Fun......for the students......
I think Presidents' Day is a bogus generic holiday. (I'm prejudiced - my late uncle Washington was born on February 22 and somewhere along the line he was screwed out of having his own holiday.) So we plodded along with our schoolwork yesterday hoping not to be interrupted by neighbor kids with the day off. It is much easier for homeschoolers to take a day off when everyone else is in school than it is to school when everyone else is on break. The one 'fun' Presidents' Day activity we did was having the boys take the Fandex flip-guide to the Presidents and quiz me. It was a good learning experience, and not just in the sense that the boys learned how much I don't know and that a lot of the Presidents had funny middle names.


We had separate Lincoln's birthday lessons. And by golly, we'll be talking about Washington's birthday, too.

For the curious, my uncle Washington was so named because he was born on February 22 and the family already had a George.

Deep Thoughts.....with the Flower Fairy
Deeper than usual. Bridget is not as introspective as she used to be.
There was the time when her father was so ill and she had dreadful migraines and an assortment of other problems that would keep her up nights ‘thinking.’
She doesn’t ‘think’ as much as she used to.......

On her way to work yesterday morning, I heard her make an off-hand remark that I found to be tremendously heartening.
She mentioned the horrible nightclub disaster that happened in Chicago early Monday morning.
And what a dreaful way to die......and in such an inauspicious location. “When I die, I hope I’m not dressed like a hootchie.”
To those of you who don’t know her (you can chime in here Em, if the comments ever work.....) these may sound like flippant words,
but I was heartened by her relative profundity. First, she said when I die.
After all the late nights talking about death, she is admitting its inevitability.
And I take the hootchie comment to mean that she hopes she is in a proper location (physically and spiritually) when death does come.
My bible study group had a discussion along the same lines just last week.
We do not know when our time will come, so we should be prepared.
It was good to know that the same thoughts are rattling around Bridget’s head, as tangled as they may be in her calcified basal ganglia......
And maybe she'll decide to go through her closet. Let's get rid of any hootchie clothes. And not in the charity bag, please.
Why enable someone else?

To School or not to School?
Happy Presidents' Day to one and all.
Martha is home for the day, so I am assuming most schools around here will not be in session.
(Though Emily doesn't have school today, the school she works at is in session, having done their patriotic bit on Lincoln's Birthday.
Ah, the joys of Illinois!) I suppose I will try to cram in as much school work as possible before the neighborhood fellows start ringing
the doorbell. On a holiday, the little "School Time" sign that I hang on the front door is of little efficacy. They must think it is an oversight; something I didn't bring in the day before.

Time for Mass. I'm looking forward to driving straight to church and avoiding the nerve churning traffic near the high school.
On an average day, my first five minutes of prayer are thanksgiving that I didn't have an accident or succumb to frothing demented road rage.....

Must do this later. Can’t concentrate on questions now.
Bloginality

Blogger Personality test link from Kathy

I doubt it......and it sure doesn’t make me another Luther.

Hey, don't be ashamed! Some of the world's most profound thinking has been done on the can.
If you were a room in a house, what room would you be?

Maybe this is just wish fulfillment.
The matriarch of a large family in a small house sees very little of the bathroom (unless we count cleaning time, which I won’t since I’m not too vigilant about that either.........)
But this reminds me............if we don’t do a full day of school and the big people are at work, the bathroom walls may be dehumidified enough that I could finish my little shell painting project that I started on the bathroom wall about six months ago.

Thanks to Michelle for the ego boost.

I found a Million Dollar Baby..........in Mt. Sinai’s nursery, 24 years ago today!




Happy Birthday, Em!
Hope your big fat Swiss-Irish-Chinese Birthday party was fun. I sure wish you could have been home longer. Don’t get too wild tonight.

Might this not just attract a different type of teen?

Give her credit for honesty.
A Dutch artist is to marry herself to show people how much she loves the different sides of her character.
Strange as this may seem, she doesn’t appear to be that different from some of the brides that we deal with at church.
"I want to celebrate with others how much I'm in love with myself."

After working in the rectory for almost 18 months, I have become fairly calm with the emergency calls from the hospital,
the calls from the funeral home, the calls from the recently bereaved, the ‘slightly out of touch with reality’ visitors at the door.
Brides still leave me a little worse for the wear.
Just for comparison, I found it much more rewarding to spend ninety minutes this morning convincing the copier that it wasn't
jammed than I would have found convincing a bride that she needs to be somehow tacitly connected with our parish to get married at our Church. The beauty of our Church in a beautiful town with excellent proximity to some fabulous banquet facilities makes our parish
desirable by those who may never have noticed us before.
(My favorite, of late, was asking a young gentleman on the phone if he was a registered parishioner, to which he replied,
"Yes, you're the church on the corner of x and y Rds., right?" Hmmm.)
Not all, but many, do earn the name “Bridezilla.”

Thanks to Karen Hall for the link.

Embot....?
Would you like to move your party to Chicago?
I heard on the radio this morning that Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys are doing two shows at
the OldTown School of Folk Music tomorrow.
Well, it was an idea.
If it were my birthday, I'd march everyone to the BBV (big blue van) and force them to 'enjoy' with me.
But it's not my party, so dinner at Grandma's will be just fine. Hope you can stay until Monday - we worry about you driving so much.

An Auspicious Anniversary
I vaguely recall in the early hours of this day leaving a comment somewhere about not having had a decent night’s sleep in 24 years.
Hyperbole, I know, but it certainly feels that way.
Monday being the Embot’s 24th birthday, tonight would be the 24th anniversary of the last good night’s sleep I had.
Tomorrow night will be the anniversary of a night of useless sleep followed by a frantic drive to Milwaukee’s Mt. Sinai hospital.
It all unravels from there.

So, how are we celebrating this unique night? A nap on the couch while waiting to use the computer (naps are fab - I get better quality sleep).
Now sitting at computer worrying about Fran and Bridget who are out with friends, Martha who went to Chili’s for dinner with a girlfriend
and should have been home 5 minutes ago and Em, who was supposed to drive home this afternoon to begin celebrating,
but is waiting out snowy weather in Champaign and coming back tomorrow.
At least the boys are here - I can only hope they remembered to brush their teeth while I was sawing wood on the couch.
I must dig out the quote from Teresa Bloomingdale who said - allow me to paraphrase - that women reach a certain age and wonder
why they can’t sleep. It should be obvious, after so many interruptions, they have forgotten how.

One More Guilty Pleasure
My husband is fond of watching the Chicago Bears on TV with the sound turned off.
He turns on the radio for a more concise, less blathery commentary.
Applying this technique has made watchable one of the most exquisitely beautiful and excruciatingly stupid movie that I have ever seen:
What Dreams May Come.



What ruins this film is the idiotic plot which builds up layer upon layer of bad theology/philosophy etc.
until it is as thick as the lacquer on a magnificent Chinese lacquered box. I couldn’t resist watching one more time.
I had a little extra time this morning because Martha was ill, so I crawled back into bed and turned the movie on.
And it was the eye-candy that I had remembered. Listening to whatever I liked on my CD player, I could watch the images float by,
trying to remember the various artists’ styles that were being evoked.
Not having to listen to the soul-mate/schmoulmate heaven/hell life/death/reincarnation twaddle was priceless.
Just about any music should work: Faure, Mozart, Coldplay, Nick Drake, Vivaldi.........anything you like.
As long as one doesn’t have to listen to the dialogue, it is a beautiful movie.

