Had a birthday this week. The day itself was pretty nice. Rest of the week has been mildly sucky, going back to the day before.
Sunday morning, early, had a group bike ride. One fairly newbie had never been on this route before, started having heart rate issues and fell behind the group. I hung back to make sure he’d be able to find his way back home. When we met up with the group for coffee (since I knew they’d been waiting already, I ordered an iced mocha, which went down fast and really hit the spot), I’d ensured the new guy knew how to get home, and was really looking forward to pushing it with the rest of the group. Just after we started, I thought I heard something hit the street. I quickly looked down, but didn’t notice anything amiss with the bike. About a block later the guy behind me pipes up: “Hey, did somebody drop a speedometer or something?” Sure enough, I’d dropped my cyclocomputer (just a couple square inches), which I’d pulled back slightly from its bracket when I’d stopped and forgotten to reseat. “Oh, [expletive deleted],” I said, turning around hoping it had survived the fall and bounces, as the group pressed on, either not realizing or not caring that I’d run into a problem. After two loops back to look for it, and with the group long out of sight, I gave up and started on my way. I hoped to catch sight of them to finish the ride together, figuring they might’ve realized something was up and waited on me, but never did spot them.
The further I rode, the angrier I got. By the time I got home I was totally pissed off. To tell you the truth, it affected me all week. The computer was probably broken as soon as it hit the pavement, but since a replacement is going to cost at least $30 (if I don’t upgrade to a heart rate monitor, which I really am not ready to do), it would have been nice to have recovered it if possible, and four extra pair of eyes couldn’t have hurt. Lacking that, I was really looking forward to the group ride, which I’d missed out on the first part of by hanging back for the other guy’s benefit.
This is still not resolved. Nobody has sent me an e-mail asking me what happened. I can’t really send out an e-mail about it without being a whiner. For that matter, nobody dropped a line letting me know when they were riding midweek; I didn’t get one in, either, as I did yard work on Wed and worked late to make up for taking time off for an eye appt on Thurs. It looks like we're riding again on Sunday, though.
The eye appointment was another issue. I finally got contacts again last week, for the first time in 20 years. They’re bifocal, which are supposed to take some adjusting to. My distance vision is great with them, but I can’t focus on anything closer than three feet yet. Well, I only worked one day after getting them last week, spending last Thursday and Friday volunteering at this year's Habitat house, so I haven’t gotten into the habit of putting the things in each morning. So Monday, I just habitually slapped on my glasses and headed off to work. I put the contacts in when I got home, but most of my close-in reading happens during the work day. As a result, after one day at work with them in followed by five days without them, Tuesday sucked. I could barely see my computer screen. Of course, I can’t put on a pair of reading glasses, as that will screw up the adjustment process. Wednesday was a little better, until I apparently scratched my eye with the corner of a fingernail taking them out in the evening. Now on Saturday I'll be back to square one on the adjustment process, as I’m not supposed to put them back in until then.
Sorry. I know I’m abundantly blessed, and this has been nothing but a big gripe session. I mean, my home isn’t under several feet of water like my midwest neighbors to the west. I still have a good job and a wonderful family. Just blowing off some steam.
BOSS - Blowing Off Some Steam. (My unofficial, unpaid job is creating acronyms!)
ReplyDeleteStopping by to say hi. Tough week. But as you note, it could have been worse.
I'm nearsighted but wear glasses, bifocal, progressive (so the line doesn't show). My glasses are basically useless at work, as the doctor told me earlier this year. Gotta go back and get some computer glasses.
Happy belated birthday!
So which order do the priests at your parish belong to? Our current parish is diocesan. Kinda makes the place a bit bland but I guess we get out of it what we put into it. Our deacon, who we absolutely love, is moving to our former parish which is led by Franciscans. Thinking about going back there when he transfers.
Be good!
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the note. I really need to get this post off the top of my blog; it has had "pride of place" far longer than it deserved. Fortunately the rough week is behind me, and my eyeballs seem to be adapting to the contacts now that I've had them in a few days in a row.
Our priests are both diocesan, but also both wonderful. We've been really fortunate. We have a great parish community, which tends to attract good priests. Obviously the bishop actually assigns them, but he always has a good pool of candidates to choose from. We had only one priest until this past winter, and he is a sort of area administrator with a bunch of extra responsibilities. One of our partner parishes had a wonderful priest from India staying there and doing some work in the parish while he worked on his doctorate at the University of Dayton, which is a Marianist institution. When he applied to join our archdiocese, it made sense for him to be able to continue the programs he's been developing in our partner parish, but also to ease some of the workload on our pastor, so he's now assigned to our parish but continues to work closely with our neighboring parish as well.
For us, it is more a matter of being in a community that nurtures us spiritually than who the priest is. Then again, that's pretty easy to say when you've got great priests, too! But we're so active, me with music ministry and men's fellowship, my wife with a mom's group (to which she takes the grandkids regularly), both of us in a small faith-sharing community and with lots of good friends, including most of my cycling group. I can't imagine going elsewhere even if we had a priest that didn't help us so well spiritually. Now, if we had one who I felt was actually leading people astray, and I'd done everything I could to address the situation, that might be a different matter . . .
Sorry to hear your week has been tough. Hope the one ahead is better!
Thanks for your inputs.
ReplyDeleteI guess where I'm coming from is we were really involved in the former parish (led by Franciscans) and for one reason or another, have not gotten involved in the current parish. We should try to put more in before complaining about not getting anything out. But that might be uncomfortable, make us stretch! Dang, the inherent laziness of some of us!
So when does this post start it's march downwards? What's going on?
Be good.
Tom
I know what you mean, parish-wise. There are churches that are all about the personality of the pastor or other ministers, or maybe an uplifting music ministry. But I think you've hit the mark: our relationship with our parish is like any other. When we don't put much into it, we don't get much out, either. Not of any depth or duration, anyway. Oh, but we can have a really great infatuation for a while!
ReplyDeleteNow that I can see up close again (they changed my contacts; one more change coming though, as now they've screwed up my distance vision!) I'm sure I'll be both reading and posting more.