didn't?"</div><div><br /></div><div>But maybe, we are special. </div><div><br /></div><div>And maybe we are brave. </div><div><br /></div><div>And maybe bravery comes easily and naturally for you, maybe bravery is a fire in your heart, and more than just doing your job. But maybe you just did your job, like me, ... but that's needful, too. The warfighter can't be brave, without the rest of us supporting the effort, all day, every day. There is bravery, and honor, in 'just doing your job.'</div><div><br /></div><div>Because why? Because you did serve. You did do your duty. And you do honor your fellow service members, the ones who didn't come back, you honor them today with your memory of them and you honor them with your life, your example, and your witness.</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing I learned in the Service is this: we are family. We have a shared experience that's ineffable. When, going through TSA at Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. to get here, I met an Air Force Academy grad, class of '90. We had a connection, a bond, that none outside the service will ever have. Suddenly, and instantly, we were brothers, and he cared more for me, and I for him, more than anybody else at the airport, and we had each other's back, just like that. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because we served. </div><div><br /></div><div>We are the American Fighting Men and Women. We serve in the forces that guard our Country, and our way of life. We were prepared to give our lives in their defense.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that is something that we were given: a blessing, an honor, a burden, and a privilege. And I thank God for that honor and that privilege, and I thank God for you, my brothers and sisters, who served in our Armed Forces.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for your service.</div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-32036372022740202672021-06-16T10:43:00.005-05:002021-06-16T10:58:27.997-05:00 ἥρως<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRWBOR1WKTXHkCEYpJAIRLsJiV3uNm-T2ENjkHNE7atOJAERRgMgfXAoWeKD7xY3yFerHkamU1aPTA78sFApM6yHjIKI9RMzIPClkKBAS3alnEnLF-Gu-EImLT4j2VjupprLQk77zeiI/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRWBOR1WKTXHkCEYpJAIRLsJiV3uNm-T2ENjkHNE7atOJAERRgMgfXAoWeKD7xY3yFerHkamU1aPTA78sFApM6yHjIKI9RMzIPClkKBAS3alnEnLF-Gu-EImLT4j2VjupprLQk77zeiI/" width="180" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>The ancient Greek word for 'a man' is 'ἥρως' ('hero').</p><p>And, ... men are heroic, stoic ones at that. (Although the ladies may argue that a man with a cold is nothing like a stoic hero). But we're also supposed to 'open up.' We're supposed to share our thoughts and feelings. Because that builds better relationships and happier families.</p><p>But does it? Where does this advice come from, because, it seems to me, that this is a modern invention, and not tested with ... well, not tested at all, by any measure, other than a 'well, that's what you're supposed to do.'</p><p>But are we?</p><p>I had a twinge today, over my heart.</p><p>So, the modern approach would be to share this with my family. But I know what would come from that: we would rush to the ER, the ER would rush me through tests, the doctor would review the tests and, like every other time (even when I had my heart attack), the doctor would see every single indicator in the nominal range, but, the doctor, being a doctor under modern liability constraints, would recommend I convalesce at the hospital under 24-hour observation.</p><p>A visit to the ER costs $2400 if I'm driven there (more if I'm escorted in an ambulance) (much more). An overnight stay at the hospital?</p><p>I don't even want to think about that cost.</p><p>So, instead of baring my heart and sharing my feelings, I went for a walk.</p><p>Yeah. Like a man, I decided to walk it off.</p><p>And that worked.</p><p>This time.</p><p>But what if it didn't?</p><p>Well, the first time I decided to run my heart attack off, that didn't work, and I almost died (twice) and was rushed to the ER, <i>WHO FOUND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH ME,</i> until I ended up on the operating table with a stent.</p><p>Yay.</p><p>So, either way, walking it off worked. And, even when it didn't, I turned around, came back home, told my family, and we rushed to the hospital <i>WHO SAID NOTHING WAS WRONG WITH ME</i> because they're used to the modern man, who eats junk food, doesn't exercise, and dies in a very obvious way, not with a guy who exercises every day and whose body adjusts around bad genetics.</p><p>What does it profit my family that I share with them 'I have a twinge over my heart'?</p><p>The profit, actually, the <i>cost</i>, is that they worry unto death, all day, waiting, again, for a no-result from the hospital and a $2400 bill for the trouble.</p><p>Men, ... women, too: be a burden on your families, that's what God put you on this good, green Earth for, to help each other make your way through this day. You can't help, nor be a help, if you have to do everything all by yourself. If the world hinges on you, alone, then what, even, is every other person in your life for? Each person in your life is a gift from God. Thank God for these gifts by being there for them and allowing them to be there for you.</p><p>But don't be an unnecessary burden. Don't impose yourself onto people. Don't smother them, don't worry them, don't crush them out of the one-sided conversation you harangue them with. You are here for them which means if you have a plan or a problem, include them in helping to solve it, if you have a worry, share it, but only insofar as they can help you get over it.</p><p>Fine line?</p><p>Nope. You know when you're being a jerk.</p><p>Don't be a jerk to your family. Be their help, and be their hope.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-16351448173722612292021-03-18T09:03:00.001-05:002021-03-18T12:21:28.862-05:00"Anguish"<div>So, I've gotten my whole family to read Salinger's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Esmé—with_Love_and_Squalor">For Esme: with Love and Squalor</a>," so: my work here is done. Mission: accomplished. Life: complete. Dad level: shining star.</div><div><br /></div><div>What is the point of "For Esme: with Love and Squalor"? And why is it Salinger's Magnum Opus? (No, not "Catcher in the Rye," that unfortunately generation-defining work.)</div><div><br /></div><div>World War II changed us. Read Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Decorum Est." But it changed us in a more profound way than that. Sartre wrote "Nausea" in answer to the question: "What if there is no God, really?" And he got sick of it, the idea that there's nothing, is nothing, and when we die, will be nothing. World War II caused an Existential Crisis that not only we have not recovered from, but, looking at this generation, we continue to go down the spiral to Oblivion, screaming: "XANAX AND DOLLARS! XANAX AND DOLLARS!