Christmas Group Shot

Silly me, I thought we would never get around to taking a group photo this year, but there we all are!  I guess this is God’s way of telling us to slow down and have ourselves a streppy little New Year.  Also, He hates us.

Oh, just kidding!  If He hated us, the pharmacy would have run out of penicillin before our order was complete.  Oh, wait, it did.

Meh, it could be worse.  My husband isn’t working this weekend, so we can all have one last chance to enjoy a good old-fashioned family vacation together, sitting around the fire and sipping our disgusting pink medicine, trading good old stories about what we imagined we saw on the ceiling when the fever was at its peak, and tapping out the rhythm of our favorite old songs.  Can’t sing.  Throat hurts.

Really, really, it’s not that bad!  The worst part is the crushing guilt I feel when I think about all those friends and family eating all that fudge and peanut brittle and buckeyes I made with my own, two, plague-ridden hands. . .

7 Slow Takes: Christmas day is over, and now I can die

1.  It’s all very well to say that we should preserve Advent as a penitential season of waiting and preparation, and you shouldn’t jump the gun and celebrate a feast that hasn’t yet arrived.  But you know what that gets you?  One mother having a nervous breakdown trying to get it all together on Christmas eve

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and eight kids who stare at you blankly when you suggest singing Christmas carols. Because they didn’t learn any Christmas carols, because it was Advent.  Next year, we’ll be less liturgical, but more sane.

2.  Homemade peanut brittle is way, way more delicious than store-bought peanut brittle.  But store-bought peanut brittle doesn’t rip hunks of flesh off your hand if you accidentally touch it during the hard crack stage.

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3.  I can’t decide if I’m delighted that our new charter school is so easygoing, or a little disgusted at how truly awful the Christmas concert was.  The upside was that it was held at a Baptist church, so I was able to take the disruptive younguns into a sound proof, glassed-in balcony with fully stocked playroom, complete with changing table, crib, rocking chairs, and piped-in sound (Baptists!).  So I could hear 63 recorders shrieking their way through “Jingle Bells,” but the performers couldn’t hear me moaning in agony through the same.

Meh, the kids are happy, they’re getting a good education, and they sound horrible on the recorder.  Yeah, I guess I’m delighted!

4.  There was a great, big bat swooping around just over the heads of the congregation at midnight Mass, and nobody could figure out what to do.  Isn’t that what the Knights of Columbus are for?

On the other hand, I was blown away by the utter composure of the three priests concelebrating Mass.  They didn’t miss a beat and were utterly focused on the liturgy, even as different sections of the congregation let out little involuntary shrieks and gasps.

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I tried really hard to wrench a metaphor out of the situation, but nothing happened.

5.  We are incapable of not going overboard for Christmas.  It’s far, far too late for us to train the youngsters to be thrilled to find a box of colored pencils and an irregulardickey

under the tree.  So we go a little berserk, and buy them extravagant presents that delight them.  So sue me!  The rest of the year, they’re lucky if I can remember their names.

6.   A few days before Christmas, my son got sick.  Then everyone else got sick, one by one, until everyone except my husband and some miscellaneous toddlers had fever and chills, severe sore throats, vertigo, headaches, muscle aches, and near-fatal surliness.  Some of us were throwing up, some of us were wandering up and down the stairs in a delirium, and one kid developed some rather theatrical Strange Bumps all over his head.

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So on Monday, my husband spent four hours shoveling snow, and then insisted on calling in to work so he could stay home and take care of us, since my limbs weren’t working.  He handed out Tylenol.  He plumped pillows and poured orange juice.  He set up humidifiers, washed pukey sheets, played Go Fish, and sat through countless hours of Wonder Pets.  He cheerfully leaped out of bed half a dozen times to sooth crazed and querelous children who didn’t know why they were up.  In short, he is my favorite husband ever.

7.   I didn’t write a Christmas letter or cards.  It’s been a strange and disconcerting year, and many Things have Changed for our family – – and it was all just too hard to explain in one of those holly jolly update letters.  I’ve been fretting a lot lately, and falling prey to a stupid spiritual distraction, worrying whether there really is something wrong with my attitude about femininity.  Maybe I really am turning my back on womanhood with my pants-wearing, gin-swilling, fart-joke-making ways, and making the world a worser place in which to live in.  It seems like everything I do is lacking, and I’m so tired of being this way.  I was moaning about this to my husband, and said, “Well, this year you accomplished this, and So-and-so did that, and she made so much progress in this — but I didn’t do anything!”

