First, what is it about that particular pulpit that brings out the inner Chris Rock in assorted Men of God?
Unfortunately…Fr. Michael Pfleger has moved to the top of my favorite funny YouTube video list. Displacing Spiders on Drugs. Which is a shame, because the “crack spider” is neither divisive, scandalous nor just plain embarrassing to his comrades. If I were a THC spider, I’d just spin a hammock and watch Fr. Pfleger go.

The introduction of “prophetic, powerful pulpiteer” does have a certain alliterative zing. Perhaps I shall try to use it when accessing our parish’s new Suggestion Box. As in:
Dear Fr. – You are a prophetic, powerful pulpiteer. BTW, have you considered giving that woman in the back office a raise? Just a suggestion…

Welcome to the League of Extraordinary Unemployed People*…
Bridget and Fran have left the exciting world of doggie day care. ( Like the man who spent his days sweeping behind the circus elephants, all I could say was, “What? And get out of show business?”) Doggie day care – in context of the total scheme of the cosmos is a discomfiting concept. So now is their crisis of danger and opportunity. Real opportunity because we have talents greater than poo plucking. Bridget is already expanding her Jagermeister ‘appearances’ and Fran is spending so much time sewing purses and accessories that I feel like I live above a sweatshop.

Tomorrow is Em’s last day at the Westchester library. And Big Ed hasn’t decided where he is going to practice yet. Just so Em leaves on good terms, I’ve gathered in all the inter-library loan books that she found for me. [Including Leon Podles’ Sacrilege, a ponderous book that I would recommend to anyone even remotely interested. He portrays a “perfect storm”-type scenario in which very few sectors of society don’t have some sort of complicity.]

As long as Martha is still at the toy store, I won’t be the only traditionally employed member of the family.

*a dentist, a librarian, a musician, a male model…

Slouching towards Lake Bluff…
Any day now. The mailman is bringing something besides bills. Any day.

In my college years I worked in tech services of the school library. That was my first introduction to Momence, Illinois. The little acquisition forms that we sent to Baker and Taylor in Momence, Illinois. Since the requisite fourth grade “your home state” indoctrination I had received was in Wisconsin, I had no idea of where Momence was. Probably somewhere near Cairo or Paris.

About thirty years later, Momence flew out of the recesses of my long-term memory when I jumped at the chance to read Ron Hansen’s (no relation to Uncle Scary “Leprosy called and asked for its old name back” J. Hansen)
Exiles along with some friends of Godsbody. Amazon package tracking said my book was leaving Momence, IL on the morning of 5/21. What? Is Baker and Taylor a division of amazon.com now? Or does southern Illinois have, besides coal, big strip mines of books? I called the family librarian, who, in unlibrarianlike fashion, was unable to answer my question. But who cares. The book was starting out in Illinois. So how long could it take, right?

By yesterday I was ready for some investigatory geography. Momence is only 50 miles south of Chicago! (A reasonable person would ask me why I didn’t pay shipping instead of adding on educational material to qualify for Free Super Saver shipping. I’m cheap…and these are times that try cheap thrifty women’s souls.) Our mini-van with 269,185 miles on it could have made it to Momence in over a week. Or at least to the bookstore.

This morning the package is in Forest Park. Ten miles west of Chicago. And I’ll continue with my exhortations to keep people from parking so as to enrage the mailman.

While I’m on a literary tear, let’s talk about the Catholic Summer Reading Program.

Here are the selections I voted for.
Fr. Rutler’s Coincidentally, Brideshead, and Diary of a Country Priest. I know I’m not stretching here, but I like those books. I own those books. Thereby keeping the budget under control and limiting the mail to junk interspersed with ominous missives from ComEd, North Shore Gas (now d/b/a/ North Shore Gas Delivery, just to remind us that they aren’t making any money on the gas, they’re just the folks who bring it to us) and the North Shore Sanitary District – home of the effluent of the affluent.

