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Friday, July 26, 2002

Heather: I don't hate painting. I will, however, question the sanity of anyone trying to paint two rooms in one day, especially one as detail-ridden as a kitchen. A bedroom and hallway, maybe. But kitchens have lots of cabinets and appliances and outlets and cupboards, and wrapping all of them in masking tape or moving them out of the way can drive a good person mad. Anyhoo, it's a horrible huge pain in the keister. I told my mother I may never paint another kitchen.
Madeleine seemed rather unimpressed by the turn of events or the newly brightened kitchen and hallway.
We got word yesterday that one of my coworkers passed away. He'd been ill pretty much through the whole last school year; the last diagnosis was liver cancer. He was looking at retirement and had taken on an extra class to bump up his pension but now he won't ever get it. I hope that extra class was fun and worth it without the pension money, and I hope he did get the retirement papers filled out and turned in so that his wife will get some survivor benefits.
I've never been to a coworker's funeral before. I've been to only a few since my dad passed away 9.5 years ago and they haven't gotten any more fun. Tomorrow we'll go by the funeral home and the funeral itself is Monday morning. I quite imagine it will be packed. He was a well-loved band teacher. Something I don't think I ever found the nerve to say to him was, "Why does it not surprise me that a middle school band teacher with as many years as you've got has two hearing aids?"
He always asked about Madeleine, knew some of the rather more personal things about pregnancy and childbirth (he was a man who knew about Kegels!), and offered to be my birthing coach if Dale couldn't take it. He did have two kids of his own so he had experience. I'm going to miss him.
One last comment, about Dale's post. I think that child abuse, especially of a sexual nature, has such far-reaching, devastating, and long-term effects that it's one of those crimes that should not have a statute of limitations, like murder. I realize that this action on the part of California's legislature is going to be catastrophic to various (all of the?) dioceses in California. I recognize that it's going to feed the anti-Catholic population of the world and it's throwing them a bone. But... it's time to clean house. Where is it where the Bible says something like plucking out your eye if it sins, better to be blind and enter the Kingdom of Heaven? If they are sinners and evil and wrongdoers, they should not be ministering and standing up in persona Christi,, or however you say as Christ.
I was going to say they shouldn't be ostracized from society, but if that's what it takes to protect the innocent, ship 'em off.

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