Blank Paper:

I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday. The series of questions they always ask is designed to find out if you are depressed. "Do you have any interest in things you normally like doing?" That sort of thing.

And... I'm not depressed, I think. OK, to explain, I think about this every single time. Am I actually depressed and just don't realize it? And right now I am, understandably, going through a blue period. But I think I am ok.

December was hard. Just... Hard. Mom died on Dec 29th. My friend's toddler's funeral was also the 29th. And #3 was projectile vomiting. WHich meant I could not go to the funeral. Which is probably better overall.

But... I am understandably blue. Most of the time it is fine. Sometimes, it is not. I probably need another crying jag.

So. Mom fell over Thanksgiving. Around the middle of December she was taken to the hospital. Sometime around the 22-23rd, she had a massive stroke. I got a call early morning the 24th to come down to say goodbye and make decisions. Not that Sis and I had not already made decisions. But...

Talk to the doctor on the 24th. Mom was not going to get better. She woke up enough to say hi to me. I do not think that was in my mind. But she was... Even when she was "awake", she was not there. So... DNR, with a move to hospice planned.

Hospice did not exactly go as planned. I think she finally got to hospice on the 28th. The one the doctor wanted to send her to said no because she was not in pain or respiratory distress. Which, weird. I don't know their particular metric. I had never considered that a hospice would be that specific. Some time on the 27th, she started showing signs of pain (grimacing) and trouble breathing. Yay morphine and yay hospice. And then she died early on the 29th.

So... Yeah. End of the year sucked ass and that takes time to recover from.

Doing shit like having to pour my MiL into bed on the night of the 25th did not help my attitude at all. I get that retiring is a major life change. In her drunken state she confessed that she had used the church to replace her husband and therefore retiring was akin to killing him herself. Which... OK...

It's not any more off the wall than anything else she has ever said.

About a week or so ago, she said something at dinner to SiL about how what our current priest (Fr C) had done to her, how he treated her, would have gotten him shot by her male relatives 50 years ago. *blinks* And that her old priest (M G) told her to send the email that Fr C had sent her to the person who decides where priests are stationed for the dioceses and that Fr C would never be a pastor of a parish again. *blinks*

OK, this is a woman who basically dismisses pedo priests as being an issue because obviously they are all gay and gay men love beautiful things, like "unripe" little boys. And was sad that a former priest suddenly became a sexual predator after suffering from encephalitis. (So she says was the issue.) What the HELL could Fr. C have said that was so evil?

And... I could dismiss my next actions as worry about the state of our current priest and his actions. But... Well, I was pretty sure she was being ridiculous and making a mountain out of an ant hill. And I'm a nosy bitch.

So, remember back in August the post about our dithering Organist telling my MiL that she does not control the church and to quit treating people like kindergarteners?

At about the same time, Fr C sent her the email in question. It was a long, very polite email. It started with an offer of a stipend to make up her gas cost and wear and tear on her car. Then continued on to set boundaries for her. Fr C cited specific grievances he and other people had. Like ordering the church secretary around and expecting her to hop to, drop whatever she was doing, and deal with whatever MiL asked her to. Or the volunteer who came in to fix a specific maintenance issue but kept getting a list of other things that needed to happen RIGHT NOW and therefore was reluctant to come back if MiL was around because he could not get his work done. Or from Fr C himself, who coordinated with volunteers of specific organizations within the church to get something done or planned, only to follow up and find that MiL had told them to do something completely different, which stepped on the toes of a different volunteer organization, which he had been trying to avoid doing. Or her constant interruption of conversations between himself and parishioners after Mass, oftentimes abruptly inserting herself and her opinions about whatever the topic of conversation was.

There were other examples, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. It boiled down to "these people don't work for you and you are not in charge".

Her response was literally "Keep your prostitution money. I am devastated."

Mind you, this email was filled just as much with praise over what areas Fr C wanted her to stick to. Flowers, sacristy work, etc.

So, yeah. I'm a nosy bitch.

Three people are taking over for her and she is "silently" crowing that they will not do as good of a job, that Fr C will have to start paying $400/week for flowers (or $200/week, depending on who she is talking to), that the church will not run half as smoothly as it did before.

When, really, people who had to deal with her on the regular are probably very happy that she can no longer be a petty dictator.

Of course... Now she is going to spend a lot more time around the house. She's already planning on more elaborate meals and how to rearrange all the plates and silverware to match our current lifestyle better. Which she seems to think means using the sterling silver instead of the silver plate utensils. Which... I get it. Life is short, use the good china. (Only don't, because I don't want to hand wash that shit.) I just... Why? If she wants to use something that looks in better repair than the current silver plated stuff, I have a whole set that has barely been used. Let's just use that.

Hopefully it will warm up soon and she will spend time in the garden.

I don't hate the Catholic faith, mind you. I think doctrine is wrong on a lot of things and needs to come into the 21st Century. And the priests need to STOP FUCKING COVERING UP AND CONDONING ABUSE OF ALL TYPES!!!

That's not want this rant is actually about. Though I have another rant in me about how abusive marriages are still considered good and faithful marriages, plus the whole sexual abuse of altar servers, seminarians, etc. And the fact that Pope Francis has reinstated bishops and priests who covered it up and were directly involved. But... That's a whole other rant.

My particular church, I do not like. The priest is a racist asshole and I know way too much about him and the politics of the church. That being said, I also can't change my parish because of family politics. And my priest is close to retirement, and I like the priest that has been brought in to replace him. Possibly I like him simply because I don't know him as well... But he's practical and knows how to cook, does serious woodworking, and was knee deep in the flooded basement with my boys as they tried to solve the water issue. Out senior priest stayed warm and dry and dithered about things getting wet.

I'm rambling.

So, I knew this was coming. And hopefully I shut it down as a... criticism at the dinner table. We have a lesbian couple who have started coming to Mass. I haven't talked to them, but I don't talk to anyone after Mass, so it would be weird for me to pop up and welcome them. They aren't being in your face with their relationship. The most I have seen is them holding hands as they come in. They usually stop before they even enter the sanctuary. No idea if they join the communion line, but the state of their souls, like the state of their relationship, is not my business.

Several people have went to Father and asked him to put a stop to it.

Before my MiL could continue, I cut in and stated that doing so would be WRONG. (My MiL goes back and forth on how supportive she is of gay and lesbian people. She will talk about her good gay friends who all died of AIDS,but then will comment that SiL's gay friend needs to find a good girl and straighten out. So, I'm never quite sure which way she is going to fall.) I couched it in terms of "if church is for people seeking redemption, then kicking people out who are seeking redemption is the opposite of what you should do." Which is true and does not get into my personal feelings that the Catholic Church is wrong about gay marriage.

Apparently Father has decided that as long as they are not shoving their relationship in anyone's face, the couple can stay. *sigh* That's probably the best I can hope for.