(Of course, while I’m on a roll, maybe it is not really beautiful, though it is extraordinarily eye pleasing.
If we are to say that the truly beautiful should also incorporate the good and the true, well then, the beauty in this movie is shot to hell.
Literally. But it is true eye-candy. Not nourishing for the soul, but sweet and stimulating. JUST DON’T LISTEN TO THE DIALOGUE!)

Friday Afternoon

In my school days, Friday afternoon was when the teachers cut out right after school and headed for the bar at Barth's at the Bridge.
I just couldn't understand what there was about the job of education that drove these people to smoke and caffeinate themselves like
crazy in the teacher's lounge during the week and then head to Barth's to drown their sorrows on Friday night.
Today may have given me an inkling - our second annual discussion of romantic myths in conjunction with St. Valentine's Day.
It's not Cupid and Psycho! I wish I smoked. I wish there was a bar where all the homeschooling mothers gathered on Friday night.
Cupid and Psycho?

From this week’s Dover Sampler

One featured sample is a page from The Art of Hand Shadows. We have this book. It’s a lot of fun - in a nice, lo-tech way.

Every cloud has a silver lining.....
Martha has a minor ear infection. (I miss the sweet smell of babies, but there is a lovely compensation in having articulate beings who can say, "Mother, I think I may have an ear infection.")
We had to take a chunk of time to run to the doc in Deerfield. Rick was expecting calls and couldn't leave so I put him in charge of educational pursuits. My reward was about an hour (total)driving Rick's car with the CD player while listening to Al Green and chatting with Martha. I read two chapters of a new book (more about that tomorrow - good stuff on motherhood and fear) while in the waiting room.

Robert Gotcher has some interesting points on homeschooling and parental humility.
Having been on the receiving end of comments that made feel like the world’s worst mother when I did not homeschool,
I try to be cautious with my words when talking to other parents.
Likewise, I still get some flak from various quarters now that we are homeschooling, so I am a bit reticent when it comes to admitting where my children go to school.
Unless I am feeling particularly comfortable with people or they are on the verge of thinking the children are in some sort of correctional facility,
I hope the topic does not come up.
I don’t mind being supportive or instructive to parents already considering homeschooling, but otherwise, in most situations,
I would agree with what Mr. Gotcher says, “Those of us who home school need to shut up about it. ’’

Or start a blog.

It’s not too late.......
to torture the adolescents in your home with a lovely display of Mardi Gras Decorations. The farther you live from traditional Mardi Gras celebrating areas, the more humiliating these decorations become. I may have to order some new garland; the harsh Chicago winds of this winter have really taken their toll.

Sex Thirst? And all this time I thought it was about chocolate and flowers. Especially chocolate.

Of course, my spouse thinks it is just a commercial scam to separate men from their money.


The student wing of Pakistan's fundamentalist Islamic party, Jamaat-i-Islami, has condemned Valentine's Day as a day of shame and lust.

"This is a shameful day. The people in the West are just fulfilling and satisfying their sex thirst on this day,"

Khalid Waqas Chamkani, a leader of the Islami Jamaat Talaba in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, said this week.


link courtesy of Fr. Jim Tucker.

Anyone see the new Johnny Cash video, Hurt? I wouldn’t even go in to the blatant crucifxion imagery - not sure where he is trying to go with that. Will have to give it a more careful analysis.
What caught my eye was the close resemblance to the Caravaggio still life in a few shots. The still life that makes me nuts because it is hanging slightly off the edge of the table. Did Caravaggio do this to torment the obsessive-compulsive? I saw other Carravagesque (if that’s the right word - I don’t feel motivated to look it up right now) influences, too. I’ve never been a particular fan of Mr. Cash, though I was suitably impressed when a friend of mine said he shopped at the same supermarket that she did in Franklin, Tennessee.
But this video has caught my attention. It’s a cover of some death metal song, right?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Moi?
Too bad pater wants to purge the home of anything French. Guess that means no Chanel No. 5 for Valentine’s Day. If my collection of Eiffel Towers should suddenly disappear, I know who the prime suspect will be.



My Inner Veggie by way of Alicia

In a bold move that will both aggravate and appease, the (New York) City Council approved legislation Wednesday that bans the use of cell phones at public performances.

The ban includes cell phone use at concerts, movies, plays, lectures, dance performances, museums, libraries and galleries. Talking on a cell phone, dialing, listening, or even having one ring during a performance would constitute a violation — and a $50 fine.

I wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to think that church is a performance, but I think there should be a punishment for phones in church, too. And double the fine for the phones that play “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” or “Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead.”

I tried.
To have my Car-o-Scope cast. First item: pick the car you are currently driving. They don’t have a GM 1988 POS van. I’ll have to try Chevy Van G20 - I think that’s what I used to drive. What is this? They have Borgward. I haven’t seen a Borgward since my father sold his in 1964.

I’m thinking of taking the quiz and saying I drive a Jaguar. If it comes back saying I should be driving a GM 1988 POS, then I will be at peace.......

(Thanks to Kathy for sending me to Disputations for this. I was looking for a way to avoid the work I should be doing.....)

Just a thought....
If I hear one more thing about buying duct tape and plastic drop cloths I am going to puke.
Our parish had a wonderful holy hour this evening. That's where the worried people should have been. The homily was wonderful. The time spent before the Blessed Sacrament was wonderful.
I would say efficacious. In a parish of about 2600 families there were about 50-75 people in attendance. The 'usual suspects.'

Duct tape is a lame, stop-gap placebo. (still great for wart removal and vacuum cleaner repair!)

And the boys thought ‘cunctator’ would never turn up again!
I took the vocab test I found linked on Eve Tushnet’s site. This is because there are a bunch of other things I need to do. Taking little tests is a lovely way to procrastinate. I got 169 out of 200. I guess that’s OK. But I thought I would do better. Maybe too much time playing with the computer is leading to gradual mental deterioration. Or is it the annoying video game I hear to my left that is keeping me from truly high performance?

the author says: If you can match or beat my score (165), there is a very good chance that you would qualify for one of the 'higher IQ' societies at the 99th percentile, and at least a fair chance that you would qualify for one at 99.9th percentile. I’m sure the family will feel so much better knowing that their towels are laundered by someone qualified for a 'higher IQ society.' That must also explain why I am the only person here who is qualified to actually put a roll of toilet paper on the holder.

Center for Blogger Addiction Disorder at 1-800-GETALIFE
I really need to leave the house in about seven minutes. (Eight if I skip the socks and just jump into my boots.) But Jeff Miller has done it again......
I’m laughing (uncomfortably, perhaps) but heartily.

By the way, I’ve decided that Netscape crashes are God’s way of telling me I’ve been blogging too long.

The lawsuit......
for one million dollars brought by the Dr. Evil of the northwoods against my sister, has been dismissed. I wish I could remember the exact wording as my sister read it to me over the phone, something about the reasoning being so flawed that it wasn't worth the court's time to comment. Hilarious.

If you can’t duc’ it, ........never mind
I am not spending the day stocking up on duct tape and plastic. I have an adequate supply to keep the vacuum cleaner working and that will have to do.
The official advice is to stock up on duct tape and heavy plastic sheeting cut to size to cover any vents or gaps in the hideout. A shorter version of the advice has even been published for children.