No Hobbit, thank you very much. I just have that willful suspension of disbelief problem. And if I were all that interested in creatures with hairy toes, I’d put on my glasses and give myself a pedicure.

Is she…educated?
Being somewhat compulsive/impulsive and possessed of the conviction that I’m providing a service to those who need to know what I am thinking at any given moment, I tend to blog things right away. Or not at all. (Old news, right?) But what I have here is an incident that left me so apoplectic that I had to give myself a good eight days to cool down before I could come close to composing my thoughts.

A former co-worker was dropping something off at the rectory and stuck her head in my office to say “hi.” Things stayed cordial. Just barely. A few other women wandered in and the conversation turned to grandchildren, families, etc. And family size Then somebody had to mention the Duggar family and I cheerfully (and really with all honest enthusiasm and admiration) mentioned that they were expecting their 18th baby. I find 18 to be a mind boggling number. (I mean, really, if six is the new twelve…?) But this woman, whose response, based on past experience, I should have predicted, looked at me and said, “Is she [big pause] educated?”

That’s right, baby. Anyone who has more than two children must be a card carrying UnMensa member. I don’t think I screamed. Or if I did, everyone is really, really scared of me and doesn’t want to mention it.

In the “latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world”…
it behooves us to remember that today is more than just Ian Fleming’s birthday. I’m fine with the Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-007-GoldFinger stuff, but I appreciate the heads up from korrektiv about one of my favs. Perhaps I shall bake a cake. And check into the local Howard Johnson’s.*

*As if. Are there any HoJo’s around anymore?

Students vote on whether 5-year-old can stay in class
Early childhood education/Lord of the Flies.
Disturbing bedtime reading. Especially disturbing to any mother who has had a child with some school issues.

When I was in Kindergarten, there was a boy who always had a rather disturbing accretion of neon greenish ooze around his nostrils. If I had been asked, he would have been my first choice to be voted out. That is just one personal example why five-year-olds are under adult supervision. Supervision. By adults. Who act like adults.

Let's watch Spiders on Drugs one more time. Maybe it will help me forget...

Oh the humanity vegetation!
We weren't expecting the lawn guys on Monday. Especially a holiday Monday. The edging around the out of control pampas grass surrounding the mailbox was most appreciated. In fact, I even toyed with the idea of running the phrase "dig it all up - go ahead and kill it" through an online translator and yelling the results out the window.

"!Alto!" would have been better. While we were relishing the control of the pampas grass, the lawn guy was 'cultivating' the front garden that Fran has been working on for many weeks. The big plants are sort of unscathed but the seedlings...well, we can hope that there is enough life left that something will come of them. Oy, I'm having flashbacks to the afternoon when I found two landscapers crouched down, deftly plucking my little ornamental khales. The ones that had managed to survive the attack of the bunnies. Now compassion for laborers forced to work on a national holiday has changed to resentment and speculation about their passive-aggressive work style. They lawn guys are contracted thru the homeowners association, so we have no say on who, when, why or how. Unless maybe we went to the association meetings. Highly unlikely.

"So, is your mom, like, crazy religious?"
"Crazy? Sure. Religious? Yes.
But not crazy religious."

Fran's friend sees the May Altar pics on her camera. Fran answers ensuing questions with patient aplomb. Her patience being well-exercised by teaching mom how to take pictures and upload them to her lap-top. Oh, and running into Office Max after failing to find the proper cord during the bi-weekly WalMart grocery ordeal. (Just because we have more cords than some planes have snakes...well, no plane, no matter how accursed, is carrying every snake.)

For Your Grilling Enjoyment!

Ed checks out 21st century streamlined (Cocktail)Wienermobile!

May Altar

Eureka

The Provincial Emails - keeping an eye on the Milwaukee area, so I don’t have to. (Though there was no mention of the planned razing of the Grafton Hotel or Cedarburg’s St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church and its Cub Scout’s holding a Memorial Day ceremony for Thomas Barrett, a Civil War veteran who enlisted in the Union army at age 16 and was killed in battle. I never knew.)

