Still Another Retreat Experience

“I’ll just keep on talking.”

I was on retreat the weekend before last; it was my third annual retreat at the Jesuit retreat house.

“Third annual,” you may be thinking, “must be a good experience.” Yes, it is / was / and I’m sure will continue to be a good retreat experience.

I was talking to a friend, Travis, about my experience, about retreats in general there ( he was interested in possibly going but had a reservation or two ) and thought it worthwhile to post the things we spoke of. ( For thoughts on my first experience there, click here. )

Both last year’s retreat and this year’s inspired me to reflections about my life and real change. That which I conceived last year has occurred; it’s too early to tell about this year’s, but I believe it’s happening.

Last year’s retreat master ( the priest who delivers the conferences ), Fr S, was old school, and made frequent unflattering remarks about how things are now in the Catholic Church. This year’s, Fr O, was the opposite; he seemed to embrace virtually all of the changes and would take some of them further. Night and day. Both philosophically and theologically I am sure I have much more in common with Fr O than with Fr S. But, and this is the point, I enjoyed both retreats, listened carefully to both of them, prayerfully considered what they said, and took from each constructive change for my life.

Both retreat masters are Jesuit priests. Fr O told us that he and Fr S are friends. He elaborated on that during one conference, “There is nothing he wouldn’t do for me and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for him.” Pregnant pause. “And we pretty much spend our life that way, doing nothing for each other.”

It is a prayer-filled weekend. In ways going there is like my stepping back in time.

I said prayers with the retreatants that I had not said since grade school. The Angelus, the Rosary, the Before-Meals prayer of my youth. I don’t dislike these prayers; I just have not prayed them.

Benediction is offered daily and includes the Blessed Sacrament; not many parishes offer Benediction today and fewer include the Blessed Sacrament. ( Travis, a self-professed liturgical nerd, told me this. ) It’s been a long time since I attended Benediction, though not as far back as grade school.

At the end of each conference, Fr O led us in a short meditation on the topic of the conference and concluded, “Let us pray for the man in this room who, right now, is struggling the most with … “ the topic of this conference. On the last day, he urged us to, “As you’re packing, pray for the man who, next weekend, is going to have the room you are in.” And, “Pray for the man who, next weekend, is going to be in the chair you are sitting in right now.”

The weekend should be relaxing. All the retreat masters have urged attending to our sleep needs. Fr O said, “If you’re fighting sleep here, now in the conference, stop fighting and take your rest. I’m Irish and I’ll just keep on talking.” He followed that by continuing to talk.

There is plenty of time. Travis told me he needs alone time when on a retreat; seventy-some men, even with the silence, gave him significant pause. I assured him there is both adequate space on the campus and time in the schedule to be alone. The Jesuits realize the retreat happens between conferences, and provide plenty of time for it to happen. There is a nice time between consecutive conferences, more than enough to spend some “away from it all” in one’s room ( which is private ) or walking the many trails on the campus. There are thirty to ninety minutes between a meal and the first group activity afterward.

It’s a marvelous experience for me and opportunity for you.

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Rice Budget?

My diet has changed quite a bit in the last couple of months.  First I went back to counting calories, then I gave up meat.  So many more vegetables, and then there's the fruit smoothies.  One thing that has not changed is the amount of rice I eat.

I never actually leave the house thinking of the yummy rice I'll be eating today.  And I never buy rice to eat at home.  But I eat out one meal almost every day at places like Little Tokyo and Chipotle, and it almost always contains a lot of rice.

Yesterday I was really looking forward to trying some prepackaged curry, but it definitely needed filler.  Of course my go to will be rice.  And why not pick it up from Little Tokyo?  So I got some rice and steamed vegetables for $4.75.  It was all delicious.  I've been thrilled with these prepackaged indian main courses in general, and will be eating much more in the future.

But I got to thinking.  A burrito from Chipotle would cost about as much to make on my own as it would to buy from them.  But steamed rice and vegetables?  Maybe a dollar.  A rice cooker could make both, and pay for itself in less than a week.

Now you may be thinking, 'Wouldn't it be even cheaper to use the stove you already have?'  Nope.  Because I wouldn't do that.  I'd plan on making it, then run behind, or give up because I'm lazy.  I may have ridiculous limitations, but at least I know what they are.

