Oil Stained Driveway!

It was not one day after I had been over there at the Stefanik's warning them to stop shouting so much when they fight at night, that I found two broken bottles of Ken's Salad dressing smashed on my blacktop pavement driveway that has seeped in and now leaves a great stain. How do I know is was the neighbor? Because when I went over there to hollar at them for yelling so much, I saw these salade dressing bottles sitting on their kitchen counter. Olive Oil and Vinegar flavor. Of course this can't be proven in a court of law so I am out of luck, but I know what I saw and I know know she did it.

Hollyhock Dolls

Them Hollyhocks just shot right up this summer the way they have been doing for the past who the hecks knows how long.   I have been growing Hollyhocks in the backyard ever since I can remember.  It started out years ago much to the advantage of the dainty women folk in our area.

When I was a young girl and certain people still employed outhouses in the Wyoming Valley of Northeast PA, the custom was to plant the hollyhocks on all four sides of the outhouse.  

Now look at how the years have flown, and every summer, like clockwork, I tend to my hollyhocks, some of which have actually survived the wintertimes, and believe it or not, bloomed in winter!  Back in in the winter of so and so Walter and I were convinced Satanic forces were at work, his warm fires keeping the grounds warm enough in the bitter winter to produce a single ten foot strand of Hollyhock in mid February!  Oh What silly boobies we had become, thinking that the devil had anything to do with that plant.  Sure enough, we had Monsignor B  over to hack it down, and sprinkle the area, just to be sure.

When I was a little girl my grandmother and I made hollyhock dolls all of the time, and this is going back to oh my goshes the 1920's. Take two hollyhock blooms. One that is open and one that is just the bud.    Take the full bloom and attach it to the bud for the doll's hat.  Use  a 1/2 toothpick inserted through the ends with the green parts of the flower together) Then two toothpicks in the open bud for the legs. At the top of the open bud we stuck in 1/2 toothpicks for arms.

Mortified to learn that Liberace was gay.

I feel swindled to learn that the whole time Liberace was enticing us with his virtuoso every week on tv, that the entire time I was going mad for him, he only had the secret longing in his heart for men!  What a silly old fool I am.    I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back,  Liberace had once occupied a tiny space in my heart.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't ever cheat on my late hubby in any thought word or deed, and Walter was an absolute angel to tolerate some of my whims.  But I mostly took to daydreaming about the gentle and friendly Liberace when hanging clothes on the line or folding laundry or breastfeeding my first born Betko.  Walter Jr. did not get any mother's milk from me.  For reasons unknown, I was dry as Henry's Colliery by the time he came along, and any time he tried to latch on, I had to swat him away.    Now that I think about it, the Liberace dreams were never sexual in nature.  Rather, my fantasies only involved me sipping a cool drink with a straw while relaxing on the divan as he would play soft tinkling melodies for me.  Liberace always knew what song I needed and he knew when I needed his singing the most.  For many years in my womanhood, I was unhappy, prone to crying and hysteria.  When the doctors couldn't figure it out, when they tried to have me placed in a long-term "care facility" for "evaluations," I dug my heels in deep to my religion and decided to forego treatment for mentality illnesses and instead trust in the Lord, lest people in the community talk badly about me as a person deep down inside.

When I fantasized about Liberace, it didn't ever conjure the same things in my loins that my Walter provided.  Then again if I wanted to be truthful here, I should admit to perhaps a few occasions when Walter was bearing into me, that I stopped pretending I was enjoying myself and tried to imagine it was Liberace instead.  Normally though, this Liberace fantasy never went to a sexual realm.  But whenever I hear that song about I'll be looking at the moon but I'll be seeing you, I do feel haunted.   

Sunday Pro Life Skittles

When you're an old lady, the Sunday morning routine can become a challenge.  Not that I mind, spending a few hours with the Lord.  But many times I get carried away with my primping or applying makeup and rouge and brushing out the pincurls to clip under my Sunday Veil.  During these beauty sessions, the urge to move my bowels is nonexistent.  It makes me so angry that only when I am situated in Church after the second reading that my belly becomes uncooperative.  
Twice now, I've had to make hasty departures to the basement ladies room, and it usually happens after singing the Responsorial Psalm.  Why aren't my bowels operational on the schedule I had in my younger days?  This blasted colon of mine is just giving up and exclaiming, "Sorry Maureen."   I am so lucky my legs are relatively stable. I can take heart in being spry, I suppose, as both emergency episodes saw my energy levels rise so high, I was transported to the commode in the nick of time like a nimble gazelle.  My cane or walker became superfluous.  Even with Depends, the fear of becoming a soiled mess can move mountains.  Making matters worse, however, the location of the exits in our Church never allowed me to hide my shame.  On both occasions,  the entire church community saw me make an exit, and were thusly reminded that I also poop just like they do.  Whenever anybody is afforded the opportunity to envision me on the throne,  it doesn't make me happy. 

