So much love, so little Claratin

In honor of my bud, who keeps doing nice internets things for me, even though she could ignore me and there's totally nothing I could do about it, and who is suffering Death By Virginia and I feel so sorry sorry sorry for her....

I present...

The following:

Not a surprise

There’s a leaky-poo in my roofie-pie.

Crud.

Intermission

So, it's been a crazy ride around here the last couple weeks. I got that dratted assignment turned in, received a response almost immediately from the professor that she was having such significant technical difficulties with grading that she was disregarding the stated deadline and counting nothing as tardy. So: Jen -1, Academic Establishment -0
We're figuring out the trailer, slowly but surely. V like the ride, hates the helmet, and we compromise by letting it sit next to him in the trailer "just in case." If the MPs stop us I'll be like "Oh, it was on his head when we left!" Which would be a lie. Oh well. Anyway. Biking without a helmet is all fine and good, but looking at the coffee table without a helmet is not as safe:

Nothing like your baby's first Shiner to make you feel good about toddling off for the evening to Casino Night. I had a blast, won about $5000 in fake money, gave it all to the Chaplain as I left, and didn't take a single picture to show for it. Ah well. That's me, right? So after winning fake money all weekend, il mio spouseo decided that he hadn't had enough camping yet for the summer, so he headed out into the wilds for a week with the battalion. In the meantime, my family stopped in for a very short visit, bringing Benny, who is too young to be left alone in the house:

Benny likes long walks on the curtains, romantic baby food dinners, and naps in your shoe. Benny also likes when you read him books [not pictured--cat]:

Meanwhile, I work on the PAPER FROM HECK and finish all the discussion boards for the week. They're cutting off our free money program for school, too, so I registered for two semesters' worth of classes this morning. Nothing like sending the government a $3600 bill for your education. That will get me through exactly half of the required credit hours. Now, to dig up another four grand....

Free Toofs!

Two on the bottom, one on the top. Nothing like progress, eh? Also, the child is learning how to leverage himself against piece of furniture A in order to climb onto piece of furniture B. This is interesting, and amazing, and a little scary. After all, up until now I know I can leave him in the living room (only room in the house where this applies) and know that he’ll still be on the floor, and undamaged, when I get back. No longer.

Also (ugh) learned this morning that I had failed to turn in an assignment due on Sunday. This is, I realize, my own fault. I’m a big girl, and I could have written down the date for turning in the assignment. Still, you’d think that the Big Girl who is teaching the class would have the good sense to occasionally remind her [busy, working adult, professional educator] students when things are coming due. Blah. Stupid world.

Paddling the Knew

This is escapism, pure and simple. I should be sleeping, or assembling the bookshelves, or finishing the laundry, or sending out class notes, or writing, or doing one of the other dozen things that I haven’t done yet because of the total fullity (this is now a real word) of the day.

But I’m not. I’m writing a postie for the bloggie instead. When I’m done with the postie for the bloggie, I’m going to sneak into bed with my babbie and wait there until my spousie gets off the phone with his mummie, at which point we’ll all go to sleepie.

LONG freakin’ day, can’t you tell?

Toofer

Several toofers around here lately. My son (at a whopping 10.5 months old) has decided to start growing a tooth. This is exciting, primarily because the coming of the tooth was not heralded by much sadness, weeping, loss of sleep, or other unpleasantries. On the contrary—he’s been a very happy child for quite a while now. The clue came a week ago, when he began displaying a new set of skills with his tongue. Why is he doing that, we wondered, and now we know. He was playing with his new tooth. How fun.

Also, you’re getting two blog posts fer one day. Good for you.

Also, I survived my first week of [almost] all my piano students coming as scheduled. It should be a fun ride, though Wednesday and Thursday afternoons might get a little hairy. It’s great when students are sibling pairs, because the other kid just can’t be stopped from playing with V. Thusly, he is occupied happily for the whole hour. It’s the onsies that come with their mums that are a little less smooth, and when there’s several onesies and mumsies in a row, we get itchy about the edges. Oh well. I did ok, no one got up at the end and said, “Never mind, we’ll find another piano teacher.” And they all paid me, so everything must be fine. One week down, 51 to go. Well, probably less than that, because people don’t take in the summertime. Tell you what, though, I’m already looking forward to Christmas break.

“Prayer of a Soldier in France”

My shoulders ache beneath my pack, (Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).

I march with feet that burn and smart, (Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).

My rifle hand is stiff and numb, (From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).

Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me, Than all the hosts of land and sea.

So let me render back again, This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.

Off Road

Finally, at long last. We are no longer on vacation. We did some of this:

And also a little of this:

And rounded it all out watching Uncle Matt do this:

But now it is time to get back to work. I must buy things, sell things, make things, wash things, answer things, read things, write things, sort things, repair things, and otherwise realign my life. More on THAT progress later.

Oh, also, today I made the bagger at the commissary mad. I don’t recommend it.

Forgotten

I keep forgetting that I’ve got this handy post writer on my desktop—one that makes it fast and easy for me to write a post and get it on the blog. One that doesn’t require me to log on to the internet, get distracted by the internets, etc etc etc.

So there.

LOOKIT!

Look what I won! Ok, more accurately, look what my nice friend gave me because she's nice, even though I spend most of our relationship coveting her power tool skills and her garden and her ability to make it rain just by having me over to her house:

They're memory cards, yo. :) You can get your own here. These mine. You no have.

Further Insight

And then this exchange yesterday:

Sister [holding a squirmy V]: Ugh, this is exhausting! I’m not getting married until I’m thirty five!!!

Swiss Army Knife Boy: But you can’t have babies then.

Sister: Oh, yes I can! Mrs. Phillips had her last one when she was in her fifties!

Original Work

Going through the reams of information they want me to fill out in order to register V in the childcare programs on base. The good news is, once I've done it, it is done forever. The bad news is, I'm not really sure its worth the effort. Still, everyone says it is a good idea to have that backup, "just in case." I can imagine a couple just in cases, so here I am. It feels like an application to be a federal judge or something. Bureaucracy. Sigh.

Also in today's news, my brother was born today. Twenty one years ago. I am getting old.

Not much else happening. I got a 95% on my bibliography for class, which made me relax considerably. I have tons of work to do, including but not limited to reading a stack of books taller than my son, but I think I can handle. Joseph says I'm overthinking this entire class experience, that I'm doing fine, and that I need to relax. He's probably right, but the bar feels so high anyway.

Speaking of highs and lows, I'm freezing my stinkin' accessories off in the house this morning--never, never understand my complains about late afternoon heat to imply that the a/c doesn't work. It works. It works wonders. We have to wear robes and slippers and hats until about noon every day--but no amount of "it works" can compete with nature. By 2pm, its 76 degrees and counting. Thus, no altering of the thermostat to save those early morning tootsies. We suffer in silence.

Wholesale Thievery

The following is something my husband wrote in response to another blog's posting about the inaction following Vatican II (i.e. inaction that led to the extreme abuses we see today) being largely the part of the faithful, because they didn't stand up and object to what was going on. You can get the rest of the gist of the post from what's written below--the original post can't be accessed to link to or I'd have done that.

Laying any blame on the laity for a supposed inaction is dangerous.

We are sheep, and if you've ever seen a sheep, sheep are lost without a shepherd. It is not the sheep's fault it wanders off, it is a failure in vigilance on the part of the shepherd.

