Consecration

Consecration

Right before the consecration

these items are placed on the altar.

Two glass cruets for

water and wine.  

A chalice for the host Devine. 

A corporal, purificator, pall, and ciborium,

are needed to prepare 

the  hosts and wine.  

In the year 2020 another item joined 

the sacred vessels, that holy display,

 and now it's here to stay.

A pump bottle of
 hand sanitizer will now be on the tray!

E. Moscoso
 August 31, 2020

Fake Cooking

Many times, to give my home a pleasant apple pie or cinnamon smell, I will put water to boil on the stove. I throw in a couple of cinnamon sticks and before long, it smells as if I am baking. Anyone entering my home would swear that there was a pie or cinnamon rolls baking in my oven!

"I like cinnamon rolls, but I don't always have

time to make a pan. That's why I wish they 

would sell cinnamon roll incense.

After all, I'd rather light a stick and have my

roommate wake up with false hopes!"

Mitch Hedberg

I only wanted to roast a few green peppers for my dinner and did not realize that the smell would waft through my house. The aroma can make your mouth water if you were raised eating roasted green chili peppers! The man who was measuring my bathroom said, "I don't know what you are cooking, but it sure smells good!"

"The smell of green chili roasting 

is unlike anything else!"

From the Internet

Now I have two things I can use to make my house smell as if I am a great home maker!

Are We Tempting Fate

After we return from a trip, a few weeks after our return, I plan a party for all the travelers. This year, because of  Covid 19, no party was planned though I am asked almost daily if we will ever have a get together. As corona cases multiplied, I did not feel it was safe for our group to meet. It has now been six months, the cases in Jefferson County seem to be holding steady, so I decided to plan a get together at a restaurant with a large patio.

I checked into what their procedure was for protection of customers. No handing out menus, no water pitchers set out, individual salsa bowls, cleaning of area after each group with disinfectant , masks worn by staff and recommended for customers, no more than eight at a table and hand sanitizers. To me it sounded like we should all be safe as we join each other to reminisce about our trip to Texas that took place in February 2020! I can only pray that our party will stay healthy! Of course, if there is a surge of cases in September, we will not proceed with our party.

Checking different restaurants I found out that many do not have outside seating, some will only take groups of four, and some are doing take-out only. I feel fortunate that I found a restaurant that will help our group of thirty to forty people. I was surprised that when I called the travelers, every one was ready to get together and not a one seemed concerned about the coronavirus. Plans are moving forward for a one o'clock lunch at 3 Garcias Mexican Restaurant on 68th and Sheridan Blvd. on September 16, 2020. It will be wonderful seeing the travelers again and spend some time together while wearing our masks and trying to stay a reasonable distance from each other!

Wash Your Hands

Carry your own hand sanitizer,

Eat out side,

Wear your mask,

Do not shake hands or hug,

Stay a safe distance from others,

Do not share items,

Try to sit with just four people

while you eat.

and you should be safe from

contacting the Coronavirus!

Message From Hell

It is three in the morning and I am blogging because I have a heaviness of stomach, heart and soul. Yesterday Home Solutions sent a man to finish the floor in my bathroom. I liked him right away because he was professional sounding and he said that his M.O. was when no one else could do the job, he was called. Finally, I thought, someone who would finish putting in the floor. The first thing he brought in was a vacuum cleaner and that gave me a good feeling. He would clean up after putting in the floor. I heard banging, going in and out to get things from his truck, and then he said, "This box with the material has broken edges, and there is no way I can use them." He opened all the boxes, all had broken edges, and he was unable to proceed any further. I told him I did not want to hear any bad news regarding the floor. To me, bad news was news from hell!

He seemed sincerely sad that there was nothing he could do and I almost cried. There were two reasons I felt like crying. One was because the floor would not get done and two because the fellow was so sympathetic. It looked as if he wanted to cry also!   Paranoia floated into my brain and I wondered if a conspiracy between Home Depot and Home Solutions had decided they did not want to do my floor. It was a crazy thought floating around my head as the man, that I thought would complete the job, drove away!

I called Home Depot and explained what had happened and he said he had been notified by Home Solutions and he had received pictures of all three boxes with broken edges. I wondered if the material was so fragile, why wasn't it  packed better?  His comment that who ever picked up the boxes could have dropped them after leaving the store and this made me angry. The two young men who had worked on the floor earlier had pulled one slab out of the box and it was broken but they never checked to see if the other boxes were damaged or not. The young man did suggest I buy a different type of flooring, something about interlocking. He also said that the material was thin and staples would have to be hammered down and I would feel the bumps. I called Home Solutions and told them I wanted the staples pulled up and not hammered down. As I think about today's news, I had no way of knowing that the material that had been on my kitchen floor since July 7, 2020 was damaged. I canceled the order. Parry said he would cancel it.

