Shall We Dance?

Where does the time go?

I'm still here in the Midwest. Soon I'll return to my station. Everything here is different. Everything there will be different.

The second I get home, Sister St. Aloysius is taking off for a think tank. She does this every so often. She'll be away for six weeks.
Let me tell you a story. When I was a girl, I used to like to play in my aunt's barn. We had a giant thick rope that hung from the very top of the barn, through the hole up to the hayloft, down to the barn floor. We tied it in a big loop. There was a large coil of rope left on the ground. One kid would stand in the loop and the other kid would grab the end of the rope and pull it across the length of the barn. The kid standing in the loop would be just about parallel to the floor. Then the kid pulling the rope would let go and the kid in the loop would swing really high, back and forth across the barn.

What a riot!

My friend was in standing in the loop and I pulled the rope across the barn and let go. Just as I let go, I looked down and saw that the whole rest of the rope coil on the ground was wrapped around my ankle. But it was too late. I hollered for her to stop, but the rope came taut around my leg and jerked me across the barn.

I was actually mad at her for not stopping, as if there were any way that she could have stopped. I was the one that stood in the coil like a dope. I had to control myself and my inane resentment.

So Sister St. Aloysius is swinging off to the think tank and my ankle is in the coil with Sister Nicholas.

Did I mention I still have a scar around my ankle from the rope burn?

Ah well. We get used to even the most unacceptable situations. (Unless we are Paddy the Papist.) I was used to our little household and it's eccentricities and now I will have to adjust to a new set of foibles, surprises and habits. It should be interesting as Sister St. Aloysius and I have become a well oiled, if somewhat cockamamie, machine.

For example, getting Sister Mary Fiacre in and out of her wheel chair was our own personal science project. We park her wheelchair at just the right angle to the easy chair. Then we lean her forward. Then we heft her out of the chair by grabbing her belt and spinning her around into the chair. She sort of lands with a plop, but the job gets done.

There was a time not so long ago that she could take a step or two, so we could actually stand her up and hold onto her while she turned around. But now her feet really don't leave the floor so much, so when we went to pivot her into the chair, Sister St. Aloysius became alarmed that her ankle would snap, since her feet didn't move and the rest of her body was now facing the opposite direction. She came up with the fabulous plan to stick a bread bag under Sister Mary Fiacre's pivot foot. It did the trick! Her foot slid right around! Genius! Now we always make sure we have our plastic grocery bag or bread bag everywhere we go.

Someone was trying to talk us into having a reusable bag to take shopping. It was too tedious to try to explain that we need a steady supply of the plastic ones and it has nothing to do with the environment.

I suppose it's my way of carrying on my father's legacy of being personally responsible for global warming.

Anyhow, our whole day is like that, every day. Our prayers and readings, moving
Sister Mary Fiacre around and seeing to her, more prayers and chores, more Sister Mary Fiacre hefting. I feel a little like Fred Astaire without Ginger Rogers.

Thanks so much, everyone, for your prayers and compassion.

I'm ready to get back into the swing of things. Sort of.

Any questions?