Dirty Catholic

Funny-in-Law

Oh, man, people. Do I have exciting news for you! But I can't tell you until...Wednesday.

In the meantime, let's talk about my family, shall we? We're all very funny. I am maybe the third funniest of the bunch, at least I was until the most recent wedding. Now it appears my new brother-in-law is giving all the ladies a run for their funny money.

Evidence A, submitted by Funniest #2, via email:  "After dinner, three professors stood up to request, no, demand, songs from each country represented in the student body population. It was quite a crowd, at least 14 countries were represented, so the songs went ON AND ON. My husband, the master of songs that he is, introduced his American song by telling everyone he was going to sing a very solemn, almost melancholic folk song, and that it required special attention. Then he sang 'I Like Big Butts' by Sir Mix-a-Lot. It was my idea. You can see why we're married.

Evidence B is a link for you. (Click me!) Make sure you read at least the last three paragraphs.

Damn. I think I might be demoted to #4.

Just your average Sunday

What Mr. Man and I  saw on our walk home from church last Sunday:

Knights fighting under the Rockridge Bart

A "sexy pirate" putting stuff in her car

6 guys playing basketball at the local elementary school- on unicycles

You know, like you do. 

A Gift only a Grandparent Could Love

(Give it a minute to load, then double-click if it hasn't started yet.)

You can thank Auntie Katie's wedding for teaching our niece to dance like that. And also, my nephew's name isn't Michael. He changed it after getting the drums. He's a true rock star in the making.

At A Camp!

Well hello! I have finally recovered from the month of getting all of this stuff ready, so that this could happen:

 

The weekend was a camp-game-playing, rubber-chicken-tossing, campfire-singing, midnight-tennis-playing, wild-craft-making fun filled adventure.

The campfire program the night before was a particular favorite of mine. Where else can one see a Fiddler on the Roof montage filmed in Jerusalem followed by a rap about Tertullian?  Only at interfaith wedding summer camp!

10 Things You Shouldn't Say to The Bride Before Her Camp-Themed Interfaith Wedding

1. I think you should change the order of the ceremony.

2. Where's a saw? That huppah would look better if it were shorter.

3. Can't the priest's robes match the wedding colors?

4. I think you might have sat in something...brownish.

5. Where's the cake? We're not having cake?

6. Don't mind me, I'm just rearranging the seating chart.

7. Hmm. It looks like rain.

8. A wedding is not a wedding without jello shots!

9. I know you asked me not to, but I just want to say a few words...

10. I think the groom is still hiking.

Bridesmaidzilla

My sister-in-law is getting married Memorial Day Weekend. I'm in the wedding, so I've been working on stuff like organizing a campfire program, making s'mores kits, and thinking about arts and crafts activities. You know, your usual, run-of-the-mill wedding prep.

I was pretty relaxed about my own wedding. I had 5 months to plan and a very busy fiance, so I ignored the wedding blogs and just slapped some stuff together. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, has been planning for over a year, is an avid wedding blog reader, and has organized a three-night, activity filled, summer camp weekend wedding bonanza.

And I have gotten totally sucked in. I've contemplated buying a weekend wardrobe in her wedding colors. I find myself saying things like, "Well of course we need individually wrapped trail mix in the personalized gift baskets!" and "The labels would look better with three different fonts on each line!" I dream in green and pink. It's a sickness, I tell you.

Luckily, in a mere 8 days, the wedding will all be over and my mind will once again be my own. I have no idea what I will do with all my spare time. Maybe I'll start driving you people crazy, instead.

A Lovely Listen

This is perhaps the most lovely, sad, and honest account of a lapsed Catholic that I've heard in a long time. Listen to this episode of This American Life, and jump ahead to minute 37:45 to listen to Dan Savage talk about his mother, himself, and the church. You won't regret it.

Liturgically Transmitted Disease

The Archbishop of San Fransisco seems to think that the swine flu is a liturgically spread disease.  At Mass this Sunday, were told that due to swine flu, we would not receive the Blood of Christ, we were instructed to refrain from holding hands during the Our Father, and told not to touch each other during the Kiss of Peace until the end of the Easter season. Because apparently the cure to the Swine Flu is Ordinary Time.

I was frankly shocked at this announcement, and grateful that I was visiting the diocese, not living there. There was a cute 2 year old who apparently didn't get the memo and she walked up the aisle offering to peace to just about everyone during the Mass. A classic little San Franciscan conscientious objector.

It just seems silly to me to get all worked up about this flu that is more media frenzy than anything. People can opt themselves out of these activities if they are worried about catching it. Making the decision for us just seems ridiculously paternalistic and puts a bigger priority on the media's wildly swinging opinions than the holiness of the Mass. We should know better than this.

Ah, Swine Flu, how I grow tired of you.

Candles, Cakes, & Crucifixions

Today is Mr. Man's 33rd Birthday!

In some (insular, highly religious and slightly odd) circles, the 33rd birthday is referred to as your "Jesus Year." As in, "By 33, Jesus founded one of the world's largest multinational charitable organizations in history, and then he died for your sins. What have you been up to?" No pressure or anything.

A kinder, fuzzier approach is to call it your "death and resurrection year" and to therefore pay attention to the big changes that happen during the year. Of course, then it's not any different than the rest of your life as a Christian, except maybe you actually pay attention to the mini-paschal mysteries that happen in your everyday life.

Mr. Man has a more literal approach. He thinks he's going to die. He mentioned it maybe four times yesterday. I choose to ignore him. (And we wonder why Jesus stayed single.)

Anyway, if Mr. Man lives, we're going to celebrate his Jesus Year with Burmese food and then spending the weekend in our birthday suits at a hippie hot springs. Like you do.

If you are feeling like sharing, please wish him a Happy Birthday in the comments, and/or tell us how you survived your Jesus Year. Any good death/resurrection to report?

Weekend of Mitigated Virtue

In a quasi-Lenten fashion, I decided I was going to try to do something good for the planet in honor of Earth Day. Not on the actual day mind you, since I was otherwise engaged (and I'll tell you about it soon), but I wanted to start a new practice going forward.

In order to save energy, I decided I'd hang all our laundry out to dry instead of using the dryer. Then, to reduce our use of non-recyclable plastic containers, I decided to start making our our yogurt. Mr. Man won't eat plain yogurt, so I put homemade jams and such in the bottom to tempt him.

(fig, peach, honey, and plum-apricot)

The yogurt making went pretty well, but I still have a few kinks to work out like making it thicker than the current buttermilk consistency. If I can conquer that, I think it will be a pretty easy thing to do from week to week.

So I was feeling pretty virtuous with all this yogurt-making-laundry-drying-back-to-the-earthiness.  Then this weekend Mr. Man and I discovered that not using our natural gas dryer saves us only about $1.00 worth of gas per month, which seems like not very much (gas, not money) to get worked up about.

So after a week of hauling laundry inside and out, chasing the chickens away from nesting in the clean stuff, and cursing when wet laundry fell off the line into dirt, I thought, "Eff it!" and decided to use the dryer. Which I promptly discovered no longer works.

Apparently the dryer enjoyed it's week off and patently disagrees with me about the intrinsic value of $1.00 worth of natural gas. So back to the laundry line I go. I am sure I will learn to love the crunchy towels.