March 14: White Smoke, Habemus Papam, Frists

Yes, the papal conclave is at an end.  It concluded yesterday afternoon, around 2 p.m., with white smoke and lots of bells.  I missed the whole announcement and first blessing from the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica.  I had to teach a class.

However, there's a new guy in white.  He is a cardinal from Argentina.  His name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and he's 76 years old.  That means he's only two years younger than Joseph Ratzinger when Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.  Bergoglio is a Jesuit and the first non-European to become Bishop of Rome in over 1600 years.  He's also the first pope from the Americas.

The other first is the name Bergoglio chose:  Pope Francis, in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi.  Of course, everyone is speculating about his name choice.  It could reflect the new pontiff's dedication to battling poverty, since Saint Francis gave up all his worldly possessions and spent the rest of his life ministering to the Italian poor.  It could also reflect his determination to break away from the "old" way of doing things in the Vatican and plot a new course for the future.

Whatever ideology his name reflects, Pope Francis is both  a revolutionary and conservative.  For the reasons mentioned above, he's a revolutionary.  However, he is still pretty reserved in his theology, a product of the papacies and leadership of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

I'm withholding judgement.  The guy's only been in office less than a day.  I'm going to give him time to figure out where the little pope's room is before I start criticizing or praising him.  In the mean time, "Habemus Papam!"  We have a pope.

And it ain't Pope Bubba I, aka Saint Marty.

The guy who beat me at the conclave

January 13: Friday the 13th, Rodents, Phobia

He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him.  A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone.  What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

Imagine this rat moon walking

Of course, this passage from A Christmas Carol describes Scrooge's death.  It's a terrible scene, terrifying and grotesque.  The detail that bothers me the most is the gnawing of the rats.  One of my phobias, in fact my greatest phobia, is rodents.  They instill in me cold fear.  I believe this phobia stems from a childhood viewing of the movie Ben.  (If you've never seen the film, don't.  It's traumatizing, although Michael Jackson did compose a great theme song for it.)

Today is Friday the 13th, and it has lived up to its reputation.  I spent last night cleaning and disinfecting my kitchen counter because my wife saw a mouse on it.  After we were done cleaning, I set up glue traps along the path of rodent migration.  I was determined to catch the little bastard.

When my son called for a bottle of milk at 2 a.m., I went into the kitchen and saw the invader splayed on one of the glue traps.  "Serves you right, you little fucker," I thought to myself.  (Yes, I just used the word "fucker."  That's how much I hate rodents.)  Then, the mouse started scratching and scrabbling frantically.  I nearly soiled myself.

I couldn't deal with it.  The glue pad is supposed to have poison in it.  I left the mouse to succumb to the devices of the trap.

However, it didn't die.  My wife told me it was still alive when my kids found it.  My daughter and son made friends with it.  My daughter fed it, for God's sake.  I told my wife to scoop it into a garbage bag, take it outside, and smash it with the snow shovel.

I'm happy to report that the mouse is no longer with us.  My daughter is moping in her closet.  My son is crying; he wants to go outside and say "bye-bye" to the mouse.  I'm planning on buying eight more glue traps to set up tonight.  I want to make sure Ben's family members haven't taken up residence in my kitchen, as well.  If they have, I'm ready to perpetrate a rodent apocalypse.

Saint Marty is not Saint Francis of Assisi.  He doesn't love all of God's creatures.