Does Swiss Ancestry Count?
No, I don’t think it does. Or I might be trying to get Chuck and Eddie into Swiss military school.

”...To become a guard, one must be a Swiss Catholic male under the age of 30, unmarried, over 174 cm (5' 8") in height and with a professional diploma or high school degree.* The candidate must have attended Swiss military school. Guards live inside Vatican City. The minimum term of service is two years."

From the Not So Quiet Corner...

* Note to snarky relatives who might quibble about the boys education ( and you know who you are): At least our boys know who the Pope is!

Living in the three dimensional world...
I’m always on the lookout for recreational activities for the boys that do not involve a keyboard and mouse. I like to play games with them but don’t always have a lot of time for protracted endeavors like Monopoly or Heroscape. Blink is a good card game. We can pull out the cards and play a game or two in less than five minutes.

I splurged a little with the educational budget and sent for Go fish for art (Instead of "fishing" for numbers ("Give me all your sevens") children ask for sunflowers (van Gogh), ballerinas (Degas), and the subjects of dozens of other beautiful paintings...) These games should be fun. Of course, when I described them to Chuck, he asked if "ears" are a category in the van Gogh deck. What a chip off the old block. I described the cards to friend at work as having categories such as "sunflowers, starry nights, ears...you know, the typical van Gogh stuff."

The catalog which had the Go fish cards had a really cool book, too. Won’t mention it here since I may hold it for the boys as a Christmas present. (Chuck and Eddie check in here from time to time. ) Hope it doesn’t come shrink-wrapped. I want to look at it NOW!

Uh-oh
TV is talking about big lines at Apple Store. I hope the troops come home reasonably happy.

Unclear on the concept...
Eddie tried to explain to me what Tiger is. I don’t really get it, though not for want of Eddie's enthusiasm. So it’s best that I stay home and do laundry while Rick and the boys go to The Apple Store for the Tiger premiere event. Nice father-son bonding time. The last time I went to The Apple Store with the gang, I was quite the wet blanket. Despite pulling up a seat at the Genius Bar and staying out of the way. (Alas, no drinks and snacks at the Genius Bar.)

How are the accomodations, Miss von Huben?
or
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

I was regaling the young folk with tales of the good ol’ days. Back when we took SATs and ACTs without Kaplan prep sessions, special accomodations and counseling to help us work through our test anxiety. We paid our fees and showed up with two #2 pencils. And we liked it. I don’t recall any parents being overly concerned. Nor do I remember any of my friends getting all worked up into frazzle. Those days are over.

One of my daughters has some sort of vague learning disability. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what it is...but she is given ‘accomodations’ during exams. Such as extra time. In signing up for the ACTs her LRC teacher asked for her to recieve accomodations.

Extra time. And the opportunity to take the exam in a less crowded environment. (I am slightly aghast at why she needs extra time. I’ll try to trust the LRC teacher on this one. But wouldn’t we all like extra time? And what about the purging of the massive analogy sections of this test. I would have to request that I take the test in analogies only. Even the math. Mrs. von Huben only works in analogies.)

She showed up for the ACTs yesterday to find out that the request for extra time had been refused. But to accomodate the need for a less crowded environment, she was put in a room alone with a proctor. The results were not encouraging. (Though having a limited time did truncate her suffering.) I, someone who performs better on tests than in real life, would find a bit of performance anxiety in being the only student under the proctor’s eye. And what about the poor proctor?

Today she had some sort of Prairie State assessment tests. I think it went well. She didn’t think I was amusing when I asked if the first question was, “Why is Illinois called the Prairies State?”

And after all the #2 pencil work, a three day week-end.

Yes, we support Neurodiversity.
Dinner at our house is a cavalcade of neurodiversity.

I’ve heard of ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis), but just recently found out that there is an anti-ABA movement. And I’m not so sure this is a great idea.

My life is just a mile a minute....how should I remember to take the pill every day?
Lady, a patch is the last thing you need. Likewise, do you appreciate being insulted by advertisers?

And if you are that incompetent, should you even be allowed to cross the street by yourself?

Oh, dear...
What a day. The phone rang before I could call to wish my sister a happy birthday. I was relieved that it wasn’t Karen calling to get the first word in on her special day. No, baby, it was Embot greeting me with the phrase, “I want to tell you this before you see it for yourself.” Being a vigilant and somewhat hyper-concerned mother, I tend to let my eyes wander to the TV every time the FOX traffic chopper reports a crash on the Kennedy etc. etc. Just to check and make sure Em is OK. All she wanted to say was that her car was at her future father-in-law’s auto repair shop (in our neighborhood) because her transmission gave out last night. She was able to get the car up here and get a loaner.

