All I Want for Christmas Is ...

... a really great calendar. (Though, truth be told, I'm a calendar junkie ...) Order this one, and see more photos of it, at Confessions of a Pioneer Woman.

And, now, if you'll excuse me ...

A Glass of Rioja by Edward B. Gordon

I'm off to do some Thanksgiving cooking and celebrating all the many things that I am so thankful for, including every single person who stops by here.

I Leave Footprints. How About You?

Mama T asks:

How many of us write notes in our books? Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?

She is a Preservationist but, luckily for me, Smock Mama takes notes in books so I'm not alone. I used to feel terrible about writing in books but got over it. This is usually marking paragraphs or sections of interest, especially in any theology books I have on hand. Otherwise I'd never find anything again.

Praying for the Souls in Purgatory

During November the Church especially prays for all who are in the purifying fires of Purgatory, waiting for the day when they will join the company of the saints in heaven. We are getting toward the end of the month but I wanted to direct everyone to The Lion and the Cardinal where Daniel Mitsui has been unearthing some truly amazing art to help us keep that prayer goal in mind by focusing as he says "on the appropriately morbid." Above is one of the more eerie and striking examples but there is also the very beautiful to be found as seen below. Do go look around through his November posts.

Joe's Old Clothes

Joe had not been a sight. When Admiral Twiss took Kissy to him, he was lying peacefuly in the grass. Kizzy held the Admiral's hand.

Nat came out, took Kizzy's other hand, and together the three of them stood looking at the big still body, at Joe's head with the white blaze on his nose, his eyelashes -- Nat had closed his eyes -- his great legs and mighty hooves that were split and grey -- it was a long while since he had worn shoes. His bay coat still shone. Nat had given it many a rubbing. Joe seemed as if he were asleep, but a deep, deep sleep.

Kizzy went nearer. "Careful," said Nat. "He's getting stiff."

"Will -- will the knacker, the hounds, get him now?"

"They can't," said Admiral Twiss.

"Can't?" Kizzy's head came up.

"Joe's safe," said the Admiral, "because this isn't Joe. He's not here."

Kizzy broke from him and put her hand to Joe's nose, not touching. "He doesn't huff," she said.

"Of course not. He isn't there."

Kizzy looked at the Admiral as if weighing what he had said and put her hand again to Joe. "The warm is gone."

"Yes." Admiral Twiss came to her and gently touched Joe's body. "This is just his old clothes, Kiz. He doesn't need them any more."

"Where is he?"

Mrs. Blount might have said, "In the horse's heaven," but Admiral Twiss was plainer. "We don't know. Nobody knows, but I believe we shall find out."

"When we're dead?"

"Perhaps. It seems to make sense, doesn't it?" said the Admiral. "If Joe isn't here, he must be somewhere. Come. We'll leave his body to Nat."

Rumer Godden, The Diddakoi

What do you think people are?

"I never know how to place Olivia Brooke," Mrs. Cuthbert had to admit. It was annoying as usually, given half an hour, she had people clearly and properly labelled, "As if we were all tidy glass jars," said Miss Brooke.

"Glass jars? I never said that." Mrs. Cuthbert was nettled. "And what do you think people are?"

"More like caves to explore," said Miss Brooke. "Mysterious caves. One never gets to the end of them."

The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden

Even in a children's book, she just hits that nail on the head.

Rose and Friends Give Beowulf Six Thumbs Down ... Way Down

Overall, I found Beowulf to be like the product of multiple personality disorder. Sometimes it wants to be taken seriously; sometimes it seems to aspire to be little more than a cartoon. I guess I’d describe it as uneven. There are scenes, like the dragon fight near the end, that are visually spectacular. Other scenes, like the fight with Grendel (in which a running gag is the number of ways a nude Beowulf’s privates are obscured by foreground objects), seem pointlessly contrived.

Past the Popcorn review

This sounds like a synopsis of Roses diatribe of faults for this movie.

It also probably doesn't help that her Literature class just finished reading the book. They said that they managed to wait until the end credits before bursting out laughing. A favorite mocking point was turning the sea hag (Grendel's mother) into a luscious babe (Angelina Jolie).

This is the same girl who, after seeing The Count of Monte Cristo starring Jim Caviezel, stretched and said, "The book, the sandwich, the movie ... all completely different and yet I love them all." So we know it isn't the lack of accuracy she's objecting to (at least not wholly ...).

