Me: I really miss you. I wish I saw you more than two hours a day.  The Ogre: I know. I miss you too. But somebody has to figure out how to bring the rain.  Me: No offense, babe, but unless you’re Yvor Winters, I can’t see much rainmaking happening in the scintillating field of literary criticism.  I’m under no illusions that I’m really the rainmaker in this family. All I have to do is abandon all scruples and write a crap teen... Read more

Liam and I are snuggled up in my big chair in the sitting room, watching Pope Benedict fly to Castel Gandolfo. I cried, watching him shuffle gingerly down that hallway. I will miss him so much, but seeing how frail he is and how exhausted he looks, I can’t help but thank God for allowing him to depart like this. Whatever difficulties await him in his solitude and prayer as Pope Emeritus, at least he can rest, physically, a bit.... Read more

I didn’t anticipate how much the whole Lights-Out Lent thing would impact my blogging. I don’t usually blog at night, I usually blog in the morning. But turning the lights out after dark requires an absolute, total re-structuring of my life. Which I have only partially managed, thus the lights going off at half-past eight, mostly. The first night was a rousing success, because I had literally been prepping to turn those lights out at 7 pm for two days.... Read more

She loved at first sight. He, appalled by her reading of Henry V, Resolved to correct. Somehow ended up married. She still reads it wrong. Eight years later. Sienna, home sick Valentines on the counter she sits forlornly. Dozens of cookies intended for first-graders Lenten temptation. A new dress from Dad for the father-daughter dance hangs in her closet. Dance is tomorrow. She checks her temperature every five minutes. Contingency plans meager. Elementary heartbreak is a thing. “Fool-proof solution: chocolate... Read more

Every year, Lent looks more or less the same for me. I decide on something to give up personally, and usually something for us to give up as a family, and go into it with the same zealotry that I used to reserve for the Slim-Fast Diet. Two weeks in, I’m burnt out. If I gave up sugar, I’ll be holed up in the closet, mainlining seasonally-inappropriate Cadbury mini eggs till I want to puke. If I gave up television,... Read more

Kassie facebooked me the news this morning before I had even kissed my kids good morning and turned on the coffee pot. I thought at first that she must be wrong, there could simply be no way Papa B would bow out. But as I scrolled through Facebook and Twitter, the kids clamoring for breakfast, toast burning, milk forgotten on the counter, I started to feel like one does after a swift, hard punch to the gut. Like I couldn’t... Read more

Way behind on posting and emails, but I wanted to put this up. It’s an email I received from a reader last week. Hi Calah, I have a prayer request that I’m trying to pass around the web. A family I know lost two of their four young daughters and (much less importantly) all of their material possessions in a terrible house fire last night. Their oldest, 8, is in the PICU at Children’s Hospital in Washington D.C. with extensive... Read more

Today the Anchoress made us Patheos Catholic bloggers aware of a lovely post Terry Nelson wrote about the Pope’s message for the 47th World Communications Day. She was drawing our attention toward his concluding paragraph, where he specifically mentioned Patheos. I’m very impressed with the Pope’s address and the commentary I’ve read from others. He recognizes the need for cordiality and friendly discourse. It would seem to me the Holy Father would actually praise the Catholic presence on Patheos –... Read more