 I went to Lowe's and ordered a new floor. I spent about an hour with the sales clerk going over size, color, etc. On Tuesday someone will come out to measure and the installation should take place in a couple of weeks. I am trying to stay positive though some parts of me has doubtful thoughts lurking around! Three months seems a long time to wait for a floor to be put in my bathroom!

Today, August 21, 2020,  I called Home Depot's finance department to inquire about my refund. They told me I had to go to the store and they would have to do it from their end. A partial refund was already in the computer and I inquired about the rest of the money. When someone comes and picks up the material I have in my kitchen, the three boxes of planks, transitional strips, and molding then I will get the full refund. Once I get my statement from Home Depot I will be able to confirm that I will get a complete refund.

Saturday morning, August 22, the damaged merchandise was picked up. After being in my kitchen for a month and a half, it is now gone and I will begin the process all over again with a different company. Praying that from now on, all goes well!

"If you are going through hell,

keep going."

Winston Churchill

B.S. or Truth

This blog is a continuance of the installation of a new floor in my bathroom. My last blog left off where I needed to call a plumber because of moisture on the floor and a screw instead of a bolt holding the toilet down. The plumber arrived today, August 6, 2020, and began checking pipes in the crawl space. "There may have been some leakage at one time," he told me and showed me a video of the pipe and where there might have been or could be leaking.  He told me that the large pipe should be replaced and it would cost around $5,000. He must have seen the look of shock on my face and continued with, "Nothing has to be done right now but eventually you should think about replacing that pipe. We need to keep an eye on it."  He suggested putting a meter that would give me a warning if there was ever water in the crawl space. He mentioned that he did not see any moisture in the bathroom and thought that what looked like old water stains could have been the adhesive underneath the original floor.

This made me wonder about the two young men that insisted the floor was wet as they showed me a meter that registered wetness. Were they not telling me the truth?  The plumber also had a meter and it registered zero moisture. That gut feeling that I had been conned by the installers made me wonder if I could ever believe the two installers. Was what they told me true or not? At the time I was told about the moisture, I had wondered if they just wanted to leave at three since it was Friday. Maybe they did not want to continue working and made up the damp floor.

The plumber, at one point when I mentioned it was very hard to trust workers because in order to make money they sometimes lied. He showed me four braided strings hanging from his belt loops. (Tzitzit are four braided tassels and represent four corners, they are visible for everyone to see, and it is to recall or observe the commandments of God!)* He said that he followed the ten commandments and would not lie. I believed him. He showed me pictures of his grandchildren and we chatted about the wonders of being grandparents and I had a feeling I had finally found someone I could trust. (Let's say I wanted to trust him 100 percent and believe him, yet I also know he wants to make money on a job.) I figured I would pay a bit extra as long as I trusted the worker! He had repaired a broken pipe for me in the past and I had liked him then because he was professional, and I believed honest, so I had him return for my current problem. In the back of my mind I think that workers see an older person, a woman, and try to take advantage. I hope not, but putting in a floor in my bathroom is taking more time and money than I thought!

He removed the toilet and placed it in a back bedroom and will return to put it back once the floor
people have finished their job. I called Home Solutions, the contractor for Home Depot, and was told no one could come out until August 20, 2020. I mentioned that the two installers had said, "Once the plumber takes care of the problems we will be right back. You will not have to wait and we will do a good job."  I told the man on the line what the young man had told me and he said he was sorry but all the installers were tied up until the 20th. He did add that if a cancellation came up, he would call me.

I called Home Depot and left an angry message on the phone for Perry. The material for the floor has been in my kitchen for over five weeks.  If I could pickup the heavy material I would return the whole thing and find another company that could do the job!

Today Perry returned my call and I told him since the Coronavirus was keeping me indoors and I was not going any where, I had gotten over my anger and would wait until the floor was finished by Home Depot and what ever contractor they used. He e-mailed me a picture of the molding and I picked the darker color to be put as the finishing touch on my floor. What more can go wrong?
I did say, "Well, maybe I will have a new floor by Christmas!" And his response was, "I know you will have a new floor way before then!"

"Contractors don't go to hell,

they go to purgatory.

Once a week, Satan comes

to visit, waves and 

hollers, 'Guys, don't worry,

you'll be out of here next week.

I promise.' "
Internet Joke

*Information from the Internet.

Problems Seem To Multiply

On June 16, 2020, I decided I needed a bathroom floor replaced. What I had was functional but I was just tired of seeing the same floor for over twenty years. I visited Home Depot because I have their credit card and thought it would be easier to work through them and get one year without interest. I wandered up and down the flooring samples until I found a few I liked. The clerk was young and I knew he could not have had a lot of experience, though he seemed to know what would work best in my bathroom. He discouraged using certain ones for different reasons and we finally settled on one pattern. I had wanted a wooden looking floor but he said it might be too slippery. The one I ended up picking he thought would be perfect because it would not be as slippery as the wood floor.  I wondered if he knew what he was telling me or what he had been trained to do and say. I liked the sample and I purchased the material. He suggested the quarter-round that is a finishing touch and I purchased that also.