Getting better with age

Age is a strictly limited reference in terms of the current television season, of course. Moonlight and Journeyman, however, have been quite rewarding in terms of beginning character development and complications that form a larger story arc than a simple story that lasts one show. (Please keep in mind that we're running a week or so behind on everything, due to our extreme work schedule and Rose's plethora of special projects for school.)

Moonlight remains largely a romance (which is just fine with Rose and me, natch!) but suddenly has a much needed layer of depth and interest with the addition of his former wife who somehow has become human after he thought he had killed her (when she was a vampire ... oh, it's complicated folks!).

Journeyman has not only the complications of simply disappearing into the past and trying to figure out what he's supposed to do, but that of constantly running into the sweetheart he thought long dead, and of a brother who has an understandable lack of faith in him (due to a heavy duty previous gambling problem). Oh, and then there's the mysterious think-tank professor who keeps showing up with comments about tachyons and quartz (both supposedly good for time travel) and shows no surprise at all when Dan suddenly disappears into time practically in front of his eyes.

If they begin running reruns due to the writers strike, give them a try (not that Moonlight would be that difficult to pick up now ... Journeyman, on the other hand, is getting to the point where you are having to factor in past hints to keep up with current developments).

A Beautiful Tribute Framed Around the Hail Mary

This has some of my favorite art of Mary and Jesus highlighted. From Love to Be Catholic.

"God's the ultimate scientist ..."

Via First Things' good article about Stephen Colbert comes this classic moment of truth.

... bioethicist Lee Silver from Princeton visited the show. Colbert told him he believed that science and spirituality could go hand in hand and that all people, embryos included, have souls. Silver begged to differ. He told Colbert that, in the shower, we scrub off thousands of skin cells every day, and that the cells on his arm are human life in the same way that embryos are. To which Colbert responded: “If I let my arm go for a while and didn’t wash it, you’re saying I’d have babies on my arm.”

Click on the link in the quote to see the 5 minute clip from the show. Colbert doesn't give an inch and sets a good example. There's a Simpsons ad first but its short.

"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

The Dark Knight

Click through above for the first trailer for the sequel to Batman Begins. I have a feeling we're going to see a whole new side of Heath Ledger as The Joker.

Courtesy and Respect

Rose and I were talking this weekend about something that Hannah has mentioned before as well ... the fact that Tom's father was a true gentleman. Both have brought this up more than once and it is a true tribute to a man who was a gentleman no matter how he felt on a subject. You could not doubt it if he disagreed with you but he did it with such politeness.

Good manners depended on paying moral attention to others; it required one to treat them with complete moral seriousness, to understand their feelings and their needs.

... How utterly shortsighted we had been to listen to those who thought that manners were a bourgeois affectation, an irrelevance, which need no longer be valued. A moral disaster had ensued, because manners were the basic building block of a civil society. They were the method of transmitting the messege of moral consideration.

In this way an entire generation had lost a vital piece of the moral jigsaw and now we saw the results: a society in which nobody would help, nobody would feel for others; a society in which aggressive language and insensitivity were the norm.

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

This goes hand in hand with respect, actually for both sexes, but what Hannah and Rose have gone on to discuss after good manners is that Grandpa respected women and showed it by treating them with courtesy. They both long for and admire guys who treat them in this way. Certainly, that is usually mentioned when they talk about qualities they want in the man they will marry.

John C. Wright wrote about this just last week. Go read it all but here is a bit for you.

I am the only person I know who stands up when a woman enters the room, the only one who offers women my chair when the room is full. I am not bragging, I am complaining. It is so wrong that it should be this way. Courtesy should be unnoticed; it should be a background detail; it should be subliminal.

Courtesy should be like an aura: an invisible field surrounding every man, so that when she steps near, she turns into a lady in his eyes. Why? You put a woman in a culture where every man gives off unconscious and unselfconscious signs of respect for womanhood, your young women will naturally absorb an impression that their femininity is worthy of respect. You put a woman in a culture were every man gives off the unconscious signs of hostility all men feel for rivals and the contempt for eunuchs, your young women will absorb an impression that their pseudo-masculinity is worthy of disrespect. Women of low self esteem and weak willpower are easier for ruthless Lotharios to victimize. It is merely a matter of economics: what men hold at low esteem, they value lightly. That is true for self-esteem as for other estimations of value.

Grandpa had that aura and my girls picked up on it without anyone ever mentioning it. It is too bad that they noticed it because it is such a rare commodity. However, at least they have had his example and know what to look for.

