It sucks to be the water table around here right now…
Kasia June 25th, 2008
Well, not as badly as in, say, Iowa. In fact, all things considered, we’re doing quite well here in southeastern Michigan. You know, apart from the near-collapse of the domestic automotive sector and the resultant economic chaos that’s wreaked.
No, natural-disaster-wise we do pretty doggone well. We get tornadoes from time to time, but nothing like they get on the prairies. We get an occasional tiny tremor, but if you even notice it, you usually think that a big truck just went by. We did have some flooding out in Clinton Township what, last year? But all in all, pretty good.
I’m really just taking a bit of a dig at myself. I live quite close to Lake St. Clair (hel-LO, fish flies!), and for some reason, presumably having to do with the waste-water treatment infrastructure, my condo association asks us not to do laundry when it’s raining.
Except that I am about out of work-appropriate clothes that I can bring myself to wear. And I stayed home from our parish novena tonight to do laundry, so that I can dress appropriately when I go tomorrow (and read the Scripture reflection, eek!).
Speaking of reading the Scripture reflection, the verses I’ve been asked to read are from one of the Gospels (specifically Luke 11:9-13). I know that within the context of the Mass only a priest or deacon with faculties should proclaim the Gospel. Does anyone have any particular knowledge of whether it’s appropriate for me, as a laywoman, to read from the Gospel from the ambo at a parish devotion like that? (Friendly neighborhood canon lawyer, I would surely appreciate it if you were to pipe up on this…)
Kasia,
I understand this novena is not in the context of Holy Mass. As long as you are not preaching the homily during Holy Mass after the reading of the Gospels you can speak from the ambo.
Catholic Exchange recently posted an article from a Canon Lawyer about this. Oddly the article is no longer available on the site, so I reposted it here: http://sites.google.com/site/mikethetechguy2/whomaypreach
Catholic Exchange has reposted the “Who May Preach?” article here: http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/06/26/112933/
I couldn’t see any differences between this version and the original.
My property is technically on a “flood plain.” Which technically means that people owning such property are not allowed to terraform their yard, since we have a little creek and the contouring feeds that, yada yada. Whatever. Now, my lovely neighbors (2 behind me and 1 on the one side) have decided that this little dip in the yard is quite inconvenient to them, so they have decided to import a billion tons of dirt and elevate their terrain. So, when it rains, Lake Onnawanna forms in my back yard (short for Onnawanna Lake there! Who decided to put a lake there?!?).
Options are to either:
A) Suck it up and live with Lake Onnawanna
B) Give in to the terraforming peer pressure and conform, while shelling out the megabucks
C) Call the city, rat them all out, and see what happens as a result — probably just a fine, and my house will be vandalized or something for all eternity — we have a code in the “Slums of Troy,” kinda like the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. It’s called, “Mind Your Own Business If You Know What’s Good For You.” I respect that. Because I’m sure that I would be found in violation of *some* regulation, if the city ordinance police were called in to scrutinize me. And who wants to live like that? I suppose if I did, I would have chosen to live in a community where even though you own the property, you still agree to abide by community guidelines, and perhaps even pay association fees. I don’t have the time to measure my grass, to make sure that it is less than 1.5 inches, etc.
Ah, the joys of homeownership….
Thanks, Michael.
Jaibee - about half of our complex is technically in the flood plain as well. Mercifully, my unit is not - I SO don’t want to pay for flood insurance on top of everything else.
And I don’t think you need to actually measure your grass. I think the lawn mower setting should say how long your grass is - as long as you mow regularly, that should do it.
Mow? Regularly? And here I was contemplating just buying a goat or a sheep or something…. Installing strategic tether points…. Installing an inground pool and pouring in that rubberized concrete over the rest of the yard and making it a place to play basketball and volleyball and whatnot (around the trampoline, of course)….
“I wanna be a goat! I wanna be a goat!”
Volleyball is much more fun on grass or sand than it could ever be on concrete, silly!
Unrelated to the post topic– thank you greatly for the blogroll.
*grin*
*Adds to blog reading list*
Kasia, thanks for the memories! When I lived in Warren and worked in Troy, every heavy storm turned driving into a flume ride. I stalled my car on two non-consecutive occasions and had to wait a day for the engine compartment to dry out.
Maybe we should set up a volleyball net this year in my backyard?
Would you come over and play?