Support the Writers

I have been praying for an end to the strike but now I see that there is a concerted effort by the Christians in Hollywood to band together to pray for an end.

Church of the Masses has the details.


Pax

Things I've Noticed Since the Strike

There is much less talk about future shows on television. Even House and Heroes are only talking one or two more episodes. That is frightening.

ABC.com's full episode viewer has stopped showing ads for anything but shows on ABC (sorry writers but I missed and episode of Greys Anatomy and had to get caught up.)

I tried the new NBC streaming episode viewer and it stinks compared to the ABC version. And ABC Kudos on the HD version on your site.

When you get the strike ironed out and start paying the writers for Internet content I will be accessing that a lot.

There isn't really much strike news anymore on any of the News channels, and the entertainment channels don't carry much either. United Hollywood.com is still the best place to get some idea of what is going on.

Tonight's The Night

My oldest Daughter and a friend of hers ( a young woman I met last year when I was volunteering at RCIA at the University) have been bugging me that they want to take me out to celebrate my completing my Masters work. I have put them off until now becuase, well to be honest until last Monday I wasn't really done.

So, tonight I am going to go to a local bar with my daughter and her friends to share a bottle of wine. I feel a bit of trepidation in doing this because of the age difference and the fact that I am still not 100% feeling on top of my game health-wise, but she really wants to do this for me and I can't cancel it would break her heart.

I don't plan on staying very long. I am so sure her young friends want to spend a bunch of time with someone my age. Although her one friend (the one I met last year, has told her that she thinks I am the greatest old person she has ever met -- not exactly how she put it but you get the drift).

I just hope I can stay awake until it is time to go because we aren't even leaving to go out untill after my daughter's class which doesn't end until 9 so it will easily be 9:30 or so before we leave here. I have been going to bed by 10:00 lately. This could be really fun.

I am hoping to have a very nice time for about an hour and then slip away home and leave them to do whatever it is that young people do these days.

Pax

For Mrangelmeg

We missed A Charlie Brown Christmas last night (it seems way too early in the year to be playing it I mean couldn't they have at least waited until December for gosh sakes).

So, in honor of my devoted husband I have posted a clip here of the intersection of his favorite Comedy show Scrubs and those great Characters from Charlie Brown's Christmas.

Be warned, this is definitely rated PG 13 for language and content. But it is really creative.





h/t to my pal Paul via facebook

Time to Admit Defeat

I went back to the Dr. today because one week after being off antibiotics I am back to being just as sick as I was two weeks ago. I have been coughing up my socks for two days straight.

I am so tired and I ache all over. I suppose the only good thing is I don't actually have a fever.

So, the Dr. put me on another antibiotic and told me to get more rest (as if I could get much rest in the middle of my finals last go around) and do the whole lots of fluids and if I don't get better in a few days I should come back.

I am really hoping that this is all it takes. I am worn out from coughing so much. It actually keeps me awake, and then I am so tired during the daytime that I can hardly do anything.

So my plan is to lay low for a few days, get as much rest as possible and take the meds and see if I can't kick this thing for good. I do have a stack of books I have wanted to read for a long time on my bedside table, I think I will just indulge in a bit of reading for the next few days.

Keep me in your prayers.

Pax

The Feast of Christ The King

Mrangelmeg is Lector today

I love to hear him Proclaim the Word of God.


He used to do it before I worked but then when I had to be at work on Sundays he felt he had to sit with the kids and couldn't leave them to be on the Altar, so he had to give it up. So my quitting my job has had some really great repercussions for our experience of Sunday Worship. We get to worship together as a family, and both he and I can participate in Liturgy at our parish (I am an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion on occasion).

Pax

Happy Thanksgiving Day

We were going to make my favorite thing this Turkey Day:

Reservations!

But mrangelmeg left it too late and we couldn't get in anywhere that was having a decent meal, so he bought one of those Gourmet Pre-cooked meals and is going to do everything for me.

