there's a woman in the mirror, too, michael jackson.

it strikes me as odd that out of all the kinds of people that i see in my line of work - the sexual offenders, the pedophiles, the abusers, the cheaters, the felons, the liars, the addicts, the neglectful, the hard-of-heart - even with all of these, i find it much easier to love them than i do anybody who is arrogant. i just loathe arrogance.


being in the company of an arrogant person makes my blood boil. literally. well...not literally.

i wanna just smack 'em.

i wanna just smack 'em so bad it's a freaking wonder i never have.


you know how parents of young children - the honest parents of young children, that is - will sometimes say that although they would never actually abuse their own kids, they can definitely understand how such a thing could happen? well, i can definitely understand how such a thing as me pummelin' an arrogant person to the ground could happen. except for the fact that that would make me an arrogant person (and worse). 

i don't want to be an arrogant person. but, in truth, i guess i am. if i weren't an arrogant person, it probably wouldn't press my buttons so bad when i encounter one. not to mention i wouldn't write an arrogant blog post about how bad they piss me off. as if i'm any different.


i'm glad i have a mirror. i'm glad i have the nerve to look in it.



i'm happy to share.

where's that in the (family) Bible?

(BOW - Being Offended Warning)


one thing that's not in the Bible - and it's an important thing - is that "everything important is in the Bible" isn't in the Bible.


Catholics (with a capital "C") do not subscribe to "sola scriptura," which roughly means, if it's not in the Bible, it doesn't count. 

Catholics think that tradition counts, too. Catholics think that what was passed down orally, before we ever even had such a thing called "the Bible," counts for a lot. and we honor it. i know that makes some of you mad. it probably even makes some of you want to pray that misguided Catholics who think that just because it isn't in the Bible doesn't mean it doesn't count won't go to hell. (even though it doesn't say in the Bible to pray for misguided Catholics who think that just because it isn't in the Bible doesn't mean it doesn't count or else they'll go to hell.)


i had a friend ask me the other day for my favorite recipe from my childhood. i asked her why she wanted that. 

well, she said, it's an important part of you, isn't it? and i said, well, yeah, i guess it is. and she said, well, i think favorite recipes from childhoods are an important part of everybody's life. i don't think i can really understand people till i know what recipe brings happy tears to their eyes.

well, i said, i've never thought about it like that before. well, she said, can i have it? well, i don't have it written down, i said. well, she said, how many other important things from your childhood don't you have written down? 

well, i said............ 



pretty much all of 'em.

(and i like to write!)




i'm not necessarily trying to convince those of you who do subscribe to sola scriptura to stop subscribing to sola scriptura.




but i would like to have your favorite recipe. 

:)





   

i'm sure about this: i like being wishy-washy.

i like to wash dishes. my mom does, too, so maybe that's where i got it.

i especially like to wash them with original green palmolive. i like the way it smells. it doesn't smell fancy like lavender or fancy like shea butter or fancy like any of that fancy stuff. it smells like soap. huh.

i have tried other dish detergents but personally, soap is pretty much soap. if your dishes are still dirty after you've washed 'em, that's on you - not the detergent. as for which brand cuts grease best- beats me. i eat the grease! the grease is the best part!  :)

for most of my dishes and pots and pans and glasses and stuff, i still put them in the dishwasher. but whenever i'm feeling nostalgic or just like i want to smell something clean or trail my fingers through soapy water, i wash my dishes. it helps keep me humble.


i wash all my clothes in the washing machine, though. even the hand-wash only ones.


i'm not that humble.

fish on friday!!!!

vatican II didn't say don't eat fish (or other meatless foods) on friday, they said you don't have to. why they said that and didn't think everyone wouldn't is beyond me.


personally, i like rules. i like rules like i like guardrails. they keep me in.

guardrails keep me in, play pens keep them in, and only having but so much money should keep all of us in (but it doesn't).

being kept "in," in (ha!) my opinion, is a good thing. what's wrong with the world is, they let things out.


letting things out is bad. letting out the waist in your pants is bad. letting out your anger on everybody else is bad. letting out God in schools is bad.