Look to the military, and strict code of responsbility contained therein. There is a rigor in applying responsibility for failure because our work involves killing, and being killed. I don’t know who said it, but a good quote to thrust home my point: "Let no man's ghost say, ‘if only I had been trained.’" If a Marine or soldier dies because he was not properly prepared by those he was entrusted to for training and education in his craft, then it is those trainers, and educators, those Officers and senior enlisted who bear the responsibility for their death.

The same goes for you as a priest, and every priest. While parents have a weighty responsibility in the education of their children, the liturgy is the primary tool of catechesis. Education in the faith starts and ends in the liturgical life of the Church, the veil as you refer to it in your post. Whether the Ordinary or the Extra-ordinary form of the Mass, it is meant as both a nourishment to the soul, and a lesson to the mind. If a student has a bad teacher, if a Marine or a soldier have bad officers or poor Sergeants, is it their responsibility to go outside the structure given to them to ensure their proper education to ensure what they are getting is right?

You quote Canon Law, which says: ““According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which [the Christian Faithful] possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.”

What the word “according” seems to mean here is “commensurate.” It is a high ideal to believe the majority of the Church had the knowledge and competence sufficient to even think of raising their voice. In fact, the word competence is key, I think, because it indicates a need for a certain maturity in the faith and awareness before you speak out, again which few possessed and few possess.

How many had an awareness that something was amiss, but did not have the theological or philosophical education (knowledge), or spiritual maturity (competence), or commonly respected personage (prestige) to say anything? How many did? Some, like Evelyn Waugh, and those that Henry Edwards mentions “Some of us, indeed, many of us, did not sit idly by. We did everything we could, to protest the profanation of faith and liturgy that we knew was taking place, in every way we knew that was loyal to Church and Faith and seemed to have any chance of success. We tried a variety of means of both private and public argument and persuasion.”

You say: “Whatever happened to the sensus fidei fidelium acting as a historical counter-balance to the sinfulness and ignorance of the clergy? It was gone.” I say, it was never there in the broad sweeping geist-like manner that you suggest had existed. In particular places at particular times, when the faithful had been led well by their shepherds, yes. But not in a broad-stroke across the Church.

Also, in your blog post, you criticize blind and unthinking obedience, even to false teaching. You say the “The sheep were ordered to become privates on parade, answering responses with the loud voice needed for a “sir, yes sir” and laying aside all traces of a “homey” faith.”

This example is problematic. The only time an ‘aye, sir’ is wrong is when a ‘sheep’ follows his ‘shepherd’ into a danger that the sheep recognizes as such. When the sheep doesn’t know, because he wasn’t properly taught, then the issue is the shepherd, and only the shepherd. In fact, if the Shepherd was mistaught by his shepherd, by the fact that he has taken on a flock, there exists an inherent responsibility for him to ensure he is doing the right thing. The responsibility for the shepherds job still does not rest with the flock. The responsibility of the officer or sergeant does not rest with the private.

As a priest you are not the Centurion who says to his servant “go” and the servant goes insofar as the servant is the laity, and the command has to do with something outside the realm of faith and morals. You are the Centurion when it comes to faith and morals, and the laity are those servants.

Just like a Centurion, you and every other priest often (though not always) have more to lose than the servant, but your calling is to be a servant to those servants. So like the Centurion, you sacrifice the comfort and life that your maturity and potential might have brought you, you sacrifice these things for the trenches. It seems like a paradox, being the servant of servants, it isn’t. You and the laity, all serve God, but you have an authority that allows you to serve the laity for their sake, and for their fulfilling their mission, attaining God. This is just like an Officer who serves the men serving their country. Officers are given authority not to lord it over their men, but to serve their men as their men pursue the goal.

HALLELUIA!!

STOP RIGHT THERE!

That's right, you. Stop. Head yourself over to my good-for-nothing, desert-everyone-here-in-paradise, go-back-to-NOVA buddy's blog. See her cool pictures she takes, and the cool things she makes with them. Follow her blog. Help me win her prize giveaway. I covet the deck of memory cards.

Hurry!!

And it Goes a Little Something Like This

"”Oh, don’t give him the Swiss Army knife. It is probably dirty, and he loves to put everything in his mouth right now.”

“No, it tastes fine!! I know because I put it in my mouth. I can fit a whole tennis ball in my mouth! But the knife tastes ok, except for when the cat has sat on it.”

Alive

Barely, but alive. Spent three fun weeks with my family, a week on the road, enjoyed a GREAT wedding, came home, dealt with computer crash, and am now simply awash in a sea of anti-Church sentiment on the discussion board. It was bound to come up but, good gracious, you’d think that in a discussion of rationality there would be more, well, reason. They can quote the one article we were assigned quite happily and not come up with quite the scads of information attacking Catholicism—but no, they’re delving deep into long-forgotten upbringing, the DaVinci Code, and whatever they’ve read about abuse scandals, and dumped it all down in the form of an “academic” discussion.

Blah. But I’m a week behind in posting because of the trip, I have to say something, and it had better be pretty damn good. No pressure.

3 for a dime, 2 for a nickel

I was so proud of my brother yesterday—he peacefully submitted to the sacrifice of his hard-earned summer Saturday upon the Altar of Grandparents. While I helped Nana put up 8 quarts of peaches (dear me, the amount of sugar God put into that fruit…just amazing) Mike watched V, which is no small task. The little darling wants to “walk” everywhere, all the time, but requires an adult hand to help him along. This is tiresome.

Anyhow. After all that fun was done, we headed to the other grandparents’ for a birthday party, complete with doggies, tomato harvest, and a ride in Big Daddy’s chair. Full days, man. I’m just fried at the end of every single one of them. Whew.

Parenting by Me

Once again, I have only limited communicatory abilities at my disposal, but I feel compelled to imitate a bit and give my thoughts on parenting. Thanks for the inspiration, Sheels (see, you do have a nickname!). :)

My firm and steadfast childrearing principles:

1. Never let your baby eat prescription medicine, spiders, or toothpaste. Caffeine, dirt, cow milk, and paper are ok.

2. Carry your baby until it is too dangerous to do so, because he is so strong and fast he can twist out of even the most loving grasp before you realize it. Alternatively, carry him until he is too heavy. If he really loves you, he’ll figure out a way to follow you around the house on his own.

3. Baby toys are fun because they make appealing noises when smacked against a non-toy surface, such as the table or TV. Only buy one or two, because you will always have a neighbor giving you loads of crap because she’s “done, done, done” having babies of her own. These do not need to be natural, dye-free, or hypo-anything. Your baby doesn’t care.

4. Allergies (with several obvious and deadly exceptions) are silly.

5. Trust your dentist before you trust your pediatrician. He’s probably a better parent than she is, anyhow.

6. The benefits of co-sleeping are: more sleep for mommy, more sleep for mommy, and more sleep for mommy.

Me vs. The Relativists: continued

Sorry for the long no-post. Times change, plans alter, etc etc. I'm home with family for a couple weeks, then off to The Great Wedding in Oklahoma. You never know where I'm going to turn up, eh?

So school continues to be interesting. I like the freedom of schedule that online classes afford, but I'm starting to sense a real evil embedded in the system. Namely, I have to spend soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much time reading the comments and thoughts of classmates (which may or may not be useless, some of these people are men after my own heart), that I don't have the time to read packet materials. I was told to expect 10 hours per week per class, but I had no idea that meant 9 hours reading message board nonsense, and 1 hour cramming in all these modernist articles.

Ah me. Don't expect scads of blogging for the next, oh, ten years or so.

Well, cripes.

Went to start my first assignment this afternoon, which happens to be a précis of my research intent for the class, and lo and behold.

After two peaceful, unpestered years.

The unthinkable happened.

