Pansy's husband asks (while noting our Weather Pixies):
Oh, so she gets to stand in the sun and you get to stand in the rain with an umbrella. Dontcha get tired of always just standing there in the rain and snow all the time?
May 2003 Archives
Attention aspiring couturiers:
Elinor Dashwood, blogeuse of Mommentary (and also known as Mme. Cacciaguida), has some words on her adventures sewing a Fluffy White Dress for her First Communicant.
Happy Anniversary to the Cacciaguidas! (I always wonder if Mme.Cacciaguida has any idea of the size of her readership....)
Are you suuuure you want to go to that Pampered Chef party?
That top financier is Mr. Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway recently bought The Pampered Chef. Berkshire Hathaway is also a major corporate donor to The Buffett Foundation, which in turn is a major donor to Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups.
Alicia's recommendations
Boy do I have suggestions! Did I mention that my BA is in Literature? also, I do have 6 children.... This is not in any particular order. I have read every book I list, some of them several times. I own or have owned just about all of them. Also, if you can find a list, just about anything published in the 50s and 60s by the Weekly Reader Book Club. Try yard sales. My grandmother, a first grade teacher, subscribed me for years. I am thinking about books that have good values, are readable, and might help these children to expand their horizons a bit - fantasy is actually quite helpful with troubled kids. Some of these may need to be read to the children. Enjoy! aliciaI recommend the young adult novels by Madeline L'Engle (except for House
Like a Lotus - it is a good read but might be problematic for abused
children - read it first.It does have some sexual material that could be
troubling.)
here is a page with some info on her books
http://users.aol.com/lengleweb/lnovels.html
the ones I think would be good for this age group are
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
Many Waters
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas
A Full House: An Austin Family Christmas
Meet the Austins
The Anti-Muffins
The Moon by Night
The Arm of the Starfish
The Young Unicorns
A Ring of Endless Light
Troubling a Star
Dragons in the Waters
An Acceptable Time
And Both Were Young
Camilla Dickenson
Not all of these are in print, alas.I also recommend the books by George Mac Donald, especially
"The Princess
and the Goblin" if you can find it. Also the sequels.
Narnia!!!!!
Any books by Edith Nesbit (The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Railway Children, The Enchanted Castle, The Book of Beasts,
The Magic CIty, Five Children and It)
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
A wonderful little book I had as a child is "David and the Phoenix" by
Edward Ormondroyd, if you can find it!
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron (and her
other Mushroom Planet stories)
Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander (I liked it better than the Prydain series, and
it is easier reading)
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
(and her other books, too)
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Do they have the Anne of Green Gables set? Those are also very readable and
have good values.
Charles Dickens? Oliver Twist is short and abused kids really relate!
Louisa May Alcott? (Eight Cousins is not as well known as Little Women but
is actually more readable for today's audience - and Jack and Jill which is
about a girl who was severely injured in a sled accident and has to face the
prospect that she may never walk again).
Rudyard Kipling - Kim (another story of an orphaned child who does well in
an unusual fashion), The Jungle Book (the real one, not that Disney
aberration!)
The Andrew Lang Fairy stories (blue, yellow, etc)
Mark Twain? The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
court
How about Sherlock Holmes stories?
Any of the Oz books by Baum
Jules Verne?
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
How about The Hobbit?
Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane by Martha Cannary Burk
Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (and several of her other books)
Half-Magic and the other books by Edward Eager (about a 4th grade reading
level)
Sid Fleischman's books (The Whipping Boy, By The Great Horn Spoon - I read my copy of this until it broke, my kids also enjoyed his books)
Caddie Woodlawn
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Children's Books
Some of my daughter's (age 10) favourites besides the Chronicles of Narnia and Laura Ingalls Wilder books would be the Redwall series, The Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights Series, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Around the World in Eighty Days, Three Musketeers, Tom Sawyer, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Anne of the Green Gables, Tuck Everlasting, Treasure Island, Little Women, Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz, Sign of the Beaver, Boxcar Children, any of the Beverly Clearly Ramona books, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Roald Dahl , the Nancy Drew series, Black Beauty...
This is really a very fun age in terms of literature and I find myself living vicariously through her enjoying some of my favourites again.
Wanna be a Spinster?
Let's talk about books....
...books for kids, that is. Lee Ann, blogeuse of Literarium and Spinsters, wrote to ask,
...do you have any suggestions for good books for kids aged 3-15? My friend Carol works at a home for abused and emotionally disturbed children and is trying to update their library. They need book ideas for both sexes. Any ideas?
First of all, let me apologize to Lee Ann, I am waaaaaay late in posting this. Many of you have already seen this at Spinsters, but just in case you missed it, I thought I'd cast the net again.
I know that some of the suggestions have included Narnia, Middle-Earth, Nancy Drew and her chums, the Hardy Boys, Harry Potter, the Laura Ingalls Wilder books... I can't get the archives to work at the moment so I can't list more.
Kids seem to like books in series, and some little girls seem to like Flower Fairies. My sister liked the Shoes series (Ballet Shoes, Dancing Shoes, etc) by Noel Streatfield. Those American Girls books might go over well too. Misty of Chincoteague might also be appreciated. For older kids, I really liked books by Lloyd Alexander when I was a kid, especially his Prydain books (The Book of Three, etc)
For the littlest children, picture books -- the If You Give a Mouse a Muffin series for the tiniest ones, Richard Scarry books, Jamberry, Arthur, books by Rosemary Wells, anything by Tomie di Paola... I would hit those used bookstores and look for picture books with strong, interesting pictures. For older kids, some of them really enjoy books on How Things Work, and I bet those DK Eyewitness books would be really appreciated. Books based on movies (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, etc) ad TV shows might also go over well. Little Golden books are fantastic -- they're not very expensive, they have a great range of titles, and they're a good length for little kids.
Magazines might also be a nice idea -- Cricket, Ladybug, Highlights, Ranger Rick... I would also suggest comic books but it doesn't seem like there are very many fit for kids anymore.
Survey: Teens feel pressured to have sex
"Changing social norms and cultural expectations as well as delayed marriage means many young people have multiple sexual relationships in their lifetimes and need the information and tools to make healthy decisions and communicate with their partners," the report said.About one in three teens said they had been in a relationship where they felt things were moving too fast sexually.
I think many parents do not understand that while they think they are being responsible by purchasing a box of condoms for their sons and saying "you can do what you want, just don't bring home no babies", they are not taking any responsibilty for other people's daughters. I know many would argue that they are not responsible for other people's children, but they do have a responsibilty to teach their sons not to do harm to others.
I realise I am speaking from a female's perspective here, and my intent is not to say women are innocent victims, but simply that my perspective is simply from someone who was once a teenage girl. Teenage girls very often succumb to sex simply because they do not know how to extricate themselves from a situation where a boy is pressuring them. I am sure this is more the case than the need to express one's sexuality or whatever buzz terms or philosophies are in vogue now.
More on Boobs Hanging Out
Child number one-I nursed but because I did not want to offend anyone, I never left the house.
Child number two-I had a job at a daycare so my children could come with me. My coworkers would talk about how offended they were by the sight of nursing mothers, so I would bottlefeed at work and nurse at home. Posco weaned himself at seven months. I was devastated.
Child number three-I got with the program and decided everyone else needs to get a grip.
Natural Law has dictated to us what breasts are for, feeding babies. Study upon study upon study has shown the benefits of breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. We live in a society where we should be open about sexuality, but an accidental glimpse of nipple as a result of breastfeeding and people rant, rave and call the authorities. I am so missing something. It makes no sense to me, so I conclude people need to get a grip.
To me it draws far more attention to have a baby bending backwards and screaming than nursing in public. People who do not nurse do not understand that breastfeeding is not just about nutrition but it is about an emotional need for the child. A nursling around their mother needs to nurse on demand. Any Mom who has coslept with a newborn knows that sometimes the baby cannot sleep because the smell of the milk makes him crazy.
As much as I want to give the "I do nurse discreetly in public" speech (and I will in a second) I have to admit I could actually care less. Not that I have some passion for showing off my boobs, but if my baby is hungry or needs comfort, baby's needs come first. I will not substitute with artificial nipples or second rate nutrition just to make someone else comfortable. I am a homeschooling stay at home Mom and spend far too much time at home to begin with and refuse to give up the sporadic outings I do get to indulge in because other are offended by breastfeeding.
OK, back to the "discreet" issue. I have always nursed comfortably around my teenage brothers and the only time I got a big "Ah Gross!" reaction from them is when I had back issues of The Compleat Mother laying around. Just because I am breastfeeding does not mean I am living out my secret fantasies of being a exhibitionist. Even without blankets, with nursing clothing and mainly posture and attitude, many people do not notice, or do not seem to care. Or people are too afraid to comment.
Nobody's boob is hanging out
Breastfeeding in public can be done discreetly. I don't want to see anybody's boob hanging out. I don't care how the human body is misused in our sexually debauched society. Use a scarf and cover up. There are plenty of natural, beautiful, intimate things we just don't do in public.
First of all, to our dear guest, I'm sincerely not trying to pick on you, the sleepy mommies love you, and I promise I haven't forgotten about that thing you asked me about in your email either.
But it seems that comments about modest breastfeeding come up every single time the topic of nursing a baby in public comes up. Perhaps we should start adding a standard disclaimer to any blog that mentions nursing a baby in public, something to the effect of "We write this with the assumption that nursing in public is done discreetly." But truly, I don't see why this has to be spelled out. The only place I have ever seen nursing mothers with "boobs hanging out" is not the mall, not the grocery store, not church, not the La Leche League meeting, but in photo illustrations. A few of these illustrations have been for hard core granola-Raspberry Leaf-earthy-birth-goddess-type magazines; a few more have been illustrations for "how to nurse your baby" materials; the vast majority of "boob-hanging-out" photos have been for those free baby magazines available from Babies R Us (and some doctor's offices) -- you know, those magazines with all those ads for artificial baby formula....
In real life, all the nursing mothers I have seen or known have kept covered up by using slings, blankets, clothing, and so on. (It's also possible to nurse modestly without hiding under a huge tent.) Women who wish to expose their breasts probably have already found other ways to do so, and the vast majority of nursing mothers really aren't interested in having anything "hanging out" for anyone else to see. One of my LLL leaders knew a woman who was harassed by a store clerk for feeding her baby -- but the clerk had to ask "are you breastfeeding the baby?" If mom had lied and said "no", there would have been no issue. In the linked article, none of the mothers mentioned being exposed as the issue -- only the reporter mentions being "covered up in public" -- it was the mere fact of breastfeeding an older baby that drew the nosy comments. If those same older babies had been wandering around with pacifiers, bottles, or thumbs in their mouths, nobody would have batted an eyelash.
I think that most of the agita is due to the fact that formula feeding has been the norm in this country for a long time, so some people simply aren't used to seeing nursing babies, much less nursing older babies. (I started getting "are you still nursing?" comments when Hambet was five months old.) It may also be one of contraception's mutant fruits; in Mr. Luse's mounds of comments on this issue, he observes, "Even in our contraceptive times, [the nursing mother's] fecundity exerts a powerful subconscious pull."
