Who Is Diego Maradona?

About three weeks ago a huge headline came up on my lap top about some fellow named Diego Maradona who had passed away in Argentina. Who in the heck could this fellow be, I wondered, to get so much publicity. He seemed to be a national super star though I had never heard of him. Today as I flipped through the Netflix choices I saw Maradona in Mexico and decided to watch it to find out why he was popular.

The video began with Diego Maradona going to Culiacan, Mexico, a hot spot for drug cartels. He was going to coach a losing team by the name of Dorados de Sinaloa. The team was at the bottom of the league and he thought with his knowledge of soccer he could get them to the finals and for a chance to move to a higher league.

I expected to see a trim man, after all he had been a soccer player winning championships in Argentina and Italy. Some of his shots were amazing and is rated as one of the top players, above Messi and Pele! Imagine my surprise when a short, chubby, homely, bowed legged, limping man appeared on the screen. He has arthritis in both of his knees and has problems walking but there is nothing wrong with his foul mouth as expletives are constantly coming out! He is a joker and kids around with everyone. The players see him as a father figure as he dances, sings, hugs and kisses the players. He also advices them on how to be better persons. 

I noticed that a serious face came on when he watched the plays on the field and there was no joking around. Someone commented: "You can control everything, but not Diego." A few times he was kicked off the field for objecting to a referee's call. At a final game, which they lost to San Luis Potosi the stands screamed, "Maradona sucks dick!" I thought that was a bit much yet he did get the team to the top of the charts yet never won the championship! 

His background, after being a super star, was sad because he began using cocaine and could no longer play. The video showed that he no longer used drugs and that he was clean.

He died on November 27, 2020 of a heart attack at 60 years of age in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A multitude of people from Argentina and other countries paid tribute to the beloved soccer player and he laid in state for three days for people to come to say their good-byes.

Surprising how I seem to enjoy watching soccer legends though I am not really a soccer fan. When I met my husband to be, he and his brothers were all soccer players. My son and then my grandson followed as soccer players! When my son stopped playing he continued in the field by coaching.  I have sat on the sidelines for lots of years, cheering for whatever team my family played on! I have learned that coaching is very important that can lead players to success! Diego Maradona certainly did that! 

When Maradona's name came up on the deceased list on the Sunday Morning show I had a good  feeling that I now recognized his picture and name! 

"My mother thinks I am the best.

And I was raised to always

believe what my mother tells me."

Diego Maradona

Thanksgiving For One

Plans to travel to California for Thanksgiving were canceled because the Coronavirus pandemic  continued to grow. I watched the Macy's parade, as I usually do every year, though it wasn't the same with the empty areas where spectators would gather.

In the past, I would either be with my family or friends on Thanksgiving Day. I could have let the day go by like any other day, yet I felt a traditional meal would be more appropriate even if I was by myself. I already had some of the fixings; mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy. I purchased a small turkey breast and around one o'clock I placed two large turkey slices in the oven to heat up, opened the can of cranberry sauce, heated up the turkey gravy, opened the small can of peas, and prepared a small package of mashed potatoes. I made some guacamole for my salad and was ready to eat around two o'clock. A friend had given me a cute turkey made out of nuts and leaves and I placed it   near my plate for my center piece. I got a wine glass and poured some Perrier. Now the setting looked more  

   festive and I was ready to eat. Before sitting down to eat, I put on some Jazz on station KUVO. I 

 thought about my family in California and knew that at 3:00 p.m. we were going to Zoom and I would 

see them. It would be the closest thing to being with them on Thanksgiving!

After my meal, I began washing the dishes and suddenly I remembered that I had not said a prayer of thanks before eating or after eating. I remembered as a child we would always say, "Gracias a Dios por esta  comida." I could not believe that I had not prayed before eating and felt guilty because there are so many things in my life that I am thankful for. As I did the dishes I gave my thanks for my meal and apologized that I had forgotten to say Grace before eating! Now I know that sometimes getting engrossed in certain things may take priority and important things, like prayer, take a back seat. 

I had scheduled the Zoom meeting at three o'clock and the Californians were right on time. The problem was that I had to open the meeting to let them in. Guess what? I could not get into the program because every password I tried would not work. We fooled with different methods by using their identification or me changing the password. After two and a half hours we were able to get in and had a lovely time catching up on what we had been doing. It was nice seeing them while we talked.

Thanksgiving this year was different, yet it was special because I did something entirely different than any other year.

"When asked if my cup

is half-full or half-empty

my only response is that

I am thankful I have a cup!"

