The Week that Was and Will Be

PHEW!

I am so glad this week is behind me. I have a wonderful weekend planned and actually have 4 days off in a row; a kind of mini-vacation that I need right now. I'll be busy, of course - I am always busy - but it will be fun stuff for the most part.

G Jr. is getting married on Saturday and that will be a happy occasion. I have been approached to act as conservator for his uncle because he has gone off the deep end (let's have a big round of applause for meth) and this is a way to protect both the crazy uncle and the saner members of the family. However, the situation has been handled properly and I won't be needed. Word is that Uncle Meth Freak is looking pretty bad - like a cross between his own mother (the crazy alkie) and our uncle (the crazy druggie) at the end of their lives. As you can see we have a family tree full of substance abuse and outright loons but that will make for a wonderful fictionalized book about growing up loved by crazy people some day. I have no reason to look far for creative inspiration.

I had someone ask me recently if I expected people to just keep having children they cannot feed, as long as the kids are Catholic when they starve to death. The answer is, of course, no...I expect people to become educated as to why it is necessary to be responsible with their own bodies so they do not bring children into the world for which they cannot be responsible. I don't think it is necessary to abort those 'extra' kids, however, and I just do not buy the argument that people 'have' to have sexual stimulation in order to be fullfilled; therefore, they must use artificial birth control in order to be complete human beings. Balderdash. What people need to do is learn how to challenge themselves to be something more than a tingly feeling in their nether regions, to quote Eddie Izzard.

Ah well. I have put this forward as an argument in the past and been told I am repressed and angry. Maybe. I know that when I was looking as sex in the way the world looks at sex I was much more unhappy than I am today. And I don't feel repressed and anxious and angry and all that stuff so either I am growing spiritually or I am completely crazy - and that may be due to genetics, right?

Maybe what the problem is with me is I am too simple. I don't have the mind of Machiavelli.I have learned to just take a lot of crap from people who have such strangely underdeveloped critical thinking skills that it's frightening to remember they get to drive large, heavy, motorized hunks of metal and plastic down a straight stretch of road at 70 mph on a fairly regular schedule. I have learned to have an audience read my ramblings who like to cyber scream the most awful things at people who disagree with them either politically or theologically - and I let them do so, holding the line at calling my house and violating the peace of mind of family members sharing my home. I know that there are lots of people who think they know Catholic Teaching (including a lot of Catholics) who really have never taken the time to read the Catechism and then THINK about what is presented on those pages. But by golly they have an opinion on everything from the Inquisition to Papal Infallibility and it is always about the horrible Church.

Whatever.

Take this guy, TS, on The Hive. I corrected him on his history in regards to The Church's treatment of Galilleo, which a lot of people have wrong. Shoot, so did I until I started doing some research...and then I found out I had been given minimum information while in school and (like most people) had drawn incorrect conclusions based on that information. Once I actually read up on the situation I found out I was wrong. I presented what I had discovered...and his response was to question me about "the millions" killed during the Inquisition. I asked him which Inquisition period he was refering to as there are absolutely NO historical records of 'millions' being killed during any Inquisition. His response to that was to demand that I admit that priests and nuns had babies together and the bodies were buried in secret basement cemeteries in convents all across Europe. I asked him for the names of the convents in question...and he cyber-screamed about pedophile priests.

The point I am making is that my experience is becoming that people are as goofy about history, religion, politics and substance abuse as that woman at the McCain Rally who thought President Obama was planning to replace the White House with a pyramid. Add to those crazy ideas a couple of good swigs off a bottle of Jack Daniels and you get the kind of exchange I just described.

And no matter what happens with this type of person the best I can hope for is to be an example of grace and dignity...and to try not to laugh at the poor guy too much.

Life is hard. My boss is a psycho. My body hurts. I am tired. I have no money and my dog is poorly trained.

But heck, ain't it GRAND?????

Cal plays USC this weekend...Lord, help us all.