On the Death of Pets

Pets have always been like part of the family for me. It's hard to describe their place but it is definitely there. I cannot explain to people who don't have pets what it feels like when one passes. This animal that you have raised and cared for is suddenly gone. Although they are just furry little creatures they always seem able to burrow their way into my heart. I can have an animal in my life for months or for years but it always hurts when I have to say good-bye. Maybe my problem is that I get too attached too quickly. Then again, I think that it might be my best attribute. I have always seen animals as a beautiful part of our world and it's hard to see part of that beauty leave.

Human Drama

I live on a fairly busy one-way street. Every now and then I see car accidents outside of my window. Today was one of those days. My boyfriend shouted at me from across the house that there had been a car accident and one car had flipped and was pinned between the light pole and the car below it. He grabbed his shoes and was leaving when I told him I would call 911. Since he has some medical training, he went straight to the scene. Since I don't have as much control of my emotions when emergencies happen, I went down the street. I stood in the middle of the road and directed traffic away from the accident. About 15 minutes later, a police car drove up and parked across the two lanes of the road. He quickly thanked me and I went back to the house (toward the accident). From my front yard, I searched for my boyfriend in the crowd and saw that he was still assisting people. I then noticed the crowd.

You see, while directing traffic, I noticed a few people on foot walking toward the accident. This is nothing extraordinary because there is a grocery store near there. It wasn't until I was entering my house that I noticed that the same people whom I had assumed were going to the grocery store were standing on the corner staring at the emergency team and the wreck. They had not witnessed the accident. They were not calming down the victims or helping in any way. They were just watching. It makes me feel sick. When I was 10 years old, I was in a car accident with my mom. We were on a busy road early in the evening. I watched as cars in the other lane slowed down to look at me, the totaled minivan, the other car, and, worst of all, my mom being put on a stretcher. I was doing my best to stay composed until my dad arrived. The medics and police were wonderful. The medic who drove the ambulance let me sit in the front seat and chatted with me. However, I couldn't help but see out of the corner of my eye those cars. They weren't trying to pass, they intended to stop and see what had happened.

Why do people think that this is an acceptable response to an accident? Those people they are watching aren't actors. This is a real tragedy in the victims' lives and they want to treat it like a TV show. I hate it.

However, there is a silver lining. My boyfriend just informed me that there were also multiple people who immediately jumped out of their cars to help. A worker from the grocery store jumped into the flipped car without a second's hesitation. Even though the gas tank was leaking and had created a pool under one car, they were under and on the car trying to wrestle out the passengers before the weight of the car injured them further. In the end, there were no fatalities but more than one person will be staying in the hospital today. I just thank God that for all of those people who stop to stare, there are still many that will do everything they can to help.

"La Virgo María, madre del buen Criado"

I was re-reading Berceo's introduction to Milagros this morning. It's so beautiful. You think that he's just rambling about a beautiful prado where he rested under the shade of a tree. However, he is able to tie this beauty to Mary. He's thinking about how pilgrims love to find these meadows to rest. He then thinks about the devotion to Mary that these pilgrims, and really everyone, have. He talks about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Saint Augustine, Gideon, David, and Aaron. They all were devoted to Mary. This veneration, obsession even, is nothing new.

I really must point out my favorite stanza. I will not translate it because I feel like I cannot truly capture the beauty of Berceo's writing.

Ella es dicha fuent     de qui todos bevemos,

ella nos dio el cevo     de qui todos comemos;

ella es dicha puerto     a qui todos corremos,

e puerta por la qual     entrada atendemos.

That stanza captures what Mary is to her children. Yes, Jesus saved mankind from Hell but he can feel so far away and too mighty for humans to be worthy of bothering him. Mary is humble, she is a mother. She is the font out of which sinners drink. She gives rest to the weary, possibly in a beautiful prado with perfumed flowers. She is the first step to God toward which people in medieval Spain went. They were comforted by the idea of such a perfect haven. Who wouldn't be? Berceo wrote these stories to continue a long standing tradition of telling tales of Mary and of attributing to her how simple men were able to survive the impossible. Sounds like a perfect reason to write if you ask me.

Vacation

My vacation for this Summer was this past weekend. Here's a quick run-down of what happened:

1. Sunday: Arrived safely at my parents' house with boyfriend and two dogs. Car receives a stain from a car-sick dog.
2. Monday: Accidentally soak my contacts lenses in a hydrogen peroxide solution. Able to rinse eyes in a timely manner.
3. Get plant killer in my eyes while helping my mom at her rental property. My boyfriend safely guided me to the water hose in time to rinse my eyes.
4. Do more yard work at the rental house and a little bit at my parents' house.
5. NAP
6. Enjoy evening spending time with my boyfriend and parents.
7. Tuesday: Start the day off at a waterpark!
8. About to leave waterpark for lunch when I realize I lost the canister holding my boyfriend's credit card and my keys.
9. Freak out.
10. Find out that a decent person found the canister and gave it to a lifeguard. Calm down.
11. Lunch at Sonic.
12. NAP
13. Putt-putt and arcade games with the boyfriend. I won putt-putt.
14. Guy on moped drives into the lobby of the arcade. We are the only two that seem to find this odd.
15. Wednesday: Awesome homemade breakfast cake. Finish tokens at arcade.
16. Find out that one dog had destroyed a pillow, a napkin, and vommitted twice on my parents' carpet.
17. Get home safely with one boyfriend, and two dogs. No new stains on the car. Hamster and fish survived a few days by themselves.

I've had enough excitement. Back to work on the thesis!

Mistakes

Having gotten to later miracles in Milagros de Nuestra Señora, I have found myself very wrong about a few things. Firstly, not all of the miracles have a male as a sinner. This makes the feminist in me very happy. However, I do have a few thoughts on the significance that miracle #21 has a pregnant religious woman. She is the sinner in that story. My modern mind doesn't like the fact that the man is not seen as a sinner. However, I can appreciate the fact that the woman had taken very specific vows of chastity. It still irks me slightly. Secondly, not all of those who find themselves receiving help from Mary are Christian. I don't know how I feel about this. Spain has had some anti-Semitic feelings for, well, most of its history. My gut reaction is to say that it is anti-Semitic because the author pins a Jew for sinning but then I realize that the author pins everyone for sinning. Using a Jew is just to illustrate one of the basic ideas of Milagros: everyone can be, and is, a sinner. Jews, Christians, men, women, priests, and nuns are all sinners.

Well, I need to finish up an annotated bibliography for tomorrow. It's the first one I've ever done. It's kind of a pain in the neck but I can definitely see the appeal. It's great to have a run down of books that could be useful for a paper (and why) and a list of books that have nothing to do with the paper. It's hard to really say which ones are "useful" right now because I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is my thesis. Then again, I think that's why I'm making an annotated bibliography. One of my former teachers advised us that we had to go through a lot of books and articles to get an inspiration for the paper and then we could think about our topic. We had to wade through books on Don Quixote and then, by reading some, find what interested us. Then we could go back and pick the books that discussed in detail the topic we had decided upon. That was the first teacher that ever told me how to start a research paper. I am very grateful for that lesson.