But we do get this...a little late for my personal St. Dymphna day special (2 disturbed callers for the “price” of one ) but just in time for the full moon:
"Cecelia has been stalking the parish for at least 10 years," he wrote in the petition. "She parks in front of the rectory where she claims she has visions. She has been ordered to move many times by the police. She always returns. The school children are afraid of her presence. Older parishioners are annoyed by her presence and she appears to be dead in the car. She has made bizarre and false statements to the police concerning her presence at the church.

So much for Protecting God’s Children. She sits in a running car while the children are going to and from school. The police and EMTs are continually called because she appears to be unresponsive. Our current Virtus On-Line bulletin has this current poll question: Have you ever confronted another adult because you felt that they were potentially placing children at risk? The responses were yes or no. No place for the pastor to respond “failed to get an injunction.”


"She said I should stop looking at her because I was the Antichrist. I've been called worse," (Ald.) Dudzik said.
Yeah, that’s a heady and humbling feeling. I had a co-worker who could no longer look at me. And it wasn’t because of my devastating good looks.

For the tresmillesimus…
Magnificat anima mea Dominum
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari!!!

There, but for family obligations, job commitments and other life choices, go I...
Armed with Sharpies, erasers and righteous indignation, two apostles of the apostrophe make it their crusade to rid the world of bad signs.
I would hope to do it with charity. But I would love to do it!

...the WASP equivalent of Montezuma's Revenge
TS confirms my apprehensions about amazon's Kindle.

Federal Appeals Court Rules that Paper Money is Unfair to Blind
May it also be noted that...
...blindness is unfair.
...paper money and coins are unfair to the arthritic.
...money is unfair to people who don't have any.
...changing the size of paper money might help the blind, but would be unfair to makers of cash drawers, wallets, offering envelopes etc.
...life is unfair.

Today...
May 19 - Charles is the last of the kids to celebrate a golden birthday. This is a custom that I have learned through my children. Poor deprived souls such as my husband and myself - both having birthdays on the first of the month - grew up oblivious to the honor. It has taken me all this time - six children; twenty nine years - to come up with the perfect way to commemorate the golden day. Wilton Elegant Shimmer Dust! It’s edible, FDA-approved and certified kosher.

I ordered the chocolate cake that Chuck requested. I picked it up after work and rushed it home to dust the white flowers and scallops. It was not quite as golden as I had hoped - I could have gotten away with yellow sanding sugars - but I didn’t dust it as thickly as I could have, for fear that it might have a bitter taste. (Why bitter? I don’t know. Gold looks like it would be bitter. You know, rather than salty, sweet or sour.)

Chuck lavished praise on the golden flowers, his birthday gift to me. Humor Mom. After making sure the gold is edible.

The rest of the gold - along with silver and pearl - is hidden in my bedroom, instead of with the rest of the cake decorating supplies. We don’t want any gonzo cookie decorator to turn a single Christmas cookie into a mini mother lode.

The rest of the birthday festivities have been fun. Chuck, Martha, Eddie, Rick and I went to see Iron Man. Iron Man would not have been my choice for a good time, but it isn’t my birthday. And, I am amazed to admit, it was a good movie. Robert Downey, Jr. is wonderful. There is plenty of technology and action but it is accompanied by an engaging story. And now, with a bit of a head-ache precipitated by sitting in the fourth row at Showplace 8 compounded by popcorn and gilded frosting, I am off to bed. Chuck and Eddie have their second wind and are downstairs playing with a new XBox game. More power to them!

