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So, Catholics, you think your bishop is no good?  Think he’s gone off the rails?  Think he barely even sounds Christian anymore?  IT COULD BE WORSE.

1.  Scott Richert is raising funds for the Rockford Area Pregnancy Care Center with a walk for life.  You may know Scott for his yeoman’s work on About.com.  I consult his Catholicism page all the time, and am very grateful for his clear and thorough information about the Church!  His fundraiser is on fire right now, and he has blown past several goals already.  If you want to get in on sending a lovely big check to this very worth cause, check out the RAPCC fundraising page.

2.  A couple of days ago, I shared an illuminating article, “The Sin of Adoption,” by Brianna Heldt.  It explores the ins and outs of international adoption, and how Catholics, evangelicals, and non-religious people respond to the insanely complicated nuances and, well, complications of the issue.  It was responding to a rather nasty article in called “Orphan Fever” published in Mother Jones.  Darwin Catholic has posted a response by another Catholic, who does a good job of “poking some holes” in the Mother Jones article.  Very interesting stuff!  I can’t help feeling grateful that it’s extremely unlikely our family ever has to make our way through a minefield like international adoption.  These articles raise my esteem even higher for couples who do manage to fight their way through.

3.  Today is the feast day of one of my favorite saints (and one of my husband’s patrons), Fr. Damien of Molokai.

 

His feast day is not on the day of his death, as is traditional — apparently so that it wouldn’t fall during Lent.  Here’s a short introduction to this wonderful saint, who volunteered, as a young priest, to minister to the lepers who were quarantined on a squalid island and living like animals.  I have heard that no one else dared to come to the island, because leprosy is so contagious; so when Fr. Damien wanted to go to confession, he had to shout across the water to another priest who was safely in a rowboat.  I always imagined the conversation like this:

Fr. Damien:  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.  I lost my temper, and was impatient . . .

Confessor:  What?

Fr. Damien:  I said I lost my temper, and I was impatient!

Confessor:  What?

Fr. Damien:  DAMMIT, TAKE THE WAX OUT OF YOUR EARS!  I SAID, I WAS IMPATIENT . . .

4.  Have I ever told you about the joys of raising little girls?  The ones at home are 17 months, 4, and 5.  I usually do my writing in the morning, and they pal around together, doing the things that little girls do — you know, dress up in princess dresses, quietly swipe my camera, lie down in the driveway and pretend to be dead, quietly put my camera back . . .

5.  My husband stopped working for a certain newspaper back in January.  If you have any experience with a newspaper office, you may realize that they are not necessarily on the cutting edge of technology.

 

They had this system, for instance, where they would print out a draft of the paper and then pass from the editorial office to the production office through a hole in the floor.  Sometimes it would get stuck, so they had a special stick just for poking it through.  So, the other day, they called him up out of the blue, asking him to mail him the key to the office, which they claim he never returned.  He suggested that they just make a copy of their existing key.  They said, “You can’t just do that!” And they’re right, you can’t.  There’s no such thing as Home Depot.  No such thing!!!!  (They also said, when he suggested putting video clips on their website, that if people wanted to see video, they’d watch TV.  So there you are.)  Mamas, don’t let your children grow up to be journalists.  Unless your children are jerks and have it coming.

6.  I now have two bumper stickers on my car!  One is for my kids’ school (and I can’t tell you how moved I was when one of the board members suggested I put one on.  I always assumed they’d rather keep that affiliation quiet.)  The other one is this one:

Well, this is the cropped version I can manage to upload, because I am a technological moron today.  The actual bumper sticker is the entire word “COEXIST,” with the little baby in the O.  I got it as a gift from Arina Grossu, and I love it.  I can’t figure out who’s selling them, though.  On the sticker, it says “Isa-Life Productions.”  Anyone know anything about them?  And yes, now that I have a pro-life bumper sticker on my car, I’ve been a little more careful not to drive like such an ass.  In fact, I was formerly in the habit of driving with my ass.  And they gave me a ticket for it!  Now what am I supposed to do?  Say, “I’m sorry, your honor, I’m not as limber as I used to be?”

