1/365 Poinsettias and Families

"Thanks for taking care of them while I was gone," I tell Lynn (all names in this blog are changed), standing at her front door.

"How was your trip?" she asks.

"Oh, you know, it was good. Christmas. Hectic, but not really. Kids did well, it was good."

She smiles, not sure if she believes me. "It's been 23 years with Pat's family and I'm just now getting used to it." I think about things I've said in the past in the same spirit.

"Fourteen for me," I admit.

"I didn't get to them on Monday," she switches tracks. Talking about the poinsettias at church. "But I was there yesterday and watered everything."

"Good, then," I take my keys. "I'll stop by tomorrow and make sure everything is set for Sunday."

Poinsettias. I've heard so many stories about how to care for them, I just don't know anymore. Hal, the new guy who helped with Christmas decorating, seemed to think they could be kept alive forever as a houseplant. I just don't know if I believe him, though. They don't seem very sturdy. But I know I can get them through to the end of Christmas season, which is two weeks from now. This coming week they especially need to still look nice.

This Sunday is Migration Mass, our parish's big shindig that winds up on the front page of our diocesan newspaper most years. People come from all over. It's a big production on one of my favorite Sundays of the year--Epiphany Sunday, the day the foreign magi come to visit the Christ child, thus becoming the first gentiles grafted into the People of God. I don't usually go, frankly. It has never felt right to me when I do go. One year I left after the homily. But I think I need to go this year. I need to suck it up and be a part of the parish family even when it irritates me and feels like a show.

Kind of like Christmas morning at relatives' houses. When I give in and just let it flow, you know? It's ok. Pleasant, even--and this year it was downright enjoyable now that I've let it stop being about me, all about me, in my own head and just let myself be there. I can do the same at church. As Jane will say next week at coffee, "it is what it is." And then it'll be back to Ordinary Time soon enough.

7/365 A Note in the Sacristy

I was here to water
poinsettias on Tuesday
I will return on Friday
to check on the iffy ones
I will rearrange them then
if I need to

91/365 To Do

Holy Thursday, 2010

*Finish banners, at least get everything sewn down--tomorrow finish edges and sleeves

*Make something for the potluck. S-Z is vegetables this time. Asparagus?

*Schnucks for egg dyeing materials

*Get lesson 1 done in dylexia book 4

*8:40? I have a note that says set up for Holy Thursday but is that done?

*Make a plan for Saturday's decorating: font, stones, PLANTS (when to buy? Friday? Today? TODAY) Crap. Flowers, banners, who is coming?

*Find lemon cake recipe

*Mail package to Erin

*Try not to fail

102/365 Vanda Phone Call

The answering machine light was on. I pushed play.

Bridgett? This is Sr. Vanda. Up at church? I'm sorry to bother you but I just stopped in at the church to pick something up for someone and Bridgett, the flowers are looking pretty sorry. I hate to say that but they really need some care. Sr. Hildegard said she was out until Saturday afternoon at least so I'm hoping you have time in your schedule to come up and tend to them sometime before the weekend. I know you have a busy schedule so I wanted to tell you that it really needed to be done. The flowers are in real need. And just so you know, when it comes time to discard some of those plants, I would certainly be interested. But Bridgett, you really need to come up and fix things....

I pushed stop. I don't know how much longer the message was, but I was done. I took a deep breath, wondering when it would be understood that "if you see a need, fill it" was my philosophy for plant care. I don't have ego wrapped up in plants the way I do in fabric. Seriously. I don't have any houseplants. They die. This is not my forte. But I'm happy to have it be my job. It just amused me, sort of, that Vanda's message took longer than filling a pitcher of water and hitting those plants in most need would have.

I went up to church and took care of things best I could. Confirmation is coming and we'll be redoing things. Just need to limp along a bit longer.

105/365 Are you sure?

"Are you sure you're supposed to place an order?" Fiona asks me on the phone as I'm placing an order. "Shouldn't we try to just limp along, rearrange things as best we can?"

"No, Sr. Hildegard told me to call and order for confirmation."

"Can we afford this?" she almost whispers. Fiona goes to church with me but she also works at a florist where we do all the ordering for Christmas and Easter (other plants I pick up at the wholesaler, but this is my connection for big orders).

