Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Let's Digress
I was going through the picture box and I found this (Spirit of the Night, 1879, by John Grimshaw) - absolutely charming. Not what I was looking for, but absolutely charming. And it reminded me of the TV news segment (I think on CBS Sunday Morning, which Eddie and I are so fond of watching after Mass on Sunday mornings) about the reemergence of absinthe in the United States. So called "safe" absinthe. On the one hand, the anise flavor doesn't appeal to me. If I want that, there is always Jagermeister or black jelly beans. On the other, the reporter said that absinthe was the preferred drink of the creative mind because it heightened thoughts and senses rather than dulling them. (I think we've heard more than a few drugs pitched that way) I could use a little heightening around this time of day. A little something to help me focus and stay enthused.

My sister told me that she heard about a liquor store in St. Paul that now carries absinthe. This would be very fascinating - very French - except that it is about $75 a bottle. I'd be willing to chip in $7.50 just to try it once. So we just need to find 8 more people to go in with us. Of course, we'd need the special spoon to hold the sugar cube while we pour the product. And probably some special glasses, too. This isn't the time for those POM tea glasses.

Maybe I'll just walk on the wild side and steal a sugar-free Red Bull from one of the girls...
now back to work.
It's Catholic Schools Week!!!
So here's my shout out to the near feral student body of St. Benedict's HomeSchool. Woot. Woot.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Fun, fun, fun
If that catalog from the Met had only come about a week and a half ago, Martha would have had Shakespeare’s Genealogies for her birthday. There’s always Shakespeare month...

“fully illustrated, 17-foot long, fold-out volume, author Vanessa James traces the genealogies of the more than 1,000 characters mentioned in all thirty-nine of William Shakespeare's plays”
Ouch, ouch, ouch
Fr. Daren had this privilege meme* on his blog. I thought it was kind of fun. By the time I was done I felt like some sort of spoiled brat. I certainly haven’t considered myself privileged - just kind of average. I mean, really... privilege people are those who are remunerated to attend parties and nightclub openings, right?

(*From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.)

Bold the true statements:
1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. Or all three. And, as my late father would have said, “that and X-number of cents will get you a cup of coffee.”
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. I’m not sure...but I know it was closer to 500 than to fifty.
9. Were read children's books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp. My sister went to camp. I hated the idea. I regarded it as some sort of familial deportation to be avoided at any cost. So, yeah, I guess I could have gone if I had wanted to but I wasn’t so privileged that I would have been sent against my will.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. I hate to go into the car thing. The kids hold it against me. My first car was a hand-me-down Mercedes from my parents. After that they bought me an Opel. The kids have trouble believing that we were one of only two families in our town with Mercedes and I found the car to be rather flukish and embarrassing at first. Their hearts don’t swell with sympathy when I tell them that it didn’t have power steering and I failed my first driver’s license road test because I couldn’t parallel park it. And it was a diesel that was touchy about starting when the temperature would drop.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course. Did those exist back in the day? If they did, I sure hadn’t heard of them.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family. Can I count the boat tour around Alcatraz?
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. I’ll qualify this by saying I did notice the furrows in my mother’s brow when she was paying bills. And my parents were quick to take umbrage with my prancing about the house in a tennis dress in January and fiddling with the thermostat to make myself comfortable.

and I’ll add #35.

Your parents bought you a horse. No, they didn’t. They bought my sister a horse. I was robbed.
With apologies to Amy Welborn...
...Today's Dictionary.com word of the day reminds me of a story. The word is caterwaul. A week or two ago I was trying to finish packing away the Christmas stuff. To pick up the pace I turned on whatever CD happened to be in the player. It was Amy Winehouse's Back to Black. It helped. Rick didn't agree and stuck his head in the living room to ask what all the "caterwauling" was. And I said, "Don't you know? It's Amy Welborn. You know, the really talented and rather doomed singer. You know, the girl with the really, really bad eye liner."

Sorry Amy. (You're in good company. I've called Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Tuxedo)
Matthew Lickona requested that I think on a Saturday morning.
With this fun book meme. Fair enough. Makes me wish I had been reading blogs in my boudoir/office/library...instead of the cold family room eMac with the chair that was designed to discourage loiterers. So... here it goes...Luckily the school table was within lunging distance.