The entire heading format, to include date and assignment title, wafted across my synapses, complete with the crinkle of vade mecum in my ears.  Gasp.  It’s happening to me!!  I’m turning back into a student!  Help!

Revisionista

So, if I am to fit in to this broad academic world I’ve put myself back in (why I did so isn’t readily coming to mind at the moment), I must toss aside a number of antiquated notions I possess.  Among them are:

1. Absolute Truth exists

2. God exists

3. Marx was an idiot

4. There is, in fact, such a thing as the “right answer”

5. Hegel was an idiot

 

It turns out, real academes are firmly of the opinion that no one can have a firm opinion about history, because no one can look at history objectively.  This much, I agree with—one cannot conduct a totally unbiased survey of the past.  However, I got no issues with deciding that the Judeo-Christian survey is the best one.  My professors would beg to differ.

Sorry 'Bout Dat

So, perhaps I shouldn't just go posting when I happen to have a spare moment and thought. Something sad and depressing might get left at the top of the blog. Here's something much happier and enjoyable to be left at the top of the blog:

Brokenhearted

So, into day four of a non-sleeping cycle with ye childing. Not sure what's precipitating all this, but it is becoming a deadly sort of awfulness.

Ugh. I hope he knows that it hurts me much more than it hurts him. :(

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

Or, as the lector at my home parish inevitably proclaimed each Sunday morning: "Saint Peters and Pauls!"

A high feast, a grand day. I remember pretty vividly the experience of the parish's 150th Anniversary celebration, complete with professional film crew documenting both the no-holds-barred Mass, as well as the following dinner at the downtown convention center. That was close to ten years ago, which shocks me silly. I'm getting so old!

Today holds no such fanfare for me. I'm off to Mass momentarily, then taking little spawn to the library to cycle through another dozen or so "Juvenile--Easy" books. Hopefully we'll meet Daddy somewhere in there, for lunch or a near approximation of it. I haven't left the house since 0930 on Sunday, and the time has simply come. Get out or else.

With Firm Purpose

So, I start classes a week from Monday, working toward a Master of Arts degree, in Military History.  Laugh if you must, snicker, giggle, guffaw.  Pick your verb.  To be honest, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure when I began the pre-preparation-process why it was I had chosen this particular type of degree, with this particular concentration.  However, a couple trials by fire have confirmed me in my purpose.  I’m going for it, I have good reason, and I wish myself well.

Also, when I finish this post I’m going to look at my options for changing the blog format a little.  I mean, this format is “me”, if you will, but perhaps it could be a little more, well, girly, and yet still be me.  Perhaps not.  We shall see.

More Webcam Fun

Please 'scuse my big old arm in the shot. You never know when some kind of dramatic happening will necessitate the ending of a recording in record-lightning-reflex time. Anyway. This is my son, enjoying the table. Really enjoying it.

Where else?

So, once a week I decide to put on makeup, usually for no good reason. I put on makeup for the days when it will rain, or on days when I'm going to be outside and getting all sweaty, or on days when V and I take three naps instead of one, so I have baggy mascara eyes by 11am.

Today is makeup day. I wasn't sure where to put the baby so I could keep an eye on him...

Happy Anniversary!

So, Spouse wanted special attention on the blog the other day, because he did something funny. I asked him if that was really the way he wanted my millions of faithful viewers to remember him, and he said yes. So, here goes.

He went to get a refill from the coffee pot (which was on the counter, where it belongs, full of hot coffee), and spent five minutes standing staring into the fridge, wonder why he couldn’t remember what it was he had gone in there to get. So, there we go. Moment of fame for my very special doofus, who has been married to me two whole years as of today, and has neither killed himself, myself, nor gone insane. Pretty impressive.

The Rant: Coda

Here’s the other thing about kids being picky.  It makes it especially hard on a child to be polite and accepting of new things when he is a guest if he has not been accustomed to accepting new things at home.  Don’t let me mislead you.  I hate turnips.  I hate hate HATE brussels sprouts.  (My computer does not know how to spell brussels.)  I strongly dislike beets, mushrooms are icky, green pepper unless carefully prepared makes everything else also taste like cooked pepper and thus icky, rye and pumpernickel bread and yuck, banana pudding tastes like, well, banana, but waaaaay too much of it.  Also I dislike sauerkraut.

There are foods I do not like.  There are foods I do not run around preparing and force-feeding to myself and my family just because “it’s good for them!”

But I also know for a fact that I disliked tomatoes, asparagus, shrimp, fish in any form, green beans, lima beans, tomato soup, sweet potatoes, and a host of other items.  I hated them then, I was made to eat them then, and now they are things that I like very much.  I really like them, I really eat them.  No forcing or unpleasantness involved.  However, if I had not been given them repeatedly, in various incarnations (my mother is not cruel, nor stupid) until one was found that we all thought more palatable than others, I would not want them now under any form.

For example.  My mother never tried to talk us into eating liver.  She never tried, we never tried, and if you tried to give me liver today I would spit it out on your Pier 1 plate and say, “Ugh!!  It’s disgusting! I can’t stand it!”

Zee Pampered Chef

I’m debating with myself.

Host a show.  Not host a show.  Host a show.

Do I really want to get in to this?  My friend has just started as a consultant, she does such a good job, I want to help her, I want discounted and free products.  But I hate inviting people to things.  It’s like, not my favorite thing.

Besides, my house/kitchen are set up very poorly for a cooking show.  Can one “host” a show at the consultant’s house and still be not tacky?  Probably not.

Maybe there is a show that doesn’t require the oven, or sink, or countertop.  Maybe they have a living room show.  The Pampered Couch.  The Pampered Remote.  There we go.

Nice Ascot

So, Toy Story 3 was pretty good.  Not the smash comeback that Toy Story 2 proved to be, but this final installation was in no way a disappointment.  The now-standard “go back and remember the child that once loved you” scene was gut wrenching, and I cried at one part near the end (nothing like I did with “Up!” though, geez…I bawled for like half the movie then) but all-in-all it was great.

Ken and Barbie.  HA!  Too funny.  The vintage (and 80s-90s, do those count as vintage?) toys that make appearances all through the film are really fun, too.  You really feel like the whole thing was just a waltz down memory lane for the animators.

Speaking of waltzing, my in-laws called me from inside “It’s A Small World After All” yesterday, to give me a thrill.  My father-in-law wants a t-shirt that says “I’ve been on It’s A Small World.  You can shoot me now.”

Finally, A Rant

Often, I think of something I want to post on, but Sheila beats me to it, or else she posts something different yet similar enough to dissuade me from my original idea.  This is, most likely, a service she is purposely rendering to humanity, and I accept.  Thank you, dear.  However, I’m really feeling derailed over her recent post on children and discipline, because that’s about all I’ve got in my head these last few days.

I shall take a little portion of the subject and whine until the baby gets tired of the cracker he is eating, at which point I will publish this post abruptly and without proofreading.  Sometime later, maybe tomorrow, I’ll come back to read it over and I’ll say, “Well, cuss.  That really doesn’t make any sense at all, and it certainly doesn’t say what I meant.”

And now, the rant.

WHY ARE KIDS TODAY ALLOWED TO BE SO EVER-LOVING PICKY???

I think that pretty much sums it up.  I realize that I, myself, me, personally, was brought up in the style of a slightly older generation.  Everyone, for example, that is my parent’s age grew up sitting at the table for several hours after mealtime (how come it was always the evening meal?) starting at a plate of cold-growing somethingorother and just knowing deep in their soul that “it” could never be stomached.  Everyone in the generation previous to that probably did so as well, and they were doing it in an age when sugar, butter, and meat were rationed.  My grandmother still thinks we are in that age.