"The archbishop is coming," I explain.

"Oh! Well, then!"

110/365 Flowers Die

I laugh when I tell people I'm in charge of plants at church. This is not what I'm good at. I do it, and willingly during Christmas and Easter, but it is not my strong suit. I don't know which plants should be watered heavily, which ones rarely. Light requirements, temperature control--so many things are beyond me and not too feasible for someone with 3 kids and a church building with no natural light.

I do what I can. I water things. I think about Dolores and her plant hospital in the Utah Vestibule. I remember meetings about plants and fluorescent lights and listening to people argue about plant care.

In the end, flowers die. They died then with the special lights and the passive aggressive watering routine, and they die now. No plant I've found yet, save perhaps the mother-in-law's tongues Fiona got for us, lives happily in that church with my version of plant care (and child care, frankly): benign loving neglect.

They die, and they die, and they die. And I have a bit less than a whole month left to nurse them along. Early weaning is never recommended. Sigh.

111/365 Fakus Ficus

"At my aunt's funeral, I noticed at the church that every other flowering plant on the altar was fake," I tell them at Worship Commission.

"You could tell?" Fr. Miguel asks.

"I went up and looked closely. They just looked too good."

"Almost fake good," he nods.

"Exactly."

120/365 The dream

I walk into church. The azaleas are almost dead, that sad dried up look they get right before I sigh and toss them. Other plants are in disarray. And there at the sacristy door is Fr. Miguel.

"HOW could you have let it get this way?" he accuses me.

I look around for an excuse but all I can come up with I say to myself, not out loud: "I can't do this job by myself."

I hurry around while he watches, watering and rearranging.


I have a feeling this wasn't about plants.

123/365 Floral Guilt

Due to the recurring dream about not tending the flowers (and whatever else I've let go astray) I take a moment from gardening this morning and run to church to water.

The door is unlocked. Wedding.

I go in, and it's silent. I rush up into the sanctuary, only to find that everything is still alive. Not even especially tired looking. I water things, suddenly pleased with the world and the things in it. And I rush back out to go tend my own garden back at home.

127/365 Weddings Suck

I hate brides.

There, I said it.

Fiona called yesterday. There's a wedding this weekend, the weekend I'm at a girl scout camping trip, and the bride doesn't want our plants.

There are a lot of plants on the altar.

"They will clash with her flowers," Fiona explains. She's doing the wedding flowers and wondered, on behalf of the mother-of-the-bride, if we could move them.

The mother-of-the-bride, Gillian, is a parishioner. Long time parishioner. I like Gillian just fine. But I'm not parish staff. I'm not an event coordinator or something. I don't get paid to arrange and rearrange flowers. I'm not there to please brides.

I sighed. Fiona backed up and tried again. Gillian could meet me Friday morning and move things with me. And then, maybe could I move them back after the wedding? Fiona could do some right before or after 4:30 mass.

I explained the girl scout weekend. Fiona was silent. I don't know--I like Fiona a lot. I don't know what she expected.

"Have you talked to Sr. Hildegard, or Fr. Miguel?" I asked.

"Well, not yet. We just, Gillian thought if maybe just you and she could handle it, it would be better."

"But if I'm not there, I mean, I think we need to bring them in on the conversation. I'll call Hildegard."

I do. Hildegard is not impressed with the bride either. She goes down the hall to tell Miguel. Jack is there--all three think it's a bad idea. Count me in.

But Gillian is a long-time parishioner. Rules are set down for a reason, but exceptions can be made.

So I'm meeting Gillian on Thursday at 8:30 to remove flowers, and Fiona is setting them back up before the 4:30 mass.

I hate brides.

128/365 Corpus Christi

Sal's in church when I get there this morning. He's setting up the kneelers for the wedding this weekend. "Setting up" means randomly dragging them out into the sanctuary. There are 4, but many couples only use two (or none at all). But he drags them out every time. I'm there to take plants away so that the bride's flowers don't clash. Whatever.

"Hey Bridgett!" he says, like always. "We did good with the Easter decorating."

"We did, you're right," I say, putting Leo down so he can look at the font.

