Of RIPs and Life

In the past week or so I have lost 2 long time blog buddies.

The first was Ann of Twilight. Learning Curve on the Eliptic was a fountain of knowledge on the stars, on politics and on life in general. I always enjoyed her posts.

Today, was the awful news that Ronni Bennett of As Time Goes By died last evening. She and I started blogging around the same time. Her honest reports on aging and insightful commentaries on its process was the first blog to deal with the "real" side of aging - with all its ailments, challenges and discomforts. I exchanged several emails with her over the years. She was an enormous help to her huge community and was unstinting in her communication about her own dying. Gawd how I'll miss her.

Highlights of the weekend:

Daughter came in and stayed for the weekend. We had planned to watch The Queen's Gambit together - me for the second time, she for the first. But that never happened as we laughed our way through Halloween and into the small hours of the morning. The more we age together, the more we enjoy each other but we also recognise that this is extraordinarly rare. One of the topics was rate your worst dates ever. Gawd did we have a feast on that one.

But don't miss The Queen's Gambit. 10/10 from me on IMDB, a rare thing. Trust me.

I'm reading "Catch and Kill" by Ronan Farrow. Which has my hair standing on end. It reads like one of the best crime novels, with underworld spies, threats, blackmail and dark web stuff but it's all true.

Please don't grieve that POS Sean Connery. A wife beater who bragged about slapping women about. A friend of Trump's and over all horrible subhuman.

Sean Connery "An open-handed slap is justified – if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning. If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I'd do it." — Playboy magazine, 1965. "There are women who take it to the wire. That's what they are looking for, the ultimate confrontation. They want a smack." — Interview with Barbara Walters, December 1987

A dinner of moose was dropped off by a friend tonight. Here it is in all its glory. I will get 3 meals out of it. It is to die.

Life By The Numbers

As I age, I find more so than ever, that numbers take on more significance. I suppose they always have taken some prominence in my life as I was (and still am) an accountant during my survival years. I don't use the word survival lightly. How often do many of us work away at something that is basically a kind of spirit destruction for the artist within, toiling, collecting the cheque, toiling some more, looking for better toiling and so on and so forth.

In those toiling years. I squeezed a lot in of the creative nature. Around the edges of my life. There was never enough time to express that aspect of myself then. So I pack it in now, even as I'm slowing down.

I was sorting my weekly pills into the dispenser this morning. A weekly task. It takes 15 minutes. About 30 pills a day including the supplements of niacin and turmeric and magnesium et al. It's a slow process as I tend to drop the little guys on the floor or on my lap. Not so much today but some days. You know.

We are forgetful as we age. I was supposed to go to the opera with a friend today but I think she forgot and I was glad. It was her first opera and it was probably my 6th time seeing it. Madame Butterfly. Not that I minded, I love it, but the whole getting ready thing, organizing thing. Well, you know. And then a kind of mandatory coffee thing after. I just wanted to be home. In my PJs doing creative stuff.

But I played the magnificent Humming Chorus from it and it never fails to make me cry. So cry I did. Sublime.


When I was desperate for work in the old days, or desperate for anything, a shaman advised me to face east in the dawn and hold out my hands and tell the universe I was ready for work. And then go out, broke as maybe, and give something to a far needier person than I. It always worked. I never expected anything from my actions, I should add. It was a spontaneous thing. On Thursday I gave my 80 year old cleaning woman a small raise. She never asked for it, it was just that she takes care of me in little extra ways. She was over the moon. She kept saying: you like my work, you like my work! And on Friday a totally unexpected project came into my inbox, one I will definitely enjoy and will be compensated very well for. A referral. Something oddly numerically karmic about that.

And a very odd thing. I say odd. Because I remember thinking a while back when a man I knew who was dying looked up a high school sweetheart and they totally fell in love again and she was with him for his last couple of years. I remember thinking, she went into this knowing it would all end in tragedy and heartbreak. Could I do that?

But the heart does what it does. And the brain can't stop it. And recently I met a man who is dying and I want to pull away. Now. Immediately. And the heart says absolutely not. I can't explain it. But now I understand. Numbers again. Do they matter?

My Christmas cactus. A little confused (like me)

The Mating Game

You can tell us apart. Us 70+ (or even 60+) women. On one side we are distinguished by our grey hair, our absence of makeup, our short unpolished nails, our sensible shoes, our jeans and sweatshirts.