“You should have duct tape, plastic sheeting and scissors. Have an adult turn off air-conditioners, vents and fans,” it says. “Find an interior room, hopefully a room that does not have windows. Seal around doors and windows with duct tape and plastic sheeting. Take your battery-powered radio with you, so you know when it’s all clear.”

Yes, we have an 2 interior rooms with no windows. A full bath and a powder room. Let’s seal 8 people (at least 8 people, there are usually members of someone’s entourage lurking about), the dog, gerbil and a Beta fish in a tiny space. The dynamics at work in that situation would be nearly as toxic as whatever might be floating outside.

My more scientific-minded husband is doubtful that one can use duct tape and plastic sheets to create adequate protection. And if the sealing job is good enough, then you have a suffocation situation. (This is where the children would bring in a Bean-o joke).

This advice should have a placebo effect on some people. Preparedness making them feel like they are “doing something.” But I fear it would be as effective as this advice...In the 1950s, Operation Alert sought to persuade Americans that diving under a park bench with a newspaper on your head would be ample protection in an all-out thermonuclear war launched by the Soviet Union.

The preparedness kits suggest include extra prescription drugs (try getting your insurance to pay for that), insect repellent ( I’m not sure why - I thought we were sealing ourselves in our powder rooms), and the one area where I am in compliance: flat shoes for women.

The only thing I didn’t see in the article was condoms. Lots of condoms.
How does the government think people will be entertaining themselves in these sealed rooms? Or do they already know that most of these measures are so useless that ‘protection’ wouldn’t really be an issue?

My Father Had a Friend with a Wooden Leg Named Blatz....
Really.
I needed to cheer myself up after reading this horrifying link about a young girl who lost a leg to cancer and has been driven from her school by the harrassment of fellow students. (Thanks for bumming me out, Bill White. No, actually it just reinforces my resolve to keep my boys out of the school pack mentality.) How low can the cruelty bar go? I don’t think kids were especially nice when I was in high school. I remember how I hated having to pass by the corridor intersection where the jocks would sit at lunch hour and “rate” each girl who walked by. And the girls could do really bitchy things. I probably did some bitchy things. But tormenting a kid with one leg? I know that didn’t happen. I wrote last week about my invoking the name of John Z., my classmate who died. The kids at Cedarburg High School may not have been fabulous humanitarians, but there were lines that were not crossed. Now those lines, as dubious as they may have been, have disappeared from the schools.

The Kerry Blue Terrier is Nice
but still no weiner (dog.) Go here for more info about the Westminster Kennel Club show and to vote for your favorite breed. The dachsunds are only at 8%.

This is one to e-mail to my sister.....
A southwest Missouri man can have Jesus Christ as his attorney, but only one licensed to practice Missouri law will be allowed to speak for him during trial on charges he tampered with a judge.

Defendant Richard John Adams, who described himself as a patriot and a Christian, told the Ozark County judge presiding over his case that under that ruling, he was "being restricted to the devil."

Adams, of Branson, said he refers to lawyers as "devils" because he believes the Missouri Bar Association "created the Federal Reserve through their unconstitutional statutes and case laws."

Adams formerly associated himself with a militia and Christian Identity movement but has since said he's not a member of any group.

She can relate. On top of some very unpleasant cases that she is prosecuting and trying to cope with the details of the house she is building (like the dirt trucked in to fill around the foundation went $12,000 over budget - that’s 22 trucks of dirt!) she is being sued for a million dollars (or so) by a sovereign militia nut for some sort of prosecutorial malfeasance. These are days that I don’t envy her ‘exciting’ life.

More Pro-Swiss Propaganda
Don’t tell me he came from Huben.......
Tests on the teeth of the man, whose rich grave near Stonehenge amazed archaeologists last year, show he was originally from an Alpine region, probably Switzerland.

The media dubbed him "The King of Stonehenge", however, the presence of 16 flint arrowheads and two sandstone wristguards led archaeologists to call him "The Amesbury Archer".

The archer was obviously an important man, and because he lived at the same time that the stones at Stonehenge were first being erected, archaeologists believe that he may have been involved in its creation.

I’m surprised they didn’t find a chocolate bar and a Swiss Army knife, too.

Like it or not, the short u must be addressed......
NUN would be promoting religion, FUN would promote hedonism, BUN would promote obesity..........
A school board in Canada has banned the word "gun" from all spelling tests in its district after the parents of a first-grader complained about the word appearing on a spelling list distributed by her teacher, reports the Ottawa Citizen.

According to the report, 7-year-old Chloe Sousa, a student in the Lombardy, Ontario, Public School, came home with a list of spelling words last week that included "gun." Her parents, Amanda and Mark Sousa, who consider themselves pacifists, were shocked that the offending word was on the list.

OK, I’ll wear the faux Chanel......
as long as the wedding party wears clothes.
I thought these people were vulgar and crazy........Wisconsin nudist wedding in February. But they are going to Jamaica, so they are just vulgar.

Educated 21st Century Catholic Woman Succumbs to Magical Thinking
The weather looks really bad. Bridget won't drive. If she won't drive, I won't drive.
I'll phone in my report.
Fran just walked in. "Chance of flurries my a**." Fran knows.

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We're working on this.
Please try back later.
The story of my day. We try to think but nothing happens. Took a late lunch break to run to Wal-Mart.
Was tempted to nominate myself for Teacher of the Year at the service desk. But what kind of teacher yells, "I can't take anymore. Work on the computer. Your father is in charge. I'm going to Wal-Mart?"

I should start a notebook to track the boys twitchiness and 'learning difficulties' in relation to the weather......It must be the change in the weather. It may be a blessing that I was unable to find a copy of Song of Bernadette to watch this afternoon. (Yes, I know where to buy one........ but I'm cheap) We just wouldn't have made it. Today's attention span was appropriate for the 3 minute story about Lourdes that we read. Does this movie qualify as a 'chick-flick?' I'm afraid that's the response I got while discussing it with the boys......

Fun stunt: Walk into Blockbuster and ask them if they have The Song of Bernadette. Marvel at the blank look on the clerk's face.

Value Added
is the only term from Bill White’s very useful BS Bingo that won’t come up at my meeting tonight. As head of my parish’s Respect Life Committee, I must attend the quarterly Human Concerns Commission Meeting. (I think it’s Human, maybe Humane.......)
How can the heads of so many groups that do so many good things (I’m not talking about myself here - I mean like the Soup Kitchen, Food Pantry, Support for our Sharing Parish etc.) get together to talk for two hours or more with nothing to show for it? This is the only remotely crucial meeting of the year - I must be there to get dibs on a ‘good’ Sunday during Lent for our annual diaper/formula/baby clothes drive for a local crisis pregnancy center. I’ll make a deal with myself. The third time someone says ‘empower,’ I’ll announce I have another engagement to get to and excuse myself. (They don’t have to know that the previous engagement is a plan to put on my flannel gown, pop corn and watch Judging Amy.....)

Now the weather looks really nasty - think horizontal snow. Now I really don’t want to go. Besides, tomorrow night is our monthly Holy Hour plus the Respect Life Committee meeting. I start to feel guilty when I’m gone two nights in a row. No make that three. I worked last night. So, three nights in a row at church. Not exactly like I’m sitting at the bar up at The Lantern.....but crappy mother material nonetheless.

