Holy Day Mass and more

It seemed wierd not going to Mass on the Holy Day (December 8th, feast of the Immaculate Conception): We went to the vigil Mass Wednesday night, since St. Francis had something else going on the night of the 8th, and thus there was no 7 p.m. Mass. Thus, we ended up missing a little bit of the beginning of part 2 of CBS's movie about Pope John Paul II. I have to admit, John Voight did a spot-on job playing what had to have been a daunting role: he looked the part, and he managed to get the voice down pat, not just the accent, but that wonderful, sing-songy inflection our late Holy Father had when he was speaking in public.

And the whole film managed to avoid falling into either pitfall, of turning into a mere biography or a white-washed hagiography (ie. a saint story: the cause for his canonization is being opened, and there's already been one miracle attributed to his intercession, but he hasn't been canonized yet). They showed him as a holy man, but also a human. I was especially touched by one bit which showed him having a moment of impatience and frustration as he steadily lost more and more of his stamina to Parkinson's Disease.

Oh, and I had to keep punching myself for laughing at/MST'ing one of the casting choices: Christopher "Saruman" Lee as Cardinal Woczinski, the then-Archbishop Wojtyla's mentor. As my mother put it: "His voice is familiar, what else has he been in?" Said I: "He played the evil wizard in the 'Lord of the Rings' movies." Hm, maybe that explains why we've got some lousy bishops: Saruman infiltrated them the way he did to Theoden.

Which brings me to some semi-good news: Holy Trinity will be staying open until Christmas. It gets closed the very next day. Froeliche Weihnachts to you, too, Bishop Scrooge... I'd love to be the one to deliver the truckload of Pennsylvania lignite to your door and dump it right on you.

::Recovering from her moment of sarcasm:: Well, I'm not finished my advent novena yet, so who knows? We might get the big Christmas miracle we're all praying for.

Did a little shopping tonight, while my folks were food shopping: I had to get Alavert and Airborne, which I've been taking every time I go to work. Thankfully, affording it was a snap: I got my regular paycheck today... and the Christmas bonus check which all the store employees get about this week in December... And a big surprise: a "Customer Service bonus". I don't know if this is going to be some kind of new bonus at the end of the year, or it's just a one-time thing, but it sure helped me out where I needed it.

Of course it was busy today, since there's another snow-storm on the horizon: We're supposed to get hit with 6 to 10 inches, and it's supposed to be a definate direct hit, unlike the wide miss we had Monday. The Cape got snow, we just got a few flakes for about ten minutes.

( Cut for pro-snow rantage )

Updated the AIFFOA again, archiving one new fic and removing some broken links. It's such a relief to be able to twiddle with this site from the comfort of home.

And last and least, Sieges is up to level 11 and behind on her LJ. ::Pokes her to update it::

Sieges: ::Peeks out from under a blanket, throws a sleepy glare at MR and pulls the blanket over her head again::

The poor thing is tired from a long night running missions that kept getting croggled due to Exile hoodlums shooting at her/mission areas spawning hackers who hacked up her RSI/getting sneered at by Silver, the new mission contact she found, who makes Flood at his most condescending look like a nice guy. Now that she's levelling up, her missions keep taking her to more and more dangerous areas of the Mega-City. Much as she likes shooting at things, she's tired of getting killed/almost killed.

Karmic Snow Retribution

I guess I had it in for me when I posted that rant, last night, about people who dislike snow.

Had to walk to work in the stuff, in near-blizzard conditions. It felt like needles in my face and it came down so hard and fast that it started to accumulate on the lenses of my eyeglasses. Only about six inches had fallen when I was out walking in it, but in between, another eight fell on top of that. In the space of about three hours. That's an average of about 2.3 inches an hour. At one point, I thought I heard a snowplow out in the lot dropping its blade really hard and sudden, but it turned out to be -- get this -- a small thundersnowstorm (which caused white-out conditions. You couldn't see across the lot). Very, very rare occurence, according to all the weather reporters.

Thus, I had to walk home through drifts that in places were up to my hip and even up to my waist (and I'm five foot seven, legally). Make that wade through those drifts. In an almost ankle-length imitation leather trenchcoat and knee-high snow boots. Over ripped-up sidewalks (I guess they won't be finishing the sidewalks before the snow falls, dammit).

Thus, I think I did more work trying to walk home than I did at my actual workplace (where it was pretty quiet, but there were a few brave souls who braved the blast). No wonder that I tripped and fell over backwards on our driveway. I ended up in snow up to my neck! Then I tried getting out and I got stuck. It was like trying to escape quicksand. Soft, fluffy, white quicksand. After a few moments of floundering around, I managed to get myself free and limp to the back door to let myself in. Believe me, I had to shake snow off myself after that, but oddly enough, I didn't get cold from it all. Must have been the layers I was wearing.

And, man, did the Christmas lights in the yard look pretty when I turned them on for the night: the little stylized spiral trees my dad put on the hillside on the edge of the front yard were almost buried, but you can still see the lights shining through the snow.