Pansy: February 2004 Archives

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

I'm reading "Parents Magazine" (controversial, I know), the article is called "Zoe has two mommies": mommy and mama are raising her. Mommy says: "When we started thinking about having a family... we met with a fertility specialist to discuss how to proceed. Obviously we faced issues that heterosexual couples don't encounter." Uhm... yeah. You can't blame this on narrowminded right-wing fundamenalists. These "issues" are not a consequence of unjust laws.

You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!
by Lewis Carroll
After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser, you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that it's starting not to matter. Be careful around rabbit holes and those who smile to much, and just avoid hat shops altogether.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Interesting article at Catholic Exchange about a Franciscan farm.

I can soooo relate! Couldn't have said it better myself, Sister! I always say I never comprehended what "tired" meant until I became a Sleepy Mommy.

OK, the stoneware and flatware I have been using since my wedding is dwindling. I think I am down to two dinner plates (out of eight), three forks, one cake fork, one teaspoon, but tons of salad plates and tablespoons. I just started looking online for replacements and discovered both patterns are discontinued. My stoneware, Pfaltzgraff Midnight Sun, I found at a site called Replacements, Ltd for $11.99 a plate. It used to be $8 from Pfaltzgraff. What is worse actually is the flatware, Oneida Ledges, they want $9.99 for a teaspoon. I suppose I can shop around some more, but I am not sure I want to replace "outdated" utensils at that price. I suppose even if that is the cost, I cannot justify spending that at this time in my life. Man, all the things we take for granted, like eating on dishes costs so much.

One year ago today, I blogged about the Feast of St.Valentine and of course what I made for dinner. Today I made Spinach Stuffed Leg of Lamb (Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book) and Cinnabon Clone Cinnamon roles (recipe courtesy of Dinka).

Today, I picked up an Amish cookbook to add to my cookbook collection. My Amish neighbor who runs "The Amish Store" seemed surprised I cooked, although admitted to sampling my homeade pannetone when I sent it to her daughter's for Christmas and said it "was really good". Another one asked my husband what I do:
Hubby: She stays home and takes care of the kids.
Neighbor: That's good because women all want to run away these days.
Even though I knew what he meant, this last statement inspired a strange image of women with those sticks with the red with white polka dotted cloths tied at the end to the carry their few parcels running away from their homes.

Gorbulas has been very, very sticky lately. Not sure why, but he has been. He hates when I sit, try to read go online, all he wants to do is nurse. If he is not nursing, forget about it! Last Tuesday, in a fit of rage he snapped the monitor off the top of, laptop, so I had to purchase a new one. In the meantime, if I wake up in the middle of the night and get up, he wakes up. If I try to read, he comes and sits on the book. If I go online, well, we've been there. I am at loss here as to what the problem is except maybe it is a growth spurt like Fastolph just had?

because my map is kind of pathetic compared to Peony's, especially since many of these I merely did just stop over in the airport. But it looked like too much fun to pass up. I am actually very ashamed I have not been to Vermont since I live right on the border practically and I my husband drives there daily.

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

OK, I finished watching Shogun. It ended with Toranaga saying "Soon Anjin-san, I will reveal to you why I must have destroyed your ship to save your life. Build another ship and I will destroy that too. There is much I need to learn from you my friend, and I reveal all to you." And then it ended. Why did they have to destroy the ship to keep him alive? What happened to his dirty crew-were they on the Erasmus when it burnt down?Did Vinck like die of a heart attack or something? If Father Alvito had nothing to do with his ship being burnt down, then why did Mariko's conversation with him perpetuate the ship to be burnt down? What about Buntaro, last they showed him he was growling "Anjin..." but never showed him again. Did I totally miss the point of everything or was the movie that bad and the book explains it all better? I even watched it with subtitles (I am deaf in one ear and find if I do not use subtitles, I miss a great deal of points). I don't know, at the end my husband and I were like "I don't get it."

I would read the book, but not if it is equally disappointing. The romantic dialogue in Latin between Mariko-san and Anjin-san was quite sighable though, I will give it that. "Thou art beautiful and I love thee." Oh sigh.

Again, I am not jumping on a bandwagon to bash my Bishop-at least not in this case. He says he is innocent, and I will back that (like my opinion means anything if I did not). We know it is not uncommon for people to use situations like this for whatever reason in their own agenda. I also have some other thoughts I will keep to myself.

Yesterday I had the privilegde to listen to a local radio talk show host personality whining about how they could do this to "his Church" and "ecclesiastically rape him" for an hour as we sat in the car taking the kids to their bowling league. He presented the question "call in and tell me what you think, should priests get married?" Like a Dodo, I called in.

"Pansy calling from her cell..."

"Hello Mr. Martin. I am calling regarding the question 'If priests should marry?' No."

