Let Summer Begin

Summer doesn't officially begin for another month yet but most of us consider Memorial Day weekend as the beginning of summer. Here in Minnesota we have had a very cool spring. We had snow several times in April and even once in May. The Memorial Day weekend was no exception. It did get very muggy on Saturday, leading to tornadoes. The nearby city of Hugo was hit, killing a 2 y.o. and injuring many. The next day it was back to 50 degree weather. I predict this summer will be similar to the summer of 1990. President Gorbachev visited Saint Paul that summer on the first Sunday of June. We stood in line to see him in our neighborhood. It was 28 degrees that day!! It was a very cool June and cooler than normal summer. This summer will be the same, in my opinion. Of course I'm not a climatologist but that is my prediction.

Gas here is up to $3.85.9 per gallon. So I will be mostly staying close to home this summer. My car required $1700+ in repairs earlier this month, followed a week later by a flat tire. Any money I had saved for a vacation is gone. I have a 2001 Taurus. I would trade it in but it only has 50,000 miles so I want to keep it for a few more years.

Why do gas prices always end in .9 cents? Nothing else is priced that way. I don't get it.

Tomorrow I test for the TSA, the folks doing security at our airports. If I make it through all the hoops I'd be working part time at the airport as a screener. I think it would be an interesting job.

May 1st 2005: 3 Years Later

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of what was almost my date of death. On May 1st 2005, a Sunday, my sons checked on me because they knew I had not felt well on Saturday. I had been in Ireland earlier in April. After returning from there I was tired beyond any jet lag I’d ever had. I worked on Friday and went to my usual Friday night crop, which I ended up leaving early because I was literally falling asleep while cropping. I was also having sharp abdominal pain. That night and all day Saturday was a blur of shaking chills and over whelming fatigue. Sunday they found me and called 911. I was admitted to the hospital in critical condition with pneumonia, septic shock, and DIC (Disseminated intravascular coagulation). I was dying. remember Jim Henson, the puppeteer? He died from the same thing. I was in and out of being conscious. While semiconscious I prayed to God saying if it was my time then take me. I prayed to Fr. Oscar Romero asking him to intercede on my behalf, that I wanted to live but I would accept whatever was God’s will. Well, I did survive. Had I died I never would have met my 3rd grandchild, Armando. Katie would not have remembered me, being only a year old. And Sondros would have missed me terribly. I have been left with a lot of lung damage. My health has never returned to normal. I ended up having to retire many years earlier than I planned to. But I am alive and I am glad. Thanks be to God and Senor Oscar Romero for his intercession.