Closing In...
on my big 3,000th post. I would hope that it would be significant. I'll start by delineating topics that I won't touch...
*dogs
*jury duty
*dog odors
*ComEd, North Shore Gas or $4/gallon gasoline
*my mailman
*our car
*textured linoleum
*dog hair
*hand-tooled reproduction Victorian tin tinsel
*celebrity gossip
*Oregon Catholic Press
*the 'Belle Reve' Homeowners Association
*The Chicago Tribune
*Lansinoh and how much I love it
*WalMart and how much I hate it
*Target and how much I love it!
*my collection of plastic body parts
*L.L. Bean Maine-Isle flip-flops

That about clears the docket.

AAUGH!
A whole 8 days of Mother's Day! Including the first time in three years that I've been able to make my May Altar. And I even pulled myself together enough to have Franny teach me how to use her digital camera so I could post details here. Then...we can't find the cord for uploading the pics. There are cords everywhere. It's like the set of Snakes on a Plane - with cords! (And I've done my best Samuel L. Jackson impression, too, when tripping on the them) But not a one that fits Fran's camera. So, of course, none of the computers here can have a memory card directly inserted. Perhaps the cord was a collateral casualty of the big Mother's Day Living Room Clean Up. Which means there is 90% chance that it's here - just displaced. We'll just pack it in for the day and try again tomorrow.
"Enough is enough! I have had it with these ************* cords in this ************* house!"

Lake Forest Theater of the Absurd
Lawyers, Guns and Money Edition.
All courtesy of the Chicago Trib...'cuz there's too much absurd to wait for the Lake Forester.

Dozens of illegal guns seized in raid on commodities trader's home in Lake Forest
This is one where it does pay to read to the end of the article: Neighbors who asked not to be identified said they rarely saw Stevens, but that he recently had been upset about flooding at his residence following a water-main break in the neighborhood.

He appears to have himself under control. He was sitting on 85 assorted weapons and 50,000 rounds of ammunition. But did he try to take on the DPW? No. Unless he was arming himself for the next break down in what has come to be expected as top of the line public services. Or maybe he was just getting ready in case of an attack by, say, crazed pigs.

Court held in suburban yard
This would have had more pizazz if the judge were wearing a judicial robe instead of typical North Shore mom Talbott's gear.

Gone from today's paper, but never far from our hearts, of course, are (as seen on Good Morning America!)Mrs. Walgreen's Pigs.

And from the neighbors in Highland Park - a fate far worse than living next to pigs that burb and grunt like ill-mannered school boys:
First the skunk. Then the bigger stink.
Stench drives family from home for a year.

Doh!
Eau de Play-Doh. The little jury in my brain came back quickly with the verdict on this one.

Out in time for Mother's Day, the 1-ounce, spray bottle fragrance is meant for 'highly-creative people, who seek a whimsical scent reminiscent of their childhood.'

Gross. If I want a scent reminiscent of childhood I'll spritz a little Chanel No. 5 or White Shoulders, just like when I would play with my mom's perfume bottles. Not that I don't like Play-Doh. I just don't want to smell like I've been rolling around in it.

Kind of makes me think of the time when my college roommate had some Play-Doh for a Psych. project. Before a night on the town (before mind you!) a guy she was going out with opened a can and ate some to "see if it still tasted the same." And then said that he presumed it was still non-toxic. She should have received extra credit just for going on a date with this guy. The guy was from Highland Park and had the same name as a famous movie director from Highland Park. I wonder sometimes...

Unfathomable...
The reports from Myanmar are absolutely unfathomable.

The other unfathomable thing is their government's resistance to help; as though the a government could manifest pathological psychological symptoms.
Only a handful of UN aid workers had been let into the impoverished Southeast Asian country, which the government has kept isolated for five decades to maintain its iron-fisted control. The US and other countries rushed supplies to the region, but most of it was being held outside Myanmar while awaiting the junta's permission to deliver it.

Scrappy's Christmas Card is Early. Or Very Late.

I had to post this before I misplaced it.