*** Update ***

Never mind.  Chipotle sells a side of rice for a dollar.  Chipotle is awesome.  Problem solved.

Another Adventure in Tech Support

“I haven’t heard from Betty all day; I’m disappointed.”

As I reported earlier,  our year has gotten off to a rocky start and Ellie has recently been texting her California sister quite regularly about what’s going on.

Most recently, they had spoken on the phone about a facility for their brother. This was the subject of some controversy, our visit to the facility changed our minds about the controversy and we shared our new thoughts with Betty in California.  Ellie had expected to hear from Betty the next day, after Betty had had some time to digest our input. But the day came and went without a word. “I haven’t heard from Betty all day; I’m disappointed,” Ellie said.
 
Ellie and Betty were playing the smartphone game Words with Friends, which has a chat capability; Betty sent a message over the line. “So, did I say something to offend you? I’ve texted you half a dozen, a dozen times and you’re not responding.” Ellie read this aloud.
 
“What the heck?” Ellie asked, as if I’d know something.

“I dunno.”

Ellie phoned Betty. Betty had been texting Ellie throughout the day and was perplexed that Ellie was not responding. Ellie had gotten none of the texts.

Betty was able to text me; Ellie was able to text her. Betty’s husband’s phone could text Ellie. It was only Betty’s phone that was not getting through to Ellie’s.

After Mass the next day, we visited our carrier’s local store. The young woman thought perhaps providing a new SIM card would do the trick. Nope; made no difference. She then got very busy with fingers flying all over in Settings, she said something about “blocking,” and said that a full phone reset was the next step. As we didn’t have a memory card, the flying fingers started a backup of all Ellie’s photos ( of which there are many ) to Photos in the cloud. “That will take a while because you have not done that and you have a lot of photos,” she said. “When the synching is complete, perform a reset. Or come back and we can do it for you.”

While a full reset was unappealing in the extreme, being without texting during this time was even less appealing. So, returning home, I called our carrier’s tech support. She had me turn Ellie’s phone off, she disconnected it from its cell tower, and had me turn the phone on again. This reconnected the phone, but had no impact on the phone’s ability to receive text messages from Betty. She connected me to their tech people.

I told the story. “I think I know what’s happening,” he said, with little hesitation. I followed his instructions. "Please open Messaging, make sure you’re on the main Messaging window, tap the Menu, tap Settings, tap Spam Filter. Is it ON?”

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“Tap it. Tap Add to Spam Numbers.” There is was, big as life:

Somehow, after the last message Friday, Ellie had identified Betty’s phone number as a source of spam, blocking text messages from that number. I deleted Betty’s number, called her to send a test text, and it came right away. Problem solved.

I told the tech on the phone that I felt a little like the guy who couldn’t get his computer to start and then realized it was not plugged in. He said this is very common, very easy to accidentally do, he’s done it, not to feel bad. I thanked him and hung up. Betty’s subsequent barrage of smiley faces told me she was laughing at me/us harder than the tech guy.

Then I realized how foolish it is to be able to so easily, inadvertently and unknowingly block a text message sender. I also realized how foolish it is that I had to contact our carrier three times to get this simple problem resolved. No way I should have had to make three calls for such a simple item.

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Does This Thing Work? Fitbit

I have been back using MyFitnessPal for three weeks, and have been more successful that I could have hoped for.  Entering food is easy, but I've always hemmed and hawed when it came time to adding the exercise.  Sometimes I've even had to pull out Google maps to figure out how far I'd traveled.

Surely in this modern age, we have the technology to simplify that.  Right?  Well, I've tried several phone apps, and have been far from satisfied.  The ones that tracked my actual movement with GPS often got confused.  If I walked under an awning, for example, it would lose my position, and think I ran across the street for a moment.  If I crossed a bridge, it thought I ran down the side of the cliff, crossed at the bottom, and then scaled the other side.

Simple pedometer apps didn't fair much better.  It was really a sensitivity issue, and maybe I could have adjusted that.  Who knows.

I haven't actually checked, but it seems that Fitbit is the leading name in this field right now.  And I do love gadgets, so I bought one.  I've been using it for a week, and I think it's time to assess if this thing works.  I think the answer is, sort of.

