It starts with a middle aged man being loaded into an ambulance and asking for a priest. Next we see him with the classic sheet over his face, as a weeping young woman asks the priest if he managed to make his confession. The priest assures her that he confessed, was forgiven and received Last Rites, and that his soul was safely on his way to heaven. I noticed in passing that the words put into the priest’s mouth were “I forgave him” not “G-d forgave him”, but what do I know? I’m no Catholic. I’m also fairly certain that the clergyman isn’t the one personally doing the forgiving, which puts me ahead of the folks who wrote this little gem. But whatever. I forged on.

Next they show Our Hero at the proverbial Gates, with an indistinct but imposing figure pointing down. The next frame, clearly meant to be at the same time, is of the priest describing this man’s life, and assuring his flock that Our Hero was already enjoying Heaven’s Bliss, for he had been not only a been an observant Catholic, but a loyal son of Mother Church, known for charity and good works, building homes for the poor with his own funds, giving clothing to any poor child he saw, never throwing away leftovers from the restaurant he owned because “everyone knew” that if they came at the end of the day, he’d give anyone a package of leftovers sufficient for a family with no questions asked. They laid it on with a trowel; this guy was a Good Person.

“But I did everything right! Why am I condemned to the Lake of Fire?” cries Our Hero. And so he is brought for an audience with Jesus – another indistinct but imposing figure. (Why not G-d, I wondered? But again, what do I know? Not Christian in any form, much less this one, and never will be.) And in great detail, this figure tells the man that all that matters is that he never “accepted [Jesus] as his personal Lord and Savior in life, that everything he was taught by the Church was a lie, and that not only he but everyone who became Catholic because of his example would burn eternally, THE END.

I threw it away, of course, but I found myself thinking about the people who hand those things out and believe their message. How sad, to believe that your $DEITY is so cruel and petty. Good intentions count for nothing. Concern for those less fortunate counts for nothing. Charity, honorable behavior, ethics, morals, honest faith – all of those things count for nothing. The road to their divinity is a one-way street, accessible only through their particular gate-keeper. They have made G-d as finite and narrow-minded as they themselves are – making G-d in their image, rather than making themselves in G-d’s image.

I’ve seen these things before, and they’ve always left me disgusted. So did this one; no one has a right to determine the validity of another’s belief. But it left me with another response as well – pure pity. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the reaction they were hoping for.

But small as it is, I have an abundance of those cucumbers and tomatoes. My basil is bushy enough that I could (and probably will) make several good batches of basil. My harvesting basket is full, and so is the mixing bowl, usually used for bread, that I poured the excess into. It’s colorful, too, since half my cherry tomatoes are pear shaped red ones and the other half pear shaped yellow, and both are incredibly prolific. I’ll probably take a quart over to my girlfriend, since she didn’t get a garden in this year and they won’t keep until I next go in to Indy. (Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll have more by then.) Judging by the number of green tomatoes and blossoms, they aren’t slowing down any time soon either.

My son wants to try to make homemade ketchup, and I may attempt it. These are salad and slicing tomatoes, not sauce tomatoes, so I don’t know how it will go. On the other hand, I might as well try it. It’s not like I don’t have the tomatoes to spare.

In talking to her attorney, I realized how long I’ve seen this coming. She started telling me how her husband – a long-distance trucker – would try to tell her that she had no need to go out, no reason to be anywhere but at home waiting for him when he happened to blow through or call, that her only business should be taking care of the house and kids, and that her friends were a stupid distraction. I discussed it with my own wonderful husband, and we gave her a key so that she would have a place to go if she needed it regardless of whether or not we were home. That was almost 4 years ago. She didn’t think anything of it other than that he was being a jerk. I saw the beginnings of a pattern, and hoped profoundly that I was wrong.

