Signs of having reached a 'certain' age.....
Listening to the car radio this morning, WXRT had a contest in which winners could win copies of 40 Licks and a chance at a grand prize of a pair of tickets (front row!) for tonight's show at the United Center. All that was necessary was to phone in the identity of six short Stones' tracks played in quick succession. I could identify all six. I chose not to call in out of fear of actually winning. The thought of schlepping into the city on a cold night for a concert - even the Rolliing Stones - was not pleasant. I've become the boring old lady that I was determined to never be.........

Note to Embot
I am well - was called in to work at the last minute. Didn't do any blogging this morning - was slow getting started and then Martha fell back to sleep while I was figuring out the school plans for the day. So when she finally snapped out of it, it was a typical von Huben fire drill getting her to school. Then Church called and I was off.........
I appreciate your concern.
PS - Your replacement margarita glasses arrived. Let us know what to do now.

Kinsey Kid Kinks - Critics Cry Crime
What does Variety have to fear? They could work it into a great headline.

You Can’t be too Careful
The way science is taught in a lot of schools, I would think the young people of this country are ripe for indoctrination that a fiber supplement is what keeps a geyser ‘going.’
"You're kidding!" said Dr. Greg Allgood, associate director of the company's [P&G] Health Sciences Institute. He said the company thought the commercial "was so over the top that everyone would laugh."

Franny....
took Cody to work with her for a bath and grooming.
I wish someone here worked at a car wash.
Or a day spa where I could send Eddie for a little remedial pedicure....

Meticulous Family Planning!!!
Yeah, like I can take any credit.......
I was looking at my calendar and realized that Martha almost always has a long week-end associated with her birthday because of the date's proximity to that of the late Dr. King.
Embot's birthday is on President's day this year.
Fran's birthday is on Casimir Pulaski day.
Bridget's birthday is still and always will be D-Day or 6/6, depending on your inclination to patriotism or superstition.

A Day Without Dudgeon......
is like a day without sunshine. The Chicago Tribune Magazine devotes the bulk of today’s issue to homeschooling. It is generally positive.......

Whether the school is an academic powerhouse with state-of-the art facilities and well-credentialed teachers or an overcrowded, underfunded relic with high teacher turnover, chances are that, at some point, parents will become frustrated with how their children are being educated and wonder if they can do the job better.

.........though their choice of ‘religious’ homeschoolers struck me as a little flaky. I’ve already written my letter to the Trib:


As a mother in her sixth year of homeschooling, I am writing to thank you for the generally positive and fair assessment of the practice of homeschooling in the present day, drawing from a variety of schooling situations. (Home Rooms by Grant Pick, Tribune Magazine, 1/19/03)`

While we would statistically fall into the 40% category of those homeschooling for religious reasons, I feel that your choice of religious homeschooling family plays into a stereotype of regressive, insular Christian homeschooling that is so often demonized by the media.

The statement by Pat Inyart that college is not the goal for her daughter because "it's not the role of a woman to go out and support the family," flies in the face of everything I believe about education. As a mother of some 24 years, few spent in any remunerative employment, I intend for my daughters to be every bit as educated as my sons. If not more so. In most homes - regardless of the educational paths taken for the children - the mother is the first and primary educator of the children. To skimp in the education of girls is to cheat all children of the best possible mothering.

I have a friend who returned a roasting chicken when she noticed that it weighed 6.66 lbs.
Personally, I’m not that motivated.

A small Appalachian Bible college is fighting to change its telephone number because the 666 prefix is disturbing to Christians who recognize it as the biblical mark of the beast.

"People say, 'You're a Bible college and you have 666 in your phone number?'" said Carlene Light, an office worker at Kentucky Mountain Bible College. "It's the connotation. No one wants to be part of the mark of the beast."

The conservative, non-denominational Christian college on a hillside in eastern Kentucky has been trying for months to persuade a telephone company to change the number.

Having a child born on 6/6 , we joke about this a lot. Luckily, she was a girl so we weren’t tempted to name her Damian. And her real mother isn’t a dog..........well, at least not after my morning beauty routine.

Amazing News from Hollywood!!!
A woman with dignity and a conscience!
For "Everybody Loves Raymond" star Patricia Heaton, the last straw came when a performer at the 30th annual American Music Awards made graphic references to three-way sex. That, and, perhaps, Sharon Osbourne's joke about what she called Mariah Carey's "fake" endowments.

Though the actress was at the awards show to introduce a pre-recorded retrospective of executive producer Dick Clark's annual music show, enough was enough. She walked out of the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, disgusted by what she called "an onslaught of lewd jokes and off-color remarks."

"I'm no prude, but this was such a vulgar and disgusting show," Heaton told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

It felt like I was in the Roman Colosseum. As far as I'm concerned, it was an affront to anyone with a shred of dignity, self-respect and intelligence."

A minor .........
yet oddly satisfying, perk of motherhood: birthday cake for breakfast the morning after. Just think.........this is the first birthday of 2003. Five more to go............plus mom and dad's.

PS - Mater can eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She also eats breakfast at 6:00 am before anyone else is conscious.........

Will Anyone Care?
Or is the American Life League advertising to the choir?

A pro-life group next week will announce a new advertising campaign that features what it calls "The Deadly Dozen" – 12 U.S. senators who are both Catholic and support legalized abortion.

The campaign, part of the American Life League's Crusade to Defend Our Catholic Church, includes Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and John Kerry, D-Mass., a Democratic candidate for president. In a statement, the organization said the dozen senators are "claiming to be faithful Catholics."

The six declared Democratic candidates for president will appear together for the first time at a dinner Tuesday night celebrating the 30th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The actual anniversary is Wednesday. The thought of a dinner celebrating Roe v. Wade is sickening. Would any of these people appear at a dinner celebrating the reinstatement of the death penalty? I think not.

Back by popular demand........
.........at the birthday girl's request!
reintroducing the new and improved von Huben Family Action Figures and Accessories:

Flower Fairy Bridget the Irish Princess.........she talks like a longshoreman and looks like a china doll

Emily the Bookworm.........complete with Hello Kitty Hyundai filled with books, Bride Magazines and her own gen-u-ine Tiffany engagement ring.

Ed.......Emily’s cute and smart fiance (Yes, now it's official!!!)

Eddie..........the little brother who never stops moving.......wind him up and his head turns 360 degrees

Martha..........the meek and mild...........she has a real working Hoover that she runs around the house when not busy reading Blake or Tennyson (comes with miniature facsimile of Songs of Innocence/Experience)

AND WAIT...........THERE’S MORE!!!!

DON’T FORGET - activate the special button, and they all pray in Latin!

Mom.......she says 20 different phrases, such as “money doesn’t grow on trees!”, “autodidact is not a dirty word” and “feeling Punic is not what’s ailing you, Mister.” Collect as many of her outfits as you want. They are all cotton and they all look alike. (shoes with bows included!)

Dad.........he looks like Ward Cleaver - hypnotized by a Macintosh

Fran..........she’s very attractive - if you can see her! (Save big by buying Fran and Bridget in the Irish Twins super-saver pak! Their clothes are interchangable - and a major source of interpersonal conflict)

Chaz..........he’s Tourettic, complete with socially acceptable tics. (it takes more than a neurological disorder to make us speak like the Osbournes.) Except for some social anxiety, he’s the life of the party. Comes complete with 30 bright quotes from Chesterton to Bart Simpson!

Adam..........the rakish next door neighbor. Always the perfect comic foil. If he didn’t live next door, we would have to invent him.

Tommy........Bridget’s boyfriend, under all the tattoos is a real sweetheart and the patience of a saint (being Bridget's special friend is not easy)

Will - the Ghost of Leslie Castle........Fran’s boyfriend, comes with kilt and electric guitar

AND DON’T MISS OUR ETHNIC DIVERSITY LINE.........
If you’ve started with Chinese Ed and Jerry, continue on with Swiss cousin Urs and Aussie cousin Phil; African-American Dave who lived on the couch and still drops in from time to time.

DON’T STOP.....GET THE ACCESSORIES........
Mom’s rusted van with genuine simulated peeling blue paint. Has 96,000 miles on it - just from driving to Church, the library and Target.

Fran’s zippy little red Ford POS. It gets her to work. At the animal hospital.

Dad’s groovy Blue Amigo (with fuzzy dice). Put enough of your action figures in and it becomes a clown car.

The Flower Fairy home decoration floral assortment. Random selection of day old, over-priced roses, orchids and other fine flora rescued from the dumpster.

Techno-geek garage pack of miscellaneous computer parts. (cords sold separately)

Martha’s 200 pound backpack. (aka a locker in a bag, with straps)

AND THE PETS........
The laundry room frog..........
Dipstick the adorable gerbil...........
Cody the dog...........

COMING SOON........
The vonHuben’s shabby/chic dream duplex.
Some assembly required.
*paint it yourself - the wilder the colors the better
*with add on dog yard for Cody

If I Lived Here......
I’d be home now.
The passersby might become tedious....(with an emphasis on might)....but polar fleece and black ice wouldn’t be an issue. I’d also be within walking distance (sans boots and muffler) of a beautiful cathedral.

No pusillanimity there.......
prolife guy is not afraid to speak up when the time is right!

Not a Moment Too Soon....
The Holy See will soon publish a new glossary of 90 words related to sexual and family issues, according to Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, director of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
The "Lexicon of the Family and Life" will also clarify the Catholic Church's teachings on birth control, sex education, assisted procreation and homosexuality. The work intends to clarify "neologisms, ambiguous terms and difficult concepts in frequent use."

Those terms include "voluntary interruption of pregnancy," "reproductive health," "matrimonial indissolubility," "sexual education" and "conjugal love." When bandied about in a global forum, they can cause "grave moral confusion," the lexicon states.
The work has a waiting audience.
"It's long overdue, but it's a welcome initiative to clarify the political hijacking of the language," said William Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
"The Orwellian use of language by the left for their own agendas has been going on for decades," he added.
Certain "elastic" terms are used in print and broadcast for better or worse, Mr. Donohue said, specifically citing the terms "gender" and "reproductive rights." They are simply code for feminist or homosexual issues and abortion, respectively, he said.
"They're sanitized, they become generic and therefore not offensive," Mr. Donohue said

Happy Birthday, Martha Lenor!!!!

WARNING:
William Luse’s latest Apologia post is fascinating.
But you may want to finish breakfast before reading it.

Everyone has a responsibility to encourage vocations
Karl Schudt delineates some pointers. Interested persons (and we all should be interested) may want to check out the Institute on Religious Life. Their national meeting is at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein,IL April 25-27 of this year. Martha and I attended last year. What a day! Catholic nerdiness permits me to say it was a lot of fun.

This year’s tentative program:

"Consecrated Life: Informing, Reforming
and Transforming Culture"

Speakers and dignitaries thus far:
Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.,
Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J.
Fr. Robert Barron
Fr. C. Frank Phillips, C.R.
Abbot Nicholas Zachariadis

Roma locuta est........
is anyone listening?
The Vatican took aim Thursday at Roman Catholic politicians, telling them church teaching demands they defend "the basic right to life from conception to natural death."

A new set of guidelines approved by Pope John Paul II for Catholic politicians said church opposition to abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage was not up for negotiation.

Their release comes a week before major demonstrations planned in the United States by abortion rights and anti-abortion groups and amid continuing efforts, mainly in Europe, to legalize euthanasia and gay marriages.

The Vatican said it was publishing the document now because of medical and scientific advances and because of the "emergence of ambiguities or questionable positions in recent times."

None of this is news..........some people just need to be reminded now and then (and over and over). So any wagers on how many high-profile Catholic politicians will take this to heart?

The guidelines, prepared by the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, make no changes to the church's long-held positions.

Ben Kweller is from Texas.......
But I imagine he must have played Milwaukee’s Oriental Theater once, developed dyspepsia and sauntered to Oriental Drugs on Prospect Ave. to obtain relief. Pepto and a red I’m Hooked on Oriental Drugs T-shirt, which is what caught my eye when I saw him on the end of Austin City Limits last night. His music was pretty good. But it was the T-shirt that lured me in. Ah, the memories, pushing the little Embot around the east side of Milwaukee in her tiny days........

His website says he is also an Apple computer fan, so he’s gotta be a good guy...........

