Lysistrata's Daughter

Heard in our house as those of voting age attempted to watch the veep debate, "I'm throwing these people out. Turn them off. I want to watch Thomas. I'm voting for Arack Obama and Muh-Cain."

A couple of nights ago, I finished Father Joe: the Man who Saved my Soul by Tony Hendra. I was almost sad to be finished, because the storytelling was so wonderful. It's about Tony Hendra, who played Ian Faith, the manager in Spinal Tap, and his relationship with a Benedictine priest, who counsels him, but more importantly loves him and is his friend throughout his tumultuous life. As a young teenager, Hendra experiences a crisis and is introduced to Dom Joseph Warrilow, usually known as Fr. Joe. Fr. Joe is supposed to "straighten Tony out," but instead of lowering the boom, he responds to the deeply confused young man with love and understanding and helps Tony to see the other people in the crisis in that way as well. This is the pattern of Hendra's relationship with Fr. Joe. Expecting to find judgment when he loses his faith at university and knocks up his girlfriend, Fr. Joe instead counsels him about being unselfish toward his wife, to embrace his vocation a...

Tonight we went to the little Serbian mission in Irvine, because a myrrh-streaming icon was going to be there, and Y was asked to help sing the service. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about this icon at first. I think doubt and skepticism are my default reactions. I wish belief came more naturally to me, but I find myself always, always questioning. We picked A up from school, then fought traffic on the 110 and 405 for over an hour. We got to the church with about 15 minutes to spare, only to find that the icon (and its driver) were stuck in the traffic from which we had just extricated ourselves and would be about 30 minutes late. A played in the grass outside the church, which is in an office park, while we waited. At last the icon arrived, and the service started. The church itself is about the size of a largish living room, and it was packed with people. A and I stood near the front. The icon was actually quite small, a mounted print of the Iveron-Montreal icon o...

A Chuck E. Cheese "crew member" comes crackling over the loudspeaker to announce to the room of wired children and their beleaguered parents, "Will guest number 74 please report to the beverage station? Your hot, delicious order is ready. Once again, will guest number 74 please report to the beverage station? Your hot, delicious order is ready. Thank you, and have a magical evening." Y and I looked at each other and at the marginally edible pizza in front of us and wondered if we had missed the hot and delicious moment. Of course, it's terrible marketing to request that someone appear to retrieve their order because it's as good as it's going to get and if you don't get a move on, it'll go soggy. Said "crew member" was later observed at the beverage bar, filling a cup with Coke and muttering, "I'm going to pretend it's vodka." Yes, exactly.

This evening as we were driving, a piping voice announced from the back seat, "My grandson lived in America. He moved to Los Angeles from California."