My troubles are behind me now! Today in the mail I got a letter from Saint Matthew's Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma! (http://www.biblicalprayer.com/ )

Opening with the truly compelling salutation "Dear ... Someone Connected with this Address," the letter goes on to explain all the blessings and gifts of divine providence just waiting for me -and all I have to do is PRAY! Health! Financial Blessings! A New Car! Why, this religion deal is even better than getting on a Game Show on TV! All this -AND MORE- can be mine, thanks to a God just busting over with benevolence, and the Amazing Jesus Power of the enclosed Church Prayer Rug (also referred to in the letter as, variously, the Prayer Rug of Faith; the Bible Faith, Church, Prayer Rug; the Biblical Faith Church Prayer Rug; the Holy Ghost Bible Prayer Rug). The good people at St. Matthews, my gosh, but they couldn't be more excited to tell me these Glad Tidings!! The important bits in the letter are not only capitalized and in bold-face, but underlined in fake-handwritten-blue-ink as well- as if they were SO OVERCOME WITH EMOTION by this Message of Hope, that they JUST COULDN'T HELP but call the printer up and tell them to put in the fake underlining!

For all the build-up, I must say the Church Prayer Rug itself was kind of a let-down. I have to admit that I was expecting more than a folded 11x17 sheet of paper with a four-colour print of Jesus' Face inside a frame that looks kind of like an Oriental Carpet. What kind of loser cheap-skate God is behind this racket, anyhow? If this is the best "rug" God can afford, how the hell is He going to pony up the kind of serious cash I expect to be Blessed with? But I must cast aside such doubts. After all, it is said that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and also because the letter states that praying with this rug is "going to be like you are kneeling before God All Mighty at the altar inside a great church of blessings." You can't tell me that praying with just any old cheap Xerox would be like that!

Fortunately (because if you're like me, well, you don't got a whole lot of experience praying with 11x17 paper prayer rugs that come in the mail) the Church Prayer Rug comes with instructions:

"Look into Jesus' Eyes you will see they are closed. But as you continue to look you will see His eyes opening and looking back into your eyes." (and I bet you will, too, if- you know- you happen to be really really high at the time) "Then go and be alone and kneel on this Rug of Faith or touch it to both knees."

Just in case I had any doubts left as to the efficacy of the Church Prayer Rug, an enclosed leaflet has excerpts of letters of those who have received the Blessings of the Almighty, all thanks to the Church Prayer Rug, which is all to the good, because really there is no better way to prove a thesis than by testimonials from credulous semi-literates:

• "Dear [Saint Matthew's], My husband listed 7 things that he wanted God to do for him.... GOD BLESSED US WITH $10,700. HE WENT OUT AND BOUGHT US A CAR." writes L.B. of Maryland. Although I suspect L.B. means that it was her husband, Mr. B. of Maryland, who bought the car, the exact wording is somewhat ambiguous, and I am charmed by the idea that maybe it was the Lord of all Creation Himself who was haggling away at Honest Sam's Value Car Mart (motto: No credit? No Problem!), maybe rubbing His chin, saying "well, Sam, yes, it's a nice car... sure... but I don't know... 140,000 seems a lot of miles... hmm"

• "...GOD BLESSED ME WITH OVER $5,000.00" writes C.D. of Pennsyvania, who presumably wouldn't have written in all caps if he knew that he was blessed with less than half the sum that L.B. got. "Ouch!" to you, C.D.!

• "Our Lord... has blessed us with a BIG 6 ROOM HOUSE..." adds Mrs. T.F., in what may be my personal favourite.

Apparently, more testimonials of answered prayers are available for your reading pleasure at their website, but frankly I'm just NOT BORED ENOUGH to look them up. Anyway, with the glittering examples cited above, WHO NEEDS MORE PROOF?

Get outta my way, it's time to pray!

I helped Dad gather up some firewood this morning, a nice big old pile o' logs. You know there's little he likes better than a good blazing fire, so long as the fire is in the fireplace. Mum likes fires too, and that's good- he's got her installed in the easy chair opposite the hearth and what with the Percocet washed down with wine, she's not going anywhere.