Dangers of idiomatic English.....
This was funny.......... I mentioned something to my Bible study group yesterday about the homeless man who lived on our couch a little too long as being happy because he had cable TV, three hots and a cot. I had assumed that everyone was familiar with the phrase three hots and a cot, as in what your basic jail or shelter would provide - three square meals and a place to sleep. Maybe that's a Wisconsin bred phrase - like bubbler for drinking fountain. There was a look of horror on the ladies' faces and then relieved giggling when they realized what I meant by three hots. This came to light when someone realized the discrepancy between 'three hots' and my having four daughters. They thought I was referring to the girls........No wonder they were perplexed by my discussion of the boundaries of Christian charity and the provision of three hots and a cot! Not to even think of the fact that I said I consulted with a priest to help me define those boundaries.

Today's St. Anthony........
is not the 'lost items' St. Anthony, right?
Well, I need help anyway.
I want to give Martha a couple of the charms off of my bracelet to put on the one she is receiving for her birthday tomorrow. So where is it? There are times that it feels like we're living in our own little Bermuda-triangle, right along the shores of Lake Michigan. (Our Baby Jesus is still missing, too. Along with his mother (large, heavy, not a good flight risk), who was stolen from the creche in front of our Church on December 23. This was not a good year for manger scenes.........)

Seasonal Decorating Hint
Get those pesky Mardi Gras beads out of the junk drawer and hang them from the dining room chandelier for that special touch.
If the older children are critical, just say, "I worked hard for those beads." The younger kids won't get it and the older ones will change the conversation - fast!

PS - I didn't work hard for them. Some were gifts, some were purchased. But the mere thought of mother on Bourbon St. 'collecting' beads is an image no young lady wants to conjure, especially in front of company......

Can Poinsettias Last a Year?
or
I Don't Want to Kill Them, I Want Them to Go Away
Our flower fairy brought home two large dumpster-bound poinsettias as a 'gift' to me. (I know the pre-Christmas retail from-the-fairy's-place-of-employment price must have been enormous so I must be impressed.) The demise of the modest poinsettia in the living room was meticulously coincidental with the Feast of the Epiphany. (mental note: reinforce meaning of epiphany in boys' lessons. Just so they don't think it means "Mom carries dead poinsettia to garbage.") Bridget put them in front of the fire place where they looked festive, though dated. They blocked the draft which was invading the family room despite the closed flue. And if the draft killed them, tant pis. Frances rushed in later, shrieking that they were the most toxic decorative plant when one has animals......and moved them to the mantle. I'm wondering if there is a safe place where I can keep them growing for a year, where I won't have to look at them, and the pup won't eat them. We have the Mardi Gras decorations up on the porch and these orphan plants are sitting there screaming Christmas...........Christmas past. Perhaps I should take them to my mother-in-law, a veritable Orphans of the Storm of the plant world. (She took my Christmas Cactus into 'protective custody' one year.......)

Quenta Narwenion and Atheist to a Theist are delightfully nerdy, too.

Fr. Jim Tucker.....
is making my job (my day job - teaching my boys) easier. He’s starting a series on altar linens and sacred vessels. His vestment series is great, so this should be helpful, too.

Catholic Nerd Blog
This blog really resonates with me...
You know you're a Catholic Nerd when.........how about, you’re ecstatic about receiving nun paper dolls for Christmas (and you haven’t played with paper dolls in about 40 years) and it was soooo obvious to your daughter that this would be the ideal gift.
(Had to post this before you got the chance, Embot!)

You know you're a Catholic Nerd when.........you take said paper dolls to work (at a rectory, where else?) to show them off and then Xerox the habits with your face inserted. Just so you can send them to friends. (And maybe post them on your blog if you can figure out how.)

Thanks to Chris at Rosa Mystica for this fun link.

"I strongly support diversity of all kinds, including racial diversity in higher education," Mr. Bush said in a nationally televised address. "But the method used by the University of Michigan to achieve this important goal is fundamentally flawed. At their core, the Michigan policies amount to a quota system that unfairly rewards or penalizes prospective students based solely on their race."

According to an interview I saw on the Today Show this morning, the point assignment system used by the Univerysity of Michigan gives a prospective student 20 points for being African-American. You can also get 20 points for being from the UP. Is the University trying to make sure both parts of Michigan are equitably served or do they consider being from the UP to be some sort of ‘problem’ that needs a boost to overcome? Or is being a UPer a race unto itself?

I’ll let it drop here. I know some lovely people from the Upper Penninsula. Some people who have even gone up there to go to school. But, no, it’s not my favorite place on earth........not by a long shot.

The Catholic Blog Reviewer
Commentary on the Blogs of St. Blog’s.........
An idea whose time has come........a blog about blogs that is not a blog waiting for us to step on a grammatical or typographical banana peel.

Et tu, Mr. ‘Educator’?
The community isn't just shocked about the possible molestation of a student by the school district's top administrator, it is stunned that the Board of Education was asking questions about the relationship between the boy and the superintendent months before the arrest, but apparently not taking any action.

"Something was brought up in executive session that he [Sigler] may have pulled the kid out of class a lot," the source said. "But there was nothing that would raise a question of impropriety of a sexual relationship.

No one was suspicious? I made it through k-12 without ever seeing the superintendent of our school district. I couldn’t have picked him out of a police line-up. And I did a long stint as a hall monitor with a desk outside of the superintendents office! In my experience, based also quite a bit on hearsay from educator friends of my parents, the superintendent spent a lot of time avoiding contact with the teachers and never, ever mingled with the students.

If I’m so white, why ain’t I rich?
It helps to have a white-sounding first name when looking for work, a new study has found.

Resumes with white-sounding first names elicited 50 percent more responses than ones with black-sounding names, according to a study by professors at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The professors analyzed birth certificates in coming up with what names to use. The white names included Neil, Brett, Greg, Emily, Anne and Jill. Some of the black names used were Tamika, Ebony, Aisha, Rasheed, Kareem and Tyrone.

So what’s my problem? Too white? Maybe the von Huben sounds a little too Aryan, a little too Hitler youth. Or is it the ‘y’ in the praenomen?
Too weird?

That’s OK. Emily will support me when she strikes it rich!

Døgg Füd
or
how to dress up the cabinet where the kibble is kept.

Making funky labels at home on the computer. It's a good thing.

Dylan explains it all.
Not that I’ve been in torment wondering why I’ve never engendered a fatal attraction, driven anyone to drink or made anyone go insane.But now I know. I’m too freaking ‘cute.’ I’ve always been told that I am ‘cute.’ Even at an advanced age and larger size, I am ‘cute.’ Not that cute is all bad..........do read The Four Beauties for a better explanation.

Cave panem
It was just a matter of time that a prankster changed the doggy welcome on the menu board to a warning about that dried loaf of French bread, far too lost for pain perdu.......It was changed several days ago and I only noticed it at lunch. I am slipping.

There must be a mistake somewhere........
While paying little attention to the sports news on TV, my eye was caught by a caption under a picture of a sports player (baseball, perhaps?). This Colon Smells Good. The point must have been that his name is pronounced the same way as cologne and that he holds some sort of promise for the Chicago sports world. To those who don't follow these things, it looked like a freak of nature. Should a colon smell good? I doubt it. Who thinks of these captions? Does anyone double check?

Something to think about on the coldest day of the winter........
Jesus Gil has a load of interesting info re: Roundup use leads to wacky weeds? I have a few months to read and digest this. Rick always tends to be more cautious about chemical fixes for things - I, personally, like to grab a can of toxins and blast away. (Eliminating the cabbage worms from my ornamental kale with an old can of Rid [for cooties on furniture, etc.] was too much fun. The pleasure I took in watching those little demons writhe from the pyrethrin neuro-toxin was, to be honest, not good.) I didn’t use any herbicide in my little garden this past year. And then wondered what the glorious five foot tall ‘unusual’ plant was. It was pigweed - something my spouse was diagnosed as being dreadfully allergic to. The allergist never showed him a picture of the plant........so we just let it go until I decided there was something distinctly ominous going on and looked it up on the Miracle-Gro website. What’s so wrong with better living through chemistry? I’ll look into this.........

I don’t eat sweets........
I was just doing some research. Martha wants a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and fudge filling. With purple flowers. What the heck - you’re only 16 once.

Back to Work!!!
I'm fine now. Really. I think. Bad night of crazy dreams - overslept.(didn't set alarm because Martha has exams and doesn't need to be at school until 10:30) I almost always wake up before the alarm - setting it is just a compulsion. But today I slept 'til 7:30 so I guess I needed the rest. It must have been a rough night - woke up with pillows all over the floor and strangling in the tangle my scapular and Miraculous Medal turned into. (I'm low maintenance - I sleep with earrings in, too, so I'm always ready to get up and dressed in less than a minute. 5 minutes if I shower.) But my voice is back and I'm ready to get back on track. Think I need more caffeine, though. I referred to the dog as Lady - the name of my late father's Springer Spaniel. And in discussing modern keyboarding and the lack of opportunity for young people to learn how to work a real typewriter, I asked if anyone had seen my old Smith and Wesson. Ooops.

Note to Em: Just wanted to tell you now, so you won't be shocked when you come home on Friday - I think the bamboo is dead. I'm not a botanist, but brown and shrivelled spells D-E-A-D to me. We'll get a new one and try harder.

This Saturday.....
marks the 16th anniversary of my first “drive-by” birth. (Due credit for coining this term given to my appalled mother-in-law, who could not believe why anyone would leave the hospital within hours of having a baby.) Victor Lams muses a little about “drive-through” mastectomies and the conflict between adequate health care and its financing.

Sometimes home is the best place to recover..........sometimes not. And I can imagine how dreadful recovery from an emotionally upsetting procedure must be, when compounded with being left more or less on one’s own to deal with the details. This brings to mind taking care of my sister after some relatively minor surgery last summer and having the doctor tell me to go ahead and remove the drain tubing that worked loose on the drive home from the hospital. (I was an art history major. An art history major with a tremendously good tolerance for the gruesome and some experience with packing the horrifying place where my husband’s incision had started re-opening after some major surgery. Maybe I should have been a theater major - I was good at faking calm capability.) And speaking of the spousal unit....there was that matter of the hernia surgery needed to repair the damage done to his abdomenal musculature during the first surgery. And the second hernia surgery to repair the first one that started to unravel from his retching while on the 50 minute drive home from the hospital while I was driving the old Saab with the sloppy clutch in stop-and-go traffic. This was the point at which I began referring to the hospital as Bum’s Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke's Medical Center. The secong time, they let him stay overnight.........

The Trouble with Angels.......
is one of my favorite movies. (Along with Yours, Mine and Ours which is on Turner Classic movies tonight, which we don’t get, so that’s just another reason to kvetch about the TV...) One of our favorite moments is in the beginning, when Haley Mills’ character is scolded for smoking as a child and she tells her critic that she is a ‘midget with bad habits.’ Jeff Miller had a similar real-life experience. Such a sweet story........check it out.

Is Today Over Yet?
My late father would chide me for ‘wishing away my life,’ but today has been such a waste of time that I’m eager to finish it and start over. I woke up with a scratchy throat that quickly turned into a sore throat and highly ‘unteacherlike’ voice. Not anticipating this, there was no school work ready to toss to Dad and he hadn’t planned on schooling today anyway. Because I needed to keep a bloodshot eye on the dog, I couldn’t lead the troops up to my bedroom and make them watch a Standard Deviants math video or some other fall back choice. So I tried the next best thing............watching A Hard Day’s Night en francais. This was not good. We are not studying French and all I could do was rasp out the occassional word that the boys might recognize as being of Latin descent. Chuck lost patience and turned on the English subtitles. I think all they learned is grandpere is French for grandfather. The voices were dubbed by Frenchmen who sounded reasonably Liverpudlian and the songs were the original, so it was not a total waste of time.

After lunch, we watched the Hands on History Marathon on the History Channel. I don’t know how much the boys learned from that, but the salt mine episode left me with a craving for something salty that has only now been vanquished by sending spelunkers down to Fran’s room to find the dry roasted peanuts. The episode about modern printing techniques was fascinating; things have changed a lot since I was hanging around my dad’s printshop.

The boys went upstairs to play LEGOs so I could nap. Sleep would not come - and I tried to wrap myself around Steven Riddle’s question of “What is the most beautiful painting you have ever seen (famous or otherwise) and what makes it so?” I’ve been thinking about that since yesterday and still cannot arrive at an answer. My head throbbed anew - not that I’m blaming Steven. But I was in no condition to think - especially about a question as difficult as “which one of your children is your favorite?” or “if you could only eat one more piece of chocolate in your life, what would you choose?”

