Resisted the urge to flee to 3.5 Time Outs, which would have been more realistic, except that Tuesdays aren’t any better than Fridays. Due to the plague, I didn’t see it until Thursday anyway.
1.
Dear Son Whom I Love,
Please do not make fake retching noises while you do your homework.
Sincerely,
The Person Who Assigns Grades.
2.
An Advent novel! Back before we had kids, SuperHusband observed that among his colleagues, the parents of young children were constantly getting sick. Now we have young children. So I use these special parenthood moments to catch up on my homeschooling reading. Which is why I read The Bronze Bow this week while other responsible adults were doing things like going around upright, and speaking without coughing. It’s Mr. Boy’s new literature selection.
And wow, a good book! If you haven’t read it, it is awesome, and I mean that with all the italics of a crazy person, awesome Advent reading. Highly recommended.
3.
I went ahead and bought the Kolbe literature questions. Pretty useful, and not a bad deal for what will be about a collective decade worth of literature for my kids. And I thought, “Hey, how cool, reproducibles!” So I made copies. And then just to be sure before I posted on the blog something like, “Hey, how cool, reproducibles!” I double-checked. Oooh. Noooo. Red all-caps on the back cover: IT IS ILLEGAL TO PHOTOCOPY THIS BOOK.
So I guess I’ll chain it to a desk and bookmark the pages select children (who cannot be trusted with a book — see “retching noises” above) need to view.
Grumble grumble. Publishers trying to make a living. What, they need to eat or something??
4.
Here’s what happens when you foolishly invite an SCA friend (who said, “I was thinking of coming to your church”) to come to your church: The choir director chooses a 9th Century hymn for communion. Ours didn’t sound as impressive as the link (whose does?), plus it was in English (full disclosure: English is one of my favorite languages), but that did not stop me from pointing to the note at the bottom of the hymnal and whispering, “Look! 9th Century!”
So if I get fired, that’s why.
(PS: It isn’t just me. My friend says she kept noticing the Byzantine scrollwork on the Catholic Update pew cards with all the translation changes. I believe good art may be a near occasion of sin for us.)
5.
Out on the playground after mass, discussing the new translation with a different friend, a realization: To be Catholic is to complain.
–> If we were Protestant, we’d take our protesting seriously and go start our own church. Instead we stick around. And that, I think, is why Catholics have such a well-developed Theology of Suffering. We live with each other.
(Ever notice the heavy emphasis on Not Complaining in the lives of saints? It is as if the writers of these things wish to inspire us to heroic silence. Apparently one could be canonized, even declared a Doctor of the Church, if only the art of Not Complaining were practiced wholeheartedly.)
6.
Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.
7.
Dear Son Whom I Love,
There is no approved translation of the Roman Missal into Pig Latin. Nor will there ever be. Stop. Now.
Sincerely,
The Person Upon Whom You Depend For Room And Board.
5.2
So what if I gave up complaining?
Wipe that smirk off your mouth.
Seriously. Do you know someone who isn’t a Doctor of the Church, but pulled it off anyway? Even half the time? What do you do when someone asks your opinion of, oh, you know, something? Do you say, “I’d tell you except that I gave up complaining for Advent?” Or maybe you just pinch the baby or drop a vase or do something to change the subject?
Smirk. Off.