On the other side (not me but I have some friends who are) are the well burnished flirty specimens, the no-fooling-anyone reddish auburn blondish permed hair, blue eye makeup, orange matte makeup, painted eyebrows, prickly mascara, whoa - there's a whole lot of effort involved. I am in awe of it and please don't think for a second I mock it.

These women fall apart when there's a single man or two in the room. The whole tenor of social interaction changes as if a switch has been pulled. Now that, I have a hard time with. I am embarrassed for them. I feel men are ripped off too. They see these women simpering and posing and oh-my-ing and they think, I'm sure, that these are representative of women as a whole. And unfortunately these are the women who appeal as mates. All intelligent conversation ceases and at that stage, I for one make excuses and leave.

I love the freedom this age gives me. I love that I can chat to men of any age as if they are as human and intelligent and sentient as I am and we can have coffee or a meal without any batting of eyes or hidden agendas. I resigned from the mating game a long, long time ago. I have never felt more me in my life. Not performing to any expectation of others. Authentic. Real to myself.

I was looking at an acquaintance on FB the other day who has been on the hunt, so to speak, for as long as I've known her. She must have gone through 5 or 6 potential partners after being widowed twice and finally found The One and they have a diamond and she has a sparkly red dress and new blonde hair and long ruby nails and a look of such triumph as she gazes upwards into his eyes and I am glad for her that all that high maintenance was worth it for however long she has left as she is a wee bit older than I.

What now? I silently ask her. Will it be happily ever after? Was it worth it?

PS Image is from the Drew Carey Show.

Updating

Updating
(1) My blog - check.
(2) My Reading List - check.
(3) Watched 2016! - NEW for those who care.
(4) My freezer contents - out of control. Seriously. I don't really know when famine and pestilence will occur and the general breakdown of civil society along with food availability will collapse but hell, my larders will outlive me.
(5)My pantry - ditto to freezer.

And yeah, seriously working on these - interesting, haven't bought food in 10 days

.

(6)Acceptance of DST. Seriously, it was lovely at 6.30 this morning. Dawn!!! But dreading the darkness descending at five-ish tonight. Nobody has every explained why this is necessary apart from, drum roll - schoolchildren! Could they not adapt school hours? And speaking of....why this unearthly summer break?

(7)What does happen if the USA becomes Drumpf Nation? I don't think I've ever seen such a democratic travesty in my lifetime as this current US election process.

That's <30> for now.

Life Lessons from Knitting

Knitting has taught me so much about life. I'm currently working on an afghan (sofa blanket) for a dear friend who has been so good to me.

The other day I discovered an error in it and I'm a little OCD when it comes to knitting so I immediately ripped down the four stitches to the error, corrected the problem and moved on. Not so fast. For I soon discovered that two stitches had gone AWOL.

There was nothing for it but to rip down all the rows and then reknit the entire problematic row again. And the two missing stitches magically reappeared with innocent faces on them.

Which put me in mind of relationships, how some are irreparable – they can't be patched up and oftentimes they have to be taken right down to the foundation and assessed to see if they can be rebuilt. Challenging.

Sometimes a design on paper can be beautiful but in practical application can be a disaster. All the kinks have to be ironed out, often with a practice run. It's far better to find out early in the game if something's not going to work than to invest time, effort and dreams into a project that is destined to fail.

It is best to concentrate on the project at hand. At times, my mind drifts off to the next project which is always more exciting than the one in my hands and that's where I make mistakes, cabling (twisting) the pattern the wrong way, forgetting plain rows and purling like a mad thing, forgetting to insert a key element like a heart or a piece of lacework.

Before, I would tell you that knitting is nothing, anybody can do it. Today I recognise, like all creative endeavours, it is something that comes from my heart, my soul, my spirit. It nurtures me, slows me down.

As I knit, I think, with love, of the people I am knitting for. A gift of time and memories as I run the needles back and forth. Most of the projects I complete and gift take well over 100 hours of my time around the rest of the busy-ness of my life. I weave in the sounds of birds, the ocean, the blue sky, the fire, people who bide with me a while and stroke the knitting and yes, always, my hopes and dreams for the giftee.

For I've only ever knitted for people I love.