I am banned from helping him (except to make the green bean casserole for #2 daughter who is autistic and loves it especially, it didn't come with the meal and must be made from scratch).

So, I have a whole day free to read a book that isn't assigned (I don't know what that feels like, I think I have only read four of those in four years). and lounge around watching Lifetime movies and reading the Fat Thanksgiving paper filled with Black Friday sales circulars for all the people crazy enough to go shopping tomorrow. I personally don't plan to shop tomorrow, but only because #1 daughter needs to borrow my car as we haven't replaced hers yet and she has to work a double shift at the restaurant tomorrow (probably big tips, I'm guessing).

I should get some good rest the next few days. I may even play some video games with the kids.

I hope everyone has a safe and healthy Thanksgiving.

Go Colts (8:15 tonight)

Pax

I am Valentines Day

You Are Valentine's Day

You are a true romantic who places the ultimate importance on love. You are warm hearted, and you find it easy to care for people. Love is what drives you - and you have a love to give. You enjoy making someone's day. You're full of surprises. What makes you celebrate: Being with the person you love on a special day At holiday get togethers, you do best as: The sentimental one On a holiday, you're the one most likely to: See it as romantic and special

What Holiday Are You?

That is pretty much me, I am more about making people happy than making dinner that is for darn sure. Just ask my family.

h/t to Ironic Catholic for the link.

Perfect Morning for Wodehouse

I spent yesterday driving all over the state (well not all over but it felt that way) taking care of mom's legal affairs and then visiting mom at the nursing home. She has no idea who I am anymore, but I still visit.

This morning, it just feels like the perfect morning for another Random P G Wodehouse quote:


From the hills of Fairyland, soft music came. Or, if we must be exact, Maud spoke.


'nuff said.

Pax

More Literary Closets Opening With Shocking Results

First J K Rowling Outs Dumbledore, then all H-E-double-hockey-sticks breaks loose in the literary community as authors (alive and dead) decide they have to follow suit and spill long kept secrets about beloved characters and novels.

The one I found the most shocking:

"J.D. Salinger Breaks Silence: Holden Caulfield Grew Up to Become Hedge Fund Manager"

Will the carnage never end?


Read more here.


h/t to the Four Mass'keteers for the link

Pax

Confirmation!

I got a confirmation email from the Dean.

My finals are in his hands now.

It will take at least a month to clean up the clutter around my desk that had accumulated in the research phase of my essays. While I am at it I may as well clean the entire room, under the beds and the closet and, well everything. That will keep me so distracted that I won't have time to think about what is going on with the essays.

And in the end I will get my grades and have a clean bedroom.

This could be really great, either way I will have a clean bedroom.

Pax

In the (e)mail

I emailed my essays to the Dean this morning. I send the hard copies later today from the post office. Freedom is within reach.


I had the worst nightmare last night that the rubric for the essays had stated that they were supposed to be 8-10 single-spaced pages instead of double-spaced pages. A bit late in the game to have to rethink that, and when I got up all frantic of course I couldn't find the rubric anywhere and it had been right on my desk for two months.

The evil one can play some nasty tricks on you at the 11th hour, especially when you are as filled with perfectionist tendencies as I am. (Well I really want to be a perfectionist, I'm just not quite good enough to be one.)

So, In just a few hours I will be completely free to sit back and wait for my grades, and that will take at least a month (judging from how long my friends have had to wait for their grades). In the meantime I think I will do some reading for fun. I was going to link to Loyola Classics but there must be something wrong with their Internet link right now.) Oh dear.

Pax

I AM DONE

And it feels great!

I finished writing my last paper yesterday afternoon. Mrangelmeg is doing the last of the edits tonight and I am going to mail these babies off tomorrow (one whole day early woo hoo!!!).

I don't think I have another thing to say about grace, free will, theologians, the Magisterium, or heresy, I am tapped out.