Unfortunately I wasn’t, and now I understand how it creeps up on people. It’s gradual, that attempt by one partner to control the other, and always presented as being triggered by the perceived misbehavior of the abused spouse. It might even sound reasonable at first. But “I’m afraid other men will find you attractive” becomes “you’re having an affair”, with the “proof” being that there are men’s phone numbers in the personal Rolodex. Yeah, there are. The fathers of your kids’ friends. Or their Little League coaches. Or the furnace repairman, or the roofing contractor you liked after your roof took storm damage. And the accusations turn into fights, then shoving, then kicks and slaps and threats to bring a gun and shoot you. It wasn’t until she got knocked down in the kitchen that she realized where it was going. I’d seen it coming for a year and a half by then.

Even in the abstract, this has always made me angry, but now I’m seeing the terror this man is causing, and it makes me sick. My friend is one of the strongest women I know, and I’ve seen her shaking, in tears, so frightened she couldn’t figure out a course of action, certain that her husband would find her no matter where in this vast continent she fled, as if he were omnipotent and had all of James Bond’s gadgetry to boot. I’ve been the friend she confided in, and am now the one she asks if something she’s considering is reasonable, or if she should do something now or wait. She can’t handle more than one day at a time. Keeping track of the long view is my job, for the moment. I will be with her in court when she goes to get the restraining order made permanent next week, probably as her primary witness, certainly as her moral support and spine. I’m not her attorney, thank heaven; I’m her friend. I’m finding that’s a whole different job.

Remember Dr. No? The Spy Who Loved Me? Goldfinger? Jaws? Pussy Galore? The satellite that would Destroy the World? The bald villain (can’t recall his name) stroking his white cat? Toss in a pinch of Batman and a couple of other movies. Now mash them together with dogs and cats as the spies/ protagonists and villains, with parallel spy agencies (the feline agency is called MEOWS), moving through the human world trying not to be noticed, and you’ll begin to get an idea of the movie.

The reviews I’ve read have pretty universally panned it – weak plot, gratuitous swooping about, trite, lacking any message, etc. Okay, I agree; all that’s true. And it’s all beside the point. Those folks are taking it way too seriously, certainly far more seriously than it takes itself. It intends to be campy and silly and playful. It intends to make its audience laugh, and it succeeds. Basically, it’s amusing fluff because that’s what it was written to be.

So my boy and I laughed all the way through, though usually at different things. He kept asking me why I was laughing, but I really couldn’t explain. We both walked out glad we’d gone to see it, rather than feeling like it was time or money we’d never get back. It was nothing but pure escapist entertainment, and y’know what? Sometimes that’s exactly what I want.

So I told her what she’d told me. I reminded her that she’d been crying and shaking, that she’d been scared by a 2 hour delay to be able to drop the dog off for boarding. I reminded her about the times she called me after he’d shoved her around, using accusations he’d cooked up in his own warped mind to justify it. I reminded her that he’d kept calling all night long while she hid. Essentially I told her that yes, it had been that bad, and pointed out that now if she backed down she’d not only be dealing with his irrational suspicions, but his rage at being “messed with”, escorted out of the house by the local gendarmes. In less than ten minutes she was crying again, but she was agreeing that indeed, she’d been minimizing how scared she and her kids had really been.

I knew this would come, and that I’d have to remind her why she was doing what she’s doing. I know there will come times in the future when it gets rough and she needs to be assured that she is strong enough to see it though. I know she’ll need to be told that what her husband is saying about her isn’t true – that he’s lying to her and to himself about her. She’ll need reassurance that she deserves better than his violence.

We’ll give it. When a person has been told they’re worthless often enough, they usually need an external spine. So as my husband put it, the evening after the sheriff finally got the jackass served, we’ll be her exoskeletons.

She got his attention in classic early-adolescent fashion, though. She poured a bottle of water over his head. He changed clothes from the skin out (we send a change with him), but he was laughing about the drenching. That was my first clue that Something Was Up. Any time previously, he’s been thoroughly ticked by such a thing. When T. did it, he thought it was the funniest prank ever played on him.

