Return of the Heroes

Family

We split out of work right on time and zip home. Then we jump in the car and head to BWI. We’re picking up Dawn’s brother Shawn, a Major in the U.S. Army on his way back from his tour in Afghanistan.

He’s been winding his way back for a number of days now, is my understanding. I had thought he was going from Afghanistan to Kuwait, or maybe then it was Kyrgyzstan. I expect he’s coming this latest hop from Frankfurt, Germany. (He tells us later that he spent time in Turkey, and his last hop has been from Ramstein Air Base, which isn’t in Frankfurt.) We also seem to understand that he comes into the US through BWI, rather than straight down to Atlanta, his final destination, because he’s carrying a service weapon and thus is required to go through BWI. We’ve convinced him to stay the night with us. We’re proud and pleased to pick him up.

At BWI we can find no listing of any flight arriving from Ramstein. We ask at the USO office and they tell us to go to the international terminal E. Look for World Airways. We find their counter and the guy there is pretty damn cryptic. I ask if the flight is in fact on time or landed, or if Maj. Dillon is on the flight. All he’ll say is that we’ll see him coming out of customs around eight. We grab a quick beer and bar chum and then come back to wait.

It’s quite a charming little arrival scene, actually. Girl scouts are there to cheer the returning troops. A couple of old vets too, seems like. Finally people in uniform start coming out from the double doors. An old vet directs them down our way so we can clap and cheer and the girl scouts can hand out cookies and candy.

It’s really quite a moving scene. As much as I’m against war, and especially this war, as much as I’m against much of what our military does and is for, it just feels like the right thing to do to welcome back, with honor and gratitude, these men and women.

Finally Shawn comes out with shitloads of luggage. Hugs and greetings and we get him in the car and back to our house, where we feed him good home cooking and give him beer and his own room and a comfy bed. And cats.

Welcome home.

Gaudete

Catholic

It’s the Third Sunday of Advent. It’s pink candle day. Apparently pink vestments is also an option, but we don’t see them here.

Here means St. Matt’s, by the way. It’s good to be home.

The entrance hymn is When the King Shall Come Again; the tune is Gaudeamus Pariter by Johann Horn 1495-1547. Gaudeamus is some other form of gaudete, seems like. Maybe “our rejoicing” whereas gaudete is “your (familiar) rejoicing.” Dawn would know better than I would. And in any case it’s hard to sing. Not an easy one like the recessional hymn turns out to be, People, Look East.

More readings about stuff that’s gonna happen. From Isaiah, “The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.” The response for the psalm, “Lord, come and save us.”

The epistle from St. James is especially awesome:

Be patient, brothers and sisters,
until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth,
being patient with it
until it receives the early and the late rains.
You too must be patient.
Make your hearts firm,
because the coming of the Lord is at hand.

I just think the image of the patient farmer waiting for the precious fruit is lovely. But then it hits particularly hard to me when I think of my semi-meltdown on the plane earlier in the week over stupid old headphones. Although perhaps meltdown is a bit strong. Even in the midst of it, I knew that I would suffer waves of shame if I got too angry. That I always become ashamed after being angry. So thinking about that at the time helped me in fact from going really too far. And it’s not like I yelled or anything. But I sure did do a long slow burn.

But, instead, I need to make my heart firm. The coming of the Lord is at hand. Pay attention, dummy, St. James says to me. Pay attention to the important things.

Christian Humility, or lack thereof

Catholic

earmuffs

I have these earmuffs that I use in the workshop to protect the (already damaged at this point) hearing from the power tools. I took them with me on the trip to Atlanta, to wear on the plane, because the noise of the engines can sometimes bother me on take-off. Plus it helps to deaden the jagged crying of babies or the idiotic conversations of the adults.

But they made me take them off today. The flight attendant told me flat out that the pilot would not take off if I continued to wear them. Strange.

I kept protesting to them that they weren’t personal electronic devices (PEDs), prohibited below 10,000 feet. I showed them that there were no wires, no batteries, no nothing. All for naught, however.

I stewed furiously throughout the flight, unable to even fire up the iPod after we were high enough. I did wear the muffs after the ding when we were told we could use the PEDs. But I dutifully took them off for landing. But still I was so pissed.

I talked to the other flight attendant and the pilot when leaving the plane. The pilot explained that it was a safety issue, that I had to be able to hear safety instructions, that it had nothing to do with electronic devices.