And he said, “But you made it so that all these things could happen.  You kept us going.  You kept us together.”

That is actually the best thing that anyone has ever said to me.

And when I think about it, it’s pretty darn feminine, as long as you’re looking for more than high heels and homemade cookies.  Not that I have no room for improvement, but I guess I’m doing what I was put here to do — and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the person I love the most in the world.

Of course you notice, if you re-read number 6, that we are both under the impression that the other one is the one who is holding this whole freak show together.  ‘Snice, isn’t it?  You should be glad to know us!

More hope for religious art

Elizabeth Scalia posted a link (on Facebook, not on her blog — but she always has tons of good stuff, so check it out!) to this sculpture of the Annunciation, by John Collier:

(photo source:  The Deacon’s Bench)

I know it’s just about impossible to make a judgment based on a photo, but what do you think?  My first thought was that it made reference to the statue of Apollo and Daphne by Bernini:

(photo source)

The artist seems to be stressing the significance of the fig tree.  Intstresting, no?  I prefer the one true God’s means of preserving his faithful daughter’s virginity!  I also thought the face of Mary in the first sculpture hearkened to the  Ecstasy of St. Theresa, also by Bernini.

Another quick book recommendation

Since my son left his math book at the dentist’s office, pretty much all we’ve done in home school is a little spelling, a craft or two (you can pretend I didn’t say that if it makes you feel inadequate.  You wouldn’t feel inadequate if you saw our crafts, though), and read The Odyssey retold for children by Geraldine McCaughrean.

Sometimes I read, and sometimes the kids read aloud.  Kids who read silently far above grade level often don’t know how to read aloud, so this is a good exercise; and it also lets you get something done (like making lunch) while home schooling.  It’s also a good way of finding out that your mostly-excellent reader has a few kinks to iron out, phonics-wise.  (Translation:  the kid wouldn’t know a schwa from a hole in the ground.)

Here’s a passage we just read from this very engaging retelling, to give you an idea of the style:

By the light of lightning bolts which rained down around him, Odysseus saw the frightened, colourless eyes of fishes, and the suckered arms of reaching squid.  The waves that folded over him were shot through with eels and peppered with sharp barnacles and razorshells.  The troughs that swallowed him were deeper and darker than Charybdis, and the currents beneath dragged him three times round the ocean like dead Hector was dragged three times round the walls of Troy.

Pretty good, eh?  Nice and rhythmic for reading aloud, but not too complicated.  At the end of one chapter, my six-year-old son asked his eight-year-old brother, “Do you think Odysseus will make it home?  Mama, CAN I LOOK AHEAD?” and his brother said, “No, no, don’t find out!  I don’t know either!”  They haven’t been this excited since there was a dead mole in the sandbox.

Oh, and the illustrations in this book are wild and satisfying, too.  There are a few naked women — Sirens and whatnot — so you will have to use your judgment.  I didn’t want my son to be exposed to the unclothed female form, so when we got to that part, I just hid the book behind the baby, who, um, was nursing.

One final note:  I love ancient Greece.  I mean, I really, really love it.  A few weeks ago, I asked the six-year-old if he wanted to read Bible stories or Greek myths.  He chose Bible stories.  And I tried to talk him out of it.  Yes, I did.  Obviously, I’m not warping him too badly — I mean, he did choose the Bible stories — but it looks like I have a few kinks of my own to iron out.

Thursday Throwback: sRANTa Claus

It’s posts like the following, written a few years ago, that make me realize that I really have mellowed out quite a bit in the last few years.  Enjoy it if you can!  Sheesh.

 

 

I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee

People who let their children believe in Santa are setting them up for a jaded, psychoanalyst-ridden adulthood of mistrust and paranoia.

People who don’t let their kids believe in Santa are depriving the little ones of their God-given right to the wonder of an innocent childhood.