After that adrenaline jump start, I called my sister. I had the feeling this wasn’t going to be her liveliest birthday ever on account of the fact that she is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. (She called yesterday with a hysterical account of her adventures of stopping at her small town pharmacy to pick up prescriptions for the kids and her pre-op prep needs - I’ll spare you the details, but I’m sure you can imagine what I mean. The shoppers at the pharmacy weren’t spared the details as this short trip turned into a nightmare of her most delicate request relayed to all available personnel via the PA system. This made the prospect of spending the evening of her birthday administering said preparations almost enjoyable by comparison.)

So I hoped to catch her before she left for work - with daughter in tow dressed in her best little Janet Reno lawyer suit for Take-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day. The original plan was for my niece to accompany her dad - a surveyor - to work. But they were going to be working in the field today and were explicitly informed that dragging 10 year old children along would be not only impractical but a violation of a variety of insurance regulations.

When I heard Karen’s sleepy voice at 7:00am I knew something was wrong. Not only were they not off to court, but Karen was in the grips of a gall-bladder attack. Blech....that’s gotta be the worst pain I can remember. And I haven’t had a gall-bladder since 1970.

I’ve haven’t heard from her yet about the status of her surgery. I hate to disturb her if she is feeling so awful. If they go ahead, maybe they should yank the gall-bladder while they are at it.

My day was not without its travails. But I think I got off lucky. And the toad is still in one piece!

Alrighty then...
Perhaps it is better that I am having trouble uploading pictures. Or else you all would be treated to a photo of an exploded toad.

In honor of Administrative Professionals (Secretary's) Day I went to work. This can’t be much of a holiday. GOOGLE doesn’t even have a special logo today. Today I was prepared with Flonase, antihistamines etc. The flowers I received yesterday from the “management” are lovely. But one of the posies (my guess is the lily) causes paroxysms of sniffling and sneezing.

In the matter of...
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
by Susanna Clarke
I’m still working on it. Fantasy, magicians, fairies and the British navy aren’t exactly my favorite topics, but I’ve reached the point of no return. I simply must find out what happens.

I wish Rick were more interested in reading fiction because this would be of some interest to him, expecially since he has visited some of the places mentioned. (Tho the statues in Yorkminster weren’t talking the day he was there.) But I’ve been giving him little snippets of synopses over dinner. When the crickets in the terrarium aren’t drowning me out. (I’m most appreciative that the author didn’t attempt to recreate Yorkshire dialect. That made me nuts when I read The Secret Garden. It wasn’t much fun when I read The Secret Garden aloud to the girls. I’m no Meryl Streep.)

If the toad doth swell, run like hell...
Mystery of toads that explode in the night
Suddenly, after nightfall, they start to balloon to more than three times their normal size and can barely crawl before popping. Their entrails are expelled distances of up to one metre. Eeew. To paraphrase SCTV’s Farm Report host Big Jim McBob those toads blowed up real good.

Our toad lives on top of the dining room bookcase. The better to monitor his behavior. Should he start to swell, I hope someone notices and runs the terrarium outdoors. Or calls the bomb squad to blow him up.

Schools would prefer `keep your children in class' dayI already had a take your son to work day this year. (Through necessity, not for educational purposes. And, boy was he thrilled helping stuff the parish Christmas mailing.)

On the one hand, I think it is a good idea for children to know what their parents do all day. My dad worked out of our home for most of my life, so I was always a bit taken aback by childhood friends who didn’t know what their dads did.

On the other hand, I don’t think children should be given the impression (with its original feminist intent) that remunerative work is the only kind that counts. It is that hand that had me keep some of my girls out of school on “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” just to follow me around. Sure they probably had a pretty good grasp of ‘mothers’ work,’ but I saw no reason that girls with mothers who were paid to work outside of the home should get a day off of school while other girls were forced to attend class. And I’m a bit of a contrarian, so I enjoyed sending the official written excuse.

On the other hand, (am I encroaching into Ganesh territory here?) it sounds like this official “day” has become a nightmare of sorts for many large corporations. And not necessarily the educational experience it should be. It is lovely of businesses to prepare special activities but do these activities give an accurate picture of what the work day is like? (I believe that when Eddie came to work with me we were already in the pre-Christmas avalanche of chocolates, cookies and other treats too numerous for the priests to eat by themselves. I certainly hope that I disabused him of the notion that we sit around eating an endless supply of bon-bons. Or that the priests do nothing but say Mass on Sunday and spend the other 6 days of the week awaiting plates of exquisite sweets.)

