Six inches of snow in DC doesn’t bother me a bit. 1/2 of ice in SC? Bothers me. As in: Last time this happened, we didn’t have electricity for a week. It’s winter survival camping, suburban edition. Couldn’t go outside, because iced-over pine limbs were falling on people’s heads.
So anyway, I’m hoping for a nice snow holiday. Meanwhile, am stocking up on clean laundry.
Got home last week, made it through Co-op Friday with the help of Starbucks Via (I know, I know, let’s not talk about that), and got halfway through writing a post about singing the Divine Office when I came down with Plague #348, Do Not Try Singing Version. So that article’s sitting half-written. It’s hard to write about singing when you can’t.
Three girls are down with the evil thing today, so they’re doing the Steve Ray homeschool curriculum while I catch up on e-mail and other things that can done while sitting very, very still. The Healthy One has been promised my piece of coffee cake from yesterday if he does all his homework and cleans the house.
Meanwhile, if you like to write, there’s this conference you need to quick go register for. It’s free, it’s online, it’s Catholic, and it’s open to anyone who wants to come. You can take one class, all the classes, whatever you like, but registration closes Feb 7th. Why do I think you should go? Because of this. In which I answer the question: How did a housewife who surfs the internet too much end up getting published? With a real publisher? Because of the Catholic Writers Guild Online Conference. That’s how.
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Other interesting things around the Castle:
Kitten Watch 2014 We got home from the March for Life, and our cat was still pregnant. SuperHusband had given up on her, and decided she must just be really fat. #2 theorized it was a nasty case of parasites. But the resident I’ve-been-pregnant person (me) was able to persuade them that those wiggly minature-spinal column things you can feel if you palpate Cat’s abdomen very gently? Yeah. Kittens.
And I keep catching that &(*^%&* cat in my closet. Just no. NO!
Music. SuperHusband’s been recording some. If you go in for high-high-Church, here’s his site. I could get used to this. And yes, you can download the MP3’s for free. That’s the whole point.
A hearty thank you to whomever nominated me for a Sheengazing award. When I got the e-mail I was puzzled, because my first thought was “Martin Sheen? I can’t even remember what movie it was . . .” Oops. That would be: Bishop Fulton. If you happen to think that of all the under-appreciated blogs on the roster, mine is the best, feel free to vote for me.
The nice thing about being nominated to the UAB category, is that no matter where you end up in the final tally, you’re affirmed in your status as an under-appreciated person. Am I the most under-appreciated? The least appreciated of the under-appreciated? Something in between? We’ll know 9pm Monday.
If you didn’t see it already, here’s my post at New Evangelizers today. It’s about what makes a community a community, and why do we need a Christian community?
If you didn’t see the March, EWTN’s coverage is here. All jokes aside, it really did feel kinda like a Ninja March. Noisy Ninjas. But there was no one else around, other than us, as far as the eye could see in both directions on Constitution Ave. coming up by the Capitol.
Someone asked me before we went whether it was true that there were very many young people at the March. Let me clarify: The March for Life is a youth event with some chaperones along in order to reassure the nervous security people at the Smithsonian.
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Interesting discovery, as I was walking up the hill from the playground after an hour or so of sledding, headed back to my friend’s house in my old neighborhood in the burbs. I passed a house flying a US flag and a Maryland flag. I had no idea a Maryland flag would inspire a wellspring of patriotic sentiment, but it did.
Another thing: Hills covered in tall, bare hardwoods – scattered with snow or not — just shouts with memories from the past.
And another: We went to the Star Spangled Banner exhibit at the US History museum. Just wow. I had a good patriotic upbringing. It was like going to shrine. Well, not like. It is. A shrine to something very, very good.
But, funny thing: Riding home, it was good to reach that special place in NC where it was warm enough to thaw the windshield wiper fluid so I could finally see out the front window without a haze of salt-spray. And then coming west on I-20, the vast expanses of pine trees through the sand hills — exactly the opposite of those Virginia hardwoods — and let me clarify right now that Carolina pine barrens *do not* possess the austere beauty of, say, the desert Southwest. Just no.