"Well. why don't you think they should marry?"

"My father is clergy, and it is very hard on the family. There is so much to do and be done, and he does not nerely have all thre responsibilities of a priest. It would be too hard, either the Church or the family would suffer."

"Your father is a priest?"

"No, sir a deacon."

"A deacon? What faith is that?"

"Roman Catholic, Sir"

"St. Peter was married and that's good enough for me. Anglican priests are married and their families do not whine that they feel neglected."

"I am not sure 'neglected ' is the term-"

"Let me talk! In the early Church, they stopped priests from getting married so they could not pass land on to their families and so they could control the priests. What other reason could you possibly have tpo believe priests should npot get married?"

"Because a priest stands in for Christ who is the Bridegroom of the Church-"

"THESE PRIESTS THAT ABUSE LITTLE CHILDREN ARE EVIL! EVIL! A PRIEST CANNOT GET UP AND PREACH HOW TO ACT RIGHT AND PERPETRATE THESE CRIMES-"

"Well of course their actions are evil-"

"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU OR YOUR EXPLANATIONS ANYMORE! THE CHURCH IS EVIL >click< BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!"

This is actually the typical Albany Catholic, and ofr a moment I forgot before I called that this was about Church bashing because he talked about how he was a reader at his parish, the local Catholic High School his son attends, his son's confirmation last year. Any time you talk Church anything. be it the sex abuse allegations, or a simple Parish Council meeting, all it is is a frenzy about how the Church is horrible, it needs to change. Why do people bother calling themselves Catholic? Oh well.

In the meantime, someone on the homeschool email list sent an email stating that the Bishop has a letter to be read in graphic detail (i.e. cover your children's ears) denying the allegations. Why can't you ever just go to Mass in this diocese? The driveway might be closed anyway...
Update: I thought the letter was not that bad graphically, and was timely. It also set my mind at ease. The fact that we must hear about "sexual abuse" from the pulpit more and more probably has more to do with the times than just the fault of the Bishop.

there were w few items I desperately wanted to make my life whole and complete.

*Toe Ballet Shoes-but since I was under 12, I could not have any. I made due by walking around with Dixie cups on my toes.
*A Baby Chick-so cute and fluffy. I asked for one for Christmas when I was 4 or 5 and never got one. So I attempted a few times to hatch an egg from the fridge to no avail.
*A Mickey Mouse Phone-so I could call Mickey Mouse I guess.
*Stilts-all kids need stilts so they can walk around and pass as grown-ups. I compensated again with the Dixie cups.

*My husband stayed home today because last night. when he uh. tried to leap over a snow bank, and flipped over (it was almost funny-the kids were looking outside the window and said "hey Mom, there's some kind of animal out there," and it was my poor husband crawling out of the bank covered in snow) he lost the car keys. So he could not look for them (or leave the house) until the sun came up, and by then he was late, so he took a personal day. At first I was starting to think we were suffering from some type of denomic bad luck, but after he found the keys, I started to think my Guardian Angel took them so we could have a much needed day off.

*We decided to take the kids to see Cheaper By The Dozen. No the driveway was not open, but we had a pathway plowed. and it was a balmy 27 degrees today, so getting down the driveway was no sweat. It was actually fun because my husband insisted on pulling Fastolph, Gorbulas and myself in the tobagan and the older two played in the snow the whole way.

*We went to the Apple store which is like Scary Geek Central and bought a new keyboard because Rosey Posey spilled tea on the keyboard last night. Every email I attempted to draft this morning was sans the 'm' key so all my letters read as if I had a stuffed nose. Man is that store a rip off. I also need a new adaptor plug which was $79 bucks, that will have to wait. My husband managed to tape this one up to keep it working, but if I suddenly drop off line again, it is because I still refused to spend that $79 bucks. Then the Sales guy asked why we did not have the warranty and my husband was like "because it is a lot of money." The Geeky guy was like "it's only like $30 a year." Only? Does he make enough selling computers to raise four kids and spend $350 on a warranty?It is amazing how the older I get, the cheaper I get.

*We went to the second of two places labled "The Amish Store" in the area. The first is a bulk goods shop, this was more of a general store, which did not have much. The owner however is my next door neighbors mother and it was nice to chat with her a bit. I mentioned I was upset because I have yet to meet her daughter because of the snow between us, and she told me her daughter has expressed the same sentiment.

*I have been renting Sho-Gun from Netflix.com. I remember loving it as a child, but truthfully all I really remember is how lovely Lady Mariko was and how I wanted to be like her. Now that I am watching it again I am struck by how 1.it's like all late 70's early 80's. I mean like everything else in that time period, it's all narrated by like Orson Welles and stuff. 2.It's all anti-Catholic (or it is so far). Lots of stuff about Catholics occupying Japan for money and stuff, and lots of Jesuits calling the hero, the Protestant Anjin-San a heretic who will burn in hell. How annoying.