Of course, the flip side of this is that women should show men the respect and courtesy they deserve, first and foremost by stopping showing men in ads, movies and television as "fat, sloppy, stupid, lazy, sex-obsessed and unable to function without the help of the fit, very together, stylish, driven, educated and sex-sensible woman." That quote is from The Anchoress' son Buster and for more on that subject do go read her wise post on the subject.

But no matter how stupid young men are in these ads, or sitcoms, their fathers are always stupider, and in some commercials, both parents are completely vapid and need to be set straight by their lecturing, Superior Lifeforce Children.

“Don’t buy stuff from those advertisers,” Buster would tell me. “Don’t patronize businesses that make men look like bums and idiots. I’m all for women and girls being portrayed respectfully, but I’m tired of it being at the expense of men. And don’t buy stuff that uses kids to lecture at you.”

This is a trend we have followed with dismay in our household. As Hannah and Rose will tell you, they need not take classes in evaluating media or advertising. We've always been the sort who are interested in the "subtle messages" of all media and they have absorbed that as they grew up. So for those guys out there who understand about treating women with respect and courtesy, we're sending a couple of girls who understand about treating respectfully in return.

Thank You to Our Veterans

In great appreciation of your suffering and sacrifices on our behalf, thank you to veterans as well as to those who are serving now.

Coming Soon ...

Mark Windsor is turning the raft around to chart a new course in a different current of the Tiber. (Wow, that confused even me. He's changing direction slightly on his blog.)

Over time, I’ve come to see the Bible itself as the raft. What other raft could there possibly be? The Bible is our common language and common heritage, the God-breathed gift that all should know and love. To that end, this site will be rededicated to a bible-based understanding of Catholicism. I certainly am not the first to do this, and I’ll likely not be the last, but I hope that visitors will find something unique here anyway.

In addition, I really hope that this new format will be of serious interests to Catholics as well as potential converts. Why? Well, the simple fact is that many Catholics really are biblically illiterate. This is through no fault of their own – modern Catholic catechesis is pretty miserable in general, and particularly when we talk about the Bible. But I’ve recently noticed a real hunger amongst Catholics that want to understand the Bible more deeply.

Read more here. It will be a couple of weeks before he's got it up and running but I look forward to this direction. There are plenty of people out there who have questions about Catholicism that would be interested in seeing where the scriptural base is. While listening to the Understanding the Scriptures podcast I have been blown away time after time seeing various Church teachings threaded throughout the Old Testament. (I'm still working my way through, being on episode 17.) I can't wait to see what Mark writes (but then, I'm a fan).

Theme for the Day: Guilt

Lois: For crying out loud, that's no monster, that's your conscience. Be thankful God gave you one. It's a gift. And you know what most people do with theirs? They keep 'em in the closet all year, and only bring it out when they think he's coming to visit. You're not like that. Good for you.

Malcolm in the Middle

Over neglecting a dear daughter

Over not reading a review book

Ah, guilt. The Catholic's friend ...

Pet moments ...

This morning, I was letting Daffy (our boxer) eat the oatmeal off the serving spoon. Of course, it is stuck onto the bowl of the spoon in such a way that she can't lick it off and she doesn't have long enough teeth to really bit it off. Though she's trying. After a while I started laughing. She stopped for a second, looked up at me and began wagging, then went back to her attempts still wagging. Yes, we were laughing together at the absurdity of it all.

So I am calling the other dog to help with this oatmeal treat. He never hears me. The cat, however, sits down ready for her share. I tell her, "You will hate this." She looks calmly at me, "I will love it." So I am going to prove it by giving her a bit off my finger. She sniffs, delicately tastes, then yanks off a bit and takes it away to savor. And came back for seconds. Dang. She was right.

(And yes this post is for Hannah ... and any other random pet lovers out there...)

Ok, you know what I really hate?

When I am so lost in thought but also determined to push ahead with my routine so that I get to work.

And then I wash my hair (in the kitchen sink as is my wont ... really short hair, y'all) ... but never brought my towel into the kitchen.

I am telling you, my hair may be short but there is no way a kitchen towel wraps around my head!

Reading Right Now ...

All are highly recommended.