Soror Lucia, the last surviving Fatima real-life visionary, had seen this movie, and said that she didn't like it.
Yeah, but I did...
I really liked it a lot. I loved when it would be on TV. The way some kids love The Sound of Music or the Wizard of Oz. (They're good, too, but I wouldn't say that they changed my life.)

This week, this teacher is going to fall back on the old teacher cop-out: "Now, class, we're going to watch a movie!" Based on experience (let's say, like, Song of Bernadette) the boys will cast their lots with Sr. Lucia. Of course, Mother's Day is coming. Maybe they'll indulge me, if not out of respect for the educational process, then for nostalgia.

[Spelling exercise: R-U-E. The boys would come to rue the day their mother discovered NetFlix. R-U-E.]

Inappropriate Happiness
Euphoria is an understandable side effect of many drugs. But I came across the phrase "inappropriate happiness" while doing a little on-line research about a another prescription. Strange that I am suddenly picky - before my hip surgery I was known to dip into the veterinary prednisone for a bit of relief. (I survived unscathed but my doctor had a few bouts of apoplexy.)

Inappropriate happiness. I don't think (I hope...) that they mean schaddenfreude. Are they just trying to interpret euphoria for the stupid? (And I may well have already established a certain level of stupidity.) And then what is appropriate happiness? Should this warning be read through a different hermeneutic for the Christian? We certainly know of people who should, by societal norms, be dismally unhappy, but are joy filled souls. And also there are those who have every reason to be "happy," but aren't, despite any underlying psychiatric illness.

I confess to having many moments that could be called inappropriate happiness - drug free! And I just can't imagine calling my physician to say, "I'm very happy - and I don't know why." We'll wait 'til it's time to open that envelope from ComEd. If I don't have a moment of extreme dysphoria, we'll call it "loss of contact with reality" and I'll turn myself in to the proper authorities.

...waitresses in orange hot pants, boots and black leather chaps handed out free shots of Jaegermeister.
Some clarification from Bridget:
1) She's a spokesmodel - not a waitress.
2) The shots weren't free.
3) Those were orange shorts, not hot pants.
4) The Trib reporter can't spell Jagermeister.

From the spokesmodel's mother:
1) The chaps over shorts made for an exceedingly well-covered look.
2) If I thought it would be Altamont revisited I would have strongly discouraged her from working at this event. (as in, if she didn't take our advice, I would have let the air out of her tires)
3) She does not give away liquor at these events. (Not much at home, either...)
4) The Trib reporter can't spell Jagermeister.

UPDATE: Dylan has elucidated the spelling for me. In absence of an umlaut, ae will fly. So I change my complaint to...The World's Greatest Newspaper can't scrape up some umlauts for the front page. Is it a budget thing? Like low-end movie houses that swap Os and 0s etc.?

You must have a stockpile of words that you can pass along to your children for their stockpile.
This week's profound educational advice, courtesy of Steve Carell.

My recommended word is: Medjugorje
If you don't know how to spell it, consult a librarian. If she can't spell it she might call her mother who works in a church. Her mother who is still overcompensating for that spelling bee loss in the fifth grade.

There is a child from our parish school who is going to the National bee. I wish I were still in school. Maybe she'd let me sit at her table during lunch…

P.J. O'Rourke: Brilliant as Usual!
We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.

...when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.

He even touches on fairness - you know, like "My sister got a horse. That's so unfair!"

Bad News All 'Round
Your Keyboard: Dirtier Than a Toilet!
No comment I could make will escape incriminating my housekeeping. (or lack thereof.) Shall I defend the toilet? Or they keyboard? Or just go home and clean them both? Prepare for a spate of "you can run your keyboard through the dishwasher" articles.

First-born kids really do have it tougher, new research finds
Breaking news...?
And I wouldn’t say it’s precisely tougher. It’s just different.
Did I mention that my parents bought my sister a horse?