People who get their kids tons of presents are materialistic swine who are hoping to disguise their guilt over neglecting their children the other 364 days of the year.

People who get their kids only a few presents are disguising the scars of their own deprived childhoods with a holier-than-thou wrapping more falsely tinselly than any Walmart holiday display.

Why aren’t you doing an advent wreath, an advent chain, an advent calendar, achocolate advent calendar, St. Nicholas shoes, a Mary candle with removable baby Jesus hidden behind a satin veil which covers an alcove you dug into the candle (blue, of course), which you will remove on Christmas morning, not that anyone will notice?, and a Jesse tree? And a Christmas tree?

You should get this together on Christmas eve. Any sooner, and you will be of the world, not in the world, because it’s only still Advent, you premature-holly-hanging pushover! Go ahead, listen to secularist sirens, do what they do, and see what happens to your children, your marriage, and your eternal soul!

There. I just saved you a lot of time, and you can now skip everyone else’s blog until Epiphany or so, and concentrate on mine. And while I’m stinging you along, here’s one more pearl of wisdom:

This

 

 

is an abomination.  And not the fun kind, either.

If you grew up with Rudolph and his moth-eaten, hot glue friends, it’s okay: you’re all grown up now, and you can put it behind you. You don’t have to watch it, you don’t have to think about it or acknowledge that it was ever part of your life, and you don’t have to –you must not– introduce your children to it.

What, just because you have fond memories, that means it’s worth something? Wrongo! It’s the lousiest thing ever made. It’s the most destructive, corrosive cultural product of the the 60′s. It’s the most shameful thing about America ever. It’s worse than slavery and war. It’s worse than Scooby Doo. It frightens Satan. Do you hear me?

And no, Burl Ives is not a mitigating factor.

Yeah, yeah, it’s my birthday.

Today I am 36.  Yesterday I found a gray hair, and a piece of my tooth fell off.  A little piece, but still.

Then my dear friend, the lovely, fecund, and irrepressible Justine Schmiesing sent me this:

And now I feel better.

(Also, my husband woke up early and took the kids to school even though it wasn’t his turn, and he got me lots of presents with receipts, and we’re watching Dumbo for home school today, and we’re going out to my favorite restaurant tonight, and there’s coffee brewing.  But you’re not here to hear about that!)

I’m actually going to close comments so you don’t feel like you have to wish me a happy birthday.  It’s bad enough Facebook is pestering everybody about it.  Yes, I realize I could take my birth date off my profile, but – – but then nobody would wish me a happy birthday!

I’ve grown accustomed to your apes.

Someday, I’ll write a post for which that would be an appropriate title.  In the meantime, here’s a moderately interesting question:  how much can you tell about a person by studying his face?  Can you tell if he’s basically decent or not?  Does it make a difference if it’s a photo or in person?  Have you ever been terribly wrong?

I saw this picture of the Pope

and thought to myself, “That there is the main reason people don’t like him.”  That’s completely unjust, of course.  Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that this is a kind, humble, and holy man, apparently devoid of selfishness and malice.  But if you were already anti-Catholic, I can see how — well, like everyone says, he just looks like Emperor Palpatine.

People who assume that he stays up late at night, figuring out how to boost  the annual number of African AIDS orphans, might say that they can see his evil on his face.  It’s not hard to find apparent evidence of what they expect to see.  But of course, they’re wrong.

So obviously you can’t assume that someone’s evil just because they look mean and wrinkly.  But there are other things you can see, I think: self-absorbtion or nacissism, for one thing.  Serial killers and movie stars often have that same look.

Of course we can’t know someone’s soul.  Of course there are very few people who are all good, or all bad — maybe there are none at all.  But what do you think?  Who can you think of who, as far as you can see, shows exactly who they are on their face?  Have you ever been taken in — either fooled by a baby-faced villain, or surprised to discover that someone whose face you feared or despised turned out to be a friend or a hero?  Do you have a misunderstood face?

Maybe this isn’t the best post for Advent, when we’re supposed to be searching our own souls and then turning to God, instead of staring at each other, searching out signs of hypocrisy.  Well, what do you want for your money?  You can always cut out more snowflakes.

Busy?

Me too!  Take a load off for a minute and cut out some virtual snow flakes.

