Day two at the convent- today all the nuns went to work and Lis and I were left alone. There was an unexpected schedule change and the Sister we have come to visit has had to spend the majority of her time at school. That is unfortunate, but also good to have some quiet time.

Today I got up around 9:00. I had some breakfast, checked email, posted the short blog. L and I went to the grave yard across the street and checked it out. There isn’t any snow, but it is quite cold, about 28 degrees. It is the yard of a beautiful old church founded in 1772.

I saw lots of very old graves, most of them so worn I couldn’t read the information. There was one monument which was quite nice and well kept. I don’t know how old it was, but it was a set of brothers. All three were born in the Philadelphia area, but all had died in the south at the time of the Civil War. One was a plantation owner in LA, one died in battle in GA and another died in battle in TN. The brother who died in TN was a CSA officer. The monument said the brothers were together and in agreement in life and death. It made me think they were all CSA soldiers. It made me wonder how old that monument was, and if there had been animosity in the family with three brothers fighting for the south. Obviously some family had stayed in PA as well, so what friends and church members thought about CSA soldiers being brought back or at least memorialized here. It seems with so many men dead there would have been some bitterness- but then, with so much tragedy at the time, maybe people were too weary to be bitter any more.

After the church yard we went for a short walk, we stopped and had Chinese food. Authentic Philly-Chinese food . . . well there was the consideration of a Philly-cheese steak sandwich, but for me it would have just been a Philly cheese sandwich- and I image that causes the situation to lose some of its mystique- or whatever.

The Philly cheese steak place was also advertising ‘crab cake hoagies.’ L said ‘Crabcake Hoagie’ sounded like a villain. I thought it sounded more like a pirate (which could also be a villain.) For the rest of the day I was tickled by the idea of a silly looking pirate sailing the seas (and rivers) and pillaging the Philly-cheese-steak-shops . . . ARRR!
When finished with lunch L suggested a ‘rousing nap time.’ I laughed. I don’t usually take naps- but today I did- and it was fabulous- so I decided I could easily slip into the ‘unemployed and loving it’ life-style. Too bad for me I don’t have more people to mooch off of.

This evening was the celebration dinner for one of the Sisters’ 75th birthday. She is apparently a work-a-holic. I didn’t even see her until the dinner stated. They said, “Sr. John, have you met Shannon and L?” She said, “Yeah-yeah- Shannon’s sitting next to me.” When in fact we had not met and I was not sitting next to her. But when you are a 75 year old nun most people just let you say what you want.

It seems Sr. John didn’t want to have a birthday party, so the other Sisters had to plan it for her as a surprise. She was real crabby when she found out more than just the other sisters of the convent would be there and she said, “I didn’t want you to do this because I don’t want what happened five years ago to happen again!” We asked what happened five years ago, but nobody was talking. I expect it involved a lot of alcohol because this 75 year old nun got three bottles of wine and a bottle of Captain Morgan for her birthday.
Over the course of the dinner I learned a few bad words in Polish and a few more in Arabic.

Nuns can be so enlightening.

After dinner we cleaned up and had a prayer time. It was nice- lots of responsive reading type things- we sang a song with the tune of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” but different words. One of the Sisters (the one who wears Doc Martians) told me about some of the Sisters of her order who had been executed during WWII. I guess I hadn’t thought about Catholics been persecuted and executed, but it seems it was a pretty common practice.
Finally we watched a few episodes of ‘The Cake Boss’ and the news then went to bed. So- off to bed I go, I’m only up now because of the nap.