Monthly Archives: April 2009

04.19.09
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Definitely a girl

Stereotypes exist because people act stereotypically.

I got Mary dressed this morning in a pretty blue dress she had never seen before. “Ooooo,” she said. “Yes, pretty,” I agreed. Then I said, “Let’s get your shoes.”

Mary didn’t want her shoes, apparently bored with the same old same old. She walked off to play with the toy kitchen. “Look,” I said. She blatantly ignored me and continued to occupy herself with plastic vegetables. “Mary, look,” I insisted. These weren’t her usual shoes. These were new sandals, something she had never seen. Finally, I waved them in front of her face.

“Ooooo,” she said and immediately lifted her feet for a try-on. “How nice,” her sisters cooed. Once on, she bent over admiring them.

“Let’s go show, Daddy,” I suggested. She liked that idea, grasped my finger and off we toddled. First she saw Fritz and lifted her feet for him, then she showed Daddy her pretty new shoes. She babbled excitedly and continued to look at her feet as though getting new shoes were the greatest joy on earth.

Because, for a girl, sometimes, it is.

04.19.09
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No "I" in TEAM

Fritz wants to pitch. He’d probably be pretty good, too. He did well last year as pitcher.

Fritz is not on the pitching roster.

Fritz is the best fielder on the team. I’m not being prideful. He has the advantage of having a birthday just a few weeks past the age deadline. He is a really old ten year old and one of the oldest kids on the team. This is his fourth year playing baseball. He knows how to play the game.

Fritz is the third baseman.

Today, they played 4 innings before time was up. That’s 12 outs. Six were strikeouts and six were not. Of the six outs made by somebody other than the pitcher, three were by Fritz and he only played 3 of the 4 innings.

The coach is a wise man putting him at third. Overjoyed might be a good word to describe how he felt about Fritz’s performance today. Fritz, he said (rather giddily), if you are in the field, you will be at third, always.

Unless I’m pitching, he says to me, with hope.

Son, you aren’t going to be doing much pitching, I told him. I had my own story about wanting to do one thing, but having my talents needed elsewhere. I can sympathize.

But that’s the thing about team efforts. It doesn’t matter what I want. The point of team sports is (should be) learning that the self is sacrificed for the benefit of the team.

Good lessons.

04.18.09
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Good article on Susan Boyle

The beauty that matters is always on the inside

But it is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of themselves. Is that a cause for derision or a reason for congratulation? Would her time have been better spent slimming and exercising, plucking and waxing, bleaching and botoxing? Would that have made her voice any sweeter?

{snip}

Susan is a reminder that it’s time we all looked a little deeper. She has lived an obscure but important life. She has been a companionable and caring daughter. It’s people like her who are the unseen glue in society; the ones who day in and day out put themselves last. They make this country civilised and they deserve acknowledgement and respect.

h/t Praying for Grace

04.16.09
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Easter Sacrifices

“They” say that Lent isn’t about losing weight. I agree.

However, if you are the sort of person who loves to eat just for the love of eating (as I do), and you are guilty of such eating perhaps too often (as I am), and you focus many of your Lenten sacrifices around curtailing such behavior (as I did), then it is likely that you will lose weight during Lent (as I did).

And that is fine.

However, now that Easter is here, such people (like me) may need to be reminded that the Easter feast is not intended to be 50 days of gluttony, either. At some point (like right now), the excessive consumption of chocolate needs to stop. Did I not just spend 40 days learning that I do not need butter to be happy?

A few weeks ago, my pastor suggested that every meal every day is an opportunity for some small sacrifice: skipping sugar in the coffee, for example. This man is full of great ideas. He did not say that we are required to abstain from sacrifices during the Easter Octave (as many people seem to be insisting in this post last year, so don’t even bother leaving comments to such effect in the combox – I won’t listen to you).

Just like during Lent, sacrifices involving food during other times of the year are not about weight loss or weight control. They are ways to remind ourselves that food will not make us happy if our souls are unhappy. They help us exercise detachment of earthly things.

And I, for one, need constant practice in such detachment.

04.15.09
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Two months, and counting

The boys’ opening day of baseball season is this Saturday. Their practice schedule hasn’t been too bad – mainly thanks to the weather which has drowned out most of the attempts of the coach to gather. And half the practices were during Holy Week, so they would have missed them anyway (the coach actually suggested batting practice for Sunday the 12th until I pointed out it was Easter Sunday).

But as baseball is gearing up, other activities are, mercifully, winding down. Three, count them, three more CCD classes. Billy has only four more den meetings for Cub Scouts. The girls have Girl Scouts today, and then only two more. Nine more weeks of piano and ballet before their final performances – but at least we can count that on two hands.

It’s not just the flowering trees and the blooming daffodils and the backyard mud patch sprouting grass and the empty tomb that are putting me in a good mood. It’s the sense of impending freedom. Where my highest priority is boiling noodles so I can make a pasta salad to take to the pool for dinner, and my to-do list consists of wishes, not mandates.

Nobody loves summer break more than a teacher.

04.13.09
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Home Decorator Confession

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

It has been three months since the last major holiday.

In that time, I have not really done a good job of putting away the decorations. I did mange to (mostly) get them out of the living areas. I still occasionally find an M&M guy with a red stocking hat in the basket of baby toys. And it was only last week that I insisted the string of lights around the boys’ bedroom ceiling must come down and finally collected the extra nativity set from off the piano. Yes, a creche in April on my piano.

But worst of all has been the garage/dumping ground. Instead of wrapping them in protective paper and snuggling them in for a long summer’s nap, my army of nutcrackers has been forced to do sentry duty on a spare table. Plastic kids’ cups with gingerbread men on them, miscellaneous ornaments in various stages of wholeness, and the stray felt reindeer candy cane cover were piled nearby.

