Kasia June 16th, 2008
I don’t know the terms of fair use, so I don’t want to download the picture and post it here. However, I can e-mail it to you using The Knot’s software (the “share with a friend” kind of thing). SO - if you want to see the ugliest wedding cake ever, but don’t want to bother with a Knot membership, either put your cleverly-disguised e-mail into the combox or e-mail me at my cleverly-disguised e-mail, clamrampant at yahoo dot com.
Kasia June 14th, 2008
Don’t scrimp on your defense budget!
Even if you are a peaceful trading community/nation who wouldn’t dream of making war or pillaging resources, you just never know who out there will want what you have.
Kasia June 13th, 2008
I was on Facebook just now, and randomly searching names for people I might add to my Friends list. One of the names I ran, more or less for the heck of it, was that of a priest I know and love.
It came up with something called “Father [X] [Y] Fan Club”.
Huh.
I don’t doubt that the members of the Father X Y Fan Club are sincere, good Catholics and good people. And hey - on an unofficial basis, I guess I’m a fan of Fr. X Y, in that I think he’s a wonderful priest, an incredible teacher of the Faith, and a very good man.
But I’m just not sure about a “fan club”. Father X himself is always careful to remind people that he’s not the one who matters. Christ is.
Then again, maybe this is just a harmless way for people to communicate about an excellent teacher of the Faith. I often recommend his talks to people - in fact, I found myself doing that on a blog comment just last evening. Maybe this is just another way of doing that. And there are other priest fan clubs on Facebook (and only a few of them seem to be facetious).
Ah well. It’s not for me to sort out anyway.
Good night, all - I’m going to try to go back to sleep now.
Kasia June 12th, 2008
There’s a whole site devoted to ugly wedding cakes. I may have to send them that Knot link.
Kasia June 11th, 2008
What disturbs me most about it is not that someone apparently requested it and paid good money for it. That’s unsettling, but there have always been people with more money than taste.
No, what disturbs me about that is it isn’t part of a “What Not to Do” display. In other words, some joker at The Knot actually thought this cake merited positive attention.
The only positive thing I can say about it? Despite the fact that it looks like it might at any moment, it hadn’t collapsed on itself as of the time the picture was taken. Truly it is an engineering marvel akin to the Leaning Tower of Pisa…
…but a WHOLE LOT uglier!!!
Kasia June 11th, 2008
On why I might really be a Canadian at heart:
Gatorade has this yummy new formula that comes with a black and gray label. In the States, it appears to be marketed as Gatorade Tiger (as in Woods), and the flavor I like is called Red Drive. In Canada, it is marketed as Gatorade. The flavor is cherry.
On why I am probably not really a Canadian at heart:
This isn’t hard. Google “mark steyn” “human rights”.
Kasia June 9th, 2008
I’ve just found out from my good friends the DJs that Mrs. DJ has an enlarged pituitary gland, which may indicate the presence of a tumor. Said tumor, if it exists, may be controllable by medication, or it may require surgery.
In case you don’t know, the DJs are a singularly remarkable family with four children, three of whom are special-needs. They are also one of the most joyous and loving families I know - despite the constant din and the fact that you will never, ever get through even one brief story uninterrupted at their house, much less a conversation, I consistently walk out of a visit with Mr. and Mrs. DJ and their kids with a near-beatific smile and a strong sense of joy and purpose. They’re just amazing people.
So - if you would please pray for my dear friend Mrs. DJ, who is currently recovering from another, unrelated surgery, it would be greatly appreciated: by me and the Canuck, by Mr. and Mrs. DJ, and by all four DJ kids, who are some of the most-loved kids I know. (I’m telling you, all kids should be loved like this.)
Kasia June 5th, 2008
It would appear that I have found the proverbial fly in the bus-riding ointment.
As TBS will happily tell anyone who will listen, I am quite fair-skinned. (She calls it “pasty”.)
Now, many years ago I decided that that - ok, we’ll call it pastiness - that that pastiness was actually OK with me. Not that I don’t love and appreciate a wide variety of skin tones, mind you, but after a few flirtations with various alterations that ranged from mini-goth to wanna-be-Barbie, basically I decided that God knew best what I should look like. Much as I might like, oh, let’s just randomly pick something…much as I might like to have a more ample bosom, God didn’t just push the wrong button and make me an A. He isn’t up in Heaven saying “Oops, I meant to give her double-D…” So it was up to me to learn to like the way I look, not think about all the ways I might change it if I had unlimited surgery and cosmetic funding. (”So we’ve just given me a movie-star body, enhanced my chin, and given me hair implants for a lower forehead…Let’s talk color contact lenses!”)
No. He made me the way He wanted me. And as in all other areas, it’s up to me to conform to His will, not the other way around. (Some days are easier than others.)
So yeah. Ultimately I decided that if He wanted me to be an olive-skinned beauty, He would have had me be born to olive-skinned Southern Europeans, not my Polish-German-British forebears. If He wanted me to have gorgeous green eyes, He might have had me be born to parents with a few more recessive genes. And so forth.
And thus it was that I stopped intentionally tanning. It probably helped that I don’t like being hot, so laying out in the sun or in a tanning bed is singularly unpleasant for me.
However, I am above all other things fundamentally lazy when it comes to self-care. Make-up? Um…I could…but I’d just have to wash it off tonight, and put it on again tomorrow…My hair? What about it? I combed it - isn’t that good enough? (What?! You want it BRUSHED TOO?!?) I do brush my teeth consistently, but that’s mostly because I hate dental work, even cleanings, more than any other medical care I have ever received in my life.
So it’s not surprising that, despite being repeatedly chastised by doctors, particularly dermatologists, and despite my general preference for my natural (pasty) skin tone, I have been really careless about wearing sunblock for the past…forever.
But I’m getting married in eight months (eeek!), and while ideally I would like my skin to be its normal (pasty) color, I realize that’s unlikely based on my prior habits. And that’s OK. I just don’t want any NEW tanning, especially of the farmer’s variety.
So I’ve been diligently putting on sunblock in the morning for the bus ride out. Silly me, I thought that if my face was still greasy from it when I left work in the afternoon, that it was still working. Apparently not. Because when I looked in the mirror a little while ago, I had the distinct impression that I’m tanner than I was. I even compared my face to the skin around my eyes, and I’m pretty sure it’s darker. Standing out in the Michigan June sunshine is apparently taking its toll. Nertz.
Hopefully those savings I’m realizing by taking the bus aren’t completely offset by additional sunblock purchases… :-p
Kasia June 4th, 2008
I’m currently reading I Believe in Love, by Father Jean C.J. d’Elbée. I couldn’t not post this excerpt. It’s too good (and something of which I need to be too often reminded):
…I should like to ask you urgently, from now on, that you never let your past sins be an obstacle between you and Jesus. It is a ruse of the Devil to keep putting our sins before our eyes in order to make them like a screen between the Savior and us. Think of your past sins for your own humiliation or to persuade yourself once again of your weakness, of your unworthiness; think of them in order to find happiness in expiation, in order to confirm your firm resolution not to fall again - certainly that is necessary - but especially in order to bless Jesus for having pardoned you, for having purified you, for having cast all your sins to the bottom of the sea: Projiciet in profundum maris omnia peccata nostra. [Boldfaced emphasis mine; italics original]
Amen!