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Nausea. We are sick, but we don't even know we are sick, because we're pretending that 'everything's fine' and 'I know what I'm doing' because 'there's got to be a point to all this, ... doesn't there?'</div><div><br /></div><div>Doesn't there?</div><div><br /></div><div>Salinger addresses this question, head on, in "For Esme: with Love and Squalor." What is the point? And he addresses it with us: the most unreliable narrator.</div><div><br /></div><div>Take X. What does he say? ever? in this story? He does speak, but note how he does: "I told her that..." "I relayed my ..." "I felt that I should ..."</div><div><br /></div><div>He addresses the other Platonian Shadows in this story not as himself, but as a narrator <i>through</i> himself.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Narrator has crossed himself out of this story, and is using his own person as a shadow-puppet to redirect our attention away from him to ...</div><div><br /></div><div>... to, well, anything and anybody else other than him.</div><div><br /></div><div>He doesn't want to be seen.</div><div><br /></div><div>Esme sees him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Esme, bored Esme, hiding her yawn in the choir loft, sees that he sees her, and seeing her, sees her for exactly who she is. She is above all this 'normalcy' this ... <i>SQUALOR</i> of the Every Day, so far above it that she does these common-place things -- singing, asking: "what are you doing here?" -- at a level beyond the normal: she exists in a higher plane than everybody else, because, unlike them, these walking shadows, she <i>does</i> exist, she <i>is</i> alive, and vibrantly so. She sees our narrator, sees him seeing her, and in seeing him, gives him life, and hope, and joy, and meaning, and purpose, ...</div><div><br /></div><div>... for one microsecond of his lifeless life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then he, before and after, descends right back into the Squalor of the Every Day, pretending to be normal, pretending to be 'fine,' and utterly failing to fool anybody, even and most particularly, himself.</div><div><br /></div><div>So.</div><div><br /></div><div>Where is the hope in this hopeless story?</div><div><br /></div><div>"Seymour: an Introduction" tells us the answer.</div><div><br /></div><div>"The Artist screams [crying out in Anguish] and when we run to him and ask him: 'What's wrong,' he can't say. He cannot speak it. But it is his <i>EYES!</i> It is his <i>EYES</i> that see the pain and the lost and the emptiness of this life, and cannot unsee it. And that is what kills the Artist. His <i>EYES</i>."</div><div><br /></div><div>The hope, in "For Esme: with Love and Squalor," is that Esme <i>sees</i> the Narrator, just for that one second, and, in a totally free act of kindness, reaches her heart out to his heart, and says to him: "I see you. I see your weaknesses. I see your strengths. You are alive. I love you. I see you."</div><div><br /></div><div>And being seen, before, during, and after, living in the squalor of the Normal he creates for himself, yes, but in that Squalor, he now has that. He was seen. He was real to someone. He brought Joy to her: happiness, delight, recognition, hope.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that is what he will have to his dying day.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that is something no one can take away from him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ever.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not even himself.</div>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-54117825306882815562020-09-18T21:16:00.001-05:002020-09-18T23:31:03.388-05:00Baited then switched: what to do? Grin and Bear it?<p>So, okay, you've been baited into a meeting under a pretense, then, <i>BAM!</i> they switcheroo'd on you. Now you in this ... 'meeting'? do I call it a 'meeting,' when really it's an inquisition. So, you're in this thing, and your back is against the wall.</p><p>What do you do?</p><p>Here's what you don't do.</p><p>What I did: I played along, played nice, and survived the 'meeting' with this or that platitude, as required.</p><p>That's the default, right? "Let me just survive this and get the hell out of here."</p><p>No.</p><p>Why <i>survive</i> a meeting? Why <i>lick the boots</i> of the bossman (and, in my case: bosswoman), cower, and snivel?</p><p>For a job? Really? Because you really need this job? Really?</p><p>Let me tell you about this job.</p><p>It's a job. You do your work, it's part of your life.</p><p>You are investing your life into your job.</p><p>You only have this life, and then: you are going to die.</p><p>And, you're not doing yourself any favors, sniveling and scraping, and you're also not doing your boss any favors, right? You know that, right?</p><p>If your boss is being a little tyrant, then that's all they are: little, and a tyrant. So why, even, are you there, if all you are is a yes-man?</p><p>I am four years into my second chance. I had two heart attacks – the second one almost killed me – each day, now, is a gift from God Almighty. Am I going to waste this gift in servitude?</p><p>I'm an expert in my field. I have 25 years of experience working with some good managers and some bad ones, but they are all human beings, like me (maybe). I don't need to kowtow to my boss. I need to work for my boss to get the job done.</p><p>And the job won't get done if I check out as a yes-man. And the job won't get done when the boss is a little tyrant, demanding everybody be afraid of him or her. How can you get your job done if you check out? How can your team get the job done if you're spending time playing mind-games, trying to make people agree with everything that falls out of your mouth?</p><p>You can't. They can't. Nobody can.</p><p>Try this.</p><p>If you don't agree with something, say that. If you get gamed, say that.</p><p>"Look, I'm not ready to discuss this now at this meeting. Can we set up another meeting to discuss this?"</p><p>That's all you need to do. If they start to wander into mind-games, you call them on it, and say you won't play, because you're here to get work done.</p><p>Aren't they?</p><p>You do it the right way, they'll appreciate the correction. You do it the wrong way, or the wrong person is your boss, you've made an enemy, and you lost your job.</p><p>No big deal. Count yourself blessed to have an enemy who is a little tyrant. Count yourself blessed that you got fired from a job that going to is pure hell. You got out of hell. Get a different job that's better!</p><p>But if you don't speak up, it's <i>your fault</i> that your job sucks. And if you do speak up, and your job does get better, then:</p><p>Then: your job is better. Not just for you, but for everybody on your team. Because of you.