Then, on the next hand, I have a certain respect for playing by the rules of the school system that you participate in and not taking rogue holidays. But I also have a jaundiced eye when it comes to school attendance, how much time is actually spent on instruction and what the frantic administrators really mean when they voice their concerns about attendance.

All hands considered, I’m glad we’re homeschooling and I don’t even have to think about it.

Attention Students...
Due to circumstances beyond our control Shakespeare Month has been extended indefinitely. This April has contained extra educational opportunities. Once in a lifetime opportunities.

So we’ll be pushing the bard into May.

I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me.
Yeah, it’s allergy season. And I hate to see everyone with their miseries. But I appreciated the serendipity of Eddie waking me up with his nosebleed just in time to hear the Holy Father’s homily at 4:00 o’clock Sunday morning. I had been so focused on getting enough sleep to be up in time for 7:30am Mass that I didn’t think to set the alarm to catch the installation Mass. But when Eddie woke me up I turned on the TV to cast a softer light than the bedroom lamp. And there was our Benedict XVI, arrayed in gold, and just starting his homily. So the nose-pinching Eddie and I watched the rest of the glorious Mass.

e.g. ...
The Holy Father gets fifteen seconds on the morning news.
The woman who claims to have found a finger in her chili at Wendy’s gets several minutes.

Compare and Contrast
(A picture study recommended by Fr. Sibley.
The first of the two pictures make me think of the expression, “weaned on a pickle.” Which I don’t get to use very often. I think this is the moment.

Congrats to our pater familias...
on securing storage space for his charitable organization which distributes computer and other tech equipment to schools and other organizations in need. Of course, if I'm not tripping on all the stuff, I have one less excuse for not keeping the house tip-top. No more computers, 21st century vacuum. There are few impediments to pristine floors. (And those impediments are named Cody, Bessie and Scrappy!)

Lazy is as Lazy Does
or
What you get when you do your library shopping on the new acquisitions shelf.
Charming Your Way To the Top : Hollywood's Premier P.R. Executive Shows You How to Get Ahead
by Michael Levine
This will help me at work. Yeah...right.

Brand Hijack : Marketing Without Marketing
by Alex Wipperfurth
Interesting.

Schlock Value: Hollywood at Its Worst
by Richard Roeper
This is good. I would have eventually sought it out in the stacks.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
by Susanna Clarke
Oh, what a ponderous novel. One must hold it with two hands. Not a good bed or beach read. I fear I will still be working on it when the beach opens.

But what about the "bubbler?"

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

25% Yankee

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Fun via Church of the Masses.

Hey, 'Bot, I know you can read this....
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam; Eminentissium ac Reverendissium Dominum, Dominum Josephum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Ratzinger Qui sibi nomen imposuit Benedictum XVI.
What a day. I’m exhausted and I’ve hardly done anything but rejoice.
I think I’m going to put on my jammies and watch TV. I’ve never seen so many people that I really know (compared to, let’s say, SpongeBob, who I recognize). I’m not sure which is more fun: The rejoicing or watching the indignant work themselves up into a lather. The rejoicing. It’s healthier.

Did anybody else see Amy Welborn’s blog on MSNBC? I had just walked in to my one afternoon a week companion gig and saw open book on the wide screen TV. Cool. A little disorienting at first - since I had taken a peek right before I shut down my computer at work - but impressive.

'A simple, humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard'
Cool.
Now I have to get back to work. Enough reveling. For now.

Habemus Papam!
And who needs links to news sites with those bells ringing outside my window. Deo gratias!

Are you morosely meditative, taciturn yet prone to occasional railing?
Is that what's bothering you bunky?
Check out TSO on depression as 'the
new consumption.' And remember, kids, just because you¹re misunderstood (or depressed) doesn¹t make you an artist.

Try Googling "misunderstood artist." It gives you 599,00 results, from William Blake to Mike Tyson, just in the first ten.

If the street fits...
It's not
easy living on Dork Street
Yeah, I can laugh. I live on Smith Ave. But I am, by birth, a
Smith.

”Extra Omnes”...
I like the sound of that. Let’s see how it works on friends of the kids who have overstayed their welcome.

Huh?
This is the third time in a week that I get a blank page when I try to post on BLOGGER. Is it me? Is it my computer? I think I¹ll e-mail this to work and try it from their.