Now I just have to sit back and wait for them to be graded and hope for at least a B average on the three papers and no lower than a C on any one paper. I think I did at least B work on all three and quite possibly A work on at least one of them (in my humble opinion) so I am pretty safe. But who knows.

As that great theologian Tom Petty said:

The Waiting is the hardest part.

It always sounds better with wailing guitars in the background.

Pax

De Ja Vu Almost

Colts 13

Chiefs 10


The last few minutes of this game including not making the first down with just a few feet to the goal line and minutes left on the clock felt so much like last Sunday that it was almost erie. Lucky for us this on ended on a slightly happier note.

The Colts are still playing with some big losses at key positions, but they are finding ways to step up and get things done.

Let's hope they get some rest before Thursday.

Pax

A Cautious Reason to Celebrate

I think I may have actually finished my Systematic Theology Essay rough draft this afternoon. I read it through once and it seems to flow pretty well, has an introduction supporting statistical middle arguments and a conclusion that ties it all together.

I am printing out a copy and leaving it here for mrangelmeg to read and I am taking the evening off. The girls and I are going to go see the movie Bella which we have heard is quite good and is in town this weekend. Mrangelmeg will edit the paper and let me know if he thinks my thesis holds up (I did use an analogy in this paper that was a bit creative but I think it holds together pretty well).

Tomorrow I will do the final edits on all three papers. The end is actually that close. I can hardly believe I survived. A week ago when I was really sick I never thought I would make it to this point.

God is good, all the time.

Pax

Homily Wasteland

We have all had those Sunday homilies that have left us flat. I know I have experienced more than a few in my many years as a practicing Catholic. While I realize that we don't attend Liturgy for what we get from it, it does help to receive something, some little bit of solace, advice or grace from the readings and music of the liturgy.

But there are times when for whatever reason Fr.'s homily just doesn't do it for you. It is for just those times that it is really great to have a second source for homiletic inspiration. I want to again point your browsers to my pal from Gradual School who happens to be a very gifted Homilist: Deacon John who is blogging his homilies pretty regularly now at The Speakin' Deacon. Whenever the homily at my Liturgy falls flat for me and leaves me in Homily Wasteland ( which I have on good authority is somewhere south of teenage wasteland) I just mosey over to his blog and get a course correction. He usually inspires me.

I only wish you could hear him preach them, they are even better in person than when you read them. I hope he will inspire you too.

Pax

An Open Letter to All My Gradual School Friends

I know you were all concerned about my health this weekend because I looked so very ragged all weekend. I just got back from the Dr. and I wanted to allay your fears. I do not as one of you not-so-subtly suggested actually have the bubonic plague, but rather it is only a very bad case of bronchitis.

I am now getting some stronger medication than the over-the-counter stuff I was trying to use to combat this while I was with you, and God willing, I will be feeling better very soon.

I just wanted to let you know so that you don't have to go out and burn the clothes that you took with you this weekend and take baths in antiseptic (or whatever it was that people did to keep from getting the plague back then. Maybe it was take long bike rides and eat a healthy diet of chicken.

I am really sad that my last weekend with you was one in which I felt so very under the weather, but I am glad that I got to see you all one last time. Keep me in your prayers as I complete my last essay.

Pax

Heart Breaker

Colts 21

Chargers 23


I thought this first half was a nightmare from last week's game. We went into halftime with a score of 7-23.

Then the Colts did what they have done pretty well all year, figure out what was going wrong and find a way to not let that happen again. They battled back and had some breaks go their way (with a spectacular end zone fumble recovery for a touchdown even) and came within two points of pulling out a victory but in the end they just couldn't get it together.

Peyton had a rough game, throwing 6 interceptions to take what I imagine is a team honor he really doesn't want (most interceptions thrown in one game).

The special teams need to really learn how to do some coverage, because two of the early touchdowns came on the Kickoff and a punt return.

And we lost Freeny to a foot injury, Clark had to sit out the game because of a head injury that showed up during the routine CAT Scan that all the players have to clear them on game day, and Deem was sitting out at the end of the game. With Harrison still not back we are really hurting on the injuries.

