MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORES: WARNING - LOW BATTERIES

It was a long week.  And Friday was a long day in a long week.  There were all kinds of appointments that day, Stations of the Cross, two sessions of confessions, and then to top it off there was confirmation.  Everything about confirmation was great.  We have fantastic kids, Bishop Gries OSB was the celebrant (everybody loves Bishop Gries) we had a fabulous dinner beforehand thanks to Marcy and her crew (and I didn't even so much as smell the fish being served!) and the reception after was great.  And the kids made me SO PROUD when they responded "I DO!" so emphatically during the reaffirmation of their baptismal vows that the bishop jumped backward! 

But at the end of the day I was beat.  Beat, bat, beaten.

Then I received the most wonderful text from Marcy:

That was SO AWESOME!  That meant my day was truly over except for Night Prayer.  I got back to the rectory, kicked off my uncomfortable dress shoes and my "dress socks of strangulation," put on some "I'm not going anywhere or will be seen by anyone" pajama bottoms although I didn't take off my dress shirt - I was that exhausted to the point that the thought of unbuttoning it seemed too herculean of a project.

And then . . .

Marcy sent another text.  "Now that I think of it," she wrote, "Sebastian only went #1.  I bet he still needs to go #2."

*sigh*

I toyed with the idea for about two seconds of getting dressed again to walk the dog but that effort would have placed me in the nursing home.  So I slipped some dress shoes over my bare feet and headed out for the nightly airing out of the dog.

Now, I live IN THE CITY.  But I am always amazed that when we are on our night walk, we almost never run into anybody.  Many, many times, when a fellow priest or seminarian is over late and go on this final perambulation with me, I comment, "Can you believe that we are in the city, and all these houses are FULL of people, and these are main streets, and we run into NOBODY?  How is it possible that we are the ONLY ones out?"

Indeed, that is why I enjoy the night walk.  I think, finish prayers, or just unwind and it is quiet and peaceful save for the occasional skunk.  You can always count on it being quiet at night.

EXCEPT FOR LAST MOTHER-OF-PEARL FRIDAY NIGHT.  Everybody and their mother was out walking their dogs.  Cars drove around the parish as if they were moths and St. Sebastian was a giant light bulb.  It would have been ridiculous to the point of humor if it weren't so not-funny.