I have no opinion, well maybe a small one about the truth to these allegations. Either way, the ramifications are quite scary.

I mentioned before my four year old is eating everything in site and it drives me nuts because I view it as gluttony. It is hard to get out of the house to get food with 5 feet tall snow drifts in the path of my front door, so I am very frustrated when I buy a hude bunch of bananas on Sunday, to see my four year old has eaten them all by Monday afternoon and no one else had a chance to have one. Especially when I purchased enough for everyone to have one a day for the week.

I try to cook healthy and yummy meals, and the rest of the family assures me I do.I am also frustrated that after I found Fastolph sitting in the corner of the pantry on a pile of banana peels, he will not eat his dinner.

I know the poor boy is hungry, he waited until dinner last night and practically consummed a pork tenderloin on his own.

I also think he is bored. His siblings do schoolwork all day, and even though I do some with him, his attention span is not very long. Poor guy is sort of in the odd
man out stage.

Alicia offers some constructive advice:

I almost made a comment about the hungry 4 year old - if you are accurate in your discernment that it is gluttony and not hunger, then I don't have a problem. And if you truly are budgeting food that tightly, I think that it is important to meet the needs of all your children, not just one. But I think that I would offer a constantly 'hungry' 4 year old something nutritious but not necessarily tasty to eat - a hungry child will eat whatever is offered, where as a greedy or bored one will whine "I don't like that!". As a child, I was sometimes so hungy that I ate the pith from the inside of my orange peels, and cracked open the prune kernels and ate the 'almond' inside. My mom had a weight problem and had very warped ideas about how much a growing child needed - I now have a weight problem and my own issues with food - but only one of my 6 kids has weight or food issues, and I guess that is all I can ask for (all 4 girls in my family have issues).

While I am somewhat concerned about weight for me, I worry a great deal more about proper nutrition for all the children. Since Gorbulas is an asthmatic, I worry that proper nutrition is his best line of defense from illness. The same is true for all my children. For example I have never said "Fastolph, do not eat anymore of that because you will get fat." (To be honest, I really do not worry about my kids and weight. In a few years they will no longer be able to eat some of the few things that kids enjoy that adults cannot lie French Fries, let them enjoy them now.). I have said however, "Fastolph, you may not have anymore of that because your brother and sister have not had any." Or "Fastolph, how about a glass of milk instead because I would like to see you get some more calcium for your bones, and less sugar that are in those apples..." Or today "Fastolph, you did not finish your lunch, so you may not have snacks until dinner." He wanted to play instead of eat, so I warned him.

If you could name the one book every child should have read by the time they were, let's say thirteen, what would it be?

Ahhh...You are Ken & Barbie as Aragorn and Arwen of
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Taken in Strider, er stride, your love will
likely last until natural death.


Which Ken & Barbie Couple Do You Belong To?
brought to you by Quizilla

OK, so last week we were what I thought was "snowed in" meaning the driveway was unpassable. The week before we were "snowed in". Last Friday brought "snowed in" to a new level.

My husband has been parking the car at the end of the driveway and walking the driveway in order to get to work. In a desperate attempt to get out, I decided to try it. I did it, but will never do that again. The places in the driveway that are covered are covered by mounds of snow ranging from 3 to 6 feet high. Luckily it what not all soft snow, so in many places we were able to climb over them. But what a workout. Imagine, it is 14 below, but you do not feel cold at all because you are climbing snow mounds with a thirty pound munchkin in the sling. You only notice the cold because you are out of breath, and when you stop to take a breath, you uncover your face, inhale and and there is like no air. And it freezes everything insode when you breath. Never again!

So the next day, the tractor blew out our driveway. Woohoo. Then it snowed again. Then the winds blew again. I cannot get around to the back of my house to the woodshed (because of what else-snow), so we put our wood in the barn. 9 AM Friday morning, I put on my boots, coat and hat to go to the barn and get wood and five feet from my door is a wall of snow up to my waist. I attempted to climb over it only to find it is that loose powdery snow and I sink. So I had to trudge through it only to find a bigger mound in front of the barn. I was seriously starting to wigg out. I called my husband and told him not to come home out of fear I would find him dead from being stuck on the middle of a snow mound in the driveway. He laughed me off (for what it's worth, my opinion of my spouse has gone up dramatically watching him walk that twice a day, getting up in the middle of the night to tend the fire and chop wood etc.). Fortunately we were blown out that evening-which I doubted was possible. I watched those mounds get bigger and bigger each hour.

We got to Church yesterday and stocked up majorly on food because it is supposed to snow again tomorrow. Woo hoo! I think if I had a snow mobile (and it seems we are the only rejects who are not Amish who do not around here), I would think this much more fun.