A bag of lights – do they work or not? A Christmas music CD – where is the cover? This package of 12 ornaments has only 10 – I know we started out in December with a full collection.

I firmly resolve, with your help, to do penance (clean the garage), to sin no more (I swear I will do better next year), and to avoid the near occasion of sin (except for the Easter baskets, I’m not getting out any other decorations).

Have mercy on me, Lord.

04.12.09
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Alleluia! He is Risen.

Happy Easter!

Random thoughts:

Regular coffee, heavy on the latte, never tasted so good.

Neighbors who gear their annual Easter egg hunt and party around my Mass schedule are wonderful.

Chocolate: the breakfast of champions and hyper kids.

I think I need to get to work on a new blog header. Totally forgot about that.

I’m eating a decadent breakfast. I’m too lazy to do links and recipes now. Maybe later this week. Plenty of Easter to enjoy – 50 days!

Splurged on flowers and bushes to transform a bare part of my yard to beauty (even though my husband has to be convinced that spending money on someone else’s property is worthwhile). Planned to get them in the ground yesterday, but it poured until late afternoon. Can’t wait until tomorrow to get my hands dirty.

I really missed comments and love notes in my email. Happy to leave my hermetic blogging life.

Happy it is Easter. Lent was good. Easter is better.

04.09.09
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Stupidity and Ignorance Reign at Brown

Brown University Kills ‘Columbus Day’ for ‘Fall Weekend’

The faculty of the Ivy League university voted at a meeting Tuesday to establish a new academic and administrative holiday in October called “Fall Weekend” that coincides with Columbus Day, but that doesn’t bear the name of the explorer.

Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence, R.I. school to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values.

“I’m very pleased,” Reiko Koyama, a sophomore who led the effort, told the student newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Just in case you too have been duped into thinking Christopher Columbus enslaved and tortured peaceable Native Americans, please allow me to set the record straight: Christopher Columbus was a poor administrator, a bad leader, and a terrible PR man. But he did not himself abuse Native Americans nor did he encourage, approve or tolerate the abusive behavior on the part of the men who sailed his ships and settled somewhat in the new lands. His second or third voyage, in fact, was manned by convicts who were granted release from prison if they went, since he could not muster a crew willing to go. Hello? Send murders to America and then be surprised when they…murder?

So, instead of admiring a man who refused to give up, who remained persistent in following his dreams, who did, in fact, find a whole new world that nobody had any idea existed before (yes, he was wrong in that it wasn’t India, but 500 years later we have proven to be a much better discovery than India, doncha think?). Instead of that, we’ll blame him for the crimes of others and completely negate any of the good that he did do.

History, especially history based on gossip and lies and spin, is a harsh judge. Learn the truth, dear, wise fools of Brown, and may you be spared similar treatment at the end of your time.

Oh, and to what purpose does it serve to change the name of a holiday and still take the holiday? If you really want to protest the day off, go to class on Columbus Day.

04.05.09
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New Month’s Resolution for April

Yes, I know it’s the fifth of the month, and I never even did one for March (I had one in my head, I just never posted it), but I am finally getting around to this.

Unless you have experienced it yourself, it is impossible to convey the stress that is involved in the few months before a soldier expects to deploy. Add to it the uncertainty of exactly when (a date and a time) that the soldier will physically depart and also the sudden learning of obligations (trainings) that he will have to do beforehand (away from home), and his time left begins to seem very very short.

Heck, it is very short.

Oh, and then there is this psychological thing called detachment. It’s an emotional defense that has human beings trying to cope with an impending loss by acting as though the loss has already occurred. It stinks.

Anyway, chief among my anxieties is the thought that Bill won’t be around to do any little projects that come up, so, unfortunately for him, I’m listing “things that must be done before July” like installing a clothesline and organizing the garage. And since I want to try to enjoy the last few weeks he’s here by doing fun stuff like Busch Gardens (still allowing service members and families in for free) and Colonial Williamsburg, it’s really “things that must be done before June.” And since in May, we have Katie’s First Holy Communion and my entire family coming in as well to simultaneously celebrate my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary, my sister and her family staying for another week having flown all the way from Alaska, and then Bill leaving directly after that for a week of training, it’s really “things that must be done before May.”

So, April will be a busy month with lots of organizing and cleaning. My hopes are to do the closets in the master bedroom, the storage area (with a weight bench that needs to be put together – we’ve been here for 9 months now) and the garage which are all areas where I need Bill’s help. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it all, but I hope so.

04.04.09
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DO the red, SAY the black

Most Fridays this Lent, we’ve gone down to the military chapel on post for a soup dinner and stations of the cross. Last night, we had friends over for dinner (corn chowder and fish sticks – high class gourmet) and then the dads did baby duty while the moms took the older children to church for a plenary indulgence triple: confession, stations, and Mass.

The Friday evening Mass at my church is a Novus Ordo Latin Mass. This was my first experience with any Latin Mass, but because it was Novus Ordo, I wasn’t completely lost. The Liturgy of the Word was entirely in English, and the order of the Mass was familiar. I’ve been studying Latin for a few years with my students, so I know some stuff (Pater Noster, Sanctus).

Nonetheless, I spent a good deal of time flipping around the missal trying to keep up. And my stuttering, struggling Latin was no match for the ladies to my right who rattled off prayers with fluent ease. I’m still completely intimidated by the thought of a TLM, but last night wasn’t too bad. I can project that after a handful of times, it would get to be much easier.

And my sympathies go out to any converts or visitors to the Mass who can’t make heads or tails of the English missal. Despite being a visual person, I think it might have been better if I had just closed the missal and prayerfully followed along instead of trying to vocally keep up.