The World of Grandpa Don
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Back to grandkid .
A work in progress - complete but not finished |
What's New In the world of Grandpa Don On this page I have recorded what I found significant during the past week as well as my thoughts about those events and other reflections. I started doing this before the practice became popular on the internet This is my diary, written a little each day and published weekly. At times I may seem to pontificate on a subject that comes to mind during the week. I do not intend it as a demand or even a suggestion that everyone should think or act as I do. It is rather, intended to let you know what goes on in my mind ... how I am motivated to live as I do. If The World of Grandpa Don appeals to you, you are free to join me in it. Be warned, however, it is not always what some would call "The Real World". |
Week Ending Friday |
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Or to learn more of Grandpa Don and his remarkable family ...
Many of the quotes found on this page are from the daily messages I receive from Covenant House  |
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Last Saturday Mikey got me up at 6:30 but then refused to go out in the soaking rain. It wasn't until about 9 when the sun peaked out that he ventured out the door. But the day got better. It was bright and sunny when Tom came for a visit. He had been the Shepard HS where Caitlin and Kelly took part in the South Suburban Swim Conference - Red Division Championship, It was a big swim meet with seven swim clubs participating. Our girls did very well. Caitlin took 2nd in the 100 yard Free Style and 3rd in the 100 yard back stroke and Kelly came in 5th in the 100 yard breast stroke and 2nd in the 200 yard IM. They were both on the team that placed 2nd in the 200 yard free style relay. Congratulations to our GrandMermaids.
I put Tom to work while he was here. That is one of the dangers faced with a visit to this old guy. Actually, he saw trees growing at one place in my gutters, got the ladder out and went up on the roof. He was OK on the lower part of the house but a bit uneasy on top the bedrooms. Burt, it is done. The downspout was completely clogged in one spot but everything is draining free now. We drove over to Portillo's and brought home some vitals ... ample reward for his efforts.
Anne Marie and Dom braved the morning storms and drove to Gateway, near St Louis. By the time they got there it was sunny and they watched Anthony's game. She called Sunday before the game and had the car packed with Anthony's stuff to bring him home for a short visit.
When I drove up to the Halford's house Jan was unfurling the "Cards" flag at the front door. After the initial greetings and news update we were off to The Old Barn, one of our favorite dinning establishments, We started with our before dinner drinks and appetizers, shrimp cocktail and their special mushrooms. Dick had the French onion soup while Jan and I enjoyed the salad with French Roquefort dressing. Dick was a bit disappointed in his Petite Filet. He always orders it well done and butterflied but the waiter evidently did not hear the "butterflied" part of the order and the steak was not very tender. Jan's fish had a lot of bones and she too was a bit disappointed. I had lamb chops which were delicious. Our server needed more training. He brought our soup and salads before the appetizers and we felt a little rushed and had to ask him to slow down. This restunant was once so good that you could not get in without a reservation and they had an unlisted number. Those days are gone. However, the companionship of my hosts more than compensated and we had a great time which continued back at their house. I won the first two games of Pinochle and then Dick put me in my place by taking the next three. Poor Jan was left winless. In all it was a delightful evening.
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Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the
sun shines. |
Monday morning the sprinkler system guy was here. Two heads had to be replaced and several adjusted and he made short work of it. We are due for a stint of hot dry weather and I am prepared. Some people put their systems on "automatic" and as a result, the sprinklers are running during rain storms. My controller is an old model with the clock governed by the day of the week. Out village regulations allow sprinkling based on the date, even numbered dates for me because my address is an even number. That would force me to change the settings each week if it was set to operate on the time clock. Instead, I have the controller set with the "on duration" of each zone and simply press the Start button when I actually want to water the grass. The system then cycles through the six zones over a three hour period. It sure beats using the garden hose and running out to move the sprinkler every 20 minutes or so.
