Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Boring blog

I propose to quit blogging, and the entire Internet, for Lent. Well, except for email, of course. And probably I'll have to look up directions and such. And sometimes there are other necessary searches for information. Maybe I'll need the online dictionary or encyclopedia. Also a friend of mine has a blog I'll keep checking. Okay, but that's it! No other Internet for me!

I did the same thing last year and as I recall I found myself with much time on my hands. :)

See you on March 23!

Monday, February 04, 2008

She actually said this

You'll accuse me of making it up, but in the Huntington Gardens tea room on Sunday when we started chatting about the Super Bowl with our waitress, she said, "I've never really followed baseball."

Even I'm not that bad.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Pictures get passed around

At any church event or road trip, someone from among my friends usually pulls out a camera. We always ask each other for the pictures; I'm particularly demanding. "I see you have a picture there from Fr. Jeremy's ordination. Why have I not received a copy of this from you yet?"

So my friends have begun to respond and I've received pictures through email, on CD, or by loan of the whole camera card. Yesterday one friend gave me a CD, saying it contained pictures she'd copied from another friend. She was vague as to what the photographed events were, so when I got home I eagerly stuffed the CD into my computer to find out.

The pictures were mine. I took them on my camera at a couple of farewell parties for some priests of ours. Evidently they traveled from friend to friend until the original photographer was forgotten, and now they have come full circle!

Liturgical abuse nightmare

No, it was an actual nightmare! I just woke up from it this morning. In my dream, when it came time for consecration, the priest had a huge picture of Mary or something in his hands. Not knowing what to do with it, he set it on the altar, leaning precariously against one of the candles, where it blocked the view for much of the congregation and threatened to come crashing down.

The consecration of the wine was performed by two teenage Asian girls, one preceding the rite with a rambling story in Chinese, and the other interpreting for her. But the first girl, forgetting her role, began to simply tell her story in English, causing the second girl to look lost and the audience to laugh.

Two quite young boys then came tottering up the steps with a ciborium the size of a huge punch bowl, and from my angle it looked like they would fall. I'm glad to say I woke at that point. The whole thing was very distressing and I think perhaps I've spent too much time on Trad messageboards.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Is this a bad sign?

I was in a car with some friends today, and we began to talk about the Ignation Exercises, which we've all done at least once. Among many other things, the Exercises include meditating on each of the seven deadly sins, the different ways they're expressed, which ones you're most vulnerable to, that kind of thing. "You know," I informed the others, "when I was getting ready to meditate on the deadly sins, I was thinking, 'I don't think pride is really my problem... I don't have much pride...'"

The other three occupants of the car immediately burst out laughing.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Celebrations on my last day at work

My wonderful co-workers gave me a suitable send-off which involved these two cakes. They've got big sea urchins and little sea anemones; the one on the left has a whole coral reef background with "sand" around the base of the cake. Is that cool or what? It's one of the prettiest cakes I've ever seen! My co-worker simply gave the cake decorator a picture of strongylocentrotus purpuratus and the explanation that it was for a lab that works on sea urchins, and this is what the woman came up with. Anemones are usually larger than urchins and not the other way round, but I'm not complaining. :) Note also the candle shaped like a sea urchin skeleton.

There was good champagne, and as is tradition in our lab when someone leaves, someone popped the cork into the ceiling and then circled and labeled the dent that it made. (You can hardly see the dent in the photo because my camera flash erased the shadows, but trust me, it's there.) So I've made my mark on the place!

Smart crow

Driving to work today, I noticed a crow down the street taking off from a telephone wire. He hovered for a few seconds in the air until my car neared him, and then he dropped something right in front of me. I heard a crunch as one of my tires ran over it. In my rear view mirror I saw the crow land on the street after I'd passed.

I've heard that crows have learned to use cars to crack their nuts for them, but this is the first time I've had the honor of being selected for the task!