It probably did a great job with the distance.  I say probably, because it often said about 2 miles more than the distance I know I walked.  But I think it's probably fair to say that I walked around the house and office and such for an additional two miles.  I just don't know for sure.

Calories is another matter.  For example, one day it said I walked 8 miles, which is about right, but that I burned 15,000 calories through exercise.  An adult of my size should burn about 100 calories per mile.  But I did go up several flights of stairs, and did 60 pushups.  That, and I'm one of those people who jimmies his legs.  Does it see all this, and report it accurately?  Do I burn way more calories than I think?  I really have no way of knowing.

It does work with MyFitnessPal, and automatically imports my exercise.  I would say that it does simplify things quite a bit.  Not completely though.  I still have to check every day so that I can lower it manually when the number is way higher than I expect.  I'm sure I can give a more through review in the coming months.

I can say for sure, that it is an accurate watch.

More Microsoft Trouble for Me

“We were not able to complete the payment.”

I am not a fan of Microsoft. I believe the company is a bully, publishes bloated software, and usually does its users no favors. I am, however, a devotee of its Office product.

I own copies of Office 95, Office 97 and Office 2007. I have a subscription to MSOffice365; as long as I pay the annual fee, I am entitled to all updates, both major and minor, and access to all the programs in the suite. This is a good thing; I use the suite for virtually everything I do in my digital life except surf the internet. The subscription may cost me more in the long-run that purchasing the product, but both my wife and I can use it on our computers and the cash flow in the early years clearly favors the subscription.

At any rate, I bought it two years ago, renewed it a year ago, and was anticipating renewing it this year. I set calendar reminders so I would not forget. No need, of course, as MS let me know months in advance
( exaggerating slightly ). I eventually realized the subscription was due on Easter; I was unconcerned, believing I had to renew on or before March 27.

At 9:47 pm on March 26, I received an email from Microsoft: it confirmed the cancellation of my subscription. The message was mangled: “We’re sending you this message to confirm that your Office Home subscription ended ( note the past tense ) on Sunday, March 27, 2016 ( note the future date ).”

Ouch! This is a big deal. I use Office for virtually everything, I’m a power-user, and having to reinstall it and redo all my custom tweaks and things, would be devastating. I took a deep breath … maybe several. I came to believe that the future nature of the date was more important than the past nature of the cancellation text and that I could easily resolve this by renewing the subscription early Easter morning; I went to bed.

Stealing a few moments before leaving to visit family, I found the renewal instructions to be easily followed. Clicking the final button to complete the transaction, however, didn’t. Clicking the button didn’t do anything. After some non-productive fooling around ( I am a techie ) I clicked ‘Live Chat’ for help.

“The record says we were not able to complete the payment; are you using the same payment method as you did last time?”

“Yes, I am,” I reply. Isn’t the change in credit card on record at PayPal supposed to be transparent to this kind of thing? I wonder to myself.

Everything she asked me to do, including re-verification of my log-in and trying Internet Explorer, worked exactly as expected, except for clicking that final button. “Honey, are you coming?” my wife asks from the back door.

Now wanting to finish quickly, I ask, “Well, how about if I just give you my credit card information and you renew the subscription for me?”

“I would have offered that in the beginning of this if we could do that; I am not able to complete the sale for you. You can call the number on the screen and they can do it.”

“Thanks, good bye,” I typed and went upstairs to visit family.

After returning home, I returned to my computer intent on resolving the issue and renewing my subscription. The first thing I planned to do was remove PayPal from the payment method and add it in again. Using Firefox, I had some trouble getting this done. I opened the Microsoft site in Internet Explorer to try doing it that way; I experienced some more trouble. I eventually shut everything down and started over. Using Fire Fox, I tried renewing the subscription and everything worked exactly as it should, including the final button to complete the transaction. In moments I got a ‘thanks for your renewal’ from Microsoft and a receipt from PayPal.

Apparently the problem(s) I had had earlier in the day had nothing to do with either the browser or the payment method I was using. Go Microsoft.

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Not Much to Give Up

As predicted, vegetarian is easy, and vegan was very, very hard.  I say "was", because I gave that up on the third day.