Crash-boom

It was one of those days today, I had a serious run-on of PGs, needs must as they say, and then no more bookings for about 10 days. I need the time for me, for other stuff that calls. Sometimes I wish I was in my forties again, with the life experience of my own age behind me but the sheer ENERGY of my forties would be lovely.

But elder exhaustion caught up with me and I took two naps. One before a meeting in the morning and then one after my Book Club Meet in the afternoon before a fire department meeting in the evening. I know. But tomorrow is MINE all mine. I get excited about mine days. No one pulling on my sleeves for anything. No meetings, no people.

I took the pic yesterday after a social event. Fog and uncertain sun and calm seas and sand. I trudged across the beach with the dog and the camera.

I said to her: "We'd better make it through the winter old girl, what do you say?"

Her back end is uncertain, lots of helpful mats on the floor, sometimes a small assist from me to get her cranked up in the morning. She's thinner. But gameball. That's all that matters now. Gameball.

30 Days - Day 21

The resilience of the human spirit is amazing. I was struck by this poem the other day and resolved to practise its principles:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
- Rumi -

It seems to me I've experienced so much pain, loss, sorrow, injury, fire, flood, grief and malice recently. I was talking to the facilitator of an event where I was asked to be the after dinner speaker. I told her I'd been through so much hell in the last four months I had nothing inspirational to offer anyone, so please find someone else.

"Oh," she said,"You have everything to offer. You got through it all. How did you do that?"

I agreed to speak.

Natural Selection

Today (for Dog knows I wasn't up for it yesterday)I wonder about life's manifestations and nuances.

And birth order.

And how some in the same gene pool escape the afflictions of the others.

And nature vs nurture.

And hereditary vs environment.

Is everything in life a balancing act - i.e. a vs?

Like some eat and never gain weight.

While others can't even look at an ice cream without some kind of osmosis taking place.

Are there trade-offs - like you get so many talents but you also get all the angst, whereas you, you over there, get none but you're oh-so-happy-all-the-time. Because money/beauty/wit/Harvard.

And addiction? Is that genetic roulette?

Is adult life all about unmet needs from childhood?

Existential moments.

From me.

Who doesn't feel quite all there, right now.

Present

That's the only word I can think of for the way I'm feeling at the moment.

Present. Excruciatingly so. And I use the word "excruciating" in a good way.

A deeper way of feeling. Sharper.

I've had these episodes before. And I welcome them.

Even though I can cry a lot.

Like the beauty of the world overwhelms me. And of people. And their joy and casual kindnesses.

It was a brutal Tely 10 yesterday. At the best of times I don't "do" heat. Never have and possibly never will. And it was one of the hottest races I've ever been in. And I wanted to quit so many times as the sweat poured off me and everything started to hurt. One good soul, among many, high-fived me at an off-kilter angle along the route and my poor arm felt like it was going to fall off with the unexpected lingering pain.

And then I started to laugh. To myself. As this new pain was distracting me from the sweat and the sore feet (note to self: break in new shoes a month before any race).

And Mile 8 was the roughest. I wanted to lie down and cry on the road and let the paramedics take me off to a sanitarium (do they have such places anymore?) for at least a month. And pamper and spa me and treat my feet, hell my entire body, to peppermint oil and my mind to attar of roses in bowls on my side table.

So that kept me going for a while: thoughts of 1000 thread cotton sheets, white, and attendants massaging the throbbing and aching all-over that I had become.

Mile 9, I was kinda sorta limping when Daughter appeared to help me in on the final 1/4 mile, which was very blurry as my mind had gone on vacation and my recognition software had crashed.

There had been many friends along the route with ice, with words, with water, with lemon. I still cry when I think about them all.

How astonishing it is to me to have picked up my life and moved so very far away to the edge of the Atlantic not so many years ago and feel so part of the fabric here now, to have accumulated so many friends, so much sustenance and support and love.

And to realize, with such renewed clarity, that my only struggles ever are with myself.

To be in the now and in the present for it is all I have.

To be the best me, not in beating anyone else, but in the journey, with its trials and pain. To look outward and accept those shouts of support, the water, the "you can do its", the distracting high-fives, the companionship.

And the destination?

Well, that morphs and changes, for is there any such thing really?

All I can say is that for me yesterday and carrying on in to today:

The destination is to remain open to love.