Oh, what fun – WordPress won’t let me make a link!  Here’s the address:

http://snowdays.popularfront.com/

Seven Really Good Books for Young Adults

Sorry this is so long.  I didn’t have time to write anything shorter.

Seven Quick Takes:  Seven Really Good Books for Young Adults

When I was in high school, everything we read had to be about either the Holocaust, or suicide, or both.  An exception could be made for books about racism, provided several lynchings were described in technicolor.  Then, after we finished our assigned reading for the year, the school board would hold a workshop on what to do about rampant and debilitating depression in the student body.

Well, it’s too late for me, of course.  As soon as I’m done with this post, I’m going to go huff some wood glue, write a note blaming my parents, and OD on some Xanax I stole from the locker room while listening to Nevermind (to my younger readers:  check your oldies station if that reference puzzles you.  Oh, lord. . . )

But you still have a chance.  Here are seven books of fiction I recommend for your teenager or almost-teenager.  Kids that age do enjoy a good bout of angst, but these are books that don’t glorify teenage gloom, or teach that it’s the world’s job to learn to appreciate the delicate genius that is Teenage Me.  Not all of the books are about teenagers, and all of them could easily be enjoyed by adults.  Most of these books are about courage, and about something that teenagers really need to know:  how to discern true love from its flashier counterfit.  With the possible  exception of the Patterson novels, I don’t think this list is too girly.  The only other thing they have in common is that they are stuffed with good ideas that young people need to hear, and the writing is far above average.

–1–

Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

 

This one is often included in YA lists, but not for the right reasons, I think.  Teenagers won’t fully appreciate the themes of love and fidelity in this  fleshing-out of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but there is plenty else in this gorgeous and searing novel to grab them by the scruff of the neck and shake the stupid ideas out of them.  Heartrending and intense.  For grades 9 and up.

–2 and 3–

Two novels by Katherine Patterson:

 

Jacob Have I Loved is a coming-of-age novel about twin girls living on a crabbing island in the Chesapeake Bay in the 1940′s.  One sister is lovely, talented, fragile, and secretly vicious — the other, the narrator, is plain, strong, and full of rage.  The character of the horrible old grandmother is unforgettable.  The book achieves something I always look for in a novel:  honesty about the flaws of the main character, with flashes of sympathy for even the worst characters.  Flawless in structure, characterization, and style.  For grades 7 and up.

Another excellent novel by Patterson, suitable for grades 5 and up, is The Great Gilly Hopkins.

It’s like Flannery O’Connor, Jr.  Great portrayals of hypocrisy, great portrayals of genuine love by a genuine Christian, who happens to be a fat, trashy, semi-literate foster mother named Trotter.  It could easily have dissolved into melodrama, but resists.  My only quibble is with the character of the black teacher, Miss Harris — she seems a bit too glibly drawn as the hard-as-nails and smart-as-a-whip black teacher with a heart of gold, etc.  All the rest of the characters, though, are thoroughly believable, from Trotter, to her pathetic ward William Ernest Teague (W.E.T.), to the greasy-haired would-be sidekick, Agnes Stokes.  (See, I remember all their names, and I haven’t read this book for years.  It sticks with you!)  I believe it’s sold as a novel about racism, but it’s really just about love.

–4–

The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter

 

I know, I know.  The guy passed it off as an autobiography, and it wasn’t.  Pretty awful — but darn it, I still like the book.  It is beautiful and funny, and I feel happy while reading it.  I wish I knew the characters in real life, which is more than you can say for most novels or autobiographies.  If you’ve heard that this book is just a piece of anti-white propaganda, you’ll be surprised.  I suppose there’s a message in it, but it’s not the main point — the story is, and it’s a wonderful story about a boy growing up with his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather in the mountains during Prohibition.   Also, it makes descriptions of scenery interesting.  Apparently it’s been criticized as perpetuating the “noble savage” stereotype of the American Indian, but, again, I just don’t see that.  What I read was an ancient story of happiness, broken by a terrible grief and darkness of separation, and then a return to happiness, until Eden is outgrown.  To read more into it than that is to deprive yourself of a good story.  For grades 6 and up.

