Serenity in the Country

As usual, I was running late on a Sunday morning and found myself too far away from town to attend church services at my home parish. Luckily, I was crossing Wallis' city limits and pulled into the parking lot at Guardian Angel Catholic Church two minutes before Mass started.

A few years ago, Fort Bend Herald Photographer Russell Autrey and I collaborated on a story about the historic church, and that outing was one of our favorites. Russell captured the majesty of the church in his photographs as well as the intricate workmanship evident in the interior's every arch and graceful curve.

Founded in 1892, the church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and, according to the city's Website, the chapel was one of the last painted churches built in Texas.

The current building is the third one erected on the site -- a tornado destroyed the first one and the congregation outgrew the second. Construction started on the current church building in 1913 and was completed in 1915.

Seventy-five families contributed toward the wooden building, and the Gothic style church was mostly built by volunteers. The generous townspeople who gave of their time also donated incredible talents, as the church is gorgeous from ceiling to floor.

First and foremost is the altar. Catholic churches built before the 1960's often contain elaborate back altars, and Guardian Angel's is no exception. The altar resembles a cathedral with scaled-down yet delicate arches and spires. Statues of humble angels adorn the altar, and painstaking workmanship is evident in their expressions, hands and robes.

The leaded, stained glass windows were created in Italy, and each window contains the names of parishioners, written in Czech, as well as emblems that reflect a Catholic belief. These gorgeous windows allow the sun to illuminate the church in a soft, amber glow, and electric lights are almost unnecessary.

In newer construction, ceilings are acoustically sound, but they're often a boring, institutional white. Not at Guardian Angel.

The tall, domed ceiling is decorated with intricately painted medallions featuring saints. For this mostly farming community, the saints are those farmers hold dear, and the names are written in Czech and English.

Although the parish has a long history, the service was filled with young families, grandparents, young adults and teens, and it seemed everyone knew everyone.

After the Mass was finished, I spoke with people who were life-long parishioners. They said they treasure the church building, even though they sometimes take for granted the beauty of the interior.

The current pastor, the Rev. Twee Nguyen asked if I knew about the hidden statue of Christ inside a side altar, and I remembered that little known fact from my last visit. The statue is only revealed on Good Friday, and it's a replica of Michelangelo's "Pieta" sculpture.

So many other details hide themselves from those visiting the church on a quick visit. But in the quiet of the church, after the congregation had gone home, there was a definite feeling of warmth and home inside those old, wooden walls.

For once, I was glad I was running late for it gave me a chance to catch my breath and refresh my soul. From the worn spots on the wooden pews, I figure I'm not the first wandering soul to seek refuge from the storms of life.

I unexpectedly found that serenity at a quaint, wooden church in a small, country town.

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. Note that Guardian Angel Catholic Church is open daily for tours. Call 979-478-6532.

Long-Time Friends of the Heart

The laughter coming from our table was almost embarrassing. Four of us were having dinner at a local restaurant, and we were reminiscing as only friends who've grown older together can do.

We've known Mike and Carolyn for over 20 years. Our boys were in Boy Scouts together, and the guys spent many weekends camping or canoeing.

We chuckled remembering how our boys survived their summer Scout camp in Texas and the times we'd sat down together at pot-luck dinners and evening campfires.

After our children were grown, though, we gradually grew apart, keeping up through Christmas cards or chance encounters in the grocery store.

Three years ago, Carolyn called me when she heard our son was getting married. She extended a gracious offer -- she volunteered to help at the rehearsal dinner at our house.

For hours, Carolyn refilled glasses, threw away paper goods, kept the food hot and handled all the hostess jobs, freeing me to visit with my family.

That night, I realized how fortunate I was to have someone like Carolyn in my life. But I'm not the only one who's benefitted from Carolyn's generosity. A family in need will always find Carolyn there with groceries, home repair supplies or clothes in hand.

Mike is just as gracious, and if we ever needed someone to help us with a tough chore, Mike was there, his dry wit and hearty laugh accompanying every adventure.

Recently, we were drawn together under sad circumstances, and I realized once again the strength of Mike and Carolyn's commitment to friendship.

Friends from the Boy Scout troop lost their son unexpectedly, and we were all devastated. Just as she did for my son's rehearsal dinner, Carolyn worked behind the scenes, coordinating the food for the wake and quietly overseeing details, from packing up food boxes for out-of-town visitors to gathering the information for the funeral program, typesetting it and then making copies for everyone.

When we saw Mike and Carolyn at the funeral home, we spent time catching up with each other -- where our children were living and the unexpected joys of being grandparents. But that short conversation left us wanting more, so we met up later at a local restaurant.

