Last weekend, while I was at the parade with my daughter, my friends in Columbus were faced with white supremacist hate groups waving guns at a church. You’ve probably heard something about the Unitarian Universalist church in Beechwold having to shut down their Christmas drag queen storytime. And I realize every word of that might sound like a punchline, but this isn’t a laughing matter. Drag storytime isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but this wasn’t in any way dangerous to... Read more
Catholic Traditionalist: We are REAL Catholics! Our religious practice is pure and unchanged from the beginning of the Church! Medieval European Catholic: Where’s your rood screen? Why are you sinning by eating a Filet O’Fish with cheese during Lent? What’s a cigar? Catholic Traditionalist: Latin is the very language of Heaven which the Catholic Church has always used from its inception! Catholic martyr from the ancient Roman Empire: ποια είναι τα νέα σου? Catholic Traditionalist: Rome is the height... Read more
The last few days haven’t been very good. I’m having my usual seasonal anxiety, on top of being glum for more concrete reasons. We’ve got one week to pay the tax on Serendipity and register her at the BMV before my cardboard tag expires. That means we’re paying rent twice in the same week, with twenty dollars currently in the bank. We were going to use the money from scrapping the old car for the tax, but one thing led... Read more
Yesterday I went to the Steubenville Christmas parade, which is a very good parade as I’ve written about before. Appalachian steel mill communities with an unhealthy fixation on high school football aren’t good for much, but they’ve got first rate marching bands. And Adrienne was with her dojo this year, doing bo staff routines all the way down Fourth Street in her dobok and a blue Santa hat. You can’t ask for better entertainment in a small town. In... Read more
I took Adrienne to Sunday Mass, just like always. I don’t like to go to Mass right now. I usually don’t receive Holy Communion. Religious trauma makes it very hard. But I think it’s important that Adrienne learns her prayers and hymns and receives Holy Communion if she wants to, so I brought her. We were at a church in the diocese that comes the closest Steubenville has to being neutral territory– a small, friendly Novus Ordo parish, a ways... Read more
A thousand times or more, I’ve wished there was somebody interesting to show you, instead of just me. You deserve to read about a hero or a saint, but what you get is Mary Pezzulo, a dumpy and anxious middle aged woman who came from boring Columbus and lives in depressing Steubenville. I’ve been a little under the weather lately, for a good reason. I got my polyvalent booster shot for the new COVID-19 variants, and it made me sick... Read more
Over the weekend, one of the Lost Girls mentioned that her children were still on Thanksgiving break and she had to go to work on Monday. I offered to take her children off her hands for the day. They are a hardworking but very poor family; they live in a tiny apartment in a grim public housing block. The children take the bus to school and eat the free lunch. They don’t get to do much else. I... Read more
The day before Thanksgiving was sunny, the first sunny day in a week or more. It was warm when it had been freezing for days. Everything felt so gloriously clean. Adrienne wanted me to play on her porch with the guinea pig before I went to the store to buy the last few things for our turkey dinner. She went out for a few minutes before I joined her. When I came out, Adrienne was sitting on the porch, talking... Read more
I’ve been watching the developments out of the Diocese of Oakland since my post yesterday, and I think they’re worth another post. For those of you who have been asking, my friend whose tweet inadvertently started the kerfuffle is doing fine. He’s locked his account because of all the sudden attention. Transgender people have to be careful. You can imagine how the whole community has been traumatized by the terrorist attack at Club Q. But he is shocked and moved... Read more
Holly the Witch, as you recall, keeps backyard chickens. She distributes the eggs to all of her neighbors, though there haven’t been many eggs lately. Her two older hens are getting elderly, and the young pullets aren’t laying yet. One of these pullets went by the name of Lizzie Bordhen, and Lizzie Bordhen was a problem. Holly and Reese had driven out to the country in the early summer, to buy a variety pack of baby chicks. The chicks... Read more
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