Ash Wednesday

Being a member of that small group of people known as Missouri Synod Lutherans my heart is full of love and understanding for those of other faiths. Being as that is the case I took my wife to the local Catholic Church for Ash Wednesday services. There must be something about me that irritates women. Wherever I go they single me out for payback. No sooner than we got seated than this woman comes up and asks me if I wanted to be an usher today. Naturally I declined. After everyone went up and got the ashes on their forehead and returned to their seats the woman leans forward and tells my wife " Your husband didn't receive ashes this morning so I will give them to him after mass." After the mass was over the woman comes up to me with her little jar of ashes and tells me I'm going to receive ashes. I told her, " No thanks, I'm a heathen ". She says " I don't care if you are a heathen or not you aren't leaving this church without ashes " and so she reaches out and gives me a big black mark on my forehead. Pictue below. 

Blessed Billie

   After church we went over to Mary's sisters place to check and make sure Nanny was being well taken care of. She was. Photo below. 

Nanny in her chair

 An interesting side matter is listening to the local news channels. You would think the end of the world was taking place because it is going to get down in the 30's. Some of the comments are funny. Mechanics are checking out all the school buses to see if the heaters work and maintenance people are being called in to fire up the heating systems in the schools. I do feel sorry for the poor people in the Northeast. That has got to be brutal.