Just another sign of the times........

Everybody has probably already seen this article: Bride Refused Church Wedding.
But I can’t help wanting to comment on it. It is just so depressing. To think that the bride doesn’t get it. And has no shame. No shame at all.

It is my impression that there are a lot of people who do not really want a real Christian marriage - just some picturesque photo op. That is why places like Vegas and the wedding area at Disney World do so well. I can imagine that there would be a good amount of money to be made in establishing a string of non-religious (not non-denominational; totally neutral, no ideology attached) church-y looking wedding chapels where brides could have their dream weddings with out any larger issues to weight upon their minds. Because pretty is what they want! (I must admit that that is what was paramount on my mind when I was married some 24 years ago........thank God after all these years and 6 children that I came to my senses. But it would have been a lot better if I had gone into it with my head on straight.)

As a part- time church secretary, I would also like to weigh in on the bridal business. Brides are not the easiest people to deal with. Not all brides - but most. If I were forced to find a new job tomorrow and had to choose between Marshall Field’s Bridal Salon and the local funeral home, I’d take the funeral home. The bereaved are much easier to deal with.

Teetering on the edge of the abyss........

I’ve decided against my planned evening of watching the Video Music Awards for the perverse thrill of witnessing the decline of modern civilization. There is always the risk of the children catching me watching it.........I certainly don’t want to explain why I take great enjoyment in watching people being highly paid to debase themselves and drag society down with them. I’ve also noticed that I take on a noticeable philosphical resemblance to Ignatius Reilly, protagonist of one of my favorite novels, A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole.

To quote from a favorite part, early in the book, when Ignatius is blustering about the ‘pop’ music program he cannot tear himself away from watching.......... “Do I believe the total perversion that I am witnessing? ...........The children on that program should all be gassed.............I would like very much to know what the Founding Fathers would say if they could see these children being debauched to further the cause of Clearasil............... I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.” I love Ignatius Reilly.........but I don’t really like it when I start to sound like him.

I noticed on the ‘crawl’ on one of the newscasts that I watched this morning, that Bill and Melinda Gates are putting up $12 million in funding for contraceptive research. Well, it could be worse. Twelve million is relatively small change for them. But I have wondered for some time what makes people so interested in seeing to it that other people do not reproduce. I can’t even see any misguided altruism in Bill’s interest in population control. It just smells evil to me.......

Note To Ellyn from Daughter. Does this work? Next time... make sure your quotations match in font. I think that was your problem from the get go

Emmi

Spirits flagging, but not flagitious...............One More Time

Thanks to Em, for tweaking this stuff and getting rid of last nights foul up. I shall attempt this one more time!!!

This is the week I am devoting to getting everything in order so that school can start next week. (It’s Wednesday, and I’m already running low on energy.) This is just one of my regressive policies. School does not start before Labor Day.

This is a good time for me to share one of my favorite internet resources: Dictionary.com sponsors an e-mail word of the day. This is excellent for anyone trying to introduce new words into the vocab. I used to pick words myself, but was accused of a certain prejudice (conscious or not) towards words that I was especially fond of. So now, Dr. Dictionary sends us a word a day........I’ve even learned a few new ones myself.

Now that I’ve spent plenty of time bemoaning the glut of rotten books out there, I should put in a little plug for one of my best used book purchases. Several years ago I was shopping in my favorite local resale shop and found a precious ‘vintage’ prayer book in mint condition. It is Mother Love: A Manual for Christian Mothers published by the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers in 1962. This book was in mint condition - appearing to have hardly been opened. I felt some melancholy pangs when a gift card fell out, with a note to the book’s recipient from her mother. I wondered what caused her to not avail herself of this lovely book. Loss of faith? Did it seem to be too pious? Did something untoward happen to her? Oh, well.

From what I have heard, the Archconfraternity it still in existence. Pittsburgh or Philadelphia come to mind. I really should look into it.

This all comes to mind today, because I had it with me to refer to the Litany of St. Monica before Mass this morning. Also among the prayers to Special Patrons is a lovely prayer to St. Augustine which I will certainly be using tomorrow. Actually, I use this section so much the book is starting to naturally fall open at this point.

Here I would like to quote another section which reminds the Christian Mother that she and her children should each day:

1. Serve God by keeping His Commandments.
2. Imitate Jesus Christ by practicing the Christian virtues.
3. Honor and invoke the angels and saints.
4. Save a soul
5. Avoid hell.
6. Gain heaven.
7. Slight transitory things.
8. Expiate sins.
9. Subdue evil inclinations.
10. Perform good works.
11. Edify your neighbor.
12. Be prepared to die and stand before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ.

So, Bill White had an entertaining idea in light of my destruction of a children’s biography of Margaret Sanger: A contest to create titles of similarly depraved children’s lit. (Reminds me of the Maimway Toy skits that Saturday Night Live did years ago - remember, things like “Big Bag of Broken Glass”) This has limitless potential.

No cheating. No going to the library and finding some of the stuff they really have there. OK, I won’t just pick on the library - some of my favorite people work there - bookstores have a great selection, too. The redeeming value of a bookstore is that these books need to be purchased - not just checked out by a kid with a bike and his own library card. This makes me so nostalgic for the day when the children’s library was a ‘safe’ zone and any ‘edgy’ material was kept in the adult department. (And growing up in a relatively small town where the head librarian was a friend of my parents’, I knew better than to attempt to check out anything that appeared to be not for my eyes.......) And the schools and library did not have an agenda to help the poor children of parents who wished to protect them from the details of the adult worlld.