Interesting Article, Peony!
Breasts are considered sex objects in the United States and are thus supposed to be covered up in public. Dia Michaels, a District mother of three and president of Platypus Media, which publishes books for families, teachers and parenting professionals, says: "Breasts are used to sell everything from beer to cars these days, and so Americans are terrified of seeing breast-feeding in public." She notes that some people act horrified when they see her nursing her 4-year-old and that she has heard comments ranging from "That's not allowed here" to "That's disgusting" to "Isn't she too old for that?" when she nurses her daughter in restaurants, parks, or on airplanes and the Metro.
I never understand the irony of this, how people do not mind seeing breasts for everything but what they are intended for.
Ivey, one of the founders of Mocha Moms, a support group for at-home mothers of color,
Mocha Moms?
This is off topic from what the article is about, and I am glad that there is a focus for minority women to stay at home and breastfeed-it is long overdue. But do they have to have that corny name?
Extended nursing
My husband alerted me to this article in today's Washington Post (requires a couple of marketing questions):
There was good evidence that nursing beyond a year has health benefits to babies and mothers," says Lawrence Gartner, chair of the AAP's Executive Committee, of the section on breast-feeding. Specifically, for the baby, the benefits are nutritional, immunological and developmental. For the mother, they include a possibly lower rate of premenopausal breast cancer. Nursing also can calm an agitated toddler.Some studies suggest that if babies were left to wean naturally, the normal weaning age for modern humans would be between 2 1/2 and 7 years, says Katherine Dettwyler, a noted anthropologist and author who has been conducting research on culture and breast-feeding since 1981....
Some of Pansy Moss's Favourite Movies
I prefer movies that I could just watch and not worry about watching with the kids around, but not all fit that criteria. Many do though, I (not listed in any specific order, by the way)...
Signs
Ever After
The Sixth Sense
Tombstone
Patriot
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring andThe Two Towers
Glory
Gettysburg
While You Were Sleeping
Transformers The Movie
A Knight's Tale
Black Hawk Down
The Last Unicorn
The Princess Bride
Birth Rates Decline in Europe
Isn't it odd with all the advancements in food distribution and healthcare that birth rates are dropping so dramatically instead of increasing?
Oh, in case you were wondering
My husband rented and beat Enter the Matrix this weekend. Yes it answered many of the questions that the holes in the plot of the movie left. Yes it had a neat preview of the next movie at the end. I am not sure if I should share any of the info because it might spoil it for those who have not seen it? Or would it be good for those who have no interest in playing the game? Does anyone even care???
The blog I could have written-except not because I don't that well...
but I can so relate to . William Luse over at Apologia writes about the personal frustration with liturgical abuses.
I am a week late on this, sorry.
Saturday evening was nice because last minute we were invited to a potluck dinner-prayer-thing-Catholic-fellowship-get together. I had Spinach Enchiladas slotted in for dinner, so I just brought it with me as my dish.
We met a young couple (not married) who just graduated from F U Steubanville who were very cool. Although they were I guess about 7 years our younger, we seemed to mesh generationally. I also attribute that to the fact that the young lady of the pair was a homeschooled as a child, and the young man wants to go into psychology-specifically family therapy, so I think it there were some similar interests. We even had a long discussion about breastfeeding. So Polo and I did not feel incredibly alone afterwards as the only Catholic Young Adults in the Albany area.
Sunday we went to Church where a lady had a big box of "Free Rhubarb" from her garden. We came home, where I fully intended to make a rhubarb crisp for dessert after a leisurely Sunday afternoon of sewing. All of a sudden the room started spinning and I was horribly nauseous. I couldn't even sleep it off. I thought a lot about Ashli of the SICLE Cell because it was similar to what she described except I knew it would be short lived, not last for months.
I was very thankful that if I had to be sick, it was on a day my husband had off. The two youngest boys had it also and the baby still seems to have diarrhea poor guy.
This morning I am feeling much better but tired. I ate today and am hoping we do OK because my dh has left for work at ten after six this morning and will not be home until eight tonight. I am grateful that homeschooling is almost finished except perhaps a subject each.
I thank everyone who thought of me and said a prayer, may the Lord reward your kindness.
The manusturge
On Saturday, Cardinal McCarrick ordained nine new priests for the Archdiocese of Washington. One of these priests, during his time as a transitional deacon, had done a lot of work at the parish my husband and I used to belong to (and still attend from time to time.) So he said his first Mass at this parish. In honor of the occasion, the choir did the ordinaries in Gregorian Chant. When we were at this parish, I was a member of the choir, and I still sing with them occasionally, so there was no way I was going to miss this!
It was a lovely Mass (and Hambet was even somewhat well behaved.) I have never been to a priest's first Mass before (or to an ordination.) One of the things that most impressed me was the custom of the new priest presenting the manusturge I hope I'm spelling this correctly) -- the linen towel used in the ordination to wipe the oil from his newly anointed hands -- to his mother. The priest's mother will be laid to rest holding this cloth in her hands.
So picture me holding Hambet in the back, whispering commentary: "Hambet, look. The priest is giving a present to his mommy."
I hope that I, too, will have the privilege of being buried holding a manusturge in my hands.
This weekend has been very pleasant but it's just flown by. Saturday I had some blood work done. Afterwards I stopped by Fresh Fields Whole Foods Market and found a nice surprise -- some organic rhubarb for $1.99 a pound. Nice rhubarb, too -- big, crunchy red stalks -- so of course I snapped that right up. In the afternoon we looked at dishwashers and took a trip to the library, where I was able to check out a few kid's videos about fire engines.
Sunday is going to get its own post. Today a big round yellow thing appeared in the sky and the rain stopped (we have gotten three inches of rain this past week, and almost two inches of that was since Thursday; part of my poor garden is under water.) It seems that part of our back yard is gradually sliding onto the patio, so we took a trip to Lowe's to look into building a little retaining wall. I will have to blog sometime about our house -- fondly known as "The Prussian Green Money Pit" -- and all the little projects that keep presenting themselves to us.
I think all this rain has something to do with why I've been ruminating about grow lights. While we were at Lowe's, I saw some free-standing wire shelving that I think might fit the bill -- all I would have to do is hang shop lights onto the wires with the S-hooks and plug the lights into a timer. But, again, no need to think about that till after Christmas.
prayers puh-leeze, please, please, please, please, puh-leeeeeeze!!!
Please say a prayer for me because I am very pathetic. Three out of six Upstate NY Mosses (including yours truly) seem to be afflicted with some type of stomach virus that is wreaking havoc in my system from the waist up in ways I hadn't thought possible. I want my Mommy...
Judge Orders Abortion for Disabled Woman
This is bad. Why not let it go for the three months left and adopt the baby out?
Think about it, the judge has ordered the death of an innocent child...
Garden Report
It's been cool, grey, and rainy almost all week, it's like we're turning into Seattle or something. The seeds I planted directly outside are getting nowhere because it's too cold.
Meanwhile I'm still daydreaming about plants. Where did this madness come from? Anyway, I am already thinking ahead to next year and how I want to start my seeds indoors. To really make a go of this I will need a grow light. The seed starting catalogs sell cunning little setups involving metal shelves, concealed chains, and so on, but they are fantastically expensive. I could just rig a shop light somewhere but I thought this gardener had a great idea for building a little seed starting shelf.
The trouble is that neither my husband or I have any experience whatever with carpentry. If I lived near my dad, he could build it for me, but given his tendency to procrastinate I wouldn't have it until 2010.
My dh suggested that we could just buy shelves and customize them, so I will have to keep my eyes open for something suitable. I just like the look of the little wood shelves. Considering I don't have to worry about starting seeds until next January, I don't know why I'm spending so much time thinking about this.
I Guess the 80's are "In"
Disney is remaking Freaky Friday this time starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan. I loved the book as a child, but it got so tired in the eighties with the whole switcharoo plot after Visa Versa(1988), Like Father, Like Son(1988), Big (1988), and of course the original 1976 version of Freaky Friday starring Jodie Foster.
In other movie news, Disney is an animated movie called Brother Bear featuring the music of Phil Collins. The movie does look cute.
I promise I will come up with some less sarcastic blogs in the future. I cannot help myself.
Pansy's Friday Five
1. What brand of toothpaste do you use? Tom's of Maine Propolis and Myrrh
2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer? Whatever is cheapest at Sam's Club.
3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear? Birkenstock's Sydney's or Gizeh or any type of cute sandals from most likely Payless.
4. What brand of soda do you drink? Caffeine-Free Diet Coke
5. What brand of gum do you chew? Gum hurts my jaw. I like chocolate.
More on Shakespeare.
My dear husband (who never reads my blog) and I have been interested in Shakespeare's Catholicism and recusant connection for a while, so I kind of meant "was Shakespeare a crypto-Catholic?" as a rhetorical question. In addition to the article Lee Ann recommended, some good books on the subject are Ian Wilson's Shakespeare: The Evidence and John Henry deGroot's The Shakespeares and "The Old Faith". The latter has a postscript by Father Stanley L. Jaki.
This is amazing.
Thanks to Alicia for the link.
That Erik is such a milquetoast.
You can't get him to put forward an opinion on anything, not even chewing gum.
Peony's Friday Five
1. What brand of toothpaste do you use? Colgate Total plus Whitening
2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer? Cheap white TP on a double roll. Any brand will do.
3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear? Cheap ones from Target or Penney's.
4. What brand of soda do you drink? Diet Rite or Hansen's.
5. What brand of gum do you chew? Not big on gum.
Blogger trouble
Ok, is it just me or is Blogger acting weird for you too, especially in the realm of archives?
For some reason Blogger dropped our second week of blogging. I was finally able to locate that page and put a separate link to it on our archives page. For some reason, that page still shows our old green Ordinary Time template (and our old blogroll) instead of our current template. So it's a little bit of a time capsule: Saint Sabina's, liberal racism, snow days, quiz results, and Buffyiana.
Forget that Earl of Oxford fantasy
Some Searches
eggplant + birth
huh?
peony+spirituality+and+the+saints
ok, about right
coloring+pictures+of+Jesus+carrying+his+cross
looking for some of those myself
sexy+mommies
yeah Baby, you came to the right place!
Faint?+sleepy+adult
yep, that's us again
cheap+communion+dresses
???
Lizzie+Maguire+lyrics
LIZZIE+MAGUIRE+SONG+LYRICS
LIZZIE+MAGUIRE+SONG+LYRICS
click the link for crying out loud
Lizzie+Maguire+Christian+Movie+Review
That we have
Felon nuns are stunned that they were found guilty....
Hudson, who is 68, Platte, who is 66, and Sister Carole Gilbert, 55, are still stunned that they were found guilty of sabotage.....more
I am surprised that the WaPo gave these felons sisters so much ink -- this isn't exactly a local story. Would they have gotten the same fawning coverage if they had broken the law by cutting the fence around an abortion clinic and whacked at the building with ball-peen hammers? How about if they had squirted it with vials of their own blood?
Buffy
Spoilers!
