Monday, April 27, 2015

Mother and son bowling, and electric candles?! on the 4th Sunday of Easter...

Happy Monday everyone! I'm feeling a bit sleepy, but otherwise quite well. It's rather overcast here today in Western New York, but there's a definitely spring feeling in the air. We'll take it!

As we continue to celebrate Easter, yesterday was no exception to my feelings of happy joy. :) The kids and I made our usual pilgrimage to the 10 am Mass at our parish, and though the Easter flowers dwindle, the spirit pervades! I was amused to note a short message from our pastor in the bulletin. He's doing his best to not step on any toes given how new he is, that dear Fr. Joe, but decisions need to be made, and money is in short supply, so sometimes tough calls have to be issued. Exhibit A: candles.

:0

Change does not come easily in our parish, and people are attached to their devotional candles. You know, the ones you light on a stand near the front or back of the sanctuary, for a special intention, and then you drop a couple of bucks in the donation slot? They are very popular in our parish, and a year ago or so, the price noted for each size of candle increased a bit. Our former pastor put a note in the bulletin saying that the cost associated with the candles is purely their supply cost, the parish does not make any money from them, but the cost had gone up, so obviously those choosing to purchase a candle needed to know this and start making up the difference. That went fine and without much fanfare, it's simple inflation.

Well, apparently the candle costs have gone up *again* and Fr. Joe has decided to make an alternative suggestion. He doesn't want to charge more for the candles, but yet the parish doesn't have the money to make up the difference. He is proposing that we move to, wait for it...electric candles. "They flicker and look very similar to traditional candles!" Precious Fr. Joe. I have no problem with this, but I can just see the Ladies Sodality mobilizing en masse to protect the integrity of traditional candles. We'll have to see how this turns out. ;-)

After Mass, Henry and I were slated to attend a mother/son bowling event sponsored by the parent association at his school. Henry was very excited about this, and I was very excited to spend some solo time with Henry, but if I'm being honest, I wasn't exactly looking forward to the actual bowling in public thing. I haven't bowled since, let's see...the 80's.

*audible gasp from the gallery*

Being a decent bowler at age 13, but then not bowling since then, doesn't really lend itself to a retained skill set, I am here to tell you. But I didn't want to dampen Henry's enthusiasm, so I did my best. As long as I don't humiliate myself in public I'm good.

That sounds like an ominous way to end off that paragraph, but everything went fine. :) Before we got started, I pulled out my camera and attempted to take a selfie of the two of us:

Yeah, that didn't go so well. :0 Henry was a bit scandalized by the thought of taking a real, live photograph IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE.

"I am humoring my mother, that is all that I am doing."
Henry, the dear, dear, child, has been saddled with my personality. This means that he is shy, introverted and somewhat socially awkward. Don't you wish you had these genes, dear reader?! He is such a sweet boy, but he would never say a word if he didn't have to. While we were waiting for our lane-mates to arrive, we sat side-by-side, totally silent, and happy as clams. Introverts don't need to physically communicate with each other to be soothed by the others' presence, you see. It's part of our behavioral ritual. Our complex and rich non-social infrastructure could be studied for publication in a peer reviewed journal.

;-)

When the others arrived, we did our best to greet them and got started. Henry beat me in both games. :0 Yikes, those bowling skills really don't carry over across decades, do they? I needed to use the special lighter ball because I apparently lack any sort of lower arm throwing strength needed for bowling. But I didn't fall or accidentally throw myself halfway down the lane, or anything like that, so life is grand. I'm not going to reveal my score here, for the sake of protecting at least an ounce of my dignity, but I did manage to pick up two spares, and let it be known that I did NOT have the lowest score on our lane. The fact that the lowest scorer appeared to be about 5 years old did nothing to diminish my joy of victory over this fact.

We had pizza and soda and tons of cookies and a great time was had by all. How was your weekend, dear reader?

3 comments:

  1. I've been to one parish that installed electric and another that had regular ones. There's pros and cons for each.

    The electric you just push a button. But you don't have to worry about curious children trying to light themselves on fire (only desiring to push every.single.button)

    On the other hand, the regular ones are just traditional and can mesmerized children into the devotion of praying for the departed.

    It's a toss up.

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  2. LOL! I hadn't thought of that, but yes, I can definitely see this. "I want to press ALL THE BUTTONS!!" :0

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  3. Um. Yeah. Our Parish went to electric candles maybe a year ago. I kind of dislike it. And, as my spirited child loves to get into things, she used to push as many as quickly as she could before I could grab her. sigh.

    I think there's pros and cons, but as a traditionalist I much prefer real candles.

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