Hey Kids...
I’ve gone straight to IN. In the March Vanity Fair’s In & Out Column. (p. 230 for those of you who would like to skip the endless pages of angst ridden models in overpriced underthings.)
JOB FOR FAILED JOURNALIST :
Out - Movie reviewer for Playboy
In - Blogger

So, does this qualify me as a failed journalist?

Thank you Em! I needed the maintenance. (When you're home next week-end, would you mind Hoovering my boudoir? Just kidding........)

Will talk to you soon.
Working tonight - you know where to find me.

How about a little good news/bad news?
First, the good news: Your father is reassured that his one adrenal gland is working just fine.
Now, the bad: It was Fran commandeering your black lacquer entertainment center and moving it to the basement that caused the adrenaline surge. Things got a little testy here. Fran moved all those derelict Macintosh components off of the cabinet and on to the garage floor..... They're OK, now.
Dad, Fran and the Mac junk.

Maintenance...

I fixed some of the links you had. The Valentine's Day Picture wouldn't work because that link was for the whole web page. What you need to do is click on the picture, and then hold down the mouse till the little menu pops up. Then you go to copy, or copy the link. It should end with a .gif or .jpg or something like that. I also think that sometimes quizilla doesn't work right, that is why the links weren't working... Let me know if you need something...


Love, Embot

So bad - so many ways
The local Fox morning news show just had spot for a feature on romantic Valentine ideas.....

• couple in bed - didn't look married to me (I had a friend who used to model for Better Homes and Gardens - they would diligently put a fake wedding ring on her finger in any picture that implied family, marriage, motherhood etc.)
  
• black satin sheets. Ick. Slippery. And they look like they had been stolen by someone on a Graceland tour.
  
• rose petals strewn on bed. The Princess is in the flower business. She has brought home bulk petals. They stay 'nice' for a very limited time. I can't imagine anything more gross than being in a slippery bed with crumpled decaying plant matter.

Big dogs, little dogs
Don't forget the dog show tonight on USA. This is the biggie - the Westminster Kennel Club.
I'll be at work tonight, but I'll be at the show in spirit.
The kids can watch with Cody and tell her how lucky she is that we don't drag her around to degrading expositions. (We tried that with the Irish Princess - once - and she could articulate her angst in English. Imagine what it does to a dog who can't talk.)
Oh, well, for once the kids can watch the dog show without me feeling like I've given them a big catalog and then said, "But you'll never get anything." We have a dog. Now we can enjoy the dog show.

Another....
interesting new blog. irregular musings of an eclectic nature It’s by the ‘maintenance guy for the Ratzinger Fan Club.’ What does he do the rest of the time. Set up chairs for meetings, work on the boiler, clean up ‘spills?’ Couldn’t help that - when I hear the term maintenance I see the man in the green suit pushing a very large broom, always at the ready in case a student should vomit. I’m sure members of the Ratzinger Fan Club do not deface their desks or vomit on the floor. Or get the tether ball tangled up......

I will not pass notes during Mass.
I will not pass notes during Mass.
I will not pass notes during Mass.
I will not pass notes during Mass.
I will not pass notes during Mass.
I am sorry. I was just trying to be discreet. I went to church this morning with every intention of following John Wesley's rules for singing in church. (One problem - The Rev. Mr. Wesley didn't have to sing some of the twaddle placed before us....)
During the offertory, Rick gave me a look of puzzlement. The song was so, well, awful. I just couldn't sing it. Can't remember the name. All that comes to mind is that it must have set some sort of record for use of the word "I" in reference to God. (Not to mention a wienie tune) A song like this might be alright performed by some type of Raffi-esque minstrel who would introduce it saying, "Hey, kids, pretend God is singing this to you." From my amateur theological perspective, having a bunch of people of mediocre catechetical background singing as though they were God, is well, uncomfortable.
So, I confiscated Eddie's ever-present pen (which he totes to church to work on the children's bulletins........The church provides them. I copy them, I fold them - all 300+ copies. What the heck, at least the kid isn't writing on his arm)and scribbled "ixnay on the vox dei" as a quick explanation for the look of nausea on my face. He didn't get it. Maybe this "song really sucks" (oooh I hate that word) would have been better, but I was in Church. He looks at me like I had written Klaatu Barada Nikto.
Next time I'll offer it up and save the commentary for the ride home.
Oh, and I forgot the bulletin in the pew. Let's hope the usher didn't 'recycle' it back into the stack at the door.......

Our Frances never worked at Hooters
I think. Tonight's Malcolm in the Middle was most enjoyable. The pregnant Lois finds herself deep in a fantasy of how wonderful life would have been if her four children had been girls. (As a woman whose first four children are girls, I knew this would be hysterical........girls are not necessarily sugar and spice, unless you count capsaicin as one of all things nice. Which we do - when we're cooking.) We so often joke about the resemblance to our own family - except that Rick doesn't need his body shaved and our Frances is a girl - who never went to military school, though it had crossed our minds. The only thing that would make it closer to home would be if Lois and Hal decided to homeschool the kids. A total 'Krelboyne' household - of course, Stevie and some of the other gang from school would have to stop in for tutoring and to lend 'socialization.'

More returns.......
Jeff Miller is back!!!! Now as the "The Curt Jester".

My glee is tempered by the news of his mother's death today. I am sure I am not alone in offering him condolences and assurances of prayer.

testing......

This is a very disturbing death-with-beauty-and-dignity etc. story. I’ve never liked doctors who tinker with births so as to not mess up their schedules. And now we have ‘euthanists’ who prefer to be accomodated....But she made her decision clear by telling her family she had decided it would happen on Monday 13 January at 2pm and that she would drink the fatal mixture, rather than having the alternative of an injection. The doctor wanted it to be a Monday. He only carried out a euthanasia about once in two years and always found it emotionally draining. Mondays were the easiest days to take off.

The family had a champagne party with her the night before and Tina made a speech. She was proud of the speech, noting in her diary that the champagne had helped her speak well. The doctor arrived on time the next day. Her children and grandchildren were beside the bed. The doctor asked her formally if she wanted to go ahead. Sometimes patients change their mind at this stage, but not Tina.

The youngest daughter handed her the cup. She drank it without hesitation, but as was her habit with tea and coffee, left some dregs. The doctor, knowing of cases where this was enough to make the dose less than fatal and necessitating a lethal injection - often with traumatic effect on the family - asked her to drink up. It took about 15 minutes to work, as the doctor had said.

Good News...
Check out Kathy's Gospel M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D.

Oh
The mayor's reassurance to go ahead with our regular plans.....that is because of the high terror alert. Not because Rev. Al Sharpton is in town.
Can't wait to read the post-mortem in tomorrow's Trib.

I think Cardinal George's difficulties with Fr. Michael Pfleger are much more complicated than any of us can possibly surmise. Cardinal George appears to be acting with prudence and discernment. And Fr. Pfleger is acting like an adolescent begging to have the 'can of whup-ass' opened. The parental jargon that comes to mind: envelope pushing! (Do I bring too much of my personal experience to this? Probably. But I know 'attitude' when I see it.)