"Pentecost, I guess we'll put up the red and white banners?" he asks. If he means the felt ones with all the words, the answer is no, we threw them away ages ago. But I just shake my head. "Oh, ok. I'll help take everything down after Pentecost," he offers.

"That would be fine," I agree. "Some time that week we'll work on it."

"Have you heard about Corpus Christi?" he asks. I hate finding things out from our mentally disabled janitor. Sometimes, though, he knows things first. It's a mystery.

"No, what about Corpus Christi?" But I can tell on his face he doesn't have any news. He pauses.

"Are we going to have Corpus Christi?" he asks, trying to be more clear.

"Well, yes, Sal, we'll have Corpus Christi." It's on the liturgical calendar. It's not optional.

"Nobody told me about Corpus Christi," he shakes his head like he's suspicious of my answer. "Are you sure we're going to have Corpus Christi?"

"Yes," I say more definitively. "Everyone has Corpus Christi."

"Ok, Bridgett, if you say so."

I've never been happier to see Gillian walk through the door.

135/365 Pentecost Plants

Something more red, the message told me. In the craziness of the day, with weather and getting the car looked at and worked on all morning long down in the county at the dealership, I made it to the floral wholesaler while my mother waited in the car with Leo sleeping in the carseat. I had 10 minutes, tops, in order to make it in time to pick up Maeve.

I went into the cut flowers cooler, thinking maybe gerber daisies in a clear glass vase might be different, maybe two sets on the side altars? I looked: nothing. The only things with red in them were towards the pink, and Pentecost isn't pink. It is red. Orange would be better than pink.

So I abandoned that idea and went to the greenhouse looking for flowering plants. Nothing jumped out at me. Geraniums? Ugh. Double impatiens in a hanging basket meant I'd be paying for the basket more than the plant. Lantana, same thing. There were some reddish leafy things--crotons, caladiums--and those went onto the cart. Gloxinia was red, but I was never too confident around Gloxinia. They were my first experience with church plants--Dolores left me with two of them to take care of. Why we only had two, and where they went, I don't recall. I just remember they didn't fare well under my care.

But then again, no plants fare that well under my care, unless they're tomatoes living in the garden cage in the backyard.

A couple of other red plants on the cart, and I head out to the front counters. I give them my account name. "The church, not the high school," I always have to explain. Does no one understand Roman numerals these days?

I carry them out to my mom's car and wedge them between the car seat and the side window. One plant on my lap. And Sr. Hildegard calls on my phone.

"We have so many plants here," she begins. I think she's about to tell me not to bother with picking out more red. So I tell her what I've just done. She says it's fine then, and she'll see me later that evening.

Although it would have been ok, right? I mean, the plants looked so lovely and full on my front steps. If there are too many plants in church, I could always deck out my yard with them...but I don't, obviously. I bring them up that evening and stand there saying "that looks good" as Kinnera and Hildegard arrange them. Too tired to even care at that point.

136/365 Rabbit Song

Gonna waste some time with you
and let this world go
Keep my heart idle
--Hem

We arrange plants. And then, because one must check the arrangement from where the people sit to be sure it's done right, Kinnera goes and sits in the front pew. Hildegard sits on the opposite side from her. I put something away in the sacristy and sit myself down on the top step, leaning on the marble communion rail.

Ah, the communion rail. So much kerfuffle over a piece of architecture. I might be one of the few people in the parish who doesn't have an opinion. We could leave it there and make the church look like it always has (except NOT, since it's changed and evolved over time anyway), or we could take it out and make the worship space more up to date. I don't care. I've never felt like it was a barrier because I'm a post-Vatican II baby and I never knelt at it. I've never felt barred from the sanctuary. So it doesn't bother me. But neither does it seem like the church would be scarred and broken if we took it out (unless of course we did a bad job at it...).

Anyway, just an aside.

I sat there and Kinnera told a story from lunch. Lunch at the parish where she works sounds like fun. Hildegard told a story of being trapped on Mustang Island in a car that wouldn't start. It's longer than that (obviously) and I just wanted her to keep telling it. Keep talking and chatting and I won't have to go home yet. Not that home is the problem. Anywhere but this moment is the problem. I want to sit leaning against this cool marble and listen to you chat and not think about anything outside this moment.