7.  This week, I’ve lost more friends on Facebook than I can ever remember doing, and I’m not even sure why.  I guess I’ve been pretty rude and pushy, suspicious and nasty, and have taken things in the worst possible way.  To anyone I’ve offended with my words this week, please consider this my apology to you:

Ray Harryhausen, master of the stop motion animation in Clash of the Titans andJason and the Argonauts has died.  Tom McDonald has the scoop.

Here’s one of my favorite scenes, right down to the pouring forth of the ketchup at the end:

That hairy, herky-jerky stop motion look is a thousand times more sinister and otherwordly than smooth-as-silk computer animation, innit?  It’s like the monsters are moving in a slightly different kind of air from everyone else, which is as it ought to be.  RIP.

Jen Fulwiler of Conversion Diary and “Minor Revisions” fame had her sweet baby boy last night!  Her entire pregnancy has been an enormous ordeal — first a pulmonary embolism landed her in the hospital with lungs so clogged with blood clots, the doctors said she ought to be dead.  Then she had to endure a horrible planned procedure which . . . I don’t even know what to say.  I feel like that lady who had her baby in a tree during the Mozambique flooding would feel sorry for her.

So the baby was born!  But Jen says:

Unfortunately, he has some breathing problems (unrelated to my medical issues) that mean that he requires NICU care, and is now being transferred to a NICU at a different hospital with better facilities. Even more unfortunately, I have to stay here at the delivery hospital until we get my blood thinners under control. I haven’t even seen him that much since he’s been born.

Hallie keeps sending me encouraging texts telling me I’m being so strong. I’ve been meaning to follow up and ask her for some examples of what “not being strong at all” would look like. Because I’m pretty sure that that’s what I’m actually doing.

Needless to say, this is a stressful situation for all involved, so we appreciate any prayers you can offer. Thanks again for all your wonderful support.

Beautiful pic of the siblings meeting their new brother on Jen’s blog.

Please pray for quick healing for both of them, and for a speedy reunion!

I just tried to read Pope Francis, Say Yes to the Pill on National Review Online.  I guess it’s an insightful tour de force about how it’s time for the Church to get with the times and whatnot.  Doesn’t bother me that someone is saying this, because everyone says it.  Doesn’t bother me that it’s on National Review, because National Reviewwent down the toilet about a decade ago, and only serves to remind me of why I’m not a Republican anymore.

But it does bother me, a lot, that someone would write the following:

The sex-abuse crisis has been a horrible and shaming problem, but Catholicism’s enemies have amplified and exploited it to incite the inference that most of the Roman clergy are deviates compounding superstition with perversion. The most frequent and wishful version of these events is as a mighty coruscation before the great Christian scam expires in a Wagnerian inferno, an inadvertent Waco. It took the most antagonistic pundits, in their uncomprehending skepticism of the viability of what they regard as a medieval flimflam factory anyway, only one day to assimilate the election of a man none of them had mentioned, in their omniscience, as a contender, before pronouncing his papacy dead on arrival at the Sistine Chapel.

and still be considered a writer.  Coruscation?  Uncomprehending skepticism of the viability of what they regard as a medieval flimflam factory?  I’m sorry, has someone checked in on this guy lately?  I think he’s having a stroke.

If anybody has the strength to wade through both pages of this masturbatory mess, please let me know what it’s about.  Furthermore, circumstantial evidentiary horticulture would presume,  one would cogitate, an obstreperous de-regimentation of, if you will, unregurgitated foofaraw, if you know what I mean.

with the inestimable Betty Butterfield recounting her experience at St. Assisi Francentine:

It had a lot of flow to it, but a lot of it caught me off guard.

with Steven Seagal running like a girl!

I don’t know if Dorian Speed of Convolare Designs ever gets tired of hearing how much her name sounds like a superhero name, but just in case she doesn’t:  one of her powers is building an excellent and useful website in the blink of an eye.

