Another Week Closer to Italy!!!

Well, it's been another wild week. For being a "short" week due to the long holiday weekend, it has been a wild ride. Father Miller gave me a call on Sunday afternoon saying that one of our parishoners has died and wanted to give me the "heads up" that they want the recessional to be "When the Saints Go Marching In". This parishoner also had her entire funeral all planned and included two other songs that are, of course, not in our books but he said that at least they do include God. After the weekend went by and I hadn't received a call from Ewing Funeral Home to play, I kind of thought Brenda must have been asked to play so I was off the hook. Turns out she was thinking the same thing. Father Miller called me to inform me of the "good news" -- they had someone they knew that was going to play and accompany himself therefore I did NOT have to play "When the Saints Go Marching In". Great news!!! Bad news for him in that he had to officiate at a funeral with an unknown musician and an unknown set of songs. I ended up going to the funeral just as a parishoner but I ended up being kind of a babysitter. Fr. Miller told me when I got there that this gentleman had not brought any music with him. He brought a CD that he thought he would be able to insert into the keyboard and play along with but alas our new keyboard is BEYOND the CD technology and requires a flash drive. Fr. Miller said that he was now out there running around trying to find songs to play for the funeral. This is just after 10 and the funeral is slated to start at 10:30. I went and took a seat and at about 10:15 Father Miller and the organist made their way down the aisle and up to the choir loft. I thought I would just run up and answer any questions about any settings or which microphones are hotter than others. When I got up they were going through songs (still picking out songs for communion) and assigning which songs to play where and discussing service music. I reminded Father of the Song of Farewell which the musician knew nothing of what we were talking about so at this point I started pulling music out of our spare sets in the cupboard. The guest musician said, "You'll stay up here with me, won't you?" So much for being an ordinary parishoner. It was a wild ride and while I was in pulling music, the musician's friend was over at the rectory pulling the music for When the Saints off the computer. Also the funeral was starting and so the musician was singing the prelude song and wanting me in by his side so he knew what to play and when. The mass was off and running. Luckily this man holds a doctorate in music so he can put together accompaniment by just looking at melody lines because of course I had no accompanying music for the service music and was unable to find very much of what we were looking for in our books. It was during the first reading that a lightbulb went off in my head...the responsorial psalm. I asked him what they wanted and he said they had not told him anything. I grabbed the book of responsorial psalms we keep at the church and opened it up to the old standard, "The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want" put it in front of his nose and said, "Here play this!". During the second reading, I put the gospel acclamation in front of him and he said, "Oh, no. You don't play the gospel acclamation at a funeral!" To which I said, "Yes, we do." Apparently in his church in Kansas City they don't. So he played the gospel acclamation and we got through that part. While Fr. Pelzel ws delivering the homily, we finalized what he was going to play for the communion song and we settled on Fly Like a Bird. The rest of the mass went pretty smoothly. I know Fr. Miller died a little inside when "When the Saints Go Marching In" was played. I think that all of us could really have used a stiff drink after that!!

The work week went well. The auditors were there and now that is done for another year. Apparently we passed with flying colors so that is a good thing. I am starting to make little lists and notes for the coworkers while I am gone. I can't believe that I only have two more weeks of work before we leave! I also cannot believe that I am taking two WHOLE WEEKS OFF! I don't think I have taken that much time off since my last maternity leave! I am getting so excited and am so ready to get away! I've been looking online at the different hotels that we will be staying at and at the tourism guides for the cities, as well as doing some research on what to make sure to see and of course checking out the shopping guides!

My sister, Deb and I went to Des Moines on Saturday to get our hair cut by our FAVORITE hair stylist (and niece) Bobby Andreasen. I got a little extra taken off the back so hopefully it will last until after I return from my trip We stopped at Clear Lake on the way home to drop something off at Opportunity Village and see my other niece, Jessica, who lives in Twilight.

Reed came home on Saturday night to stay overnight here and help with chores on Sunday morning. Turns out he got a loveseat for his apartment from another resident in his apartment complex. He said it smelled strongly of smoke. I asked him if he got some Febreze or anything. He said he tried that and it didn't help much so he went to Alco, rented an upholstery cleaner and cleaned it. He went through two different tanks of water and now he says it is much better. I am so impressed by this young man. I have to say that my other two kids (and even my husband) would probably not take the initiative to do such a thing. This is the son that will take care of his mother in her old age!

We did have some tragedy befall someone close to us. My nephew's girlfriend lost her brother in a motorcycle accident this week. My sister and I will go to the celebration of life tomorrow afternoon in Fort Dodge. He was 51 and had 7 (I think) kids. I'm sure all their hearts are breaking right now.

Got through today's mass music with little trouble. The only thing was that I had recorded the piano rendition of Joyful, Joyful to use with the organ on the new keyboard. When I was practicing last night at the church, Brenda stopped in and I had her listen to it to see if it was too loud and also if it was too fast. She thought it was just fine so I played it the same way this morning. Apparently it was a little too fast as I was given a little ribbing about the speed at which that last song was played. We'll have to make a note of that for the next time we use it -- lesson learned!

Since it was such a cool day today, I took advantage of it and baked my dad his molasses cookies I have been promising him. Mom offers to bake them for him but he says, "No. Kristi is the only one that can make them taste like my mom's." My grandma always had molasses cookies when we stopped in to visit. She must have made them every week because she had four sons and lots of grandkids who stopped in to have coffee and visit! I had kind of a lot of leftover dough at the end -- you know, too much to just throw away and not enough to make an entire cookie. So I just experimented and rolled it out and took the donut hole attachment out of my biscuit cutter and made bite-sized cookies. They were just too cute. Mike and I delivered the cookies late this afternoon and I brought them in and put all but the bite-sized cookies and one package of 6 into the freezer. Dad likes to take a package out in the morning and then have a couple with a cup of coffee in the afternoon as a snack. I guess we will call it their grandparents day present. His birthday is 09-11 but Mike already bought him his present -- a new flag to replace his tattered one currently flying. He turns 88 on the 11th and my mom will be 86 on the 17th. I don't think either of them ever thought they would live this long. My mom was thrilled when she lived long enough to see all of my kids graduate from high school.

Well, it's gettin' kind of late for this lady and it's time to start a new week with more adventures -- and hopefully no misadventures!