There's a new sheriff in town.

Commenting has been updated.

Why, you might ask, do I have to enter that text in the little window to verify my comment?

Because some nuisance keeps spamming my comment threads with adverts for products I don't even use. I'm not going to mention what products, because I don't want to draw searches for the terms to this blog.

So sorry for the inconvenience. I might disable it in a few weeks if things settle down.

The week-later Thanksgiving postgame

Inspired by Julie of Happy Catholic.

Things that went well over Thanksgiving

The food. The food was good.

Things that went ill (or at least less well)

The company. They showed up an hour early while I was still in the midst of cooking and Mrs. Yurodivi was finishing up the cleaning. Thank goodness we were already dressed.

But about the food:

I put out the usual good things for Thanksgiving, with a couple of additions. First, I brined up a turkey breast and roasted it in the oven. For some reason, no one in Mrs. Yurodivi's family cares for dark meat, and I'm not going to sit down and eat both thighs and both legs at once, so it was best to get the all-white version for this year.

I also made (okay, baked) a ham for the first time. I got the cheapest kind I could find that wasn't a "shoulder picnic" and just baked it according to the directions on the outside of the bag. I didn't do anything to it like pour a Coke over it or slather it with mustard and brown sugar.

Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things, but I had never prepared a whole ham before (other than a failed country ham, and that was a real disaster), and wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I also had to bake it Wednesday night because Familiya Yurodivi has only *one* oven, and I knew that I wouldn't have time to do both the ham and the turkey before lunch on Thursday.

I wound up carving the ham at 12:30 in the morning because I miscalculated the time required to bake it. It didn't matter anyway, because we were still cleaning and getting stuff ready for the company at that hour.

How have I lived in the South for forty years, and cooked for twenty-plus of those years, without ever having baked a ham? I don't know. We didn't eat that kind of ham at home -- my family actually preferred the thin little sandwich slices of boiled ham that didn't require cooking or carving. But I'm pretty sure it won't be my last one, because it was really, really good.

It was even good cold -- I carved it late at night, plattered it, covered it with foil, and put it in the fridge. After I took out the casseroles the next day, I turned off the oven and stuck the whole platter in there to knock the chill off it.

The usual sides also appeared: cornbread stuffing (the kind preferred in my part of the South) with nothing but the packaged dry stuffing, butter, broth, and finely diced celery, onion and bell pepper, baked in a casserole. I know using the bagged stuffing is a big cheat, but I didn't have time to bake my own cornbread and croutonize it. Besides, my dad used to make it that way, and if you can't have some traditions at Thanksgiving, when *can* you have them?

Macaroni and cheese -- I made the casserole variety, baked up with loads of colby-jack, sharp cheddar, milk and eggs, just like in my mother-in-law's old cookbook from 1953.

Gravy -- since I roasted the turkey breast in a saute pan, the pan drippings were already in there; all I had to do was get rid of most of the fat, make the roux, and add the chicken broth to make a really nice pan gravy. I also made some rice because Mrs. Y wanted it.

Sister-in-law brought a congealed salad for her toddler and a pumpkin pie (homemade except for the crust) for her seven-year-old. She also brought a lovely green salad with blue cheese and walnuts with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

There was plenty of everything, and no one went home (or to watch the football game) hungry.

Why I'm thankful this Thanksgiving

I realize these sorts of posts were supposed to be done last week, but what can I say? We were too busy cleaning and cooking for me to do any blogging. That said, I still felt strongly enough a week after the fact to post this list.

• I'm grateful Mrs. Yurodivi has finished her treatments and appears to be cancer-free. Her skin is recovering really quickly from the radiation burns, and the oncologist has more or less cut her loose. Even though she'll have to have checkups for the rest of her life, at least she seems to be cancer-free.


• I'm also grateful that Mrs. Yurodivi seems to be suffering no side effects from taking Tamoxifen, which has been known to cause all sorts of distress among patients, mostly in the form of hot flashes, although it can also cause DVT and other sorts of problems. She has really been dreading the side effects, and so far, so good.


• I'm grateful that relations with my numerous brothers and sisters are better than they've ever been. My mother was manipulative, malevolent and just plain mean, and her treatment left scars on all of us. I'm glad we can put a lot of that stuff behind us and just accept one another.