(the only time letting something out isn't bad is when they let you out in traffic. and you can count on one hand how many times that happens. because there isn't a rule that says they have to.)



fish on friday was good. it kept your sorry ass a little less sorry. i have a friend who has never eaten meat on friday in his life. even as a baby, they fed him noodles or cheese or, as he got a bit older, fish. the rule about fish on friday is as much a part of him as his own breathing is. when he learned that vatican II said you don't have to anymore, he choked. true story.



we don't need to get rid of the rules - we need to get rid of the boo-hooin' about 'em.



give yourself the heimlich maneuver.

what's with this with thing?

when did it start? this trend of cooking everything with something else?


tilapia with garlic aioli.

linguine with olives, lemons, and rubbed butter.

chicken with pecans and balsamic reduction.


not only do we cook with, we cook with stuff that we don't even know what it is! aioli, rubbed butter, and balsamic reduction? really?


for quite some time now, i have toyed with (ha! with!) the idea of writing a cookbook titled something like, "how to cook and never say with," or "cooking without." somethin' like that. but then, i realize that those cookbooks have already been written - they're called grandma's recipe cards.

a coupla days ago, a friend posted a picture of her 90-something-year old mother's fruitcake-baking process and the hand-written recipe was in the photo. it was faded, as all beloved recipes should be, and it had spills and stains all over it. it was titled, simply enough, "my favorite recipe." not even "fruitcake," and certainly not "fruitcake with walnut, rum, and glazed butter thingamajig."


that's how we used to cook. and then we went and got all bon appetit-y. i miss the days of, "what's for dinner/beef." what's for dinner/meatloaf.

what's for dinner.........leftovers.


i miss the days when beef and meatloaf and leftovers had plenty of stuff to go with it.


we just didn't feel the need to brag about it.

why it makes sense to move to the moon

1. probably nobody keeps bitching about when is spring gonna get here.
2. it's made of cheese. 

those are two pretty compelling reasons, if you ask me.

in other news, no, i haven't been watching too much of the olympics. a twizzle here and a half-pipe there and that's pretty much the extent of it. no, it's not because i'm boycotting them. no, it's not because i'm anti-american and don't care how my country does. it's cuz i don't want to.

what i've been watching instead are a buncha "in the heat of the night" reruns. you gotta give carroll o'connor a whole lotta credit.......i watch him as bill gillespie and i never once think of him as archie bunker. what an actor! to be big-as-life-archie-bunker and then go on to play other roles and archie bunker isn't the first thing (or even the second or third thing) you think of when you see him. now, that's an actor.

i read where archbishop roger mahony said carroll o'connor's funeral mass back in 2001. i never thought of carroll o'connor as a catholic. despite his name.

i bet that would've been a sight to behold - carroll o'connor's funeral. just imagine the who's who of hollywood that would have been there. against the backdrop of catholicism.

   3. hollywood isn't there.

i can't wait till it's summer so i can have some egg nog on the patio.

they sell egg nog year 'round but not snow shovels in february.


i didn't realize that they sell egg nog year 'round till a couple of summers ago when i happened to see it in the dairy case. i was like, what the? i asked the manager about it and he said yep, we carry it year 'round. i said, does anybody ever buy it and he said, nope. only at Christmas.

so, i said, you throw the rest of it out all year long? and he said, yep.



fast forward to last monday. i needed a new snow shovel. i went to lowe's. nope. we're out of 'em for the season. won't get any more till november. 

went to home depot. nope. out of 'em for the season.

target? nope.

walmart? out of 'em for the season.



did i give up? no, i did not. 


i went to kroger and rescued some egg nog.

YOU try eating like Christ ate!

i made a new year's resolution to eat one meal a day that only had foods in it that Christ would have eaten. it's been easy. i didn't expect it to be easy. i expected it to be like any good resolution - tough.


i have tried to make it tough. i don't like pomegranates so i bought a pomegranate and turns out......i like pomegranates.

i thought about increasing it from one meal a day to two meals a day. but if one meal a day is easy, wouldn't two meals a day be twice as easy? (that's the math i remember.)

then i thought about decreasing it to half a meal a day. but the Christ-like meals that i eat are usually half a meal anyway. so, half a meal divided by half a meal is about a quarter of a meal (i had to use the calculator for that one). and i don't think my knife cuts that little. without getting crumbs all over the place. and besides, how do you cook a quarter of an egg? without cooking the whole egg and then only eating a quarter of it and either throwing away the rest or saving the rest to re-heat later and finding out you can't (very well) re-heat an egg so you throw it out anyway? 

on the other hand, i suppose i could re-heat the egg and even though it sucks, just go ahead and eat it. that would make things tough.

but then, if i did that, i don't think it would be like what Christ ate. i doubt that Christ ate a quarter of an egg and then re-heated (and choked down) the rest. i don't have proof of that, but i doubt it.


so, as you can see, this eating like Christ thing has been easy.

hey, 50th anniversary beatles, all you need is NOT love.

there's a church real close to where i live and it's one of those churches that likes to put catchy slogans on their sign. their current sign reads, "love and work. only these two."

wrong.

"love Christ and work?" ok, now that deserves a honk!