One other thought. If this is the time of increased responsibility of the laity......where are the parishioners of St. Sabina's while all this is going on? Is there not one parishioner disposed to protest?

Something fun in the e-mail
Dover Sampler.
A weekly sampling of Dover publications materials.

Speaking of the e-mail........the curse of obscene spam has finally caught up with us, so I look through everything in the morning. I may be turning paranoid - I started to trash a business e-mail to the spouse from Dome Technologies - the return address dome@dometech, well, I didn't read it as 'dome.' The price of constant vigilance: a suspicious mind.

Mayor Daley.....
in his inimitable way of reassuring the populace, told all Chicagoans to "be alert but go ahead with your regular plans." Not that I need his encouragement to shower, listen to Breakfast with the Beatles and go to Mass. But I may invoke his order when I decide to take a nap. Post-It note above Mom on couch: Mayor Daley says to proceed with my plans.........so let me sleep.

Google yourself regularly
It’s not just for fun any more. The truth (and more) is out there.
I do get such a charge out of seeing the Google searches that send people to me. (The top so far are A) Victorian hand-tooled tin tinsel and B) World Famous Love Acts. The Love Acts I can understand, it’s the tinsel afficianados who worry me.)


So once all this information about you is out there in Googleland, is there anything you can do about it? Like so much in life, that depends on who you are. Google indexes more than 3 billion Web pages, 400 million images, and 800 million newsgroup postings (including an archive of embryonic Internet chatter it purchased from an outfit called Deja.com), but it is willing to remove certain information, under certain circumstances.

If you desperately want that picture of a bleary-eyed you in an ill-fitting toga to disappear from Google, and the search engine found the photo on a Web site you control, then all you have to do is take the picture down. But in the more likely event that Google found the offending information on someone else's Web site, you are on your own. Google will not remove information from its index unless the Webmaster in question requests it. So say you flee an abusive relationship, move to a new state, and decide to run in a 10K road race, only to realize later that your home address got posted next to your time on the running club's Web site. If you want that information removed, you have to appeal to the good graces of the running club Webmaster, not Google.

No, really, I'm working here.......
Right now the pan from the ribs is soaking. So I have time for at least one more quiz. Thanks to Alicia
I mean I'm trapped here with a bunch of people whose idea of a fun Saturday night is watching Happy Gilmore.........



""Which cocktail are you?""
brought to you by Quizilla

My friends call me an angel........that's nice! Good thing they didn't poll the family!!!

You are Spirit...you are ethereal and light. You
always think the best of everyone. All your
friends call you an angel.


What Element Are You?
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At last!
Another ray of sunshine........

It’s a dreary Saturday. So much laundry. Other little chores. But thanks to Michelle I’m sitting here taking quizzes instead. And this is more fun.

My deepest secret?
It was funny.
Too bad I can’t post it here.
My children read this.

Gee whiz, tell Mommy to stop babying you so much
and get out of the house once in a while. You
are the typical nerd. Congratulations, the
other kids walk all over you and make fun of
you, but you'll show them someday when you
develop the latest line of anti-depressants
that they will need when they are 35.


What kind of typical high school character from a movie are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

This really bothers me..........
Not to mention the fact that knowing I’m be graded on cooperation makes me feel super-special uncooperative.

LEBANON, Pa. (AP) — Come fall, Gino Vargas and other parents of schoolchildren in this city could be getting report cards of their own: The school system's superintendent is proposing that parents be graded on how involved they are in their children's education.

Under the proposal, parents in the 4,200-student district about 80 miles west of Philadelphia would be evaluated in areas such as attendance at parent-teacher conferences, whether they return things they have to sign and whether their children come to school healthy and properly dressed. Teachers would check "yes" or "no" and send the forms home with student report cards.

And, even possible home visits.
That would be the end of me.
Not the kids. Me. Although I think most kids don’t want school officials visiting their home.
The closest I ever came to a home visit was when my geometry teacher/tennis coach took a bunch of us to see Billy Jean King and a bunch of other women playing in a tournament. When he dropped us off at my house, my parents and their friends decided he needed to come in for a nerve soothing cocktail. He accepted. He needed it.

Em, don't tell your father........
he's already looking at me funny!
I always thought I was quite liberal. I guess I'm so liberal that I fell off the left and turned up on the right........


Where do you fall on the liberal - conservative political spectrum? (United States)
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks to Michelle.

And we should be surprised when a students pick up a few good ideas when given paralegal work study jobs.........

A high school senior says he earned an A+, not an A, and has sued to get the grade changed to bolster his chance at becoming valedictorian.

Brian Delekta, who finished 11th grade in 2002 ranked at the top of his class, says he should have received an A+ for a St. Clair County intermediate school district work-experience class in which he worked as a paralegal in his mother's law office.

Apologies
To the reader who asked for a larger image of Picot's Cupid and Psyche. I can only find one. Frankly, my postcard isn't a whole lot bigger......well, postcard size........

He’ll be b-a-a-a-c-h
Jeff Miller, that is. I sure hope so. I miss him already. (Some weeks humor is helpful and some - like this one - it is essential.)

Weird-o-Rama
Sleepy Mommy Peony Moss left a link to the St. Sabina (Chicago) website. Proof indeed of the cult of personality built around Fr. Michael Pfleger. (And I’m using personality in my favorite scatalogical sense) Technically, I suppose, the Armorbearers call is the same as mine. I pray and fast, with special intention for the priests of my parish. I would take a bullet for them. But mostly I screen the calls, keep things flowing in a well-organized fashion and try to keep the ‘Bridezillas’ under control. The other loyal rectory workers most likely feel the same. No one has formed a secret society to carry out this mission.

The Armorbearers Ministry consists of a group of God-called men who are responsible for protecting the anointing and the pastoral mantle that rests upon Reverend Michael L. Pfleger. This is accomplished through consistent prayer, fasting and personal assistance. The Armorbearers share an individual and collective desire to lay down their lives for the life of another, namely Pastor Pfleger. These men assist Pastor Pfleger on Sundays and also travel with him extensively throughout the year. The Armorbearers are also responsible for receiving and accommodating all guests of Pastor Pfleger, whether speaking or visiting. The term, "armorbearer" first appears in the bible in the Book of Judges, however, the characteristics, attributes and role of the God-called Armorbearer is described specifically in 1 Samuel with young King David as the primary role model. Substantial emphasis is placed on being "called" by God to this ministry due to the seriousness of the role of Armorbearer. The new member is expected to successfully complete a supervised three-month observation period along with a curriculum-based teaching series designed to prepare the new member for effective service.
Oh, and their meetings are closed.
They sound a little bit like the entourage that follows Louis Farrakhan around.

May I Remind You, I am the Mother of an Irish Princess!


You are a Dubliner.


What's your Inner European?
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Thanks to Fr. Jim Tucker.

Somebody tell me that this is just made up....
Sorry Fr. Tucker. Speaking from Chicagoland where there is little need for the National Enquirer because the news in the Trib and Sun-Times are amply bizarre, it’s probably real.

Especially knowing the history of Fr. Pfleger, a man of many good attributes, who now has a bit of cult-of-personality built around himself. And Rev. Al Sharpton? It takes a personality to know a personality.