At home I checked my floor again and noticed that the edge of the floor did not have the quarter-round, but instead a vinyl molding went along the bottom of the wall. I called the store and told them I did not want the quarter-round and just the vinyl molding. They deducted the item from the bill and I was told I had already paid for the molding. The next move would be when the installer would call me to know when the floor would be installed.

Around mid-June I received a call from Home Solutions and since the phone number came up unknown, I did not answer until I heard the message. I began calling the number and for two weeks  no one answered my calls. During this time, the materials came in and three boxes were picked up on July 7, 2020 by my son in law.  Delivery is $75 and I did not want to pay to have the materials delivered so on around July 17 I went to pick up the remainder of materials. About 4 people looked for the items and no one could find them. One said, "We may have to reorder." I called Home Depot and the person in flooring went to where the delivered items are located and she found them right away. On Sunday, the 19th three transitional strips were delivered at no charge. I thought those strips were the vinyl molding.   Finally, around mid-July I received a call from Home Solutions and a date was set up for the installers to come out on July 29, 2020. I took everything out of the bathrooms, leaving them bare and ready and then I received another call that the installer was ill. I asked if he had the Coronavirus and he said, "No, he isn't feeling well." They rescheduled for Friday July 31 and they would be out between 8 and 10. At ten I received a call that they would be out around noon.

Since I had a couple of free hours, I decided to go grocery shopping. As I was leaving the store, I received a call letting me know that the installers were at my house waiting for me. I told the caller that I had been told they would arrive at noon. I rushed home and found two, tall young men waiting for me. That's when the fun began. They did not have any information about tearing off the old  flooring. I told them the floor was to come up before any tile could be put down. He insisted since it was not in his orders that he could not do it. My response was: "Then pack all the materials and return them to Home Depot. I will cancel the whole order."  He said, "Don't do anything. Let me call my company."

He got on the phone and went outside. I could see him pacing back and forth as he talked. I also got on the phone and called Home Depot. After speaking with Perry, the manager, he said they would tear up the floor and he would let Home Solutions know.  I mentioned the molding and he said it had  been ordered and should have been picked up with the rest of the materials. He would look into it and call me. The two installers came in and began tearing up the floor. I saw where there was a hole in my
floor and wondered if the two guys, that spoke with an accent, knew what they were doing. One installer I nicked named the Bad News Guy. Every time he needed to talk with me, it was bad news.  One toilet, instead of having a bolt had a screw and he could not touch it because he did not know what was below the screw. He said in all the time he has worked on removing toilets he has not seen such a thing. He told me I would need to call a plumber and my suggestion was not to lift the toilet but to put the flooring around the toilet. He agreed. Before long he was back. "Come see." he said. I followed him and the floor without the linoleum looked like a war zone. He had a small gadget that measures moisture and at one point it showed 9 and in another point it was 3. When he set the gadget down on in the middle of the floor, it showed 0.  "There is some leakage, either now or at some time. That is what the dark spot is, it is water that has leaked from somewhere." When I looked at the floor I was shocked at how awful it looked and knew my project was going to cost me more money than I had anticipated!

After seeing the disgusting looking floor I wondered if my old floor could have worked for a few more years!

The workers could not work any further. They had to wait for the wetness to dry which would take 3-4 days and in the meantime I should call a plumber to see if he could find the leakage and also see about the screw instead of a bolt holding down the toilet.

Talk about depression. After waiting two months for a new floor, here I was with a room all torn up, more money I would need to pay out, and who knows what would be found in the other bathroom! Since this blog is quite long I decided to continue the story in another blog, beginning with the plumber.

"Television is like the invention

of indoor plumbing. It didn't 

change people's habits,

it just kept them inside the house."

Alfred Hitchcock

Grocery Shopping

What used to be a matter of getting in my car and driving to the store was a quick and easy thing to do. With the pandemic floating around I now pack disinfectant wipes, paper towels, spray that kills bacteria, and a mask.  Arriving at Trader Joes, I see that I will stand in a circle, six feet apart from other circles, wear my mask and slowly move toward the entrance. A kind man in a Hawaiian shirt passes free water to everyone standing in line. Signs about Boulder having regulations that emphasize the wearing of a mask by everyone or be fined are tacked up all over. Carts are sanitized before we pick them up and then we are allowed to enter the store.

I notice the majority of the shoppers are young people and I am glad everyone is wearing a mask. I do my shopping and feel quite safe. When I get to my car I take a sanitizing wipe and begin cleaning every place I touch which includes keys, door handles, steering wheel, and my hands before I remove my mask.