I am, alas, too young for such things, but my parents were backward and uninformed and so raised us to clean the plate or else.  I have no problems with that method (I have not, in fact, since I was about 12) now, and I’m happy to report that I have never been to a home, a function, a party, a rave, or any other meal-type occasion away from my own kitchen where I refused food because I didn’t like it.  I like everything.  (Except Brussels sprouts, which are icky, but I would eat them with aplomb were they served to me in public.  But no one in public is dumb enough to serve clearly icky food.)  This paragraph reflects also the rearing of my non-blogging Local Friend Who Has Moved Away To Someplace Nice And Left Me Here.

Such was not the experience of many my age (including my husband), nor is it the experience of anyone I’ve been meeting lately who is under the age of eighteen.  I am not amused by a young someone being served food at my table and reflecting after the first bite, “Hmmm…not a total thumbs down, but I’m still really not liking it at all.”  I mean, yes, that’s hysterical, and honesty is a great virtue.  But that’s not nice.  It wouldn’t be nice for this same ten-year-old to say to me, “Hey, you’re pretty fat from having a baby, aren’t you?  Because I can see how your stomach is hanging over the top of your pants!”  That would be honest, but that would not be nice.  It would be rude.  In my old-fashioned and backward mind, it is also rude to make honest observations about one’s EXTREMELY NARROW food preferences in front of the person who is voluntarily sharing her time, her space, and her grocery budget with you—tell everyone about it on the ride home, kiddo.

Is this wrong of me?  Most of the people in my extended family think so.  My backward and old-fashioned mother agrees with me, of course, but she is backward and old-fashioned about this, remember, so she’s probably not a good backer as far as political clout is concerned.  I feel immensely justified in this miffedness.  Once before, the comment (from a considerably older child with equally narrow food preferences) was, “Ugh! It’s disgusting! I can’t stand it!!” and he spit out what had been in his mouth onto a plate.

In my house.  At my table.

Hell no.  (As St. Paul would say.)

That’s not cool, people.  I don’t like it.  It is rude.  When you are a guest, you are a guest and that’s final.  Whatever liberties you take at home might be liberties you take at home, but I have no use for such behavior from visitors.  Biblically, one would have given up one’s own bed, the best of the food, etc etc etc (Lot tried to give people his own daughters to save a guest from getting, well, rudely compromised, but that was going a bit far).  The guest is the greatest of blessings a house can receive, and guests who are mindful of that status should reflect their awareness by graciously accepting any proferred hospitality, or finding away to politely turn down a particular dish.  Coming into the kitchen, requesting a menu, then saying, “Oh, well, I’ll eat just the bread and salad.  I can’t stand lasagna!” isn’t really what I meant.

And for the record, the thumbs down was for macaroni and cheese.

Trouble Brewing

I was so excited and happy last week—at the prompting of my dear mommy, I finally went out and got a yard stand for my wind chimes.  We also got a couple bird feeders and a stand for them.

The trouble arises from the fact that, in addition to the natural fauna around this place, there is a decent-sized community of Base Cats.  The Base Cats are feral, numerous, and one of them has had babies in the woods behind my house.

And she wants the birds on the feeder…so bad.

But why?

Not sure why my spam commenters always have some sort of bizarre semi-platitude to post.  What happened to “Plz can u send me $50000 for my sistr can com here 2 the uniteds state?”

“Charisma without Competence leads but to the Grave”

Someone very wise said that to me.  I thought it was funny.

So, today is a busy and chore-filled day for me, at least until lunchtime.  Then the Great Family Influx begins sometime in the late afternoon.  We’ll have ten extra people hanging around by dinner.

Let the games begin.

Experiment

Just now, after what, three days?  Just not exploring more of the installed features on my new computer.  It seems that LiveMail (the new outlook express) won’t talk to free online mail services, so my dreams of consolidating all four (!) of my email addresses into a single host program are not to be realized.

However, as a consolation, the tool I’m using right now is a blog-writer-editor-thing that is (a) always signed in, and (b) runs straight off of my desktop instead of in the web browser.

Let’s take off our jacket and loafers, and put on our cardigan and slippers, and see if it works, shall we?

Stuck!

When my mom opened my front door yesterday afternoon, this silly little guy was hanging from the outside screen for dear life. We're not sure why, because no portion of his feet or beak was really "stuck" in the traditional sense, but he sure as heck thought he was one with the screen. There aren't, alas, any pictures of him before mom and I pried him loose. He flopped around for a little while, until his teeny tiny little, well, bird brain kicked in and he flew off.

Christmas

So, it has been a big week for the postal service and my household. I've been holding off blogging, even though myriad interesting and bizarre occurrences have occurred, because I was waiting for something.

My birthday present.

My precious.

The little laptop that Spouse promised I could get.

I ordered it late Saturday night, and the days just d-r-a-g-g-e-d on between then and this morning. This beautiful, sunny, muggy, perfect morning when the hunky and debonair (ok, not really, in fact the guy didn't even say hello and was kind of a twit and a little dumpy looking. love is blind.) FedEx man brought me a big brown box that had shipped from New Jersey. And in that box, that the green grass grew all around all around, was my laptop. And I liketh it so muchly.

Also this week, the baby's little wooden rosary came, and the netflix movie, and the baby's replacement doll-toy-thing because I lost the one he was given by his grandmother. The only thing Mr. Postman owes me now is the $50 Target card that I expected to have come a week ago. So there you have it.

I'm blogging from my own hardware again! Yay!

Tech Update

I discovered yesterday that V loves being carried around on my arm while I'm crawling--something like the Mommy Gorilla version of babywearing. I have christened this the (go figure) "Mommy Gorilla" and so far the novelty hasn't worn off for either of us. I will tell you, though, that the size ratio of real mommy gorilla-to-baby gorilla is not quite the same as mine-to-V. V will outgrow the Mommy Gorilla soonly.

Anyway. Mommy Gorilla fell asleep yesterday afternoon with the phone in her hand (not unusual), and her hand under her body (not unusual) and when she woke up, the cell phone did not (unusual). Sooo, Mommy Gorilla took the phone to the Verizon guy, who said, "Yep, it'll never wake up again." An hour (!) later, Mommy Gorilla had stolen Daddy's upgrade date (an interesting Verizon perk on family plans) and had herself a new phone with all the data from her old phone restored...except, alas Horatio, the Bejewelled Twist game. It could not be salvaged. My all-time score had to be well above 4,000,000,000. My level achieved was sixty-something, or Twistmaster Omega. I was rockin' that sucker, man.

Probably not a bad thing that I lost the game when the phone died. And there you have it. Awesomest feature discovered so far on the phone--the charging cable is simple a USB, which plugs into a USB port on an AC wall plug when you want to use it for actual charging. Otherwise, the phone speaketh freely to the computadora. Hurrah!

Left, or Something Like It

So, now I'm genuinely stumped with a couple of my students. Both of them, to one degree or another, are starting to have serious problems telling their right hand from their left. The first one I'm not as worried about, because he doesn't do it when he's relaxed. It seems like he gets stressed and defaults to playing with the right hand (or, if I ask him to move his left hand, he almost always moves his right hand). Not a huge worry.

This other one, though, the girl. So strange.

She will transpose a line of music (to the correct set of notes! this is what blows my teeny little mind!) from the left hand to the right hand, or from bass to treble clef if you prefer, and back without batting an eyelash. I cannot for the life or me figure out where this habit comes from. It is because they are used to using just one hand at a time for the duration of a piece? Am I making them that nervous?