Some good advice.
Found on the trivia page of the Cyber Hymnal

John Wesley’s singing rules for Methodists (he had a Method for everything!):

1. Learn the tune. (Can’t resist my own little Catholic editorializing here: People would sing more if the tune didn’t keep changing. The settings for the Mass change from week to week. Some are absolutely unsingable. When I was a Lutheran, I had no such problems. The Gloria, Sanctus, etc. didn’t change. The tune was always the same. For those of us without great musical gifts, this is a blessing. I can still sing the Nunc Dimittis - and I haven’t attended a Lutheran service since 1978.)

2. Sing them as they are printed.

3. Sing all. “If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.”

4. Sing lustily and with a good courage. (Trust me. The tone deaf need courage. I don’t wish to be one of the old ladies that we snickered at when we were young. Naturally, I must also mind #5 below.....)

5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl.

6. Sing in time. Do not run before or stay behind.

7. Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually.

How....
does Dr. Dictionary know I'm spending too much time gaping out the window. Or gaping at the 'puter.
Word of the Day for Thursday February 6, 2003

rictus \RIK-tuhs\, noun:
1. The gape of the mouth, as of birds.
2. A gaping grin or grimace.

Distress call to the Embot
My virtual un-Valentine keeps disappearing.
Could you look into it, please?
Thanks.

Fun from Kathryn Lively

Hey, Let's Start Another Meme Thingy! Five Guilty Pleasures........
this was way too easy..........

1 Fox’s Sunday Night line-up (King of the Hill/Simpsons/Malcolm)
2 Target’s housewares dept.
3 The Godfather Trilogy
4 birthday cake for breakfast
5 Vanity Fair

Kelly Clark The Lady in the Pew offers some great advice on discerning the authenticity of a Catholic organization....

The next time somebody tells you he’s affiliated with a “Catholic” organization, ask him where it’s listed in The Official Catholic Directory, published by P.J. Kennedy and Sons. (Your local library, and probably your rectory, has a copy: it’s huge!) If he can’t answer you? Well, then you have your answer.

Another tip-off that the organization probably isn’t “Catholic” can usually be found in the name itself. If the group’s name indicates that it is, for example, “Faithful,” or “Concerned,” or “comprised of `Leaders’” or — yikes — has a “Voice,” then watch out......

Check it out. She makes a lot of sense.
(The only thing I might add is, the Kennedy Directory isn’t just huge - it could break your foot should you drop it. Work it with two hands - over a desk............Why do I say this? Experience is a great teacher!)

Mom's heavenly dreams, a child's earthly desires
Barbara Brotman of the Chicago Tribune adds to my endless ruminations about motherhood and personal fulfillment:
When Dr. Laurel Clark blasted off into space on the shuttle Columbia, one person wasn't thrilled about it.

It was her 8-year-old son, Iain. "He was not happy about his mother going up," a family friend who had talked with the boy at a party two days before the mission told the Associated Press. "He said a few times, `Why does it have to be my mom?'"

He will surely ask the question many more times.

His mother, a flight surgeon and Navy commander from Racine, Wis., was one of the seven astronauts who died Saturday when the shuttle broke apart. The astronauts collectively left behind 12 children. Clark, 41, was the only mother among them......

Clark's son didn't want his mother to leave for the two-week mission. "Would you give up something you love to do?" she asked him.

His reply was not recorded. But for most of our children, if that something meant even a slight chance that their mother might not come home, the answer would be yes.

Our children have their own priorities. They don't care if we are challenged or exhilarated or serving humanity; they just want us to be there.

Bought this post card at Louvre.....
I like it..........but is it too erotic for the dining room? Only during February?

Not too early to start hinting.....
Godiva makes lovely sugar-saturated caffeinated fat blocks. So does Cadbury. So does just about any manufacturer who doesn't add a lot of waxy substance and other impurities.....



This site also has a sarcastic anti-wedding card, but I'm afraid some people would take it the wrong way.

Baby Got Back
I’m so regressive that I had to have this song explained to me. After seeing the video. In my little world, baby got back means baby has returned.

Anyway.......Anyone who has spent a some time listening to Kasey Kasem’s Top 40 (as I did every Sunday morning in college, nursing a hangover) should take a look at Kat Lively’s Long Distance Dedication. Don’t eat or drink while reading this - it could be dangerous.

Speaking of dead people.....
We had one of those mornings. About once a year I most invoke the memory of a young fellow who attended high school with me. He died freshman year after a struggle with bone cancer. There comes a day, from time to time, when people are kvetching about not feeling well enough to do any school work. (This happens with the public school attendees and the homeschoolers) Aaargh. Especially the homeschoolers - who can assume any posture they wish, in any clothes they wish, with ample breaks for exercise and snacks.) When the usual stiff upper lip pep talk fails, I must mention John Z. The pale, brave boy with one leg who still went to school day after day. Balancing his own books while traversing the campus on crutches. Today I pulled out all the stops. I told the boys that John not only went to school every day - but he died on a Saturday. He finished the week, then he died.

Poor timing, too closely on the heels of watching Radio Days over the week-end, led Chuck to say he was reminded of the story of the blind baseball player who had lost a leg and arm but kept on plugging. Oh, well. Time to motivate the troops for the afternoon work.

The Big Chill
or something like it. For 'kids' too young to remember the movie.
Fran stopped home between today's funeral and the following lunch. "This is so weird. So sad. But I saw all these people I haven't seen in ages....." Will probably hear the full 'post mortem' at dinner, since the flower fairy couldn't get off of work to attend.

Fran will be 22 in a month. This is about the fifth ad hoc reunion that she has attended in the past year. We live in a very nice suburb. There is no cholera. No land mines. No gun brandishing gang-bangers. Yet my daughters 'know' more dead people than I do. (That is adjusting for dead relatives that we hold in common - e.g. my mother doesn't count.) Something is not right.

Froogle

Find products for sale from across the Web.
Embot leads mother into temptation.
Another good reason to keep blogging: Keeps me from shopping, thinking of shopping, wondering about shopping........

A Normal Day

Let us hope.

Martha's affairs are in order. So we may proceed with the Driver's Permit. This just grates on me so. Living in a state where the governor's big thing (before the Death Penalty Moratorium etc.) was the license-for-bribes scandal. People with enough cash who knew who to ask could buy a license. Sixteen year olds - innocent as lambs - must jump through hopes to prove their bona fides.

Off to Mass.......and on to a day of schooling that doesn't include mater muttering under her breath about the #@*!?# State of Illinois. (We are making progress - the first half of the Gettyburg Address is just about memorized. Pater did download the Swedish translation. Sent it to Grandma for a chuckle. When he tried to read it to us, all I could think about was the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show......)

Not Again
Once more my girls are facing the funeral of a young friend. There have been so many in the past year or so that I have lost precise count. Only one died of natural causes. This young man has succumbed to an overdose of Vicodin and something else.

I had been under the impression that he was Catholic, but the funeral is at the local non-denominational church. Selfishly, I think, at least I am spared entering his name in the parish death register. When I enter the name of a man or woman who dies in the eighties or nineties - there have even been a few centenarians - I feel a whistful but fruitful sense of ‘closure’ (I really hate that term - why am I using it?) as I dot the last i and cross the last t, so to speak, on a life fully lived. When the age that I must enter is 17 or 19 or 20, there is no solace. I can’t look at the name and think, “My, what you must have seen and done in 87 years?” All I can see is sorrow - the shattered hearts of parents crushed and torn. I have heard their sobs through the closed living room door as they meet with the priest. There is nothing sadder.

