You choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me only the ability to recognize the incarnation...
It’s good to be home in the morning. And now for our Mozart birthday celebration. (Fran had minor surgery on her neck on Tuesday. Too bad she no longer needs the large bandage. She bore a credible resemblance to F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri after he cut his own throat. Only prettier. Much prettier.)

Well...it didn't look that long when I started printing it out.
Oh, well, I work in a Church. So it's not like I'm doing some counter-productive, right? Unless my printer blows up.

Newlyweds have the ambition for this sort of thing…
Newlywed Emily Smith von Huben Cheng informs me of her attempt to make something called a ”Smith Island Cake.” I never knew there was a Smith Island. The eponymous cake sounds good, but a bit on the labor intensive side.

Dear Mrs. Nagin...
I know the past year has been stressful. And shopping has probably been low on your list of priorities. But couldn't you have come up with a better Christmas gift for the hubby than a Pat Robertson Charm School Course?

Smart Cookie [ruptured, oozing, unfortunate] Fortune Telling Toy
Three weeks after the second defective Smart Cookie arrived, leaking blue fluid through the box, I am able to reach customer service at Signals. As I figured, I am not the only customer to whom this has happened. Item discontinued. Refund on its way. Please do not return leaking cookie.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving...
Maybe I'll take a break and call my sister. Just to thank her again for the 100 pieces of hand-tooled reproduction antique Victorian Christmas tree tinsel.

What are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.
And the same thing we do every year after Epiphany (a little late but we’ve had a bad week): take down the tree. Alone. It works better that way. The joyous chaos that facilitates tree trimming can’t be mustered for the dismantling process. And this is work that demands organization. And attention to detail. Despite my grousing, I’m better off alone. With a little luck someone will be here to help me wrestle the baby to the curb. Rick and the boys have gone to view the finals of a LEGO construction contest. Martha and Danielle called to ask for directions to Kopps custard in Milwaukee. I’m less than pleased that my invitation to come on in the house so I can draw a map was met with, “We’re already in Wisconsin.” When I’m done with the tree I will make a big cup of cocoa (not in the Spode mugs, those I packed away yesterday) and compose the nth “I can’t go to the bathroom without filing a flight plan so what makes you think you can leave the state?” talk of my career.

The Wild, The Innocent and the Smith Street Arthritic Shuffle
Add to the list of minor catastrophies that are best having happened after the Christmas/wedding convergence, one ring bearer with a broken arm. When Karen called to tell me that Dave had big news for me, I was anticipating announcement of his first hat trick, not a cleanly broken radius. And this didn’t even happen during the heat of battle, but while cruising around the ice during free skate time.

They had an appointment today with an orthopedic surgeon to have the bone properly alligned. As a show of solidarity with my nephew - or perhaps not to be shamed by a small child - I decided to actually keep the appointment with my orthopaedist to discuss arthroplasty. An optimistic attitude has only gotten me so far and at this point I think I need a working hip combined with a good attitude. It doesn’t sound as bad as I had imagained. And I am only disappointed that I cannot do this sooner. But I had to either have the surgery before the end of January or after Easter. (owing to conflicts with co-workers’ scheduled ‘crises’ and the increased work activity that comes with Lent/Easter preparations) A new x-ray shows that my hip has managed to deteriorate further (was that possible?) since I last saw the doc in July ‘04. It looks as bad as it feels...the doctor was surprised that I’m moving at all. Fran - my moral support and driver with a limber clutch leg - knows what a good (canine & human!) hip joint should look like and was appalled. I took Fran along so I wouldn’t back down at the last minute and try to talk my way out of what we know I need. Luckily, he added a few drugs to help keep me going.

The first thing I need to do when feeling a bit better is to start taking down the Christmas tree. And laundry...

Now, to call and check on the little hockey star. Let’s find out about his prognosis and also cheer up his sister, who is starting to feel like a 21st century Jeanie Bueller.


Well now Hazy Davy got really hurt,
fell on the rink
and his arm no longer fits in his shirt...

Of course, Herodotus never had to consider postal regulations.
Another unpleasant run-in with the mail man had me at the computer searching for solace in the USPS motto. It turns out that there is no official motto:
What is the postal service motto?:
Actually, the U.S. Postal Service does not have an official motto. The phrase which most people associate with the postal office is that which is engraved on the outside of the James A. Farley Post Office building at 8th Avenue & 33rd Street in New York, New York: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

This phrase was a translation by Prof. George H. Palmer, Harvard University, from an ancient Greek work of Herodotus describing the Persian system of mounted postal carriers c. 500 B.C. The inscription was added to the building by William Mitchell Kendall of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the building's architects.
and thereby no official obligation. Beyond postal regulations.