Her latest effort is Electing the Pope, where you can find answers to all your questions about the papacy and the upcoming papal election.  I have been assiduously avoiding the secular news coverage of this topic, because I finally stopped grinding my teeth at night and I don’t want to start during the day.  So I’m very happy to have a central clearinghouse with accurate and relevant information.

Electing the Pope is a collaborative effort with twenty (and growing) teachers, authors, and catechists.  It’s in an easy-to-read Q-and-A format, and will be very helpful for Catholics who need more information, or for any interested party who wants actualaccurate information.

One great feature:  you can submit a question to be answered on the site.  Thank you, Dorian, for putting this together!

Planned Parenthood offers “choice” like McDonald’s offers fresh fruits and veggies:  you have to work pretty damn hard to even find it on the menu.  Meanwhile, NaProTech doctors have discovered away to interrupt a chemical abortion in progress.  

1.   Mahoney relieved of remaining duties.   Why is he not in sackcloth and ashes?  Why is he not in prison??

2.  Environmentalists’ erstwhile darling Al “Hypnotoad” Gore finally gets a little comeuppance for his outrageous hypocrisy (and totally doesn’t get it when Jon Stewart calls him “Al” to rhyme with the “Al” in “Al Jazeera” — heh).

3.  I washed the pants my husband was wearing when he had to get up at 2 a.m. and drive to the depot to get diesel fuel to restart the furnace so we couldn’t all freeze, and he got diesel on his pants.  I say “too little too late” because they’ve been sitting in the laundry pile for a week, and now all the laundy (and when a mother of nine says  “all the laundry,” I guarantee you that, no matter what you picture, you’re not picturing enough laundry) smells like diesel.  Um, if I put this stuff in the dryer, will it explode or something?  This is a real question.

4.  I have noticed that my kids have no table manners.  None, whatsoever — like, not even their own special set of manners which appear loathsome to outsiders, but which have their own, interior logic.  No, they even find each other disgusting.  I’ve seen my ten -year-old son suddenly become aware of the crimes against decency that he is committing with his food, and the look on his face shows me that there is a natural law that each of us has written on our hearts, telling us what is right and what is wrong, even for things like eating pudding with your hand when you have mittens on.

I say it’s “too late” because the reason they eat this way is because, since our dining room is too small for a table which will seat all of us, I eat in the kitchen.  With no adult present, the kids were free to remain savages.  And now that they are suchsavages –especially the boys — there is no way you are getting me to go in there and teach them some manners.  Oh, well.  They have other good, marriageable qualities, like, um, keeping their nostrils really well-maintained.  Step right up, girls!  Pick a winner!

5.  It seems that I have won Funniest Blog at the Sheenazing Blogger Awards!

This is neither too little nor too late, but actually just right and just on time, because I have been feeling the opposite of funny, and the opposite of blog.  “The opposite of blog” is when a school kid emails you with a bunch of questions about why people would want to get into professional writing, and all you can think of is changing your name to Ron Mexico and moving to actual Mexico, so people will stop sending you emails about how you (not people like you, but you, personally) are the reason there is still abortion in America today.

So, thank you, dear Bonnie of A Knotted Life, for hosting this neat awards contest, and thanks to everyone who voted for me!  Do check out the other winners and nominees, especially “Best Underappreciated Blog”  and “Best Blog by a Catholic Man.”  Lots I haven’t heard of!  I gotta get caught up.

6.  Sorry, got a little grim there for a while.  It’s just cold.  I’m tired.  I have sciatica that keeps me awake, from sitting funny and lugging a small but very dense baby around all day, or possibly from a tumor.  Yeah, it’s probably a tumor.  Also, out of sheer laziness, I quit taking my iron supplement a while back, and now I’m discovering that apparently I’ve been running mostly on iron.  And we are having seven first-graders over for a Candyland-themed party, and the house, in its current state, is perfectly decorated to illustrate one of those “Seventy-Six Diseased Baboons Removed from House of Filth” headlines on Drudge.  When in fact, we don’t own nearly that many diseased baboons.  We’re just borrowing them.

7.  butatleastIfinalllyputthehalloweencostumesaway