Granted, she is coming to me from a couple of years' experience playing the clarinet (nothing else before that) so the concept of reading one line at a time is throwing her for a loop. Perhaps running back to a "single line" mentality is begetting this hand switching. The one-line thing is funny, too, by the way. Today she kept pausing in the oddest fashion, in strange places, and I finally stopped her and I'm like "Child, why are you stopping?" And she said, "I'm counting the rests!"

Sure enough, every time she got to the end of a line [in the treble clef] she went back to count out all the bass clef rests that had been going on during the right hand melody, as if each individual line of the grand staff were to be read like single-line band music.

I'm figuring it out. One half of my brain at a time.

Momicure

Nothing like cutting your finger [and toe--yuk!!] nails over a trash bag in the front seat of a car while heading down the interstate. There just wasn't time to do it before. I was busy cutting other people's nails.

Spent a fun, packed weekend up in the Deep North, after declaring at noon on Friday, "Quick, let's go before I change my mind." Too much there to blog at the moment.

Am annoyed that the traffic feed does not allow me to adjust settings to ignore my own IP. This is irritating, as it shows every time I visit my own blog, which would be just about every time I open my browser window, as the blog happens to be my homepage. If I can't figure out how to recify that problem, I'm going to delete the fun traffic feed because the issues are just, well, annoying.

Also, I cannot believe it is June. I mean, wowie zowie. Last year at this time I was back in Tennessee, I think, for a little while before I came home to spend a couple weeks with my sister. I only stayed a week, as I recall, before Joeba called and demanded that I return to Fort Sill (which I did, posthaste). We were here long enough to go for a couple bike rides, and for me to visit the doctor, but that was pretty much it.

So, my buddy Betsy (sniff sniff - I miss you already!) tagged me for this extremely prestigious award, and let me know, and yesterday afternoon was the first time that the post in question (i.e. the one explaining what the tagging referred to) has appeared to me when I visit her blog. Soooo, not sure what's up with the time delay and me and Betsy's blog, but oh well. At worst, it makes me look like a procrastinating doofus. Which would not be a crime, nor would it be particularly misleading.

Anyway. Here's what happens as a result of my getting the Circle of Friends Award:

1st of all, thank the dear award giver, no "speech" required. My no speech goes like this: "THANK YOU! I'm SOOOO honored!"

And then, since this is all about spreading the love, I've got three objectives.

1) Save the image above so you can upload it on your own blog without direct linking.

2) List 5 things you absolutely love to do

3) List 5 friendly bloggers, and comment on their blogs to let them know they've received an award!

Thus, I begin:

1. I love to hang out with my husband. This goes without saying, I hope, but it's so true. This is a guy that "gets" me, gets the jokes, makes the jokes, goes along with the jokes, and is absofreakingHILARIOUS when he doesn't get the jokes. I'm all like running around laughing hysterically and he either (a) gets a sweet look on his face like "Aww, look at my child bride outperforming her ritalin" or (b) gets mad and goes internal because he doesn't like to be laughed at. I'd say the reaction pool is split 50/50. We travel, we chill out, we fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, we text each other while both in the house, and so on. We also enjoy much more meaningful and serious things, but those are the bloggish things.

2. I love to have people over, especially my family (meaning, my biological family, his biological family, people I've known so long they seem like family). For one thing, I don't feel bad about greeting my brother at the door and saying "Hey! Come help me move this big heavy thing!" We grew up as a team, all working together and knowing who has what job and how to be efficient and stuff, and whenever some of my original family comes over, it's like getting back on the court or something. I am slowly assimilating Joe's brothers into my team...

3. I love to make music, in pretty much any fashion. This used to be the defining "thing" about me. Now it's still very important, but I'll be honest (and sad) and admit that less musicness goes on now than used to. I'm getting back into the swing, though.

4. I love to travel. 'Nuff said.

5. I love to make stuff. Unfortunately for me and the closet in the spare room, this love is not accompanied by a love of finishing projects that I start. Draw your own conclusions, but you can imagine, I guess. Quilling, sewing, stamping, knitting, drawing, origami, stitching, papercutting, sculpting, painting, jewelry making, and scrapbooking have all at one point or another been "the thing." I go back to all of the above from time to time, but the clutter police would "poop rainbows" (must whisper, because the guy I like to hang out with hates phrases like that) if they saw that closet.

Ok, and now my bloggers, in no particular order:

1. Sheila - Yet another one of those fun people who are with it enough to post photos and step-by-steps of food making projects. I don't know how you do it, people. I just don't. Also, Sheila is the faithful friend to whom I can go running and say, "Help! I have a bachelor's degree in English, but I don't remember how to spell weird! How do you spell it? And Which is the "its" I want to use, is it "its" or "it's"? Aaaack!" And Sheila will tell me the answer.

2. Conquistadora - Newly minted military wife and B-R-A-V-E soul, poor Coriel seems to get the short end of every stick they've served up since she joined the club. I think this is the "rough patch" at the beginning, when you're still trying to change your name and your address and everything else the government wants to meddle with. I like to read her blog, because she describes things so, well, right. And I've been there, for some of these things...

3. Meredith almost makes me feel, well, backward in a way, because she's do darn SMART. She speaks like about five languages and translates freely between/among them all the time. Also, she understands all that crap that I was supposed to have learned in college about poetry and poetics. Sigh. Reading her blog makes me happy, because I can just hear her voice saying the stuff, especially reading the poetry. I wish all these people weren't in California...

4. Seraphic is not a "friend" in the I've-met-her-before-and-we-be-chillin' kind of way, but her blogs are really fun. The original is mostly informative, based I think out of her book and its following. The blog about her married life is (typically) quite funny. I do just giggle out loud at it sometimes, eh wot?

5. Finally, I'm cheating on the last one, and giving love to my past at the old Quid Hoc Est? This was the blog my two roommates and I, and Joe and his two roommates (yes, all six of us) started during our first semester at college. We've gone many ways since this blog (two of us are now married to another two of us, too) but I like going back to the earliest of earlies and reading from time to time. They are the dearest of friends, are memories.

:)

The Briefest Possible Outline of My Day

Wake; drink juice; check news; retrieve now awake child; put cat food back on floor for starving pet; change child; shower; dress; change child again; load car; forget books; go back for books; awful base traffic; Morning Colors; awful base traffic; promotion ceremony; DEERS; feed baby; rain; lawn & garden center; "How can you not have hammers in a tool department?"; main exchange; realize forgot cookies; missed phone call; feed baby; rush from main exchange; terrible base traffic; stuck behind a 7-ton; Combat Engineers School Officer's Course Graduation Ceremony; rain; lunch; feed baby; education center; back to house; rain; change baby; change baby again immediately; start laundry; return phone calls; teach 1 lesson; baby bust gums on coffee table; cancel second lesson; blood; crying; less blood; change baby; feed baby; leave soundly sleeping baby in his bed; frog in house; out of trash bags; reschedule lesson; wait for dishwasher to finish.

And yes, writing a blog post just seemed like the thing to do at this juncture. Thank you very much.

I'm on a roll!

Three days in a row with a post! Don't get used to it. I got approved for financial aid for my master's program, so that will hopefully be starting in the fall or late summer, and I added three new students last week. However, comma, I am re-quitting Facebook at the end of the month, so maybe that will keep me on here a little more. Whatev.