</p><p>Think about that before you decide to <i>grin and bear it</i> again.</p><p>Think about that.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-84217612910019418872020-09-18T14:30:00.000-05:002020-09-18T14:30:34.612-05:00Bait-and-Switch Meetings<p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85098); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">This is the second 'Bait-and-switch'-meeting I've gone to, and I don't appreciate it. If, at the beginning of the meeting, you say: "Oh, and besides X, I also want to talk about you, and your Y," then you've just committed a bait-and-switch. The meeting's agenda is the meeting's agenda, and if you have different things you want to talk about, you set up a different meeting.</span><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85098); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;"> </span></p><p>Now, you may say: "Well, I didn't tell you, because I wanted your honest opinion." Three things here: </p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>You're saying I'm dishonest otherwise? </li><li>You came prepared, but you're not giving me the courtesy of coming prepared? </li><li>and who has the power in this conversation. Are you caught off guard? </li></ol>Let me ask you: if your management team called you in for a meeting to talk about administrative stuff, and then they turned it around and asked: "I hear your team is having personality issues, why are you screwing up?" How would you feel? Imposed upon. Look at it as feedback. If you're given feedback, unprepared, and it's hard-hitting, you're reeling from the blow, and don't have the frame of mind to absorb that feedback, much less respond to it with a level head. <p></p><p>Bait-and-switch meetings are bad, and they come from cowardice. What they do is this: they destroy trust. I now no longer trust going into a meeting that the published agenda is not the actual one, and now I don't want to say anything anymore. You may 'win' your bait-and-switch, by throwing the recipient off-guard and asserting your position of authority, but you lose, big-time: you have now lost the participation of me, up-to-now, a contributing member of the team.</p><p>Keep up the good work.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-75225080131891196312020-09-01T07:30:00.004-05:002020-09-01T08:48:52.027-05:00My Friend, Mike, Died<p> My friend, Mike Malovic, far left in the picture, just died. Cancer.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aP4K_7ii_cZQWdgfScqCw3_fuFL83ZAPTqL_GHXy79r5d1PG_-F5p9sODP31YWSR6AAhUY39x3KvdkTXHoGMTFSLe3dIqnM4AQPSw_uHgF9FilCNuinx4LL6Jqo1-8p20iGRKKPBNbc/s2048/Mike-Malovic.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aP4K_7ii_cZQWdgfScqCw3_fuFL83ZAPTqL_GHXy79r5d1PG_-F5p9sODP31YWSR6AAhUY39x3KvdkTXHoGMTFSLe3dIqnM4AQPSw_uHgF9FilCNuinx4LL6Jqo1-8p20iGRKKPBNbc/s640/Mike-Malovic.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Mike was a good man. I moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1992 and met Mike soon after at the St. Michael's choir. We were both military, so we connected in that way, and he asked me if I kept my options open for business opportunities. I did. So we talked, and I joined his organization in Amway.</p><p>Now, I'm sorry if you had a bad Amway-experience, or, more likely: you heard that your mother's second cousin's friend-from-work-sister's girfriend "lost all her money in Amway and had to go live in Topeka, Kansas with her mom."</p><p>But my experience with Amway wasn't like that, and nor was Mike's, and here's why.</p><p>Mike cared. Mike cared for his family, and he knew he wasn't going to make it in the Washington DC-area off a sergeant's salary, and he knew he definitely wasn't going to make it off a sergeant's pension. So he looked at starting a business. He started a few, was successful in a few, but they still couldn't provide. He put the same amount of work into Amway that he put into his job and his other businesses, and Amway worked for him. So he shared that message of success with others, including me.</p><p>And here's the thing. Amway didn't work for me, because I didn't work Amway like Mike did. I played at it, tried it out, but I didn't work it like a full-time job, like Mike did, so I didn't become an Amway millionaire. But here's what I did get out of Amway: respect for people who worked at it, or at their businesses, respect for my Country, respect for my God, and my lovely wife. Pinky, Mike's wife, introduced me to Diane: "You know, Doug, Diane's really smart and sweet. You should talk to her. Like: now."</p><p>So, yeah: I'm not an Amway millionaire, like Mike may be, but here's the thing about Mike.</p><p>Mike cares.</p><p>Mike is a man who cares about you more than he cares about himself. He always has a word of encouragement, he always asks after you and your family, he always looks you in the eye when he shakes your hand, and he always treated me as a friend, whether I made him rich in Amway, or whether I didn't.</p><p>Because I didn't make him rich in Amway.</p><p>But.</p><p>I made him rich in life.</p><p>Mike is a very private, quiet person, and, for him, talking with people is hard, and tiring, and scary.</p><p>But here's something I learned from Mike, too.</p><p>You can live your life lonely, and alone, or you can talk with other people, and they can hurt you, yes, but they can change you in how you see the world as they see the world, and they can care, and they can hope, and they can dream, and they can enrich your life when they share that care, that hope, and those dreams with you.</p><p>That's what I learned from Mike. Introversion isn't an excuse. It wasn't for him, and, because of his example, it isn't for me. I learned my life is better when I make somebody's life better.</p><p>Today.</p><p>I learned that God put me on this Earth, today, to make somebody else's life better, and I ask myself, everyday: "Who did I make smile today?" and I better have an answer, today, by God, because I bet you anything, God will ask me the same question when I am called to task, like Mike was called to task.</p><p>Today.</p><p>My last visit with Mike breaks my heart, because I came prepared. I <a href="http://mikemalovic.com">read up on him</a>. I was going to ask him all about his life and adventures. "Sure," he said, "I was born in England, but I moved to the States when I was one year old. How is your dad? Is he okay?"</p><p>And from there, the conversation went, him asking about this or that, and commenting on how proud he was of me to work with the Air Force, to have my girls raised so polite and proper, to ...</p><p>It breaks my heart, that, to his dying breath, he didn't want to talk about himself, at all, he wanted to talk about me, and how I was faring in this world. Mike, he was done with this world, and ready for the next.</p><p>Mike, I know you're an Army man, but from this Coast Guardsman, I wish you, dear friend: fair winds and following seas.</p><p>God bless you, and keep you in His care.</p>geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-61154369171475603792020-07-26T15:25:00.002-05:002020-07-26T15:45:45.228-05:00The Joy of the LORD<blockquote class="tr_bq">
