The First Thing After Mass This Sunday - A Bit of Yardwork

I know the garage is back there. Casa Hickey - a modest raised ranch in Morgan Park.


I get busy.  Drafting poignant, witty and very important indictments of folly universal do not spring unarmed from the HP keyboard like Minerva from the head of Jove, I can tell you.

No siree!  It takes hours of reading, determined distillation of facts and sober application of information to universal truths and Cardinal virtues before this son of 79th Street and blue collar values pounds out some wordage.

I tend to multi-task - taking time to smell the flowers, meditate on my own and mankind's follies, whip up a snack or two, and hold the cat up to whirling kitchen fan until it snarls in rage and just tickles me to death, before I take pen to paper, or finger the keys.

Hygiene is inportant - no dishes in sink, no biohazards in the ice box and no laundry blocking the view of the old flat-screen.

Outside lawn care?  Way down on the Daddy- do list.

My lawn, as I have noted here on many occassions, is a closely cropped collection of Collards, Clover, Cabombaceae, Cactaceae and some grass.

I have a cordial hatred dandelions and excise their presence with immediate and profound violence.

Others I take a liberal dislike, but will tolerate their presence up to a point.

However, this past week I have let things go like Angela Merkel at a U.N. buffet.

I determine to make things right.  I will go to Mass at Scared Heart Church and take in the Gospel message and Father Gallagher's always wonderful treatment of the text and pray the Memorare for the strength, energy and attention necessary to make things right.

One thing could block my intentions and efforts -Vade retro me Satana!

Baby, It's Cold Outside. 'Who Told You, Hickey?'

 Dangerously cold wind chills to affect the area ... In Effect From Midnight Tonight to noon CST Thursday ... which is in effect from Midnight Tonight to noon CST Thursday ..N.B. photo provided by the exquisite Deborah Boscarelli

Fifteen minutes for my pre-set alarm goes off ( 3:25 AM) Sophie's scratch at my basement bedroom door signals me to toss off the quilts, hit my knees to the floor for my morning Memorare, and re-et my alarm  My eight year old jet black kitten, is one needy female who purrs up a storm until I give her the morning's change to the sandbox, In-House Cat Chow and double bowl of Michigan Straight H2O, as well as the requisite scratching, petting teasing with the pen laser.

God has given me another chance to inhale the day.  Neighbors, I worry not about ISIS, Al Qaeda, Ebola  Vlad Putin, the PDRNK, ,Red China, or what Rahm Emanuel is planning for me and other tax-payers.  That pile of anxieties are for people much more thoughtful, or psychically profound than I.  My anxieties are spiritual, related to prosaic civic and vocational obligations and most especially familial - I am a parent.  I worry about me bairns 24/7.  Like most worries those stand foar beyond my control. My youngest is snuggled in her bed and has five days remaing of her break from Western Michigan. The two older young uns are out of the nest.  Yet, I do worry.

Things I can address cause most of my anxiousness due to my husbanding of technical skills and talents.

The furnace is working fine. The sump-pump's buzz durng the morning's ablutions calm my constant home owner fears.  

All is right with the . . . Uck Fay!  

(Hickey's alley facing north)

Two powdery  inches of new white stuff on the weathered wooden deck.  The snow blower checked out and operated handsomely in respense to Winter 2015's intial assault, only hours ago.  The temperature is Zero, but the winds are mild.  No sweat. . .plow after work at Leo High School.

But, wait!  

Once  fleased, buttoned, zipped and gloved, I survey the immediate property.  On my walk, is a form . . .a human form . . .and all too human form . . .an all too female woman buck-nekid form . . supine in the snow drifted 1926 poured City of Chicago walk-way between the trio of park way trees and south side of Casa Hickey!

Do I start the dependable MTD snow throwing Dreadnaught and chance taking a 9mm in the ass from a neighbor - it is, after all, 3:45 AM?  Do I wait until after work? This exquisite beauty might require immediate attention! Call 911 and go to work?  

Own a home? You got anxieties.

Man, it's cold.  Time for Dunkin Donuts coffee!!!!!!!