While I’m at it, I’ll add a big thank you to the friend of my mother’s (who is also my best friend’s mother) who plucked Portnoy’s Complaint from a bag of purchases I was hauling home from a used book sale. She said she’d keep it for me ‘til I was older. And she did. The last time I was visiting her house she said she still had Portnoy’s Complaint in her attic - did I want it now? I think I had probably read it back in college, but I was touched that she kept her word - she would give it to me when I was old enough. Thank God for adults who look out for children!!!

THAT MAKES TWO AND A HALF OF US
The always astute Bill White announces his lack of understanding of the cult of Springsteen and links to an excellent article by MARK GAUVREAU JUDGE to back up his opinion. Having been a Springsteen fan since 1975 - when he was sticking to his promise of only playing small venues and a ticket could be had for less than $10 - I have a few things to add:

*Bill and I live in the same state. This automatically puts him on my list of suspects of who stole my Greetings From Asbury Park towel. A gift that my sister bought for me when we saw Bruce again back in 2000. Knowing where he stands on Bruce, I guess I can take his name off the list. I really liked that towel. It had great sentimental value. And because my children consider the Boss to be too outre, I thought they wouldn’t be caught dead borrowing it. As if borrowing a used towel wouldn’t be repugnant enough. It went missing between washings. ICK.

*The night in 1975 when I took my little sister to the Uptown Theater in Milwaukee to see Bruce was the greatest. No other concert before or after has been as good.

* Born to Run was the last Springsteen album I bought. (I bought it again on CD) By the time Born in the USA came out, Bruce was starting to look like his working class clothes came from Banana Republic and his haircut was $90. Born to Run was his best album. After that................

*I still listen to the old Springsteen stuff. Loud. Usually when I’m home alone (which isn’t often.....) - no one else understands.

*His rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town is one of the best secular Christmas songs (along with White Christmas - Bing Crosby; The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole; Little Saint Nick - the Beach Boys)

*I guess I’m a grown-up now. Didn’t have time for the Koppel interview. Opted for morning Mass instead of staying in bed to watch the Today show performance. Haven’t given a thought to buying The Rising - haven’t even heard it on the radio.

On Summa Contra Mundum, Karl Schudt has an excellent piece about the internet and its contribution to the decline of the collective intellect. Boy is he right about the internet being intellectual anarchy. And he adds a good caveat about the books we may put into the hands of our children, also. The library is anarchy of a slower moving sort. But there is anarchy lurking there, nonetheless.

Every trip we make to the library includes a stop at the discard cart to do a little discount shopping. Last week I found some good children’s biographies plus a loser of such magnitude that I felt compelled to buy it just to put it out of circulation. (One plus - it hadn’t been circulating much anyway, that’s why it was a discard!) Who would want kids to read “Every Child a Wanted Child - The Story of Margaret Sanger” anyway? This was in the children’s department!?!

Just to make sure no one else would get the chance, I ponied up an extra quarter and brought that piece of evil twaddle home. Not content to just toss it , I tore it up. I read a bit while tearing. UGH. Don’t tell the ALA, but I have my own version of Burned Book week. And we have an ambitious gerbil to help if extra shredding is needed!

Many Thanks!!!

I must thank my daughter, Emily, for taking several hours out of her busy day to show my the basic points of HTML etc. This was probably as trying as
attempting to teach a hard-core Amish guy to wire a house. "What does this mean? Is all this really necessary?" But she was so very gracious. She will not show me how to post pictures - lest I attempt to express my gratitude with a pictorial spread........

Thanks also go to Bill White of Summa minutiae. He has been especially encouraging and understanding of
my questions and concerns.

Use your noodles...........

I probably won't have the link 'thing' figured out until tomorrow.............This has a sharper learning curve than I had expected.

So I thought I'd just go ahead and share a little 'homeschooling' hint.
This is the time of year when I usually think of packing away the pool/beach stuff, such as the 'noodles.' Those foam rods that are used for floating and other water hijinks. This year I won't even bother to put them away.
Sometime in the spring, the noodles found their way out of the garage and insinuated themselves into just about every unstructured outdoor playtime that my boys had.

The Feast of St. George was the first time I noticed the boys on the front lawn - re-enacting the day's lesson. Whacking each other with the noodles.
Then came the Battle of Agincourt. Joan of Arc. The Hundred Years' War.
And just about every chapter from Famous Men of Rome.
Study breaks turned into noodle fights.

This alarmed me at first. Being a girl with no brothers. And my first four children are girls. (Not wimpy, sedentary girls. But girls without much of an interest in pounding on each other........) I was relieved when neighbors reassured me that boys do these things. And they had always been good enough not to attack each other with the plastic swords that came with the Gladiator and Crusader outfits they just had to have.

So, I have now made peace with the noodles. (Always uttering a small prayer begging protection from corneal abrasions and other assorted worries that tend to plague the 'worst case scenario' mindset.) I won't pack the noodles away this fall. In fact, we just found some new ones. School starts soon - so much history, so much
Shakespeare, so much energy to expend..........

I am taking this very slowly as I am not terribly computer literate and do so regret waiting until my oldest daughter - the one who could really be useful with this - has packed up and gone back to school. She'll be back on Saturday to pick up more junk - and I may just have to press her into service..........

Why Oblique House?

Just a little play on words.
Partially a tribute to Dickens - and the Bleak House quote that I keep next to the phone:
"It is right to begin with the obligations of home, and while these are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them."
And in tribute to my own home and family where nothing is quite parallel nor perpendicular and likewise not as bleak as it may sound.
(I also like Dizzy Spot and/or Wonder Spot, as in that marvelous tourist trap at the Wisconsin Dells, where one feels as if gravity and other rules of physics have been suspended. But I would prefer not to be sued by them, so I'll stay with Oblique House and take my chances with the proprietors of the Estate of the late Mr. Dickens.)