meditations on Divine Mercy Chaplet.</blockquote>
<br />
"Why are you religionists so bound to this patriarchal imposition on you? Be happy! Be free! Get rid of your superstitions and join us Shiny, Happy People."<br />
<br />
Let's talk, for one second, about you shiny, happy people: you atheists.<br />
<br />
Where is your joy?<br />
<br />
I've met several kinds of atheists, some are very ill-informed, spouting The Narrative that they've been fed from the feeds they've been spooned from the Gubmint, the Shool (the Gubmint, again), the parochial shool (sadly, but well-known for a century now), and The MEDIA.<br />
<br />
"God is ded. We kilt'm. Long live mother Earth/Pachamama/Shiva/SCIENCE and stuff."<br />
<br />
Wait. Didn't you just replace God with your gods that you just created in your own image and likeness?<br />
<br />
Let's look at your own image and likeness.<br />
<br />
You're fat. You're lazy. You're slothful. You're vicious. You're perverted.<br />
<br />
And you're not happy.<br />
<br />
Angry. Bitter. Sad.<br />
<br />
But not happy.<br />
<br />
This is the gods the atheists want us to worship: "THINK FOR YOURSELF! [but only if you think OUR way]. FREE YOURSELF FROM YOUR OPPRESSIVE GOD! [to be aborted, divorced, and used as a sex-object]. FIGHT DA MAN! [to drink his corporate coffee, litter the streets (forcing poor workers to clean up after your pollution), and make photocopies as he cheats on his wife with you... in the supply closet. Only to dump you and fire you when he's done with you. How romantic.]"<br />
<br />
Is that what you want?<br />
<br />
Because that's what you get when you go the way that the World offers you.<br />
<br />
I've met some mellow individuals who are atheists, but they are the thoughtful, and truly independent ones. They don't spout anybody else's nonsense, except their own, and usually, they are self-aware enough to know that they don't know. These are the very, very few atheists I have met.<br />
<br />
Maybe one person. Maybe two.<br />
<br />
The rest ...?<br />
<br />
The rest, I pray for you, but that's all I can do. I can't stop your one-way, determined, grim charge straight down to the pits of hell, not without me being caught up in that entangled mess of self-hate, self-loathing, and self-destruction. So: good luck to you, and buy an asbestos suit, because you're going to need it.<br />
<br />
And, yeup, me, too. I'm not exempt because I'm pious or self-righteous. Jesus made that very clear, and I hear Him. I don't 'deserve' heaven. Nobody does. Heaven is a gift from God, freely given, and all we have to do is accept it by loving Him.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If ye love me, keep my commandments.</blockquote>
It's really that simple. His commandments are not oppressive. His commandments are posts in the ground: "There's a cliff beyond this mark. Stay on this side, My side, and be safe. Step out of the line, and you die."<br />
<br />
That's comforting. Dad told you: "Son! Don't touch the stove!" But did you listen? No, and you got burned. Dad doesn't say: "Don't touch the stove!" because he's a meanie and he's so disempowering to you. Dad said "Don't touch the stove!" because he loves you and he doesn't want you to hurt yourself.<br />
<br />
"Son, don't rape children. Daughter, don't sell your body for love, because you'll get sex, and not love, and no self-worth. Son, don't cut your dick off."<br />
<br />
What do the atheists say? What does LBGTQBBQIDGAF say? The exact opposite.<br />
<br />
And are they happy?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitjV7j0kSdKdub2DgRL5RyHZf-zyOW337DWhTEusy_MVeselUKR7bDOL6t2GYTo5BocuR9L3ryDZSC7FPstRbec5-hHdMUPpnp1J1CI7fla5pT70FyF4YkAW5V04JGlHJcdApySbbBfXQ/s1600/fatherlessness.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitjV7j0kSdKdub2DgRL5RyHZf-zyOW337DWhTEusy_MVeselUKR7bDOL6t2GYTo5BocuR9L3ryDZSC7FPstRbec5-hHdMUPpnp1J1CI7fla5pT70FyF4YkAW5V04JGlHJcdApySbbBfXQ/s320/fatherlessness.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Fatherlessness is the cause of unhappiness. People who have sex-change operations regret it. Homosexuality is 1% of the population but over 25% of pedophilia. Black Live Matter seeks to destroy the nuclear family to destroy what is good for the children.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 19.389423370361328px;">"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure..." ~ Black Lives Matter: <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/">What we believe</a>.</span></blockquote>
This is the present that atheists, Black Lives Matter, and feminists ("Down with the Patriarchy! Women should be free to destroy their bodies with chemicals now [birth control] to be used as sex-objects and chemicals later [Xanax] when the depression hits and they ask themselves: 'why have we destroyed all the good men?'") want you to have.<br />
<br />
What about God's Presence?<br />
<br />
3 pm is the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Yeup, one of those long Catholic prayers that we're 'forced' to do.<br />
<br />
Except, what are you doing this quarantine, this Sunday? ... besides reading my blog?<br />
<br />
My daughters belong to a group of young men and women, who, every day for a certain part of the day, turn their eyes toward God as a community of Faith.<br />
<br />
Boring, no? Onerous, no?<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
They <i>run</i> to the laptop to join the zoom to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and afterwards, for a good hour now, they meet with their friends and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Joy of the LORD will be my strength</blockquote>
They pray, they obey, they are homeschooled, and, instead of being 'not socialized' (to what norm? kids in their swim team are having sex at the age of 14, ... so they can be like everybody else and be liked), they are centered, they are respected, they are leaders among their peers.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.</blockquote>
They fear the LORD, and they obey their parents. Honoring your parents is the first Commandment where God promises blessings. Honoring your parents brings honor to your family and honor to yourself. Honoring your parents gives you a touchstone that centers you for the rest of your life. Where this generation (and <i>all</i> generations) are cut adrift it the sea of 'my rights, my self, my stuff,' these kids, these few kids who honor their parents and honor the LORD are...<br />
<br />
... are happy, and joyful, and free to give themselves because they are fed from the wellspring that never runs dry.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="51004014" style="border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”</a></blockquote>