Well, the final episode was pretty good (and leaves the possibilites wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy open for spinoffs, movies, and SMG guest spots), but I thought it was still pretty uneven. In his discussion of the episode, Victor links to a Salon interview with Joss Whedon (which, to me, explained a good part of why the show was so maddeningly uneven -- it's not for the reasons that Whedon thinks.)
First, one thing to get out of the way -- my husband asked, "When you blog on Buffy, make sure you mention that they should have put the show out of its misery three seasons ago." Okay, honey.
Second, I thought there could only be one Slayer alive on the entire Planet Earth at a time and that's why Buffy was the Chosen One, etc, and that Kendra and Faith were activated because Buffy's heart stopped temporarily, etc. (Which would raise the question of who became the Slayer when Buffy was good and dead at the end of Season Five.) And -- sorry, Victor -- I liked Buffy's idea of changing the rules of Slayer status. It just makes more sense if there are Hellmouths everywhere. (Cleveland is revealed to have a Hellmouth -- is it under the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?)
I did get some of the items on my wish list -- the swift death of Caleb, who was annoying, not creepy. Sorry, Mr Whedon, Caleb was just a warmed over Stephen King villain, and cartoon fundamentalists generally do not wear Roman collars. If you want to critique "religious institutions" and "the patriarchy" (whatever that is) please learn a bit more about them first, okay? (And how can "religious institutions" be bad but priests and ordinary believers be okay? That kind of stuff needles me too much) I did not get another big item on my wish list -- the swift death of Kennedy -- and I guess Giles was for real after all, so his behavior for the last half of the season was just confusing.
My husband thought it was significant that the only casualties were reformed demons, something about showing how truly they had reformed by sacrificing themselves for others (especially for Andrew, who himself is a reformed villain....) I forget what we came up with. He also thinks it's significant that they escaped in a school bus (beyond the fact it's something they could easy acquire that would a whole lot of Slayers and Scoobies.) So maybe there is a Slayer/ Watcher Academy in the future.
Fare Thee Well Buffy
Well, they ended the show by turning every potential slayer in the world into a full blown slayer. They had nifty images of little league girls stepping up to plate and feeling themselves imbued with slayer power. Curiously, they didn't have images of Big Bad Bertha at the women's penitentiary becoming all powerful and kicking her CA's butt or anything. Anywho, for what it's worth, I am glad that they didn't kill Buffy off again, or have her walk away from her responsibility.
The Angel scene was short lived. Watching their little conversation about why she cannot be involved in a relationship because she is cookie dough, and she is not done cooking. But when she is done cooking then maybe she will be ready to have someone eat, er enjoy cookies. I enjoyed the conversation because I realised just how much they developed Angel since he had his own show. My favourite season of Buffy is Season Two, the one where Angel loses his soul. Even then he wasn't as strong a character as he has become, and they didn't undermine any of that for the Buffy finale. I guess that is why he could only be on for like 2 minutes.
I want to know what happened to all the people in Sunnydale? Did they all die?
Now off to read Victor's review. Any thoughts Peony? That has become a highlight if my Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Oh I did forget to mention (and Victor did not) was the highlight of the evening when the Mutant Enemy "Grr! Arh!" Guy turned and looked at us. My husband and I got a big kick out of that, well because we have gotten a big kick out of that guy for 7 years now. OK, OK, so we are easy to entertain.
OK, so I have been reading about The Raving Atheist sending fellow atheists to drop bombs of love or something at Catholic Light and at Catholic and Enjoying It. While the story is amusing, it makes about as much sense to me as The Matrix plot did. I mean I never understand why people of other beliefs care so much about what we believe. I could care less. I do not mean that to be smug, but what atheists believe takes up very little time of my daily thought process. Much better things to worry about like, what to cook, saying the Rosary, teaching the kids and blogging about Mommy Stuff, BTVS, The Matrix, rhubarb, breastfeeding and the Catholicity of it all.
So I will end this blog with a nifty quote from Matrix Reloaded (bear with me because I am doing this from memory, not from a script):
Commander Lock: Not everyone has the same beliefs you do
Morpheus: My beliefs do not require them to.
Yeah, yeah, I know-short, pointless and nothing but an excuse to post that nifty quote. But the whole "Love Bombing" thing did remind me of that quote, so it wasn't just a random tie in.
Apparently Matrix Fans
The reason why the movie made no freakin' sense is because the big holes in the plot are filled in by the video game.
The brothers' production scheme was as audacious as their narrative vision: two films shot as one, and more than two years in the making of the real (sound stage) and virtual (computer-generated) elements. They also planned a DVD package called Animatrix —nine short computer films by top Japanese and American anime directors, elaborating on the trilogy's themes and subplots (it hits stores next month)—and a nifty video game, Enter The Matrix.
For what it's worth the game looks really cool, but what a rip off.
Update: Check out Animatrix.
Peony, I disagree with you on this one.
First time for everything? Although I can see where you are coming from in regard to personal freedom and all.
Our county council is trying really hard to get one passed. I do not like the idea, even though I personally prefer to dine at smoke-free restaurants. If an owner of a bar wants to permit smoking, he should be able to do so.
I suppose I can understand smoking in bars, well not really, but that is my opinion. I can say as the mother of three asthmatics, it has been a breath of fresh air (no pun intended) to be able to go to a family friendly restaurant and not worry about it bringing on an asthma attack. I am totally willing to admit that I am projecting my own situation into this, and turning into my therapy. I mean I guess I should figure that taking asthmatic children to restaurants is not prudent. All I know is that this legislation has made my life slightly easier. I just do not think children should have second hand smoke imposed on them.
Rhubarb Crisp
5 cups sliced rhubarb (peeled, if desired)
1 cup sugar (Peony: I use a little less for a nice puckery taste)
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
topping:
1/2 cup regular rolled oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, ginger, or cinnamon
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup chopped nuts or coconut (optional)
For filling, combine 1 cup sugar and 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour. Toss with 5 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened sliced rhubarb. If the rhubarb is frozen, thaw it but don't drain it. Put the filling in a 8x1 inch round baking dish.
For the topping, in a mixing bowl combine oats, brown sugar, flour, and nutmeg, ginger, or cinnamon. Cut in butter or margarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in nuts or coconut, if desired. Sprinkle topping over filling.
Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-35minutes (40 minutes for thawed fruit) or till fruit is tender and topping is golden. Serve warm with ice cream if desired. Serves 6.
Sometimes I make a double portion of the crisp topping and keep it in the fridge. For weekday fruit crisps for three, I'll just cut up a couple of apples or put some blueberries in a little baking dish, sprinkle on some of the topping, and pop it in the oven.
You can also use this crisp recipe for apples, pears, peaches, apricots, cherries, or berries; just toss the fruit with only 2 to 4 Tbsp sugar. Skip the flour for the fruit filling unless you're using berries or cherries.
Peony's This or that
1. Large or small family? Small, aspiring to large.
2. Potato chips or pretzels? A few chips, I guess.
3. House or apartment? House.
4. Zebras or giraffes? Giraffes.
5. Candles or potpourri? Candles.
6. Flowers or trees? Both.
7. Right or left-handed? Right.
8. Model trains or dolls/stuffed animals? Probably trains!
9. Comedy or drama? Comedy.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: The city of Boston has recently banned smoking in all restaurants and bars. Would you want to see such a law passed in your city/town/country, or not? Our county council is trying really hard to get one passed. I do not like the idea, even though I personally prefer to dine at smoke-free restaurants. If an owner of a bar wants to permit smoking, he should be able to do so. I also wonder if there won't be an exemption for fancy "cigar restaurants" or something like that, a place for lobbyists to take their prey for cigars and Scotch (while the average Joe who wants to light up while he drinks a beer at Moe's is, once again, out of luck.)
Class markers
One of the cool things about St Blog's is being able to read what other people's reviews of about books that you were thinking about reading someday. Today Lee Ann saved me a trip to the library by posting her thoughts on Paul Fussell's Class: A Painfully Accurate Guide Through the American Status System. Well, I still may read it...someday.
I guess I am very thoroughly a child of the middle class, and not the upper middle class, either. A few years ago I read an article about how clothing functioned as a class marker. According to the author, big hair and tight flashy outfits were the plumage of the lower classes. You could spot rich women by their soft, flowing outfits that didn't seem to speak to any function. And middle class women tended to have specific clothes for specific occasions -- "work clothes", "good casual", "casual casual", "dressy casual", "grubbies", etc.
I just about fell off my chair laughing when I read that last part, because the Great Chain of Being of Clothing was something that was drilled into me from the time I was little and is something I'm trying to get my husband to comprehend (to no avail....) When I was little, there were church clothes, school clothes, good play clothes, and grubbies. Now my categories are roughly super-dressy, dressy, nice casual, everyday casual, and grubbies. My husband's categories seem to be neckties and everything else.
I guess some other status markers are vacations (I've never been skiing, for example, or abroad) and education (I was taught that the supreme goal of education was a college diploma.) I would suspect that there are cultural aspects to class in our society that could be completely different from one's economic class, but do they stay different? And the funniest thing about this is how little agreement there is about who's in what class. I always thought I was middle class, but Fussell might think that some of my habits mark me as a Prole. And I was amused when a D.C. City Councilwoman put me squarely in the working class when she was (rightly) decrying the lack of affordable housing in D.C. for "people in the working class, like police officers and nurses." By that reckoning, huge sections of the white-collar federal workforce are also working class. Did she have them in mind as well when she was thinking about "the working class"? And does that mean that all those lawyers and lobbyists are not really working?
This is fun to think about (in small doses) because people-watching is fun and so is satire, but when it degenerates into snobbery it's not funny any more.
I'm hooked!
On rhubarb, and it's all your faults! I cannot resist that tart flavour. Thank you very much Peony and fellow St. Bloggers.
I saw some fresh rhubarb at my health food co-op, and the strawberries have been lucious so I just made a batch of strawberry rhubarb jam.
I also made it with honey instead of sugar. It tasted good on the spoon so we'll see how it turns out because I didn't have an exact recipe for it.
Update: Success! My jam gelled. Now I just hope it tastes good. The hot jam I licked off the spoon tasted like rhubarb pie.
So what did I do? I took four cups of strawberries and four cups of rhubarb thinly sliced and mashed them up with a potato masher.I put that in a large pot to boil with 4 tablespoons of lemon juice and 4 teaspoons of calcium water. Calcium water is an ingredient that comes with the pectin I use. When it started to boil I added two cups of honey and 4 teaspoons of Pomona's Universal Pectin. I let it boil until it reached 220 degrees according to my candy thermometer. This is the part that takes patience because it takes forever to reach that degree. I think the reason why I lack a good gel in my jams is because I get tired of waiting for them to jump from like 215 degrees to 220. When it finally reached that temp, I spooned them into 8 oz jelly jars and processed them for like 7 minutes.
It only yeilded like 5 jars though. I actually do not mind small batches because my canner only fits seven jars, but it is a bummer because after all that chopping and boiling, that is all you get. The bright side-now I have rhubarby goodness for a few months!
This is what I meant by out of control Fluffy White Dress Syndrome.
In her last parish, she said, one family spent $800 on a dress, and some hired limousines to chauffeur their little communicants to and from church....more....