But, weirdly, I felt welcomed home. As we entered the infernal city on I-20, shoulder-to-shoulder with drivers doing their best via crowding and incompetence to make up for what we lack in population density, I could finally relax. Driving on the Beltway feels like being in one of those car-race video games to me. Infernal traffic is just as dangerous, but its my traffic, so nothing to worry about, right?
We crossed over a river and my daughter asked, “Is that the Congaree?”
I chuckled. “No, darling. That’s the Broad.” Everyone knows it doesn’t become the Congaree until it joins the Saluda, downtown.
She laughed at her error. Of course. Everyone knows that.
We’ll see if WP lets this one through . . .
If you missed it, here’s my Gospel reflection for the 16th of January at CatholicMom.com. I’ve got the 16th of the month slot, and Feb – June are written and just waiting for me to get the lined up in the dashboard. Very good for the soul, making yourself sit down and not just think about the Gospel, but put together thoughts on paper.
The title publishes, but the text disappears. Sorry guys. We’re around. I’ll see if I can figure it out.
Up at CatholicMom.com: Things I’m changing at our homeschool for the new year.
We did Day 1 of this today. It was successful. That means nothing. But it’s always fun enjoying the first day.
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In Kitten Watch 2014: The cat is waddling around looking very pregnant. It was quiet for a while this afternoon — cat now has a shiny collar with a bell on it, so if she’s nosing around, you know — and I walk back to the bedroom and our closet door is open. And I’m thinking to myself: You’d better not be giving birth in my closet.
Just so you know, that goes for everybody, not just cats. No giving birth in my closet. Just no.
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BTW if you missed it, please pray for the McNichol family.
Since last I wrote:
1. Yes, we’re having a lovely Christmas. Some of the neighbors kept the lights up until 2014, but it appears we’re the only ones going in for the full 12 days.
2. On the 1st Day of Christmas, we upgraded from Plague Lite to Plague Medium.
3. Using the ever-reliable “ask at the office method”, we had a successful Cat Day of Christmas. SuperHusband’s colleague seemed very, very eager to deliver her son’s gently-used cat to us.
4. So I had about 30 minutes from “Just calling to see if you guys wanted to meet the cat today” to “Here she is!”. That, because said colleague lives on a farm outside of town. I told the children that if they wanted a new cat, they had 30 minutes to clean the house. I said, “It’s okay if it looks like we’re busy, but not if it looks like we’re slobs.”
They wanted a cat, so they did what was necessary to perpetuate that particular lie.
5. She is mostly a petite, very friendly, tortoiseshell-colored cat who’s had her kitten shots, and is due for a follow-up with the vet now that she is all grown-up.
6. But she’s partly a walking 12th-day-of-Christmas present. We’re taking bets on when the kittens are due.
7. Colleague swears she had no idea.
8. I know! I said the same thing.
In other news, not-about-a-cat edition:
9. I’ve been writing a ton, but all of it offline. I’m hoping it will see light of day in a year or two. More later. Much later.
10. I’m getting wildly excited about the retreat coming up in February. Discovered that certain hymns you’d swear would be easy-peasy to find online out-of-copyright just aren’t. Luckily, there are other hymns.
I solved my previously-mentioned problem by using iBreviary’s web page to download the LOTH for the 22nd (Feast of the Chair of St. Peter – man is that cool or what?), but not before I had stumbled upon the magic green book. Read more about it here.
For the maximum of magic, you want the one for your archdiocese.
So, btw, do I. I lost mine already. It’s so small.
11. You probably already saw what I came up with for New Evangelizers for December. It’s here. Short version: When you tell me, “It’s the thought that counts,” I certainly do agree with you. But if there’s an action involved, the action counts, too. Don’t be all goofy and go around thinking that what you do with your body doesn’t matter. It matters.
12. I know. Easier thought than done.
I keep falling off the internet because . . . we’re only a little bit sick. We’re in and out of the plague-ridden life just enough that everyone can keep the momentum on the flesh-and-blood obligations, at least for the highest priorities, but not so sick that we get to stay home in bed and play the internet all day. Yes, that’s right: If only I were sicker, I’d blog more.
