The Clam Rampant

Kasia December 14th, 2007

I have next to no crafting ability. If gifts were left up to me in my natural state, everyone would get an unwrapped gift card and a heartfelt “Merry Christmas!”

However, as I told Monsignor this morning, I know what is expected of me as a woman. I am expected to come up with a thoughtful, heartwarming gift that beams sunshine and lollipops on everyone who beholds it, and to present it in a cute little gift bag or oh-so-creative handpainted mug or some such thing.

So here I am, putting together the little “thank you for doing your job” gift bags that our office is going to give to some key people who, if they chose to do their jobs poorly, would make our lives a living you-know-what. To help with the cuteness factor (and to pad the bottoms of the bags a little bit), I picked up a bag of Spanish moss.

No one has ever told me this. Perhaps they have never told you this either. So I am telling you now:

You might as well throw the stuff into a wood chipper that sprays little moss bits all over your office, because that’s essentially what happens.

Got it? Good.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find a gift that will appease the woman who cleans my office, because she’ll be vacuuming Spanish moss bits up for months. Somehow, I think her gift had better not include any Spanish moss; cuteness be d***ed.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(4)

Kasia December 13th, 2007

He’s trying so hard to tell Daddy that the baby has blood coming out of his mouth. It’s too cute for words, and you can’t really blame the dad for laughing, but…poor kid!!!

• Uncategorized
• Comments(4)

Kasia December 13th, 2007

My mother and I have had a less-than-harmonious relationship in the past. The main reasons our relationship is fairly harmonious today are that (a) we’ve both had a lot of therapy, and (b) she lives two thousand miles away. Oh, don’t misunderstand. I love her dearly. But we are too alike in some ways and too different in others. It’s a recipe for trouble.

Last night she called me, having just gotten back from her holiday cruise, and we chatted a bit. Then I mentioned that The Canuck and I had set the wedding date. She got very excited and started writing it down. Then she realized that she is supposed to be going to France in May of 2009. She isn’t sure of the exact dates; it’s a group tour with her chorus, so she’s going to call the director and find out.

I have to admit, I was pretty taken aback when I heard that. I immediately launched into a mental struggle on how to feel about it. On the one hand, part of me thought I should’ve checked her schedule before setting the date. On the other hand, she’s pretty hard to nail down, I had no idea she was even contemplating a trip to France, and our options at the church were pretty limited (nothing during Lent; nothing during the Easter octave; the next two weekends are blocked off for Confirmation; the next weekend is Mother’s day, with the accompanying high flower prices; and if we go past the 16th we’re looking at Memorial Day and then being practically into June). Part of me said that the Christian response would be to offer to change the date; part of me said that she could darned well arrange to be in town for her youngest daughter’s wedding if it was important enough to her, and if it wasn’t, then tough toenails. You get the idea.  :-p

In fairness, she concluded the conversation by reassuring me that she would be there even if it meant missing the trip to France. But I was left with the residual “AAAUGH!” feeling of a little girl whose mommy isn’t coming to her recital.

So I decided it was time to make a list of things for which I’m grateful. Enough thinking about how my mother didn’t do this or that when I was a child; now I will focus on the positive, on all of the blessings I have in my life:

1. My parents are both still alive, and are likely to live to see the wedding. And the Canuck’s mother is still with us, as is his grandmother. Those are huge blessings.

2. My father, for all his faults, has always demonstrated a self-sacrificial love for me (and at least from my perspective, for my siblings). Despite the fact that he doesn’t believe in God, or in Jesus, he has modeled Christ’s sacrificial love in many ways throughout my life; and it was when I consciously started looking for a man who reminded me of my father’s best qualities that I found the Canuck. I have never been happier with anyone.

3. Despite her faults, my mother has tried her best to remedy her previous shortcomings; and any areas in which she failed, she did not fail out of apathy.

4. Related to that, despite the fact that they’re both flawed (as are we all), I do not have any serious reason to doubt that either of my parents love me, each to the best of their ability.

5. Inasmuch as they fall short (and we all do), I have a Father in Heaven who loves me perfectly; and I have a Blessed Mother who loves me as well.

Thanks be to God.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(3)

Kasia December 12th, 2007

I am sure this will be the first of a long series of posts.

The Canuck and I have set our date: May 16, 2009. The church is booked. Our priests (yes, that’s plural) are booked, barring unforeseeable disasters. We’ve more or less settled on where we want the reception to be, and are physically scouting out the site this weekend; if it passes muster, we’ll sit down with the manager and hammer out details. We’ve selected and asked our prospective attendants, and they’ve all said yes.

Let’s see, what else…My dear friend Jill has already agreed to help us with the planning. We’re starting marriage prep as soon as we get the letter from the parish marriage coordinator, giving us the name and contact information of the guy we do the first part with. We’ve already talked to the immigration lawyer, and are starting to collect documentation to send to the INS. (Any of you who know us personally, consider yourselves fair game to be asked for an affidavit.)