The breaking point for me was Chipotle.  I had been eating most of the same foods that I always had, but making substitutions.  They tasted fine, but were super light on calories.  So, I ended up eating a bunch of junk food, like chips.  It all just seemed off.  I got most of my nutrition from a wholesome dinner, but half my calories were coming from soda pop and junk food.

I know it doesn't have to be that way, and I would have figured it out.  In the mean time, I had one easy answer; Chipotle.  I knew I could get a good nutritious meal that has a meal's worth of calories.  But then I got there, and I took a hard look at that cheese.  I can replace the meat with sofritas, or guacamole, or even both.  It just seemed hollow without the cheese.  I didn't order the cheese, but I did really miss it.

Part of my problem is that I'm doing too much at once.  I'm still getting used to being back on a low calorie diet.  I'm also walking considerably more now that the weather is getting nice.  Then there was meet.  Now dairy?

I know a wiser man would suggest going vegan one day a week, and slowly increasing it.  I just think I'll be happier with the cheese and ice cream.  I'm going to remain vegetarian for now, but I think I'm going to literally wait a year before I even consider vegan again.  Food is just so much of our lives, this is really all I have the will power to do at the moment.

I will say this though.  If I started trying to cut out meat, I'd probably be obsessing about the meat I'm not eating.  Instead it seems almost trivial, and I keep thinking about all the things that I can eat.

It's Like Coming Home

“No! It’s a ( uh ) reading … not a ( ay ) reading … “

During the last years of Loretta’s life, because her energy level varied widely, we never knew until the weekend which Mass on which day we’d be attending. Going to our parish frequently required more energy than Loretta had to give. We would wind up going to Mass at a different parish; it was closer and the Masses were shorter. She could participate fully.

Though she had this limitation, Loretta never failed to lector ( proclaim Scripture from the pulpit during Mass ) when her monthly turn came. She almost always made it to the required rehearsal the Tuesday evening before and always made her scheduled weekend Mass.

I, too, am a lector. For over twenty-five years I had been a regular at our prior parish and had discovered, as Isaiah says, “The Lord has given me a well-trained tongue.” I was eager to lector at the Basilica, but the problem of never knowing which Mass I’d be at deterred me.

I eventually sought to be on the substitute lector list. My twenty-five prior years, my “well-trained tongue,” meant nothing; I’d have to audition. The audition was in the form of proclaiming both readings for a Sunday, doing so to a group of lectors, after their rehearsal for the same Sunday, and their judgments would be part of the overall evaluation. “No problem,” I said confidently, “I’ll be there.”

When my turn came, I strode confidently to the podium, looked out at the large church containing less than twenty people, and noticed that my knees felt a bit rubbery. ( What if I hadn’t had that twenty-five years of experience! ) I managed to ignore the rubber and proclaimed well enough to pass the audition. There were no full-time openings, so I joined the sub list. I proclaimed not even once as a substitute.

Shortly after Loretta’s death, several full-time positions opened. I jumped. At my first rehearsal, I was both eager and nervous. The purpose of the rehearsal was to both practice the proclamation, and to give and receive feedback. The team leader, whom I knew, was warm and inviting. She was also pretty demanding, expecting us to have looked at the material before the rehearsal and to be prepared to proclaim it as though doing so at Mass … and to meaningfully comment on others’ proclamations.

There were all sorts of things said after their delivery. “The list of attributes can be boring to read and listen to; you’ve got to change something for each item.”

 “After the very first line you didn’t pause, and that failed to set up the rest of the first paragraph.”

“You kind of swallowed ‘testament’ after Old in the second paragraph.”

After my turn I heard an unusually eloquent young male tell me he thought I varied the pitch, speed and volume when delivering the list of attributes and that, “I’m not sure how, but it worked well for you.”

The last, and likely least significant, item we discussed was how the lector ought to introduce the reading; is it, “A ( ay ) reading from …,” or,
“A ( uh ) reading from ….”? The overwhelming consensus is that it is, “A
( uh ) reading from … “. Nonetheless, I heard more than one lector introduce the reading with, “A ( ay ) reading … “ and I heard myself saying, “No, Tom ( not real name ), it’s uh reading not ay reading  … .”

I suddenly realized I was where I love to be … giving and receiving coaching for oral delivery of the Sacred Scripture during liturgy; I had dearly missed this and was enormously grateful to be at it again.

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