”By the time the second and third kids come around, many parents lighten up, and realize that they probably overreacted a little with setting rules for their first kid, Leman says. “The first-born’s a guinea pig; we practice on ‘em,” he says. “Once the other kids come in, we lighten up. Or exhaustion takes over.””
We do lighten up. If you think folks lighten up with number three, let me tell you about number six. It’s all for the good. Except with six kids, you can’t afford any horses.
Did I mention my sister’s horse?

“When Emily was little, she was just always my perfect little robot who did everything I wanted her to do,” Russell says. “I thought, God, I must be really good at this.”
It is humbling to come to the realization that every good thing about your children is not because of you. The segue from the first to the second can bring a parent down a notch. (Or, in some situations, offer the reassurance that all problems are caused by Mom and Dad.)

Then there was the on-line poll:
Were your parents easier on the baby in the family?
There was no option marked “They bought my sister a horse”

Lake County to Offer Rewards for Ecstasy Tips
Eye-catching headline. Alas, just something drug related. We can be of no help in this matter.

un brin de muguet...
A lovely tradition that I had never heard of.
I'll consider this my 364 day warning for next year. Not that our lilies of the valley are usually open by May 1. Maybe I'll just spritz whoever comes with what's left of my Crabtree & Evelyn Lily of the Valley Cologne. If you get all "up in my face' I'll zap you with the portable purse roll-on.

Today's Charlie Brown Moment
It has come to our attention that WalMart is crime waiting to happen.
I don't mean to denigrate anyone who has been victimized in or near a WalMart. But there are crimes of opportunity in lots of parking lots but you won't find the Internet overrun with sites along the lines of BattleMacy's or Neiman-Marcus Watch.

This is not to imply that I want to be victimized, but there have times when I have left a car full of computer equipment unlocked at our WalMart. (This may have been a not very subconscious passive-aggressive attempt to lighten the inventory of the St. Isidore which has infiltrated every nook of our lives.) Perhaps it looked too good to be true. Anyhoo...I can't get robbed at WalMart.

I never lock my car.* To the tsking of friends who lock their cars at work, during the day, in a church parking lot in the most benign city in the state. Why should I? I'm rarely alone. I usually have nothing worth stealing. I'm not sure my current car locks.

Everybody's got a trust issue, right? Mine is leaving a Netflix return envelope in my mailbox. I don't trust...the mailman. I also think he slows delivery on my mags and Amazon boxes to punish me. But I think I've gone over all that before.

Of course it's wrong...
Nancy Grace was (over)emoting, as usual, on the topic of the polygamist sect in Texas. When she worked herself into near apoplexy about children being born to girls under 18 something sounded misplaced. I'm not speaking to defend the polygamists. But what is it that people find more offensive? Is it the abuse and early motherhood? Or the fact that it takes place within the confines of sham marriage?

One of the most despair inspiring days I had as a La Leche League Leader was when I gave a 'mothering' talk to the expectant teens group at a local high school. (Not Lake Forest, of course. Never in Lake Forest. These things are handled with discreet dispatch in this perfect corner of the world.)

I based my talk on the assumption that these were bewildered girls bravely facing their first pregnancy. There was a lot of bravado. Starting with the girl who pulled a Tootsie Roll pop out of her pocket and asked if I was going to talk about nutrition.
(Clearly not a tofu-spice cookie crowd.) But I didn't feel like I had been punched in the gut until one of the girls told me the baby she was expecting was her third. Clearly the polygamists are not the only under-age girls giving birth. Come to think of it, since that talk was before Eddie was born in '93, I would have to figure that some of those girls may well be grandmothers now.

So where is the outrage? The concerted government effort to separate mothers and children? (I'm not saying there should be, but what makes the Yearning for Zion children different from the thousands of other children born into unfathomable family situations?) The legal initiatives and use of the definitive word wrong?

Absurd polygamous 'marriage' is wrong. And so is the "no marriage," with families formed by school girls who are the victims of free-lance inseminators.