Pax

Random Wodehouse

Just for Fun:




The drowsy stillness of the afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G. K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin.

Mr Mulliner Speaking (1929)



thanks to here.

Pax

Too Bad I Don't Speak the Language

Your Inner European is Spanish!

Energetic and lively. You bring the party with you!

Who's" Your Inner European?

h/t to Adoro te Devote

Pax

Things You Should Know About the Strike

As most of you who watch any television must know, the Writer's Guild of America (Television Writers Union) is on strike. For a great place to find up to date information on the strike from the Guild members themselves and not the Corporate Owned News Outlets (especially MSNBC or FoxNews) go to United Hollywood.

Thanks to fellow Ignatiophile and WGA member Karen Hall I am happy to share this little clip which does a nice job of illustrating just how important writers are to what you see on scripted television, and what you can do to help the writers.





I will freely admit that prior to this, when I missed an episode of my favorite ABC shows I would just click on over to ABC.com and use their wonderful new streaming video player to catch up on what was happening at Seattle Grace or the Pie Hole or Mode Magazine. I had no idea that every time I did that I was cheating the writers out of royalties for that episode which was being shone (with commercials so ABC gets revenue when I watch, but the writers get bubkis).

I also love NBC.com and spent an entire summer watching the webisodes for the Office which the writers wrote and (get this) the actors acted in for absolutely no compensation. They were posted on the web which because of add revenue for every hit garnered NBC huge profits and the writers and actors got NOTHING again.

So, now that I know, not only thanks to Karen Hall, but also thanks to my 21 year old daughter who is on a sympathetic strike from her MySpace and Facebook pages until her beloved WGA writers get what they deserve (not only just compensation, but respect for what they bring to the table --her words, not mine), I will no longer be watching any streaming Internet content, and I will be doing everything else I can to support the Writers of the shows I love. Like going here to sign the petition.

This strike may last a good long time. See how long you can live with an entire television diet of The Great I Love to Project Surreal Survivor Biggest Bachelor Loser Dateline Singing Bee With The Stars Or No Deal. I know I am verclempt just thinking about it.

Pax

Something Spiritual and Puzzling

Last night I went to the installation ceremony for a Gradual School classmate of mine who happens to be an Episcopalian Priest in a nearby city. She also happens to be a woman, and her bishop also happens to be a woman. Michelle is also married and her husband and son were involved in the ceremony as well.

I have known Michelle for probably two or three years and have had lengthy conversations about many things. We have taken classes together, and had dinners and evenings of joy and fun. I have come to really appreciate her gifts as a deeply spiritual person, and her great respect for my Catholic faith (because as an Episcopalian Priest she was getting a Masters Degree in a Catholic Seminary).

Watching the service last night it made me wonder, what charism is she lacking that makes her incapable of being a priest in the Catholic church? Or for that matter what charism is her Bishop lacking? Is it merely the fact that they are women?

Mrangelmeg had no answer either. His only comment was that an all male priesthood kept things more simple and manageable.

Anyway, last night was a very beautiful service in a community that showed a great amount of love for their new rector. When we had a chance to talk to her at the reception we could tell that she has already come to love them deeply.

I guess the only answer for now is that in order to remain obedient to the church we must accept that the Catholic church says that only men can be priests. (or as my gradual school buddies say if you can p** like Jesus you can be like Jesus). Before last night I never really questioned the Church's stance. now I wonder. . .

Pax

This is Awesome

I am going through a bit of a spiritual crisis right now and what do I find via my pals at Korrektiv and Ironic Catholic but this awesome bit of Christian Poetry that sums up exactly where I am right at this very moment:






I may have to start saying this as my evening prayer for a few days until my sanity returns or my final is finished (hopefully both will happen at the same time).

Pax

Lord You Know How Much I Can Handle . . .

So enough is enough already!