King Soopers has disinfectant spray bottles and paper towels available so we can do our own cleaning. Even though there is a sign about wearing masks, I noticed that some people do not wear them.

Heinies Market has an area with a sign letting customers know the carts have been cleaned but then I noticed that when people return their used carts they are placed where the clean ones are supposed to be. So, I wonder which carts are really disinfected and which are returned carts. Every shopper and worker wear masks and that is good.

Costco is impressive with how they handle the crowds. Everyone wears a mask. Carts are cleaned with a disinfectant before customers get them. Freezer door handles are constantly being wiped by the workers. Nothing is touched by the clerks as they use a hand held scanner for items purchased or since I use my credit card I place it on the reader and my total comes up. I suppose if cash is used then there would be the handling of the money!

"I find it astonishing

that in 2020 a smile

or a hug, has become

an act of revolution."

Kara D. Spain

Who Feeds Me?

Yesterday at Fr. Greg Ames' mass celebrating thirty-four years as a priest, he left us with an assignment. Instead of putting unimportant things on Facebook, we were to write about someone who has touched our lives and made us better people. As he put it, "Please comment about someone in your life, stranger or friend, who has enriched your life by their unselfish love."

As I thought about the many persons I could not find one outstanding person because there have been many. Many had helped me grow and many had fed me, but I could not think of a one extra special person. I had driven to Mother Cabrini Shrine and sat and meditated on trying to think of that one person. I mulled the people in my life but no answers came up. There were many I could give credit to and yet, I knew I would have to think more about the subject. Being fed by our Lord by people that transformed me into being a better person and in turn, I would treat others in a way to improve my corner of the world!

Driving down the mountain I decided to stop at Heinie's Market to purchase peaches and freshly roasted green chili. As I parked my car I saw a Spirit of Christ person that I know. She, before the pandemic, was a faithful gambler on the bus to Blackhawk. I had not seen her for five months and it was so nice seeing her. She was struggling with two canes to reach the grocery cart and mentioned she was buying peaches for a friend who no longer drove. I wondered if I would have done that kind of a favor!  As customers went around us we spoke about her being a reader at mass and I told her I saw her on Utube. "You have a very nice voice and I could understand everything you read." I told her. She responded with, "I practiced reading it."

She mentioned how she goes fishing at some reservoir, though she skipped July because of the 90 degree weather. I marvel at how daring she is to take her fishing equipment down to the edge of water, even with the rangers helping her. She said when she is ready to leave they come by to help her again.  To me, that takes a lot of guts because I know how difficult it must be to walk with canes or a walker. I have neither and it is still difficult for me to walk on uneven ground.

I couldn't help but think that in all the years I had known this sweet lady, she always has a pleasant disposition. She never lets her physical ailments get her down and has volunteered at
9 Health Fair plus other functions where I have happened to see her. Knowing myself, I do not believe I could do half of what she does.  I no longer had to think about the one special person who I admire and without knowing it, feeds me and makes me want to be a better person! I also know God put her in my path because he knew she was one of his angels feeding people on earth!

"Angels are like diamonds.

They can't be made,

you have to find them.

Each one is unique."

Jaclyn Smith

A Place To Meditate

Being cooped up in the house is beginning to take a toll. Today I decided to drive to Evergreen but dark clouds were forming and I did not want to be caught in the rain so I opted to visit Mother Cabrini Shrine. I could not believe how crowded it was and even before the pandemic I had never seen so many cars. I decided not to stay where all the people seemed to wandering around; some with masks but many without.  That's when I saw the additions that were not there the last time I visited the Shrine. Red benches were scattered on the side of the mountain side where people could sit and look up at the giant statue that look tiny because of the distance.

What a view! I sat on the metal bench and looked at the green mountain and the white, puffy clouds.
Two clouds looked like two hands and I wondered if  God was saying, "Come to me!"

As I sat looking at the clouds and the Sacred Heart Statue I thought about Fr. Greg's homily today about what we can do to make the world a better place. I will paraphrase part of what he said: "We are fed by our Lord by people that transform our lives and how we treat others." He asked that we write about someone that had touched our life and put it on Facebook.

I thought about people that have been in my life that have made me a better person.  What a wonderful place to sit and meditate. People that are good for goodness sake and do not expect anything in return touch me with their kindness.

I could see the stairway leading to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and prayed that no one would pass the coronavirus. It looked crowded and there did not seem to be any social distancing. When it began to sprinkle, I decided to leave the peaceful area and took one last picture of the pretty yellow wild flowers.

"This mountain, the arched back

of the earth, risen before us,

it makes me feel humble, like

a beggar, just lucky to be here

at all, even briefly."

Bridget Asher