• I'm grateful that (at least so far) I don't have cancer or any other serious health problems. I can still walk without much difficulty, I can see, and I still have my taste buds.


• I'm grateful for the various talents God has given me, although it seems like a bit of a cosmic joke to give them to someone with so many emotional/mental difficulties. Still, He knows best. I'm also grateful that I have the opportunity to put those gifts to work in His service. I don't want to sound vain here, but here goes: I'm not much to look at, I'm not generally very nice or much fun to be around, but I have talents and Mad Skilz that a lot of people would give their eyeteeth to have. That's very humbling when I consider it. Lord, what is man, that you should be mindful of him?


• I'm also grateful for my sweet little dog. She was a rescue dog, and I'm pretty sure she's grateful to be with us; if someone hadn't adopted her, she would still be at the shelter if she hadn't been put down. I'm really glad that God put her in our family. Especially because we don't have children, she occupies a place in our hearts that children would normally fill -- at least part of it, anyway.


• I'm grateful that I have plenty of employment and income and that we both have good health insurance through our jobs. Without that, we would have had to sell everything we own to pay for the cancer treatments. I often think I would like to be a full-time professional musician, but then I lie down for a minute and it passes.


• I'm grateful for the online friends I have made through this blog (and your blogs). While you don't actually know who I am, you probably know me better than a lot of real-world people know me. I appreciate your prayers and good wishes, and your kind words and counsel. There are very few people I know in real life with whom I could have these kinds of conversations.

Well. There's plenty more stuff for which I am grateful, but I can't get too personal here in the blogosphere. I imagine anybody who knew me in real life and happened across this diary would recognize the real-life Yurodivi within a few paragraphs.

Ich bekenne…

Nobody tagged me with this one, but I confess that I have to do it anyway. I certainly understand why nobody tagged me -- I rarely post!

• I confess that I hate holding hands during the Our Father at Mass. I avoid it steadfastly. Of course, since I direct the choir, that's easy enough to do. This is rooted in one of many many faults, which is that . . .


• I confess that I don't like people very much. I try to be sociable, but it's a drag. I have yet to ascertain whether people don't like me because I'm unfriendly (or visually unappealing), or I don't like people because they treat me like dog poop.


• But I also confess that I was at a public venue when JPII came to America in 1987, and I remember the joy I felt when he asked everyone in the stadium to hold hands and recite the Our Father together. That may be where the whole hand-holding meme got started, because so many of the Catholics who were there didn't realize they were at a "prayer service" rather than a Mass, so they naturally wanted to recapture that feeling the next time they said the Our Father. In many cases, that was also the next time they went to Mass.


• I confess that I love my dog more than I should, but she's such a joy! I like her a lot better than I like most people I know.


• I confess that going to the Latin Mass, while I find it aesthetically beautiful and all that, doesn't do a whole lot for me. Listening to sacred music is a much more spiritual experience for me, even though it should be the other way around.


• I confess that I don't pray enough or often enough, and that when I say the Rosary it's usually when I'm driving to church, or when there's a huge crisis in my life that can't be resolved any other way than through prayer, like when Mrs. Y is having an operation or the dog is dying.


• I confess that I am way too easily distracted by aesthetic or grammatical issues during Mass, like when the lector mumbles or stumbles over the words (for Pete's sake, can't you read the readings ahead of time and learn to pronounce the proper names before you have to READ THEM OUT LOUD?), or when the organist plays all seven verses of "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones" with the EXACT SAME REGISTRATION. GRRRRRRRR.


• I confess that I am the laziest person I know. The Mills brothers could have written Lazybones specifically for me.


• Finally, I confess that I really don't like going to confession. I mean, do you go tell your boss everything you've done wrong? I know that I'm really confessing to Jesus, but I can't get over being in the boss's physical presence. That's why I usually go to a different church to do it. And it's one of the things that most makes me want to get out of Church Show Business.

I'm not tagging anybody on this one, because this meme has mostly already made the rounds. But if I had to, I would tag Stephanie.

Beautiful and Touching

Go and read this excerpt from a WSJ article at Kobayashi's place. I won't spoil it for you.