Her convalescence continues apace, in fact she's looking real good, a lot better than anyone really expected. Even right after the operation she looked good. Tired, but good. She's really starting to get the hang of this whole "surgery" thing now- thankfully, seeing as what a fiasco her last operation turned out to be. That was the deal with her knee replacement, three years ago now, and still not right. She was the lucky one in two hundred or whatever to be afflicted with something called neuroma (or something like that) following the replacement, apparently some sort of nerve damage which, if not incurable, is at least well beyond the curative ability of her surgeon. "Getting old is the pits" she tells me, the only time I've ever heard her use the expression "the pits".

Dad seems to be enoying his newfound sense of purpose, fussing about like a mother hen, starting fires and attending to mother's medical needs. Foremost among these is dealing with her drainage device, a small rubber sac attached by a tube to her wound, the size and shape of a hand grenade, but packing (when full) a far more distasteful payload than any mere hand grenade. I simply can't bear to be around when he decants the fluid within into a specially calibrated beaker, swirls it around, and holds it up to the light as though it were some precious liqueur. I'm long gone by this stage of the procedings, of course, so I can only guess as to what nefarious purposes he has in mind for the stuff. At the hospital, they have a signpost in the parking lot with an arrow pointing the way to "Patient Discharge". Before now, I had always kind of assumed there was some sort of innocent explanation for the sign. But I'm not so sure anymore.

Tomorrow Mum learns her fate, what further deviltry the doctors have decided to inflict upon her.

I hope they've had their fill of torture. I'm not so fond of seeing my mom in pain.

Things are starting to look kind of bleak. I still have not heard back from Gwen, which leads me to suspect that my Crazy Ex Landlady is so totally Crazy that she is opposed to having our differences resolved on the nationally televised forum of "Judge Mathis". I have to admit, the unplumbed depths of her insanity has taken me quite unawares: I never could have foreseen that any of my ex-landlords - a pack of nuts if there ever was one - would have been so far gone as to not want to be on a daytime court TV show, but apparently Isabelle is even loonier than I gave her credit for, and that's saying something! I would almost admire her, what with being so crazy, were I not so worried- what if when we go to Small Claims Court she should plead not guilty by reason of insanity? What can I say to dispute that? I'll be so sunk!

Our original court date was to have been tomorrow, but I got a continuance last Friday. Because of how I learned Thursday that my Mum is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. I can't be mucking about wasting my time in court or anything, not when I'll be needed to make awkward small talk in the hospital waiting room, hoping my Dad doesn't get too worried. Mum will be getting a mastectomy.

I-I don't know what to say.

Justice is the kind of thing that some people spend their entire lives in search of. On the other hand, sometimes Justice arrives right in the mailbox, in the shape of a form letter from Judge Mathis.

I hadn't previously been aware of the good Judge, but he evidently had known about me! Actually, as much as I've bitched to my friends and co-workers about my Crazy Ex-Landlady, it's not surprising that he caught wind of the wrongs done me by the C.X.L... by all accounts, he's a stand-up guy... devoted to Justice, devoted to seeing Justice done... Really, it was only a matter of time until Judge Mathis swooped in like Batman or something to see to it that Right prevails. That's just the way he rolls.

Anyway, for those of you not in the know (and until two days ago, that included me), Judge Mathis is some manner of TV based judge, who has the unique ability to guarantee that, in the bold-faced words of his form letter, "YOU WILL receive the TOTAL judgement awarded in our court". That's for me!

After conferring with my sister -who, with her mad Googling skills- ascertained that Judge Mathis is indeed a real judge, and that "Judge Mathis" is indeed a real TV show, I was all "Hell Yes!!!" So at work the next day I called up the toll-free number on the letter and spoke with Gwen, a very nice young Production Assistant. We talked all about my Crazy Ex-Landlady for quite some time, and I made sure to sneak in several examples of my C.X.L.'s looniness. Gwen told me that if my case was selected, they'd fly me to Chicago, put me up in a hotel, and even give me $100, all FREE, completely gratis, and all I had to do was go on national TV and talk about how crazy my Ex-Landlady is. Hell, I've been doing that for nothing all this time!

