I’m not a moral theologian, and every time I try and play one on the internet, I regret it. On the other hand, it would be kind of weird not to acknowledge the brouhaha about the Pope’s comments that L’Osservatore Romano leaked, apparently following its mission to act as the poorly-informed, half-senile uncle who blurts out crazy stuff and makes things so awkward around the holidays. Sorry about Uncle Romano — he . . . he doesn’t really represent our... Read more
Oh yes! A Seven Quick Takes that is truly miscellaneous, like it’s supposed to be. If there’s a theme at all, it’s that I found appropriate pictures for everything. Or, I found pictures for everything. UPDATE: pictures which apparently didn’t show up this morning. There’s a theme for you: glitchiness. Sorry about that! If the formatting is still all weird, then we’ll know WordPress is just being terrible again. Don’t forget to check out Conversion Diary for everyone else’s... Read more
Oh yes! A Seven Quick Takes that is truly miscellaneous, like it’s supposed to be. If there’s a theme at all, it’s that I found appropriate pictures for everything. Or, I found pictures for everything. Don’t forget to check out Conversion Diary for everyone else’s 7 Quick Takes, and then stick with Jen for the rest of the week, too — she’s always worth reading. 7 Quick Takes 1. I was halfway through Madame Bovary, because reading it makes... Read more
I don’t want to get a dog. I don’t want the fleas. I don’t want the stink. I don’t want the hairs. I don’t want the scrabbling nails and the chewed-up doormat, and I don’t want the noises of chomping and slobbering. I don’t want someone else making me feel guilty for not paying them enough attention. And I don’t want to clean up any more poop. Which brings me to my final fear: I don’t want to turn into... Read more
My daughter, exterior view: and interior view: That explains a thing or two. (Thanks to my wonderful sister Abby Tardiff who, for some reason, agreed to spend some of her precious time drawing out the true nature of my little monkey child. And don’t you wish it were still summer?) Read more
Oh, Kentucky. So the moral of this story is: next time you go see your buddy next door and it turns out he’s already incredibly drunk (love the detail of “already” — as if it’s inevitable, but the timing made things a bit ticklish), that might not be the best time to start dickering over the price of a used lawnmower. “One thing led to another, and before I knew it, there were knives and guns and everything just went... Read more
Hey, happy Veterans Day! Thank you, veterans. Thank you veterans’ families. We pray for you every day. We have the day off school, and we just got home from the doctor, where I got mini lectures because (a) my son only has two servings of milk a day, not three; (b) when I said, “I didn’t realize they offer the meningitis vaccine to kids this age. I’d like to read up on it first, ” she took it to mean,... Read more
Eventually, I’m going to fix this place up. The blog, I mean – not the house ! Fix up the house, are you kidding? The most I’ve done to improve the decor around here is to cheer rowdily as my husband dragged the couch out of the house and tossed it into the garbage pit in the side yard. It was a perfectly good couch, objectively; it was just, for reasons too complex to go into here, pissing us off... Read more
Just because I have a lot of kids, people assume I have a lot of kid-managing skills. Not so. In the last twelve years, I have perfected really only two child-related talents: ignoring screams, and buying spaghetti in bulk. Other than that, I’m pretty much where I was at the beginning: terrified, stymied, trying not to let them corner me. How, for instance, do I deal with lots and lots and lots and lots of time in the car... Read more
There are people who don’t understand drinking at all. You can tell who they are because they say things like,”Isn’t it kind of cold for beer?” or “I guess it’s okay, as long as you don’t feel like you depend on it” or “Yes, I had a Bahama Mama last weekend, and it was yummy!” These people are drinkers in the same way as Thomas Kinkade is a painter: there are enough superficial similarities to the real thing that the... Read more
I Have to Sit Down
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In