So she’s his buddy. He’s enjoying her company a lot, and I’m enjoying listening to him chatter. And I’m very glad he’s comfortable chattering about such a thing with his mom.

The day the owner introduced me to the strength machines, he gave me some guidelines for how to tell when I’d done enough, also advising me that I should see what felt possible, and then back it off a step so that I didn’t overdo it. If a 30 pound weight felt right, use a 20 pound weight; if it felt like I could do 15 repetitions with only a little strain do 12, and so forth. He also told me that the first week or two I was likely to feel utterly flattened on occasion, and that it meant I should back off a little more, working at a lower level until it didn’t flatten me and then adding one iteration. As he said, if it takes me a month to get to the next level instead of 2 weeks, nothing is lost.

He was right. I spent a couple of days in Indy dealing with Mom-stuff, came back last night, and went to the gym again today. Tonight I do indeed feel like a truck ran over me. I’m glad he warned me this would happen, because with the warning came the assurance that it wouldn’t be like this forever. If he was right about the first part, chances are he’s right about the second. I’m counting on it.

Local is a relative term. Their territory covers all of Northwest Indiana, and they’re based right on the Illinois line. So while it’s closer than, say, South Bend, it’s hardly close. My first thought was that 25 miles wasn’t too bad, and it isn’t, but 25 miles each way twice a day suddenly becomes 100 miles. I can certainly combine necessary errands with the drive, but even at that most places aren’t yet open when I drop him off. So the grocery shopping got done this morning, but by the time I got home it was hot enough that I really didn’t want to be outside mowing. I guess tomorrow I’ll come directly home so that the yard gets a haircut.

So it is, as one of the other women in the congregation put it, quite a schlep. On the other hand, he’s gotten in the car at the end of the day bubbling over with the games he played, and what they did swimming, and who he found to run around with, and all the other things that go with day camp. Last year he was nervous about crowds of strangers, and I didn’t push. This year his first reaction was that he might make some friends, and he does indeed seem to be. I’m glad he reached this point now, because by next year he’ll be too old for it. And for all it’s a lot of driving, it really is worth it to see my kid simultaneously excited and worn out from running his feet off. He was dressed and ready to go half an hour before we needed to be, bounced out the door as soon as I had my clothes on and his lunch packed, and chattered about what he’d be doing today the whole 45 minute trip. He was just has talkative coming home. He’s a happy kid.

So it’s worth the drive. Having a happy, not even remotely bored kid is what it’s all about, in the end.

It’s a slow process, partly because I haven’t done it in far too long and partly because I have about twice as much stuff as I do space for it. But this time I want to see it through. At one point I thought we’d live here a couple of years, and then move someplace better. But life and the economy intervened, it didn’t happen, and I’m tired of the current state of my house.

The first thing I found out was that a splash on a hard surface stained faster than I could grab an already prepared wet paper towel and mop it up. There is now a bright burgundy stripe on our toilet seat. That’s not a huge deal, as toilet seats are inexpensive and easily installed, but it was a salutary warning.

The next thing I found was that the stuff was more like paste in consistency than anything, which made it difficult to apply using a bottle with a small nozzle. I persevered, but it was frustrating.

The third thing was that it stained skin as readily as painted wood. That’s wearing off already, but my hairline is still, shall we say, a trifle garish.

And then there’s the color. Burgundy. Deep, clear, dark, iridescent wine. I can’t look at myself in the sun too easily, but I suspect I fluoresce. Not quite the thing for a middle-aged matron, y’know?

I have once again proven my coolness quotient to the adolescent contingent, though. At temple this morning for a bat mitzvah, one of the girls from the Hebrew School looked at me and said gleefully “You dyed your hair! You made it wine-colored! Hey!” to one of her buddies “Mrs. Deer made her hair PUNK!” and then back to me “You are SO COOL!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was a complete accident.