–5–

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

 

This one is for older teens, for sure.  The story is complicated and demands a lot of the reader.  To be honest, I’m too tired to explain the plot to you.  It’s about Catholic monks and Jews and miracles and nuclear war and space travel and mutants.  It’s a crazy, grotesque, hilarious, fascinating epic with lots and lots of ideas.  There is a disturbing theme of the cyclic nature of history that seems to imply a “new” Immaculate Conception, but a teenager with a good grounding in the faith won’t be troubled by it.  I like how the priests are real men.  It will appeal to lovers of science fiction, but is so much more than that.

–6–

The Don Camillo stories by Giovanni Guareschi

 

 

Three collections of short, sweet, funny and poignant stories from post-WWII Italy about a large and rash village priest and his rival, the equally large and rash communist mayor Peppone.  If you don’t enjoy these stories, there is something wrong with you.  I could do without the cartoonish illustrations by the author, but the stories are hugely entertaining, and touch on all kinds of interesting theological ideas.  Don Camillo’s conversations with the crucified Christ in his church are authentic and moving.  For grades 7 and up.

–7–

Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

 

 

The first two books of the space trilogy are great stories and provide so many memorable scenes (the third in the series, That Hideous Strength, takes a different turn and is not for the kiddies).  It was from Perelandra that I learned that evil isn’t interesting and the devil isn’t clever or charming — as Ransom learns one night as keeps watch on the beach with the Un-Man, and they have the following dialogue all night long  “Ransom.” –  “What?” – ” . . .Nothing.”

For more mature teenagers — there are ideas about sexuality which are entirely Catholic (yes, I know Lewis wasn’t), but which less mature kids won’t be able to manage.  The only part that might strike readers as dated is the fact that the villain wants to conquer worlds and force humankind on the universe, whereas today’s humanist villains are more interested in shrinking and curtailing the human race.  It might be an interesting conversation to discuss what the current evil ideas have in common with the ones in the books.

There are many, many wonderful scenes in both books.  I was especially affected, as a teenager, by the passage in Perelandra where Ransom protests to God that there is a representative of Evil in the world, fighting for the soul of the unfallen Lady — and why is there no champion of Good?  And the silent and terrifying  answer comes booming back at him:  you.  There is also the memorable phrase, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, here goes!  I mean, Amen!”  Lewis’ descriptions of scenery are the only drawback to these books — he does go on and on, and you have to read really carefully to understand what he is describing.  I think these passages could simply be excised without any damage to the books.  For grades 10 and up.

————–

You’ll notice there is no Madeleine L’Engle in this list.  I read her books several times as a Young Adult, and I’m sure they influenced me, but I just don’t like her.  I don’t like her smarmy characters, I don’t like how her ideals of family life are utterly saturated in six kinds of snobbery.  I don’t like the loosey goosey games she plays with comparative religion, and her stories leave me cold,  irritated and unsatisfied.  I’m always astonished that she’s described as some kind of genius — her prose always strikes me as hokey and stilted.  She is very original, I’ll admit, but I have very little patience with her “Oh-the-aching-wonder-of-it-all” genre.  I wouldn’t say “don’t read her stuff,” but I think you’ll do just fine if you never do read her.

Okay, so, yay, I wrote a blog post!  Thanks to the gracious and prolific (in every way)Jen Fulwiler for hosting Seven Quick Takes every Friday.

UPDATE:  Several readers mentioned Patterson’s Bridge to Terebithia and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  My take:  yes, Bridge to Terebithia is just awful.  As reader Suburban Correspondent put it,  “It was everything that was wrong with YA books in my youth – all the hopelessly messed-up adults, the characters manipulated by the author to send some sort of message.”  Yup, pretty much a blight on Patterson’s career.  Her books that I recommended are totally different.  I also remember that her novel The Master Puppeteer was quite good, and is about a boy.  She has written many  historical novels for young adults.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is fantastic — good call, folks.  I can’t imagine a boy really enjoying it, but it really is a wonderful book.  It’s about a girl growing up in the slums in Brooklyn before and during World War II.  Betty Smith’s other books, unfortunately, are dreadful!  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is fiction, but obviously semi-autobiographical, and is very moving and full of insight into a young girl’s mind.  Some of her notions about sex could be a little damaging to susceptible girls, though, so you should probably read this one first, and discuss it with your daughter.