I took a medicinal preparation and did sleep while the rest of the family ate a casserole that Rick threw together out of whatever he could find. He said the gang loved it. I hope this can be recreated in the future. I was just recently awakened - thank God! - from a nightmare of such mundane yet terrifying intensity that I now feel like Dorothy returned from Oz.

Tomorrow is another day. I can’t wait.

PS - I should have known I was starting to go downhill last night. After reading Steven's post, I took Faure's Requiem to work with me. I missed In Praradisum the first time through because I was running the copier. I couldn't find the button to jump back or forward to another track and was reduced to depressing the speed-backward button.........while I was crouched under the table doing this, I thought it sounded pretty darned beautiful backwards, too! That should have been a sign of imminent decline. At least I didn't hear any secret messages imbedded in the CD...............

When did I feel like a grown-up?
When I could vote at 18? When I could drink at 18? When I faced various vices at college? No. It wasn’t until a grown-up (actually a Sacred Heart nun, at a college social event) handed me a cup of coffee. That’s when I felt like a grown-up. For much of the twentieth century, coffee was America's drink. A 1939 survey found that ninety-eight per cent of the country's households drank coffee. After the Second World War, consumption rose steadily until the early sixties, when the average American was downing almost fifty gallons a year. Then coffee went cold. Younger consumers came to regard it, like Scotch, as a palliative for parents and squares.

The January 13 issue of the New Yorker has an article about coffee and the business of ‘tastemaking.’

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to build a successful business. You can give people what they want but give it to them more efficiently, as Wal-Mart and Dell have done. Or you can persuade them to want something that they didn't previously want, as Starbucks has done. One might call this the tastemaker approach. Instead of competing for a share of an existing market, Starbucks invented its own, heeding the advice of the economist Joseph Schumpeter, who wrote, in 1939, "It was not enough to produce satisfactory soap, it was also necessary to induce people to wash."

A very interesting article. And I do believe coffee is still effective as a palliative for parents and squares. Speaking strictly from my position as a parent and square......

Karl Schudt said it.
And better than I could. Besides, it sounds better coming from a man. Men are pigs. Read his charming anecdote and his case for women being good so men will become better.

For anyone who might not believe that men have a porcine inclination (and I’m not talking body types here), a quick glance at The Man Show on Comedy Central would be instructive. (If you can stand more than 90 seconds I’d be amazed.) The gist of The Man Show appears to be that pigs have a vested interest in cultivating pig culture.

About the last post.....
Why am I moved to write about the Methodist Church? I don't know. Maybe I'll dump it all here, so I am not tempted to blurt out my opinions to my Methodist mother-in-law. It's always open season on the Catholic Church at family events, but I try to be charitable. Now that I have purged myself, I can move forward............

We knew there was something wrong..........
when we didn’t see his pointy hat. I think United Methodist Bishop C. Joseph Sprague is the bishop who attended the church service in the park across the street from our old house. The kids were not impressed. They didn’t think he looked like a bishop. Now he doesn’t sound like much of a bishop, either.

Twenty-eight United Methodists, including members of the clergy, have filed a complaint calling for the removal of Chicago Bishop C. Joseph Sprague because he allegedly rejected the Christian faith, according to the United Methodist News Service.

The group charges Sprague with appearing to deny the Trinitarian understanding of Jesus as God "in favor of a form of Unitarianism ... that denies the virgin birth and full deity of Christ," according to the group's spokesman, Rev. Thomas Lambrecht of Greenville, Wis.

I hope the United Methodist Book of Discipline allows the bishops’ college to open a can of whup-ass on him. Figuratively and in all due Christian charity, of course.

In a speech Sprague gave last January at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, he caused an uproar when he said "the myth of the virgin birth was not intended as a historical fact." He also said he didn't believe that Jesus' resurrection "involved the resuscitation of his physical body."

The group asked church officials to investigate the matter. If the allegations are sustained, they want Sprague to renounce "his contrary teaching and maintain his teaching within the doctrinal standards of the United Methodist Church, or that he resign (or be removed) from his office and surrender his credentials of ordination."

Libera nos a mall
Next week-end we will be celebrating Martha's 16th birthday. I still haven't found an appropriate gift for her. I know she will receive one of the little porcelain place card holders that were used at my 16th birthday dinner. I had mine, my mother's, my sister's and my aunt Tommy's, which conveniently worked out to one for each girl in the family. So I started by giving one to Em when she turned 16. I also wanted to give each of the girls a sterling cuff bracelet like the one I received (one of the few pieces of jewelry I still wear!) But the only suitable plain, engravable bracelets were at Tiffany's for about $200, which was a whole lot more than I could spend. So I have started the tradition of giving the girls some nice (but not outrageous) jewelry and some other family heirloom (such as the Wedgwood-inset compact that Bridget received.) Where am I going with this? I'm getting around to saying that Martha will not be receiving a car. If she is fortunate I will locate her birth certificate and Social Security card so that she may procure a learner's permit and begin driver's ed.

But Martha's best friend, whose birthday is just 2 days before Martha's natal observance, is getting a car. Martha wants to go shopping for some bumper stickers for her, plus some fuzzy dice, a CD holder and other various car accessories. There is nothing I would rather not do than traipse around the mall on a Sunday afternoon. My weather pixie says it's -9 C., which rules out taking a book and waiting in the car. The car was so cold on our way to Mass this morning, that the seats had absolutely no give - it was like driving while seated on a concrete bench........Oh, the humanity. But it's the least I can do. If she's not getting a car, I'll have to drive her to the mall. And we may have some mother-daughter quality time.

and with good reason......
Word of the Day for Saturday January 11, 2003
dudgeon \DUH-juhn\, noun:
A state or fit of intense indignation; resentment; ill humor
-- often used in the phrase "in high dudgeon."

Doctor Dictionary sees into the deepest recesses of my heart.......and I have yet to read the Sunday Trib!

"I am not prepared to take the risk that we may execute an innocent person," he wrote in an overnight letter to the victims' families warning them of his plans.

With death row inmates he had recently pardoned sitting in the audience as he spoke Saturday, [Illinois Governor George] Ryan framed the death penalty issue as "one of the great civil rights struggles of our time."

"Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious -- and therefore immoral -- I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death," he said.”

All well and good. But there are innocent persons executed in Illinois every day. Why could he not throw a wrench into that machinery of death?

While I'm on a roll......
I plunked down on the couch last night and saw part of that inspiring, edgy new NBC series, Mr. Sterling. What a man! He's independent. He's going to think for himself. And just to show what a risk taker he is, they establish at the very beginning that just because he is not a Democrat doesn't mean he doesn't fully believe in a woman's right to choose. Gag me. Do they want edgy? Do they want to go out on a limb? Make him handsome, make independent, make PRO-LIFE!!!

Has Anyone.......
received the current issue of First Things? When magazines disappear, I have visions of either the postman or one of my older girls camped out somewhere paging through my New Yorker or Vanity Fair. Especially the new Vanity Fair with their new all time low: Young Scandinavians in their Skivvies for No Particular Reason: Our First Underwear Portfolio Of course, the Swedes in their undies are comic relief after reading the mental meanderings of the confused Christopher Hitchens on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I hear the apprehension of a man who is feeling the pricking of his conscience and is trying to talk himself out of it. It’s really rather sad - though I had sort of written him off long ago. Any writer who has to criticize Mother Teresa for her looks is drifting in his own peculiar world.

So, anyway, where is our First Things?........Come to think of it, we haven’t received the December issue. Are the post office gnomes out to get us?

Thinking about the transsexual school chaperone.......
I was remembering a time in second or third grade when I stayed after school to rehearse for a show or something. My Dad picked me up on his way home from work. He was a technical artist/printer/photographer - pretty much a Renaissance man. Dad came to my school wearing khakis -pants and shirt, with a turltleneck underneath. I wanted to die. All the other fathers who stopped by were wearing suits and ties and my father was dressed suitably for a GAP ad in 1990's. I wasn't prescient - so I was just humiliated. At least he was dressed like a man. I can't imagine how upsetting it must be for a child to have to put up with a parent who is 'acting out.' Normal parents can seem unbearable when you are young.

The USPS creates a vacuum
Richards Blog has one more in a line of testatmonials to the pathetic workings of the USPS. I usually chide the children and ask them to use the word ‘suck’ only if they are referring to babies or vacuum cleaners. But this is an instance to make an exception. Why my approbation for Richard’s rant? It took over one and a half weeks for a first-class package to go from the northern suburbs of Chicago to northwestern Wisconsin - due east of Minneapolis/ St. Paul. This package contained my niece and nephew’s security blankets and a couple of pacifiers. I sent it first class to get it there in 2 to 3 days. It was not worth the $12.50 I was quoted to send them express mail. (My sister could have replaced them for that much.) I didn’t insure them - I had no proof of value. And having experience trying to get compensation from the post office for a piece of plaster statuary that I bought on eBay which broke in transit, the insurance does not offer much reassurance. How do you prove the value of used security blankets - they are both worthless and priceless.

Yes, I know the Postal Service does a huge, volume business. And quite a few individual employees are charming people to deal with. But........really.

What Next?
The monks at Gethsemani Abbey producing imitation processed American cheese food product spread?

A French Government drive against alcoholism has incurred the wrath of Belgium's famous Trappist monks.

Trappist beer uses one of the oldest recipes around
But the French Government now wants to slap high taxes on any of those beers that contain more than 8.5% alcohol.

Anti-Social? Moi?
this quiz thanks to Amy Kropp





You're fire! In general you're not a mean person but you can be very quick tempered, and boy, WHAT A TEMPER YOU CAN HAVE. You are angered very easily and you sometimes have anti-social habits.




What element are you?

Well, a little fire might not hurt. It's not going to be pleasant getting out the door this morning. The weather pixie told me so.......

Big Book of Bad Parents
Let’s skip ahead to the chapter on parents who embarrass the living daylights out of their children. This should be helpful to me. I can say, “You think our car is embarrassing? At least Daddy never went on a field trip dressed up like a woman.”

The O’Reilly Factor.......Also, two parents object to a transsexual who volunteers at their child's school. Could they have a point or are they over-reacting?

Seriously, my heart aches for the child of that man. The parents of the other children can try (and it won’t be easy) to explain what they saw, but that man’s child is living in a very bad place. There are times when you are young that it is humiliating to admit to having parents - no matter how wonderful they may be. Imagine having your father as some sort of novelty act. That sounds like serious damage to me.

Now I get it.....
duh......if we don’t give away millions of latex items that might not work anyway, we’re condemning millions of people to death and wasting money to boot.

"The Bush administration position basically condemns people to death by H.I.V./AIDS," said Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "And we're talking about tens of millions of people."

Evangelical groups do superb work in Africa, running clinics for some of the world's most wretched people — like poor AIDS victims. So it's baffling to see these same groups buying into junk science in ways that will lead to many more AIDS deaths.

(The scientific consensus is simple: Condoms are far from perfect, but they greatly reduce the risk of H.I.V. and of gonorrhea for men, and they probably also reduce the risk of other sexual infections — but more studies are needed to prove the case definitively. See, for example, the National Institutes for Health report at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/ stds/condomreport.pdf.)

One study by the University of California at Berkeley found condom distribution to be astonishingly cost-effective, costing just $3.50 per year of life saved. In contrast, antiretroviral therapy cost almost $1,050.

So now it’s about the money, right? It’s easier to give away $3.50 worth of latex rather than educate people on the consequences of their bahavior and/or treat the sick.

The is no Secret War on Condoms. If there were, I’d be knocking over point of purchase displays while waiting for my prescriptions.........or hanging around the ‘family planning’ department of the supermarket with a hat pin.

Hark! I hear the cannons roar. Is it the King approaching?
My sister used to go to speech therapy and talk with a spoon in her mouth. And today she is a successful criminal trial lawyer and District Attorney. I wish someone had put a spoon in my mouth.......

But serioiusly.....this bit of real help courtesy of Catholic Heritage Curricula and Mrs. Sandra Garant......

Work on tongue twisters a few minutes a day. The last two twisters distinguish between the “w” and the “r” sounds, switching from one to the other.

“Around the rocks the rugged rascal ran.”
“Stir the turkey stew, sir.”
“The red leather is wet, and the yellow leather is wetter than the red.”
“Ron Williams won the racewalk.”