A friend sent me a link to Marianne Williamson presentation of "A Course on Miracles". It is both a book and a program for self improvement endorsed by Oprah and has some very good information in it. When you subscribe (free) there is an email reminder every day with a link to a short audio lesson. I have listened to them for a week and have unsubscribed. Marianne is on the right track but as many do, she makes things too complicated, getting a bit into mysticism which I believe is unnecessary. What may be harmful is that she assigns rolls and attitudes to God and Jesus which are contrary to Catholic belief, in some cases seeming to set them against each other which, since we believe they are unified along with the Holy Spirit as the one single God, is definitely contrary to Catholic theology. Many look outside themselves for the magic formula to improve their lives and even the so-called Self-Improvement gurus look to some formula that will do it for us. We think it must be too complicated for us to actually do it ourselves and look to the secretes that only the most enlightened or mystically guided can provide. The fact is that we can't see the forest because of all the trees that are in the way.
Our happiness is already there within us and all we need to do to release it is to accept who we are and do what were were created to do. We were created by God to live unselfishly and cooperatively with everyone else. If we are driven by selfish ego we fail in God's view and happiness is unattainable. If we live in selfless harmony with our brothers and sisters, we are one with God and contentment and happiness is ours. It doesn't get more complicated than that. Our greatest problem is that we balk at the paradox that we get by giving. Our ego tries to tell us that this is not logical. But ... it is only illogical in a totally material and mortal world. We were created for neither of these. We make the mistake of separating our mortal life and our eternal life, our (normal) life from our religious life. We do not conceptualize the fact that our mortal lives are just a small part of our eternal life, not separated from it, with the eternal to come some time in the future. I often use the term "Born to Eternal Life" to mark the death of a person. In doing so, I am wrong and help to perpetuate the misconception. We are actually born to eternal life when God creates us. Mortal life is just a state of being within the total existence of our immortal life.
Yes, it is difficult to grasp. That is because our mortal logic is constrained by things mortal and material. When we are freed of those constraints we will inherently understand. In the mean time we can only have faith. My personal experience is that when we release the tight grip on our misguided materialistic outlook, which has been devilishly instilled by our ego as self-preservation, we find that selflessness returns many times enhanced in love, contentment and happiness. It is like being released from prison and we find that our imprisonment had been self inflicted.
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Love the moment and the energy of the moment will
spread beyond all boundaries. |
On Tuesday Mikey tried to get me up at 6:30 but he is getting too laid back to be effective. I simply said, "Mikey ... it it early ... go to sleep." The next thing I knew it was 8:20. Sinful! But I felt good. After a leisurely breakfast, we retreated to the gazebo where we spent most of the morning. When I came in I found hundreds of emails waiting. My spam filter is not working at all. I have Microsoft set up to automatic updates every day at 3 AM. I thought maybe I had missed an update so I checked their web site and downloaded the latest. A message popped up saying it was already installed. Maybe the latest update has a bug??? . Well, if it does, I have no doubt that a fix will come soon, so I'll wait. Of course I am using the 2003 version of Office. It wasn't broke so I didn't fix it by goiny to the 2007 version.
Once I had deleted all the junk, I found an email from a fellow Orland Park resident who found my adoption information on the web. She is trying to find the identity of her grandfather. She has her grandmother's name and has been in contact with some of her family but only knows the nickname of the boy she was seeing when she got in a family way. He had gone into the service ... it was during WW II ... he probably did not know about the child. That is a tough one! She had contacted a judge to get her mother's birth records unsealed and was told that medical reasons are not good enough to get adoption records unsealed any more since more accurate medical informantion is now obtainable through DNA testing. She had been in touch with Catholic Charities, since her mother was born at St Vincent's but they provided little information. She was surprised that my letter from them was so informative. I think her best chance would be a change in the adoption laws ... if her grandfather's name was listed on the birth certificate. We wish her well in her continued search.
We prayed for Deane's father and the family last week and it is working. He is greatly improved but still in the hospital so keep it up. Anne Marie called from Traverse City Tuesday afternoon after they arrived at the hotel. She was surprised to see "Bear Crossing" signs along the road as they neared their destination. They hadn't seen Anthony yet but had talked to him on the phone. He reported the the luncheon was very good and they were at the field signing autographs and such. He had the opportunity to thank the Traverse City coach for selecting him for his all-star team and the coach says he loves to see him play. I suggested to Anne Marie that if he likes him that much, why doesn't he trade for him. But she reminded me that no coach would be so mean as to trade one of his players to the Sliders. That is comparable to sending them to Siberia with the situation as it is this year. I keep forgetting that Anthony had the option to request a trade at the end of last season and he chose to stick with the team.
