Ash Wednesday: The Lenten Experiment begins

Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.

My plan

• Get up at 5.45 for 6.30 Mass with imposition of ashes.
• Come home, eat a light breakfast, and spend some time online with the Days of Deepening Friendship Lenten retreat by Vinita Hampton Wright.
• Spend the rest of the morning attending an ongoing church history class at St. Michael parish.
• Eat a light lunch (at my age I am not required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, as younger people are, and I figured I'd function better if fueled).
• Try to stay calm and pleasant while explaining to a furnace repair company that they ripped me off last weekend and should really do something about it.
• Blog. Include a Lenten reading or two from Scripture, reflect on my experience so far, log our daily bread.
  
• Eat a light supper.
• Read.

Reality

• Got up at 3.00 with a serious headache. Showered, washed hair, ate a few bites of yogurt and flax seed, lost same repeatedly.
• Though unaware that one of today's readings has to do with fasting, weeping, and mourning (Joel 2.12), did all three continuously for about five hours as headache went from bad to evil.
  
• Spent rest of morning and early afternoon first at Danada Convenient Care and then at the ER at CDH. Noticed at one point that the piped-in music was "Rescue Me." Concurred.
• After two doctors and several nurses examined me and I had a CBC, a CT scan, two anti-nausea drugs and two powerful narcotics, I no longer felt pain. I suspected, however, that I was living in a different galaxy.
• CBC and CT scan were both normal. Was released mid afternoon with a diagnosis of "nonspecific headache: Your exam shows your headache does not have any specific cause."
  
• Ate a light breakfast, drank tea, went to bed.

Reflection
Mr Neff, aka Saint David, spent the day with and for me, driving me from place to place, answering medical and financial questions, picking up prescriptions, and just being here. On this Ash Wednesday we both felt very deeply that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

I am in love with that man.

Am hoping to be lively dust tomorrow. Notice I said hoping, not planning. "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" (Matthew 4.7).

-----------------
Daily bread
Breakfast--let's not go there.
Lunch--oatmeal, flaxseed, honey, plain yogurt, a few blueberries, tea with milk and honey
Dinner--Mr Neff is at a banquet (CTI has never figured out the liturgical calendar). I'm thinking a small bowl of oat squares and maybe some whole wheat bread with almond butter and applesauce. More tea.