I'm posting this morning because I figured it would be good to go over, again, why exactly it is that I (a female, married, straight mother) have a masculine online entity name thing. It helps a little to note that when I created my id ye long time ago, most of the people that I hung around were complete and total music nerds of the first order--the clientele has changed in the last couple years, though, and I find that fewer and fewer of my friends will catch allusions made to Beethoven's one opera. So, if you "got it" the first time and don't need to know, then pray read no further. If you didn't "get it," well here you go:

Fidelio

Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

ACT I. Spain, eighteenth century. In a prison, Marzelline, daughter of the jailer, Rocco, rejects the attentions of her father's assistant, Jacquino, who hopes to marry her. Her heart is set instead on the new errand boy, Fidelio. The latter, a hardworking lad, arrives with provisions and dispatches and is distressed by Marzelline's interest in him, especially since it has the blessing of Rocco. Fidelio is in fact Leonore, a noblewoman of Seville who has come to the jail disguised as a boy to find her husband, Florestan, a political prisoner languishing somewhere in chains. When Rocco mentions a man lying near death in the vaults below, Leonore, suspecting it might be Florestan, begs Rocco to ; ha take her on his rounds. He agrees, though the governor of the prison, Don Pizarro, allows only Rocco in the lower levels of the dungeon.

As soldiers assemble in the courtyard, Pizarro learns from the dispatches brought to him that Don Fernando, minister of state, is on his way to inspect the fortress. At this news the governor resolves to kill Florestan, his enemy, without delay and orders Rocco to dig a grave for the victim in the dungeon. Leonore, overhearing his plan, realizes Pizarro's evil nature and the plight of his victim. After praying for strength to save her husband and keep up hope, she again begs Rocco to let her accompany him to the condemned man's cell - and also to allow the other prisoners a few moments of air in the courtyard. The gasping men relish their glimpse of freedom but are ordered back by Pizarro, who hurries Rocco off to dig Florestan's grave. With apprehension, Leonore follows him into the dungeon.

ACT II. In one of the lowest cells of the prison, Florestan dreams he sees Leonore arrive to free him. But his vision turns to despair, and he sinks down exhausted. Rocco and Leonore arrive and begin digging the grave. Florestan awakens, not recognizing his wife, and Leonore almost loses her composure at the familiar sound of his voice. Florestan moves the jailer to offer him a drink, and Leonore gives him a bit of bread, urging him not to lose faith. Rocco then blows on his whistle to signal Pizarro that all is ready. The governor advances with dagger drawn to strike, but Leonore stops him with a pistol. At this moment a trumpet sounds from the battlements: Don Fernando has arrived. Rocco leads Pizarro out to meet him as Leonore and Florestan rejoice in each other's arms.

In the prison courtyard, Don Fernando proclaims justice for all. He is amazed when Rocco brings his friend Florestan before him and relates the details of Leonore's heroism. Pizarro is arrested, and Leonore herself removes Florestan's chains. The other prisoners too are freed, and the crowd hails Leonore. (taken wholesale and without permission from the Met)

Recycled

Not only do I steal other people's ideas, I steal the ideas of even other people from some third party's blog. Thus, I present: a book review from a failed blog that I'm euthanizing today.

Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives

David Gettman
1987, St. Martin's Press

Essentially, the book is everything that the average seller summary claims: a summary of the Montessori Method in it's most basic and easy-to-understand form. I've always liked Montessori, since her philosophy about life is compatible with my own. She was Roman Catholic, and few of the bizarre ideas which modern philosophy and psychology have brought to the educational table are found in her work. Besides all that, it works. I know Montessori kids.

Gettman takes his own personal experience and study with the method and creates a two part book. The beginning is simply an overview of Montessori theory itself. He details the life and studies Maria Montessori completed, and takes her findings as the basis for a "worldview" on early childhood education. Everything about Montessori is, essentially, about holistic something--learning, teaching, thinking, developing--and Gettman is a sincere and devoted subscriber to those ideals and theories.

The second half of the book is divided among the five Montessori learning modules, with each section containing a good sampling of traditional Montessori "work", along with Gettman's very helpful instructions on how to carry out each learning project. I appreciated, more than anything else, his enthusiasm about the method. One often encounters Montessori teachers who are extremely stuffy about the method, and who would never dream of suggesting that anyone but a fully qualified instructor should even attempt to impart Montessori lessons to a child. Gettman has no such delusions of grandeur, but rather strives to convey to the reader that they, too, can give their child or children a valuable exposure to Maria Montessori's carefully-crafted educational system. Speaking from the homeschooling "dark ages" of the 1980s, to hear his voice telling parents to take the reins into their own hands is a surprising thing.

Best part: detailed instructions on creating Montessori materials, environment, and on how to carry out a wide variety of the "classic" Montessori activities

My take away: Helping a child develop is a full-time job, but not one that requires your mouth to be moving or your hands to be interfering. The time that a child spends simply imitating your initial, careful, precise behavior is the time you don't realize he's benefiting from.

Funny thought: Reading this book and seeing how a poor demonstration of technique leads to bad technique in a child, it's no wonder that today's children are unable to properly use the English language. The only time they [might] hear it spoken with precision is in the classroom, meanwhile they've already spend four or five years of their life immersed in an environment of dropped consonants and twangy vowels.

In Real Time

I took this photo, literally, a minute ago. The webcam is an awesome and powerful entity. My child is part Mynock (google it, people--it's a Star Wars thing) and so the kitchen benches are now playing defense for the University of Keep the Baby Out of the Power Cords. I'm behind the line and he wants to come over here. I do not comply with the repeated grunts of request, and so he stays mad at me. However, since the strong association of Gramma comes with the sight of the webcam, I got a huge smile from him when I pulled it out, even though the standard face from beyond the defensive line is, well, "pissed," to use a local expression.

Forgot to mention yesterday that I "discovered" (Thank you, Michael!! I love you, man!) Grooveshark on Friday. Oooooooh lah . I love it. You should discover it, too.

Duty

Again. So, no spouse at home means an extra day all to myself. Yuk.

We went to the airshow yesterday, all of us with my dad and my brother. It was pretty good fun, despite my brining home a souvenier pair of very sunburnt calves and us walking nearly three [needless] miles to find the car because I took us into the wrong parking lot. The shows were good, my little boy was very brave and didn't mind any of the loudest noises, though the effect of prop-driven aircraft doing performance maneuvers was not his cup of tea. Very hot, very sunny, very much the stuff of my memories growing up. :) During the Blue Angels show, part of the announcer's bit is detailing what aircraft the team has flown over the years--this is their 24th season flying the F-18, which is the longest they've flown any single aircraft since they began in the 1940s.

My dad turned to me and said, "Wow! Jen, we took you to one of the first shows during their first season flying the F-18. It was such a big deal!" Terriffic. I'm like, about 85 in airplane years.

Also this weekend, I'm broadcasting from my "home base" once again. Dad brought his bag of tricks and nuked the hard drive on the desktop ("my" computer), brought it back to life, and has it all functioning again. It's nice to have my electronic space back, though I won't keep it for much longer, I don't think. Despite being new and clean, I think I want something smaller, with fewer cords for my baby to go after.

Child is awake. Goodbye.

Listening to Musak

Have I whined on here about how all I ever do is wait for stuff? ALL I ever do is wait for stuff. (Right now, for example, I'm waiting for a student to come.)

Waiting for financial aid to call me back, waiting for it to be a mealtime so I can eat (sooo darn hungry, all the time), waiting for it to be tomorrow so my spouse will be here, waiting for after 1700 so I can call my dad and see if he's coming this weekend, waiting until I feel like it so I can start practicing Mass music, waiting to register for class, waiting for the baby to talk, waiting for a payraise, waiting for the water to boil, waiting for this duty station to be over, waiting for the deployment to begin, waiting for the deployment to end. And so on. (Obviously my priorities are not in order. Never mind that.) It's like I'm on hold or something. Listening to elevator music, which isn't particularly good but it's better than nothing at all.