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Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. |
Thursday was unique, to say the least. In preparation for what was to come I had a light breakfast and no coffee. My time of reflection was rather brief ... especially having no coffee. I took a shower and was at the Cardiac department at Palos Hospital early for my 10:30 appointment. To clear me for the upcoming Prostate procedure, my cardiologist had ordered Adenosine Cardiac Imaging. This is a Stress Test in which the heart rate is elevated by medical means rather than walking on a treadmill. I was soon ushered into a small room where a nurse inserted a connection to my vein and soon a doctor arrived and injected an isotope after which I was directed to the waiting room to ... yes, ... wait. After about 20 minutes I was brought to another room, laid on a narrow table which was slid under a camera assembly, two large boxes, which were lowered close to my chest. With my arms above my head, the camera assembly rotated around my body stopping and taking pictures at intervals for about 20 minutes.
That phase of the testing completed the cardiologist now had detailed pictures of my heart prior to the "stress" part of the test. I was taken to a room with several beds and a bevy of nurses and technicians. Stripped of my shirt, a jungle of test leads were applied to my chest and left side and a blood pleasure sleeve installed on my right arm. An IV drip was started and when everything was ready other medications controlled by a timing device were infused into the blood. Two nurses and a doctor constantly recorded blood pleasure, pulse and Lord knows what else. A mild burning sensation was experienced and I felt warm. After that subsided, the doctor said OK and left. Soon the test was finished. However, the doctor came back in and asked the nurse in charge to go out in the corridor with him. I didn't like that. I liked what happened next even less. The nurse came back and said, "I have some bad news!". Keeping my cool, I inquired as to what that might be.
She then explained that at a certain point during the procedure, the doctor was supposed to inject another isotope. He blew it and that part of the test was meaningless. I would need to come back on Friday to do it again! OK, I could do that and the news was a lot better than it could have been. I was not going to be admitted to the Hospital. There was more discussion ... the doctor and yet another doctor were in and out. My nurse came back and said that there was another option ... If I wanted to just relax and wait a half hour they could repeat the procedure now. There was no danger from the drugs they put in me and after consultation everyone agreed that it could be done that way, saving me the extra trip, a new IV, and reconnecting all those leads. I agreed and after a half hour rest, we did phase II again, this time with a different doctor in attendance. (their decision ... not mine.) I mentioned to them that I thought I made a mistake once but I was in error.
When all the leads were removed, three were left in place for phase three of the testing. I was brought back to the camera room and this time as the series of heart photos were taken the leads were connected to a monitor. After another 18 minutes of photos, I was returned the the Phase II room where my IV shunt was removed and amid a perfusion of apologies I was sent on my way home. It was about 2:30. All considered, it was a very pleasant experience. You couldn't wish for a more pleasant and helpful bunch of people.
There was a time in my life when I would have made it a miserable experience for both myself and the people who had to deal with my impatience and rage at the doctor's error. But I don't wear a watch to church or doctor's appointments. When it is over I will know it is over. I expect delays and even errors ... that is life. If it was any different I wouldn't recognize it.
After a pleasant drive home, I fed Mikey and myself, sorted my Meds for the week and retired to the gazebo with my first cup of coffee for the day ... what was left in the pot from Wednesday and zapped in the microwave. It was delicious!
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Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. |
Anne Marie called in the evening, still on the road. They had car trouble and Dom spent a good part of the day with it in a car shop in Traverse City while Anthony, Anne Marie, Joe and Ashley enjoyed the beach. Ashley had made the 8 hour drive to see him and planned to leave on Friday. The All Star Game was good and Anthony's team won. He got to meet with other players and coaches from the league, played some golf and had a great time. The Sliders are playing in Traverse City this weekend so he transferred from the All-star Hotel to the Sliders hotel to awaited the team's arrival.
As I had my breakfast this morning, my lawn guys did their thing, making the yard ready for a heavenly sojourn in the gazebo. And, ... Heavenly it was ... quiet .... relaxing ... and I was content with the world. God is Good. It was after 10:00 before I came in to put the finishing touches on this page. Life just doesn't get any better than this.
Grandpa Don Plefka
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Anne wanted everyone to be 'Nice'. This button was in one of her dresser drawers I cleaned out in August of 2004
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