That made some sense, in a lame sort of way. But it also made me feel ashamed for being so angry about it for the whole flight. But another part of it was just being ashamed for being angry in the first place. It was just some earmuffs, after all.

Rubbing Fins with Fishes and Friends

Work

Easily the most fun night of Annual Meeting 2007.

It starts out poorly, however. At my ticket booth for the ASH Bash, we declare tickets sold out around 4:00 p.m. No, even worse, I’m wandering the exhibit hall, trying to get a picture of Avery Clyde at the Eisai booth, around three, when Ayuko calls me on the Nextel to tell me that my booth is swamped and that I should come help. I foolishly thought that ticket sales would be minimal today, the day of the event. Wrong.

We stop sales per Ayuko, around 2550 tickets sold. I let Kyle and Rita bolt, since we’re not selling tickets anymore. But then I get swamped by folks still stopping by to turn in their plastic badge-tokens for their tickets and drink coupons. And so then I’m late getting back to the staff office to make copies of the ticket list for use at the door at the aquarium. And it’s like 6:40 when Ayuko Nextels me again, telling me to get my sorry ass to the aquarium. Run, she says.

You know how like the old saw goes where drill sergeant says jump and the recruit asks how high? Except of course that the recruit isn’t supposed to ask how high, the recruit is just supposed to jump as high as he can jump. So I don’t ask nothing, just start running as fast as I can. It’s only half a mile to the aquarium, but I’m an old man and I’m like fucking dying by the time I arrive. To my credit, it’s only like four minutes later. But I’m sweating and can barely breathe. LaFaundra holds Ayuko off for a minute while I pace and try to get back to normal.

Ayuko then takes me through to the other side of the aquarium, where the second copy of the list will be used. I sit with Melissa and help check people in. Finally we’re relieved and we’re able to go enjoy the festivities.

Later I hook up with a group of folks, Clare and Helena and Virginia et. al., and we head through the Ocean Voyager exhibit. Then some want to go see river otters or sea otters or some other fuzzy aquatic mammals again, so Virginia and Helena and I go to pet the sharks and shrimp.

After the event is over, I walk them back to their hotel, the Marriott Marquee, where we repair to the lobby bar. We order clear drinks, Helena the vodka martini, whereas I have the regular gin martini, and Virginia has Sprite. Once, back in the day, I used to recite Shakespeare sonnets in bars. But I haven’t in years. But then tonight there is again such recitation. Helena goes first, although I am completely unfamiliar with the sonnet she recites. I do my basic number 30, the Proust one I call it, the one with “remembrance of things past.” Great fun.

LATE UPDATE: Helena reports that it was number 64, “When I have seen by time’s fell hand defaced.” She claims to have substituted Death for Ruin in line 14. I sure didn’t notice, and Virginia didn’t say anything about it.

Second Sunday of Advent

Catholic

Sadly, despite my best laid plans to make it to Sacred Heart for the two o’clock Spanish mass, we have a meeting at scheduled for three for the President’s Reception workers. Then there’s the five o’clock at Immaculate Conception, but we all have to get on the bus at six to head over to the Piedmont Driving Club.

So I don’t make it to mass at all anywhere. Sigh.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Catholic

It’s been very nerve-wracking trying to schedule time to go to Mass during Annual Meeting. Even worse, in addition to the usual Sunday obligation, today’s a holy day of obligation as well. I’ve got the 5:30 vigil mass at Sacred Heart on my schedule, in hopes of going, even though said vigil mass is more for the Sunday obligation rather than the holy day.

But planning with Dante all during the day, I discover that the even closer Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is having an extra mass at five, in addition to their usual Saturday at nine in the morning, for their feast day. Things are fairly quiet around the staff office and my ticket booth, so we dash over by cab.

It’s a modest but lovely church. Sign says it was the first Catholic church in Atlanta. The original wooden structure some blocks away, gone now, while this building erected in 1872. I do so love old churches.

But going to a different church for mass is something of a dance, not knowing where and how they practice certain things. We sit near the back, but Monsignor Gracz announces right at the beginning that he’d like everybody to move as far forward as possible. So we hike up to the front row. Then Monsignor basically begins the mass standing in the nave in the back. Strange and backwards. And he asks us to start out by introducing ourselves to everyone around us. Andy is right behind me, Regina is two rows back. I tell Regina that she has the best name for today.