PS - It's working at work. The problem is, at work I'm supposed to work.

Something to obsess about...
Newborn babies who gain weight rapidly in the first week of life are more likely to become obese later on, US researchers believe.
Not much I can do about it a decade or two down the line. But - and it’s a big but:(But what? Everyone I know has a big but. C'mon, Simone, let's talk about YOUR big but...)
All 653 people who took part in the study were formula fed when they were born in the 1970s and 1980s.
From what I’ve been taught, info taken from a bottle-fed population cannot be extrapolated to apply to totally breast fed babies.

Paging St. Apollonia...
Home so soon. And feeling so well. Because the dentist the insurance people sent me to wasn’t an oral surgeon after all. He looked at my films and said, “This should be done by an oral surgeon. I only do the simplest extractions.” And I said, “That’s why I’m here.” It was all over after that.

I decided to take the rest of the day off anyway. Spend some quality time with the boys. Watch more news. Have a nice long talk with the dental referral service...

Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: Sr. Nun’s 3D House of Indignant Religious
Scary, kids...
Dozens (about 2.5 dozen from the looks of it) of women descending upon the steps of Holy Name Cathedral to protest the Papal Conclave. Complete with pink smoke bombs. Sadly comical. Or comically sad.

Next time y’all tell me to turn on the news, it had better be good.
Call me when they say, "Habemus papam." Not habemus little pinky stink bombs.

In the blessed assurance dept...
I really don’t want to start the morning with a big adrenaline rush before the oral surgeon appt., so it was nice to turn on our local FOX news affiliate and see someone articulate and knowledgable - Fr. Robert Barron - commenting on the Papal conclave. Rather than professional wind bags like Tim Unsworth or some CTA clowns.

I’m feeling petulant enough without agitators coming across the cable to get me riled up. Isn’t the burning next door and the chirping and Martha’s nose piercing enough low level torture for one week? Isn't it? (Note to Embot: Talked to Aunt Karen this morning. She called for our yearly recitation of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Forgot to talk to her about Dave being a ring bearer. Also forgot to mention your sister's nose jewel. But I'll probably phone her tonight... Sorry I was cranky last night. I shouldn't blog when I'm tired. And you shouldn't read extemporaneous blogging over my shoulder... )

Fullerton and the Kennedy Expressway...
supposedly the latest appearance of the image of Our Lady. I guess. I don't quite see it. But if the city is sending people out to direct traffic it must be something.

Will mayor Daley take this as some sort of diviine "atta-boy" seconding Time Magazine's naming him as one of the five best big city mayors?

The Revolution will not be Televised
but just about everything else is... I think that if I have to take a day off and have a molar (#30 for teeth afficianados) extracted, this should be a good one. Seeing the oral surgeon at 9:00am. Should be home in time to watch plenty of TV news. (And it’s not Michael Jackson, Britney et al. who have us abuzz...dontcha know!)

Perhaps I have time to write an epic elegy on a thirty-five year old failed root canal. Hmmm. Eighteenth of April/Two thousand five/That blankety blank molar/So long not alive....

Make it stop!
Those crickets. The chirping. I can hear them upstairs with my door closed. Please Mr. Toad...eat a little faster. And in the future we promise not to buy the deluxe 24 pack of large crickets.

Elite Bazooka® Bubble Gum. Are they chewsy about their gum? Present them with the classic—Elite Bazooka from Israel. Comes in the original flavor, each piece wrapped in Hebrew comics. Box of 100 pieces. Kosher-Parve for Passover.
Bazooka Joe in Hebrew. For real. And the Jewel had them on sale.

The downside of the shopping trip was the unfortunate detour to the Osco side to look for charcoal. Two prepubescent boys who were goofing around noticed the condom display near the toys. And announced what they saw loudly and repetitively. Embot whisked me away before I could shush them, find their mother and/or complain to the Osco managment. But now that I've calmed down, I can construct a truly cogent letter to the Osco manager. And maybe to Albertson's home office, too.

So how many Burger King rules of conduct...
can we violate on a typical Sunday?
Is making the Sign of the Cross when praying considered flashing a gang sign?
Does using antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and anti-hypertensives make one under the influence of drugs?

Oh puhleez.
Clowns Take Action addresses priorities for the new Pope. Someone should tell them that appearing at a televised prayer service (read: slow news day) wearing tags on lanyards gives them the appearance of incompetents who have wandered away from their custodians.

Amy Welborn touches on last night’s Dateline. The comments are interesting. One commenter evoking the old “In Search Of…” program with Leonard Nimoy. I had forgotten about that one…always good for a laugh.