For ages five and up only. Put the tip of a clean popsicle stick or the handle of a teaspoon between your child’s front teeth and have him talk. He can repeat the tongue twisters above or read sentences out of a book. The mouth has to work harder to form the sounds while hanging onto the stick. Do not put marbles in your child’s mouth as Professor Higgins did to poor Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady. The stick and spoon handle are safer than marbles, but be sure your child is sitting still to prevent injury.


They also have a free on-line study guide for the lovely book Little Therese.

Perhaps Dr. Dictionary Knows This Is the Day I'll Strike It Rich!

Word of the Day for Friday January 10, 2003
lucre \LOO-kuhr\, noun:
Monetary gain; profit; riches; money; -- often in a bad sense.

You'll be the first to know.

Big Book of Bad Parents
I keep meaning to compile a binder of really bad parents that I can show the children when I’m accused of being a bad mom. Thanks to Davey’s Mommy for the link to the fine example. And over Christmas? Well, that's triple bad!

A woman is accused of leaving her children, ages 4 and 7, home alone for three weeks while she went to North Carolina to visit a man she had met over the Internet.

Janet Chen, 31, apparently left frozen food in the refrigerator and instructed the children to hide if strangers came to the apartment, authorities said......

Officers said the children lived on such frozen meals as Bagel Bites and corn dogs since their mother left Dec. 18.

Let's leave out the Bagel Bites and corn dogs part. The kids might want Bagel Bites and corn dogs.

Anyone.........
feeling the tug of saying good-bye to those family members heading back to school or wherever, should take a look at Dying by Degrees by William Luse. I have a few thoughts of my own to add, but I’m too punchy now, after a day of running around, trying to do school, helping Miss Coty the new dog acclimate to our home (e.g. - dabbing a few odd puddles and taking her out to the side yard, discouraging her from ‘helping’ around the house by licking plates as they go into the dishwasher....) which is a lot like having a toddler, something we haven’t had in about 6 years. Plus there is the ongoing search for the 3 remaining pieces of Victorian hand-tooled tin tinsel before I can finally close up the ornament box.

It's A Small World After All
The biggest surprise I've had in a long time was finding a comment from a college roommate on my blog yesterday. I've been terribly negligent about staying in touch with people - and I had made something of a New Year's resolution about staying in touch. So the ball is in my court now.....this is so exciting.........and she's still in the Chicago area, so lunch (at least) is a good possibility.

Not a Good Time.......
to invest in red shirts. They’re taboo in many schools. Gay folk wear them to Disney World on special Gay Days. And if you wear one while shopping at Target, strangers will ask you for help.

But I have to give a little credit for honesty to ninth-grader Adam Perez wore a shiny University of North Carolina track suit. UNC's baby blue is another banned color because an area gang, the Surenos, favors it.

But they didn't get the chance to suspend Adam; he came in only to transfer out of Lincoln and into North High.

He said he wore the track suit, a Christmas gift, "so I could get everybody upset." He plans to wear blue every day at North. There is a certain rich pleasure, especially in adolescence, in getting everybody upset. I was never courageous enough to admit my motives........

What
Nothing to blog about? Hardly. But between reading and walking the dog twice (in my nightgown, which ain't gonna happen tomorrow when the temp drops into the teens) I've run out of time.

Forty years ago, my parents bought 'us' a dog. Cleo - the dachsund. My mother claimed that, though the dog was high in our affection, she was in deed my mother's. Indeed. By day to day contact and the realities of life, the dog became mom's. She was the one who could remove a bone from Cleo's mouth without as much as a low growl.

I fear the new dog and I are bonding similarly. She has been here since yesterday afternoon. Everyone is crazy about her. But I get up at 6:00 and guess who she turns to for her early morning constitutional? Yes, me, the alpha b***h. I whispered my status softly into her ear the moment she arrived. So who does she turn to? Of course.

Her name is Cody. Fran doesn't want to change it because she already has 'abandonment issues.' My sister suggested a segue to Coty - more feminine - and then an eventual change to Maybelline.
I vote for Cleo.

There are somethings we shouldn’t look at, but we can’t help ourselves. Thanks to this link from Victor Lams I now have entered the bizarre world of golden teeth and the people who want them. I have five golden crowned molars..........and why anyone would want dental gold (or platinum?) flashing in the front of his mouth totally escapes me. I think I seen somewhere about people who practice a kind of scrimshaw technique on living teeth. That’s sick, too.

DECORATION ONLY, NOT A CHILD’S TOY
My nominee for the phrase that should be banished from the English language. It is stamped on the back of everything. Does anyone pay attention to this? The old-school decorations from my childhood going all the way back to my great-grandfather’s miniature sleigh with Father Christmas and eight worse for the wear celluloid reindeer are blessedly free from this warning.

The last straw was seeing this on the back of my package of 75 brass ornament hooks. Ornament hooks alone aren’t even a decent decoration, let alone one that could be mistaken for a toy. This must be in a tie in the legal caveat sweepstakes with my sister’s cocktail napkin with a decorative island map that said, “not for navigational purposes.”

SMITHs in Fashion......
Anna Nicole made it to the top of the worst dressed list. "Anna's fashion follies are the worst of the year ... don't bother with a new designer, Anna, just hire a structural engineer!"

Ellyn stays at the top of the bland list. You know, the people so bland that no one bothers to make a real list. Though Britain’s Princess Anne - 5th place on Blackwell’s list - may be a threat:
"Her Royal Dowager Drag is dreary, drab and dour."

WORST DRESSED OF 2002
1. Anna Nicole Smith
2. Kelly Osbourne
3. Shakira
4. Cameron Diaz
5. Princess Anne
6. Anne Rice
7. Donatella Versace
8. Meg Ryan
9. Christina Aguilera
10. Pink

But that’s OK. Would it be libelous to say the other nine women on Mr. Blackwell’s list made it there by shear dint of skankiness?

So Much Real Work to Do
But I can't resist the urge to mention (inspired by the History Channel playing in the unavoidable background) that I saw General Moncalm's skull. In a box. In a convent/museum in Quebec. The kids wait for me to mention that every time we watch last of the Mohicans. I may as well punish all of you with that knowledge, too. So what did General Montcalm look like? A skull. He wasn't wearing a General's hat.......memento mori alert - Generals (from all armies) and their infantry all look alike after 200 years.

A New Fun Thing
Dover Books now has eCards. Over a thousand images from their collections of postcards.......

Striking a little to close to (our occasionally frog/mouse/otherwise invaded) home:
From Rod Dreher on NRO’s The Corner....... this list of Reasons Why Homeschooling Is Like Owning A Pet Rat:

1. Most people would never consider doing it.
2. To many people, it just doesn't seem right somehow.
3. Well, that's OK for your family, but we could never do it....
4. Is that legal?
5. You must be weird.
6. People hope you don't bring it up in conversation.
7. There are stereotypical images of both:
Rats smell, bite, are creepy; homeschoolers are
fundamentalists who stay home all day and shelter their children from the world.
8. Everyone has a horror story to share:
Rats as big as cats attacking people; children held against
their will and abused by fanatic parents.
9. There is a suspicion you are irresponsible:
Aren't you afraid they will escape/bite/attract wild rodents?
Aren't you afraid they won't learn to socialize/read/function?
10. Family members will forward articles about:
how animals make people sick; how homeschooling is
anti-American and undemocratic.
11. You will be given gifts of workbooks/Lysol.
12. No matter how much you love spending time with your homeschooled child/pet rat, you will never convince anyone to try it themselves.
13. Friends and family will talk about you behind your back.

I Just Called to Say I Love Me
That, and much more, can be found in Victor Lams continued discussion of contemporary Church music, etc. He expresses what I’ve been thinking in a much more coherent and literate manner than I ever could.

(I have limited musical education and can basically just whine, “I know what I don’t like!)
And I just couldn’t resist repeating that title - I’ve been humming it and laughing to myself all day. Perhaps I will switch to “Isn’t I Lovely?” tomorrow while performing my toilette.

I do have great discomfort singing songs in the ‘vox dei.’ I realize that this can be totally appropriate, as another blogger mentioned, in the recitation of the Psalms, for instance. But I think the difference is that most average people in the pew don’t realize what they are singing and why, and it starts to have an influence on their attitudes.....We're singing to praise God. So many of the tunes Greg mentions ("On Eagle's Wings", "Be Not Afraid", etc.) are I songs which are venerating only the congregation. Anytime you put in the first person to represent the Lord, you're at risk of doing that -- and if you don't doubt this, walk up to your spouse or loved one and sing to them (doing your best Stevie Wonder impersonation) "I Am the Sunshine of my Life" or "Isn't I Lovely?" or "I Just Called To Say I Love Me" and see what their reaction is. You wouldn't do it to your wife, so why are you doing it to Jesus? These songs, and songs like them (paricularly any which refer to the congration, ie. "we", as any sort of "people" of "justice") bring about an attitude of liturgical masturbation in the congregation: we're no longer praising God but stroking our own egos. And in the past God's been fairly clear about what he thinks about that sort of behavior.

As for Victor’s worries that his children will have to be subjected to music more simplistic than that heard on The Wiggles or Bear in the Big Blue House, I think that is going to change. And I am hopeful that the generation that loves Bob the Builder will help lead us back to a time of more reverent ecclesiastical architecture. Can we do it? Yes, we can!

Victorian Hand-Tooled Tinsel Update
97 pieces accounted for.
Will examine tree on curb with flashlight. We will find those missing pieces.
Except I can't remember if we started with 100 or 99 - we may have come up short last year.

Dude, where’s my towel?.......
Just when I had forgotten about my missing Greetings from Asbury Park beach towel, The Mighty Barrister reopened the case with his mention of Bruce Springsteen’s Grammy nomination for album of the year for The Rising. There isn't a single song on The Rising that could hold a candle to the worst song on Greetings from Asbury Park. Not one. I’ll yield to his judgement on this one. I haven’t heard all of The Rising. That little Sunny Day tune is catchy, but almost cookie-cutterish enough to put him in danger of becoming another John Foggerty plagerizing himself. It’s funny that I would be thinking about this. I missed hearing the Grammy nominations, but I was listening to Bruce on the radio on my way to and from Mass. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out on the way to town; that Sunny Day song on the way back. Old Bruce is better. Put on The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle to expedite the deconstruction of the Christmas tree.

And reflecting upon the the Barrister’s comments about has-beens Elton John, N-Sync, Bon Jovi, and Rod Stewart got at least one nomination each, perhaps the time has come for the Grammy folks to make has been an official category.

Dude, there may be a danger........
in getting too much of our theology from High Times. What I think I smell here (much like the cloud that hung over my college dorm) is a sense that cannabis is what made Jesus great, rather than the only slightly less dubious divine endorsement of cannabis use.
Jesus was almost certainly a cannabis user and an early proponent of the medicinal properties of the drug, according to a study of scriptural texts published this month. The study suggests that Jesus and his disciples used the drug to carry out miraculous healings.

The anointing oil used by Jesus and his disciples contained an ingredient called kaneh-bosem which has since been identified as cannabis extract, according to an article by Chris Bennett in the drugs magazine, High Times, entitled Was Jesus a Stoner? The incense used by Jesus in ceremonies also contained a cannabis extract, suggests Mr Bennett, who quotes scholars to back his claims.

I think there probably are legitimate (ie. medical) uses for cannabis - or THC, but let’s keep it real folks.

Netscape Quality Feedback Agent..........as if
Netscape crashes about as often as I hear 'weapons of mass destruction' on TV.

Why....
am I playing with the computer at 10:00am on a school day? Dad is at the library with "Rod & Todd."
I could be taking down the Christmas tree, but I choose not to. Deconstructing an exquisite piece of organic art is such a ponderous and melancholy task. And I wouldn't dare try to foist the job on anyone else, because I am a tad anal when it comes to my ornaments. Some are old, maybe even of some monetary value, some are just plain 'unique,' and all have such a significance to me that I do not wish to give anyone else the responsibility of tissue-wrapping and filing them all away. But the job should be done soon. The tree feels a bit dry and the clip-on ornaments are starting to contort themselves into odd positions. (The clip-on pink flamingo turned itself upside so often during the first 24 hours that the tree was up that I just gave up and let it hang......) On the plus side, now's the time to start putting up the Mardi Gras decorations. Nothing banishes the blues from taking away the Christmas stuff like draping the porch in purple, gold and green. The girls beg to differ, which makes it even more satisfying for me. (ie - we're the only people on our block - maybe in our town - who put up Mardi Gras decorations. I say, if the rest of the folks around here don't want to recognize "carnival season," too bad!) Laisser les bon temps roulez.