We live in a cul de sac. There are many of us. Sometimes the mailbox is inadvertently blocked. The mailman takes it personally. Yesterday the mailbox was not blocked. But something else was awry - not the garbage cans, either - and he started yelling out of his truck about postal regulations forbidding him from pulling into a parking spot that he cannot back out of (?), slamming the box shut and hitting one of our garbage cans. If money weren’t a consideration, I would rent a PO box and avoid the box on the street altogether. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about where the mailbox should be - where the snow plow piles drifts in front of it or on the other side of the driveway, where people park in front of it. Let’s not talk about the school bus that hit it last month.

Bummer.
Now I’m sick. Counting my blessings that we were all well for the wedding, but disappointed that I couldn’t pull myself together for our office Christmas party. I may be able to have a productive week-end. As long as I can perform all tasks from the fetal position under a pile of blankets.

We had our grab bag gifts ready to go.
Perhaps I will save the Rocky Balboa Dancing Hamster Doll for next year. What I was looking forward to passing along is The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living.* This is a treasure that can’t wait. I’ve had such a blast reading it that I was psyched to give a copy away. Not that it will take me long to find an opportunity. But it is always fun to surprise people with a clever gift. Like a singing fish plaque, an annoying dancing hamster or a really good book. That must be the appeal of the present swap at the party...it’s as close as any of us get to appearing on Let’s Make a Deal.

* I’m not enamored of the concept of buying onself Christmas gifts - be it book or Jaguar - but I rationalized this one on the grounds that tacking it on to one last Amazon order qualified me for SuperSaver shipping.

2+C+0+M+0+B+6
or
It's been a year already?
Since the last time I tore through the house looking for the blessed chalk.

Thanks Alicia!
I'm MISS PRETTY!
You're MISS PRETTY! With the powers of charm and good looks on her side, Miss Pretty can talk her way out of almost any situation. Sometimes she doesn't even have to open her mouth for a villian to agree to stop his misdeeds and turn himself in. But if her social skills fail, Miss Pretty has her Hammer O' Justice to pound sense into people, though I don't think she's ever had to use it yet...

What Sad Rejected Super Hero Are You?



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But...
on the other hand, if I was feeling so good, why I am up at five in the morning? I read the interchange of comments on Amy Welborn’s blog about the devil tormenting people at 3:00 am. I respectfully recused myself from that discussion. Not just because my first impulse was to say that I thought it was a bladder thing. Not that I think in any way that I am exempt from temptations to despair (nor am I doing so well that the devil has me on a priority list of good folks to mess with) but after almost 27 years of parenting I am not sure what a good night’s sleep is. What with highly attuned hearing and vivid imagination, I am very sensitive to all the things that go bump in the night. One of the batteries fell out of my TV remote, rendering the timer of the boob tube in my bedroom unusable. So this morning I was again tempted to despair by waking up at 4:30 with the FoodNetwork (which I don’t remembering tuning in to at bedtime) blaring an infomercial for the Total Gym. Pay no attention to the fact that I must lunge across the neglected NordicTrak crammed into my 8x11 boudoir to turn off the TV and get some decent sleep. I’m trying to pay no attention. In case my guardian angel is telling me that I should pay more attention to the NordicTrak. (This isa snarky comment. I’ve checked it out. Some Trappists have larger rooms than I do. And they don’t have as much junk - or family and pets - so the rooms must feel just luxuriously super large. Not that I should be complaining. At least I have a room. And family. Pets. And some cool junk.)

The niggling thought is that there are times I could use a little comfort. And, as great as fellow homeschoolers can be, there are the moments when I can find enough fodder in my reading to torment myself to the point of nausea and hives. I see a trend - more among evangelical Christians than fellow Catholics - to proof text one’s way to “guaranteed 100% perfect fool-proof guides to parenting.” For example, one homeschooling blog offers pointers for successful homeschooling with Biblical documentation:
They neglect to discipline their children. 1 Tim. 3:4 says an overseer (that's you in this case), "must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect." See Proverbs 22:15 and 13:25 for God's word on proper discipline. The key is to be consistent in enforcing rules and keep in mind that if they don't obey you, they won't obey God!