Garden report
I finally planted the third and fourth beds this afternoon, and put some plants in the perennial bed by our front walk. I had asked Ernie at the nursery to order nine lamb's ear plants(Stachys byzantina "Silver Carpet") for me so that I'd be sure of getting all I needed for a nice full border. They came in last week, and Thursday was the first day I was able to go get them. While I was at the nursery, I also picked up some tomato preplants (a Brandywine, which is an Amish heirloom tomato; two Romas; and a yellow tomato named "Taxi" that I could not pass up since it reminded me of Davey's family.)
So I was all set to plant, but as soon as I got home on Thursday it began to pour down rain. We've gotten almost two inches of rain since Thursday night, which has made planting pretty inconvenient. It finally stopped for a little while this afternoon, so I got out there with the trowel as soon as I could. I put in all the lamb's ear and I'm so pleased with the way they look. Back in the potager, I got in all the tomatoes (and the watermelon plant that I got in a moment of insanity, because the little icebox watermelon on the plastic pick looked so cute!)
I also planted some basil, marigolds, nasturtiums, and more garlic. The cool thing about all those plants is that they are supposed to help repel pests as well as be good to eat. I am intercropping them with the tomatoes and other plants. I want to plant some parsley this week, too.
I can't believe how late I'm getting all this stuff in, but this spring has been unusually cold and damp for us (I don't think we cracked sixty degrees today.) Normally I wouldn't mind this, I kind of like cool weather, but it seemed kind of a waste of time to plant seeds and transplants for warm-weather crops when it was so cool. I'm holding back a little while longer on transplanting my eggplant -- they are still so tiny -- and I stuck some 2-liter soda bottles (bottoms cut out) over the smallest tomatoes to keep the heat in and the critters out.
I hope all this pays off with yummy vegetables this summer.
1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.? I usually drink purified.
2. What are your favorite flavor of chips? I'm not big on chips, but I like the ones that taste like potatoes instead of Perlite.
3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most? Toss-up between pizza, spaghetti carbonara, and rhubarb crisp.
4. How do you have your eggs? Usually scrambled.
5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out? My husband cooked dinner for me on Mother's Day -- stuffed salmon. It was delicious.
Just wanted to highlight Dinka's comment....
i don't understand people who regard having children or children themselves as something less worthy or "just biological" or plain nasty and annoying. i think they are being mean spirited and in denial.children are not a species - they are pre-adults if you want to call them that. we were all children at some point. to hate children is to hate your very self. there is no choice about it. we HAVE to be children first. to reduce having and raising them to some animalistic drive is to reduce oneself to a burdensome byproduct and it just so happens that those people consider themselves VERY valuable. why? i wonder.. what did you do? you managed to wait enough years to turn into an adult? big deal...
"to hate children is to hate your very self." Oh, how that sums it all up!
I used to know a woman who lived in Takoma Park, a little hippieish town in Maryland that sits right on the D.C. line. TP is hard to describe -- It's kind of a bobo-ish, aging hippie type place -- for example, it's a "nuclear free town", and you can walk down to the Starbucks, Earth's Goodness Bakery, the Granola Co-op, and the Wise Womyn Candle and Herb Shoppe. Some people who live in TP have tons of money and can afford restore the lovely old houses to pristine condition. Other people, including some Catholic families we have known live in TP because it's the best place they can afford that's close to a Metro. (They live in the houses and apartments that haven't been renovated. And they walk quickly after dark.)
My friend was one of the latter group, and she would always get a little annoyed when she would take her little boy out for a stroll to pick up some groceries. The hippie clerks at the Granola Co-op would always coo and fuss over any dog that came by, but would pointedly ignore baby Sam. To Rachel, it was both a little insulting -- and a little creepy.
New to the blogroll:
After the Day is Done, Julie's blog. Her post on Teresa Heinz cracked me up. Do check out her web page, too. She has pictures of her gardens (gardens! I am so in awe)
My mother volunteered to take the kids last night
So Hubby and I reciprocated by packing up two of her teenage sons and Gorbulas and headed off to the drive-in.
The two movies that were playing were Malibu's Most Wanted and Matrix Reloaded.
I actually did not hate Malibu's Most Wanted as much as I thought I would. No, for real. There were parts that really had me laughing out loud. I got a big kick of super-sexy Taye Diggs of How Stella Got Her Groove Back fame acting very silly and not so Leading-Manesque.
My brothers said they know kids that act like the main character-the rich Malibu kid who insists he is a Gangsta. Things have changed so much from when I was in high school (c. 1986-90). Now I do not know if this is a reflection of the times or of Lawrence High School, but no white kids wanted to be a Gangsta Rapper. I hung with a crowd that listened to mostly hip-hop, and at first you could not even buy hip hop in a store, unless it was some DJ store smack in the middle of an urban area, or if you had a friend who was a DJ and could cut a tape for you. That changed around 1986, but only a few titles were available. They never showed any hip hop on Mtv until around 1989 and they started a weekly one hour program hosted by Fab Five Freddy called Yo MTV Raps. I remember getting all excited and taping it. And you never, ever saw any white kids being Wannabe Gangstas. The racial divide both physically and culturally was never ever crossed. I wonder if it is still the same there? I will never know because there is not enough money to pay me to set foot in that High School and see.
As for The Matrix, I have no idea what was going on. There was too much talking that made no sense. The fighting scenes, which are always good, have become sort of redundant after four years. But it would have been better if you knew why he was fighting if he could fly away? There was too much gratuitous sex to make it comfortable to watch with my mother's teenage sons. Trinity, Morpheus and Neo are looking sort of long in the tooth and it was almost painful to look at them.
I could excuse all that for some more costumes, but there were not as many as the last movie, just Neo looking very pasty and skinny and a long black robe thing. And the movie was so dark, but they were always wearing sunglasses. It amazed me they didn't walk into walls.
There was a fun moment with a cameo appearance of Laurence Fishburn's lovely real life wife, Gina Torres who you may know as Jasmine from Angel.
It actually did have some entertaining value, but the fact that I really had no idea what was going on in the storyline made the other little things that mentioned before more annoying. Just like the decentfilms.com review, I am hoping movie three ties it all together so I can know what the heck is going on.
Oh Sigh
Matrix Reloaded is playing at the drive-in tomorrow night and there is no we are going to see it. The problem is, Hubby is hoping we can go and cover the kids eyes in certain scenes, or wake the up real early tomorrow morning in the hopes they will fall asleep at dusk in the car-or something. Poor Sweetie really wants to see this movie. I do not blame him. He even brought home an article from USA Today basically saying "it is not too bad." We are not going though, not unless he can find a babysitter. What Screenit and what Decent Films have to say sort of contradicts USA Today. Oh well.
Guilty (Very Guilty) Pleasures
Warning:A very estrogen laden blog.
Now you know I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I like to eat, scrapbook, do aerobics, and dabble in sewing. I didn't tell you I am a closet Cloth Diapering Addict. Yes, there are strange women like me who do not just simply use cloth diapers out of necessity, but are sort of actually into them. In my defense, if I were alone, there would not be a World Wide Cloth Diapering Resource. I have Chinese Prefolds, Hempers prefolds, Aristocrats Wool Soakers, Fuzzi Bunz, you name it. While I like prefolds, pins,and nylon pull-up pants for economy, the fun part is with the WAHM (work at home Mom) made diapers.
To know what I am talking about, one just needs to browse The WAHMall Auctions and see some of the really neat dipes some of the mother's have made. If you are expecting, it is very easy to get lost in the auctions. Another auction spot is Mother's Nature. Sometimes you can pick up some prefolds at a good price.
One of the neatest makers of cloth diapers has to be Full Moon Baby Gear . Terri (the owner) really makes some of the coolest diapers and baby accessories I have seen, including batik diapers, an Our Lady of Guadalupe baby blanket and Dio de los Muertes all in one hemp diapers.
I wonder if it is a sign of taking attachment parenting to an extreme when one finds "fun" in diapering?
This fabric is so cute.
I wish I quilted or something, I would make a blanket out of it.
My kids have taken to waking up very early in the morning, and watching French cooking shows before school. I wake up to:
Rosey-Posey:"Wow, look at all the butter they use. Hey, they are putting wine in that Coq Au Vin, can kids eat that?"
Posco:"I don't think so, wine is not for kids. I want to eat the chicken stuffed with spinach, but man all that butter! I can't believe it."
Rosey-Posey:"Oh look what they are doing with those apples! And caramel and nuts."
Posco:"Mmmm, nuts! Ooh and clams, I love clams!"
Enter Mom
Rosey-Posey:"Oh Mommy, Good Morning! You should go to Epicurious.com and get a recipe from there! It looks so good even though they use soooo much butter!"
Posco:"Yeah, butter-like a whole thing!"
Ack, I hope my last blog on motherhood was not insensitive sounding
You are correct, not all women are called to motherhood. I totally agree with everything you said. Just to clarify, my thoughts were more for the author of the article then for Katheryn. There is a big difference between Katheryn's prayerful discernment of a vocation, and the married author's decision to not be a "breeder" despite the fact that she has names picked out for her would be children.
This whole discussion also reminds me of a study my father told me about years ago. The study was about people's reactions to babies. I think the scenario was someone standing in a public place with a baby. The findings were that women who did not have children had little or no interest in the baby, but women who had given birth could not walk past a baby with poking the child or saying "aww." Men almost always stopped, cooed and smiled at the babies regardless of being a father or not. There are so many factors that affect these choices, most especially prayer, graces and even hormones.
Not all women are called to motherhood....
God calls some people are called to single life, and that's where He wants them. I just think it's important for women like Katheryn to discern carefully. Is her feeling that she "does not want children" a hint from God that the single life is His plan for her? Or is because our culture has been telling us all our lives that children are incredibly difficult to raise, are nothing but trouble, and will completely wreck your body, your intellect, and your happiness?
I think Katheryn's reflection on accepting children being an essential part of marriage shows that she's approaching this question from the right direction.
In our larger society, something's up when so many people are rejecting parenthood. And so often it's for the same old reasons: career and "freedom." (I picked up the new copy of Real Simple at the store yesterday and found another article along the lines of "I'm so glad I didn't spawn, my life is just the way I like it!")
It's all a natural outgrowth of our culture's basic assumptions about life, love, and sex: My life belongs to me, and the purpose of my life is pleasing myself. Sex is primarily for pleasure. Therefore marriage is primarily for pleasure; children are optional. If children are optional, they are a troublesome and annoying option because they get in the way of pleasure. (Same goes for spouses, by the way; when he fails to please me, time to get rid of him.)
Part of the problem may be that that with our culture's emphasis on delaying marriage until you're done with school and have established the all-important career, it's really easy to suddenly find yourself in a position where there simply aren't as many opportunities for meeting people. Plus, it seems that the longer you remain single, the greater the temptation is to get set in your ways.
It's so sad, really. Careers come and go, and can be over in a moment. Children grow up in the blink of an eye, but they live forever.
Peony, I too just read Katheryn's post today...
I was going to blog on it, but wanted to get my thoughts together.
I think I commented in the box that one thing our contraceptive/secular culture does not understand is that children belong to God and they are sacramentals. While we may not think we are prepared to be parents, God sends us what we need to raise His children. It's almost like before we become parents, we are not ready to be parents until we officially become a parent. So in a way, it's like the question "am I ready to be a mother?" is almost redundant.
