In the rituals of the life of struggle, Brooklyn, New York young couple working the tougher blue collar jobs of sweat and dignity, just as their arthritic and graying parents once did. Waitress wife, three months pregnant, pirouettes with full plates on a Sunday morning shift in the diner midst milling customers. She'll try to make it to evening Mass. Factory worker husband, both of them have Irish-American pride - during the workweek he counts the dingy hours to the 5 p.m. welcome whistle of salvation. They have one sh*tbox used car, a small apartment with mice, N.Y. lottery scratch-off ticket duds on the little round hand me down kitchen table. Grilled cheese sandwiches and fries, antique painting of the Blessed Mother in a light blue gown, benevolently gazing at the spent couple asleep on the couch. They were draped with a hand-crafted yellowing white lacy blanket his grandmother from County Cork in the Emerald Isle made. So many of a no frills life, so many Americans and immigrants barely getting by, sacrificing workers, hoping, praying, dreaming, the loving Messiah cherishes them all. ~