</blockquote>
Lord, give me this water.geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-27666435015034698082020-06-16T22:41:00.000-05:002020-06-16T22:41:12.756-05:00My Mom<div style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo3mb78Qnw8ZOSjjNCO-g8Fcw5UvMHR-yuOgwV2akF6McVcIjJElh4nMzfYnmqxsAgAekFvZiZlfSTANCVklmDLQICkxBKDqNq_5USN8t7NdT5s8cCkdhnebk-OmV11cD-rfaAbURiTFA/s1600/fav.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="973" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo3mb78Qnw8ZOSjjNCO-g8Fcw5UvMHR-yuOgwV2akF6McVcIjJElh4nMzfYnmqxsAgAekFvZiZlfSTANCVklmDLQICkxBKDqNq_5USN8t7NdT5s8cCkdhnebk-OmV11cD-rfaAbURiTFA/s320/fav.jpeg" width="315" /></a></div>
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Hi. I'm back.</div>
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So.</div>
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I'm Doug Auclair, 'Paula's son, and it's so hard for me to say her name: 'Paula,' because, to me, she was always, "Mom." And I wonder, looking at you, who she was to you and what she meant to you, and, if you want to tell me, I'd really like to know that.</div>
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Because I'm going to tell you now who she was to me, and maybe you'll see something in her, from my words, that you didn't see in her before?</div>
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But I hope not.</div>
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But maybe you will. Because unlike my dad or me, mom wasn't a person who was the speechifying-type, she didn't make grandiose gestures. And, when my dad, or I, or anybody else, for that matter, got into the speechifying-mood, Mom would at best tolerate it for, eh, maybe two and a half minutes, but you could be sure there would be much eye-rolling from her during a ceremony like this which would appall Mom, who would wonder why all this fuss! ... over little old her?</div>
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No, she was a very private person, but, if you earned it, sometimes, some very few times, she would open her heart to you, just a little bit.</div>
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So.</div>
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I'm going to say three words to you:</div>
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Sudoku.</div>
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Boo-ray.</div>
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... and this last word is a fun one for me, d-mn yankee that I am: Pecans.</div>
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Those were some of Mom's favorite things in the world! Did you know that? Probably not. And if you did know that, God bless you, because you were that close to her that she shared these private joys of hers (especially WINNIN' at BOO-RAY!) with you.</div>
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Mom, ... God!</div>
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When Beki and I arrived at Mom's apartment, it was if we just got home from school, you know? The TV was on, if we could walk a straight line across the room, it was because you were driving a bulldozer. What a mess!</div>
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But Mom didn't care about that, because you know why? Because Mom was comfortable with who she was and where she was in life, ... and in death. My wife, Diane, asked me, "Do you think your mom has any regrets?" My answer was "No." Mom lived her life exactly the way she wanted to live her life, because she choose who she was, every single day, and she lived by her choices.</div>
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Beki and I discussed this. I said to Beki that Mom chose to be herself. Beki laughed because Sof said those same words to her when Sof was a little girl, and Beki hasn't heard that since until I mentioned that about Mom. But what does 'being yourself' mean? We hear that all the time.</div>
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Mom lived her life fearlessly. A lot of people when they're faced with the decision: "Do I tell this person what they're doing is wrong? or hurtful? or disrespectful? or unhealthy?" Most people will say: "Eh." which really translates not into: "Oh, I don't want to bother them" which is a little lie they tell themselves, but instead, they are really saying: "I'm scared."</div>
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If you saw my mom, you saw fearlessness. And you need look no further than my sister Beki to see that legacy live on.</div>
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Mom would have that conversation with you, and she would do whatever she had to do to break through your own fear, or prejudices, or ignorance, to get you to see things differently and better, even if you didn't like it, and even if you didn't wanna.</div>
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She held you to the highest possible standard.</div>
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Why?</div>
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Michael told Beki this last night. "I loved your mom. She treated me like a human being."</div>
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Mom demanded you be your best self, courageous and wise, because when you live in fear, you are no longer a human being, you are a slave, and Mom hated slavery, in any of its forms.</div>
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Mom demanded you be your very best, and she was uncompromising about that, but that was only fair, because what she demanded of you, she demanded of herself at least twice as much: she didn't demand she be her best self: she demanded she be better than her best self, as a true follower of Christ should.</div>
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In the end, maybe you're not going to remember me, and you're not going to remember my words, but I do ask that you honor the memory of my mom. How? Live your life fearlessly. Every time my mom faced something scary she had to do? Was she scared? Yes, she was. She was scared sometimes. I saw it. But did she do what she felt she had to do, even if she didn't feel like it?</div>
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Yes, she did, every single time. And, doing what she had to do, every single time, she lived her life as herself, as nobody else could, and, that's how she could live her life freely, and without regrets.</div>
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And that's how you can live your life freely, and without regrets, and when you do that scary thing that you thought you couldn't do, or have that scary conversation that you thought you couldn't have, say a silent prayer of thanks: "Paula Auclair, Mom, you fearless woman, you let me do this. Thank you. Amen."</div>