"love" without Christ is a lot like margarine vs. butter. it's good - but it's not good enough.

it's like doing nice things for others because your own reasoning has determined that doing nice things for others is the right thing to do; good.......but not good enough.

it's like giving money to a charity but never getting out in the streets and meeting the people that the charity is trying to help.



most theologians recognize 4 kinds of love - eros (romantic), stage(family), philia (friends), and agape. agape love is the best form of love - it's the kind of love that God has for us, that Christ has for God, and that we are supposed to have for God, Christ, and each other. it is a love so unlike the other 3 as to make the other 3, well, good - but not good enough. 



you'd think a church would know that.

zzzzzzz..........................

i am the world's best sleeper. proven fact. look it up.


this is how good a sleeper i am:

• it takes me, on average, 2.3 minutes to fall asleep. proven.
• i sleep 9 - 10 hours every night.
• i hardly ever wake up feeling anything less than rarin' to go.
• as long as i am lying down, i can sleep anywhere.
• no, it doesn't have to be my own bed. it doesn't even have to be a bed. floor is fine.
• if i am not lying down (on a plane, for example), i still sleep through almost the whole flight. if i were lying down, i would sleep through 100% of it.
• i am such a good sleeper, even on a plane, that i don't care who sits next to me. even a screaming baby. i feel sorry for the guy who wants to talk, though.
• it doesn't matter what kind of pillow i have.
• mattress? let's put it this way - if everyone were like me, select comfort would be like, what the hell is select comfort?
• i can take a nap in the afternoon and not have it mess up my sleep that night.
• no, i do not have a sleep disorder - i am a good sleeper. proven fact. if you haven't looked it up by now, you probably never will.

i am also the world's worst sleeper. another proven fact. etc. etc. etc.


this is how rotten a sleeper i am:

• i can't stay up much past 8:00 most nights. jay leno who?
• rarely, but sometimes, i'm in bed before dinner.
• or, on the floor before dinner. (and no.....not because i'm passed out from wine!)
• i don't have an adult life. i don't even have a 3rd grader's life. i'm zoomin' in on about a kindergartener.

one of the greatest blessings God has ever given me is my ability to sleep. i don't know what being tired during the day is. i know what it is at 7 o'clock. (p.m.)

they say our greatest blessings are also often our greatest curses.

(and vice-versa.)


the man next to me on the plane who wants to talk and wishes i would wake the hell up might not know it, but the vice-versa definitely applies to him.

:)

isn't there ANY gray matter left anymore?

"Waitress admits to altering credit card receipts -- padding tips she believed were too low for the service she provided. "I feel that I earned it and I feel offended that someone would put me in a position like I have to steal what I earned." - WSYX ABC6

there are so many things wrong with this chick's thinking but the primary one is this - she doesn't have any thinking. she has feeling.

based on feeling, she's probably right. or, at least, has a point.

when is this world gonna move beyond its feelings? Lord, i am so sick of that.

i feel offended, too, that someone (you, waitress) would put me in a position like i have to write this post. 

so, give me some of that tip money.

it just doesn't make any sense to me.

boycotting the russian olympics because of the LGBT issue - fine.

boycotting them because of the stray dogs issue - fine.

not boycotting them when they're in our country because of the dead-babies-by-way-of-abortion issue.


not fine.


the only way that LGBT rights and dog rights can be worthy is if those creatures' lives are worthy. and they are. 

but why is the life of a gay person more worthy than the life of an unborn baby? at least the gay person can (at least to some extent) fight for him/herself.

why is the life of an animal more worthy? (they can fight, too. teeth.)


it just doesn't make any sense to me. and it never will.


because it's not right.


“In ancient Rome, there was a potestas patria or the right of the father to dispose of a child. In our modern day, there is a potesta matria or the right of the mother to dispose of a child. In between pagan Rome and pagan today there was, and still is, a group of God-loving people who will protect those who are incapable of independent existence because they sense in their own frailty the mercy of God and, therefore, resolve to extend it to others.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen

a phone call and a journey

today i was not so much transported as 

yanked

back in time.

but having been abruptly brought there, i

have lingered.


i have been 4 today, and 4 years ago

today.

i have been 16 and 19 and 21 and

2.


i re-visited my 30s (skin was still taut) 

and pondered my 40s. 

looked back over all of it

like a tapestry (yes, thought of carol

king) and counted

the

threads.


i remember so much and have learned

even more.

i am lucky.


as i count my blessings on my fingers, 

they smell like original herbal essence.


i go back to the beginning of my life and 

re-live it.



as far back as when conditioner was called


creme

rinse.

I NOW KNOW WHY MY HUSBAND LEFT ME.

i have my answer. finally.