(Hush your mouth, we aren’t praying for that. Bad reader! No biscuit!)
If anyone can read my mind, circa early-December, and remember what my brilliant idea for my next New Evangelizers column was, please speak up. It’s due tomorrow, so I’m counting on you reminding me by mid-afternoon. Thanks!
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Morbid Dead Cat Story, with handy funerary tips.
So last Thursday night the testosterone wing was safely away at hunt camp, two little girls were in bed, and my little singer was up enjoying the fire and the Advent Tree, and generally getting her internal clock adjusted per the midnight-Mass situation. Fifi the cat wisely chose this time, when all was quiet and peaceful, to drop dead.
This surprised us.
She was just a middle-aged cat. Looking back, Ev recalls that Fifi had not quite been her usual self that week, but there was no particular lead up. One minute, Fifi is sitting at her usual spot by the fire, doing her cat-by-the-fire routine; next thing I knew, she wasn’t.
Note: If a cat were to just slip off into eternal bliss while sitting by the fire, you would not notice. It would probably be a few days before your realized that your cat hadn’t moved lately. Fifi did not do this.
Instead, some time after she was last spotted in her Queen Cat location, she was no longer there. In place of a cat, I noted that mild stench, which those of you who have been around dying creatures know about, coming from under the coffee table. The rest of you can be surprised later.
We fished the Fifi out from her hiding place, and made a bed in a cardboard box with an old dog towel. We have a dishpan in the linen closet labeled “dog towels”, but they can be used for other pets, too. Every now and then, they make a good burial shroud — more on that later.
Ev extracted a promise from me that we could take the cat to the vet in the morning. I did not break the news to her right away, but once the rapid shallow breathing starts, you have to at least give your child a head’s up that this is probably the end. I cleaned up the minor mess under the coffee table, and we sat around watching the cat in her box. She mostly just lay there panting, but sometimes not.
The dog jumped over her dog gate and came to investigate. I sent her back to bed. The last thing I needed was for the dog to catch cat-plague, and have Mr. Boy come home to a dead pet, too.
Having been a delinquent auxillary member of the LOM that day, I started into my rosary under my breath, and made it through the first decade before we could no longer see fur moving. It was the first time I’d ever been praying that “and at the hour of our death” line during someone’s actual death, even if it was only a cat.
Black and white fur, thick for winter, by the light of an Advent tree, plays tricks on your eyes. You can only watch it go up and down so many times before you think you see it moving even when it’s not. Ev fetched her stethoscope, and we listened for breath sounds and a heart beat, just like they do on TV.
We made that face that the pioneer doctor makes right before the last commercial break.
It was midnight by now. After a suitable period of mourning, Ev extracted a new promise from me: Yes, we can get a kitten.
It was not only midnight, it was cold and dark. Not the time for a burial service. I sent Ev to bed, and told her I’d sleep out in the living room with the cat-corpse, since I did not want to wake up in the morning and discover that the dog had taken an unusual interest in dead things in the small hours of the night.
The handy pet undertaker’s tip: If you are not going to bury your pet until morning, go ahead and curl up the body in a cute and compact sleeping-cat pose right away. And get the dog towel cat burial shroud all wrapped around the body, with just a tiny bit of sleeping-cat head visible, but easily covered when the time comes. You will be glad in the morning, because: Rigor Mortis.
FYI – I was glad in the morning. Got up, made myself go out and bury the cat before I took a shower (because: Co-op — still had a very long day ahead). On a frosty December morning, you will be happy that you posed the cat in the most compact suitable-for-viewing position possible, because: Smaller hole.
(You do know, don’t you, to fully wrap your child’s pet before you start shoveling dirt? They are going to watch. Even though they know exactly what’s inside the towel, it’s better to see dirt landing on just a towel.)
That’s my dead cat story. We told Ev to research the easiest, least-hassle way to obtain a fresh re-supply of cats, and she’s been comparing policies at all the various shelters around town. Meanwhile, yes we were agressive about washing hands and disinfecting. Also, I told the kids that if anyone developed acute abdominal pain, I was taking them to the ER ASAP. But it has not come to that, so I think we’re safe.