Byvshyj CCCP

[ Sunday, March 30, 2003 ]

 
The Guild sponsored a pancake breakfast today before and after Liturgy. It seemed better attended than our usual french toast breakfasts. The fresh blueberries, coated in sugar and set in the batter, made for really good pancakes. We cleared about $260, plus and additional $50 for raffling a silk floral arrangement one Guild member donated.

Only four more weeks of catechism--Slava Bogu!--two of which are actual classes, because one week is for confessions and another is Easter.
S [2:46 PM]

[ Friday, March 28, 2003 ]

 
Arabic class was fun last night. Shame we had more drop-outs right as it's getting interesting. Following a model from the prior class for our homework, we presented a narrative of how to prepare a dish of our choosing. I "made" beef stew. I had to look up words in a dictionary and ended up sounding Egyptian and using a word for 'stove' the teacher hadn't heard for 30 years. But still, a success.

I broke down and bought a grammar of Arabic. I was hoping to invest as little as possible in this particular course of study, but Borders gave me a 15% off coupon good for this week which couldn't go to waste. Using their handy store inventory feature, I found the one I saw on the shelf had sold (piss!), so I got Arabic Grammar: A Reference Guide by John Mace. It'll work.
S [12:59 PM]

 
Trent overfilled his pull-ups (the next step in diapers). I hate when he gets poopoo on his peepee. I had him sit in the bath for a bit to facilitate cleaning.
S [12:16 PM]

[ Wednesday, March 26, 2003 ]

 
I like this entry from Horst Prillinger's weblog (3-25):

Umm Qasr, a city in southern Iraq, is currently at the center of a huge temporal anomaly. In what appears to be something of an infinite time loop, has been being secured by US/UK soldiers on a daily basis for the past 9 days, apparently without much progress. The only odd thing about this time loop is that while the event of securing the city seems to be recurring over and over again, the number of wounded and killed does not snap back to zero every day, but instead keeps increasing.

Members of the Elk Council who were sent in to investigate were able to track the temporal anomaly to an army press office, which kept sending out the same story over and over again. It is yet unclear whether it was a real temporal anomaly or merely a so-called 'propaganda anomaly'.

I, too, wondered why we kept hearing such-and-such town was alternately engaged/secured several days in a row. The Elk Council reference is to a silly gag that his blog has been taken over by stuffed animals.
S [10:09 AM]

[ Tuesday, March 25, 2003 ]

 
There's lots I could say about the past week, things I did and how I've felt:
#the diffuse foreboding following the president's ultimatum and the start of the war, knowing they'd be the last 'care free' hours for some time to come
#lost sleep
#picturing my brother-in-law over there
#how Arabic class on Thursday--first full day after the war's start--derailed into a military vocabulary lesson merely by one girl answering "Kifek?" (How are you) with something less than "mneeha" (good). None of us wanted to be thinking about it; finishing the sheet naming the parts of the body would have been preferable.
#and so on/undsoweiter/i tak dalee
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Niki did get a letter today from Matt. It was post-marked in Germany.


S [11:48 PM]

[ Tuesday, March 18, 2003 ]

 
Yesterday my brother in law the Marine Reservist was winging his way to the front lines. Sister hasn't received a call he arrived yet, but he must be tremendously busy.
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The latter half of today was packed with activity for me: blood donation, haircut, visit to funeral home for a Scout leader who died, Arabic class for a half hour, then to a second funeral home for parastas for the senior cantor of the parish. Glad to be home, but it's up early tomorrow for the funeral.
S [9:24 PM]

[ Tuesday, March 11, 2003 ]

 
This letter was in yesterday's Monroe Evening News:

I propose that we start a national campaign to send sympathy letters to President Bush. Certainly no one would think that the president wants to go to war. However, now he finds himself between "Iraq and a hard place."
If the war issue is settled, everyone's attention would turn to the economy. Should that happen, President Bush would certainly follow in the footsteps of his father in the next election.
Speaking of the next election, I heard a rumor that in order to join the Democratic Party, one must agree to run for president. From the present number of Democratic candidates, I assume the rumor to be true. The idea is that if enough Democrats run, one of them might get lucky.
Please send your sympathy letters to the White House as soon as possible. The president needs all the help he can get.
John W. Royston, Monroe

I would be embarrassed to write such a lame-ass letter to the editor, let alone see it printed for the public to read. The swipe at Democrats isn't just partisan snorkerie but but a dig at our democratic process. Yes, a lot of Democrats wish to run for president; the primaries will sort them out. And when a Democrat held the Presidency were there not plenty of Republicans who wished to challenge him?

The letter may be from a Republican disappointed with the Prez's handling of the economy, but it's still not a good letter.

S [3:40 PM]

[ Tuesday, March 04, 2003 ]

 
Yesterday as were driving home from Cost Plus World Market we saw a plume of smoke rising from an inappropriate place. As we got closer I figured it was on Allen Rd at either Chem-Met or the business beside it. Turned out it was the chemical place, now called Permafix. My sister lives half a mile from there, but the wind was blowing 90 degrees from her direction.
S [11:17 PM]

[ Monday, March 03, 2003 ]

 
I'm back from the evening service for the start of Great Lent. I can't say I really observed it today. I didn't remember until 2 in the afternoon, having had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon. I'll try again on Wednesday with the Latins. At least then I won't be the only one in the household abstaining and keeping the fast.
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The first guest on today's Todd Munt show was J. Michael Fay. He did a long, note-taking nature walk through the Central African rain forest. It was amazing. You can read about it at National Geographic or at Save the Congo.
S [9:00 PM]

[ Sunday, March 02, 2003 ]

 
Now that Google bought Pyra/Blogger I'm going to be watching to see when this blog gets indexed. Right now it's not on any engine, which is actually fine. No one has linked to it, unless someone saw it pop up on Blogger's 'Fresh Blogs' column.
S [5:15 PM]

 
The soup and salad lunch went well at church. We served home-made chicken noodle, vegetable, and chili. One lady cooked up the little noodles for us this morning and had extra if we needed more! We cleared $220. Fortunately all the soup-makers donated their goods, otherwise it would have been quite a bit lower.

I and a few others got there at 8am to get things ready. It went smoothly. It was lucky, though, that I ran into two ladies yesterday after cleaning the church, otherwise some loose ends mightn't have gotten tied up: I had more shopping to do.

Catechism was ugh. Three students and none prepared. :(
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Although I have scant reason to be, I'm excited by Audblog. It's true you could do the same thing on your own, but the ease of making a call and having it simply appear on your blog is irresistible. Just today I found a British guy using it. This is a boon to those who like to hear the variety in language. It can make people and places both near and far that much more real. One can easily see how it could be used to update breaking news events.

That said, I don't see myself using it. It would make more sense somehow if I had a cell. As it is I'm not likely to step 8 feet over to the phone and make a call just to have it appear here. Just seems strange. I'd make an mp3 and link to it.
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In Deschambault, our pastor was met on the street and cursed by a witch doctor. Riiight.

This is the first religiously-slanted use of the ready.gov images I've seen. Funny.

[Any internal ironies in this post have been noted, thank you]

S [4:13 PM]