Final Word Counts for 2006
December – 9,433
November – 2,674
October – 1,616
September – 4,536
August – 10,405
July – 11,304
June – 18,027
May – 20,583
April – 23,614
March – 12,940
February – 8,210
January – 8,059
Total for the year: 131,401
That’s a lot of words. Coulda been more, though.
We will be dealing with a few other anniversaries about a third of the way into September, of course, of course, but we must certainly also be mindful of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana one year ago today (although it existed as a storm between August 23 and 31, 2005).
I remember laughing at first at it and the coverage thereof on the television as just another example of weather porn. It was only later after we got back from the beach that it really started to sink in what a horrible fuck-up it all was, from the federal down to the local level.
But especially, especially at the federal level, after what we thought and could have reasonably expected, after 9/11, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the newly-created Department of Homeland Security would perhaps manage the emergency and keep the homeland secure. And they very much did not. They just simply failed.
Oh, now, I absolutely believe that the President and Secretary Chertoff and Director Brown were all well meaning surely. No Kanye West crap for me, thank you very much. But they weren’t especially competent in all this. And we again reasonably expect at least competence from the officials duly sworn, and paid, to manage and secure during emergencies.
So today let us remember and honor the thousands dead and missing.
We went out the theater to see exactly zero movies this year. That’s gotta be a first for me since like I was three years old. Like since my parents started dressing us in our jammies to take us to the drive-in in the big old Buick station wagon.
Dawn and I watched thirty movies on DVD. Well, we finished twenty-eight of them. Crash and Napoleon Dynamite sucked so bad that we couldn’t finish them.
My favorite of the year was probably The Third Man. The Enron and Al Gore documentaries were thoroughly compelling. I’m sorry to say that I liked Master and Commander more the first time I saw it, before I had read any of the books, although it was still completely enjoyable. And I’m also sorry to say that I pretty much missed the charm of Little Miss Sunshine.
Probably watched more TV on DVD than movies, and most of that British.
Series of made-for-TV movies:
Classic books made into mini-series:
British television series proper:
American television series proper that we only watched a couple of episodes:
American television series proper that we watched all episodes:
Dawn thinks Ioan Griffud is yummy. I don’t think we saw enough Audrey Tautou this year. Best discovery was Prime Suspect. Helen Mirren is the best.
The choir is way more sparse than it’s been all season, with only eight members. The entrance hymn is Joy to the World, what hymn we left singing last time we were here. Kind of a nice bookend to the week.
And always a good time, Colossians 3:18, Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Sadly, though, it’s balanced by 3:19, Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.
In his homily, Father Caulfield tells us what we can learn from each member of the Holy Family: humility from the Lord, generosity from the Blessed Virgin, and trust from St. Joseph. And all of these should add up to love.
The music leaflet is totally wrong in telling us that the Kyrie and Eucharistic Acclamations will be from the Missa cum Jubilo. They turn out to be from plain old Missa pro Defunctis (XVIII). And the readings jump totally around from the regular ones listed and the optional ones. We’re all mixed up today.
The Gospel reading is from St. Luke, when Jesus is twelve and gets lost in Jerusalem. Okay, well, not really lost. But his parents journey in the caravan for a day before they realize that they’ve left him behind. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed especially before the parallels between this episode and the Passion, the Lord being in Jerusalem for Passover and then being kinda missing for three days and then turning up.
And there’s another instance of the special relationship of St. Luke: [A]nd his mother kept all these things in her heart.