Finally Monsignor processes up to the sanctuary. Our singing is not remarkably good. The opening hymn is Sing of Mary, Pure and Lowly. Then, for the readings, Monsignor comes and sits in the pews, in the front row, right next to me. The first reading is from Genesis, “After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree.” Original sin time. Good for today though, for the Blessed Virgin, born without it.

Lotta folks misunderstand the Immaculate Conception, of course, confusing it with the virgin birth of Christ. Then all the non-Catholic denominations who do understand what we mean by it specifically reject the Immaculate Conception as strange dogma, recent too. To me it’s pretty easy to go along with it. I mean, if you’re going to believe in the concept of original sin in the first place, how hard is it to think of the mother of the savior as being without it? Not a big leap. For a God who can create the entire universe, this particular item doesn’t seem like it’s that difficult, yeah?

But, back to the reading, totally fie on Adam for immediately trying to blame Eve for his own actions, for taking that bite of the apple. For shame. Very weak, but I suppose typical of my gender.

The Gospel reading is from Luke, because, hey, it’s the Blessed Virgin’s day and St. Luke is totally the best for all things Marian. It’s the Annunciation, although sadly it doesn’t quite go all the way through to include the Magnificat. Whenever I picture this scene, the Annunciation, I always imagine the angel Gabriel up above Mary, being an angel and being able to fly and all. But then my favorite painting of this scene, by Boticelli, has Gabriel kneeling reverently below Mary. Either way:

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.

And note also that there’s a separate feast for the actual Annunciation itself, a movable feast in the Catholic church, normally March 25.

Night Off

Work

In Atlanta for the ASH Annual Meeting. I arrive Sunday night, too late to go bowling with the Meetings Department. I call Ayuko on her cell phone after I’m all settled into my hotel room. Turns out that they didn’t go bowling anyway, they went to ESPN Zone. I like bowling as much as the next man, having been in various bowling leagues starting when I was seven. But I’m not much of an ESPN Zone kinda guy. I meet the gang when they return.

Monday night Ayuko takes us to Emeril’s restaurant, up Buckhead way, across from some mall, maybe Lenox Mall. I’m surprised at how nice it is. Not the celebrity food factory that I thought it would be, like Hard Rock Cafe or something. I don’t know that I’ve ever in fact seen Emeril on any cooking show or the Food Network or whatever. All I know is that he says bam.

Tuesday night is the chic little bistro One Midtown Kitchen. Our waitress is adorable, reminds me of the young Elizabeth Hurley.

Wednesday we (as part of the meetings dept) are on our own. I’m pleased when Joe invites me to go out with his department. Then I’m less pleased when he says that they’re going to Ted’s Montana Grill, where they serve bison. I check the menu on the web and there’s really no vegetarian option. So I beg off, but Joe says that Ted’s is not written in stone, that we can go somewhere else. I’m embarrassed to make the whole Education Department change restaurants for me, but he insists. So I find City Grill and Joe agrees.

Even better, turns out that it’s not the whole department, just Joe and Helena. Two of my absolute favorite people at ASH.

Joe and I meet early, at 6:30 at the Sundial atop the Westin. This turns out to be a crucial mistake, starting drinking early. After a few beers here and then two bottles of wine at the restaurant, I’m very much worse for drink. Apparently I keep telling our waiter how cute he is. Joe and Helena wisely pour me into a cab back to the Omni, rather than let me wander back on foot, most likely to be mugged on the way.

The hangover will last a solid two days and then some.

First Sunday of Advent

Catholic

Happy New Year!

Although it’s kinda funny, this whole new beginning today, switching from Year C to Year A in the lectionary, and yet we sing the exact same responsorial psalm as last week. Yep, same exact one.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like it. “Jerusalem, built as a city.” Although then the lectionary has the next line as “with compact unity,” whereas the NAB for Psalm 122 reads “walled round about.” I wonder about this. The walled round about makes me think of Rome, when we were there, where we followed the old wall around for a while, when we got lost after riding the subway. The compact unity makes me think of my own city, so compact, with nowhere to grow. Not that I’m thinking that either Rome or DC is Jerusalem. Or should I be like Blake, bringing Jerusalem home? On these dark satanic grounds?

The first reading is from good old Isaiah:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.

