Pages

Powered By Blogger

Sunday, May 6, 2007

A Lazy Sunday

We are all just floating around the house. Having been able to avoid going to church by the narrowest of margins. As usual my wife Maryanne a resolute Catholic begins the countdown for the family. Thirty minutes to church, the three of us Evan my 13 year old son, Emily my 16 year old daughter wince as her voice carries throughout the our house. The count down carries on every 10 minutes or so till its time to get into the car, that is when I leap from my bed newspapers flying off me creating my own paper tornado. I quickly rally as do the kids as we run downstairs to the waiting car, my wife already in her front passenger seat, a big smile on her face as we pile in. But wait a problem, Evan is dressed like he rolled out of a cot at the local homeless shelter. I bellow at him, "Evan get upstairs and put some nice clothes on. Dammit." He does this about every other week or so. It is his way of sticking to the man or mom in this case. He sloooowly ambles up into the house upstairs to his room, into the closet to look for his "nice" pants. He finally comes back to the car after agonizing minutes of me beeping the horn, Maryanne and I discussing leaving him home and making him go to a later Mass, thus missing his base ball game. Finally he comes to the car, with a big smile that turns instantly mellows us both out, like a day at the beach, and we leave for church.

As I drive to church I think of many things, how I love my family, how nice it is just the four of us driving in the car, with every ones schedule it is a rarity today. Then my thoughts shift to a darker side. Can I drive slow enough to miss the beginning of church, will we get a good parking spot or will we have to walk far. The parking lot at a Catholic Church after mass still has the look of the Roman part of Roman Catholic as drivers joust and feint and battle for early exit.

We get to church and of course no parking. We have to walk 3 miles or so it seems to the front of the church, my wife scurrying us along like a mother hen. We may have to stand in the back or split up she says. I will go left with Emily you go right with Evan we can signal each other by text message as each row is numbered. As we go up the stairs to enter the church, Maryanne spies little girls wearing white veils and little boys with ties. She turns to us alarmed. Its a communion mass! Of course, its May, 10:00 o'clock mass, tons of cars people everywhere. We turn and execute a tight roll like the Blue Angels at an air show. Bail,bail, bail bail... we head back for the car the three of us smiling, light hearted, happy. Maryanne is on the cell phone checking other churches. But the momentum is lost, we enter the car and drive home where the day begins. Evan has baseball , Emily is working, I am writing this blog and Maryanne just left for Mass. Where she will pray for our souls, especially mine.