We reminisced about the old times and added more stories to our collective memories. We laughed loud and we laughed often.

Maybe it was with relief from the stress we'd all been under at the funeral. Perhaps we'd been reminded that life spins on a dime, and we'd better reach out and embrace happiness when it comes our way.

As we drove away from the restaurant, my face sore from laughing so much, I thought about all the people I've let drift away over the years, whether it's because we've moved, our children grew apart or we just got too busy.

I realized how much I missed having long-time friends in my life for they are irreplaceable. They remember our true hair color and the cars we drove when we were toting around lawn chairs and baseball bats.

When they come to visit, they never say a word about the dog hair on the couch, the pile of backpacks and wet tennis shoes by the back door or the big dent in the fender, courtesy of a teen-age driver.

If we're lucky and we live long enough, we have old friends in our lives. Because of them, we realize the world's not coming to an end of we linger a bit over a plate of beef stew, laugh until our sides hurt and remember bygone days.

And remember to give thanks for having long-time friends of the heart.

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Technically Speaking

The old wives' tale is that bad things happen in threes, and such is the case in my life recently. Two out of the three had happy endings. One is a "to be continued."

A few weeks ago, I purchased a four-gig flash drive to easily transport cumbersome documents. What I love about this flash drive is it fits easily in my wallet or pocket. What I dislike is the same thing -- it's so small, I forget where I put it most of the time.

The last time I used the flash drive, I was in a hurry. I slipped the device in my pocket and forgot it was there. Days went by, and I kept wondering where I'd left it.

The mystery was solved when I threw a load of clothes in the washer and found that brand new flash drive in the bottom of my washing machine.

After the washer had finished its extra-rinse power cycle.

No way that flash drive was going to work, I thought, but I put it underneath a fan, crossed my fingers and let it sit there for a few hours.

I wasn't hopeful because I'd tried the same thing when I found my iPod in the bottom of the washing machine after the rinse cycle. I put the iPod underneath a fan overnight, tried drying it with my hair dryer and even waved my granddaughter's magic wand over it, but the device refused to return to life.

A friend suggested I put the iPod in a bowl of dry rice. Apparently the rice will magically suck the water out of a device.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so that iPod's currently buried under three inches of Uncle Ben's rice, and I've got my fingers crossed.

When it comes to technology, luck plays a huge part in my success because I have to see how things fit together to understand how they work.

I understand a needle and thread. After vacuuming up a sock, I understand how dust and dirt will accumulate inside a hose behind an obstruction, thus create a huge mess when the hose is disconnected from the vacuum cleaner.

But the Internet? That's an magical universe of atoms that can infect a computer without ever sneezing on it.

On the Internet, I can instantly see the beach conditions in Gulf Shores, Ala. With two clicks of the mouse, I can talk to my son in Taiwan for free -- that's just amazing.

So when my computer refused to log onto the Internet last night, I was stumped. I hadn't washed it like my iPod or flash drive, and everything looked in place from the outside.

I ended up dragging the tower into the computer store, waiting in line and then listening to the pleasant technician tell me it was the connection at home, not my computer.

As I pushed the heavy cart back to my car, I gave that tower a stern warning.

"Listen here, buddy, you're too heavy for me to carry in and out of the repair shop, so I suggest you find some kind of way to get along with what's coming out of the wall."

Apparently, that mom talk did some good as I reconnected everything when I got home, tightened up the wires and I could connect to the Internet.

I have no idea why my computer now works.

I have no idea what I did differently than what I did yesterday to make it work.

All I know is my computer is working. My flash drive works. My iPod's drying out in a bowl of Uncle Ben's rice. And I'm reconnected to the world.

Two out of three ain't bad.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

A Culinary Excursion

(My brother, Jeff, is a wonderful cook who's not afraid to try new dishes. Thanks, younger brother, for the culinary tip!)

On a recent visit to my brother's house, he whipped up a fabulous dinner of chicken simmered in raspberry chipotle sauce. I'm not exactly sure what a chipotle is, exactly, but it's delicious.
So now I'm on a new kick -- if it can be grilled, fried or sautéed, I'm smothering it in chipotle sauce.

In a few weeks, my husband will mutiny, and I'll have to find some new cooking binge.

That's the way it goes in my kitchen, and it all started with ketchup.

My dad loved ketchup with everything -- scrambled eggs, fish, potatoes -- almost everything was covered in Heinz 57.

As a result, I'm a ketchup fan. I don't have fries and a burger -- I have ketchup with a few fries thrown in and two layers of ketchup with a hamburger patty in the middle.

I also love ketchup and mustard on a hot dog, which brings to mind my love affair with mustard. We grew up on plain, yellow mustard. In my 30's, I discovered two words that would change the way I looked at a bottle of mustard -- Grey Poupon.