If......
nuns cut from the same cloth as Rabbi Cohen had been running my alma mater maybe it would still be a Catholic women’s college, instead of a small liberal arts school with a saint’s name that has become a subsidiary of a larger Catholic university with a saint’s name. (names are withheld to protect the innocent.)

A Sydney rabbi has been given his marching orders, on the grounds he is too religious.

Rabbi Yehuda Cohen has been sacked from his position as spiritual guide to the Jewish-run Sir Moses Montefiore aged-care facility in Hunters Hill but the Montefiore board has yet to succeed in evicting him from the facility's adjoining residence.

The rabbi told The Australian Jewish News last year that he was merely attempting to instil "a spirit of Jewishness" in the place.

Now I’m Really Glad I Didn’t Grab Play......
to throw on the CD player at work.

I like his music, but I don’t think I could be in the same room with him for more than 90 seconds.
"It almost seems like Bush is doing everything he can to taunt Saddam," writes Moby, whose real name is Richard Melville Hall, tracing his ancestry back to Herman Melville, author of the classic whale epic "Moby Dick."

A New Low
In a desperate attempt to help the boys remember the order of columns, I stooped to a dreadful acronym as a mnemonic device. (I used to have trouble remembering which comes first, Doric or Ionic, so I sympathize.) OK, kids, it's Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. They laughed a lot, but they also remember their columns. It would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had shown up for art history tests chanting, "dic, dic, dic."

Where Can We Buy Some?
This could be a great help to mothers. I wouldn’t mind if the kids behind the counter at Taco Bell were using it, too.
A hospital has reduced infections by a third after introducing soap that dyes doctors' hands if they fail to wash them properly.

Areas that are not clean show up as white patches when the hands are put under ultraviolet light.

Finally.......

According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #1 belief match is ROMAN CATHOLIC. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION

Now I can go to work with a clear conscience. I took this test this morning (thanks to a link from And Then?) and I came up some sort of Buddhist. And only 65% Catholic. I think I was clicking poorly (not enough caffeine?) - because when I did it just now, giving the same answers, I am 100% Catholic. I sulked away to Mass, after depositing Martha at the high school. Father blessed my chalk. The door blessing went well - even with Rick pushing his luck by standing on an ice coated chair to mark the sliding door to the deck. The only chalk I had was red - hope it doesn't stain. (Not that it would bother me much, but the '03 would have to be obliterated next year.)

So much for rapacious ambition.......
Fell asleep between loads of laundry. First lesson - the rapacious woman must never sit on the couch "just to catch the last few minutes of Malcolm in the Middle."

New Year’s Resolution - Hard Work and Rapacious Ambition
Like Eric Johnson of Catholic Light, I had a suspicion of blogging Not very long ago, I was suspicious of blogs. ........I figured most blogs are junk.

And they are. Most blogs are self-indulgent, masturbatory junk, emanations from people who couldn't get published anywhere else.

I jumped in with enthusiasm anyway. If only as an exercise in writing, which I do occassionally and with slow, deliberate loathing. Daily blogging has removed the loathing and I certainly have gotten over the slow and deliberate problem. So, if only for my own mental stretching, like an ungainly, portly and aged ballerina, I keep on blogging. I’ve grown acccustomed to my own little domain of self-indulgent, masturbatory junk.

Latching on to some small memories of people who have implied that I should someday attempt professional writing, I am also buoyed by Mr. Johnson’s definition of what separates small time theatrical talent from the ‘stars’ : hard work and rapacious ambition.
..... famous actors are famous not because they are talented, but because of brutally hard work and rapacious ambition. There is no other explanation: normal people can't compete because they prioritize their lives differently: they might consider their work to be important, but as one important thing among several. Perhaps this will have to be the year I adopt brutally hard work and rapacious ambition as my goal. Hard work shouldn’t be too difficult - most mothers are already accustomed to a certain level of brutally hard work . Rapacious ambition may be a bit trickier. Time to look in the Yellow Pages for a ‘life coach.’

PS - Does a modest portfolio of cranky letters published in the Chicago Tribune qualify me as published?

Christus Mansionem Benedicat
Found several interesting sites while looking up more door blessing info for my friend. Some articles say the chalk should be blessed. Will attempt to get chalk blessed after Mass tomorrow. I'll bring her different chalk if possible. The way I've been losing things lately, I decided to put the chalk in my purse now - so I can't leave home without it. Then I'll put mine in a safe [but not too safe] place so I have it for next year, too.

Today.........
looks really Christmas-y. Couldn't resist the opportunity to make a sarcastic comment about how lovely all the trees on the curb look with a lovely dusting of snow. (Ours is still up and glowing in all of its eclectic glory. Is there any other tree with both SpongeBob and Queen Victoria ornaments?) I took the Charlie Brown Christmas CD to work with me. I had to fight the urge to turn the radio to Breakfast with the Beatles and decided that filling the rectory office with the sounds of Vince Guaraldi would get my mind properly aligned......

A friend called and asked me if I knew anything about Epiphany door blessings. Her daughter mentioned that her boyfriend's family in Michigan does it. I just happened to have it written down from last year. (Of course, the Baby Jesus that I hid on December first is still missing. And I never did find the invitation for the office Christmas party. But a prayer that I scribbled in one out an abundance of notebooks stacked around the house can be instantly accessed.) I also happened to have chalk and holy water available, too, so Eddie and I ran over to her house. Bridget is embarrassed that I would be the person that people would call for chalk, holy water and a specific prayer.

Now I'm back and still trying to put things in order for school to start tomorrow. Rick is mesmerized by the Dead Zone marathon on USA. I don't get it. I don't have time to get it. And is Anthony Michael Hall supposed to be the Christopher Walken for the 21st century?

No more.....
blogging for today. Rick expressed concern that I am becoming verbose. (It only took him 26 years.......) Not concern that I am not spreading my thoughts at home or neglecting my children........just concern that I am attempting to mesmerize (or stupify) the world at large with my thoughts.

In rare rite, women pledge to live their lives as virgins
For the second time in a month, a Chicago-area woman has participated in an ancient and rarely used ceremony to consecrate a virgin in the Roman Catholic Church. She will not be called sister. She will not wear a nun's habit, take formal vows or answer to a superior in a religious community.

Instead, Drajin, 37, joins about 100 women in this country--and an estimated 1,000 worldwide--who have publicly promised "perpetual virginity to God" in their local churches.

This article was in the Trib today. I read it at work, in my ongoing effort to save money $.50 at a time. I think I’ll dig it out tomorrow and copy it to bring home. Bridget returned from work today talking about how her boss (an upstanding member of our parish) was laughing about this article and ‘ripping on any girl who would want to be a professional virgin.’ Then his diatribe descended into a crass commentary on the fact that the featured virgin was walking assisted with a walker and she probably couldn’t get a man. I want to bring the article home and discuss it with Bridget (and any other willing participants). This is worthy of consideration, and consideration beyond the fact that being a virgin over the age of 15 is strange enough to put on the front page of a major American newspaper.

About the Husky.......
which still has not arrived. Fran talked to the woman in Chicago. The husky is now some sort of pawn between the woman's son and his former girlfriend. I hope they take their time and work this out amicably. I hope they decide to marry, keep the dog, raise a big family and leave us with a gerbil, a beta fish and the frog tank the boys received for Christmas. Now I need to find a frog. The card that came with the frog tank says that tadpoles cannot be shipped during this time of year - also, the tab is $5.99 per tadpole. I'm hoping Petsmart or some such place sells tadpoles........Somebody wanted to put the mouse that got into the house into the frog 'environment' (sans water)......I thought Rick's decision to release it in the woods was too kind. Now every sneeze and cough here makes me think Hanta Virus.

Help Us, St. Anthony
Kairos has an engaging post on Catholic practices, idolatry, rigorism etc. including: Until very recently, I was unaware of a tradition among some Catholics to leave the infant Jesus out of their Nativity scenes until after sundown on Christmas Eve. I had heard of that practice, found it to be charming and adopted it. Not with the same rigoristic vigor of some people who are truly horrified by the appearance of the Christ Child in a creche before December 25, but more as a symbolic and instructive act. It hasn’t totally caught on......after years of this, my children still quiz me with, “Where is Jesus? Why isn’t Jesus there?” And I explain. Not this year. The answer is, “I don’t know.” I put Jesus in a very safe place, safe from busybodies who might try to expedite his arrival. And I can’t find him. I know he’s here. Somewhere.

I also know of people who start out the Magi on one side of the room and have them work their way across, to arrive at the creche on the Feast of the Epiphany. That’s a trick I won’t even attempt. Too many opportunities for disaster, improv comedy, or just plain misplacement.

There was a time that this would really cast a pall on my Christmas celebration.......but this year I am trying to keep it all in perspective. To quote more Anything that is a creation remains useful only while it reminds us of the Creator. The moment it takes on a value greater than that, it ceases to be useful and becomes harmful.

If St. Anthony would be so kind as to help me locate baby Jesus by tomorrow, it would be most appreciated........

Note to Embot....
I did what you told me to do. I get indents, but not bullets. So I'm back to the option-shift-k thing to get a .

Hot and Sour Soup for The HomeSchooling Mother’s Soul
or
the three books I read on New Year’s Day.........

Paranoid Parenting: Why Ignoring the Experts May Be Best for Your Child
by Frank Furedi

This one is a fun read. I don’t agree with everything the author says. (he wasn’t real keen on homeschooling and co-sleeping, for example) But I certainly do by his basic premise that for every theory in modern child raising, you will most certainly find a contradictory theory. And finding out about the plethora of parenting advice that has mushroomed since I stopped reading the early parenting books (about twenty years ago, with the exception of the stuff that I would see in the course of my La Leche League experience) was amusing. Amusing because I am not a new parent looking for advice. If I were embarking on parenthood today, it would scare me to death. I was paranoid enough without a whole genre of books to spur me on. Embot was the baby who had her nursery washed down with a Lysol solution before she was born so she would be in a ‘clean environment.’ Fifteen years later, Edward came up just a little bit short of sleeping in a drawer. Guess which child contracted staph and spent a week in isolation on IV antibiotics......

A typical American child will never experience the horror of polio or spend time in an iron lung. She will not get tuberculosis from milk or rickets from vitamin D deficiency. She can go about her everyday life without worrying about smallpox or scurvy from vitamin C deficiency. On average, children can expect to live almost thirty years longer than their counterparts a century ago.says Furedi. But that hasn’t stopped a journalistic genre to bloom around the prospect of management of risks that no one anticipates....The periodical Parents publishes a regular feature titled “It Happened to Us.” Every issue contains a story about an unusual accident that happened to a family - the moral of the story is that it can happen to you, too. “Our Child Got Burned by a Cellar Door,” My Baby Fell Down the Basement Stairs,” “My Baby Was Nearly Strangled by My Hair,” or “A Bouncy Seat Hurt My Baby’ are some of the stories recounted. While it is not evident that what these articles aim to accomplish, their only possible effect is to scare parents about one more trivial aspect of their children’s lives. Scare stories about cellar doors, basement stairs, bouncy seats, and the length of a mother’s hair are not important in and of themselves. But they feed into and reinforce a climate that continually forces parents onto the defensive.

Perhaps I shall write, “I Dropped My Baby in Parking Lot on the Way to Mass and Even Though the Hospital Checked Him Out and Pronounced Him Fine, He Has Neurological Problems, Social Anxiety and I May Have Ruined His Prospects of a Religious Vocation.” Or “My 8 Month Old Ate All the Cooked Carrots While I Wasn’t Looking - Now She’s a Nicotine Addict with a Dubious Boyfriend.” And I wish I were still in touch with the ‘friend,’ who gave me the article about maternal emotional stress during pregnancy having an influence on the baby’s eventual homosexuality. I happened to be going through a rather difficult time - and that was just not what I needed to cheer me up. So, when there is a time when I have nothing to worry about, I can dredge that thought up........years after the fact. And hope it isn’t true.

Of course, there were stresses in all the pregnancies (if having a baby isn’t enough of a stressor in itself.)


Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World
by Debra Ginsberg

Not exactly the story of our lives, but close enough to give some comfort.
I find encounters with these other mothers extremely uncomfortable. They always know who I am before I can introduce myself.

“Oh, hey, you’re Blaze’s mother, aren’t you?”

That’s how it always starts and then I sense the inevitable unspoken subtext: I know who Blaze is. He’s that strange kid in special ed. You’re his mother so you must be strange too. It must be dificult for you, having a kid like that. Of course, I wouldn’t know, my kid is normal.