When, oh Lord? Soon? I suppose I’m not unique in this, thinking that maybe all this might be sorted out in my lifetime. I hear tell that St. Paul himself felt that way too, and he was off by at least two millenia. Still, I sure do love the idea of beating swords into plowshares. (Hmm, feels funny spelling it that way. I’d go with ploughshares myself.)

Next up is St. Paul, being antsy like I am. “You know the time,” he tells us. “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” He goes on to say that salvation is going to come even sooner than anyone thought.

For year A we go back to the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Today’s reading has Christ telling us that none of us knows the hour when the Son of Man will appear. Like a thief in the night, he tell us. I’ve always found that amazingly jarring, the thief in the night simile. Always seems so backwards, so negative, to compare the arrival of Second Coming as like the arrival of a thief. I suppose that’s the point, to defy expectations, to make sure we know that things are going to be might different from now on.

All of the readings then, all about anticipation. It’s that time of year. Something’s coming.

Look for me on German tv

News

We often see reporters and cameras doing basic man in the street interviews downtown here. I usually avoid them, but today as I was walking over to Au Bon Pain for lunch, a guy stopped me and asked if I’d be interviewed for German television. Sure, I said.

He asked me a bunch of questions about the upcoming Middle East peace summit. I told him up front that I didn’t know much about it. It could have happened and I wouldn’t have noticed, without him reminding me of it. I seem to remember Secretary Rice putting something together I suppose, but it apparently didn’t stick much in my mind.

He asked me if peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians was important to Americans. I told him that I didn’t think it was high on our list, not for us regular Joes anyway. The economy and the war in Iraq certainly rate much higher.

He asked me if I thought that this was the last chance for peace. I said I certainly didn’t think so, that this probably wouldn’t solve anything, these problems that have been going on for years, certainly since 1948. Going on for decades and will go on for decades, I said. (I talked to Helena when I got back to work, and she reminded me that folks have been fighting over these lands for thousands of years.)

He asked me why the US supported Israel so much. I was half expecting such a question, sort of feeling like the general European view is pretty much just puzzled as to our support. I said that I didn’t know why. I conjectured that maybe it was just that Israel is the only democracy in the region. I certainly don’t believe in any grand Jewish conspiracy theories or any shit like that, but I didn’t even bring that up, although I don’t especially believe that that’s where he wanted me to go anyway.

I said that I guess that since President Bush and Dr. Rice have made such a mess out of everything else, this was maybe some sort of last ditch effort to write some kind of positive legacy for themselves, that if there were any immediate imperative driving this latest summit, that could be the only reason that I could think.

This was at the corner of 19th and M, with UPS trucks rumbling by. I doubt I’ll actually make the news.

Changes in Latin Mass Music

Catholic

I didn’t mention, but we experienced something of a change to our routine on Sunday at the Latin Mass. Generally when the choir is around they’ll sing some cool Palestrina arrangement of the Gloria after we’ve recited the Confiteor and sung the Kyrie antiphonally with them. But the bulletin tells us that starting today we’ll be singing the Gloria together, apparently to “increase the opportunities for full and active congregational participation.” Um, okay, whatever. But then also the schola will sing the Agnus Dei without us now. I don’t understand how getting us to sing the Gloria but taking away the Agnus Dei increases our participation. If anything, it’s a wash, right?

I always thoroughly enjoy singing the Gloria, when the choir is gone between the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Lent. And I enjoy hearing them sing the different arrangements other times. So it’s funny how unsatisfying it is today to sing the regular old Gloria with them.

And I do so miss the Agnus Dei. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, but I’ll always remember how we chose to have the Latin for our wedding mass. When time came for it, poor Jenny the cantor raised her hand and sang it, but few if any of us sang along with her. I sure didn’t, not knowing the words. So I sure know them by heart now. (It’s so short and simple anyway.) And the schola’s first two petitions in chant aren’t nearly as great as how we all used to do it.

Sigh. I hate change.

Re-Reading O’Brian

Life

Commodore Aubrey and Dr. Maturin are drinking the last of the coffee.

Jack walked in, pouring himself a cup as he bade Stephen good morning, and said, ‘I am afraid they are all in.’

‘All in what?’

‘All the Frenchmen are in harbour, with their two Indiamen and the Victor. Have not you been on deck? We are lying off Port-Louis. The coffee has a damned odd taste.’