With all this already in place, I, being me, needed something to worry and obsess about. So last night I ordered our cake serving set.  :-p

Hey, it was on clearance on weddingchannel.com, and even if we end up wrapping the handles in some kind of ribbon (depending on particulars of the decor that aren’t determined yet), it’s still darned cheap! Including UPS ground shipping, it was less than $15! And really, what’s the worst that can happen? I end up hating it and sell it on eBay. Big whoop. 

** UPDATE ** With that taken care of, I found myself thinking about toasting flutes. At first everything I could find was just too precious for words: ribbons and taffeta and Precious Moments figurines ad nauseam. I even found heart-shaped flutes, and a set that fit together into a heart shape. If that floats your boat, fine; but the Canuck and I like to keep things simple.

Then I found them. The perfect toasting flutes for us. And best part, they’re reasonable! I saw sets that were forty, fifty, sixty dollars plus personalizing and shipping. Thirty-three plus shipping sounds good to me!

** SECOND UPDATE ** I have The Canuck’s approval to order the toasting flutes come payday. Now I need to show him the guest book and pen I found… :-p

• Uncategorized
• Comments(2)

Kasia December 5th, 2007

When folks try to win an argument by inserting the word “objectively” into what is, by any evidence shown previously in the argument, a subjective statement.

Examples:

“The Rosary is objectively the best prayer.”

“The extraordinary form of the Mass (or the ordinary, for that matter) is objectively superior to the ordinary (or extraordinary) form.” (I haven’t actually seen anyone use the paranthetical version of the statement, but it would irk me just as much as the other.)

You might as well say “Vanilla is objectively the best ice cream flavor” or “Coke is objectively superior to Pepsi.”

That’s not to say that the person may not be correct. Maybe the Rosary really is “objectively” the best prayer you can pray. Maybe the TLM really is “objectively” more holy than the Novus Ordo. But simply saying it doesn’t make it so. Capisce?
To clarify, that does not include statements like “Masturbation is objectively a mortal sin.” Talking about mortal sin pretty well presupposes a Catholic context, and according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, masturbation is “objectively” a mortal sin. And since I am convinced that the Catholic Church’s teachings are true, I accept that statement. I also accept that someone who is, say, atheist will not accept the statement. It doesn’t make them right; it doesn’t make the statement untrue. But I understand that an atheist is unlikely to accept the notion of sin at all, much less mortal and venial and that masturbation qualifies; and it’s my job as a Catholic to try to convince them otherwise.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(18)

Kasia December 5th, 2007

I like doing monthly resolutions instead of (or in addition to) annual resolutions. It makes it a little more palatable to do baby steps, which in turn makes it more likely that things will stick.

For December, I am making three resolutions, each dealing with a separate area of my life:

- Spiritual. I will try to spend 15 minutes each work day with the Blessed Sacrament.

- Physical. I will try to cleanse and moisturize my face once per day (not just smear on some Ivory in the shower).

- Domestic. I will try to spend at least 5 minutes per day cleaning, decluttering, or tidying my home.

On a largely unrelated note, can I just say I hope we never go back to life without Internet shopping? I’ve done almost all of my Christmas shopping, and have yet to set foot in a store to do it. I’ll have to hit a few stores (for example, I’m buying my dad a bottle of Canadian Club - hey, I know he’ll use it, and it doesn’t matter if he’s already got some), but I seriously can accomplish 80 or 90 percent of my shopping via Amazon, Leaflet Missal, eBay, and of course online donation sites for the people who are impossible to shop for. Like my seven-and-five-year-old nieces, who get such an unbelievable gift bonanza as it is that nothing in my price range will even show up on their little radars. Seriously, if you were five years old and you got (among other things) a pink plastic toy electric guitar and a Britney Spears-type sequin suit, would Play-Doh really make an impression? I didn’t think so. So I give their parents an opportunity to tell them that there are less-fortunate people in the world, and even in their metropolitan area.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(4)

Kasia December 3rd, 2007

Yesterday’s Gospel dealt with how we do not know the day or the hour when the Lord will return. Thus we must always be ready.

I have to admit, much as I’ve grown to like our pastor, I didn’t much care for his homily on the topic. It wasn’t bad, but I came away from it feeling like if ever I take a day off and rest - even a Sabbath, mind you - that the Lord is going to come back and refuse me entry into Heaven because I was wearing sweatpants and a beat-up tee shirt.

Now, it’s not like he said that. Communication is a funny thing that way.  The text of his homily was more or less irreproachable, but I still came away thinking “I am SO doomed!” So in fairness, it’s got a lot more to do with me than it does with him.

Anyway, this morning I was checking out the blog circuit, and noticed that Michelle had a very good post up about her pastor’s homily, which I actually found much more helpful.

Of course I need to be working on the balance she describes. I’m nowhere near being like St. Dominic Savio. But what she describes sounds reasonable: always doing what I should be doing. Including a healthy amount of leisure - after all, the Lord gave us a day of rest.

Like her - like everyone! - I have much area for improvement. I think I will start by finishing this post, finishing my lunch, and getting back to work.

Thanks, Michelle, for posting that.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(4)