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Now I'm going to become my dad for one more minute and reintroduce my cousin, Leila, who is going to sing the Trisagion, which you may know as the "Holy, Holy"-prayer, but we, Mom and me, and probably some of you of Lebanese descent, know as the Qadishat Aloho, which is the most important prayer of the Mass after the Abba, Our Father-prayer. And my Momma, being here, to hear her niece sing the prayer that her granddaughters, Elena Marie and Isabel, sing in ancient Syriac or Aramaic from memory, my mom would be so pleased, and so proud, and so happy to have her niece sing to her aunt's memory a beautiful song of one of the central tenets of our Faith: "Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One." God is great, and Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Leila?</div>
geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-45574699905082998982020-06-16T22:38:00.001-05:002020-06-16T22:38:30.293-05:00Dad's eulogy to Mom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Before I start, I'd like to preface my remarks with gratitude: for my family, of course, my sister, Lynda, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Gretchen, their children, ... and their children, Sissy, the Verandah staff and residents, Lonelle and the staff at the Johnson Funeral Home, but especially to Beki. If you know me, and you know Beki, as most of you do not, then you know what an honor, and what great trust Beki has placed in me in asking me to speak in these closing remarks. And, if you look at Beki, and I ask you do look at her, you will see her power, poise, grace, and dignity, and kindness.</div>
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Hello, I'm Doug Auclair, the shy and quiet son of Paula.</div>
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I'm going to ask those of you who are willing, to indulge me for three seconds. In a moment, I'm going to become my dad, so, when I ask you to close your eyes, I'd like you to see in your mind me step away from the podium, and a guy who looks and talks and acts almost exactly like me, because I am my dad, except he's 50-100 pounds lighter and he has this lady-killer baby-blues for eyes, so, now, please, close your eyes for three seconds, and let my dad read this letter to my mom.</div>
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Hello, I'm Rod Auclair, please open your eyes. I really appreciate you all coming to this gathering. I'd like to take a moment or two of your time and read this letter.</div>
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"Dearest Paula,</div>
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About 12 years ago I began a letter to you, but did not finish the first sentence. </div>
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I had just come back from being with you in Lake Charles while you were going through chemotherapy. You came through those uncertain times, and I took for granted you would outlive me. Once again, and to my regret, you showed me how little I know. But what I do know, and do treasure, are those moments, those memories, you – funny, smart, beautiful you – gave me.</div>
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Your first postcard when I was stationed in Thule, Greenland: "Happy Fathers' Day, you no-good bum!" in large print for all the postal chain to read. Your croaky voice on our first telephone call over the complicated military communication network by way of the Presidio Army Base, high above San Francisco, as you were just recovering from a tonsillectomy. The way you would bump me sideways while we walked along, just to make sure I was listening. Introducing me to a grasshopper for dessert at our magical dinner at the top of the Mark.</div>
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You, in your glorious hand-made by your friend wedding gown, and me, so proud, in my white and black mess dress officer's uniform at our wedding.</div>
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You and me, blushing, when I asked Father as he witnessed and blessed our vows by saying, a little too evilly, "May I kiss her now?" and he smiled, shook his head and said: "Not just yet." </div>
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You, so game, about our 3rd floor walk-up apartment on 77 Ann Street, in Newburgh, New York, directly across the street from the city police station where the chief, at the behest of the Mother Superior of Mount Saint Mary's College, where I stopped and asked if I could stay the night, had suggested that I ask the chief of police to stay in the pokey, that was five years earlier on a bicycle trip cross-country from Connecticut to Illinois and back. Talk about deja vu!</div>
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That look on our faces as nurse told us in the elevator to: "Say goodbye for now!" as you got on to go upstairs and give birth to our son, Douglas, in April, 1967, seven days before your birthday.</div>
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Those tears of joy, release, and amazement when we were together to bring a cranky, bawling, bloody, eyes-shut Rebecca into the world September, 1970, only ten days after my own birthday.</div>
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Our two children and your daughter, Lynda, so bright, so beautiful, so different. We are so blessed!</div>
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I am grateful for all you brought to all our lives. For the way you gave me insight and perspective into what is just, what is inclusive, boorish, redundant, wise or insensitive. </div>
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Two thoughts, and then I'll let you go. One is from Thornton Wilder in his book "The Bridge of San Luis Rey": "There is a bridge between the living and the dead, and that bridge is love." And one from St. Thomas More: "Pray for me, and I for thee, that we may meet in heaven, pritheely." </div>
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Much love from,</div>
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a no-good bum"</div>
geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-30872665032947739822020-02-23T09:20:00.001-05:002020-02-23T09:20:17.881-05:00el stroganoff du bœurf d'el geophfSo, this is my beef stroganoff-in-a-pot recipe<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxoUbOE0lhWvPaCq2ScGfTueXAQ5T95KVHxhEH5t8MpidyhEH0JpAUxvP9whnIgYS1JfpHGdioICQ0NToRPa8xKmxt5D7CKnCr-dnjFDNxKB7EsIo-4wZjrEIoRJ913OWoGGTnd1AYpI/s1600/strog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxoUbOE0lhWvPaCq2ScGfTueXAQ5T95KVHxhEH5t8MpidyhEH0JpAUxvP9whnIgYS1JfpHGdioICQ0NToRPa8xKmxt5D7CKnCr-dnjFDNxKB7EsIo-4wZjrEIoRJ913OWoGGTnd1AYpI/s320/strog.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Ingredients:<br />
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<li>1 package egg noodles</li>
<li>two cans of cream of mushroom soup</li>