One such occurrence happened after I had already endured several minutes of intestinal agony that required more pluck than I was able to muster that morning.  I sat and motionlessly winced in pain, trying to play off the quizzical stares from other parishners once they began hearing my stomach symphony.  I was hoping the facial expressions and a cool mannered head toss with a giggle might hide the undeniable gravity of the situation I had found myself in, particularly since I have occupied the 5th-row-back-left-center-pew for most of my church going life.

A few years ago, during a summertime heatwave when Msgr. Kroke was denouncing Roe v. Wade in a particularly impassioned Sunday Homily encouraging us all to vote for McCain/Palin, I made one of these quick dashes.  Horrors for me!   Abortion is murder, I believe that, but in this scenario, all of my anti abortionist work was shattered on that day that Msgr. Kroke  was so loudly proclaiming the evils of then-President Elect Obama.  Anybody getting up to leave the congregation was guilty of looking like a Democrat!   Because of the blasted political divide that exists in this country, I became a marked woman who has since faced a barrage of exceeding disdain from my Church Community.  So you see, nothing good has ever come from pooping, and I am so tired of being a slave to it.

Desperate to cling to my well-earned pro-life reputation, I had to divulge the absolute truth about my surprised bowels to some Church acquaintances and hope for the best.   I faced a difficult decision because in doing so, all those years of vigilance with the extra shoes, and the rescheduling of appointments, and the breathing exercises to stave off peristalsys during the liturgy became mere folly.   All the work I put into protecting my pooping secret went kablooey. 

And the reverberations haven't stopped.  Miss Yadurnak (the unfit mother of a retarded boy named Marvin) snagged me in the Church Vestibule today and asked me who I was going to vote for this year.  I told her that I was an Obama Mama.  She told me that  my conservative jewels were made muddy in the last Presidential Election when I waltzed out of the Church during Msgr. Kroke's Pro life Homily. Oh how I wanted to tell her that I was only leaving to take a bm,  but then I figured to hecks with it.   I certainly wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I pooped.   Let that girl think I was making a pro abortion statement, and see if I care!  Such bitter irony that the Yadurnak Girl and I are equally annoyed by this situation, yet for entirely different reasons.

Good Catholics are often tortured in order to achieve greatness in the life beyond, to that perfect world in Heaven Above, where nobody poops.   Today this is my fondest wish, and the subject of my most splendid ejaculation of prayer.  Dear Lord I pray that all of this pooping embarassment will amount to something in the end.  

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

Lesbians, Stay Away From Chick-fil-A!

I cook most of my meals, and when I go out to eat, which isn't often, it is usually for Pizza.  We have so many delicious pizza options in our Wyoming Valley, because it has often been said that Northeastern Pennsylvania pizza is supreme.  Just up the line from Swoyersville is Old Forge, Penna, the Pizza Capital of the World, so you can guess where I might be when I'm out spending my meager social security income on restaurant food!  It certainly isn't Chick-fil-A.

Goodness Gracious, the chickens today, if you don't get them from the Kosher Butcher, you ought to just do without poultry.  Commercial chickens today are so overburdened with growth hormones and antibiotics, and any manner of chimera and assembly-line Pablum.   I believe full well that our nation's young girls are maturing much much much too quickly for their age, and this too is  related to the chemicals they are putting into our milk.  Gert Whipple's grandkids were out in her front yard yesterday and I could not believe the little girl frolicking with the Whipple's 2 St. Bernards was no more than age 8 and already displaying baby boobies!  They were plainly visible as girls today seem to dress hootchie cootchie.  I saw her premature chests all the way from my front porch, which is quite a distance away. 

My whole point is this.  Betko and Josie and Nancy ought to avoid Chick-fil-A because I just don't trust the company anymore, after reading all of the news.  My own views on the gays is evolving, I suppose, but come now!  I have been addicted to my new favorite website Huffingtons's, and from there, I am learning about the controversy.  That owner and CEO does not like the gays and the lesbians and he donates a lot of his money to groups that are discriminatory.  What is to stop him from instituting a policy at their restaurants (and I use the term "restaurant" very loosely) of poisoning their customers who appear lesbian, for instance?   This confusion distracts us all from the bigger question of why anybody heterosexual or homosensual is interested in greasy deep fat fry chicken sandwiches in the first place!  God calls upon us to begin with fresh ingredients, not flash-frozen cardboard!

I worked myself up into such an emotional state today that I had to call each one of the new lesbians in my life:  My daughter Betko, especially since she wears a bright red spikey haircut, and Josie, who, with a severe man's haircut often times walks around in flannel and those multicolored rings on a chain around her neck.  What would happen if I lost them to a Chick-Fil-A?