Thank you God. Today my children are well. The most rehabbing anyone needs is a month at a Martha Stewart boot camp.
Today my children are alive. I am thankful. I am a most fortunate woman.

Lobster firm fleet vandalized
Lines to brakes and refrigeration systems on a fleet of Villa Park seafood company trucks were cut over the weekend, damage the FBI is investigating as the act of a radical animal rights group opposed to the killing of sea creatures.

Vandals entered an unsecured lot on the 200 block of North Avenue and cut the lines on dozens of Supreme Lobster and Seafood Co. trucks. They also wrote "ALF--No Brakes" on a bay door of a company building.

In the e-mail titled "ALF Communique," the group alleged the Midwest's largest lobster distributor was responsible for the deaths of more than 1 billion sea creatures over the last 25 years.

"Their lives cannot be returned, but we will continue to strike at them until future generations are truly free," the e-mail stated.

This is a very strange world in which we live. I used to worry the ELF people would get us. Now the ALF folks are willing to send killer lobster trucks about the Chicago area in the interest of freeing the lobster. Now's the time to invoke the RICO laws......

He’s absorbent, he’s porous, he’s yellow..............
He’s a sponge!!!! Cut him some slack!
SpongeBob - the new Charlie Brown. Why’s everybody always picking on him?


I still like him. And I think we provide a sound enough home life to counter any moral damage the inhabitants of Bikini Bottom may be doing.

The show, like many non-PBS shows that feature explosions, is flamboyantly anti-educational. In Bikini Bottom, in fact, "educational television" is a horrible punishment, as fearsome as a bout with giant clams. And still each show contains moral questions, after a fashion. They are not the kind that find answers in ordinary children's fare (be kind and tolerant), but rather the pressing, if tawdry, dilemmas that adults face every day......

What do you teach your children about these things? SpongeBob SquarePants is no help; it has nothing to teach. SpongeBob's would-be role models—his greedy, pirate-like boss (Mr. Krabs); his blousy, neurotic teacher (Mrs. Puff); and his snobbish co-worker (Squidward Tentacles)—furnish only opportunistic answers.


And then let’s imply that Sandy Cheeks is being written out because it’s a male-gay oriented show and nobody cares about a girl squirrel, that’s a real stretch.


Maybe I just don’t like a lot of PBS shows. A lot of PBS kids shows do feel like a horrible punishment. Maybe that’s why I like SpongeBob.

Uncle Dan's draft card -from WWII

more souvenirs from Rick's stop at Gethsemani Abbey

address labels from our previous address

titles for all the cars

one tooth - human

NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE FOR MARTHA.


This wouldn't be so aggravating if I hadn't had it in my hands just a few weeks ago. Worse case scenario - tomorrow we take a 'field trip' to the Milwaukee County Courthouse. How do I know it's as easy as that? Because we got Emily into kindergarten without the necessary birth certificate because the principal was an old friend of my mother's. I didn't ask for a pass - it was his offer. And Isabel's daughter wouldn't lie, right? (Well, he was right....but then I totally forgot about re-ordering a birth certificate until Em was ready for driver's ed. And we made a run up to Milwaukee to retrieve the appropriate documentation.)

So......
I’m stuck at a stoplight behind a mini-van (Illinois plates) with a Latin Mass - www.sgg.org license plate frame. Curiosity being what it is, I must look this up as soon as I get home. So ....was I stuck behind a Lidless Eye Traditionalist of the type that this website brags drives 3 hours one way every Sunday to attend a ‘real’ Mass?

With apologies to Bruce Springsteen.......
Attention Rosalita (and Chuck and Bridget and Eddie and Fran and...and...and...)
Closets are for hangers........
Put your coats on the hangers.
Put the hangers on the rod.
Is that asking too much? Must our maternal unit go spelunking to find her boots?

So many good blogs shutting down. I'm bummed out.
Actually, I'm thinking of shutting down my house and living in my blog.
It's shaping up to 'one of those days.' And the sun is not quite up yet.
More later. If Martha doesn't tear me to pieces on the way to school.
Still no birth certificate..........

Tonight's special prayer petition........
Please let me be called in to work Thursday night. I really need the money. And that way I won't be tempted to watch the 2 hour 20/20 Michael Jackson expose-spectacle-interview. Just to find out what could necessitate 2 hours is enough to lure me in.

Ooooh, Nooooo
Not Jeff Miller, too.
I'll miss his blog so much.

Still Ruminating....
about my previous comments about motherhood and acceptable risks. Before Emily jumps in here and outs me to the world, I will admit that I have gone a few places and done a few things since I have become a mother. I guess some of this boils down to what one considers to be an acceptable risk.


So.....in Ellyn's world, flying on scheduled commercial airlines is OK. If it's for a good reason and I don't do it too often. Flying to Vermont for my only sister's law school graduation? OK. Flying to Minneapolis for a week-end with my sister to see Bruce Springsteen - OK? Maybe it wasn't. Was flying to Minneapolis to help my sister out after her son was born OK? Yeah, I guess.


I went to Paris in 2000. On Air France. I guess that's OK. But what if some dreadful accident had befallen me while on the Eiffel Tour? Or a tourist jumping off of Notre-Dame, like in last year's Amelie? Or choking on a baguette?


Or what about Mardi Gras 2001? I was walking down Bourbon Street when a beer bottle flew off of a balcony (glass is illegal on balconies, for just that reason.) and missed me by a matter of inches. I calmly kicked the glass to safety and yelled some sort of mommy-esque chastisement to the fellows on the balcony above. What if it hit me? I could have been killed. If not a meretricious death, it would certainly have been "freak accident" material in the local paper. Would I want to be remembered by my children as "poor Mom, taken out by a beer bottle while traipsing from the Desire Oyster Bar to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop?"


Now I'm working myself into full tilt guilt. I am supposed to go on retreat at the end of March. Just for three days. Two hours away, into Wisconsin. A lot could happen between here and there......


Here's where I'll have to draw the line. A mother needs to be more careful. But she can't let it make her agorophobic.......which is what may happen to me if I cogitate on this topic much longer.

Il y a quartre-vingt sept ans........
For those planning their Lincoln's birthday activities:
The Gettysburg Address.........in just about any language you wish. (Except Latin, the Charlie Brown of languages.)
I think we'll stick to memorizing it in English. As impressive as the Gettysburg Address in Swedish might be over dinner at Grandma's, I must remember that I am educating children - not creating a vaudeville act.

Which OS are You?

If it hadn’t been something Mac, I wouldn’t be able to live down the shame. (Yes, Emily, I know that you already knew I was simple and primitive.......but remember, I knew you back when you were simple and primitive, too.)

Thanks to Alicia of Fructus Ventris for the link.

With all the other chaos in the world, it only now occurred to me - has anyone heard from Punksatawney Phil?

Where Will We Go? What Will We Read?
Amy Welborn is shutting down her blog.
I'm sure there will be somewhere to go, someone to read.
But I'll miss that daily blogstop.

Am I Sexist?
Or do I just have an overinflated estimation of my maternal role?