Once hooked, I branched out and discovered honey mustard. For years, I was on a honey mustard kick, ordering a bit of lettuce with four containers of honey mustard dressing.

Then I read the calorie count.

No wonder that dressing tasted so good.

Then I discovered lemon pepper. I first tasted lemon pepper on broiled catfish. Growing up in Louisiana, we had catfish fried, baked and in gumbo.

But eating that lowly fish with lemon pepper took the dish to a new level. I was hooked and bought a huge bottle of lemon pepper seasoning from one of the wholesale clubs.

I proceeded to put lemon pepper on everything -- chicken, steak, hamburgers, roasts -- everything off the stove and from the oven was a shade of black and yellow.

After a while, my family hid the bottle, but I'd already moved on to Old Bay Seasoning. Created from 12 herbs and spices, Old Bay actually pushed the hallowed, giant bottle of Tony Chachere's seasoning out of the forefront of my cabinet for a while.

Old Bay was my new passion. I'd seen that rectangular can in the store for years, but I thought it was for chowder, not southern cooking. I was wrong.

Everything that came out of the oven was covered with Old Bay. Someone hid the can after an extra heavy dosing on a chicken one night. So I resurrected Tony from the back of the cabinet, and proceeded to fall in love with that Cajun staple once again.

Then I read the sodium content on the side of the bottle.

Hello Mrs. Dash. After one use, it was Goodbye, Mrs. Dash.

I've only skimmed the surface when it comes to sauces and seasonings. There's the whole world of allemande and Bechamel sauces and habanero and white pepper spices.

There's even an chipotle chile seasoning. I could probably prepare a chicken with the chipotle chile seasoning and then cover it in chipotle raspberry sauce. My mouth's already watering.

As with all culinary crazes, this one will run its course, sooner rather than later, because while I was shopping this evening, I wandered down the spice aisle and saw an intriguing bottle, "Chinese Five Spice."

Something tells me a new adventure awaits my family.

Pass the Alka-Seltzer.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Gratitude in the Check-Out Line

It was the end of a long day. My fingernails were chipped, my left toe was aching because I'd taken a corner too sharp and there was a coffee stain on the front of my shirt.
The last thing I wanted to do was stop at the grocery store, but we'd eaten out a few times this week and the only foods the fridge was keeping cold were sodas, cheese slices and mustard.

After throwing a few frozen dinners, fruit and a bag of lettuce in my cart, I made my way to the check-out line and took my place behind an elderly woman and a young man as they painstakingly unloaded their grocery cart.

The woman gave the cashier three plastic cards, telling her there was $17 on the first gift card, $12.71 on the second and to put the remainder on the credit card.

It took a few minutes for the cashier to figure out what she was saying, and I found myself growing crankier every time the cashier squinted her eyes and said she didn't get it.

As I waited for some type of understanding to take place, I looked around at my fellow shoppers. The woman standing behind me was on her cell, complaining about her boss.

One line over, a frazzled young mother was trying unsuccessfully to convince her 3-year-old he did not need four candy bars.

There was the quiet elderly couple two lines over, their small cart filled with low-fat cheese, reduced-calorie bread and a day-old cherry pie.

A man in a rumpled business suit was holding a bouquet of roses in one hand and was busily tapping away on his Blackberry with his thumb.

The woman in front of me was still trying to explain what she needed the cashier to do, and I found my patience dangerously close to the "empty" mark. I kicked myself for, once again, choosing the slow line.

I have the worst luck choosing lines, especially when I'm tired and in a hurry. The last time I was in the grocery store, the lady in front of me disagreed with the discount the computer dispensed.

Instead of the dollar she felt she was entitled to receive, the register only rang up 50 cents. She asked the cashier to have someone physically go look at the display so she could get her discount.

I wanted to give her the two quarters so I could be on my way, but something in the way she looked prevented me from sounding off.

Perhaps it was those worry lines around her eyes or the worn edges on her sleeve that told me the 50 cents many of us take for granted meant a great deal to her.

Thinking about that lady, I looked again at the people in front of me. A cane was hanging over the young man's arm, his beard was shaggy, and his pants were a bit too tight.

The older woman appeared to be his mother, and the two of them watched every penny the cashier rang up, and their purchases were the essentials -- no junk food or name brands.

I was buying convenience groceries. They were buying what they needed, using a variety of resources just to make ends meet.

Gratitude is something we often feel when circumstances remind us to be thankful -- narrowly avoiding a fender bender, a friend helps us out of a jam or we make it home safely on a rainy night.

I didn't need a close call to remind me how fortunate I am. That opportunity was as close as the grocery store check-out line.

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.