"I went downstairs and he had DIED...so I told her to tell the police that he had just passed out..."

1. The title is from a story that Sister Denise was telling us after supper (dinner here is lunch...I get so confused...). When she was in St. Louis a resident lady had a young man visiting her, and she called Sister Denise downstairs because she was worried about this young man...the man had died. Oh my goodness. So they called the police and Sister Denise told them he had just black out...I was shocked. The rest of the Sisters were in stitches laughing. Oh the humor of Sisters.

2. I finally got something cleared up for me today. The Sisters always refer to each other as "Sir Amy Kristine" and "Sr. Mary Catherine"...I thought they were just using "Sr". Nope. They spend their "second novitiate" in France, and in French the word for "sister" is "soeur", pronounced "sir". So now you know.

3. Father Barnett really went downhill today; he was in quite a bit of pain, even when they gave him medicine to deal with it (something slightly less powerful than morphine, from what Sister Amy told me). I said a rosary with him today and visited some of the other residents so that Sister Amy could go say her prayers, and he would squeeze my hand and then nap and then squeeze the bed rail and cry for help every few minutes. It really is painful to watch, and I'm sure he is suffering and sending up all those graces to poor souls. I hope to visit him more throughout the week, the rosary did seem to help some.

4. Today the residents had a Mardi Gras party. It was the cutest thing. I participated in the Pancake Race. We stood in two lines at each end facing each other, and had to be the first line to get through handing off our pancakes three times. The other side won...because Sister Denise cheated and, instead of putting the pancake on her other person's spatula, she traded their empty spatula for hers which had the pancake on it...oh the humor of Sisters ;-).

5. I think I've been assigned to help feed Betty full time. She does eat well for me. She's so personable, to the point where she thinks everybody talking is talking to her, so she'll talk back to them...which makes it hard to get her to focus on taking her food. Sometimes I'll murmur something to get her to look my way so I can get her to open her mouth to me. But tomorrow I'm being allowed a day of prayer and will be joining the Sisters for a dinner in silence, so I think I'm only helping with breakfast duty and with a craft activity tomorrow. We'll see...I just follow Sister Amy and let her point me where I need to be :-).

Check ya later, alligators!

P.S. If you can't reach me, A) there's no reception, and B) my cell is dying quickly because it's searching so hard for a signal.