The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides
“That girl didn’t want to die,” she told us. “She just wanted out of that house.” Mrs. Scheer added, “She wanted out of that decorating scheme.” (p. 19) This is the point when Rick walked out of the movie.........I had wanted to watch it after one or two snarky comments were made to me about my overprotectiveness of Martha and my reticence about her going to the local high school. I thought there was something I wasn’t quite ‘getting’ about the movie, so I read the book. The book was intriguing, but not much more than the movie. And I didn’t see that many parallels to our life. Decor notwithstanding.

I was happy for Sofia Coppola. I felt badly about the way people trashed her performance in Godfather III. In my Pollyanna-ish way, I defended her, saying that Mary Corrleone was a wooden and two-dimensional girl and Miss Coppola played her perfectly. Few people buy that. Her directorial debut was better received and that makes me feel better for her.

”According to Mr. Lisbon, he had long harbored doubts about his wife’s strictness, knowing in his heart that girls forbidden to dance would only attract husbands with bad complexions and sunken chests.”

Am I Bluuueee......?
just doesn't feel the same here with Embot back at school.

Mail Call
Tons of fun from the LF High School School-Home Memo:

.........MEDICATIONS REGULATIONS.
3. The parent or guardian will be responsible for bringing and removing all prescription and non-prescription medication in its original labeled pharmacy container. Oh, s**t, I finally remembered to have Martha’s physician fill out the form that said it was all right for her to have my permission to take acetaminophen or ibuprophen as needed for headache. But I guess I’ve neglected to purchase a special school size bottle, drive to school, find a place to park among the upscale cars of the student body, and walk the bottle of ibuprophen into the nurse’s office. It would be so much easier to not care at all and tell Martha to go smoke dope up on the bike path with the miscreants the next time she feels a headache coming on. Those kids don’t expect a note from your mother......

CONSUMER EDUCATION PROFICIENCY TEST: For those students who elect not to enroll in a course which meets the consumer education requirement, the State of Illinois has a proficiency exam. Those students in grades 9-12 who are not currently enrolled in a consumer education course and who did not take this exam in October, 2002 may sign up for this test which we will offer in January, 2003. Is this consumer ed stuff something I should plan on for Chuck for next year? Do you think the high school would give me a copy of the test so I can know what the State of Illinois considers consumer proficiency? The kid gets to follow me to Wal-Mart, help me with the grocery shopping and has a very nice Ralph Lauren/GAP/etc. wardrobe purchased for a total of less than $15 from the Presbyterian Rummage. He could probably be teaching consumer proficiency.

PARENT AWARENESS CLASS: Growing Up on the North Shore: Helping Kids Navigate the Pressures How about, watch some John Hughes’ movies, watch the kids hanging out at the LF Burger King and then decide to homeschool?

And speaking of pressures, Chuck will be quite pleased that I don’t have the $160, plus $25 material fee, to sign him up for THE CIRCUS WORKSHOP; A chance for kids to learn clowning, rolla bolla, acrobatics, balancing ball and stilt walking and juggling. These circus skills will build coordination, creativity, and self-esteem in a fun and safe environment. At the end of each workshop participants present a CircEsteem Circus for their peers and parents. The CircEsteem program is a chance for kids to amaze themselves and others, through the wonder of circus........and the empowerment of believing “I CAN.” CircEsteem is currently taught at the Francis W. Parker School, Lycee Francais de Chicago, North Shore Country Day School, UC Lab School, The Latin School of Chicago and other area schools. I was a happy well-adjusted child from a happy family. If my parents had enrolled me in a CircEsteem workshop, I would have had to run away. Not everybody wants to join the circus. That is a class that Chuck might not ever recover from. As for the clowning, balancing, and juggling, I think we have enough of that in our own curriculum as it is. Though the stilt walking sounds fun.......but, what, pray tell, is rolla bolla? I am so deprived.

AND SAVING THE SCARIEST FOR LAST........
Dear Parent/Guardian:
In accordance with the provision of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Lake Forest High School will release student directory informtion, consisting of student names, addresses and phone numbers, to military recruiters and institutions of higher education upon their request. Information received by official recruiting representatives whall be used only for the purpose of providing information to students about career and educational opportunities available.

Under the provisions of this act, however, parents/guardians may request that their child’s directory information not be released......
The form is pretty cut and dried. I wouldn’t mind the Marines recruiting Martha, but I can’t specifiy branch of armed forces........or which institutions of higher education. Can I request a Marine in ‘dress blues’ to come to my home to talk to all of us?

And what the heck does this have to do with the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT? If we’re really talking children, what does the military want with them? And will these recruiters come to my home to recruit the boys?

Hi-ho, hi-ho.....
off to Church and work I go.
Feeling 100%, so I dodged the bullet again after eating a dollop of uncooked meringue.
Had a good time at the Christmas party last night. My gift went over pretty well. I wanted something different and not so safe as last year (Einstein bagels gift certificate.) Em and I found a T-Shirt with Ralphy from A Christmas Story, with the words, "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid."

So sick........
The Chinese baby-eating artist is so sick I didn’t even want to discuss it. But seeing that a protester was arrested for his own ‘expression’ of disgust while Britains’s Channel 4 forged ahead with their examination of the extreme art scene in China, I must comment. I’m just not sure what to say.........it’s so beyond comprehension.........
A Channel 4 spokesman said it stood by its "intelligent, thought-provoking film about the extreme art scene in China", although viewers' concerns would be taken into account.

He said the station had received 50 complaints before the screening and 15 since. The programme carried warnings that viewers might be alarmed by its content.

Zhu told Reuters in Beijing it was his duty as an artist to spark debate about morality and art.

Britain's Broadcasting Standards Commission said it had received half a dozen complaints by email overnight. It would request a copy of the tape and put the issue to a panel although its power over programming was limited, a spokesman said.

More Wonderful Life
Larry Kropp expands and expounds on the characters of It’s a Wonderful Life. Very interesting discussion.........But I think he should add a few more characters. Sam Wainwright, Violet, Mr. Gower - all also a valuable exercise in introspection . I still feel closer to George than to any of the other characters. (well, OK, Ma Bailey - I do seem to be running a boarding house.....) I may not have achieved his unfailing moral goodness, but what I really identify with is his look of a man trapped by making the ‘right choices,’ when he would rather be following his bliss. I can relate to that. There is a tinge of bitterness to George that makes him appealing. I know other people who do not see that and only see a syrupy story.

On another note......we always have a good laugh that Mary without George was an old-maid and a LIBRARIAN, which Clarence announces with the same tone of horror as if he had said crack-whore. There are many of us in this house who find library work to be most commendable (including one family member - the Embot - who is still a library employee) and do not see it as the lowest fate that to which a woman could be condemned.

Is it too much to ask.......
for one perfect batch of raspberry meringue puffs? Just one batch to take to the office Christmas party tonight. The first batch came out light brown - fine if you're making cocoa merinues but death for raspberry. These have been my signature 'creation' since I was in high school. That's not saying a lot since they only involve about 5 ingredients and no real cooking skill. (I take the skill part back - making loads of these turned me into an expert at separating eggs. For what that's worth.) The oven in our new place (moved in 8/98) runs too hot. Way too hot. My estimate now is that it is at least 150 degrees hotter than what the dial says. Usually I can adjust it accordingly, but this Christmas we discovered just how difficult it is to get it perfectly adjusted for meringues.

In spite of knowing better, I can't resist the urge to lick the raw mixture out of the bowl. In thirty years I've had no salmonella experience. Now it has all the thrill of eating fugu - wondering, will this be the batch that does me in?

One thing.....
that kept my friends and me out of tattoo-land was the fact that we didn't know where to go to get a tattoo. Yes, we had heard of Tattoo Parlors, but they were as distant and exotic as Opium Dens. (We would have had to go into Milwaukee and look for one.) Today there are tattoo parlors in just about every other upscale suburb that I can think of. There is one less than a mile away from my house. Not that I've been there. Yet.

Ellyn/Karen don’t mix these up word game
We started that when the Irish Princess questioned my wisdom in giving Martha a William Blake book as a confirmation gift. Poor confused little dear was sure I had chosen something by the alleged wife-killer - movie-actor - former-child-star.

You Can't Fool Me.......
I recognize the techniques that I've used on the children when they start coming back at me. Anybody remember being told that cooperation can be elicited by giving a child choices? Such as don't tell Junior to put on a shirt, ask him, "Do you want to wear your white shirt or your red shirt?" Usually pretty effective.

At bedtime last night, not long after admiring Martha's William Blake tattoo, she snuck up on me with, "I'll have some extra money after babysitting this week-end, can I get my nose pierced or a tattoo?"

I was tired but tried to stay rational. I reminded her of her allergy problems and mentioned that sneezing seventeen times with jewelry in the nose might not be fun. I brought up the fact that I, too, had been thinking about a tattoo, in hopes of making it as appealing my sensible shoes. Then she asked me if there were Church prohibitions against these things, I answered as best I could. She seemed genuinely disappointed that there were no out and out prohibitions against body decoration.......so we lowered the ante on that front. I will not be drawn into a game here. And if it turns into a game, I know I have the wits to win. (I already mentioned that I was thinking of a dotted line on my back, with the words Stab Me Here. She groaned. I didn't disclose that I ripped that idea off of Melvin van Peebles cut here line tattooed on his throat. When I was Martha's age I thought that was soooo cool. I didn't get my own, thank God.)

Santa.......
also brought Martha some lovely William Blake 'tattoos' from the Dover catalog. Dover tattoos are incredibly realistic looking. And long lasting. But I'm not ready to rush Martha over to Modern Tattoo and have them make The Ancient of Days a permanent part of her 'look.'

And Then? has the link to the much touted Diary of Samuel Pepys blog. Shall I file this with the blogs or with the links, under Marshmallow Peeps, in keeping with the Ellyn/Karen don’t mix these up word game?

Fun in the Mail
Martha received a Bellerophon Shakespeare coloring book for Christmas. Santa’s helper called the 800 number on the back to order a catalog. It arrived today. What fun. There’s a ton of stuff I want to order.

Attention Pre-Raphaelite Fans!
Check out The Contrarian and Fr. Jim Tucker.

Wallies
are a lot of fun! Wallies are pre-pasted, wallpaper cut-outs. I bought them to cover the line where the dining room yellow meets the living room green. I chose sunflowers and cabbage roses. No one else liked the combination, so I went with just the sunflowers. I’m thinking of doing some sort of rose cascade thing in my boudoir with the roses - the package has been opened, so I can’t return them.

I have never applied wallpaper. My experience is limited to watching my parents curse and snipe at each other while papering. This was very unsettling and off-putting because my parents rarely had a cross word for each other, and the anguish caused by wallpapering was as close as I had come to witnessing real marital discord. Then I happened to be sitting too close when someone dropped a roller and was hit in the head. So the whole process is a little scary for me. I bought wallpaper in 1986. Never put it up. Moved in 1987. Gave it to the Salvation Army in 1998. I will most likely only have a wallpapered home if I move into one or can afford to hire a paper hanger.

But the Wallies were easy. Too easy. Only time and budget prevent me from slapping them all over my abode. I may paint the boys’ room blue. They really need a decent color - right now it is a strange amalgam of grey/beige. Wallies have clouds. That would be fun.......

But I wanted to be Joan of Arc.......
Instead of vacuuming up the last of the streamers and confetti, I decided to take the
Medieval Figure test instead. I know I answered the gender, beard and religion questions well, so why am I not Joan of Arc. Humpph.....
#1: Theodora
#2: Zoe
#3: Constanstine
#4: Justinian
#5: Pope Leo I
#6: Pope Urban XVII
#7: Charlemagne
#8: Fredrick Barbarossa
#9: Joan of Arc
#10: King Arthur
#11: Richard the Lionhearted
#12: Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (El Cid)
#13: Belisarius
#14: Clovis
#15: King Alfonso
#16: William the Conqueror
#17: Saladin
#18: Robin Hood
#19: Mohhammed
#20: Genghis Khan

Just like a real teacher...
I'm returning to school before the students. I must use today to evict all the toys and dreck that have invaded the school table over vacation and prepare our lessons so we can hit the ground running on Monday.

