The boyfriend and I have been on Pope watch since I got to his place last night. Every few hours we would check the news websites to see if the pope had died. He hadn't each time we checked. When we got up this morning we checked the websites again and sure enough he was still alive but barely hanging on. Each time we checked, the headline said something about him being in very serious condition and close to death. He just kept hanging on.

This afternoon while The boyfriend was doing laundry I turned on the TV to see if there was anything to watch. All the news channels were reporting that he was still alive and hanging on. While I was channel surfing (which I do very well) I saw on Fox news that the Pope had died. Not believing anything that Fox news reports, I scanned more channels and found that indeed it was true, the Pope had died.

As most of you know, I am not religious at all and don't have any strong feelings about the Pope dying. But I do like the history of it all. In my lifetime there have only been 3 Popes. I don't remember the first one that was selected. The second one was only in for a month or so and then came John Paul II. I was 14 when he was selected. I don't remember much about the ritual of selection except for the smoke being released to announce the selection had been made. Now I'm old enough to remember and appreciate the history behind the selection of a new Pope. Like an American election, I will enjoy following the process involved with selecting the new Pope. I know I'll be watching a lot of it on TV and listening and watching Pope TV 24/7 to follow the process. It won't be a religious thing for me, it will be a historical thing for me. Like when you say you can remember where you were when President Reagan was shot, you can say you remember when the last Pope was selected. I will actually enjoy following the process.