Changes

 I went to the Holy Thursday Mass tonight, and it was glorious.  Surprisingly, I was NOT required to serve, take down the altar, anything; they didn't even want me to serve as an EM, which was a mistake, as we could have used one.  Alas.  But, it was nice just to be in the pews and take it all in.  Hard to believe Easter is on us and Lent is almost over.  

I had a fairly good day, aside from the whole tooth thing.  I weighed in at under 190 pounds this morning at the gym, which I attribute entirely to the fact that I have been eating less crap -- indeed, the diet has been baked potatoes, tuna, and softer foods.  To be sure, I dug into some of the kielbasa I picked up from Krakow Deli, so I suspect this little victory will be extremely short-lived.  I am not sure that it is as good as last year's batch, but it is still pretty decent.  I should try some of their other offerings...I still need to find paska bread, though I think that will not be an impossible task by Saturday.  As always, I should have planned ahead!

I am about halfway through White Flight, and there is one thing that surprises me.  Namely, one of the main reasons many whites claimed for leaving their homes/neighborhoods was economic -- that they had to sell at the inflated prices offered by Black realtors or else they would sell later at a loss.  Now, I am not saying that racism didn't play a role -- these people were Democrats, after all -- but economically, it sort of makes sense.  Many of the neighborhoods "integrated" (they switched from white to black almost immediately) were working class areas and the homes were literally the only investment/property they had.  Looking at it this way, this sudden shift to the suburbs makes a bit more sense... I wonder if people didn't notice this at time.  I've always felt that African-American political leaders wanted the whites out of the urban cores to obtain political power, and if you could get rid of the white working classes... well, so much the easier.