I am saddened thinking of all the children of the crew lost on the space shuttle Saturday. But I am especially moved when I think that Dr. Laurel Clark left behind an eight year-old son. Perhaps I am laboring under some archaic thought that a mother is the more important parent. Traditionally, it has been accepted for fathers to be in harm’s way as part of their daily occupations. Not that a lost father is of no consequence, but that a lost mother is of deeper consequence.

This isn’t just my imagination at work here. I am thinking of my own father, who lost his mother at the age of seven and was more deeply affected than he may ever have articulated to us. When I was young and unencumbered by family, my father was supportive of any adventurous schemes I had. He was the own who offered and paid for me to have a ride in a glider. (Which, by the way is an awesome experience. And I would recommend it highly to people like my husband who worry so about engine failure in airplanes. There is no engine to fail! And then there is that sublime moment when the lever is pulled to release the tow line - I got to pull the lever! - a deafening snap followed by pure silence........) Anyhoo.....

When I had three small children, my father won a ride in a hot air balloon.
For two. My mother didn’t really want to go. I volunteered. And was rejected. He made it clear that a mother of minor children (you see, my mother was then free to float, though she didn’t savor the opportunity) had priorities greater than flight.

I am thinking of a story I may already have mentioned once before, Dakota Thanksgiving by J. Bottum that was in the November 2002 issue of First Things.

“They did really think they weren’t going to make it,” she answered. “But they had to do it anyway. It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t something to be calculated, weighing their lives against their baby’s. They couldn’t choose their own survival against a chance, however small, of his.”

Aunt Eleanor turned to look at me directly, and her face was hard with something I couldn’t quite understand. “And do you see why? It’s because they were parents. And that’s what it means to be a parent. They had already given up their lives for their child’s, from the first moment he existed.”

She sighed again and looked back out at the river. “In that blizzard, the bill finally came due, and they knew they had to pay it—the way you will pay it, when your time comes. The way your mother and father will pay it, when they have to. That’s what I want you to remember the next time you’re angry with them, the next time you want to scream because they won’t let you do something, the next time you feel as though nobody understands how grown up you’ve become.”

What I am wrestling with now, is the question, “Is it more reflexive, more instinctual for a parent to risk her life for her child than to defer her ambitions and stifle her talents for the same cause?” Does ‘the bill’ come due for some of us - women, especially - when we are told to wait on our dreams because someone small needs us?

A Contribution...of sorts

Isn’t the former President’s appearance at a Stones concert just a contribution of warm gases to an already warming atmosphere?

Former President Bill Clinton plans to appear at a free Rolling Stones concert this week dedicated to raising awareness about global warming, event organizers said Sunday.

Instead, he will make a speech from the stage addressing the importance of fighting global warming, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nonprofit activist group staging the event.

`34 Million Friends'......who wish that you not reproduce

Officially, the funding for the United Nations main family-planning agency comes from 131 nations. Unofficially, it comes from those nations, plus at least 40,000 citizens of the only major country that does not contribute to the agency's budget--the United States.

Last summer, the Bush administration decided to withhold a $34 million appropriation for the UN Population Fund, an agency that has run afoul of Republican presidents for its alleged support of China's draconian population-control policy, which includes coerced abortions.

That decision angered Lois Abraham of Taos, N.M., and Jane Roberts of Redlands, Calif.--two women who had never met but who simultaneously decided to start a fundraising campaign to replace the lost millions.

After a slow start, momentum for their "34 Million Friends" campaign has accelerated recently, and now the UN agency in New York is flooded with 2,000 letters a day. As of Thursday, it had received nearly $447,000 in about 40,000 envelopes, some of which contained donations from more than one person.

And while we’re at it........how about looking up women’s issues in that Vatican glossary.

Roberts, who has been active in women's issues for many years, started a letter-writing campaign to women's groups across the country. She calls the 34 Million Friends effort "an exercise in outraged democracy."

Time.....
to get ready for church, then work. I don't usually work on Sunday mornings. I like to sleep in one day a week, listen to Breakfast with the Beatles and then go to Mass as a family. Oh, well. Dad will have to marshall the troops alone, today. (I wonder if anyone would notice if I turned on Breakfast with the Beatles very softly at work? The Beatles aren't cause for firing from a rectory secretarial job, are they? Do I want to push my luck?)

Just Like Old Times
There was a time, some years ago, when Bridget was battling crippling migraines, depression, insomnia and some other assorted demons (plus the occassional nosebleed). She would come into my bedroom for solace and there were times even a mother's comfort couldn't help her to relax and get some sleep. But we had a stack of videos that would do the trick. Our fav's: The Thrill of It All, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, all three That's Entertainments and Woody Allen's Radio Days. I thought I had reached my toxic limit of Radio Days and haven't touched it in several years. Channel 11 showed it twice last night (some sort of Woody Allen theme night.) I had forgotten just how good a movie it is. I watched alone. Bridget is doing well and was out with friends. I was shocked at how much dialogue I could still recite. And it is a good movie when one wishes to ignore the horrors of the day.

How Low Can They Go?
Bill White makes me feel quite blessed to have spent all of yesterday in an office with little access to the media. All I could do was work and pray. TV viewers (Fox, in this instance) were given the TMI (too much information) treatment.

When the media eye lingers too long and too closely, violating the human dignity of those involved in a tragedy, I am reminded of my mother’s prohibition against running up the street to gawk whenever an ambulance took someone away from the neighborhood rest home. All the other kids did. I wanted to, too. My mother said it wasn’t kind. She was right.

Just Before I Call it a Day.....
Just the kind of thing to buoy up the old homeschooling resolve...........
The Collier County School Board, without one word on the subject, on Thursday fired teacher Colin Nicholas.

An internal investigator concluded he strayed from the curriculum.

In his health classes, Nicholas had students demonstrate the proper condom technique with a banana.

Not only that, he dimmed the classroom lights and played music to simulate an intimate situation.

This was ninth grade. I’m afraid there are some children (some whom I know personally) who would be not only grossed out and violated but downright traumatized by that sort of thing.

Oh, Lamentable Day
So hard to explain, especially after watching NASA channel just yesterday. And talking about travel through space as though it were just a train ride into the city....
May their brave souls rest in peace.

Help Me, St. Anthony
Since I 'knew' where everything was, I waited until this morning to pull together all the documents Martha needs to go to the DMV for her learners' permit. The piece of mail post marked within 90 days wasn't too hard to find; she claims she has her SS card and a signed piece of school work to prove her signature......all I need is the birth certificate. I was sure I knew where it was. Ooops.
So far I have......
*Em's birth certifcate (which I must have mistaken for Martha's at some point because they are both from Wisconsin.)
*My new State of Wisconsin certificate issued when the State Department declared my old one funky and illegible
*My funky birth certificate with my parents' signatures (pause for moment of nostalgia)
*the birth certificate of the brother of Bridget's former boyfriend. This fellow is now serving 10 years for holding up a liquor store.......twice........in the same night. I thought Bridget returned it to her old beau, but now she says, "J. doesn't need it where he is - let's not upset his family more." Why do I have it? Your guess is as good as mine. A lot of strange things turn up here.

So I'm really under the gun . I have to work all day and this is Rick's last chance to get Martha to the DMV before she starts drivers' ed. Naturally, all DMV offices are closed on Monday.
Help me, St. Anthony.......