I'd like to be doing something, other than sitting at the computer and trying to see through the [very stubborn] cat's [opaque] body. I'd like to be doing many things, but I don't feel like doing any of them. The only stuff I'm motivated to do, I can't do yet because I have to wait. Something tells me that this is my problem, and not the space-time continuum's problem. But there you have it.

I'm waiting for the school year to end so I can add these four new students and shift the afternoon schedule earlier in the day so I don't have to be teaching at 5pm. I'm waiting for a Netflix movie. I'm waiting for tomorrow's mail to see if my gift card is in it. I'm waiting till I save up my own money to buy a notebook because I swore the only way I'd do it (because I really don't need it) was if I saved my own monies and didn't use "the family" monies.

Dude. I got issues, and having the cat's behind in my face while typing is definitely not the most significant of the bunch...it's just the one that's getting me off here at the moment. If she wasn't so cute, I'd yell and she'd leave for good, but a purring and happy little kitten who wants to give you head butts and loveys is a hard animal to yell at.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

Well, he learned to crawl on Friday night, with Uncle B and Aunt M's help. They were both (posh, sophisticated NYCers that they are) down on their hands and knees bribing him with a DVD and elaborately demonstrating proper crawl technique.

It worked. Nothing in my house is safe, including me.

We've reached that interesting stage, too, where my baby is old enough that people are now giving me advice not just on how to care for him (much wanted and needed) but also how to raise him (also possibly needed but not wanted quite so much). My poor grandmothers, bless the dears, would be appalled at some of the hippie methods I have adopted in the raising department--so I don't spend a lot of time telling them that the baby sleeps in my bed. As does the cat, sometimes. And I let my baby "walk" if he wants to, even though they say it will give him bowed legs. Oh well.

Aside from the wee babby, not much going on this week. I was supposed to go up to VA and be present as someone's Confirmation sponsor, but I've been unable for a week to shake this really unpleasant and foreboding feeling about making the trip. This is unlike me. It isn't really that far, there are all these reasons to go, etc etc etc. But I don't feel peaceful about it. The family told me under no circumstances to feel obligated to make the trip if I was uncomfortable. I think I've decided pretty much not to go, but I have until tomorrow lunch to make a final decision. Never been so wishy-washy about things like this before. Heck, I traveled 18,000 miles last summer.

Still, never disobey the icky stomach feeling. It could save your life.

First Friday

Hmm. Lots of things going on this week and last week. Besides poor Snug, I had Joseph down with strep throat, and V down with extreme post-vaccination crankiness. This week, my mom and sister had a very close call with a kitchen fire, so there's been all the long-distance participation in the aftermath of that. Cleaning of curtains, cleaning of dishes, solemn burial of stove and coffeepot, and of course much email of pictures so I can really get the full experience. They've been pretty brave about it all...not fun to come upstairs and find that, rather than minding its own business, the handle of the teakettle decided to melt itself into a stupor, touch the burner, and go all roman candle on everybody.
This week, less of interest. The piano student scene underwent some dramatic shiftage, which ended me with an almost identical schedule but two students PCSed and two new ones on the roster. Interesting. I double booked two of them, though, for next week so I have to make a phone call. Which I am putting off. I am not a good businesswoman.

Also this week, the "sinful side" of my baby, which Fr. Logan assured me at Easter would come out much sooner than I expected, is showing itself. Mr. Baby now knows that he can resist things being taken away, that he can cry or scream if I give him something he doesn't want (as an exchange for the dangerous/dirty/otherwise inappropriate item I took away), he can throw things, and that he generally can have an influence on his surrounding. It does not bode well for the coming 16 years or so. I'm already worn out and I opened the last can of Patience this morning.

But then, occasionally, he sleeps.

Mr. Snug

(Why yes, now that you've asked, my last post does read rather harsh and callous now. But hindsight is always 20/20.)

It turns out that poor Mr. Snug was not ill from drinking toilet water. We don't know what really was wrong. But whatever it was, it was so wrong that he did not come home with me from the vet's this morning. Monday he was strange, yesterday he was downright ill. He was a suffering, dying cat this morning when I took him in. His body temperature was so low that the thermometer wouldn't give a reading--given the option to spend much time and money running tests, I chose to agree with nature that, in fact, Snug was all done being a kitty. Not a difficult decision, which surprised me. I just decided, and was at peace. Still, it's not nice to come home and realize he's not going to be sleeping in the tub any more, or eating my plants, or making water spots on the couch from licking it.

I miss my buddy.

Shocked

I had no idea that two days could make me so tired. Just two days! Haven't been this tired since the weekend that I spent in labor.

This won't be a particularly nice post, or a cohesive post, or really anything worth existing at all. But I can't go to bed until the dryer finishes, and there's nothing really interesting happening on the internet right now. Well, ok. That isn't a true statement, probably, but nothing interesting is happening on the bits of internet I keep refreshing. (This perhaps, is something akin to reading just the 1st and 28th pages of David Copperfield and expecting the love scene to just APPEAR on them if you read long enough. But oh well.) SO I'm waiting on the dryer, Joe and V are sleeping.

We had three of the nephew/niece crowd come down for the weekend. It was a blast. We saw the Silent Drill Platoon perform, went out for pizza, Joe took them to fireworks, I stayed up for an hour with one last night while he was "sick" in the bathroom, I stayed up for another two hours waiting for either (a) the first one to decide he was so sick he wanted to be returned to his parents, who are three hours away, or (b) a second one got sick. Neither happened. In fact, he felt so much better that he had two bowls of cereal and a glass of milk for breakfast today. Nothin' wrong with that boy. We also went to Mass, went to the beach, played Scrabble and Cranium, and had pizza again.

Maybe it's the not sleeping between 0230 and 0545 this morning. Maybe it's that Friday night was spent frantically running through a horrible dream in which I lost my baby in a shopping mall. Maybe it's that God designed us to gradually build our families up from one to four. Maybe it's that the week included all of my piano students on schedule for the first time in a month. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the return of last spring's demonic allergy thing where I have a wheezy throat and unstoppable cough. I don't know.

But I've never been so tired in my life.

I take them back to their parental units tomorrow morning. Throwing up notwithstanding, it really was a lot of fun! (Oh, and the cat threw up because he'd been drinking out of the toilet, and I'm like feeding the baby and the rest of everyone is all out there going "Jen! Jen! Aunt Jen! Jennifer!" and so I come out in the hall and all three kids--and Joe--are standing over this teeny little cat barf like it's a dead animal. So I say, "Oh, it's fine. I'll get it. Relax. Move on, citizens!" and most of them do. But my niece is standing halfway in the bedroom doorway, a little in the shadow, like someone should keep vigil with the body or something. Sigh. I'm thinking, Ok. It's a puddle of cat spit that, yes, is a remarkable yellow color but I'm pretty sure I told everyone you needed to be putting the seat down every time, and flushing, and there's also a piece of grass in the puddle. He's a cat. He barfs all the time, and he eats grass like it's his job. Maybe this will teach him to drink from the commode. Go to bed.)

Five more minutes on the dryer.

TwoFootOnion

Interestingly enough, the worst part of New York City was the condition of the roads. Then again, they probably weren't designed for you to be going more that 5-6mph on them. On Sunday mornings when the traffic isn't awake yet, though, one gets up to 35. Then slows abruptly because the roads are so bad. Oh well.