It turned out that neither one of my lesbians had been to a Chic-Fil-A recently, and therefore had been safe from any harm, thank God!

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

Bathroom Stall Shoes

Somewhere in my childhood I began longing for a halcyon other world devoid of poop.  Thus, I was never able to come to terms with the fact that I had this bodily function like all living things.  I realize that to you readers, this might not make any sense, but I am largely terrified that people can  imagine me on the toilet eliminating waste from my body, thus nourishing the earth with my human manure.

Additionally, I admit to having an aversion to bowel movements that do not manifest on the  home throne.  Truly, only the private chambers afford a proper atmosphere for elimination at a relaxed leisurely pace.  To be honest, I rarely even use the word "toilet" unless I am angry and it slips out in a fit of rage.   Using the term  "commode" may sound old fashioned,  but has always been my more sanitized go-to, rather than the word that sounds like toity toity.   It saves face in polite conversation whenever I am referencing the bathroom.  Many times, I'll also place my flattened hand perpendicular to my mouth as I say the word, in an effort to shield my message from any nosey people who might be able to read lips.

Now, life being what it is, there were always exceptions to my home throne rules, for who really knows which direction the high winds will be blowin' on any given day?   To compensate, I grew accustomed to carrying an extra set of shoes with me wherever I ventured out of my home, just in case I was forced to visit a public restroom who's designs most often allow other occupants of the lavatory to clearly see user's feet  as they are perched on the bowl doing their business.  Because the shoes are exposed, any privacy afforded by the stall is severely compromised.

Now because I am known for selecting footwear that's eye-catching and memorable, I became somewhat forced into a shoe-changing routine for public bathrooms.   But this is the only way of thwarting the overly observant women from later tracking me down based upon her recollection of my shoes while sitting on the bowl.   Toting a drab set of footies or Jellies (perfect shoe for this as they are lightweight and easily stowable) has saved me countless embarassments of this ilk.  Now, of course I am old, so this all has changed slightly with the incorporation of Depends into my toilette routine.  My feet have also been paining me terribly, I cannot always be bothered toting the extra shoes, but for years I have kept a second pair in the car, as a woman never knows.


Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

Five Jars a Day

What started out as a harmless way for a moderne woman to keep off the pounds, grew to a full blown disorder affecting my life in various wintertime scenarios.  Yes, It was a way to manage my weight, but also so much more. I always looked wonderful and trim and this was so very important in my family.  Bulimia never took a large stronghold into my life, but it did seem much more effective than the riskier tapeworms or those messy laxative tea concoctions that were being sold door to door at the time. I was able to maintain a size 7 figure through most of my life, and even now I am trim and svelte using a good girdle and sensible diet.  Some days were harder than others, and thankfully the bulimia episodes eventually stopped.

There I was, curled up like a little baby, crying my eyes out on the couch of, well, lets call her Peggy. Peggy is an analist or, as you kids today say therapist. Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas will no longer be a miserable old lady.  Would you look at that!   I am 85 when I finally succumb to shrink quackery, so that proves I must be in real pain right now.  With no where else to turn for dignity, I needed answers, and I dialed that number.

When the person said HELLO, I broke down crying and was having difficulty speaking.  It was a phone number that someone had given me many years ago, when I was feeling similiarly unhappy.  At that time, I was so afraid to discuss my personal and private thoughts so I never once would permit any forms of therapy, for why should I, when my weekly devotionals at face to face confession seemed to serve a better purpose.  The past few months have been very traumatic for me. 

My pruny next-door neighbor Gert Whipple is always in her backyard when I am outside, and when she catches my eye, she'll wave her index finger at me with a "Shame Shame" as if she knows something I don't.  This causes me to stiffen up, remove the smile from my countenance, and pretend I do not even see her.  She is invisible to me.

I cannot imagine why people would treat me this way!  She is not the only one who has been reacting to me with negativity and cat calls.  To think that for my entire life, I have worked hard and long to be perfect.  To always do and say the right things, to always be the one with a quaint and charming smile, acting all pert and efficient in misses coordinates. I can no longer cry in remembrance of the good old days because I don't think my days back then were happy either and I am only realizing it now through therapy at age 85.  Was I put on this Earth to be miserable?

For many years I would hide food in my purse, closets, sewing room, toolshed, etc.  Binge and purge is what they call it nowadays.  My analyst tells me this is because I wanted to control something in my life during a period of depression. Depression?  Is that what I had?  I don't think I'm depressed at all, I tell jokes and giggle loudly all the time!  Depression seemed like a real fancy word that didn't apply to me and we were always the last to get anything new in town here in the Wyoming Valley anyway.  I didn't understand it until the analist forced me to think back on all those years. All those jars of peanut butter! All those uncontrollable urges to eat dirt! I now know the reason.