‘This I attribute to the excrement of rats. Rats have eaten our entire stock; and I take the present brew to be a mixture of the scrapings at the bottom of the sack.’

‘I thought it had a familiar tang,’ said Jack. ‘Killick, you may tell Mr Seymour, with my compliments, that you are to have a boat. And if you don’t find at least a stone of beans among the squadron, you need not come back. It is no use trying the Néréide; she don’t drink any.’

When the pot had been jealously divided down to its ultimate dregs, dregs that might have been called dubious, had there been any doubt of their nature, they went on deck.

O’Brian, Patrick. The Mauritius Command. p. 185.

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Catholic

The first reading is from Sirach. I love the whole tone of the reading, something of the preferential option for the poor about it that really appeals to me. But an early line jumps out at me, jarringly, noting that the Lord is “not unduly partial toward the weak.”

I’m a little stunned: isn’t God unduly partial toward the weak? Shouldn’t God be unduly partial toward the weak?

Apparently not. And I suppose that’s just, given that Sirach tells us simply that the “one who serves God willingly is heard,” so being rich and powerful is not necessarily a barrier to being heard by God. But then this is still, after all, an Old Testament sentiment. Maybe I should be glad that it’s at least this partial to the lowly, before Christ comes and changes everything.

I especially enjoy the imagery of the prayer of the lowly piercing the clouds.

Dawn + Evie

Family

evie-and-mom

An older picture, from back in May when we first got Evie. Notice that her belly is still shaved, so you can still see her scar from the spay surgery.

Magic

Life

New Bruce Springsteen album Magic out today. From the song Long Walk Home:

My father said “Son, we’re
lucky in this town
It’s a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
You know that flag
flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we’ll do
and what we won’t.”

Pop Quiz: Who’s Nuttier?

News

We don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who has told you that we have it.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President, Islamic Republic of Iran
Speaking at Columbia University
September 24, 2007

[W]e would like to strongly caution media and campus organizations against the use of such words as “gay”, “lesbian”, or “homosexual” to describe people in Iran who engage in same-sex practices and feel same-sex desire. The construction of sexual orientation as a social and political identity and all of the vocabulary therein is a Western cultural idiom. As such, scholars of sexuality in the Middle East generally use the terms “same-sex practices” and “same-sex desire” in recognition of the inadequacy of Western terminology. President Ahmadinejad’s presence on campus has provided an impetus for us all to examine a number of issues, but most relevant to our concerns are the complexities of how sexual identity is constructed and understood in different parts of the world.

Columbia Queer Alliance
Email to News Outlets
September 24, 2007

To their credit, the CQA were out there in the street, demonstrating against President Ahmadinejad. But still, I think the President meant there are no gays or lesbians or homosexuals or same-sex practictioners in Iran, because they’ve fucking hanged them all. I say the more important point is not how sexual identify is constructed and understood in Iran, but rather how it’s brutally punished.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

Mystery Solved

Life

Oh my goodness, after all these years.

Do you ever have like some snatch of memory of something, something you saw in a movie or on TV when you were a kid, and can’t remember what it was or who was in it? I’ve had this one bugging me for years, and now I’ve got it nailed.

There was an earlier one, bugged me for a long time. All I remembered was that something was happening in a jungle, where some kind of tribe or clan worshiped this white rhinoceros. I seemed to remember Doug McClure and maybe Jane Seymour in it.

Through the magic of IMDB, I was able to do a plot summary search on white rhino, and came up with some British b-movie from the mid-sixties called alternatively Prehistoric Women or Slave Girls, the latter apparently being the UK theatrical title and the former being the US television title. I would have seen the US TV version, natch. No Doug McClure or Jane Seymour in sight, however, but I’m sure this one’s it.

Another one that’s nagged me, a lot longer, and much harder to pin down, was some scene in some sort of futuristic college classroom, where at the end one of the students gets shot in the head and we come to find out that he’s a robot. Oh, man, no amount of Googling has ever got me close to finding this one.

But then today, for no reason that I can now determine, I decide that maybe it’s from an episode of Night Gallery. So I go toodling through episode guides, first on IMDB, then on epguides.com. Hmmm, there’s an episode in the second season called Class of 99. That sounds promising. Had Vincent Price and a young Randolph Mantooth. I sure don’t remember them being in it, but still, not a deal-breaker.