Self-inflicted and all the variants in between.

Reflections

Back to the blogworld after quite a sabbatical for this screen sucker. I temporarily suspended most of my cyber activities and it wasn't the delirium tremens experience I had anticipated. I missed reading others' blogs the most. I thought quitting Lexulous would be a cause of the shakes and the jitters but it wasn't at all. FaceBook posting I kept to a minimum and refused to open links from others. AND why does aforesaid FB involve so much WORK on my part?

I took the two steps back from this and came to the conclusion I only like it when the posts are personal: don't send me recipes you haven't made and photographed, don't send me links without a comment as to how it has affected you, don't post décor pics unless it's your own house you're talking about or books you've read or movies you've seen. But most of all don't post pics and movies of animals and babies and weddings unless they, erm, are those that are part of YOUR family. I mean why should I care about strangers' dogs and babies? Why should you?

I'm not saying I'm immaculate in that area either. There was a time when Lolzcatz or whatevers had me frothing and posting. But not anymore.

Point is: Distance is required to have a good look at ourselves and our activities, cyber and otherwise.

I wrote, I read. I walked. I spent time with Daughter who is now (I'm still trying to process this delightful life's surprise) actually living here. We went to a concert on Saturday afternoon and then she said: "I know you want to see "Philomena", Mum - let's pack the day up tight - do dinner and then see it!"

And we did. And it was all good. Very good.

And "Philomena"? - run to this movie. It is brilliant.

Here's my review of Philomena

Life is Series of Subtractions.

A blog-mate and I were exchanging emails about how she was giving up this 'n that and I was sharing with her what I had chosen to give up when I was reminded of a spiritual retreat I was on back in the day, when the facilitator mentioned he'd always thought life was about what we could add to it (addition) when actually it was the exact opposite (subtraction).

I've never forgotten that. We were all a bunch of recovered alcoholics there so we'd already let go of the "divil dhrink" but being told we would improve our lives greatly if we subtracted other stuff - Whut?, give up more? - had us just about running for cover.

But he was right. Now I'm listing some of what I've given up over the years since I first gave up alcohol. Much of it's not "stuff". It is behaviours and attitudes that do not serve me well no matter how cushy they feel. And some were not by choice but by circumstance.

Alcohol
Tobacco
Compulsive eating and/or restricting food
Television
People pleasing (still working on that!)
Sex (not by choice!)
Abusive people
City living
Well paying work I found unfulfilling
Pharmaceutical crutches
Toxic relationships in the guise of "romance".
Unsupportive relationships.

I'm sure more will come to my mind.

I'll write about the additions I've made to replace these subtractions in another post for nature does abhor a vacuum.

Death. And Life.

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." Marcus Tullius Cicero

E is a good friend. One of those people that I'm attracted to. Full of life, open to change, supportive and demonstrative. Quick to hug, to hold your hand. Very beautiful in a round way. Beautiful round eyes. Round bob of hair. Round glasses. Someone you would hate to hurt. Her eyes fill with tears readily. If you are having a rough time she'll sit with you and weep too. It's impossible not to love her.

Recently her adult kids swept through her townhouse and dejunked it. She was a self-admitted queen of clutter. She was not open to the idea at the beginning but then came around to it and showed me pictures of the before and after. Especially her kitchen where they had created a nook for her to do her morning meditations by a window where they had installed a bird feeder outside. She even took pictures of the inside of her kitchen cupboards where she could see exactly what she had on hand: her supplies and how she was down to one set of dishes and pots and bowls. Unless one is superhuman, I think it a good idea for someone else to de-hoard a hoarder.

Then her world crashed around her. Her beloved only sister, C, a Type 1 Diabetic, had catastrophic organ failure with attendant myriad other health issues. She lapsed in and out of a coma (and horrific pain) in the past three weeks and died two days ago.

C's life ended on a rather high, though tragic, note. Her abusive marriage had ended a year ago and it seemed like immediately, her high school boyfriend, himself a recent widower, found her on FaceBook and they fell back in love, intensely and completely. C was the happiest she had ever been, E told us. And he held her tightly through her last days, hoping against hope.