Sam Lefkowitz

A Sad November

 It seems that the older I get, there are more deaths of people I know. Sometime in early November I heard that Rosie had passed away. She was a German lady I met at Young At HeartGroup at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community and when I fell and broke my ankle she would visit me in rehab. She would show up and we would have some lively chats! She did use a lot of cuss words and I found that funny because usually, in my generation, we don't use "bad" words. One time she sat and watched how the therapist showed me how to  get in an out of the tub. We laughed as I struggled to do such an easy function. On another day she arrived when I was baking cookies to prove I could be in a kitchen while in my wheel chair.  I had to laugh when she said, "They want you to bake cookies so that the workers can enjoy them!" She may have been right. A few years ago I attended a German festival and enjoyed eating traditional food she recommended. Soon after, I heard she was placed in an assisted living facility and I lost track of her. Her death came as a big surprise and I felt saddened that she was now gone. I was surprised when I found a picture of Cece and Rosie together!

Cecilia, I heard at mass one Sunday that she had passed away. I met her on a trip to the Marian Shrines in Europe. She and her roommate reminded me of my stereotype idea of what nuns should look like. I nicknamed them The Nuns.They got a kick that I thought they were nuns because they were married with children! I remember that when there was music at one of our Young At Heart dinners Cece and I would team up to dance. I lead and she was an excellent follower! I had not seen her for a long time and one day when I saw here I asked, "Hey, are you still dancing?"  She shook her head and remarked that those days were over and done. After that she stopped coming to our gatherings and now she is gone.

A few days ago, I heard that another Young At Heart member had passed away with Covid. I would see Nick at different functions and he seemed like such a nice man. He always seemed to want to help and he would go visit those people that were homebound. At the YAH dinners he and his wife were friendly and he seemed to be surrounded by different friends. I heard he had COPD and tested positive for Covid. He was on a ventilator to help him breathe and when he was taken off the machine, I thought he was doing better Then the news came that he was back on the ventilator and his kidneys stopped functioning and he died on November 19, 2020. His obituary mentioned that he loved to garden, fish, boating, camping and traveling. It just goes to show that we only know a small slice of a person's life!

I heard that an acquaintance had lost her 60 year old son who had pancreatic cancer. I called her because I know the pain of losing a son and she told me she had lost her daughter four years ago. She did say she still had one living child but that does not take away the agony of losing our children. She continues taking care of her husband who she said sometimes doesn't know certain things and other times he is lucid. She has a good attitude and we laughed how when I see her, I never remember her name. I can always use the age card that my memory fails me when it comes to names!  I am glad we commiserated on how difficult it is to lose a child. I let her know I would pray for her.

"Even the best of friends

cannot attend 

each other's funeral."

Kehlog Albran

Covid 19 and Thanksgiving

 I wonder how long a virus can live on a spray of perfume? Today as I walked through Costco, I suddenly got a whiff of sweet perfume. I have no idea who walked past me but the smell lingered on and it seemed as if it was inside my face mask. After moving through a few rows the smell finally disappeared. Could the virus hitch a ride on the fumes of perfume? Or could the ingredients in perfume kill the virus? Some perfumes have alcohol (vodka) and some have lye, so I am hoping that the virus wafting over to me had already been killed by the woman's perfume. If not, I may come down with Covid, but at least I will know how I got it. The mystery of not knowing how or where people get ill, for me, will be solved!

Shopping at Costco, if people did not have masks on, I would have thought everything was normal and like it used to be before Covid. Many persons were circling around the turkey area, some had two or three Costco huge pies in their carts, and a few were buying containers of gravy or mashed potatoes. I stayed away from those crowded areas and wondered if anybody cooked anymore. I picked up a couple of items and was out of the store in less than half an hour. The return line was long with about thirteen people waiting to return something they decided they no longer wanted or the item was defective.  People were coming out of the liquor area with boxes of wine or other alcoholic drinks and I figured they were going to party for Thanksgiving and I hoped that they would stay healthy.

For me, this holiday will be different this year. I will join my California family on Zoom or Face Time as they prepare their dinner. Watching the Macy's parade will take up my morning and then I will have my Thanksgiving Day dinner of sliced turkey breast, canned cranberries, packaged mashed potatoes and gravy, canned peas, guacamole, and for dessert a Keto ice cream bar! There will not be any cooking in my house but I am looking forward to virtually spending time with my family! 

"See that Thanksgiving celebrations are

restricted as much as possible so as to

prevent another flare-up."