It wasn't anything important, the moment. We weren't making decisions or discussing deep topics. We were being idle. Putting off the next things--for me, girls' bedtimes and housecleaning. Just being there.

When I left, driving down Grand towards home, I realized how much I used to do that. Linger, chat, be. And I wondered what happened to make that so rare. Leo's birth? One too many obligations? Too much Irish dance? I don't know. It was a nice moment. I need to do it more.

272/365 Christmas Greens

So I called the wholesaler. It was time, if we wanted to reserve the things we want. We get our trees from a different wholesaler, and I can call him later (it's kind of a grungy outfit, office reeks of cigarette smoke, men who look like my uncles in carhartts standing by 50 gallon drum fire pits...). But the wreath wholesaler sells to florists, and so you know it's a nice place.

I called the guy we worked with last year. It's different now. Astrid used to run a wreath fundraiser and order the church wreaths at the same time. They arrived the first week of Advent and while that's great for your front door, it's not so good for a Catholic church that decorates for ADVENT before it decorates for Christmas.

Astrid doesn't do it anymore, and, surprise surprise, nobody has picked up the standard and marched on. So last year I did the order and this year I'm doing it again.

"When would you like delivery?" he asks me.

"Well, we will decorate on the 19th, so could we do the 18th, or maybe the Thursday or Friday before?"

There's silence on the other end. "You mean the Friday before Thanksgiving?" he asks.

"No, I mean the week before Christmas."

"You don't want your greens until the end of December?" he asks, like it's a ridiculous idea.

"Yeah, we decorate for Advent first, you know, all purple and blue and stuff--then we decorate for Christmas on the 19th this year."

"Ok then, well, I'd recommend the 16th if that's ok--everybody wants delivery on Friday for all sorts of things."

"That would be great."

I can see him hanging up the phone in his office, shaking his head at how bizarre we are.

297/365 November is coming

November is my favorite month to decorate church. More than advent, certainly more than Easter or Christmas. November means the book of the dead up on the St. Joseph altar, with candles and flowers. A table with photos of those who have died. More flowers at our Lady of Sorrows shrine. Mums, sunflowers, browns and golds. These transition from death to harvest (similar themes) with a thanksgiving tableau up by the altar the weekend before, with pumpkins and gourds, grains, more golds and oranges and darkest greens. It's the end of the liturgical year, end of the growing season, end of ordinary time. I love it.

My list of things to do balloons about now, for church and for my own life. I am busy from here until Christmas night--I've been busy for over a month already. But crisp fall days and falling leaves and halloween and mortality and chapped lips and sweaters make me start moving in a way that the languid humidity of July never ever can.

304/365 Mass of Remembrance Prep

The day got away from me. I meant to be there in the morning, but I forgot about music class with Leo. And then I had shopping to complete. And then lunch with Mike at Cravings (sigh). I got home at 2, but by then Leo needed a big old nap. So Mike picked the girls up at school and came home early. I checked the website of the florist supply house and knew I had a little time.

Sr. Vanda had been there in the morning. She waited for me. I never came. She got nervous and put the table out and covered it with a white cloth. Set up the candles. Waited. Decided to make herself not worry and went away.

I dragged everything in at 5:15 and got to work. The mums were crappy but I was excited about the cut flowers--I hadn't arranged in a long time, perhaps since last November, actually. I got it in and around, and then looked for the easel. We set it up to put a large board on, a board with the names of parishioners and parishioners' close relatives that have died in 2010. Last year Mike's uncle Tom was on the board. This year we didn't have anyone on the board, and that was good. But I couldn't find the easel and that was bad.

I called Sr. Hildegard and left a message about the easel. Then I got things done, including this arrangement. Sorry about the lighting; I took it with my phone. As I was leaving, Hildegard called me back. She didn't know where the easel was either--no, wait, was it in the basement in the back closet? Suddenly it appeared in my mind, too. But I was hungry and dinner awaited me and I went home.

At home, Sr. Vanda fretted.

And then Hildegard called to reassure her.

She was glad.

