My very eventful weekend.

This lady, Claire, is staying at our house. A few months ago, one of the Claretians, Fr. Wayne, asked us if she could for a couple of nights while she looked for a place to stay. We said sure. But then, upon returning from some overseas mission trip, she kind of got whooping cough. So her move was delayed. But she's here now, whooping cough free (or at least mostly so-- she still has some lingering effects) and looking for a place to stay.

She came in Thursday night. Thursday morning, while I was getting ready for work, Fr. Wayne called and while we were talking it occurred to me that this lady was coming to stay with us and the house was a mess. A mess enough even to bother me, which takes a lot. And we'd not prepared sheets or anything... it was just no good.

Luckily, last week at work, I'd been bored to all hell anyway, with very little to do. And extreme boredom freed me up to spend the day getting the house ready, and doing what work I did have to do on my home computer. At home. I told the receptionists that if anyone needed me, they could just call my house. No problem.

And that's how I spent my Thursday.

That afternoon, just as people started arriving home from work, I got a phonecall from this lady, who introduced herself, although I didn't catch her name. She said that her mother had just died, and asked me to play my guitar at her funeral on Saturday morning. I told her I really wasn't a proper musician, and only knew how to play the one church song on guitar. She said she wanted Ave Maria. I said I was sure that JP could do that. He's the music director, a proper musician, and probably the person she wanted to talk to. She asked if I would still play. I said the song I know how to play is 'How Can I Keep From Singing?' She said I could play that.

When I told my community that night, they laughed. Not in an 'oh, that's so funny' sort of way, but more in a 'why didn't you just say no?' sort of way. But the lady's mother died. She asked me to sing and I didn't have any real reason not to, so of course I said yes. But it was the song that was the issue. It's kind of... cheerful. Not exactly a funeral dirge. I was getting nervous. Maybe she didn't know what the song was and I was going to ruin her mother's funeral.

On Friday, I called JP. I asked him if he though the song would be appropriate, and mentioned that when I played it slowly, it did sound kind of somber. He said it would be fine. It's a lovely song. And as I've mentioned, JP is a proper musician, and I trust his judgement. I felt better about it.

Changing the subject of life, fifteen minutes later, Michael and I left the 8th Day office to go to the big immigration rally four blocks away. It was 2:00 when we left. The rally was scheduled to start at 2:00. We went last year. About a thousand people were there-- filled Federal Plaza. The anarchist group, Anti-Racist Action was there. So were the neonazis. Say what you will about the anarchists, but they kept the Neonazis from storming the rally when they first showed up. The police were a little slower realizing they'd appeared, and it was the ARA that actually kept them and their swastica flags away from the immigrants.

At any rate, despite hearing reports that there would be 40 to 100,000 people present, Michael and I kept invisioning last year's rally. So we were stunned and elated when 100,000 people actually did show up. There'd been a march at 12:00, and Britton later told us that he saw a helicopter shot of the crowd on the news. There was a point at which the entire two miles of the march was full of people, wall to wall blocking the streets. It took Michael and I an hour and a half to walk four blocks to the rally. It was over by the time most people got there, because so very many people turned out to support immigrant rights. I'll dedicate some future post to immigrant issues, but suffice it to say right now-- these are human beings we're talking about, and they do an awful lot of very good things for our country even without some of the very basic rights that us citizens really take for granted. And it's not right that we turn our backs on them or treat them like criminals. They're good people.

After the rally, Michael and I putzed around for awhile, got some coffee, and then headed back to 8th Day. During that walk back, we ran into a few people we know from Holy Cross, including Yesica from HOPE Program, and two of my teens, Tony and Cristina. Tony was all beaten up. He'd gotten jumped by one of the gangs, right in front of Cristina, a few days previous. It's going on three years that he's been out of gang life, but some things are just very difficult to escape. He's had a rough time regardless recently. His sister died from an aneurism a couple months back, and in the last month, two of his friends were killed. Tony is such a very good person that it kills me when bad things happen to him, and bad things always seem to happen to him. But he always says, "It's okay." And he doesn't complain, and he doesn't open up except to those people he really trusts. It took me a year to get him to say hello to me. He'd always hang in the background when adults were around because he didn't want his bad reputation rubbing off on Cristina. He didn't want her to be associated with him at all, even though they were dating. After he started saying hi to me, it was another half year before he told me anything about himself. In all honesty, I still feel honored when he speaks to me.