Sucker Punch by Marc Strange
This book grabbed me right from the beginning. A hardboiled detective novel, it is told by Joe Grundy, a former prize fighter, who is the head of hotel security for the Lord Douglas Hotel in Vancouver. A hippie inherits billions of dollars and his plans to give the money away to anyone who asks, a hundred dollars at a time, is a threat to the people running the trust which used to receive the money. Naturally, he stays at the hotel and is killed. Grundy must track down the killer to clear one of his security men of murder charges. I am a sucker for these hard boiled detectives as y'all know and Strange writes characters just enough out of the ordinary without being annoyingly quirky. I'm about halfway through and it is a page turner.

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross
This is the sequel to Stross' The Atrocity Archives. The premise puts me in mind of Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos stories about an alternate reality where werewolves and witches are the norm. In this scenario there are numerous parallel universes, some of which contain extremely hostile alien entities who would like to reach through any open portals and wreak havoc. They often reach our world through the inadvertent use of complex math, which we know as "magic." Bob Howard is a computer nerd assigned by the Laundry (secret British agency) to contain these incidents. Along the way he encounters exotic women and situations while saving the world. Call it "Chuck" meets "Operation Chaos." Entertaining and often highly humorous. I'm also about halfway through this one.

The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ by Lee Strobel
My current "serious" book. Lee Strobel visits various scholars and experts in order to take a closer look at six modern challenges to traditional Christianity's understanding of Jesus. The Amazon summary of the challenges:

• A different Jesus is seen in ancient documents that seem as credible as the four canonical gospels
  
• Tampering by the church has damaged the Bible's portrayal of Jesus
• New explanations refute Jesus' resurrection
• Christianity copied pagan religions regarding Jesus
• Jesus didn't fulfill messianic prophecies
• Contemporary people should be able to choose what to believe about Jesus

As always, Strobel approaches this from the angle of an investigative reporter, though I, for one, could do without his sudden seeming doubt in his faith. He seems to begin every book this way and if he hasn't come to a personal relationship with Jesus then the guy has a bigger problem than The Gospel of Thomas. However, that is a small quibble and it comes from one who is a fan of his other books (my review of Case for a Creator).

Strobel always provides a good overview of any topic with plenty of references so that the reader can do their own digging in the direction that intrigues them most. This book is no exception and I was particularly interested in the look at pagan religions versus Christianity since that is an argument I had never heard refuted. This book would be an excellent gift to that person who is always bringing up the current day objections to Christianity. (Yes, I have a couple in mind.) I'm about two-thirds of the way through this one.

I Think Baby Gabriel Has a Very Special Destiny

Mrs Jones learned she was expecting twins when she was ten weeks pregnant. She said: "When they told us we were over the moon."

But at her 20-week scan, doctors had some devastating news. One of the boys was half the size of his brother.

They didn't know what was causing it, but somehow he wasn't getting enough nutrients.

Then doctors said his heart was three times normal size and it was likely he would have a heart attack or a stroke in the womb.

Mrs Jones said: "They told us that if he died, it could be life threatening for his brother.

"We had to decide whether to end his life and let his brother live, or risk them both."

They said it would be impossible to keep him alive afterwards as he was so poorly.

It would be kinder to let him die in the womb with his brother by his side than to die alone after being born.

"That made my mind up for me. I wanted the best thing for him."

Ironically, it looks as if the doctors' attempts to kill Gabriel were what contributed toward saving his life. Read the whole story here. (This story has been all over the place but I just got time to post it ...)

The Really Good, Really Long, Really Exhausting Weekend ...

The wedding is over. It was wonderful, the bride was gorgeous (she'd look gorgeous in a potato sack so in all her finery she was a real knock out), the groom quietly beaming (think a young Kyle Chandler look alike). And we all partied like there was no tomorrow. Well, most people did. We were Grandma's hosts (Tom's mom) and she doesn't stay out until 3:00 in the morning like everyone else (can we all say Thank You Lord here?).

The best news of all was that there was a final family gathering at our place Sunday afternoon at the end of which Grandma decided that she was going to move to Dallas (she and Steve and Dan had earlier toured Caruth Haven's assisted living). When pressed for a deadline, she thought that before Christmas would be nice. WOOHOO!

This is what everyone has been working toward. The family nucleus has moved to Dallas. She was practically alone in Houston except for her sister and one brother who has his own young family and can't devote himself to checking on her all the time. Grandma is already planning what to keep and what to give away.

Although that only gives us a month to get her packed up and moved ... but we have champion organizers in this family and I believe this will happen by December 15. What great good news (I just had to say that again!).

More later, I'm sure...