I was at the funeral home yesterday. I'm there for E. I didn't know C and I get uncomfortable around the caskets of people I don't know in life. I hesitate to approach the corpse in case my interest would be perceived as prurient. And it is surely? We are all curious about death and the way we present it, aren't we? So I do my best not to gawp at the stranger-corpse for we are there for the living are we not? From my peripheral vision of C, the remains of C, I saw how young she was. Another friend whispered to me that there had been over 60 perforations in her bowels which caused her such agony in the time before her merciful death.

E came over, remarkably dry-eyed ("I'm all wrung out" she said to me as I held her.)

I met her mother (oh, to lose a child, how heart-wrenching, how painful and inutterably sad) and then E took me aside and said: "I can't believe it, you know what's happened, who's been my pillar of strength through all of this? My ex-husband, father of the kids. I don't know what I'd have done without him!"

Where there is death, there is life.

The Long House

This book I just read?

Well, it wasn't a very good book, characters wandered in and out without much rhyme or reason. It was written by a Quebec author, an international best-seller and award winner, highly recommended, but written like she was poorly translated into the Anglaise.  But I persisted.

When I told one of my Quebecois writer friends I was reading this author she had dramatically raised one eyebrow (she does that so well, I wish I did) and said really? as in why waste my time.

I learn something from every single book. Even from this particular one,  though I will not read her again.  But now my curiousity is satisfied and I can say to myself, yeah, I read her, not impressed.

But, and it is a big but, there was one wonderful passage in it that I could strongly relate to:

P261: Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one great long room. Everyone we ever met and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past, they'd continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions, even years later.
 

Somehow, my life became more manageable when I thought of it as a long house. Yes, sure there are hecklers but also there are some glorious wonderful times that I can glance back at now and again. And grin and do a little skip.

I don't have to stay in bleak December. Now I can run back and be in August 2012 if even for a few moments.

"Looking Forward to Boredom"

I think it was Daughter who said this on the phone during the week and I laughed and laughed. Me too, honey, I said, imagine a day of doss, bon-bons, jammies and a good solid book to munch through.

I for one am run ragged, you wouldn't believe the half of it but it now sounds like everything is falling into place for Irish performance. Meanwhile I had to put some writing together for a Writers' Festival in October and that took a whole day. I sure hope I am accepted. Fingers crossed. Not counting chickens there at all. I want it so bad I could *insert whatever*.

I visited a dear friend in the hospital today. He is a very private man, likes a lot of quiet, solitary aloneness. Much like myself. He had booked a private room but none were available so he was ensconced in a four person ward.

I have never seen anything like the activity around him. Ever. I think two of the wardmates were dying, which was awfully sad. But exceptions were made to the Rulez for them. So there were screaming toddler grandchildren running around one bed. On another the old fellah was requesting Irish songs from his daughter who had brought her guitar. And the third? He was being tested by a therapist for dementia who had to scream a series of comprehension testing questions at him (spell 'wall', take 7 from 100, and on). And his wife had a whinney of a voice which would first pierce your eardrums and then echo back to give you a migraine.

I have been to circuses that were quieter than this ward B was thrown in.

I found it extremely hard to keep a straight face as his horror-filled eyes would fall on mine every few minutes and he would just about sob: "What fresh hell is this, OSS?"

I suggested Ipod earbuds or earplugs but he has an inner ear problem and dizziness gets exacerbated if he puts anything in his ears.

I shared the above blog title with him and he whittled out a tiny smile.

Sometimes boredom is a good thing, yeah?

Death and Other Jokes

Looking out the window
In the space of five minutes
I see
~A funeral hearse (and yes, I saw her death in the paper) with 9 duckling cars trailing it
~A school bus – grade school
~A furniture delivery truck
~Another school bus – high school
~A meat truck
~A milk truck,
~A jeep
~Three passenger vans
~Two private trucks with boat trailers
~Six or seven cars
~Two walkers
~One black dog who walks herself and never crosses the road, hello Bella!
Which goes to show me
In no uncertain way
That life goes on. And on. And on.
Even when we die.

Defining Moments

Do we have only one? Do we have several?

Do we only know about them after they’ve happened?

Can we create them?

I’ve had a few: where afterwards there is a stronger sense of self and one's place in the world. But most of all it is a feeling that now, now, all things are possible: Let's get on with the important business of living this one and only wild and precious life to the very maximum.