I didn’t intend to watch Dateline, but I got started on it anyway because I had my ‘bad’ leg in a comfy position and didn’t have the remote. A few random thoughts drifted through my mind. (Almost exactly the same thoughts that I had when I watched the ‘Code’ schlock on The History Channel. I should have been thinking of screaming for help. Or at least sacrificing physical comfort for the sake of my sanity.)

1. When these shows are produced, where do they find the church background – complete with banks of burning vigil candles – to conduct the interview segments? It gives an interview an air of legitimacy that it perhaps shouldn’t have.

2.. If Richard Leigh knows he is going to be on the telly, why doesn’t he comb his hair? I ask the same of some of my favorite musicians, so it isn’t like I’m persecuting his hair because I don’t like his scholarship.

3. How dumb poorly catechized are people?

Something for everyone @ your library®
or
All We are Saying is Honor our Cards!
In honor of National Library Week, the two local libraries that I use have treated me like the hot potato patron in my quest to get a book that I need. I was planning on taking the boys to one of the libraries today. Perhaps we will have demonstration on the lawn. I can sing as well as Yoko Ono. (The magnolias on the lawn should be in bloom. Someone call Channel 7. It will look marvelous.)

(Note to Embot: Perhaps you could record this as some sort of photo montage to be used at school. Aren’t you doing research on orphan patrons who live in unincorporated areas? I forgot to tell you last night that I had a fun conversation with Goddard on Sunday. He couldn’t really do much to help me get the book, but as usual, he made me feel a whole lot better...P.S. Your sister needs more sleep than you do. This morning has not been pleasant. We'll talk later. Way later. Don't call me at work. Unless you're bleeding out your eyeballs and/or you need to talk to a priest, don't call me at work.
I'll be at LF library with the neglectarinos this afternoon. Then I'll be playing with the vacuum. )

It’s... the Porsche for homemakers having a mid-life crisis. And I don’t regret the scrimping and money juggling and looking around for the best deal. (I must admit we went for a factory re-manufactured model. And Em did her part by picking it up and Big Ed took care of delivery and assembly.) The only drawback so far is that I can’t drive it up town and park it on Market Square.

We now return to our previously scheduled lesson plans.

Mr. Price is Right...
Though, maybe on account of those new Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper commercials, I find myself thinking:
Mahna Mahna
Do doo be-do-do
Mahna Mahna
Do do-do do
Mahna Mahna
Do doo be-do-do be-do-do be-do-do be-do-do-doodle do do do-doo do!
The common media air is so redolent with the hermeneutics of suspicion as to approximate the choking fumes coming from the brush burning of the neighbors behind us. We cannot stand to be outdoors and, trapped inside, I am just as happy to listen to the NASCAR proceedings emanating from the tube. I don’t understand NASCAR. It sounds like buzzing bees and seems to involve a lot of product placement. But it doesn’t enrage me the way the chronic nattering and speculation do.

Of course, I also have trouble giving no for an answer!

Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Thanks to the Sleepy Mommies.

What was I thinking?
The History Channel disappoints again. Fr. McBrien? Humanae Vitae discredited the authority of the Papacy? Huh? Luckily, the boys lost interest and wandered off by the time it went from bad to trashy.

On the one hand....
I’m thinking of trying to take a nap so that I can get up at 2:30 to go to an informal get together of people at my Church who will be watching the Holy Father’s funeral on the wide screen TV in the parish center. Despite my sadness at loosing our dear Pope, I feel a certain exhilaration to observing the attendant ceremonies. I found the passing of previous Popes to be interesting*, but John Paul II was my first Pope. He was Pope for ten years before we became Catholic! He was the only Pope my children have known.

So it would be good to watch the funeral with more people than just my drowsy family. And to top things off, my pastor is doing the “voice over’ commentary on one of the local TV stations.

(*As a Catholic wannabe child, I devoured LIFE and LOOK magazines when they covered major Catholic events, such as the death of Pope John XXIII. My limited eight year-old’s comprehension understood the ritual tapping of the pontiff’s forehead with a silver hammer to be some necessary coup de grace. You know, to make sure he was dead.)

On the other hand...
This nap thing never works when I need to pack in some z-z-z’s. I managed about 10 minutes around 5 o’clock but then the phone rang. And I’d like to watch History Now - Holy Secrets: Electing a Pope (Take a journey behind the scenes as we reveal the secrets of one of the most important, sacred, and clandestine elections in the world.  ) tonight at 8:00 cst on the History Channel with the boys. I don’t totally trust the scholarship on the History Channel (anybody see the da Vinci Code program they showed on Easter? Blech. ) but I doubt they can do too much harm to this. I hope. And this is what you call a teachable moment.