Even more touching, however, was the funeral oration he gave for his late brother, may he rest in peace. Go. Read (if you haven't already). And don't spare the candles for Kobayashi's family; I have no doubt that it is we exsules filii Hevae, who have it worse than those who have gone on to their reward.

Lux eterna luceat eis Domine
cum sanctis tuis in eternam
quia pius es.

Department of Unfortunate Headlines

This story had a different headline a few days ago when it first ran. It read:

Nutt to start Dick instead of Johnson against 'Cocks

Can you imagine why they changed it? Beats me.

Those low-down, luminescent, gamma-radiatin’ blues

So, as I mentioned below, Mrs. Yurodivi is nearly finished with her radiation treatment.

Let me tell you this: radiation treatment is better than death. It’s also a lot better than chemotherapy, generally speaking. But what is really getting her down at the moment is the life-draining fatigue. It accumulates through the course of the treatment and lingers for four to six weeks after therapy, so she’ll be spending the next, oh, seven weekends crashed on the couch.

They say that exercise is helpful in fighting off the fatigue, but now she has a slightly twisted ankle, and the opposite knee is killing her. So no treadmill for a few days. Sadly, the fatigue will likely linger through the upcoming holidays, and those are already bad enough for her; she has lots of unhappy memories from early family life associated with Christmases and other holidays. Honestly, it reminds me of the line in Cavalleria Rusticana: A te la mala Pasqua, spergiuro! (“I hope you have a Bad Easter, oath-breaker!”)

Those of you who have been around radiation therapy probably also know that it isn't overly kind to one's skin, especially in, ahem, a sensitive area, so Mrs. Y has been treating the burning with lavender and with natural, local honey, both of which seem to be helping retard the burning of the skin. The ravages of radiation on the skin, we are told, will likely last upwards of a year. That's a long time to walk around with a burnt bosom.

The worst of the whole situation is that, even though the doctors have told her that the prognosis is quite good, cancer is never really cured, no matter what they say. The conditions that caused you to get it in the first place may make it come back despite the treatment. So the only things we can do are 1) pray and 2) exercise and eat better. And I’m trying on the “eat better” front: make more veg, less fat, less pasta (except the whole wheat kind), and lots of garlic.

I never imagined that it would come to this. But I would rather have a few more years, even if she might die any minute, than to be parted from her before she is ready to go on. It seems only a short time since we met and got married after knowing each other only two months. If she only has a little while, then I’m going to try to make her remaining days (and years, I hope) as healthy and fulfilling as I can.

Off to the Salt Mines . . .

In the Army they have a saying: P***-poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Daddy used to use that one a lot with us.

So today I had to bring some work home from the office. Well, that isn’t really accurate – someone at the office had to E-mail it to me, because I had to leave early to take Mrs. Yurodivi to get zapped. Mrs. Yurodivi: Only FIVE MORE TREATMENTS YAYYYYYY! So the guy who had to send me his stuff to format into a Gantt chart E-mailed it around six in the evening, and here I sit, listening to Bayern Vier on the Internet radio, thanks to the magic of streaming audio, and doing these stupid charts.

When do they have to be presented? Tomorrow morning.

Too bad I’m the only person in the place who knows how to use the charting software.

Katelyn Sills -- AKA Joan of Sacramento

This young woman is a fine example of what happens to you when you do good for Jesus' sake. They say no good deed goes unpunished, and here Miss Katelyn and her mother are living out that truism.

Stop by her blog and read; she's an excellent writer, especially for one so young. But don’t bother yourselves with the comments; while a number of faithful Catholics have shown up to defend her (and the Church) against the slings and arrows of the various catholidiots (who mostly post from behind the fig leaf of anonymity) who have been trashing them, sometimes in really disgraceful, gutter language.

Fortunately, someone else has done a lot of the heavy lifting. His fisk of the comments of “loretto girl” is priceless. However, I would give anything if it had proved unnecessary; if the girls of Loretto had sided with the Faith against the insidious Ms. Bain (or should that be Bane?); and if the school had actually taught the Faith from the beginning. As Elton John once sang, it’s a sad, sad situation, and it’s gettin’ more and more absurd.

Pray for Katelyn and her mother, that they continue to receive the grace to stand up to these assaults. They’re strong, yes – but they will need ever more strength in the days to come.