The only catch is that my C.X.L. has to consent to settling our dispute in this fashion, rather than in the more orthodox venue of the Franklin County Municipal Court, Small Claims Division. I don't think I have anything to worry about, though. Who wouldn't want to appear in a nationally syndicated reality-based court show? Hell, I know my C.X.L.'s crazy, but nobody's that crazy!

Tomorrow I'm going over to spend some time with my Mum. I only have to decide what sort of chocolates I should bring.

She has to make up her mind by Friday if she wants to receive a full mastectomy or a so-called lumpectomy.

Well, the folks came back Friday. As they'd flown in all the way from Santiago, Chile, I figured their arms'd be tired so I went to the airport to collect them. They did look pretty shattered and zombified by their stratospheric ordeal, and it took a couple seconds after I imposed myself into my mother's personal space before her expression of terror at this latest intrusion gave way to one of recognition. Dad grumbled about the airport employee who'd been pushing my Mum in a wheelchair, and who had had the effrontery to look insufficiently grateful after being presented with a $2 tip.

It was the work of mere seconds for me to collect their luggage, whisk them back to their house, and shoot a glass of wine at them. Now, as they started to relax, I knew I was going to be the very first to hear their stories of exotic lands and adventure! Why, they had been to the very ends of the Earth- you know they had to have some epic sagas, tales of pluck and courage and derring-do amidst some of the most inhospitable waters in the world! Shipboard romance! Mysterious and exotic foreigners!

I was not to be disappointed.

They told me all about the Aukkers (or possibly the Ockers), the overly-ambitious team in the morning trivia contest who used means both fair and foul to dominate the contests, taking more than their fair share of the cruise-line-corporate-logo-bearing tchotchkes offered as prizes. My dad, normally a model of equanimity, insinuated that skullduggery had been afoot! Then he gave me one of the prizes he had won, a little LED keyring flashlight which if you shine it in your eyes, it makes you wish you hadn't just done so.

They told me all about New Years on the High Seas, during which the waitress tried to sell them a bottle of champagne well in advance of midnight, despite knowing full well that at midnight they give you a complimentary bottle. " 'The free stuff really isn't all that good...' she told us!"

They told me all about the Great Laundry Room Drama, in which there weren't enough dryers for the quantity of washers present, leading to various acts of washroom hooliganism, washroom vigilanteeism, and culminating in actual washroom fisticuffs!

Ah, but that was enough adventure for one night! My intrepid globetrotting parents were starting to droop with fatigue. There'll be more stories later, but for now I'm back to the mundane and the day-to-day.

Well, it being the New Year and all, it's time for my favorite annual New Year's tradition! Yes, it's time once again to count out all the pennies from the can on my bedside table! I've been doing this for years now, and I've got all them pennies saved up and locked away in a special bank account THAT'S ONLY FOR PENNIES! I don't mean to brag, but by now I've amassed literally DOZENS of dollars! So you can see, this is one tradition that is not only educational but lucrative as well.

It's so simple even a child could do it- you just sleeve them up in these little paper tubes in quantities of fifty, and each completed tube is then worth fifty cents. You can either count them out in ten stacks of five pennies each, or five stacks of ten pennies each. I guess you could also just count out fifty at a time, but I bet that'd be waaay too much work. You can also roll up nickels- worth $2 a roll, or even dimes, at a whopping $5 per roll! Legally I think you can roll up quarters as well, but nobody has that many quarters just laying around. You'd have to have, I don't know, literally dozens of the fuckers.

If you pay attention while you count, you can learn some pretty interesting facts. For instance, I can tell you that they made pennies in every year so far in the 2000's, every year in the 90's, every year in the 80's except 1983, and in 1972, '73, '74, '76, '78, '79, and 1962. Also, they've gotten a lot better at making pennies nowadays. You know how bright and shiny a new 2007 penny is? Well, pennies weren't always made to such a standard! Back in the '80's they made 'em all dull and bleah-colored and sometimes with all this greenish crud on them- just like the cars they used to make back then.

Well, I've about got all my change rolled up now, so me and my eight dollars and fifty cents are rolling off down to the bank!