Finally coming to terms with the fact that I get my most meaningful prayer time done in the car, either when parked or driving. No wonder the acedia has been so bad since I started working from home full-time more than a year ago.
Just got home. Drove around a lot today.
Chris to Brewers parking lot attendant: “So, you charge Cubs fans more for parking?”
Attendant: “Yes, sir!”
The guy had a mask on, but I could swear he was smiling.
One of the first things my sister told me Tuesday after she broke the news of our mom’s passing: Go ahead and go to your ballgame on Thursday. It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking about at the time.
But she reiterated the point during another phone call that night. “Daddy would want you to go,” she said. “Mams would want you to go.” Even my boss – who signed off on my day off for the game weeks ago – said the next morning, unprompted, I needed to go.
Finally, one of my wisest friends wrote me in an email this morning: “Don’t be shy about enjoying life (like ice cream and baseball) as you also press into waves of grief.”
So, we’re in Milwaukee today to watch my Padres. Mom wasn’t much of a baseball fan, but I’m still thinking of her anyway.
I’ve had a sad and rough 24+ hours, and I can’t sleep. But we’ve still got tickets to see the Padres in Milwaukee later today, and we’re going to use them. I need just a little bit of joy right now. Like this. https://t.co/jhJpZWQ7o7
— Joyce Garcia (@joycegarcia) May 27, 2021
Mercedes Vinluan Garcia died peacefully Tuesday afternoon in Bonita, California, slightly more than three months after celebrating her 90th birthday. Her oldest daughter and youngest sister were at her bedside.
It is awkward and deeply frustrating to have to grieve from afar. It is even more awkward to grieve when, in many respects, we lost our mother years ago. She was diagnosed with dementia around the time Frannie was born, so my daughter never knew her grandmother at her liveliest, most lucid self. But Mom’s illness never got in the way of her fierce devotion and love for all of us, and she delighted in her only grandchild – especially given that we named her after the husband she lost nearly 30 years ago.
It doesn’t help that COVID-19 concerns will likely limit arrangements to grieve together in California, even as many pandemic restrictions are being eased. It may be weeks before my sister and brother and I can lay her to rest.
I don’t really have it in me to weave the kind of lengthy, heartfelt tribute my mother deserves, so I won’t even try right now. The memories – her sardonic, surprisingly goofy sense of humor; her generosity of spirit; her almost comical worry about the tiniest things that might befall us – will arise here and there and at the weirdest times, as grief does. Just know that our hearts are broken, and we will miss her deeply.
The New Era “Local Market” hats are among the worst examples of MLB desperation for cash cow ventures.
I fully expected the SD version of these ridiculous hats to have an aircraft carrier and a zoo. https://t.co/3LwVeKNncs
— Joyce Garcia (@joycegarcia) May 25, 2021
Late post in the wee hours of Tuesday. Just marking a bit of a happy moment here. Not much more to add. Onward.
Researched information on Amazon yesterday about litter boxes and stuff to calm agitated cats. Ever since, we’ve been getting ads for self-cleaning litter boxes and feline pheromone sprays when we stream ballgames on MLB.TV via the Amazon Fire stick on our television.
As Chris said in response to this, welcome to 21st century marketing.
We went for a walk on a hot and humid Saturday around a local reservoir. Only a bit over a mile. Only needed to stop twice for mild back discomfort and annoyance with the heat. I couldn’t have made this walk easily six months ago.
This week’s favorite subreddit: /r/CatsAreAssholes/.
And in a related development, this week’s favorite McSweeney’s list: Eight Famous Poems Rewritten by Your Asshole Cat.
The husband brought this home per the veterinarian’s suggestion to deal with some cat behavior issues.
If I knew this would work on you,” the husband said to me, “I would have bought them for the entire house.”
Baseball creeps into so many corners of our lives.
I watch baseball on my Kindle Fire, provided Winslow lets me.
Saw the bariatric doctor today. Dr. O. was very pleased with my progress, and so was I, once I weighed in at 244 pounds at his office. This makes for a 39-pound loss since mid-January, or nearly half my initial 80-pound goal.
I ruminated about expanding my goal beyond 80 pounds, as I’ve mentioned here. But Dr. O. stopped me, reminding me to celebrate what I’ve done up till now. If I want to lose more once I hit the 80-pound mark, fine, but he didn’t feel a need to discuss that right now.
Otherwise, we talked about the joys of MyFitnessPal, exercise, the importance of sunlight, and COVID-19 vaccinations; then he re-upped my prescriptions, reiterated that this weight-loss thing is a long-haul deal, and sent me on my way until our next appointment in August.