And I list these moments, not in any order of importance because it seems odd to compare them. I could even be forgetting some. They are all unique in their own right and it seems to diminish them somehow by listing them in any kind of significance.

Becoming sober in 1986.

Completing a marathon in Toronto in 1995.

Giving birth to my children in 1967 and 1969.

My granddaughter’s birth in 1994 and thus knowing what my mother shared with me when my daughter was born and what her mother had shared with her when I was born.

Placing first in overall marks in my school in Grade 6.

Getting my first role in a semi-professional theatre company in 1962.

Playing guitar and singing folksongs in a pub for the first time in 1964.

Emigrating to Canada on one of the last ocean going liners in 1967.

Getting my first award for writing in 1956.

Coming to Newfoundland in 2003 and realizing ‘this is it, this is home’.

Reading my own work publicly in 2008.

I’m sure there are more but none come to mind at the moment

Extraordinary how none of these little life-markers have anything to do with careers, promotions, working, relationships and marriages, eh?

This could be a meme, have at it if you’re so inclined.

A scent of laundry. Part 2.

See Part 1 here.

She was there for a little party business I started to supplement my low female wages in Cork back in the day, when she invited all her well to do friends to her house so I could sell them a record amount of Tupperware.

She was there for my wedding, making all the bridesmaids’ dresses including fittings and arranging for shoe dyeing and matching hair bands.

She was there when my baby was born, making ridiculously fancy and gorgeous velvet dresses with lacy collars in every colour imaginable.

She was there to hold my precious mother, her sister, as she went through horrific chemo treatments and multiple amputations.

She was there but not so much when I would visit her after my mother’s death.

She was very much less there at my sister’s wedding. She kept disappearing to the ladies’ room and when she was at our table, she was oddly incoherent and inappropriately cynical.

I noticed a strange vinegary odour coming from her any time I would meet her when I went back home. I could not engage with her like in the old days. She had a remarkable lack of interest in my life and she forbade me to mention my mother’s name.

One night, when I asked my cousin, her daughter, what was going on, she silently gave me a tour of the house that had been the scene of so much laughter, community, and feasts fit for a queen.

Her dressing table, her pride and joy, laden with Waterford Crystal perfume bottles and handcut face cream jars, was the first stop. Each and every container was full of vodka.

The toilet tanks, the hot presses under the towels, the back recesses of the sideboard, even the opened yawning mouth of the piano: every nook and cranny held a bottle or a mickey full of alcohol.

Later, I sat down with her beautiful teenage granddaughter at a party in a cousin’s house and described her grandmother’s heyday to her. She looked at me blankly, almost disbelievingly.

“I’ve never known her to be anything but like she is now,’ she said softly.

A Selective Culture of Life????

Bush Renews Call for 'Culture of Life'
AP - Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:24:04 -0400 (EDT)
By ANN SANNER
President Bush, at the national Catholic prayer breakfast, stressed his opposition to easing restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, a reference to a bill he's threatened to veto.

"In our day there is a temptation to manipulate life in ways that do not respect the humanity of the person," Bush said Friday. "When that happens, the most vulnerable among us can be valued for their utility to others instead of their own inherent worth."

The Senate on Wednesday voted 63-34 to pass the measure that it hopes will lead to new medical treatments. The vote, however, fell short of a veto-proof margin needed to enact the law over Bush's objections. The House, which passed similar legislation earlier in the year, is expected to adopt the Senate's version in the weeks ahead.

"We must continue to work for a culture of life where the strong protect the weak and where we recognize in every human life the image of our creator," Bush said.

His brief speech also included a call to Congress to pass immigration reform, a prayer for U.S. troops serving abroad and praise for Catholic schools across America. Later Friday, Bush planned to meet with parochial education leaders and parents at the White House.

The prayer breakfast at a Washington hotel attracted religious leaders, members of Congress, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and top government officials. After the president spoke, a female heckler shouted "War criminal! War criminal!" It was unclear whether the president heard her.

Bush, a Methodist, noted that this year's prayer breakfast occurred the Friday after Lent.

"You can eat your bacon in good conscience," he joked.

I have difficulty believing that this man can stand up and stay these things barefaced - with the blood of a quarter of a million (250,000) innocent, helpless Iraqi children on his hands. Does he see the image of God in these too? Or are they infidels?