Another thing the author of the article does not realise is parenting is not just about "me." Children are not just a blessing to the couple, but to society. This is one of the reasons why parents have a responsibility to put so much energy into child rearing, and not just what you can to get by. We have a responsibility to try the best we can to raise productive adults.
Lastly, a marriage that is not truly open to life is doomed to failure. I really believe that. If you do not cooperate with God in something that is as difficult as living with a man (just kidding-or better yet, living with woman), it will not work. You have to cooperate with God in His Creation.
I actually have a very hard time relating to the author of the article. Peony mentions:
The author (who is only 27)I have been Mom for ten years now (since 20) and I have always wanted to be a Mommy since I can remember. I know I make the mistake in thinking most women think like I do. While I am willing to acknowledge that may not be true, I can say I do not understand women who do not want to be mothers. In all fairness, I cannot understand women who have dreams to be boxers or any other vocations I have not been called to. Anyway, I was a bit hesitant to reply to the article because I did not want to come off too opinionated.
hee hee
Angel's entrance in Buffy was so timely. It was good to see them together. I am all giddy. I really liked tonight's episode.
Now waiting to read Victor's review.
Update:Victor said:
So it's probably somewhere between the part where 'Xander knocks Dawn out with chloroform (yay!)... that I begin to realize just how much the show has begun to suck (has been sucking, whatever)
Yeah, the show has gone downhill after Season Three (except that Hush episode in Season Four).I think the addition of the pointless and whiney Dawn character was one major step towards suckiness. Some others were killing off Buffy so that she was reduced to nothing but Angst Depressed Buffy who was sad she left Heaven. I mean how many episodes in the past three seasons were just about how depressed Buffy was? Certainly that musical episode was a nail in the coffin. Getting rid of Angel and the introduction of Riley Finn (thank goodness that was short lived). All the Willow stuff with her relationships. Actually they added too much sex in the show after Angel left, and Catholic morals aside, I always think sex is just a cheap gimmick. They also failed to develop and use Giles anymore who was a good, strong character, and developed Spike who was much better as a charicature.
They did the same thing to Buffy that they did to X-Files and X-Men, tried to make it too deep and cerebral with character struggles et al instead of just giving us a fun story with a lot of butt kicking.
But then Angel shows up in the last two minutes of the episode and does his always endearing, always humorous "smug L.A. vampire" bit and all is good in the world.
That put the episode on my High-Rating-O-Meter. I actually do not remember much of what happened before that.
The vocation to marriage and parenthood
Brasilianista Aspirante Katheryn posted about a week ago on marriage and being open to life:
Salon has a thought-provoking article [requires sitting through an ad for a free "day pass" -- Peony] by a married woman who has decided not to have children.I think that I would like to marry (if only for the admittedly small chance of financial security, since I am chronically ill and may not be able to consistently support myself with a full-time job). However, I do not want children. Part of this is due to my illness (raising children and employment in the workforce may drain my energy so much that I have neither the time nor the motivation to write the novels that I yearn to write), but also because I suspect that I am too emotionally immature to be a good parent....I think it would be wrong for me to marry in the Orthodox Church, since I do not wish to have children....It would help if some of my married readers... would read Ms. Goldberg's article and give me some advice.
I wish I could write a really sensitive and well-thought out blog in response to our dear Brasilianista's post, but I was late reading her original post and I want to get this thing rolling.
First, I wonder how much Katheryn really has in common with the writer of this article. The fact that Katheryn even acknowledges that children are a gift from God, and that being open to life is an essential part of marriage, already puts her in a different league from the author of "To Breed or Not to Breed." The title of the article, with its sneering reduction of the gift of children to an animalistic impulse, says it all. The author (who is only 27) briefly acknowledges that yes, there are some cool things about parenthood -- sharing your joys and interests with your child, family continuity, and stuff like that -- but children are so inconvenient --getting in the way of your marriage and career and all that. Parenthood is so stressful! And some scientist thinks there's a gene that promotes maternal behavior, and not all women have it, so get off our back! (I would be interested to hear whether this woman is still singing this tune in another ten years or so, or if she's getting shots of Pergonal in the tush.)
I think what Katheryn is doing, though, is discerning her vocation. She discusses three things that seem to mitigate against motherhood: her health, her career aspirations, and her suspicion that she is too "emotionally immature:" Health I can't speak to, especially since I don't know the details of what Katheryn's dealing with. And I simply don't know how health problems affect one's freedom to marry in the Catholic Church, much less in the Orthodox Church. Is someone who cannot become a parent -- even by adoption -- free to marry? I think Katheryn's being prudent to consider whether it's realistic for her to take on the pressures of parenthood on top of the stresses of her illness.
And then there are Katheryn's scholarly and literary aspirations. Every woman has to resolve the ol' career and child question in her own way, but I would like to suggest that it doesn't have to be either/or, especially for women who are able to work from home. Pansy and I are all for women being home with their children as long as possible, especially with the littlest ones, but even then there are ways to make it work. Maybe take a few years off when the children are little, but make time to write a couple of hours a day (and, if you have the means, get some household help to conserve your time and energy.) As the children grow, so does your literary output. Many women have started distinguished careers after their children were grown.
And as for "emotional immaturity", I don't know how to speak to that; I've heard other people and it seems like it means something different to everyone. Does it mean "I have unresolved issues from my childhood that make me afraid to become a parent?" Does it mean, "I really like living for myself and don't feel like taking on the responsibility for caring for a helpless child?"
Something to consider is the anti-child attitude that seems to pervade our culture -- we have to be very aware of how we can soak this up without even knowing it. It comes out in the constant harping on how inconvenient babies and children are -- they cry all night, they smell, they get in the way of your sex life, their toys are ugly, and so on. I think our culture is also blowing the difficulty of parenthood way out of proportion, and it's easy for this to rub off on you. Sure, parenthood's not an easy job, and it's good to go in prepared and try to think about what you're doing and why you're doing it, but at the same time I don't think you need to be super-intelligent and perfectly self-actualized to be a good mother. "Am I ready to be a parent?" People could dither about this for years, but there's never going to be a green light going on in your head saying "okay to have baby now!"
My dear husband is tapping his watch, so let me wrap up. Ultimately this is a question to consider with a lot of prayer and perhaps a chat or two with a trusted priest. If your emotional concerns include big glaring issues from your childhood, you could bring that up for prayer and for spiritual (or psychological) counsel. A chat with your doctor about the prognosis of your illness might also be a good idea. Maybe find some good books on marriage and parenting -- Pansy and I like Greg Popcak's books a lot. Another good book on preparing for marriage is Finding the Love of Your Life by Neil Clark Warren.
Meanwhile, I would do my best to just be around kids, any kids. If you don't have children it's easy to forget what they're like; they become exotic and remote. Keep reading mommy blogs, and do check out Sparki's if you haven't seen it. Rachel Watkins over at HMS Blog is a literary mom who also is dealing with a chronic illness. Do check out some of our mommy links, such as Mothering With Grace and Canticle. I began to realize that I was called to marriage and motherhood after reading articles on family life in Caelum et Terra.....
and with that, I'm opening this up for comments....
A Man-Type Question
For my son's First Holy Communion, I am going to make him a navy blue jacket. Does he need matching navy pants or can he wear khaki pants? I think the khaki pants would look smarter, but my husband said matching pants are the tradition and more dressy. I am out of element here...
This-or-that Tuesday
1. Packrat or minimalist? Usually one extreme or the other. I tend to lean towards packrat, but over compensate by being a minimalist.
2. Computer:desktop or laptop? Laptop.
3. Seashore or mountains? Seashore.
4. Carpeting or bare floors? Bare floors.
5. Drinking water: bottled or tap? Bottled.
6. Shopping websites: eBay or Amazon? eBay.
7. Cute little kitties or big scary tigers? Kitty cats.
8. Front door or back door? Front. There are always weird bugs around back doors.
9. Lots of jewelry, or little/none?I don't know. Everday I wear one pair of dangly (about an inch) earrings, a thirty inch silver chain with a Miraculous Medal, my wedding and engagement ring and a toe ring. If I am going "out" I will probably add more rings.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: At the last minute, you obtain tickets to an event you're dying to attend. However, you have to work that day! Do you ask the boss for the time off, or just call in sick? Depends on the boss, job and how far in advance. I have had one boss that would understand, but many who I would have just called in sick for.
The Church in America: An Ecclesiastical Potemkin Village?
This-or-that Tuesday
1. Packrat or minimalist? Moderate packrat.
2. Computer: desktop or laptop? Desktop.
3. Seashore or mountains? Seashore.
4. Carpeting or bare floors? Bare floors.
5. Drinking water: bottled or tap? Tap, but we put it through the Brita.
6. Shopping websites: eBay or Amazon? Amazon.
7. Cute little kitties or big scary tigers? Big magnificent tigers.
8. Front door or back door? Both.
9. Lots of jewelry, or little/none? Little/none -- too tempting for little hands!
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: At the last minute, you obtain tickets to an event you're dying to attend. However, you have to work that day! Do you ask the boss for the time off, or just call in sick? Depends on the boss! I've had some bosses that would have been very understanding, and others that took sadistic pleasure in denying time off. One of the sad lessons I learned in my first job was that Peony had to take care of Peony, because the bosses sure weren't going to -- that I might as well just call in sick, because I wasn't going to get any thanks for working "wounded."
Generation Gaps
I am getting old. My teenage brothers are sporting afros and all I can think when I look at them is "the word is clippers, Bro." Crazy circa 60/70ish hair is back in style for boys. My parents can relate better than I can to their hair styles. This is like scary and surrealistic. I feel so old and lost.
More on catechesis
There are a couple of churches around here that offer the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Can you tell this is something I'm really interested in for Hambet? I better call and get him on the waiting list, he could start next year....
Sesame Street news flash
Baby Bear has a new baby sister named Curly! Looks like last week was all about the excitement of a new baby, and this week is going to be discussing the negative feelings older children might have about a new baby (jealously, disappointment -- the baby can't do anything! -- that kind of thing....)
Baby Bear has just finished relating his woes to Telly, whose response it..."I wish I had a little sister!"
Another illustration of how younger Catholics were ripped off
Our parish also had a May crowning this Sunday. Our pastor led singing of the old song about "we crown thee Queen of the May." I can't give the title or more of the lyrics, because the pastor and the other senior citizen types were the only ones who knew the song!
I would like to inform Richard McBrian and all his pals that I feel marginalized and excluded because I was not taught this song as a child. (And also because I never saw a May crowning or a Eucharistic Procession until I was in my thirties.)
Some more notes on the JP2CC
Okay, I really try to avoid complaining when I blog. (Pause for hysterical laughter.) No, really, I do! but keep in mind that a good friend of mine once told me that I reminded her of Statler and Waldorf (those two old guys in the box)in the Muppet Show....
In her comment below, Davey's mommy noted that although the JP2CC had nice "museum stuff", she was "disappointed with all the technology seemingly for technology's sake."