<li><span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; text-align: center;">½ </span>onion, diced</li>
<li>1<span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; text-align: center;">½</span> lbs ground beef (organic) with seasonings (garlic powder, salt, pepper to taste)</li>
<li>1 package sliced mushrooms (you can get them whole, I guess, but why)</li>
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Directions:</div>
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Dice mushrooms, put in YUGE pot, sautéing with olive oil. Add ground beef, seasoning, and mushrooms, stirring until all beef cooked. Add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, add 2 cans of water. Stir until mixed. Pour in egg noodles. Stir continuously until done.</div>
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Voilà! Serve with vodka, mais bien sûr!</div>
geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-58607866564014602222019-12-01T18:52:00.003-05:002019-12-01T18:52:55.969-05:00Sadness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Hey, you! I'm just now leavin'<br />
Can I come around sometime this evening?"<br />
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It's such a sad song, because he keep texting his (ex-)gf, and she keep not texting back.<br />
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"I know it's not the truth when you say<br />
'I'm fine.'<br />
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So, go ahead and break my heart again,<br />
And leaving me wondering why the hell I ever let you in!"<br />
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Yes, I keep listening to FINNEAS' songs, over and over and over again. Ugh. But no, there is no limit to sadness, because there is no limit, right? Whenever you discover: 'It can't get any worse than this!' it gets worse, and then it gets much worse.<br />
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A neighbor of Dad's, their son OD'd, and that it. That's the limit. He was here, and brought his parents joy, and now he's not anymore.<br />
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So ... be thankful? Be thankful you're sad? Because, one day, you won't be, and that'll be it. You had this time, to be sad, yes, but that's it. That's the limit.<br />
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Time to go out and get KAKĒ, because it's the eighteenth birthday of my daughter, Elena Marie, and ... "... it feels good ... eating alone." ~ FINNEASgeophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-4958608253419974742019-03-09T16:35:00.000-05:002019-03-09T16:35:40.828-05:00LaundryToday I did my laundry, tweeps.<br />
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Here's what I do with every day I'm given. I pick one thing, say I'm going to do it, then do it. Two+ years ago, July 12th, I was dead, save one nurse who wouldn't let me just give up, and by God's grace. I know every day is a gift from God.<br />
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What am I going to do with this gift?<br />
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That way, I know, if I were to die today, I can die having done just this one thing today.<br />
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How many people can say that?<br />
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Now, I know you housewives are reading this and saying: "Oh! Good boy! He did laundry. Wow. Pat on the head and everything." Okay, so you do laundry every day.<br />
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Good.<br />
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God bless you. Thank you and thank God for doing the laundry today, and every day.<br />
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But, so then 'doing the laundry' isn't you're one thing, because you're not grateful for that gift of work from God.<br />
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Pick something else. Pick something that stretches you. Say a Rosary. Make sandwiches for the homeless shelter. Go to Mass today. Something<br />
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Pick something; do it<br />
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St. Josemarie Escriva saw it, the Work: "Ora et Labora" in your work, pray. In your prayer, work. Work; pray. Pray; word. That way God is in all things that you do today, and all things that you do today are in God.<br />
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Sanctify the 'drudgery' with thanks to God for it.<br />
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Then the 'drudgery' of (e.g.) doing the laundry: it isn't a chore, anymore. It isn't a thankless chore, because YOU are thanking God for being given the gift of doing it, and having this quiet time to pray to Him, and say: "God, help! I can't make it today!" or "Thank You, God!"<br />
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CAST your burdens upon the LORD<br />
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http://www.usccb.org/bible/1peter/5:7 …<br />
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If you have to cry, Cry to Him who loves you with an all-encompassing Love. God wants to hug you so hard, and be with you through your difficulties.<br />
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And you you do something, and you say "Daddy, daddy! I made this clay ashtray for you!" God is so, so proud of you, His little one whom He loves, that His Sacred Heart is fit to burst.<br />
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God made you and me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven. He cannot be happier when you turn to Him with your trouble and your triumphs. God is with you through and in it all.<br />
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Sanctifying Grace.<br />
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God is right here.<br />
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God: "I'm right here."<br />
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The blessings He pours down upon us, stirred up, shaken down and overflowing are here for you in superabundance.<br />
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Pick one thing, today.<br />
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And thank God for the grace that you can do just this one thing.<br />
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Amen.<br />
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Today, by the grace of God, I did my laundry, tweeps.geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5314517715320133664.post-50900453081893031822019-01-08T15:22:00.001-05:002019-01-08T15:44:25.380-05:00One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic ChurchQuestion from a dear reader: Tell me how a Maronite differs from Roman?<br />
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Answer:<br />