Book Meme Rules
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people

An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones and William Wilson
“The problem, of course, is that most people live “in the short run,” and that, as economist John Maynard Keynes once cautioned, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” MACROECONOMICS VS. MICROECONOMICS: Further evidence of the tendency of economists to see things in pairs. Here, “macro” is the side of economics that looks at the big picture, at such things as total output, total employment, and so on.”

So why don’t you try it? OK, Summa Mamas,
Bill,
Tom,
Dylan,
Alicia.
And you, too, Embot - do you still have a blog? or are you too busy “librarianing?”

Friday, January 25, 2008

I'm no medical expert...
but I would think, based on my understanding, that the benefits of
oral contraceptives as a preventative of ovarian cancer
would be about the same as those of having children and breastfeeding them over a natural period of time. And little toxic pills don't call you on your birthday or fill up your living room on Christmas morning. (And I mean real pharmacological pills. Some of my children have been known to act like toxic little pills at times, but that is definitely not what I'm getting at here.)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Hey! Name that candle!
That's a Cathedral brand 51% beeswax short 3 with a self-fitting end!!!
Did you know that kids? So why was it in the junk drawer in the kitchen?
Whose was it anyway?

My best forensic history says: Martha's.
Short 3's (don't ask me why a short 3 is 16 inches long) are what religious ed. requests for the February candlelight service for second graders. Ed was homeschooled and didn't go through with the candle service. Chuck didn't do so well at his December "making peace" para-liturgy - let's just say the evening ended with a future communicant suffering sensory overload and crouching under a pew. There was no way I was going to show up a month or two later and hand the kid a lit candle.* I don't think Chuch was in attendance, though I, the teacher of his class, had no choice.

Emily became Catholic in 4th grade - and missed the candlelight service. Fran and Bridget, being pretty 'old' themselves, have probably had their candles packed away in a very secure location. So I would guess it is Martha's.

*Everything in its own time. Chuck and Eddie both received their First Holy Communions. They haven't suffered too much from missing out on the candle service. They even make it through the Easter Vigil without causing any catastrophe!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

That's right!
250 astute children unanimously support my disdain for clowns.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Law abiding Mom/Church Secretary meets transient with Questionable/Criminal History
One drives a Jeep with 230,000 miles, a cracked windshield and a driver’s side door that needs to be bungeed shut. The other drives a late model Mitsubishi Diamante. How do we explain the disparity? Poor planning? Bad ‘life choices?’ Hmmm.

When I saw the fax from the police department, all I could think was, “He had a hell of a lot of nerve to try to panhandle my daughter while she’s sitting in the car in front of the rectory.” (No prosperity gospel preached there!)

The Top 10 Reasons Clowns are Scary was funny until I hit #3:
3. They Can’t Afford More Than 1 Car. Judging by the clowns mode of transportation — a Volkswagen Bug or Serbian-style two-seater that magically fits the driver and 8,000 of his rainbow-colored pals — it appears that clowns don’t actually earn a real living. They can’t even afford the kind of car homeless stoners drive!

We may drive like clowns, but we’re not criminals (outside of the cracked windshield and dubious door). At the end of the day, we have some dignity.
Sounds like someone watched Idiocracy and decided to write a report.
So let’s get this straight...we have six children because we’re too poor and stupid to find contraception or , at least, abortions. Thanks. And here we thought we were building a family and nurturing new souls. Pass the Brawndo...I need the electrolytes what with all the foaming at the mouth.
Where others see great potential...
I see a laptop that can be scooped up and thrown away with old newspapers and magazines. What can I say? The ability to "see into the future" (or in the words of my spouse, "spin worst case scenarios") is a curse. And a blessing. Depending on who's listening to me.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Kvetchi - Vale Season
As in several years past, I shall attempt to refrain from kvetching during Lent.
So I've declared the next three and a half weeks to be Kvetchi-Vale season.

*to the co-worker who called me at 10:00 o'clock last night to see if I could cover her hours this afternoon: Sorry if I sounded sleepy - but I was asleep. Sorry if I had a memorial open house (a Chinese wake so to speak) for my daughter's father-in-law on my social calendar today. I'm not trying to be unhelpful.

