It must be contagious

Izzy and I went to the movies tonight, came home to watch previously taped episodes of The Office and Scrubs, and began to wind down our evening.

I remembered that this show airs on Tuesday, and went to look for it. Drat -- not posted yet!

If you get a chance, check out The Band's Visit. Sweet, nicely (artfully) shot, slice of life story. There is a great Cyrano de Bergerac inspired scene in a roller rink that had us laughing out loud. Other bits were poignant, revealing and the sort of thing where you just look at the scene and know so much about what happened before (likely many, many times before.)

Preview clip, if I've done the pasting correctly.

First (completely)Yacs Baby

Congrats to the Proud Parents of Erin Rita Barnette. If memory serves, her mom & dad met at a young adult Catholic Sunday Brunch, so that group can happily claim some part in the creation of this little adorable girl.

Noon-time Note: I've edited the title, after realizing last night, in the brief moment of clarity that often precedes falling asleep, that previous members of both iterations of our area's local young adult Catholic group have become parents. This was just the first one, to my knowledge, where a YACs function was the inciting incident. The group has re-formed with "young adult" leadership; check out my brother from another mother's blog for details. Maybe they will help incite a similar blessed outcome.

Prom Pics

Just a few...



The theme was Masquerade.


Girls spent a lot of time shopping for those shoes, and plenty of $$ buying them.


And they put the shoes back on when it was time to go...


The tuxes got tossed, as well.


Cutest matching couple, IMHO.


We're ready to go home now. They never played a slow dance, and we're not really up on the hip hop moves.

Kenny Chesney was playing nearby -- kids would stroll over to see the fireworks, then go back to the dancing.

We'll get the official picture later on. I'm pretty happy with the new frock.

Quiet Sunday

Garrison Keilor has quiet weeks in Lake Wobegone; I'm finally feeling a bit of a break this morning. A quick check shows that the little sea monster (Bocephas Saliva) hasn't arrived yet (she's likely here by now, Daddy just hasn't blogged her arrival yet, so it's not real to the rest of the world.)

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Update: She's here! (and very cute)
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I've started an upload of pictures to Flickr from last night's prom. Afterwards, I'll add to the sets from the gala last weekend (separate blog to come) and post on any other pictures of interest.

At this point, though, Izzy will be home from church in just under two hours (if previous patterns hold), and there needs to be dinner. I'm planning to make a scrumptious onion pie with some Vidalias. If the recipe's any good, we'll post it as well.

Lots of plans -- let's see what we actually get done before the Jane Austen folks arrive for the Bollywood version of Sense & Sensibility: "I have found it."

Pope TV

Izzy left me a message this afternoon that he was at church watching "Pope TV." I headed over to join him after work (we don't get EWTN on our basic cable) and saw the end of Vespers and the entire speech with follow-up questions. Good stuff, that I'll need to digest (or read others' comments on.) Nice crowd, including Bro. Mattheus and featuring BOGO wine.

We've now just watched Colbert's excitement about the Papal visit. Happy Bday in Latin (not Izzy's classical pronunciation...)

In between? All Creatures Great and Small (while I typed the bulletin & updated the website.) We've just finished the original All Creatures series via Netflix. I just didn't feel up to the Dems debate tonight. The last one I watched (was it February? I know I was on the road) just felt unpleasant. Maybe that's inevitable when you're down to two candidates -- it's not like anyone (Edwards? Gravel?) is left to triangulate... So we watched "nice TV."

More Pope TV after work tomorrow (likely via the interweb.) I'll be in SQL training all day. Ora pro mea.

Baby Watch, Muffins

We're watching the Mrs. Pritcher blog for baby news. Until "she-whose-name-will-not-be-revealed" arrives, check out the joke at the end of this post.

Then try to NOT tell it to the next three people you see.

Landing

I just watched the Holy Father land in Dc, exit the plane and walk past the crowds to a meeting with the President. There are tears on my shirt and skirt -- gotta get composed before walking out of my office. You'd not think that watching an old guy taking a walk would do this to me...

Looking forward to as much coverage as I can get bandwidth to watch.

Mildly Famous

Izzy is fond of quoting Momus' variation on Andy Warhol's comment that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. The new version states (and the blogosphere proves) that everyone can be famous for 15 people.

I may be hitting my 15 person limit soon, having sort of added two people today. I logged into the myspace account I have to keep up with my siblings and nephews. On one child's page, I saw that he had changed his profile pic to one I took of him last Saturday. He hadn't wanted to pose, but was OK for me to shoot him while he played his drums.



The further interesting bit was when I saw that one of his buddies, whom I've only met once (last Saturday), had also snagged one of my pics for his profile. I'll admit that when I snapped this one, I remarked that this is why I wanted an SLR.