Many other people I've talked to feel the same way, and in some ways I think the problems with the JP2CC nicely illustrate the ongoing problems with catechesis and formation in the Church in the US.
The JP2CC is laid out in roughly three parts. The entry level has "The Gallery of Mary" -- big, floor-to-ceiling pictures of Mary as she appears in her various titles and apparitions. There's also a big picture of people from around the world, and a ramp where you can view casts of handprints made by various Catholics (including the Holy Father -- whose handprint is very shiny from people rubbing their hands against it --and Cardinal Maida's). There's also a room with a permanent display of things related to JP2 himself -- including vestments and skis, cool! and don't forget to check out his shoes! The gift shop is also on this level, as well as other temporary exhibitions as needed. The second level is the current installation of fine art.
The ground level -- the Interactive Galleries -- is what Davey's mommy and I were less than enthralled with. The premise is you see a movie and get a little swipe card. Then you go from "interactive module" to "interactive module", read some placards, and swipe your card. At the end, you can take your little swipe card over to a printer and it will print out a little summary of what you did. Al lot of it is looking things up on the internet -- no joke! (It may be an intranet, I haven't looked too closely because the internet is something I do when I'm at home....) You can even sit in a little booth, press a button, and record a short reflection on your own "faith journey."
Meanwhile, as you stroll around the galleries, you see older people getting frustrated because they can't figure out how to use the trackball to "make your own stained glass window", and if you don't figure out how to do it fast enough the computer kicks you off and you lose your work. Or you see older people getting frustrated because they can't figure out how to use the internet. Meanwhile, the younger people are ignoring the internet stuff because they can do that at home. They're lining up three deep to pull on the bell pulls (also a cheesy activity; you can't make your own song with the bells, you can only play along to pre-programmed songs, of which one is "Amazing Grace." You stand around the bell pulls with around eight other people, you put on headphones, and you ring your bell when the little light goes on in front of you.) Or else they're fooling around with the bricks in the fountain thing. (The idea is the bricks have words on them, and when you put the bricks in the fountain the water goes around the bricks. Around! It's meaningful!
"What my faith means to me." "My faith." It's all a very self-referential "thinking about my faith journey", "we are a diverse Catholic community" kind of thing, Now, what exactly is a "faith journey"? I'm still trying to figure that one out, and it seems kind of silly to me to ask that of U.S. Catholics -- many of whome don't even really know what the Catholic faith is, much less their own. The message of the Interactive Galleries seems to be, "we are very diverse, and everyone has their very own faith journey, and it somehow involves beautiful art and music (which is in the history section, got that? history!) and this is all very cool and it has computers! Isn't that special?" This whole Interactive Gallery thing gives me the impression of having been designed by a committee of bureaucrats who vaguely knew that "interactive" is modern and that young people like computers. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much there beyond Faith being something vaguely connected to your ethnicity and that nice warm fuzzy feeling you get when you hear Christmas carols.
Now, what is this going to mean to people whose heritage of Catholic art and music has been taken away from them? to people who have never been taught even the rudiments of the faith -- that Jesus is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, that Mary prays for us? to people who have never been taught to pray on even the most rudimentary level? who think that Mass is the place you don't have to go after you get Confirmed? There are lots of well-meaning people out there who have no idea that being Catholic is not genetically transmitted, that you choose to be Catholic, that there objective truths about God that can be learned and taught, that the Church really was founded by Christ, that being Catholic means swimming against the stream sometimes, that the Church offers us the means to enter into intimate friendship with Jesus Christ, that we never take our "faith journey" alone....
(Part of this is my own bias, of course, in that I'm a little impatient with what, to me, is vague jargon and that, yes, I do feel cheated by the complete lack of catechesis I received in CCD in the 70's and 80's. I also hate fads.)
You can see this same issue in the way the JP2CC presents some of its other exhibitions. A while back, the Center had the opportunity to present relics of Saint Therese and other Carmelite saints, and a painting of Saint Therese done by Celine. I was looking forward to something really special, but I was so disappointed in the way they were presented. First of all, they were hard to find, and the collection was scattered all over the Center. Once you found the relics, if you didn't know what you were looking at, all you would see would be a big glass case full of tiny gold frames holding blood-stained hankies with little typed cards in front of them. What a lost opportunity! So many Catholics don't know why relics are venerated -- why not explain that, and tie it into general reflections on the dignity of the human person? How about those Catholics who don't even know what a Carmelite is -- why not post a placard on the history of the Carmelites, an explanation of their charism? and how about some biographical information about Therese and the other Saints whose relics were present? One of the artifacts on display was a chair from Saint Therese's chair -- ok, it was in a glass case and probably needed to be protected from the elements, but why not make a replica and put it in a diorama of Therese's cell, so visitors can see it in context? You could even give young visitors the chance to try out dress-up clothes of a Carmelite habit.
I thought it was amusing that in the same hall, the Center was also displaying "relics" of the late Jacqueline Kenney Onassis.
A few more notes on the Center, for when you plan your trip: They have nice activities for kids, including organized crafts and play rooms for older kids and for babies and toddlers. The play room for the older kids includes bells to ring (in any melody you like, although they do provide music for "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore"), a stained-glass window activity, and blocks -- no computers! There is plenty of room for active play for the toddlers, and private places to nurse infants (although armchairs in those little nooks would have been nice, as opposed to cafeteria chairs....)
The cafeteria does not have much of a selection, especially in the way of hot food. (The Shrine cafe is much better.) The gift shop is in impeccable taste (although it's a little pricey.) The book shop is very disappointing -- not very large, many dubious selections -- but they do have some cool little things for the kids.
As long as I'm dishing dirt, let me add that the Shrine's gift shop is not terribly pricey, but it also stocks some appallingly tacky stuff; that their cafeteria has nice homey food and only takes cash; and that it is really easy to find a priest to bless your new medals and rosaries -- or give you spiritual direction. The people who work at the Shrine have always been nothing but kind to me -- I used to meet my husband there after work so that we could carpool home together, and one of the guards would always keep an eye out for my husband and let him know whether or not I'd already arrived. The docents have also been known to give rosaries out to visiting children. The Shrine also has many, many opportunities to go to Mass and/or Confession.
The Franciscan Monastery's gift shop is also a little tatty, but that also means that young pilgrims can afford their very own little Jerusalem Cross like the Crusaders wore.... The whole place seems like a great place to bring kids, especially boys.
May Crowning Pictures!
Yes, I love showing my family off.
Posco crowning Mary.
Gorbulas climbing one of the Fatima children's sheep. It was very funny because he kept falling off because it was too high for him.
I had some other pictures, but they all had other people's kids in them, and I didn't want to publish them...
Peony's world: Catholic destinations around Washington, D.C.
There are things that really drive me nuts about living in the Washington DC area --in particular, traffic and the cost of living. But there are even more things I really like about living here, and it's not just the museums....
There are all kinds of cool Catholic destinations in and around Washington, DC, including many places to spend lots and lots of money on great books! In the city itself, there's the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (around here, just known as "The Shrine"). I used to work at a hospital that was just around the corner from the Shrine -- it was so cool, I could go to Mass before work, Confession afterwards, and see the beautiful dome every morning and afternoon. It is so easy to make a pilgrimage to the Shrine -- the cafeteria serves lunch! And their bookstore gets better and better every year. Someday I would like to be a docent at the Shrine and lead tours around. I even know where to find the mosaic of the dinosaur!
Right up Harewood Avenue is the new Pope John Paul 2 Cultural Center. Drive in the other direction and you can make a stop at the amazing Newman Bookstore. The Icon Book Store (I've never been there) is also nearby.
The Franciscan Monastery is also a nice pilgrimage destination, particularly if you have kids along. The Franciscans built and care for replicas of holy places in Rome and in the Holy Land. There are beautiful grounds to run around in, and then once you get the kids inside the Shrine they can walk through a replica of the catacombs! Ewwwwwwwwwwww, bones! Alas, some of the recreations have grown a little tatty, but it's still a nice place to visit.
All of these destinations are on or around The Catholic University of America. Across town, there's the Catholic Information Center ("come for the books, stay for the book signings, Mass, confession, and spiritual direction") and Saint Matthew's Cathedral.
Moving further out, there are historic churches in Alexandria, Virginia (and a Daughters of St. Paul bookstore in Old Town Alexandria.) If you are interested in a day trip, Southern Maryland is the cradle of English-speaking Catholicism in the US. It is dotted with towns with names like Rosaryville. Historic St Mary's City is building a replica of the settler's chapel. I would like to visit the Carmel of Point Tobacco someday.
Another day trip is to the Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Seton, in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Got all that? And I'll leave the Baltimore destinations to Mr. Serafin....
OK, The Lizzie Maguire Movie.
My daughter loves to watch Zoog Disney and one of the shows she likes is Lizzie Maguire. I have never been thrilled with it, but never really thought it objectionable, just silly.
In the movie, Hilary Duff plays Lizzie Maguire, a recent junior high school graduate who is basically a klutz. They make her clumsy in order to make the character more down to earth. They cannot make her ugly, poor, they certainly cannot make her out of style, and even though they talk about "popularity" she really is not inflicted by being a "nerd" or "geek", so they make her clumsy. OK, whatever. The movie takes place right after her Junior High School graduation in which her class takes a two week trip to Rome.
The beginning of the movie is spotted with classist jokes. The popular girl insults Lizzie because she is an "outfit repeater" (which we never see in the show, by the way), another remark is made about "trailer park trash" and another about "ending up spending your life folding shirts in the Mall." Granted, these remarks were made by less sympathetic characters, but I get tired of seeing this kind of vitriol slung in our children's faces in the name of humour. While no one would dream of making racist jokes, even by the overbearing school principle (which is a good thing), jokes about having less materially are always welcome.
Fast forward the class is in Rome touring around and Lizzie bumps into Italian pop-star, Paolo who basically picks her up by saying "excuse me, haven't we met somewhere before?" Lizzie bears a striking resemblance to his ex(huh, he is 17) and ex singing partner Isabella. Now here is where I object. The character just graduated Middle School. That would make her last grade eighth making her her like what-13? She spends the next few days lying about being sick, having her best friend and later other classmates cover for her, missing out of the opportunity to have Rome toured, and spending time with her "best friend" to go flitting about a strange country with a guy she just met.
There is a big climax where the principal finds out she was being sneaky, and her best friend covers for her by saying he was sneaking out. In the end it turns out Paolo was scheming her to perform onstage at some major international music award show. Wow, what a tricky guy. Here's the part I do not understand. Lizzie performs onstage, her principal and friends who were covering for her forget all her transgressions because she is "cool." Her parents do tell her they are very proud of her (for what?), but she is grounded for the rest of the summer. The moral is, if you have a dream go after it. That is what the words to the title track Why Not performed by Hilary Duff tell us. Even though she hurts her friends, lies etc. she gets to perform onstage in cool clothes with dancers, so it all evens out in the end.
