Yup, I was right. By Catherine on 1/10/2008 12:40:00 PM
I fail at New Year's resolutions. BUT the good news is that Virginia and I are really starting, really really, tomorrow. I know Friday seems like a weird time to start gymming, but this was a particularly busy week at work and a particularly sad week personally, so what better time to start than when you already feel like crap? I used to feel great after working out, very refreshed and surprisingly energized, and looking really good didn't hurt either. I'm ready, it just took awhile.That being said, we went to Katie's wake on Tuesday. It took two hours to make it through the line, and the whole thing was too heartbreaking to put into words. Add in the fact that the family was Catholic (translate: open casket) and I was sufficiently freaking out.
I was never exposed to enough Catholicism to understand it well, or to get anything spiritual out of it-- no, what I got out of being Catholic was a lot of guilt feelings and a healthy dose of repressed sexuality. Oh, right, and a TERROR of death and dead bodies. My granddad died when I was 6, and I think I knew enough about the mystery of death not to question what it meant. But what remains with me, to this day, the moment I relive at every wake and funeral and Catholic church service, is when I saw my precious Bup, the nicest and gentlest man I knew, who doted on me like I was Queen of the Nile, laying in his casket, cold. Cold, cold. I touched him, not expecting him to feel like that-- it was shocking, and I couldn't even cry. The whole time, I just sat there, with my eyes on fire... But I couldn't cry.
The big man who grew up next door to him in Southie, the priest, gave the services and then gave me a rose. I brought it home and put it next to the one my Bup gave me, encased in clear fiberglass and with a short string of pearls wrapped about the stem. I still have that rose sitting on the bookshelf in my living room. I still think about my Bup all the time. I wonder, is he proud of me? Would he like who I've chosen to be my mate? Would he love me like he did when I was 6 or would he be disappointed that I didn't go to law school like he wanted and that I don't have more discipline in my daily life? I'd give just about anything for one more day with him, as long as it didn't end with an open casket.
Labels: bad mood, death, unfunny
On fishing By Catherine on 7/18/2007 04:20:00 PM
Today at work (camp, for those of you keeping up) I had the unique opportunity to kill a fish with my bare hands. (I actually did it with my foot).Before you go all PETA on me, I have to qualify: I didn't want to do it. In fact, I wanted to throw the fucker back in and let him live, but I work at a camp that fills the (man made) pond with (store bought) bass, sunfish, and perch and then allows campers to take them home. As counselors, we wrap them up, still flip-flopping about, in aluminum foil, where they not only can't breathe but also roast in the sun as campers continue fishing. This is a tried and true tradition of camp, and I follow it like the letter of law, because if I didn't, I'd more likely than not catch all kinds of hell.
So today, at fishing, I killed a fish wrapped in aluminum. I stepped on it, broke its spine, and in my opinion, put the poor thing out of its misery. Call me Kevorkian. Call me Garn LeBaron. But I couldn't see it suffer anymore. This scenario raised an interesting moral argument for me, because I'm the first to tell you how much I love good burgers/sushi/chicken parm/what have you. But this fish I killed didn't die so I could have sushi, it died so some kid who has no comprehension of the beauty of life (and the beauty of death) or the meaning of a dollar can go home and ask Mom for $65 to have it made into a taxidermy trophy bearing the year and his name.
What's worst is that the fishing teacher, upon hearing the tale of my heroic fish euthanasia, gave me a carved piece of wood, in the shape of a hook, on a string as a necklace, and told me he was impressed with my "skill" and that he'd never seen a woman do that before.
I got rewarded for being a murderer. I felt his little spine break, and I knew then that I'd actually taken a life. I took that fish's life, a life where he never even had a chance to be someone's dinner, and everyone thinks I am sooo cool 'cause I did.
Everyone but me.