Both of these are straight out of the camera (soft focus had been left on accidentally.) The rest of the set shows I'm still on the learning curve, but isn't it a fun process?

Giving and Taking, Taking and Bringing

Or, times in my weekend when I am reminded of Pritcher...

Izzy and I got up earlier than usual for a Saturday and went out to do our civic duty at the Red Cross.

We GAVE blood, then we came home and TOOK naps.
We TOOK plastic bags back to the store for recycling and BROUGHT home groceries and adult beverages.

Give is the opposite of take, but I'm not sure how take and bring are related. They are often used synonymously, so I should be able to substitute one for the other... (Do you take someone to the doctor or bring them? Do you take a casserole to a shut-in or bring one?)

• Take is the opposite of give.
• Take equals bring?
• Therefore, bring is the opposite of give? Does a balanced life require a bit of "give and bring?"

I'm going to go bring a break and consult Fowlers.

Character

Whilst browsing Slate.com, I came across this teaser for an article:

The Great McCain Story You've Probably Forgotten
What an old anecdote about Mo Udall in the hospital reveals about McCain's character.

The article on Slate.com is from a 1997 New York Times magazine profile of John McCain, who was known more at that time for McCain-Feingold than for any presidential aspirations.

A snippet:

For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. These days the trip is a ceremony, like going to church, only less pleasant. Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall's favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona's most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona's most influential
Democrat.

One wall of Udall's hospital room was cluttered with photos of his family back in Arizona; another bore a single photograph of Udall during his season with the Denver Nuggets, dribbling a basketball. Aside from a congressional seal glued to a door jamb, there was no indication what the man in the bed had done for his living. Beneath a torn gray blanket on a narrow hospital cot, Udall lay twisted and disfigured. No matter how many times McCain tapped him on the shoulder and called his name, his eyes remained shut.

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. "He's not going to wake up this time," McCain said.

I don't spend a lot of time talking politics on this blog, but now that roundball is over, there's little else going on this weekend. This story, though, reminds me of the visit to my father's hospital room by a politician who was on his way to what portended to be a contentious debate. He'd heard about the dismal diagnosis we'd gotten the previous day (glioblastoma), and stopped by to see Dad, taking over an hour to talk and pray with his friend of 40+ years. Only as he left, did we (Izzy and I were there) find out about the debate, in a venue 80+ miles away. He never seemed hurried or distracted. There was no net gain in voters available from this visit, and no trailing news crew to film the guy's humanity. But a grateful daughter saw tangible evidence of the esteem in which her father was held and that was enough.

Go read the article. Resolve to do something for the forgotten people of whom you are aware.

Pie are round, cornbread are square

Before


After


The blackberry filling bubbled over the lattice in a couple of places, but it still looked "good enough to eat." Yummmm.

(Pics by Izzy with his new-to-him camera.)

Domestic Goddess

My memory of the term, as used by Roseanne in her stand-up comedy, was "svelte domestic goddess." Either way, I'm owning the appellation today.

Trash & vacuuming? Check.

The 2nd load of laundry is spinning as the first continues to dry. There are clothes hanging up on the wooden drying rack, and more airing out from the home dry cleaning kit.

There are dishes drying in the rack -- including several big bowls and measuring apparati.

There is a meatloaf cooling -- I had to interrupt drafting this post to pull it out of the oven -- about ready to go into the fridge.

There is a blackberry pie cooling on the counter.

Izzy will be coming home this evening. He may find me asleep (hey, these Sunday afternoon naps don't take themselves, you know), but the first thing he'll see upon coming in the back door will be the pie.

Or the cat, disapproving that he's been away. It's a chance I'll have to be willing to take.

Hope other Sunday afternoons are restful.

Uncharitable thoughts

Izzy, who is in Durham, just alerted me to the status of the UNC-Kansas final four game. Current score, with 7:32 to go in the first half: Kansas 38, UNC 12. Yes, twelve, not a typo for 21. Quoth the announcer (Billy Packer?): This Game is OVER!

I'd kinda hoped they (UNC) would take it all so Hansbrough would have no unmet goals and would feel free to turn pro. I'm also torn by a desire to gloat gleefully as someone else has a downfall (plenty of folks gloated over my dark-blue boys...)

Not sure how I should root now -- probably for Kansas, after all.

More later.

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Update at 9:54 PM

It's half-time. Biggest lead in the 1st half was 40-12. Score now Kansas 44, UNC 27.

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Update at 11:04 PM

After getting to within 4 points of Kansas, UNC allowed a 14-0 KU run, and will head home having not achieved the greatest comeback in final four history.

Final Score: Kansas 84, UNC 66.

Quite a game. Time to feed the cat and head for bed.