Continuity

I was driving to the gym on Saturday when Bob called to tell me that the Pope had died. Bob is Catholic, so I suppose the Pope means more to him than he does to me, although I admired him, and also I've always been sort of fascinated by the pagentry and process, probably ever since I saw The Shoes of the Fisherman. Kind of the same way that I'm fascinated with royalty, probably. They're so different from us, but yet the same.

When I got to the gym, I changed my clothes and went upstairs to the treadmill. I had my iPod, but I also kind of like to have some kind of visual stimulation, so I turned on a television, and turned it to CNN, where they were showing crowds gathered in Rome and in Krakow. So many grief-stricken faces, some holding candles. I turned on the iPod, switched it to shuffle, and out of the 1,000 or so songs on it, it gave me "What if God Was One of Us?" It made me smile, and cry a little bit.

The broadcast talked about how long the Pope had been in power, and how so many of the world's young people had never known any other Pope, and it made me remember how my father said that when Franklin Roosevelt died, he (my father) thought it was the end of the world, because he had never known any other President in his life. I'm not much of a history buff, so I asked Bob, and he said yes, that Roosevelt was elected four times, but only served a short portion of his fourth term before he died. I think my father was about six when he was elected the first time.

Nice to have that kind of continuity in life.

This weekend I did get to the craft store and bought shiny black paint ("Black Sequins," it was named), and I put a coat of that on the black cabinet, and put another coat on the Moss Green one. At this rate, I might have something finished within two or three years . . .

I've just been stressed out and swamped at work, and haven't had a lot of energy left for other stuff. I came home last night after a particularly stressful day, Bob gave me my dinner of creamed spinach and salmon with dill sauce, then we went out and drove a few blocks away to pick up a sandwich for him. We got home, he went upstairs with his sandwich to watch the basketball game, and I sat down at the computer. By that time it was a little after 9:00 and I thought, wow, it's way too early, but I think I'm just going to go to bed.

Especially this early after the time change, I can't help but think, well, it's really only 8:30. But using that logic, of course, I got up an hour earlier, so even though it's only 9:30, I've been up the same amount of time. Or, no, that doesn't hold up, does it? Yikes. I hate the time change. I do, however, like getting home while it's still light out.

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