Frances has some sort of devious plan to redecorate the family room - to make it look more normal. (She wants to buy real desks, ship out the school table and re-do the book shelves. I'm OK with her offer of a slipcover for the couch. It was pretty nice when we bought it for $35 at Lambs' Farm resale shop 4 years ago, but now it's a little (OK, a lot) worse for the wear.) So I am planning on sitting here all week-end to prevent anything funky from happening. Now that we have a normal TV, Franny feels we need a normal looking room to go with it. We've already explained that we are totally happy with the way things are and if she really wants to live in a 'normal' place, she is welcome to find her own. Just to reinforce the point, I told her I'm willing to plant myself on the couch (Em is leaving tomorrow) and live there, 'Brian Wilson' style, until she finds a different mission. Tomorrow night is our work Christmas party - I hope Fran doesn't use that as her time for a coup. Don't want to miss the party - it should be fun. Last year I brought a 'normal' gift for the gift exchange. This year I'm a little more relaxed and I found something really funny. But not so funny that I want to stay home and keep it for myself.

But what about our productivity........
T.S. O’Rama responds to a NY Times report lauding a drink or two a day as good for cholesterol and thinning the blood....Zee problem is dat 1 or 2 drinks, unless they be 40-ouncers, are not too appealing (like having one potato chip). Four would be a more appropriate number. But if one is drinking with a meal, it is quite easy and natural to have 1 or 2 drinks...
Even one generous glass of wine with dinner makes me disinclined to do the dishes or any other productive work in the evening hours. Two drinks is just an invitation to nap on the couch. I wish I hadn’t dissipated myself so as a young person, maybe I’d have a little more ‘staying power.’ Yes, I can rally if I find myself on vacation (let’s say, um, New Orleans....) but generally I must keep myself caffeinated and on my toes.

That's Edwards.......with an S
I'll presume this candidate has not consulted with all the dead presidents.......

Off to a good start.......
This is been one of the best New Year's Days we've had in a long time. Eddie started the day in a bit of a snit because I chided him to keep his gruel off of his white turtleneck so he would look good when it was time for Mass. Then we had to endure the prolonged pout and protestations that, "no one else is going to Church today." Actually, the Church was quite full of 'no one elses.' I had my own pouting bout, because Edward didn't share my enthusiasm for Mass attendance and I had to remind myself that it took me quite a few years to reach this point. Toyed for a few minutes with changing the blog name to "Diminished Expectations." This was brought about more by the vase of wilted roses on the dining room table ( and nobody got the joke when I inquired as to the whereabouts of the decaying wedding cake) than by my disappointment that the boys aren't more like "Rod and Todd." Now that I am past the pique, I shall remain oblique.......

Things I Just Don’t Understand
So he’s distressed? A Montana man who legally changed his name to "Jack Ass" in 1997 has sued media giant Viacom Inc. , claiming its stunt-heavy, gross-out TV show and movie "Jackass" had defamed his character.

I can’t resist the temptation to mention that there was a man in my hometown named Harry Yass. (Pronounced ‘yoss,’ but you can imagine what us young comedians did with that...)

Another thing......
I love about Church. Christmas decorations. Christmas carols. On January 1.

Man Who Thought He’d Lost All Hope Loses Last Additional Bit of Hope He Didn’t Even Know He Still Had
This was funny.........(from The Onion) Should keep it to shame myself when I’m having a Charlie Brown moment.
"If this poor, miserable wretch can finally lose every last ounce of hope, then at least his life will be relatively bearable, inasmuch as he will have nothing more to lose," Wasserbaum said. "However, as long as there is even the slightest chance, no matter how astronomical the odds, that he has more undiscovered hope left inside him somewhere, he will always have the inevitable loss of that hope hanging over him like a dank cloud of black soul-sludge, waiting to devour him in a pit of churning agony."

Well.....duh....
This review of "The Road of Excess" in the New Yorker caught my eye with its mention of Thomas De Quincey’s "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," a book that I never read but was always running across during my employment in my college library. (Why would a small Catholic women’s college possess about 500 copies of this book? I will never know.......)

This article is a nice distillation of a lot that I learned the hard way. The reviewer quotes W. H. Auden on the writer’s use of drugs as a "labor-saving device" in the "mental kitchen," with the important proviso that "these mechanisms are very crude, liable to injure the cook, and constantly breaking down." I wasn’t a big member of the let’s-get-high-and-watch-Sesame-Street crowd, but I did have my misguided times of amphetmine use to maximize my potential. Which it didn’t. But it took me a long time to figure it out. This rang a bell: Sartre is probably a bad advertisement for the effect of amphetamines as an aid to composition
...........therefore a recognizable type of speed freak, the type dedicated to obsessive, unfinishable, and, to the neutral observer, pointless toil—the sort who, several hours after taking the drug, can usually be found sitting on the floor, grinding his teeth and alphabetizing his CDs by the name of the sound engineer. Ouch.

I’m glad that’s behind me. And I’m not too smug when I read about crystal-meth addicted housewives and moms who dip into the kids’ Ritalin. That’s a trap I can sympathize with and I really don’t want to go there. (Although I would have to get high to watch Sesame Street.....some things just can’t be tolerated with chemical assistance.)

Maybe I will get a tattoo
If a nice, smart and matronly (and I mean that as a compliment) woman like Carol Marin has a tattoo, then I must be the last girl on the block not to have one. So what’s stopping me? Indecision?

• How about the von Huben family crest? Too complicated - probably too painful. And I have trouble committing because I really am a Smith, even if I am the mother of a lot of von Hubens. We thrashed through the whole name thing before marriage, and I’m OK with it. But I don’t know if I want my ‘new’ name inked on my body....even if I’ve been using it since 1978.
  
• An I Love You Raggedy Ann heart? That’s an idea left over from my teens. Best left behind with dotting my i’s with little hearts. Also, a painful location
  
• A snake with Don’t Tread on Me? Honest, but a little too edgy. And it probably wouldn't be visible to the people who would most need the information.
  
• Something in Latin? Chuck suggest Sic semper tyrranis, as usual. So Eddie suggests Cogito, ergo sum. All I can envision is being disrobed in a locker room, ER, etc. and someone thinking to herself, “Oh, yeah, she was thinking when she did that!”
  
• A flower? I don’t know.
  
• A bug? Bridget has a bee, so I don’t want to rip off her idea.
  
• A comet? My sister has one. Ditto on the rip off.
  
• A rainbow? I used to do a lot of rainbow motif things.......now I think it’s too associated with the ‘gay agenda.’
  
• Something religious? Too hard to do it and maintain a respectful attitude. I’m thinking Anna Nicole Smith’s Our Lady of Guadalupe calf thing here......
  

Well, I’m sure the tattoo parlors are all closed now so I don’t have to come to a decision......

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

let's start....
the New Year's cleaning with my e-mail folder. I have over 900 messages. They can't be all worthy of saving.........Maybe I should resolve to start 2003 by unsubbing from some of the e-mail groups that I can never find time to read. Like FlyLady - an extremely helpful, get-organized, get-your-house-in-order service. Unfortunately, I haven't actually read my FlyLady reminders in about 6 months. Rick keeps kicking them into my folder where they have piled up and added to my new problem of cyber-clutter.

I got a rock......
now I can't get the little lime Life Saver picture to work. Where's Emily? Oh, out to dinner and having fun like young people do on New Year's Eve.

My sister and a bunch of people are having a family slumber party at a hotel with a pool. Sounds like fun. I missed her call today while I was at the dentist. But I'm so relieved to hear that the package with Big Blue, the security blanket, finally arrived. It only took a week and a half to go about 600 miles. At least it got there.

But I Wanted to be Cherry!?!



Find out which LifeSaver you are.

thanks to a link from Kathryn Lively

Seriously, I think lime LifeSavers taste like bathroom cleaner. Or what I think bathroom cleaner would taste like. Contrary to popular opinion around here, I know what bathroom cleaner smells like. Really.
Although I may not clean again til '03.

But cherry..........mmmm. I lived on cherry LifeSavers for a quite a stretch when I was dealing with 24 hour a day morning sickness while expecting Chuck. PharMor (boy do I miss them) had big bargain packs of just cherry. Keeping a cherry LifeSaver in my mouth at all times allowed me to fulfill obligations like leading a Brownie Troop without having to excuse myself to vomit. The secret to keeping my stomach under control was different with each child. (Embot - limeade and apricot sparkle candies, Eddie - French Onion Soup, lemonade and potato chips) Of course, I now have the teeth of a woman who lived on hard candies......finished up at the dentist this morning - one last filling. He said that's all.........for this year. Ha, ha!

R.I.P.
Any of you La Leche Leaguers out there are probaby familiar with the name of Dr. Ernest Robbins Kimball. Just ran across his obituary in the Trib. Fascinating . He died several days ago at the age of 93.

Let the revelry begin.......
I may have previously stated that a great improvement could be made in the calendar if we could only celebrate Labor Day and play the Super Bowl on January 1st, thereby rolling my three least favorite days of the year into one. Forced 'jollies' are such an irritant to me. Being the contrary sort, I just can't get excited about a holiday that says I'm supposed to have fun. (This is not like the spiritual joy implicit in holidays such as Christmas and Easter. I'm talking about a holiday that says I should put on a funny hat, imbibe too much and dance about just because the calendar is about to flip over.) Why I am like this?.........I don't know. No bad New Year's memories that I can think of. Perhaps it is a hold over from childhood, when the arrival of Guy Lombardo and Baby New Year meant the return to school was not far behind. Is it because my birthday was once, centuries ago, New Year's Day but somehow it was moved to January 1st and I feel robbed? I don't think so. I just don't like being told when to have fun.

What I like to do on New Year's Day is clean. Straighten up closets. Purge the various little cubbies and hiding places in my secretary. (That's the piece of furniture, you know, not an employee....) Martha is turning into a real chip off the mater block. I heard her rummaging around her room at 11:00pm last night and she said she had been overcome with an urge to clean.......Perhaps I'll cook the books today and see if there is enough cash to send Rick and the kids to see the new Lord of the Rings movie tomorrow. That will buy me a big block of time to sort through stuff, listen to my music (loud!) or maybe take a nap. That's the ticket......

If.......
you’re finding it hard to say good-bye to ‘02, this article from the Chicago Tribune might cheer you. Some of it is old news, but there were a few gems that I missed......such as
That response: "It was actually Pepsi-Cola, and it could happen at any time."
An urban legend about a terrorist who warned people who were nice to him not to drink Coke after a certain date grew so prevalent that Coca-Cola, in September, had a response up on its Web site.
and the too gross...
Also pulled from the market: Rugrats massage oil.
Mattel recalled a best-selling Harry Potter toy, a vibrating broomstick, after receiving many complaints from parents that their daughters were spending far too much time playing with it.
and just plain funny......
Next brilliant move for G+ J: 'Child' becomes 'Culkin.'
A very messy public divorce, with suit and countersuit, ended the short relationship between talk host Rosie O'Donnell and the Gruner + Jahr magazine company, which had renamed its 125-year-old McCall's as "Rosie" in early 2001.

It's PayDay!!!
So I really must be off to Wal-Mart for TP, PT, LT, dtgnt, etc. My inclination is to crawl back into bed and figure we can wring out the toothpaste tube for another couple of days. When I'm being tempted in that direction, it's usually a sure sign that I need to go to Mass, stay for the rosary and then get on about my business. Crawling back in the sack is never as great as think it will be and is usually the start of a disjointed day.

Will do my best to stay out of Target for 'just a look.' Did go to the Highland Park Target on Saturday night with Em. It was more of a mother/daughter bonding thing than a bacchanal of 50% off holiday purchasing. Though I did find a few gems that I'll save for Karen's St. Nicholas box next December. Brass ornament hooks! (OK, at $.75 a package, I did get some for myself. But I don't think I'll replace all the old hooks.......) And a pickle ornament. Next year they will be in their new house and a pickle should be a nice 'first Christmas in the new homestead' type gift. Otherwise, I avoided buying tons of gift wrap, etc. since I don't have a good place to store it for the next eleven months. And that kind of hoarding makes me think of my father, who would come home from the supermarket on December 26th remarking about the people buying all the Christmas wrap at half price and his perception of their supreme confidence that they would still be alive in a year. (My father wasn't really the pessimistic sort..... but he certainly did enjoy conjecture about the purchases of his fellow shoppers.)

Huh?
My spousal unit has never even heard of Rael. Where has he been? Why is he bothering to watch all sorts of sci-fi stuff on the tube when the news is just as entertaining and whole lot scarier?