He also wants me to make an appointment with my primary care doctor, largely to show off the weight loss.
Returned to confession and Mass yesterday for the first time in roughly 6 months.
The priest gently chided me for letting my anger at all the divisiveness in the Church keep me from the sacraments: “This [division] has been going on for thousands of years,” he said. Or something like that. But he didn’t flinch as I went on, even when I admitted that I had pounded down a chicken leg on Friday just out of spite, I was so angry.
He asked if I had at least been praying, and I admitted only with my kid at bedtime – beyond that, not even so much as a morning offering. “Why, even second-graders do that!” he said. I could tell he said it with a smile (even behind the curtain), but it still stung.
Fr. L., the guy I usually turn to for confession, was a little tougher on me than usual at first, but I didn’t mind. He spent a little more time advising me this time around, and I appreciated that. With Pentecost coming up, he advised me to ask the Holy Spirit to lead me in a fresh start, gave me my penance, and sent me on my way.
My takeaway was that I can’t let annoying people and Church politics get in the way of prayer and my relationship with God. Fr. L. is particularly insistent on people maintaining a regular prayer life as much as possible, and he’s absolutely right to be insistent. And I’m grateful for that.
I"m still annoyed at the divisions and failures of the Church; reading this piece just now by a priest who was kicked out of seminary for being Black doesn’t help my anger. But, as Fr. Bruce Wilkinson writes of his experience:
After I worked through some of my anger and sadness in reflection and prayer, though, I realized something important: I was not going to allow other people’s hatred to control my life.
Why? Fr. Bruce makes it clear at the end: “I couldn’t help being in love with God, and God wouldn’t let me go.”
God doesn’t let go, no matter how livid you are with the Church, His people, and sometimes even Him. And I’m grateful for that, too.
Just ordered a copy of this graphic memoir. The blurb had me at “difficult Filipino mothers and their children’s unwavering quest to make them happy.”
You can order the book and view sample pages here.
"It’s a harmless step I can take to make members of my community more comfortable as we work to restitch the social fabric the pandemic tore." https://t.co/GgPG36O6it
— Joyce Garcia (@joycegarcia) May 14, 2021
Things that exhaust me:
Things that soothe me:
After a lot of years hanging out with people who prioritize theological and liturgical purity over Christlike personal behavior, I needed to be reminded of this tonight.
I need to find some Anabaptists to hang out with. Or at least read more about them.
Went down a disturbing Google rabbit hole that began on Facebook this morning with a bizarre, out-of-nowhere comment from a former colleague. It ultimately ended with old news from 2016 that another former colleague from the same newspaper had been charged with drugging a woman and raping her repeatedly over several years.
It’s already been been a long morning, and it’s only 8:40 a.m.
I’m down again. Weighed in this morning at 246 pounds, which is 3.2 pounds down from last week. (That’s a 37-pound loss since I started all this in January.) This makes up for the 1.8-pound spike in weight last Tuesday.
I’d like to think that falling ill before dinner yesterday and throwing up a bit – and largely skipping dinner afterward – had little to do with it. But it probably did.
Feeling better now. I suspect there was some kind of mild food poisoning involved.
Other health practices have been up and down. Sleep is somewhat okay, though I’d like to get a little more than 6.5 hours of it a night. I need to get back on the pilates and YouTube workout wagons. And I have to be more regular with getting some decent amounts of sunlight daily.
Still, clothes are fitting better. More rings are loose on my fingers. And Chris said during our breakfast out yesterday that I’ve clearly lost weight in my face. All that makes me happy.
I see the bariatric doctor a week from today. Looking forward to it.
Andrew McCarthy just released a new memoir about his Brat Pack years, although he was never really part of the so-called Brat Pack. He’s making the interview rounds to promote the book, and this piece in The New Yorker reminds me of how I had a massive crush on him back in the day.
He speaks in several interviews of how he was very much an outsider during the heyday of the “pack,” largely by design. Having realized in recent years how much I have been a chronic outsider all my life, it’s no wonder I found him particularly relatable.
After a late breakfast at my favorite suburban Greek cafe, this was my Mother’s Day afternoon. Couldn’t be happier.
Insert “Fernando CATís Jr.” joke here.
“Excellent! Another Mauricio Dubón reference!” pic.twitter.com/oMKs1coXaW
— Joyce Garcia (@joycegarcia) May 8, 2021