Now, why this long boring post about a silly movie? There has been outspoken objection from the Christian parenting forefront about movies like Harry Potter because of the occult suggestions. While I am sure that has it's place, I think movies like this that turn morals upside down do more harm. I honestly cannot see many children, especially with strong Christian backgrounds turning to witchcraft after seeing Harry Potter. I do see this idea of "if you have a dream, go after at all costs no matter how immoral, and make sure you look cool while you are doing it" more insidious. I had the same problem with The Little Mermaid, rewarding immoral behaviour. The whole "it's not if you win or lose, it's how you play the game" theme seems to be lost these days.
My daughter and I had a little chat about what I found objectionable and she agreed.
Afterwards we saw Holes which redeemed the evening. Decentfilms.com gives it a much better review than I could.
Even better than Cocoa Puffs....
a Rosary pilgrimage!
I took one to the Shrine today with a friend to pray the Rosary, and we had such a nice time! We wandered around from chapel to chapel, doing a decade at any chapel that struck our fancy. It was so refreshing.
The Shrine was totally packed. In addition to ordinary pilgrims, there was at least one school group. The Blue Army filled the Crypt Church for a May crowning, and then the Upper Church was full for an ordination. We arrived just after the ordination had concluded, so we were able to walk around among the happy knots of new priests getting their pictures taken with their families. The Blessed Sacrament Chapel was packed with people receiving the first blessings from one of the priests (we were pressed for time, or we would have gotten right in line too.)
To be a priest of Jesus Christ...how awesome. If I were a priest, I think I would be so giddy with joy, I'd run around blessing everyone and everything in sight.
Off to a May Crowning
We are leaving in a few minutes to the National Shrine of North American Martyrs for a picnic, Mass and May Crowning. We made a crown out of silk flowers. Posco gets to be one of the lucky children to crown Mary because he is a First Communicant. If I take some decent pics, maybe I will post them.
Last night we saw Holes (which I liked a lot) and The Lizzie Maguire Movie (which I did not like). I will blog more on this when I come home later.
Woman v. nature
I had fair success with starting seeds indoors this year -- got some sprouts -- the seeds that did the best were white marigold seeds (that is, the flowers are supposed to be white.)
I transplanted some of them outside on Thursday night. Yesterday morning I found that two of them had been nibbled all the say down to the seed leaves (the tops of the plants were gone.) This morning I found that the varmint had come back for more -- one of the plants is totally gone.
The cure for malaise...
Cocoa Puffs, according to Victor.
I could use a big bowl or two. I had some disappointing news tonight.
Suggested conclusions for Buffy the Vampire Slayer
by Peony
We can begin by killing off trite Caleb and annoying Kennedy next week, in that little segment that comes before the opening credits.
Buffy rejoins the Scoobies, everyone kisses and makes up. Buffy does not antagonize Faith. They make plans to enter the Hellmouth and defeat the First.
As they pack up their weapons and get ready to head over to ol' Sunnydale High, there is an urgent knock at the door. They all look up, startled. Giles yells, "No time, we need to get going!" Someone (perhaps a suspicious Faith) opens the door anyway, and there at the door stands...Giles! Everyone is so confused, new-Giles leaps over and helps grab old-Giles. Turns out that the Giles we've been dealing with all season is somehow in the employ of the First! (Who saw that coming?!)
Good Giles tells them what he's been up to and shares some information. (The Scoobies, in turn, quickly fill him in on the events of Season 7, much to the relief of people who have tuned in late to see what all the commotion is about.) Evil Giles gets some taunting in before he is either mined for information or dispatched.
Off to the Hellmouth. Much fighting, including some special effects for which they broke the piggy bank. An "ultimate sacrifice" scenario develops in which Buffy must be willing to consciously sacrifice herself to defeat the First; perhaps some new supernatural entity offers her this chance. Buffy takes it.
Option A: In the end, Buffy finds herself alive....but without her Slayer powers. One of the SiTs assumes Slayer duties, perhaps with Xander as a Watcher. Buffy goes to England to reinstate the Watcher HQ and maybe start a Slayer academy.
Option B: Buffy gets to keep her powers but still goes to England (or someplace more to her liking) to found the Slayer Academy. I would not mind if she comes to her senses, marries Xander, and brings him along with her to run the Watcher side. They both come back for movies as needed.
Meanwhile, Spike and Angel become friends after having fought side by side. Buffy comes to the tristful conclusion that she is not meant to be together forever with Spike OR Angel, but only as needed to make movies. So Spike heads off to LA to be on Angel's show, perhaps bringing an SiT along with him.
Either way, I would like an end involving Buffy alive and Xander married to someone.
Peony's Friday Five
1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not? I guess I would call myself organized, but there is much room for improvement. I succumb to entropy too easily.
2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly? I keep a wall calendar in my kitchen. I also have a small calendar in my purse but I don't keep up with that as much as I should. I wish I could find the perfect combination of systems: big enough to do a lot of planning, small enough to carry with me, and annotated with liturgical feasts, solemnities, saint's days, purple fish, the words FIRST FRIDAY in big red letters, etc
3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now? In the sense that I know pretty much which pile of paper contains what.
4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter? I organize books by topic: fiction, history, home economics, spirituality, Chesterbelloc, etc. When I was single I kept my CDs organized by musical genre (baroque, classical, pop...) but I haven't been able to keep this up since I've been married. I also don't play CDs as often as I used to; I miss that. I would like to go to IKEA and get some of those little drawers to keep the CDs sorted. I don't have any sort of organization for our VCR tapes right now.
5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize? My kitchen -- there is simply not enough useable space.
I think it's another example of the collision between Roe v. Wade and common sense. Almost everyone would agree that yeah, there's something alive in that pregnant lady's tummy and that there's somthing a little troublesome about another person trying to kill it. (almost everyone, that is, except for the hard core abortion lobby -- witness their unguarded reaction to the fate of Connor Peterson....)
It's sad how our legal system simply cannot acknowledge the reality of maternity and how, in an effort to preserve Roe v. Wade, judges will come to conclusions that have nothing to do with reality. I mean, come on, all you have to do is open a book and look at the pictures!
I have given birth (or would that be, shed a fetus?). I have also shed skin, teeth, and hair. The experiences were... kind of different.
Fetus a Body Part?
Not sure what to think...
I feel ripped off
by the Angel season finally. I have to think of more to blog on the subject. For now, I am feeling sort of short changed.
Update:Victor liked the episode much better than I did and he offers a much insightful and intelligent review than I could. I also think I know why I did not like the ending, but that is my own personal baggage. You know how that can be.
Updated update:My mom agrees with Victor.
Mom: I think they are going to kill off Buffy.
Pansy:I would rather see them kill her off then change her character having her leave is not consistent with Buffy, kwim?
Mom: Angel was so conciliatory last night. I enjoyed it,but Joss Whedon does not usually play to the audience.
Pansy: did you like Angel? I didn't
Victor Lams (fellow blogger) liked it a lot too, he said it was very pro-life
Mom: I liked what he did with Connor, whom I detest.
Pansy: I liked what he did too which was another plus for Angel. Connor annoys me too much to expend that much emotion on-I guess that is what annoyed me
Mom: I can see that the show was set up to either end or go on.
Pansy:and he still looked dirty after he had his new stable family
Pansy: yes, I saw that
Mom: But Joss Whedon usually doesn't care about the audience as much as his story line, and he was definitely pitching to us.
Pansy: yes
Mom: So that is why i think they are going to kill off Buffy. The whole thing reads like the windup for the final tumble in a gymnastics meet.
Buffy Stuff
First let me get some very important stuff out of the way. Anya needs to stop dying her hair blonde. She is much more attractive as a brunette and the blonde hair makes her look seriously crunchified.
Sarah Michelle Gellar is so darn skinny. I will feel moderately in shape and then watch an episode of Buffy and get really annoyed. I heard an interview with her and she claims she eats. I guess I could use the ole' "well I had four babies" excuse. Grrr.
OK, now I thought the episode was a waste until the last fifteen minutes. My husband made a good call when he said the kids cannot see this week's episode. It had a bit more gratuitous sex than I thought was allowed in network TV. And Willow and her girlfriend-gross!
The last part was good because Buffy did kick Caleb's butt a bit. That was cool. They did use those redundant Matrix slow motion special effects. Is anyone else getting tired of seeing people bend backwards in slow motion to avoid punches and/or bullets? Was it me or was he wearing leather pants? I couldn't make it out. I wonder where creepy WannaBe evil priest people shop to get leather pants. Something about that reminded me of Nightcrawler with his priest collar incorporated into his costume.
Next week it looks like it will be better because Angel is coming back. I hope it is really him and not some manifestation of The First.
Check-up
I have been just as Sleepy as Peony lately. My diet last week was atrocious due to my street running. Maybe that is it.
I have been learning to sew and am enjoying it immensely. I have made a bunch of dresses for my daughter that are adorable. She even has the same sandals as this girl (I made the long version). This is purely coincidental. The other dress I made is the dress in pattern number 5711. I just love icking out fabric and customising it with pretty buttons. This is really a lot of fun.
Yesterday, the children all had check-ups. Everyone checked out with a good bill of health. The two youngest had a touch of asthma, but that is nothing new. Gorbulas also had his first shots (HiB and Prevnar). I am undecided with the vaccine issue, but we decided for those vaxes because of his asthma and as far as the inserts, they contain no human diploid cells in the list of ingredients.
The part of the appointment that made me a bit squeamish is the doctor decided to have a "changes your body is going through" talk with my daughter. I have only recently read Talk One in Mother's Little Helper, so the timing threw me off balance.
I wondered if our Catholicism came through when the doctor asked my daughter about a "uterus" and she stated she did not know what that was. I said "a womb" and then she nodded "oh, yes, I know". Considering the fact I was unprepared and the lack of theology, it went well. I wonder why the doctor decided to have this talk though. I cannot remember going through that in any check-ups as a little girl, that was left to the families.
Seriously Sleepy Mommy today.
I am sleepier and stupider than usual today. Not sure what's going on. Trying to bring household back from brink of systemic failure; not succeeding.
A good discussion's of attachment parenting going on over at HMS Blog. It started with a discussion of babies nursing at night and it's kind of growing.
Perhaps, if we as parents stopped just thinking about the minimum daily requirement we need to give our kids in order that their biological needs are met, and started giving what we must give to nuture the whole self, and not just what is convenient for us to give, I wouldn't personally have to field about a hundred calls a week from people from people who just want to know that somebody out there loves them.
If this is the way most people parent, it's no damn wonder pharmacy reps joke about Prozac being so popular that they might as well put it in the water system.
Peony's This or That Tuesday
1. TV or radio? Radio.
2. On the radio: talk or music station? Mostly talk.
3. Actual books or books-on-tape (or e-books)? Real books, all the way.
4. Actual newspaper, or web version? Web on weekdays, print on Sundays.
5. Wall Street Journal or National Enquirer? Neither.
6. TV news...news channel such as CNN, or your local broadcast news? We usually watch the national news on broadcast stations (Lehrer, Brokaw....)
7. A movie you've been looking forward to seeing gets bad reviews all around. See it anyway, or pass? Depends who's reviewing it and why they're panning it -- sometimes they just don't get it (for example, I liked Unbreakable.) Steven Greydanus is my absolute favorite movie reviewer.
8. See movies when they first come out, or wait a few weeks for the lines at the theater to get shorter? We usually end up waiting for them to come out on video.