4 years ago, my then husband (he is now my ex) left me. and he did it in the cruelest possible way - by telling me that he hadn't left me. that he was away on business (he was). that he would be coming back (he didn't).


during those 4 years, my friends and family theorized about why he left me and why his personality totally changed in the process. here are the theories, none of them funny (trust me), even though some of them may sound it:

1. brain tumor (or some other dreadful illness)
2. he's a spy
3. he has another life - and another family - that i don't know about
4. another woman
5. another man
6. in some kind of legal trouble
7. in some kind of financial trouble
8. it's really what he says it is - he's away on business and he'll be back
9. double personality
10. he just fell out of love with me, failed the character test, and left. boom.
11. a bunch of other theories that i can't remember now what they were but if you think of one, trust me, we've already thought of it, too.

nope. it wasn't any of those. it was something else altogether. something tender. something despicable. something human. something so, so failingly human.

how do i know?

he called me this morning.

and told me.

and now.......i know.

after 4 years......i know.



please allow me to keep it private - at least for awhile.


this part, however, i want to make public - very, very public. shout-it-from-the-rooftops public:


he's forgiven.

knock knock: who's there? bruno mars. bruno mars who?

increasingly, i don't care about pop culture. this is how little i care about it: i barely know what it is anymore.


i have heard of bruno mars. i wouldn't know him if he walked through my door. and if he sang me a song, i wouldn't know if it was one of his or one of katy perry's (i've heard of her, too). i would know if it was one of janis joplin's.

i remember when i was a teenager and i promised myself that as i grew up, i would stay connected with the popular world - that i would be hip, that i would keep current, that i wouldn't become a fuddy duddy.

but that was before i knew what fuddy duddy really is. and before i knew how unfuddy duddy fuddy duddy can be.


fuddy duddy has led me to more quiet moments alone, trying to discern what really matters - not to me - but to God. and i think bruno mars matters to Him - but not because he can sing.

it has led me to a worldview that no longer cares about what a lot of people care about. if i didn't have family responsibilities, i would probably be a contemplative nun.

i would stay in the convent and do my "i didn't watch the super bowl" thing one step better: i wouldn't have known that the super bowl was on. and when one of my sisters told me it was on and hurry up, make some popcorn, and join us in the t.v. room, i probably wouldn't have. well, i would have made them the popcorn. :)

it's not that i think there's anything wrong with staying connected - i don't. i just now have different things that i want to stay connected to.


those budweiser clydesdales probably were adorable, though.

:)

WHAT THE???

• i didn't expect the wine i ordered online to arrive uncorked and re-corked.
• i didn't expect that changing my transmission fluid would only cost $64 and only take 15 minutes when they told me it would cost $119 and take an hour.

in the first case, the explanation offered by the company was that i live in an area of the country hard-hit by severe winter weather and sometimes that can do unexpected things to liquids. 

i didn't expect that.

in the second case, the explanation was "well, with some cars we have to dis-assemble the fligambobble (my word - but his wasn't much different) belt from the catchamajig (same) do-hickey that connects to the triumvulated column. you know. but in your case, we didn't."

i did expect the comatose stare i gave the guy.

i guess the whole point of this story is.......well.......nothin.

(betcha didn't expect that.)

you crazy voters, you!

a friend tweeted this week that she doesn't understand why people fail to vote in their self-interest. i don't, either. 

except, maybe i do.



first of all, let's get it straight, right from the get-go, that i am not advocating that we go out there and be masochists. life has plenty of pain and strife without us running around creating it. that's A.

B is, your own self-interest shouldn't be the holiest thing. mattera fact, it oughta be pretty low on the list.


that said, i doubt that most people who vote against their self-interest do it because their intent is to be holy. they probably do it because they don't understand what they're doing. but i would like to submit that what would be glorious is for someone to know that what they are voting for is not in their self-interest but they do it anyway. because they don't think that their self-interest is the number one thing. maybe there are at least a handful of people out there who vote for somebody else's self-interest because, well.......it's the right thing to do! even if it does cause you some personal pain. especially if it causes you some personal pain!


i think of all the people through the years who (whom? i never know) i have heard say that because they don't have children, they don't vote for school levies. that's self-interest for ya.


i'm hardly an economist  and i don't know where i stand on the minimum wage debate, but i know this much -  minimum wage isn't about the person who pays it. it's about the person who receives it. i understand that there are a lot of variables to take into consideration where minimum wage is concerned - there always are when we're talkin' money - but if a smart economist can prove that raising the minimum wage hurts the minimum wage earner, then we ought not to raise it. and if a smart economist can prove that raising the minimum wage helps the minimum wage earner (without devastating - just, perhaps, hurting a little -  the minimum wage payer) then we ought to raise it. 

(but i don't know if we should raise it or not. because i'm not an economist. hell, i can barely add.)


my point is this - why does everything have to be done in our own self-interest? i think that's banal.


let's rise.