Read irresponsibly...that's my shirt

Read something appalling. Read something offensive.




Idea from Cathy. Shirt from Unshelved.

Catherine of Siena

Today is her feast -- a doctor of the Church (but not a "father")! I want to be at a conversation between St. Paul and St. Catherine....

My favorite quote? If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.

I like Kathryn's, too: You are not called to perfection, but to infinite desire.

Which two saints would you like to eavesdrop on a conversation between?

Mad Skills

Crash - who turns 14 tomorrow - sleeps in a loft bed. It's annoying to get out of bed to turn off the lights once you've gotten nice and sleepy reading a book, and a parent can't always be induced to flip the switch for you.

Tonight he found a solution. A Nerf dart gun.

He's good. He gets a bullseye four out of five times - and pop, the lights go out. It is, as he would say, a mad skill.

Close the door

My next column is up at the Standard and Times. An unromantic approach to space for prayer...

There were only two fires, Mom

Barnacle Boy is extraordinarily competent in the kitchen, certainly for his age. Today he tried to make beef stew and yeast rolls for dinner while I was at a faculty meeting, and Beloved Babysitter was not here. As Math Man educationally put it, "he was beyond his zone of proximal development, without sufficient scaffolding."

The Boy understands that good stew begins with well browned meat, and this requires high heat. And flames. And oil. And...a small grease fire. Well, it doesn't need that last, but it happened. Twice.

I came home, with deli sandwich makings in hand, to a somewhat subdued Barnacle Boy. "I cried after each fire, Mom," he confessed. Reassured that he was still loved in spite of the incendiary experience, we undertook a post-mortem. The stew flambe, in fact, looked terrific, we put the dough in the 'fridge for a second rising and voila - dinner for tomorrow!

Prayer is a good thing. It may have kept my house from burning down.