We all do agree that discipline is important. But I’ve spent so many hours with my spiritual director trying to manage my guilt about any failings of my children. Parents who (think) they have all the answers and are eager to remind everyone about how they will someday answer to God for their failings with their children may not necessarily being doing a service to the parents who couldn’t care less. But they can present a temptation to despair for any mother with a touch of scrupulosity in the area of maternal responsibility. And reading a paragraph like that has me backsliding into a shame spiral quicker than any chocoholic who has found a one pound Hershey bar.

In the light of day I can believe that I have come to accept that there is a point at which my work ends and the children’s free will takes over. God - all-powerful, all knowing, the Alpha and Omega, our uncreated Creator, the Word who become flesh and dwelt among us - well, he isn’t always listened to. So there is a bit of hubris in thinking that I can have better ‘success’ rate than God. And as far as “if they don't obey you, they won't obey God!” goes, I’ve known quite a few people who were much more keen on obeying their parents than God. Which, while satisfying the commandement to honor one’s parents and thereby is obedience to God’s word, is also a manifestation of fear of swift earthly reprisals without regard for eternal consequences. Surely my friends and I were not the only children in history to utter prayers along the lines of, “Please, God, it would help if my parents didn’t find out about: INSERT LATEST TRANSGRESSION HERE.” I won’t begin to think about the patterns we may set up for ourselves...thinking that we are doing OK if we can just convince our parents of supposed good behavior. You might be able to fool Mama. You can’t fool God.

I think I can go back to bed now and get a bit of sleep before I must be fully functional. And it will be a good day. As long as I don’t run into anyone eager to quote Proverbs to me:
Train a boy in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not swerve from it. Because someday I will hear this for the nth time at just the wrong momnent and will have to blurt out, “So, are you calling me a failure?” For departures there have been. And will be. And I cling to the hope that my children, like myself, might depart but will return to proper training of their youth.

They're all mine and believe me, it's no picnic!
Sometimes I feel morose with no particular reason (unlike days such as Monday...when the starter in the van caught fire while leaving for work) - maybe not enough sunshine, too many sweets and caffeine. Whatever. I totter precariously close to feeling beset rather than blessed. On the brink of small- scale pity party, I stumbled across the Carnival of Homeschooling: Week I. That was helpful. The van is still dead. I still feel vaguely queasy. But with a renewed sense of purpose.

The Eames House of Cards is good.
And not nearly as complex as the carnivorous plants. Let’s just hope our pater doesn’t find out how much they cost. (Not that they aren’t worth it. The cards and the boys. Though it seems somewhat irrational in retrospect...)

Little Shop of Consternation
“The seeds are extremely small. Use extreme care when handling them.
Optional but recommended:
PLACE IN REFRIGERATOR UNCOVERED FOR 8 WEEKS THEN CONTINUE.”

The Carnivorous Creations garden kit that we gave Eddie for Christmas is turning out to be a bit more complicated than I thought it would be. But if it works, it should be interesting. The germination time is weeks up to several months. Maybe if all goes well we can give Grandma a Purple Pitcher or Cobra plant for Mother’s Day. (It’s not easy finding unique gifts for one of the most gung-ho gardeners in the state.) In the meantime we can watch the Roger Corman original that started Eddie’s interest in the plants. He received a DVD of the movie along with the garden. (I think the musical would have been fun, but the boys, like their father, find musical comedy too scary to handle.

Learning Activity: Considering Consequences
“Your students will learn about the Florida teenager who made an unauthorized trip to Baghdad, and they will consider the possible consequences of his actions from multiple perspectives.”

Right... Something to consider as we jump back into schoolwork after our Christmas/wedding break. If the boys can’t relate to this, I’ll tell them the story of the girl who racked up $40 in overseas long-distance charges while doing research for a report. Points to ponder:
1) $40 was a lot of money in 1971.
2) Your grandparents were calm, even-tempered people. This event pushed their collective envelope.
3) Ask your mother how long it took to work off that debt.

Note to family:
If Eddie contacts you wanting help placing an eBay bid, it is probably for
this.
That’s where I draw the line. The carnivorous plants are cool and the toads and frogs have been fun but this is where I draw the line. And isn’t the reserve price a bit high? I thought two-headed snakes were ‘relatively’ common.

And the winner is...
For first ER visit in 2006. Martha. With strep.
With supporting credit to Dad. In "we aren't party people but we can dress like we had a wild night." (For having a totally abstemious and tame New Year's Eve and still managing to go to the ER with his shirt on inside out. Sorry - I should have looked at you more closely before you left the house.)