I follow a link from epguides.com to a review at tv.com by one Blugis, who says, “Full of surprises, Class of 99 opens on the day of finals at an unknown, unnamed university sometime in the future (most likely 1999). We see these students answer complex questions, that gradually become more about bahavioral [sic] responses. You start to realize that this is no ordinary group of students, and soon you’re drawn into the story, wanting to know just what is happening between them as their behavior starts to change.” He also calls it “[t]he best episode in the series.”

Still, nothing conclusive, but nowadays we’ve got Google video search and YouTube. And sure enough, somebody’s ripped the thing and posted it on YouTube, in two parts. And, oh yeah baby, this is it! Mystery solved!

It’s really not that good, ultimately, watching it now, but it sure spooked me as a kid, haunting me these last thirty-five years or so.

Re-Reading Master & Commander

Life

You are mistaken, sure, when you say they do not know him: unlearned men have a wonderful penetration in these matters — have you ever known a village reputation to be wrong? It is a penetration that seems to dissipate, with a little education, somewhat as the ability to remember poetry will go. I have known peasants who could recite two or three thousand verses.

Stephen Maturin,
Master & Commander,
p. 230

And Yet My Wife Doesn’t Think I Am

Politics

Found a link to one of those quiz things. Found it on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, being guest-hosted this week, by a few folks, including Stephen Bainbridge. He’s 57% feminist. Tells me that I’m 95% feminist, by virtue of answering strongly agree to every question except the one about the morning after pill, to which I put not sure.

.

You Are 95% Feminist
You are a total feminist. This doesn’t mean you’re a man hater (in fact, you may be a man).
You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It’s a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

.

Dawn tells me that, despite my claim to being so, I am anything but a feminist. She thinks I’m a chauvinist pig.

Who ya gonna believe?

Bridges

News

When I lived in Minneapolis, I lived on campus at the University of Minnesota. I must’ve walked across the Washington Avenue Bridge a hundred or so times. About a mile north was the Tenth Avenue Bridge. I never made it up to that part of town, but I used to stop on the Washington Avenue Bridge sometimes and look over at the Tenth Avenue Bridge, off of which bridge Eric’s boyfriend had jumped to his death. Eric lived in my dorm. I didn’t know him especially well, but the day his boyfriend jumped Eric came into my room in a dazed mess and played absently with the junk on top of my dresser. I didn’t know what had happened, just that Eric was being numb and strange.

Just immediately north of the Tenth Avenue Bridge there is, or now was, a bridge carrying the interstate. Rush hour today, it just fell. Into the water. Just like that.

How completely unreal it is to think that something like that still happens. It reminds me of the story that my old boss Bethany told me, about when she had her first baby. She was getting out of the hospital the next day or the day after that, whenever it was, and she saw the husband of a woman whom she had met in the waiting room of the OB/GYN, a woman about in the same stage of pregnancy, a woman she’d chatted with a few times. She asked the husband after the woman, only to be told that she had died during childbirth. Bethany just immediately burst into tears. That sort of thing didn’t happen anymore, did it?

But these things still do. It’s hard to process these random, deadly things.

Volunteer Happy Hour

Catholic

After work I go to the Fourth Estate Grill, where used to be the Ha’penny Lion. There’s a meet and greet for volunteers for the upcoming benefit and concert to celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew at St. Matthew’s Cathedral. I’ve been so out of touch with the Adult Formation Committee, having been slaving over the TIMSS upgrade for so long. It’s good to try to plug back in.

Nancy Lutz is working the door, and it’s good to see her. Pat Durham greets me warmly, and it’s good to see her too, except that we see her every Sunday lately at the 8:30 mass, where she’s an EME. Maureen’s there, and it takes me a while to screw up my courage and go say hey, since she’s the Faith Formation Coordinator for the Cathedral. The one whose committee meetings I’ve been missing all these months. Happily for me, she’s still nice to me and excited that I’m going to be helping out for the benefit.

The bar has some food out for us, and I eat yummy celery and carrot sticks. I grab a few crackers, but they turn out to be like really bad or something. Too old and stale, maybe. I meet a couple of new people, new to me anyway. Mostly I talk to Ella, from the World Bank. She’s been in Washington for nine years but only recently has started to come to St. Matt’s. She’s originally from the Philippines. She goes to the 8:00 a.m. mass. Every day. I feel like such a slacker.