I left with a little milk-drinking baby, and came home with one that wants to eat everything he can get his hands on. The grandmas are telling me "don't add too many new foods at once!" Perhaps I did, but then he developed such a strong preference for sweet potato, that I kinda laid off everything else. So hopefully there's no irreperable damage to my small childing. This makes his nutritive development simultaneously more and less simple. On the plus side, others can feed him. On the negative side, he can (and does) decide not to eat. I'm also discovering the monster I've created in letting him nurse to sleep. Oops. Oh well. It makes me happy, and the first one's always a trial run anyhow, right?

Also, when I went back to the commissary yesterday to retrieve the bag that the bagger had failed to put in my cart, I did not realize that the other thing she had left out was the expensive baby juice--a purchase which I felt was ill-advised and silly, but had made anyhow because I thought "just once" wouldn't hurt. This makes me, for some reason, SOOOOOOO ANGRY that I can't stand it. I'm really, really upset. I was less upset over the milk, butter, cream cheese, sausage, and cinnamon rolls. But it was a whole day ago, and I can't really go back now.

Return to the Dark Side

Yes, I got back on Facebook. (1) To check up on babies and marryings. (2) Because my husband kept yelling at me for using his account to stalk people. If I "unfriended" you at my return (which I did to over 200 friends) please don't be hurt. I was trying to take off people that I don't ever, ever, ever talk to you. If you were purged, just refriend me. I won't ignore you. I promise. I probably didn't mean to unfriend you in the firse place. Please forgive me!!!

Ahem.

Happy Easter and such. I've got family visiting this week, then we're off on a Griswold journey to NYC (ugh) and other points north the following week. After I get back, hopefully I'll have a few moments to detail the finer points of liturgical minor-disaster that befell the poor chaplains this weekend. Like I always say, never leave the choir unattended.

Guns 'n' Roses

So, it's been getting a little busier around here lately, with the advent of piano students. I built it, they came, and now there's four little munchkins in and out of the house every week. Two of them I like a whole lot, and the other two are going to be a challenge. It's tough to be seven and eight years old, and it's tough to concentrate on anything after a long day at school, and it is really tough to not be bored by your piano teacher when your brother is sitting on the couch across the room playing with your Nintendo DS.

Oh, and their favorite band is Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's going to be a great ride.

God's Call

My mom wrote the following for a talk she's giving to the Ladies' Group at home. I liked it, and wanted to share. (Some bits are taken out that mention some people by their full name.)

-----

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about my experiences as the mother of a seminarian. Sharing this experience with you is a honor that I accept humbly.

When Michael was considering his decision to discern God's call at seminary, I was given a First Class Relic of St. John Vianney, the patron of parish priests. I have brought the relic with me today. I pray that St. John Vianney will lead my words, and through them, bless all the seminarians and priests of our diocese.

Michael has always shown an interest in the priesthood, - always attentive to serving Our Lord and the Church. Never did he miss an opportunity to serve on the altar. From his childhood, Michael's heart was set on becoming a military pilot and then a military chaplain; his world and his education evolved around that goal. Hence, I worked to help him achieve his goal.

Upon high school graduation Michael received a full Naval ROTC scholarship to Auburn University; was selected as an alternate candidate to the United States Coast Guard Academy; and he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. It all seemed too much to hope for, for me especially. I had homeschooled Michael for 12 years and to receive such honors was an incredible achievement.

Days before the Naval Academy appointment letter had to be accepted, Michael grew more and more anxious about his decision. We were on the phone a great deal with the Chaplain at the Academy. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, who we know through the Military archdiocese, even called Michael personally to help ease his mind. Finally after a few emotional discussions with me, my husband was in Iraq at the time, Michael decided to request a meeting with our local Bishop. He came out of their meeting at peace. He had decided to act on God's invitation first. However, declining the appointment was one of the hardest things either of us had ever done. It has meant sacrifices for Michael, as well as for our family. Yet, we willingly accept them and support Michael's decision. I knew that God was calling him to serve, I did not expect that path to be at college seminary.

Now, he is in his 3rd out of 8 years of education and formation, yet already our family is a part of the Catholic community in a new way. We are having to learn to be patient and learn to let go in a new way, different from seeing a son go to regular college, yet it is a joy to see Michael in action serving God. - It is a humbling feeling to iron your son's clerical collars and cassocks. Getting those collars white after he has been wearing them for half a semester can be tricky! He is still the same Michael, yet there is something different about him. In a sense, it is like he is in a long engagement to a distant bride. We know God has plans for him.

Besides a full class schedule, Michael plays soccer, football, and basketball; has been class president; performed a leading role in Twelve Angry Men; cantors; and is sacristan for the college division. He has worked in a Day School for the mentally challenged, and currently teaches Religion to 1st and 7th graders in a Philadelphia Diocesan school. He has taken more than the required number of courses, excelled, and was recently inducted into the National Honor Society.

I am proud of him and hope that he will endeavor towards ordination. Every day I ask myself: "why me? How could I possibly deserve this grace?" That fact is that: I don't. Yet, Our Lord in His perfection has been merciful and blessed me and my family beyond any accolades the world can grant. He has given me the opportunity to say: "This part of me is truly for You. I give him to you knowing you will give him back to me a hundred-fold."

The priesthood truly is a man's total giving of himself to God's service. Michael has chosen to pursue this path and our family is humbled by his selfless commitment. We all feel a great sense of anticipation in being able to see Michael prostrate before the bishop and accept his call to the priesthood.

Odds and Ends

You've heard about the controversy surrounding the Mother Theresa stamp--and the virulent anti-Catholic hatred that's been swirled up into public eye once again. There's a petition to sign at CatholicVoteAction.

Lead Me Lord, Lead Me Lord, La la Llaa Laaaa Laaaaaaaa...

So, just got back from Confirmation. (Supposed to be changing clothes as we speak, so we can leave and attend a party for one of the confirmandi, but leave that aside for a few moments.)

Ahem.

"Praise" music is, to be blunt, not created equal. There is, in fact, a distinct hierarchy within the realm, which runs as follows:

1. Most Crappy

2. Less Crappy

3. Least Crappy

4. Genuinely Good Music

A song need not be in Latin, or be 1000 years old, or have been composed by a monk in order to be beautiful, sacred, or orthodox. However, the percentages of modern music which fall under the above categories are, well, not encouraging. Roughly 80% of music composed for Catholic liturgical use within the last 40 years is Category 1 music. Another 17% is Category 2. Draw your own conclusions.

Granted, as our wise friend Father L said just the other day, "there was abuse before 1960. What you heard in Mass was indistinguishable from what you heard at the opera, except that no operas were being sung in Latin. All we've done, in many cases, is trade old kitsch for new kitsch." I don't point fingers. I put them in my ears.

How can people who are clearly trained musicians stand to even sing some of this stuff? It really, genuinely, isn't any good. They wouldn't play a 17th century piano ballade if it weren't any good, would they? I mean, we've all heard of Chopin, but who was Frederick Albinez? My point exactly.

Just ranting. I'm in a hurry, my ears are still ringing, and the baby is crying. Must change clothes. Keep opinion to oneself. Hope that the choir member who introduced herself to me this morning doesn't make good on her offer (threat?) to come sing at the Latin Mass.

Happiness

The piano tuner is here! Such a happy event. I'm not sure if the man (he's so sweet, and so old, and so awesome) remembers us from the first time he tuned this piano. We'll see how the morning progresses. If he doesn't remember on his own, Joe will probably converse him into a recollection. Besides, we pride ourselves on having a very memorable piano.