9. TV: cable, satellite dish, or just plain old antenna? Antenna.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: If you had to choose only one form of media to come into your home, which would you choose...print (newspapers, magazines) or electronic (TV, internet)? Why? Internet! It's faster, it's there when you want it, you can click away when you're ready to move on to something else... the ads in the Sunday paper are easier to deal with, though.
That Friday Five quiz with the songs
I skipped the Friday Five (the favorite songs topic) last week because I was in a hurry and because it's been a while since Songs Really Meant Something to Me -- I didn't feel like dredging through my memory for Five Songs I Couldn't Do Without.
I did want to mention, for Mr. Luse's benefit, that if I had finished the thing and posted my results I, too, would have skipped question # 3.
Back to the routine/ big catch-up blog
It's been a busy week for the Maryland Mosses, mostly socializing (and nobody got sick!) Davey's mommy mentioned our little visit together (tactfully omitting how Hambet was constantly trying to run away without us.)
Hambet and I also got to enjoy two other play dates this week that had been cancelled during the winter due to illness.
We invited one of my husband's old co-workers over for Sunday dinner last night. I wish we knew some suitable single woman to introduce to this guy, before he gets too set in his ways.
Arrgh, there was so much I wanted to blog about! Can I just lump it all together while I'm here?
1. William Bennet's taste for gambling. I first saw this story over at Amy Welborn's. She and Mark Shea both have discussions going, and I suppose this is going to be all over the opinion pages for the next couple of days. So I won't have anything new to add. This habit doesn't seem to doing much to build up the virtue of temperance and may be feeding the sin of vanity (look, I'm a high roller! The limo comes to get me! I'm so rich I can throw around big piles of money!) If Mr. Bennett doesn't think this is a problem, why does he gamble so furtively?
Mr Bennett, since you are a a well-informed opinion leader, I'm sure you are a daily reader of Two Sleepy Mommies! Next time you are packing your suitcase for Vegas, why don't you give me a call? I'm in your county. You could drive up Connecticut Avenue -- up past where the snipers were doing their thing -- and be at my house in about 20 minutes, have a cup of coffee and slice of banana bread up at my place. Since you're prepared to gamble $500,000 a pop, you could give me about a tenth of that and never miss it, and it would mean so much to me! I could split it with Pansy and still get new windows and doors for our house, maybe get that concrete work done, start a 529 for my little boy, buy a computer or two for a couple of charities around here, get the brake work done on my car, and replace the sofa. .... Or never mind me, why don't you give Cardinal McCarrick a call? Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago our pastor was telling us that the Archbishop's Appeal is not doing well this year? Or don't you get the money sermons down at your parish? I know you're probably a major donor already, but instead of blowing your money at Bellagio's why not just give some more to the Cardinal, subsidize some more tuition for DC schoolkids?
2. I need to remember the disappointment I felt when I read the Bennett story. Someday, he's going to be reviewing his bank statements with the Lord; I need to keep in mind that He's going to be going over my Day-Timer with me, as well as my checkbook.
3. Last week I meant to blog on that article from last weekend's Parade magazine about hunger in America. Apparently there's been an increase over the last few years in the number of requests for assistance from food banks, especially from families that are getting pretty pinched -- the parents may be employed, but not making a living wage. For some reason, it's really been nagging at me. Is that what our Evangelical brethren mean by "having a burden on the heart"? (sorry, I don't remember exactly how the phrase goes.) I need to call my parish and get a reminder as to when the next canned food drive is.
4. Made an angel food cake from scratch this weekend; pretty successful, though half the cake stayed behind in the pan. Notes to self: next time, don't beat the egg whites as long; the cake was a little tough. Also, there are special angel cake pans for a reason.
5. I so want to see X-Men! Nightcrawler has always been my favorite X-Man and I'm so pleased he's in the movie.
6. Father Sibley has an link to a new product: Cyclebeads. I had a rather snarky comment there that didn't make my point clearly enough; that's what I get for trying to be snarky. So why don't I just come out and say it? Stupid Georgetown! If you weren't so stuck on yourself and afraid of seeming "too Catholic", maybe you'd know that this Cyclebeads gadget, which is based on calendar rhythm, has been out of date for years now. Maybe you'd be up on the work of the Couple to Couple League and the Pope Paul VI Institute (apparently you missed Dr Hilgers' publications?)
To avoid pregnancy, a woman and her partner can choose to .... use another method [of contraception during fertile days...]
Full disclosure -- I do have some personal animosity towards Georgetown Hospital, partly because I had a horrible experience when I was trying to orient to a nursing job there (my failure was partly due to my own inadequacy and partly due to the fact that my preceptor seemed determined that I fail.) Before I was married I also consulted two Georgetown physicians about some reproductive health issues; they assured me that having 40 to 50 day long cycles was nothing to get too worried about -- I should just call if it got to be 60 days, and they'd give me a shot. No, you don't need an endocrinologist. It was two more doctors and four more years before I was finally diagnosed as having polycystic ovarian syndrome.
It seems to me that a major Catholic research hospital should be the first place Catholic women could turn to for women's health care that is both up-to-date and consistent with Catholic teaching. I don't know a single woman around here who turns to Georgetown for that kind of care. Around here, if you want to learn NFP you go through the diocese, call the CCL, or go to the NFP center, and if you want to find a pro-life OB-GYN who's really up on NFP you have to ask your friends (and they all tell you they go here. And if you're me, you start crying, because your insurance is not on their list....)
7. Victor has posted a handy directory of some of his funniest mulitmedia posts. Do check out theJack Chick parodies, if you haven't seen them yet.
8. Erik also has an interesting thread going on music. I like learning about music theory; it's yet another topic I wish I had studied.
9. Garden report: first lettuce harvest this week! Good showing from all the plants except for the spinach. Perhaps I will put in the tomatoes this week, though I might wait till it's consistently warmer. I also have a flower bed out front that could use some plants.
X-Men
It was awesome! We went to see it Friday morning. It was a toss up between X-Men in the movie theater or The Lizzie Maguire Movie and Holes at the drive-in. It was raining and Decent Films gave X-Men a better rating, so X-Men won out. Also, to be frank, the idea of sitting through Lizzie Maguire and Holes did not appeal to the adults of the family.
I started reading The Uncanny X-Men back in 1980 when I was 8 years old. I did not like any of the cartoons, and was apprehensive about the movie because they destroy the characters I have grown to imagine. While they did not stick to the story line totally (like Rogue being a teenager and other small things) they stuck to the good stuff. I am not sure what to say that will not ruin it, so I will just say it was a fun movie. If you like fun movies, go see it. Warning, it was a bit more violent than I like though.
I was also impressed that they kept Nightcrawler Catholic, even if he was a bit scrupulous.
From the Comment Box
Mr. Luse comments below:
I was noticing the picture in the upper left corner (as you might expect). Amy Welborn links to a Sandra Miesel article on such depictions in earlier centuries. Nowadays she is depicted with elephant dung smeared on her. Thought you might be interested if you haven't seen it. You'll have to scroll down a few posts.
Here is the article Mr. Luse recommends which comes to us via In Between Naps. The blog is dated 5/1/03 and has some really neat comments.
Another hobbit blog!
And The Southfarthing Soapbox is a group blog, too! Let's see, looks like there's Samwise, Elessar, Gorbadoc 'Broadbelt' Brandybuck, and Tom Bombadil.
Thanks to The Curt Jester for the 411.
More on Marian Flower names
According to the Mary Garden website, Pansies are known as Our Lady's Delight.
I am interested in starting a Mary Garden in a couple of years, but I don't see a space suggesting itself in our yard.
Sorry for the slow blogging
My hubby has been on vacation this week. That combined with warm weather, we have been out running the streets. It is raining today so we will just go and see X-Men.
We went to the City yesterday to visit his father and then my grandmother afterwards. Today I have agita.
Since his father basically blew off the kid's birthdays, he brought us to the Toy's R Us in Times Square and bought them a toy each. What a monument of Child Inspired Materialism this place was. Complete with indoor ferris wheel. I kind of felt the need to puke.
It has been nearly ten years since I have wandered around the streets of NY. As a teen I spent a great deal of time in the Village, going to reggae parties. After being upstate, it was a bit of a culture shock-how crowded it is, how angry everyone looks, how incredibly in fashion even the elderly are. (Rule of thumb, when your wardrobe is not cutting edge, wear black. You blend in.) Also, there were no children around at all. I realise it was mid day on a weekday, but we were in Toy's R Us, and there was only a couple of toddlers. We went to McDonald's and someone verbally grumbled that we were taking up all the tables (2) and they had sit at the bar and be "all uncomfortable." Thank goodness my husband did not hear her. He was cleaning up ketchup and blocked her loudness out as being typical loud. It would have been ugly.
I was going to blog a bit about how stressed out the family visits made me because they have no concept of who we are, but I that is all that needs to be said. I doubt there is a St. Blog's parishioner who cannot relate.
Peony, about BTVS
My brother read our blog and called me because he was able to pay much better attention. Frankly he is left with the same questions.
1. Yeah, the whole going after Caleb idea was a bad one. We got that. But after all the whole Scooby Gang has been through in the past seven years, the response should have been more of a "Bad idea Buffy." Not all that lecturing.
2. Why did she have to leave her house? I mean she may have had a bad idea, but it is still her house.
I kind of think it was just bad writing because she is leaving the show. While Sarah Michelle Gellar is tired, the character is the Chosen One, so she really would not just stop being the slayer. So anything short of killing her off would be an inconsistent exit.
Marian Flower Names at HMS blog
Peony is also known as Our Lady's Mantle Peony? Cool!
Wedding Soup
Here's an article about how wedding soup got its name. (hint: not by beng served at weddings, it seems.)
The wedding soup I have enjoyed was not made from as elaborate a recipe as the one described in the article, but more like what Pansy described: little teeny meatballs, spinach, and pearl pasta in a clear chicken broth.
My mother in law does not enjoy cooking, so although she did give me a recipe for wedding soup, she would probably prefer to just pop a can of the Campbell's version.
Buffyiana
as it happens, one of our first posts was about Buffy the Vampire slayer.
Last night, Pansy and I were "discussing" Tuesday's Buffy -- more like trying to reconstruct it; it's hard to follow the plot of a TV show when you've got kids climbing on top of your head or trying out their noisiest toys (or finding ways to make quiet toys turn noisy.)
Peony: so what is Caleb trying to get her to do?
Pansy: I missed that too! Why did she have to leave her house, I don't get that?
Peony: uh, don't know, maybe to make it clear they weren't going to let her boss them around? That could work out well, if it keeps her from walking into that trap, if that's what the trap was. Which I'm not sure of. If this series doesn't have a happy ending I'm going to be annoyed.
Pansy: I am worried about next week's episode. No Buffy for the kids!
Peony: gotta go hambet grinding blueberries into carpet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So if anyone can clear up Caleb's sinister plot for us, we'd really appreciate it.
Victor also discussed the episode (in a much more timely way) and provided a cool link to a discussion of BuffyLatin. (How I wish I'd been more studious in Latin IV, and brave enough in college to major in classics! O short-sighted, timid youth!)
Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies
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