Monsignor is there, but he’s always surrounded by people, so I don’t get a chance to say hi. Maureen says there’s a meeting next week to discuss next steps for this big shindig.

The Old Blog, Spot

Meta

Weird. For some reason, maybe since Google took over Blogger/BlogSpot, I’m again able to access ebohls.blogspot.com. Somehow trying to move from there to my own hosting or domain or something, the thing got lost. I could see it, find it, just couldn’t edit it.

But now I can. But now I don’t need to do so, but still it’s nice to be able to do so.

Upgrade, At Last

Work

Oh my goodness. The TIMSS upgrade that’s been consuming my life at work has finally, finally happened.

And it was only from version 6.1.9.123 to 6.3.1.146. Shouldn’t have been that hard, right? It’s only taken all fucking year.

But, finally, like I said, we did it.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Catholic

The music leaflet says that the opening hymn is Christ is Made the Sure Foundation and the closing hymn is There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy. First, that Wideness song always makes me think of Renee Weidman. Beautiful but, sadly, troubled Renee. God bless her. Anyway, next I think, hey, didn’t we sing these same two hymns last week? No, actually, ’twere Christian, Do You Hear the Lord and Now Let Us From This Table Rise. Maybe based on the same tunes? Nope, Westminster Abbey and Wellesley this week, something I don’t know can’t find and Deus Tuorum Militum last week. But, hey, we did sing Wideness six weeks ago.

I have something of an epiphany, maybe a mini epiphany praying before mass starts. I get to the part in the Our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” I usually think of this passage when I’m annoyed at someone about something, and then I think of the forgiving as something that maybe is really really hard to do but is just simply something that one must do. It’s just what we do. End of story.

But for some reason today I get to thinking about how the two are connected, the begging God’s forgiveness for our own trespasses, as we forgive etc. And I think about how our trespasses are generally not against God but against each other. I think of how sin can be basically defined as anything that takes us further from God, including, and maybe then especially, when we do something against someone else, not necessarily towards or against God himself.

All good stuff to be thinking about, but then the readings themselves all turn out to be about sin and forgiveness. It’s pretty cool. But I get especially excited at the Gospel, from Luke of course, where the Lord gives us the Our Father. I’m waiting also for the explanation about loving God and loving one’s neighbor. But of course that was two weeks ago, and that’s probably why I’m making this connection. Oh, well, better late than never.

The first reading is from Genesis, good old Abraham getting all lawyerly with God. “See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes!,” he says. Hah. But God let’s him get away with it. And it’s times like these where I wonder about God’s omniscience. That he knows all that’s happened and all that will happen. What does he get from this conversation? See how he lets Abraham bargain him down, from fifty to ten? But it’s not really bargaining down from God’s perspective, is it, since God knows that Abraham’s going to pull all this on him, has always known. So it can only be a lesson for Abraham, even though Abraham thinks he’s being all slick, especially with the false humility.

Or is it false humility? Or do I only look at it with the jaded, ultra-ironic eye of the here and now? Maybe gotta find out more about this Abraham guy. All I really know is the story of Sarah and Hagar, & Ishmael and the water from the rock.

St. Paul writes to the Colossians about the “the uncircumcision of your flesh.” What the heck does that mean? It makes me think of the battle in early Christianity, whether Christianity was this new separate thing or just a specific sect of Judaism, whether this was open to the Gentiles or not. Of course it turned out to be this new thing, open to the Gentiles, who didn’t have to be circumcised. So here maybe Paul’s trying to get sorta metaphorical about circumcision, maybe saying that becoming a Christian involved being circumcised, either physically or metaphorically. Maybe? Seems like that’s got to be it, given the earlier verse, talking about being buried in baptism with Christ, being raised from the dead with him. Definitely metaphor there.

The reading is just verses twelve through fourteen. Verse eleven gives a better clue as to the whole metaphor: “In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by hand, by stripping off the carnal body, with the circumcision of Christ.” So, there he just goes ahead and says it, that it’s not actual physical circumcision, not “administered by hand.”