I should wake everybody up for the funeral. And be here to help keep things lively but reverent. The nice thing about watching in the privacy of home is the chance for educational discussion. I just don’t want it to dissolve into some sort of religious MST3000.

And I think I could use just a tad more sleep. I’m not playing my A game lately. Having trouble stringing together words. Saying “Good morning, Church of....” when answering the phone at 2:00PM. At home. And then there was the phone call last night from the Jewish United Fund. I was too weak to explain to them that I’m not Jewish. The polite young man was talking to me as though I were fervently Jewish and I lacked the heart to disabuse him of his error. I didn’t ask where they found my name. (although I’d bet is was from the Source for Everything Jewish catalog mailing list) And would it have mattered? The Jewish United Fund is a legitmate charity and they asked for my help. Should I have told them to leave me alone because I am Catholic? I think not.

I told them I was on a very tight budget. And worked out a small, almost negligible pledge deal - that is eligible for dollar for dollar matching funding if I promised to donate the same amount next year, too. So, now I’m sleepy, broke and giving money away to the first lucky caller. Don’t call...I’m going to bed.

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.
or
I watch Judging Amy - I know what social workers do.

Wednesday - 6:00am:
I like the character of Maxine Gray, even if Tyne Daly isn’t my favorite actress in the world. But if I had to paint a description of social workers with quick broad strokes, I would say, “They take babies away from crack whores.”

So when the the learning resources teacher at the high school called me about my youngest daughter’s sketchy attendance of late and suggested we all get together with the school social worker to discuss ‘strategies,’ my reaction was typical for me. I was calm, polite and reasonable. While fighting back the urge to scream, “What do you think I am? Some sort of crack whore?” Which I know wouldn’t have been helpful. And would have been especially unseemly since I was speaking to her from work.

I think we are getting back on track. I convinced Mrs. ‘X’ that a visit from a team from the school would be counter-productive. What I didn’t say was that I am not having the best week ever. And that, worried as I may be about daughter #4, what I really don’t need is a social worker seeing my house with the vinyl chocolate rabbit from Easter standing under the Vatican flag. Next to the pile of junk Fran cleaned out of the garage in the process of setting up a wood working studio. The inside of the house is a little chaotic, too. Fran moved the good ‘junk’ into the living room.

If a social worker is going to visit what is the homeschool of my younger children, it had better be when I am here. At least to explain the chaos and hold off the three demented dogs....

Thursday - 6:00am:
I left everything dangling yesterday, since Martha was running late and I drove her to school. Getting her there was more important than making a point about punctuality. Things are going much more smoothly... It turns out the U.S. History was the problem. She got off track back when she had the flu and has been in some sort of academic shame spiral ever since. A mutual decision to drop the class and take it up again next year has made a great difference in Martha’s attitude. (I was disappointed to find out that she actually has to attend semester 2 U.S. History all over again. I was hoping I could tutor her and she could just test out of it. Heaven knows we have the resources. In fact, a good new U.S. History text arrived in the mail yesterday. What a coinkidinks.)

Rick and the boys took some time out yesterday to polish up the house. Though they did have to work around some of Fran’s piles of stuff. But Fran’s new workshop is quite impressive - she’s building the work benches and shelving herself - and the rest of the house doesn’t meet the criteria of the home of a crack whore. I mean, it’s one thing for me to sniff and make ironic comments about the public high-school no longer having home ec. It’s a whole other thing when it is obvious that this homeschool has absolutely no home ec. (No sniffing here please, I think Bessie had had a transgression with the oriental carpet. All I can smell is a whiff of urine, carpet cleaning product and a heavy top note of wet wool.) Now about that beagle who just ran through the room with a bagel....

Priests with spouses?
Charlie Madigan: Should the next pope address a shortage of priests by allowing them to marry?
• You tell us: Message board
I tell you what, Chicago Tribune. I won’t tell you. And why don’t you stop asking such idiotic questions, OK!

Summa Contra Mundum gives us the perfect reply...
when faced with those who jabber on about the Holy Father being such a great man, but “...fill in your gripe here...” I am sure I may have to use this before the end of business today.
”If you think he's great, he was great through and through. If you disagree with his moral teaching, then he wasn't great, but a fool.”
Check out the whole thing.

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him...