Francophobe tendencies?
Ah, ha! I am not the only one who doesn’t like the looks of the Clonaid president. Victor Lams is even a bit more scathing than I am. (Maybe it's just me or my Francophobe tendencies, but doesn't the president of Clonaid look like a Sid and Marty Krofft puppet?) I do not usually comment on people’s looks, since that is a matter chance, genetics, God’s blessing, etc. (So I am plain as a mud fence and not gorgeous, like, say Candace Bergen - well, hey, I can’t help it......) But those who present themselves to the media as spokespeople should be just a tad vigiliant about the perceived ‘look.’ And looking like a drop-out from the cosmetics counter at Field’s just says something not too ‘scientific.’

Not........
that I’m anxious to be a grandma - in fact I’m still reeling from the realization of how young Paul’s ‘grandfather’ looked when we watched A Hard Day’s Night on DVD Friday - but when I was Em’s age I was married with an Em on the way. (But when my mother was my age, I, her oldest, was a mere 14.) This NRO article has some good food for thought.

And, yes, by starting my family while quite young, I can enjoy sitting at home playing on the computer while the littler guys sleep and the oldest is driving to O’Hare to fetch her younger sister. I knew this would pay off some day!

And my relatives think I am weird?

Rael also attacked Christianity, and particularly the Vatican, for its opposition to cloning. 'Everything that the Pope is against, I support,' he said. 'The Catholic Church is the worst enemy of human nature.'

Those who adhere to Vorilhon's teachings are encouraged to be respectful of other people and to enjoy the sexual company of others, including those of the same sex.

''He surrounds himself with attractive, glassy-eyed women – maybe that's why he likes Florida in the winter,'' said Eric Siblin, a Canadian writer who interviewed Rael for the Canadian magazine Logik three years ago. Siblin said he went to a pro-cloning event in Montreal run by the Raelians, whose interest in extraterrestrials and free love were evident.

''The meeting drew hundreds of people,'' he said. ''Lots of them were sci-fi nerds, and there were strippers, too.''

The sect sells science fiction knickknacks at its theme park/compound outside Montreal known as UFOLand, Siblin said.

And his top spokesperson has two degrees in chemistry? I’m so sure. She can’t even tweak her hair color.......

One other......
little intrusion on my bubble of Christmas happiness. This op/ed piece in the Wednesday Tribune was about as welcome on Christmas as the toy moose who poops chocolate jelly beans and not nearly as amusing..........

Being Catholic in a season of trial and love
By Delle Chatman.
I had recently found out that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--which is the strong-arm of the Curia in Rome, the Vatican's heavy-hitters--had put pressure on U.S. Catholic magazine, which is published here in Chicago by the Claretian order, to recant its pro-women's ordination ideology.

I had been featured in an article published in February 2001 that profiled five women who felt called to the priesthood. We simply shared our deep conviction that God had called us to serve as priests in the Roman Catholic Church. We were civil. We were calm. We were honest. And yet someone in the Chicago archdiocese wrote a letter to Rome because he felt the magazine needed to be censured officially for printing such feelings. Shortly after that I was told by my academic advisers at CTU that now that I was formally studying at the seminary and am also a very grateful recipient of the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry, a scholarship that pays for my theological education, I have to be careful of what I say. I can no longer talk publicly about my call anymore. It had been excruciating to subvert my vocation in the first place, but I did so out of obedience and tried to find another acceptable way to serve.

As you can see, she is willing to talk publicly..........

Oh, well, go read the whole thing. I haven’t yet distilled my dismay into a letter to the Trib. (Which I would have done ASAP if it hadn’t been a holiday.) Wouldn’t it be a nice present from the Trib if they would just skip the dissident essays on a religious holiday? Just once?

EEEEW
Well, this, thanks to Mark Shea, got my mind off of the mouse that we found in the house.......read ....Show me a culture that despises virginity and I'll show you a culture that hates children for the full background.......

Was Saddened and perplexed........
when Martha’s junior high yearbook listed Everclear’s “Father of Mine” as ‘song of the year.’ I questioned, who but a bitter child of a broken home would want to listen to that song. I guess there is a bigger audience than I thought.

Relapsed Catholic had this link to Symphonies to Sorrow.....As the songs of modern rockers indicate, children continue to feel pain from their parents’ divorce even many years later. This is one of the reasons God condemns divorce so strongly. That’s something to think about in a culture that says if parents are happy, then children will be happy, too. More often than not, it just isn’t true.

Just ask the real experts on divorce: the kids who have gone through it and who are now writing rock-and-roll symphonies to sorrow.

Eeeeew
WND First cloned human baby reportedly born today
Birth of girl 'went very well,' says UFO group responsible

We’re all appalled by this. But Em is especially grossed out. She has had one too many incidents of people telling her she looks so much like her mom. (I’m flattered when someone calls me Em by mistake, but I’m 47. It’s like being in one of those old soap commercials, with the mother and daughter who are mistaken for sisters.......)

Finally.......let’s hope this starts a trend
Judge finds Planned Parenthood 'negligent'
Failed to report 13-year-old's abortion, case mirrors pro-life probe..... (from WND)

IF.....
I were to allow my bubble of happiness to be burst..........which I won’t............

I’d start with the Flower Fairy coming home on Christmas Eve and telling me that her boss gave everyone except her a Christmas card - with cash inside. It was not so much the lack to the cash, as nice as that would have been, but the total lack of Christmas wishes, considering she has worked there almost a full year. I must say it was difficult for me at Mass,in the processional queue at the back of the church, when the pastor thanked this man for the lovely church decorations, to not stick my index finger in my mouth in an exaggerated gagging motion.
(There is also a certain amount of bad feelings abounding because Fran has only been at the animal hospital a few months and she received the humongous Godiva gift basket, a scarf made in Ireland and other perks. Bridget quotes Charlie Brown, “I got a rock.”)

Karen called around 9:00 pm to wish us a Merry Christmas and to say that she would probably never set foot in a Catholic Church again. Must redouble my prayers. I should have warned her that Christmas Eve Mass can be of a penitential nature for even the most devout and she should probably just visit on an average Sunday. Will wait until she calms down to pursue further discussion.

Allowed myself to be dragged into a religion/political discussion with my lapsed Catholic brother-in-law over dessert on Christmas Day. Didn’t help that I had imbibed several large glasses of champagne and he had had most of a bottle of chardonay. I could hear, with my failing right ear, my mother-in-law asking my two sisters-in-law why I insisted on using the term “pro-life.” And then there was some sort of laughter........ My father in law just stood up and left. Luckily, we had to leave to see Frances off on her Vegas trip around the time lawyer/brother-in-law was declaring that belief in God was no different than belief in the Easter Bunny. Sparkling domestic wine does not leave me in the best position for apologetics - that is best done sober and even, perhaps, heavily caffeinated. I think my sister-in-law blames me for getting him drunk and putting her in the unhappy position of doing the driving home to the south ‘burbs.

When the kids settled down, I put on my new flannel nighty and crawled into bed to watch the Godfather on Bravo and nurse my psychic wounds and blooming headache.

So what is it with lawyers and God? Between my sister and my brother-in-law, I am quite concerned.........

Fran....
made it to Vegas. Christmas Night. To be the maid of honor at a friend's 'wedding.' (You can infer how I feel by my use of apostrophes around the word wedding.) What can I say? Well, I've said plenty......so I'll just have to stop. I guess I'm glad that some of her peer group are thinking of marriage - as twisted as a Vegas wedding is........

So I told her I'd pray for a safe flight. And begged her not to come home married or with a tattoo.

The Thought that Counts.......
I am so touched by the gifts I received for Christmas. Permit me to brag..........I am not bragging so much about the material goods as the sweet thoughts behind them........

Em read about the Holy Habits paper dolls here and ordered a set for me. I couldn’t believe it. They are so nice. And I tore my closet apart yesterday to find my 40+ year old ”It’s Me!” paper doll to try the habits on her. They fit!!! The habits do look good on me.

Em also read my bemoaning the loss of Teresa Bloomingdale’s I Should Have Seen it Coming When the Rabbit Died from our local library’s collection and tracked down a used copy for me from eBay or half.com or some such resource. I actually cried (a little - I’m not the lachrymose sort) and that is why she made me open it on the afternooon of the 24th, while we were alone. She didn’t want me to “break down” in front of the family.

Rick saw a Bouguereau print that I had used in making little Christmas cards for the people at work. He downloaded it, tweaked the colors to perfection, printed it out and framed it.

I received so many other things that showed people were truly thinking of me. I am touched.

No Jaguar........no diamonds.........no mink.................just the love and affection of my dear, dear family.

Oh, and there is the huge TV and DVD player that the kids chipped in to get us. (To bring us through the 20th and into the 21st century) A mixed blessing. It will take vigilance to make sure the gang is not hypnotized. And I couldn’t even work on the iMac yesterday with that stereo sound thing 18 inches to my left blasting the Count of Monte Cristo. I thought our little computer monitor hooked up to cable was quite nice, but I have to be gracious in accepting this and not go all Elvis and threaten to shoot the thing the first time I see something I don’t like. And the public library and video store are going more towards DVD’s so it is time to catch up. (Altho this is also a golden moment to start buying discarded VHS tapes - just like I did when out video store got out of the BETA business........)

Third Day of Christmas!
What a wonderful Christmas this is.....I hope all of you dear friends are having a likewise blessed and, indeed, jolly time!

I have finally learned after almost half a century of life, not to judge everything by my ‘feelings,’ (e.g. - Christmas is Christmas whether or not I feel particularly jolly), so I am doubly blessed to actually feel the way I think I should. Giddy as a school girl, perhaps?

For the first time in many years, Mass on Christmas Eve was more joyous than penitential. I refused to let the nattering crowds get me down. Because I was the lector, I was guaranteed a seat, but we arrived an hour early so my entourage could find a please to sit, too. This year, they were actually able to sit with me. I broke my usual rule about not toting entertainment items to church (the boys are 8 and 13, for Heaven’s sake) and brought notebooks and pens so the guys could sketch until Mass started and not use up all their ‘sitting still energy.’

Going to church yesterday morning was superb, also.
The church was decorated fabulously, but it was also divinely quiet. The yada-yada-yada of the Christmas crowd is absent on the a.m. of the 26th. The best of all worlds...........

That old stand by of the Lutheran Christmas pagaent......... Stille Nacht


What Christmas Carol Are You?
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Wishing you all........
a very Merry Christmas. Will be back Thursday.

Right now I am off for a little time of quiet prayer and reflection before the hyperactivity of the day begins. Since the Church is still in the decoration process, I shall find quiet meditation time at the dentist. Oh, well, you have to be gracious when the doctor offers a time to squeeze you in. I am the lector at the 6:00pm Mass today and would really like to be able to read without that tiny sharp spot on my molar rubbing my tongue - I'm starting to talk like someone who wishes not to move her tongue and it's sure hurting my credibility around here. I want to do a nice job at Mass tonight.....my biggest asset is volume and enunciation............Iittle old ladies are always telling me that they like it when I am the lector because they can make out the names of the sick and dead. Nice to know I can be of assistance.


God Bless You All!

Some years....
I've found it hard to find time to watch my favorite Christmas movies. Now it's my new panacea for the early morning waking. I was up at 5:00 am yesterday. After my usual morning routine, I crawled back into bed and watched White Christmas - without interruption. No quizzical kids, no phone calls, nada.
Also, no popcorn - thought the smell would gross out Rick at that time of day.........

The husky.........
may be delayed a week. That's OK.
Things are so chaotic here now (Bridget and Fran were up past midnight baking cookies to take to their respective places of employment. Luckily, Martha and Em were here to help them.) the arrival of an energetic, hairy dog could mark 'the tipping point.' Or maybe the 'tippling point,' for mater.

Blast from the Past
Taking a break from last minute Christmas stuff.......making room for the Christmas tree and Emily (Emily of the ‘sleeping on the couch because Mom gave away your bed’ lore.) Emily and her beau, Ed, put up the 100 pieces of hand-tooled Victorian tinsel. Bless their hearts......

Relapsed Catholic has a link to an article about one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen. Santa Claus, made in Mexico circa 1959, is so weird I had almost totally blanked it out of my mind. I remember our little family riding home from seeing this fascinating cultural pastiche at the Rivoli theatre, in total silence. It was just so weird we had nothing to say. Karen was just a baby, but she would have been speechless anyway. It was just weird. And all this time I had been telling people that I never saw a movie I didn’t like until a bunch of us went to see The Getaway sometime during high school or college. Santa Claus was a very repressed memory.