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So, we're all One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We express our faith and worship to God in different <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_particular_churches_and_liturgical_rites">Rites</a> (mostly along cultural lines, but there are Rites for how the mass is celebrated, even within the same culture). The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrean_Catholic_Church">Eritrean</a> Catholic Church is a Rite in its own right, but based upon the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_Catholic_Church">Coptic</a> Rite, I am told, but the Eritrean Mass is in no way celebrated like the Coptic Mass is. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Rite">Byzantine</a> Rites (I learned from <a href="https://twitter.com/VassalOfChrist">VassalOfChrist</a> that the Byzantine tradition has several Rites associated with it) has a very Eastern (European/Russian/Slavic/German) way of celebrating the Divine Liturgy (what those Rites call the Mass). The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_liturgical_rites">Latin</a> Rites ('Roman') have several Rites associated with that tradition, did you know that? Each with their distinctive way of celebrating the Mass. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronite_Church">Maronite</a> Rite is a very different Rite than all the other Rites, being 1,000 years in isolation, surrounded by Islam on all sides, but it has hints to it of both the Latin Rites (after the reunification with Rome in only very recent history) and the Eastern Rites.<br />
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Each of these Rites have their distinct form of worship, but each is unified in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith, so we all share some traditions with Rome and all have parts of the Mass/Divine Liturgy that you could recognize if you stumbled into a different Rite accidentally on purpose.<br />
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Others can talk about the beauty of their own Rites, let me talk a little bit about the Maronite Rite.<br />
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What strikes me in a Maronite Mass, like in a Byzantine Divine Liturgy, is the absolute awe and certainty of God's Divine Majesty. In both Rites during our Mass/Divine Liturgy, we keep calling out to God and praising Him. This is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisagion">Trisagion</a> in the Maronite Rite:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #f7ed9f; font-family: "verdana" , "verdana" , "arial"; font-size: 13px;">ܩܰܕܺܝܫܰܬ ܐܰܠܳܗܳܐ</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f7ed9f; font-family: "verdana" , "verdana" , "arial"; font-size: 13px;">ܩܰܕܺܝܫܰܬ ܚܰܝܠܬܳܢܳܐ</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f7ed9f; font-family: "verdana" , "verdana" , "arial"; font-size: 13px;">ܩܰܕܺܝܫܰܬܠܳܐ ܡܳܝܽܘܬܳܐ</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f7ed9f; font-family: "verdana" , "verdana" , "arial"; font-size: 13px;">ܐܶܬܪܰܚܰܡ ܥܰܠܝܢ</span><br />
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(Here is the youtube link to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dlGR94v720">Quadishat Aloho</a>/Holy God if video does not play.)<br />
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Note that we sing this in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_language">Syriac</a>, which is close to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language">Aramaic</a>, the language Jesus spoke. And that you notice right away: parts of the Mass are in the vernacular (English in the USA), Arabic, and then the high, holy parts (the Consecration and the Trisagion) are in Syriac.<br />
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Also, a lot goes into preparation both for the priest and the people. There are chants for vesting and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVzZTNuf57w">incensing</a>, even before the Mass begins (so don't be late, or you'll miss out!), the priest is asked for blessings before the readings, and the people are asked to pay attention to the word of God. The Gospel is read in the vernacular, then in Arabic. After Mass, at <a href="http://ololdc.org/parish/newchurch.html">Our Lady of Lebanon</a> in Washington, D.C., we have a holy hour of adoration. There are no kneelers in the church, because we remember when families had to run or be killed in the church by the monotheists (both Islamic and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism">Arian</a>) both in history and even today, with the our brother Coptic martyrs of the Church in the Middle East.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRk-D9gUzrFPQ7ZhmaiOTXN_A0p5ZlzLT26wx8JODySdGT5lRlZZHj4hw65TMkgroHignadGc6VvzGSWSD1KZsYOVCQBzPukb8Bwrt3vonCFGUdUbxHPRdjdU_-Gyv0Nwdw6bPnOeb3Vg/s1600/21-coptic-martyrs.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRk-D9gUzrFPQ7ZhmaiOTXN_A0p5ZlzLT26wx8JODySdGT5lRlZZHj4hw65TMkgroHignadGc6VvzGSWSD1KZsYOVCQBzPukb8Bwrt3vonCFGUdUbxHPRdjdU_-Gyv0Nwdw6bPnOeb3Vg/s320/21-coptic-martyrs.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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What I think, when I think of the Splendor of the Truth of the Catholic Church, is this: what a superabundant grace God has given us! He speaks to us each in his own language and tradition, but He speaks to us in one voice: Jesus, the Christ, our Lord and Savior, and we bow down and we worship the Lord in this various and diverse Rites in one voice in response, glorifying and praising God.<br />
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But not only that, but each Rite has something to give to its own, but to other Rites. You want the proof of the Universality of the Church on Earth? Look no further than the length and the strength of the reach of the Latin Rites! You want absolute fall-on-your-face adoration of God-Most-Holy, spoken in Jesus' native tongue? Look no further than the Maronite Rite! You want to know with certainty that Mary – Mary, ever pure, ever virgin, is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theotokos">Θεοτόκος/Theotokos</a>, the Mother of God? Look no further than a Byzantine Divine Liturgy! I have found, attending other Rites' sacrifices of the Mass – Maronite, Roman (both Novus Ordo and Extraordinary Form), Eritrean, and Byzantine – that my Catholic Faith is not only strengthened, but deepened. What does the 'Holy, holy, holy' mean, viscerally? Is Mary really the Mother of God? What does 'Universal Church' mean, physically? Certain Rites show you things about your Faith that you take for granted in your own Rite.<br />
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One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church: the Catholic Church has it all, because we have Jesus, the Christ, and Christ has us.geophfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09936874508556500234noreply@blogger.com0