7 Quick Takes: In Poor Taste

Ha.

Never mind the talk about sex, gin, or condoms –  I really ruffled some feathers when I allowed my violent distaste for “The Little Drummer Boy” to spill over into the public realm.  Well, I stand by my words.  It’s just a dumb, dumb song, and I don’t like it.  Harumph all you want.

Okay, that was kind of a stretch.  My point is that, despite my entirely justifiable disdain, I can understand why you would like “The Little Drummer Boy.”  Not because there’s anything good about it (there’s not), or because there’s anything wrong with you (there is), but because personal taste is a strange and embarrassing phenomenon.  As my old college professor used to say, De gustibus non figureoutum est.

So, just to let you know that even a sneering elitist like myself has some chinks in my armor (although my heart of stone remains intact), I present:

Seven Examples of Simcha’s Execrable Taste

1.  Footprints in the sand.  Did you ever look back on your life and see the part that was all soggy?  That was me, weeping heartfelt tears over this unforgivable bit of religious schlock.  It doesn’t even actually make sense.  When you felt the worst, that was when God was carrying you?  Does He do that?  In my experience, it’s more like He says, “Go ahead and have a tantrum — see if I care!”   And the He stands back with his arms folded and watches me make a fool of myself, until I get so worked up that I fall down and hit my head on the coffee table.  Then He picks me up, checks my pupils to make sure I don’t have a concussion, and maybe puts on Shaun the Sheep for a while until I calm down.

Don’t ask me what the sand would look like at this point.

But yeah, “Footprints in the sand” kind of gets me.  Whatever.

2.  Billy Joel’s “Leningrad.”

It’s bad enough that it’s Billy Joel, but why “Leningrad?”  I hang my head in shame.

3.  SpaghettiOs.  Yes, I realize it’s basically extruded flour glue in warm ketchup.

 

Remember that movie Se7en where the guy makes the fat guy eat all those SpaghettiOs?  Hated the movie, but I would love to be that fat guy.  Except for when he gets killed.

4.  Plastic leaves.  We had a Greek myths birthday party in September, and I liked how the dining room looked with strings of plastic ivy tacked onto the wallpaper, so I left them up.  They’re from Dollar Tree, and now my house looks like Dollar Tree.  It’s my house, and that’s how I like it.

5.  Gold or silver spray paint.  IT MAKES EVERYTHING LOOK FANCIER, and you can’t tell me otherwise.  So if you get something like this from me for Christmas

it’s not ironic hipster kitsch.  I just thought it was purty.  Don’t you like pretty things?  What are you, some kind of monster?

6.  Nic Cage.

 

Not because of his puppy dog eyes or his upsetting hair, the shredded wheat-like likes of which have not been seen since Gene Wilder in his heyday

 

– but because of a kind of a funny story.  You see, about ten years into my marriage, my husband rented a movie with Nicholas Cage in it.  I forget what it was, but it sure stunk, as Nicholas Cage movies are wont to do (yes, Bad Lieutenant was mesmerizing.  The Rock was fun. Raising Arizona was amusing, though overrated — but let’s face it, he’s only still around for the same reason as you keep that horrible old tippy coffee table:  because it more or less does the job, and you just don’t have the time right now to go out and get a replacement.  Nicholas Cage:  go ahead and put a wet glass on him.)

Oh, I think the movie was Ghost Rider!  Anyway, we just couldn’t watch it.  And we are people who watched Zardoz all the way through.  We watched Thunderball all the way through.  We watched Yentl, for pete’s sake.  Anyway, it developed that my husband had chosen Ghost Rider because he thought I had some particular affection for Nicholas Cage (which I don’t); and I watched it because I thought he wanted to watch it (which he didn’t).  Very Gift of the Magi, isn’t it?

So that’s why I like Nicholas Cage.

7.  Budweiser.

 

I like how it tastes.  So sue me.

And then head over to Conversion Diary, where Jen Fulwiler is hosting 7 Quick Takes.  I can almost guarantee you that nobody else’s list will force you to think about Nicholas Cage’s hair.  Although Advent is a penitential season.