305/365 Mass of Remembrance

I found the easel, with Sal's help, in the kitchen. Of course. It must have been there for the chili cookoff. So I extracted myself from the conversation with Sal: We decorating church on Sunday? Before Christmas, yes. We going to put up the trees and the wreaths? Yup. Sure are. I'll be there. Sr. Hildegard told me not to touch the trees! I don't touch them! I didn't touch them last year! I have a rotating number of conversations with Sal, who is developmentally disabled, in his late 50s/early 60s and has been our janitor for probably forever; he lives in short walking distance with his sister's family.

Sr. Vanda was upstairs when I got back up with the easel. Ursula and Carlotta were setting up for the reception after the mass. They do beautiful work. Vanda told me all about her worries yesterday and how glad she was that I hadn't forgotten. I have yet to forget this, and every year she worries I'm going to forget. But not in a mean way. She just wants it to go well.

I got the rest of the seasonal corner ready, and went back to light candles to place in the candle stands behind the table where folks can place photos of those who have died. I thought about how we'd had to print a picture of Tom out from a Belleville diocese website, that we hadn't had a photo and the last moment I'm cutting printer paper and trying to find a frame.

I stood in the priests' sacristy and lit the candles. And one of those "I am in the right place" moments happened in my heart, the kind of moment that happened all the time the first year I worked at our parish in this capacity but hasn't in a long time. I lit the candles and put the burnt match on the aluminum sink draining board.And carried the candles out to the table where I put everything just so.Normally I would have stayed, but this weekend, next weekend, all weekends are so busy. Sr. Vanda asked if I'd carry in the incenser (incensor?), but I just couldn't.

"I'll mark you down for next year," she promised, not offered, me.

"That would be fine," I agreed. I like the task. I just couldn't rearrange the time today.

The conversation turned to Infant of Prague and what statues used to be in the nave of church and what I knew about the architecture--could I give a tour if need be?--and I thought I probably could. St. Joseph statues came up, and then we stood there staring at the still-dim church ready for this one last ceremony for those who have died. I thought about my grandfather and how he'd had three memorial masses and ceremonies, that it never seemed to be officially over, I mean, he died in February and there was one then, there was on in May for all the people who donated bodies to science at SLU, and then one when I was in labor with Maeve in October when they buried remains at the national cemetery.

I missed all three of them.

I told Sr. Vanda I'd see her later and made my exit. Tae Kwon Do and housework awaited. I turned off the radio when I started the ignition in the car. Didn't need the noise.

359/365 Taking down more Christmas

On Sunday, we've decided to sort of spread the poinsettias out, take down the evergreens, and ease our way out of Christmas. Like I said in my email, I don't care. Neither did most who replied. But Lynn's response was something along the lines of, "But aren't people expecting to be allowed to take a poinsettia home on Sunday?"

I thought, but did not say:

What? Since when is the parish a source of free plants? Since when do folks "expect" to receive a poinsettia from the parish after Christmas is over?

And then I remembered the year Lynn announced to the whole crowd at the Migration mass after-party , a week before the season was over, that everyone could go upstairs and get a poinsettia! I wasn't there (thank goodness). But I remember the devastation. It looked like post-sale Black Friday at a walmart. What a mess. But I do remember that being odd, how eager she was to give the damned plants away. Is this common? I just don't remember it from other parishes...

362/365 Down with Christmas

But don't take those poinsettias.

I stood in the back of church talking to Flora about what we needed to do after mass, after folks filed out and went out into the world. If we had people stay, we needed to take lights down off trees, take wreaths down, etc. And I was tying up the ribbons on my Christmas banner so they wouldn't get tangled or drag on the ground. Sal was trying to talk to me about how he did not touch the trees this year (although most likely he did...) and I was making a mental list of tasks.

I watched as a young girl, my daughter's age, went over to the creche scene and took a poinsettia. Miguel leaned over and said something to her, I couldn't hear what, but she put it back. He'd mentioned it at the end of mass announcements: don't take the poinsettias because we're still going to be using them for a few weeks.

Mostly because it annoys me that Lynn is so anxious to give them all away. I don't even like the damned things. But I guess I'm just not nice enough to let it go...