This week I am dealing with mom's nursing home and Medicaid stuff. (Trust documents on the house etc, lawyers and payments and emails and phone calls and trips oh my).

On top of that our oldest daughter was in a car accident, not her fault, and we have to deal with the aftermath of getting that all straightened out and get her back into a drivable car (either her fixed car or some other car if they total out her car).

Then I still have about two/thirds of my systematics essay to complete, so I have books on church authority and the role of the theologian and the sense of the faithful spread out all over my bedroom hoping against hope that somehow I will get a spare moment to absorb some information and be inspired to write something down.

Middle daughter has to register with another work support group because her counselor quit and Vocational Rehabilitation is no longer going to work with that company. So I have to help her interview a new counselor.

Then this is a weird week at school; my younger daughter has tomorrow off and my high schooler only goes today and Wednesday all week.

And if all of that isn't enough I have a stinking cold.

I am helpless in your presence Lord. I offer you all of these tasks as gift Lord. Please offer me the strength I need to get through this week.

Pax

I was Really Happy Last Night . . .

Colts 20

Pats 24

until the last 8 minutes of the game. What a game it was. Our boys played really well. They intercepted the un-intercept-able Brady not once, but twice.

They held them scoreless on their first possession for the first game this season I believe (not only scoreless, but they went three and out).

This was the lowest scoring Patriot victory this season and they didn't beat the spread (which was five points).

So while we did lose our first game this year, I think we did prove that we are a much tougher team than the other teams that the Patriots have had to play so far.

And we will not be down for long. Last season proved that.

Pax

Update on our Lost in the Wilderness Experience

We ended up being short one daughter but plus one boyfriend. Our older daughter decided that she was too tired from her morning of volunteering at the elementary school library to join us (being a volunteer at the same school I think I can empathize).

Middle daughter invited her boyfriend to come along at our insistence, so the number was the same but we had a bit more testosterone for mrangelmeg, which was nice. They talked about scouting and hiking and other boy-type things.

We decided upon Spring Mill State Park. Most of the attractions, like the village were closed, but we did hike to Donadlson Cave.

The weather was really nice, a bit crisp but the sky was clear glassy blue the entire afternoon. The boyfriend wore shorts and a t-shirt, well, because he is young and rugged; I on the other hand wore a turtleneck, sweatshirt and mid-weight jacket and was just about the right amount of warm, (I will admit to wearing gloves part of the time too, my hands are always cold).

We did take one last trail before we left the park that was closed because the bridge was out. We hiked around almost to the bridge before I realized that we were going to have to hike twice the length of the original trail and wised up and decided that it would be smarter for me who isn't in the best shape to turn around. Mrangelmeg went all the way to the bridge over the dam before he turned back.

Angelbaby watched Bridge To Terebithia on my IPod in the car on the way down and on the way back. She would highly recommend it to anyone who has read the book.

All in all it was a really nice day in the woods.

Pax

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood . . .

so we are getting out of Dodge!

The angelbaby has half a day of school today, our older daughter is only in school until 1:00 (because that's the way they roll at her high school) and our middle daughter is in her year off after high school and sadly still hasn't had any luck finding a job (because no one seems to want to hire a slightly handicapped young woman, or because her employment counselor wasn't working hard enough) well for whatever reason she is volunteering this morning at the library at the angelbaby's elementary school but will be home by noon too.

Mrangelmeg is actually going to (and I am not making this up) take off part of his regular day off! Will wonders never cease?

Since we are all going to be home by 1:00, and the weather is so amazing we decided it was a perfect day to go to one of the many state parks we have around here (at least three within an hour's drive and a few more just a bit farther than that away) and hike away the afternoon.

The girls and I are more the leisurely strolling type of hikers, while mrangelmeg can tend to be the aggressive "hit the trail" type. I hope he doesn't get too upset with us if we decide that we just want to take a nice leisurely stroll through the woods instead of a Bataan death march.

I will update you all upon our return.

Pax