They had to go after awhile-- Cristina's nephew was hopping around doing a pee-pee dance and Walgreens wouldn't let her mom take him into the bathroom.

Anyway, after that, Michael and I headed over to this place called Howl at the Moon, where Ellen had won a Happy Hour for 100 of her closest friends. The deal was, you get in free before 7, you get two drinks for 50 cents, and then discounted drinks after that. They have dueling pianos, who play audience requests-- typically perky pop songs, although they also had a college fight song war for some thirty minutes. They serve the up-and-coming twentysomethings who work in the Loop. There were three people of color patronizing the place, including John's friend Joel, who obviously was with us. Michael and I felt really out of place there. John had shown up before us, and two of his friends were there. Britton and Dan arrived after 7 and didn't want to pay the cover, so they left. I only got drunk after three long island iced teas, which is a testament to the very low alcohol content of their 50 cent drinks since typically half of one would have me reeling. We finally decided to go closing in on 8:00, and I'm proud of Michael having been able to stay so long, because even John and I were starting to hate everyone in the place by the time we left, and we like going out. As we left, Ellen and her sister finally arrived, but she didn't blame us for going-- we'd been there for hours already at this point.

Back at home, we watched this movie Light It Up about a group of students who take an inner-city school hostage and demand school books and repairs and the rehiring of a good teacher who'd just been fired. Not a bad movie.

In the morning, I was up early to go to the funeral. Fr. Marino mentioned to JP that the lady wanted the Ave Maria sung, and then JP told me he hadn't known that, and didn't have the music. "I hope I can remember it," he told me. In the end, I wound up singing it a cappella, because I do happen to know the first verse at least. The accoustics in St. Paul are awesome. JP turned up my mike and my voice echoed off the brick-- it was actually rather nice. I sang How Can I Keep From Singing, a little slow, and that turned out nice too. I prayed for Aunt Rose, and again for my grandparents, and was glad that I had agreed to sing.

When I got home, Dan was waiting for me, but Britton had already left. The dyeing of the river was about to happen. We high-tailed it to the CTA and then made our way to the Chicago River, which was already green when we got there. A caustic, unnatural, neon emerald green. It was disgusting and beautiful all at once. Through the clever use of cellphones, we met up with Britton, and then went to the parade. The bagpipes were good, and some of the dancers, and there were some tumblers too that were neat, but mostly the parade was boring. We decided after an hour or so to pretend it was already over and we left. Britton wanted an Irish beer so we went to a pub, and briefly debated if it would be a good idea to start a bar brawl in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

That afternoon, I finished the fourth cut for the legs of my banker, and then went to bolt the legs to the tabletop. But we uh, we didn't have a wrench. At all. Dan suggested I bike over to St. Paul, because even as lacking as the place is in tools, they would surely have a wrench. They didn't. So I went over to Casa Claret, and found a pair of pliers that would work. And they did-- more or less. Until I got tired and refused to take a break because I was so close to having finished the next step, and kind of stripped the last two bolts pretty badly.

At that point, Michael and Britton and Dan and I made a decision that the house needed a wrench, or wrench set even. So Sunday, Michael and I went and got some. And I have officially fallen in love with socket wrenches.

I've also officially finished my banker. At 10:30 last night. I'll put up a picture later, or something. I'm so proud. It's heavy and I can't lift it on my own. It'll never fall apart. I did that.

I finished my weekend by going to bed and sleeping like I was comatose for ten hours. That was awesome too.

love ya bye!