*to the child who nudged me with the phone at 10:00pm: Let's drop Latin for a few days and learn to say, "Mom is asleep. Is this an emergency or could you call back tomorrow?"

*to the 'child' who called at 10:15 to ask if we wanted 6 goldfish stat: Sorry if I sounded annoyed. That was sort of a carry over from the last call. And no, no fish. I think the pond at the village 'refuse park' is a good idea.

*to the 'children' who came home at 2:30, woke up the dogs and then told me that Bridget's high school boyfriend (and new college-grad - Congrats Ben, by the way) would be on the couch because he was in no condition to drive into the city: You don't have to wake me up to let me know that you bought a few too many von HuBombs for the gang. A note would suffice. Temperance in the future is to be recommended. Your politeness and "I love you, man" is appreciated. But not as much as a night of undisturbed sleep.

*to the 'child' who called at 8:15 am to tell me that Hunan North is out of business: Thanks. I was in real danger of ordering out crab rangoon for breakfast. Now that I think of it, that doesn't sound so bad. Considering Eddie and I, both annoyed by the barking dogs, were watching Alton Brown prepare dim sum at 3:00am

This is sufficiently kvetchy for a start. I have to pace myself.
The link between these items is sleep - sweet, undisturbed sleep. Which I am entitled to, now that the 'baby' is 14.
My Lenten plans may work better if try to get adequate sleep. Otherwise the temptation to kvetch will be so much more difficult.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

4 Weeks...
Four weeks until Ash Wednesday.
The tree is down, most of the tinsel accounted for and I'm coming up for a breath of air before submerging myself in more stuff.
Guitar Hero is the monster Christmas gift at our house... Unfortunately, sitting at the iMac in the family room - until I get my lap top back - is not conducive to writing much of anything. And at work? Those little blog breaks I was taking evaporated during Advent and may not return until... sometime during the days of Easter? I hope.

The gap between Christmas and Lent - catch-up time for those of us who make some sort of living in so-called "organized" * religion - is just is not there. My hope is to clear up all post-Christmas paperwork in the next week. Hope.

*My office belies the concept of organized anything. First Church of Color-Coded Alphabetized Entropy. We could all use a stand-down day. Just to get our bearings. Too bad Lent begins before March. We could use February 29, Just turn off the phones, don't answer the door....

Monday, January 07, 2008

Tattoos to honor children a new trend in family values
I knew I'd find the tattooed line in the sand somewhere. Sorry kids, I'll stick with the necklace with the six silver kids and 3 stars.
Full names and birth dates? Ouch.
Leaving out numbers, caricatures etc. would still smart.
EmilySmithFrancesLouiseBridgetCarolineMarthaLenorCharlesRichardSmithEdwardNicholasSmith
The Missing Link...
and/or another marker of literary success that I have not achieved. Even Dorothy Parker had a tattoo. A star, supposedly. So I’ll take three.

Where to go? North Chicago, next to our countries largest naval base, would seem like a likely locale. They have only one tattoo parlor. Boring old up-scale Libertyville has three.
So do I queue up with the sailors or the soccer moms? Or maybe just keep it on my “to do” list.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Do you try to suppress those sarcastic remarks that leap into your mind?
If only my parents would have confiscated that bio of Dorothy Parker that I was toting around back in eighth grade. But, maybe, only a genetically predisposed sarcastic child would have enjoyed that book...so it was probably too late. Now it’s way too late. But I’m working on broadening the gap between the thought and the tongue. Baby steps.

According to the test I’m pretty nice. But I could be more kind. I’ll try. Just don’t make me give up my sarcasm. It’s a gift. Of sorts. But like kung fu, marksmanship and possession of a seven-octave vocal range, it is a gift that needs to be disciplined and respected for its destructive potential.

St. Isidore Foundation



I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.
-- Michelangelo, quoted in Vasari's Lives of the Artists


Meet the Family...
Collect the Action Figures





Yes, three jade ribbons. 15 Years!
(not all the same child)
If you need to ask, you may not wish to know.


 
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