The Gospel is also somewhat strangely funny, where Christ asks what father would give his son a snake or a scorpion when he (the son) asks for a fish or an egg. It’s just an amusing image to me, actually picturing this little boy asking for an egg and getting a scorpion. I can’t really imagine the boy asking for an egg, though. How would he do it, ask his dad for an egg. “Hey, Pa, can I have an egg?” Just doesn’t sound right. Maybe more like:

Kid: Morning, Dad!
Dad: Morning, son. You’re up early. Hungry?
Kid: Yes. Starving.
Dad: Whaddya hungry for? Want some toast? Waffles? An egg, maybe?
Kid: Ooh, yeah. An egg.

And so Dad reaches behind his back and hands the kid …

… a scorpion!

Kid: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

(And this little scene for some reason reminds me of Shakespeare. Think Winter’s Tale. Exit, pursued by bear.)

Christ’s ultimate point, though, is rather astonishing:

If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

He’s talking to us, and says flat out, we are wicked. Wicked. But all we have to do is ask for the Holy spirit. That’s all. Ask for the egg, and get the egg.

How could you not want to see this movie?

Life

Marion Cotillard’s feral portrait of the French singer Édith Piaf as a captive wild animal hurling herself at the bars of her cage is the most astonishing immersion of one performer into the body and soul of another I’ve ever encountered in a film.

Stephen Holden, The New York Times, 2/28/2007

The Ascension of the Lord

Catholic

We try but fail to get to St. Matt’s for ten o’clock mass. We run into streets blocked off everywhere trying to get out of our neighborhood. There’s some sort triathalon or race or something blocking everywhere.

Getting close to ten we just ditch the car on D Street across from the Capitol Police headquarters, which is just a block away from St. Joseph’s. We see on the board that they’ve got a 10:30 a.m. mass. Since we’ve got time, we walk the few blocks south to St. Peter’s. They’ve got a 10:30 as well. But we really like St. Joe’s so we head back.

Monsignor Antonicelli presides, although Deacon Bockweg handles the homily after reading the Gospel. He talks about the new Harry Potter book coming out soon, how everyone is waiting for it, wanting to know how the story continues. He likens it back to the movie serials he used to watch as a kid, specifically Hopalong Cassidy. And before that Dickens et. al. used to publish serials. And before that …

Well, before that, how about the ending of the Gospel of St. Luke and the beginning of Acts? Those are two of the readings we have today. Traditionally attributed to the same author, St. Luke’s Gospel ends with and the Acts of the Apostles begins with the Ascension. Except that, obviously, the story continues in Acts. Even better of course are the two men who grab the Apostles and ask, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”

I love that. Hey, dummies, quit staring up at heaven. There’s work to be done down here.

Work.

Acts.

Ballet Dress Rehearsal

Life

edward-dawn-pas-de-deux-2007

The recital’s not until June 9. But since we’ve got the piece down so well, we ran through in costume a couple times today.

Actually, I was much happier when we were in just our normal everyday ballet gear. The lift where I sit Dawn on my chest was much easier. Dawn’s performance skirt is so slippery, I don’t get a good grip to heave her on up, and I don’t ever feel like she’s up there in any way stable.

But that’s show biz, I suppose.

Quote of the Day

Life

I wish people wouldn’t fool around with Latin endings when they don’t know what they’re doing.

BobK, Moderator of the ESL Forum at UsingEnglish.com, in a discussion about the plural ending for a noun of the fourth declension, the so-called u-stem nouns.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Catholic

We get beatitudes this week. Again, what with the Year C thing, they’re from St. Luke, so we get four. St. Matthew has these four and four more. But those are for a different year. The four that the two gospels share are:

St. Luke #1: Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.
St. Matthew #1: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

St. Luke #2: Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
St. Matthew #4: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

St. Luke #3: Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
St. Matthew #2: Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

St. Luke #4:

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.

St. Matthew #8:

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I would have thought that I’d have easily said that I prefer the St. Matthew beatitudes. Heck, when I think of beatitudes, I pretty much think only of St. Matthew. It’s only here now that I’m appreciating the St. Luke. I like how St. Luke has Jesus addressing the crowd in the second person, saying you directly to them, rather than the third person in St. Matthew.

And I like how St. Luke has it simply as poor and hungry, rather than poor in spirit and hunger and thirst for righteousness. I like Jesus addressing the physical needs of the crowd when he’s giving them spiritual comfort.

And while St. Matthew has it as those mourning will be comforted, St. Luke has the more primal, more powerful, you who are weeping, you’re not just going to be comforted, but this is such good stuff that you’re going to actually laugh.