There was this one year when my Walter got down on his knees and cried to me that I needed to get help and that he was going to leave me if I didn't stop buying so much Peanut Butter. Yes, my Walter wanted to leave me over this! He told me once that I needed to get help or else, but I didn't stop to consider his point of view, I just got so angry at him that I scratched his face and went into deeper denial.

Dr. Cummington was our trusted physician, told me my bad habit would eventually disappear on its own, which it did, and he vowed to keep my secret. Thusly, I was given a clean bill of health time and again, but I was nowhere close to being normal.  I am so ashamed of some of the things I have done.

But Lord in Heaven above, those winter months with the dark grey clouds, and the cold Earth, and the barren trees, covered in ice?  Well they became just terrible for me, and for my marriage. Why even now, the days in January and February and March are just terrible for me because it gets so cold and icy. Oh woe is me to endure it! And now last month this analysis was able to get me diagnosed right quick about depression, but Jeepers, I still don't feel any better!!

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

The Smell of a *ussy

I have the unlikely misfortune to walk past Brigit Tofolucci's home each Sunday on my pilgrimage to Mass, a Holy Traditional Walk of mine since childhood.  I was taught to honor the Sunday Sabbath much like our Jewish friends do with Saturdays, and if I don’t have to get into my car to drive, well then, I won’t!  Back in the day, the entire Katsellas Clan would set out for Sunday mass on foot, prancing down the street to alert spectators of our perfect attendance and family devotion to the Lord.  These days, I am the only one left.  Kudos to my kneecaps, which haven't failed me yet!  Although without proper precaution, the  humidity will often test my blackened Wyoming Valley lungs in the tense summer months.

With her house on a corner lot, I pass Bridget's no matter which route I travel. Despite the substantial hedge cover that her home enjoys, it fails to block the monstrous droning and ominous moaning we passersby are confronted with at certain hours.  It sounds like someone is being worked over the fiery Black Coals of Hell.   Now beings as though she's situated on a corner, I encounter plenty of natural opportunities to look into her windows as I pass, without any real grounds to be considered a nosey snooper.  Especially today, for what would any logically curious pedestrian do when they hear such awful gnashing of teeth? Investigate, of course.  If you see something, say something, and there were plenty of opportunities that I ignored the wretched cries. No more.

Now nevermind what I've seen Brigit Tofolucci dressed in over the years, because she usually has good taste on account of her mother from up Endicott is a real snazzy dresser.  But today, Bridget was in a khaftan, a head band and a toe ring. And there were two others with her, a man and a woman dressed similiarly with dark skin as if from another continent.  The male had dark smooth skin that looked so soft, and velvety, and his counterpart had cocoa eyes with a lovely mystique.  But there were clouds of incense puffing out from the  large front windows and coming to rest at the hedges, much like a nocturnal mist rises from a pond in a vampire movie. I was walking home from  a potato peeling session for the Bazzaar after the 12:15 mass when Bridget's permeating remnants had begun to reflect poorly on the entire neighborhood.   

Was I finally catching a glimpse of a private and immoral Bridget that she seldom shares with the world?   Did I burst into a love triangle?   Is this why her dear mother Pia fled to Upstate New York?  My goodness, she seemed very angry at me for disrupting her noisy trance.  What were those other two people doing on the floor and why were they all making those moaning noises?  The two beautiful exotics really clammed up at my cross examination, so perhaps they were foreigners? 

I had another one of my moments.  I decided to push past my humility to once again become a vaunted moral compass on behalf of these lesser qualified souls, who were languishing all around me. After all, if I am occasionally gifted with visions of Heaven and Hell, who else is suitable for keeping the neigbhors in line?  I try to snuff out anything unsavory.   

Brigit's behavior is especially disrespectful, because not 4 doors down from this Tofolucci  house of ill-repute is my church where my newborn babies were baptized so many years ago.  Why must she carry on so loudly with her friends?!  Bridget was full of the devil, yelling back at me, trying to talk louder!  The nerve of her to insult the sounds produced during a Catholic liturgy.  I hardly think   sanctified organ music that spills from our Catholic Sanctuary causes anyone  distress, as organ music is soothing and lovely.  Something which does not sound like the horrific scream of a blazing soul.

“I’m a Buddhist.  Now get off of my property you idiot!”   Bridget yelled in her own defense, after I called her a *ussy and threw several dirty tissues and a Pinwheel Mint at her (because that was all I had in my purse.)  She’s lucky I didn’t hit her with my cane, because I came close.  Buddhist Schumddhist.  Noise pollution hurts us all and it is my right to complain.   I was completely justified.
Certainly, God does not want us to disturb neighbors with our worship. 

Yours in the Love of Christ,

Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.