Message in Omaha World Herald, Nov. 28, 1918

Amber Alert

When my phone began making the loud and horrible sound letting me know that a child was missing, I glanced at the phone and realized it was not for a child missing, but a Covid warning! I don't recall the entire message just something about This region is at severe risk from the deadly COVID and the warning to STAY HOME. A frightening alarm since I thought the majority of people did obey the Governor's mandate to stay at home, wear a mask, and social distance. Was this something new? My imagination pictured an overturned truck with jillions of viruses scrambling out of the overturned truck and headed to the towns and suburbs!

Dear God.

Only You know why we are faced with this virus,

 a pandemic with so many sick and some dying.

I pray that soon we will be able 

to face life without a mask, to be able to hug,

to not look at others with fear,

to hear a cough and not want to run away 

and to be rid of this deathly bug.

Until then, thank you for

keeping me, my family and friends safe. 

 I pray that soon this will be in our past,

that Covid finally is dead and gone,

and we awaken to a new dawn.

We will now have a life that will last

and we can smile for all we have endured 

with the whole wide world finally cured!

Amen

Erlinda Moscoso 2020

Talents

"Believe in yourself.

You are braver than you think,

more talented than you know,

capable of more than you can imagine."

Roy T. Bennett

On Saturday evening mass the Gospel was from Matthew 25:14-30. It was about the man who was going away for a long time and entrusted three workers, each according to his ability, with talents. One worker received 5 talents, another received 2 talents and the last man got 1 talent. I have heard this gospel many times and Saturday I finally understood it. It wasn't so much about talent of special gifts like musicians, athletes, singers, actors, creative people, etc. but more of faith. During the homily the priest mentioned that a talent equaled a whole year's salary.  I looked up the word talent on the Internet and read that today it would be worth around $400,000 dollars!

The first man doubled the talent, the second also doubled his talent but the third man buried his because he was afraid to lose it and wanted to return the whole thing to his master.  The story is not so much about money, but about stewardship, responsibility and being prepared. When Jesus returns, we will need to return our talent and which one will we be? What have we done with our talent? Will we act like the first, second or the third man when we confront Jesus?

When we are baptized we are given grace and this can never be taken away from us. God has invited us and will we RSVP? We need to invest our talents and not waste them.   We must humbly look at our lives and do the best we can with the talents we have. True joy will be found in our response of being faithful in what we do and we will be rewarded by entering heaven.

The priest gave the example of the woman who takes care of her family, cooks, cleans, is honest, cheerful, and uses her talents in the best way she can by maximizing her humble talents. Doing the best that we can is my understanding because I have never considered a woman's every day work as a talent.

I had a better understanding of the talent parable but was curious about how another priest might explain the same Gospel. I listened to a priest from Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles and paraphrasing what he said: The parable was told to his disciples because He was going away and was entrusting the talents to them until He returned. Those that increased their talents would share in the Master's joy and be given great responsibility. The man who buried his treasure out of fear of losing it all did not make the Master happy. Everyone who increases his talent will be given more. The ones who do not increase their talent, everything will be taken away. They cannot share in their Master's joy. He sees them as partners because he trusts them, appreciates them, and they are given more responsibility.

Our valuable talent is our gift of faith. We continue what He began and the gift of faith needs to be invested by our actions and how we live our lives. Invest the faith we have been given. Help the needy, visit the ill, feed the poor, work for justice, and love our neighbors are some of the things to strengthen our faith. How did we use the faith we were given at Baptism? Faith is too valuable to hide or as the parable states it is too valuable to bury. What will we show Jesus when He returns? 

Even though I do not have artistic talents like my brother and daughter, I cannot cook like some of my friends, I have no knitting or crocheting talent, I am not a gardener with beautiful plants so I wonder what my talent is. I have no idea what I will present to God when he returns. It seems that in my life I have done more burying than investing. I need to look at my life and see how I can begin to invest my talents. Once I find out what they are, and I multiply them, then God will say, come share My joy in heaven.

On the internet I found 108 ideas that can be talents.  Even though I never thought the things I love to do are talents, they were on the list so I will accept ten that I might have: Writing, travel planning, photography, slide creations, humor, reading, typing, ability to make friends, volunteering and dancing. I will have to figure out how to invest those talents and maybe that will help me enter heaven when Jesus returns and asks what I did with my talents! 

"When I stand before God at the end of my life,

I would hope that I not have a single talent left.

Then I can say, 'I used everything you gave me.' "

Erma Bombeck

A Bit Of Happiness During Covid

"It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things 

if you make your mind firmly that you will."

L.M. Montgomery

Grocery shopping is something I never knew would give me happiness and when there isn't much going on in my life, a bit of happiness enters my heart as I buy what I need. The other thing that gives me happiness is receiving an e-mail notice from Amazon letting me know that my package has arrived. DELIVERED, Your Amazon Purchase has been delivered. I open my front door and there is a box with a large arrow on its side! It's like Christmas, and even though I know what the gift is, it is always fun to open the box and see if what I ordered passes the test!

Lately the e-mail wants me to mark a box letting them know regarding the service. There are five boxes I can mark: Cares for other, Delivered with care, Above and beyond, Followed instructions, Respect of property and On time. I follow the instruction and let Amazon know the package was delivered with care! There is also a picture of the box on my porch. I can see how this protects the driver.  

During this time, when masks are required, Covid seems to be increasing each day, and more people I know have the virus, those little things bring me some happiness! In a few days I will receive another package and then I will begin looking to see what else I can order.  What fun!

"Happiness is a function

of accepting what is."

Werner Erhard

Our New President

 Because of the anxiety that the television news was causing me, I decided not to listen to the news.  Around November 2, 2020, a friend called me and told me she thought Biden would win.  I told her I had no idea who would win and did not want to speculate. On November 4, my friend called me and said, "Chances look good that Biden will win." I told her I did not want to hear anything about the election or how the polls were progressing. "When he wins, if he does win, then we can talk about it again!" 

 Friday, three days after the election, neither Biden or Trump had won. On my computer I would see the same number of electoral votes...Biden 253 and Trump 213. Saturday morning, my friend texted me with the message,  "Woohoo, Biden won!" I turned on my television, and sure enough; Biden had won when Pennsylvania counted all their votes!

Now that the election was over and Biden had won, I thought I might begin listening to the news again. I turned on my television and joined the rest of the happy people; cheering, crying and happy that we had a new president. Suddenly, I too was in tears. I tried to analyze why my tears had sprung out automatically and wondered: was it seeing praises coming from around the world? Was it a release of the anxiety I felt during the process? Was it fear of what might happen next? Shock? Relief? What ever it was that brought the tears, I did feel happy that we now had a president who seemed to be level headed, compassionate, and with lots of past experience. I did wonder how and why Trump had so many followers. Was there something they knew that I didn't? 

A few of the reasons that Trump did not sit well with me were his comments that he could go into a New York street, point a gun at someone and kill them and get away with it or his making motions like a person with a disability. Seeing him saying and doing those things turned me off. At that point, I had no idea whether or not he would make a good president. Though, I did  wonder what kind of a person would say and do such  things. Since then, there have been many other things that he has said or done, about thirty or more, that have bothered me, making me wonder how he had become the president of the United States.

"To survive in peace and harmony,

united and strong, we must have

one people, one nation, and one flag."

Pauline Hanson

Now that Biden was the new president-elect, there would be two phases; one person leaving and another entering the white house. Then I wondered, would we then return to a normal life? I  know it will not be easy but I have faith that things will get better and there won't be such a division between Americans; or I hope everyone can reconcile their differences. When I thought I could relax and put my anxiety away, the news was that Trump would not concede and that he was filing lawsuits in different states. I remembered reading an article about him, before he got into office, that his father had told him, and I am paraphrasing: "No matter what you do, get a good lawyer and whether you are right or wrong, sue." And that is what I fear he is doing!

I read articles that informed me that the process would proceed and we will have a new president in January, 2021, yet I have some doubt that the process might not go as planned! These are different times than how it used to be when I was growing up. I hope that both parties can reconcile and become united in a fair, kind, loving and generous people; that is the only way we can unify our country!

"If we even forget we are one nation

under God, then we will be a

nation gone under."

Ronald Reagan

Virtual All Soul's Mass

Every year for All Soul's Day, I take a candle and place it among the many other remembrance candles brought in by Spirit of Christ Catholic Community parishioners. This year, because of the Pandemic I did not attend the mass. Instead, I placed my son's picture, a candle and an orange paper flower on top of my printer and turned on my laptop to virtually attend the nine o'clock mass.

Part of the mass is when the names of all the deceased, since the last All Soul's Mass, are read. This year I knew seven of the persons who had passed away. One was the husband of a book club member, two were friends from our gambling outings to Blackhawk, one was a past soccer parent, two were husband and wife I knew from Young At Heart, one was the wife of a dear friend and one was the only male book club member. I am noticing that the older I get, the more people I recognize from those lists!

The music for the mass was touching and uplifting. I give thanks to God that there is now the capability of attending mass while being home and I can watch mass from on my laptop. 

"I will rise when he calls my name,

No more sorrow,

No more pain,

I will rise on eagle's wings

before my God."

Hymn