Papal Economics + We Don’t Want Your Stinkin’ Snow Plow

Over at the the blorg bookshelf, I do a book club bleg.  I’m reading Papal Economics, which is a good book, but one that wants to be discussed.  So if that’s your scene, get a copy and chat with me.  Your place, my place, whatever suits.  Let me know what you like.

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Meanwhile, speaking of economics:

1) Usually snow does not actually cause any more problems in the South than it does anywhere else. That thing going on in Atlanta is an aberration.  And really? Atlanta?  It’s Atlanta.  ‘Nuf said.

2) Ice causes problems.  There is an economic case to be made in favor of below-ground power lines.  But the call-before-you-dig people probably have the winning charts, so I bet our lines stay overhead for a long, long time.   And really, the ice mostly just makes things cold and unpleasant.  It can cause the same terrible problems it can cause anywhere. But most people don’t experience that.  So you’d have to have some serious cost-benefit studies before even taking on much in the way of anti-ice measures.

But, please, dear northern friends, do not form a 501(c)3 and start collecting funds for poor, snowplow-deprived southerners.

3) Because here’s the clincher: When we get “winter weather”? We want to stay home.

Not only is there no financial justification for, say, your county owning a snow plow when you have a perfectly good Sun that will be back again by Friday . . . who’d want one?  Why on earth would anyone want to go to work on the only snow day in a year? If you’re lucky enough to get snow that often. Way better to get out the ATV, hitch up a towline and an inner tube, tell the kids to hang on tight, and do donuts on the school playground.

Clarification: I don’t actually think parents should do this.  But I approve of the spirit of such recreation.  Only mean nasty evil people think innocent children should do school work during the Snow Minutes.  Sheesh, one shouldn’t even have to do housework doing the snow minutes.  You shouldn’t have to go to bed.  You should just admire, photograph, touch, shape, throw, sculpt, and roll in the stuff.

I do feel cheated, though, because NOAA’s revised their forecast, and it’s not supposed to hit 60 by the end of the week.  I was looking forward to short sleeves.  Meanwhile, yes, of course we have harvested our icicles and tucked them away safely in the freezer.  Waste not want not.

Southern Snow Day

On every block: children in rain boots and camouflage jumpsuits, trailed by parents with cameras in hand.  I love this place.

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In other snow news: No ice on the power lines.  We have electricity.  I’m happy.

In not snow news: Up at CatholicMom.com this morning, my blogger Q&A with Sarah Reinhard.  In which she asks me why I blog, and I tell her. I’m afraid my answers aren’t that glamorous.  That’s what you get when you ask me stuff.  I just tell you.

About that “winter mix”

Six inches of snow in DC doesn’t bother me a bit.  1/2 of ice in SC?  Bothers me.  As in: Last time this happened, we didn’t have electricity for a week.  It’s winter survival camping, suburban edition. Couldn’t go outside, because iced-over pine limbs were falling on people’s heads. 

So anyway, I’m hoping for a nice snow holiday.  Meanwhile, am stocking up on clean laundry. 

Plague Journal, Conference Edition

Got home last week, made it through Co-op Friday with the help of Starbucks Via (I know, I know, let’s not talk about that), and got halfway through writing a post about singing the Divine Office when I came down with Plague #348, Do Not Try Singing Version. So that article’s sitting half-written. It’s hard to write about singing when you can’t.

Three girls are down with the evil thing today, so they’re doing the Steve Ray homeschool curriculum while I catch up on e-mail and other things that can done while sitting very, very still.  The Healthy One has been promised my piece of coffee cake from yesterday if he does all his homework and cleans the house.

Meanwhile, if you like to write, there’s this conference you need to quick go register for. It’s free, it’s online, it’s Catholic, and it’s open to anyone who wants to come.  You can take one class, all the classes, whatever you like, but registration closes Feb 7th.  Why do I think you should go? Because of this.  In which I answer the question: How did a housewife who surfs the internet too much end up getting published? With a real publisher? Because of the Catholic Writers Guild Online Conference.  That’s how. 

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Other interesting things around the Castle:

Kitten Watch 2014 We got home from the March for Life, and our cat was still pregnant.  SuperHusband had given up on her, and decided she must just be really fat.  #2 theorized it was a nasty case of parasites.  But the resident I’ve-been-pregnant person (me) was able to persuade them that those wiggly minature-spinal column things you can feel if you palpate Cat’s abdomen very gently?  Yeah.  Kittens. 

And I keep catching that &(*^%&* cat in my closet.  Just no.  NO!

Music.  SuperHusband’s been recording some.  If you go in for high-high-Church, here’s his site.  I could get used to this.  And yes, you can download the MP3’s for free.  That’s the whole point. 

 

 

Sheengazing Awards 2014 – thank you, and you could vote

A hearty thank you to whomever nominated me for a Sheengazing award. When I got the e-mail I was puzzled, because my first thought was “Martin Sheen? I can’t even remember what movie it was . . .”   Oops.  That would be: Bishop Fulton.  If you happen to think that of all the under-appreciated blogs on the roster, mine is the best, feel free to vote for me.

The nice thing about being nominated to the UAB category, is that no matter where you end up in the final tally, you’re affirmed in your status as an under-appreciated person.  Am I the most under-appreciated?  The least appreciated of the under-appreciated?  Something in between?  We’ll know 9pm Monday.

Home Again.

If you didn’t see it already, here’s my post at New Evangelizers today.  It’s about what makes a community a community, and why do we need a Christian community?

If you didn’t see the March, EWTN’s coverage is here.  All jokes aside, it really did feel kinda like a Ninja March.  Noisy Ninjas.  But there was no one else around, other than us, as far as the eye could see in both directions on Constitution Ave. coming up by the Capitol.

Someone asked me before we went whether it was true that there were very many young people at the March.  Let me clarify: The March for Life is a youth event with some chaperones along in order to reassure the nervous security people at the Smithsonian.

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Interesting discovery, as I was walking up the hill from the playground after an hour or so of sledding, headed back to my friend’s house in my old neighborhood in the burbs.  I passed a house flying a US flag and a Maryland flag.  I had no idea a Maryland flag would inspire a wellspring of patriotic sentiment, but it did.

Another thing: Hills covered in tall, bare hardwoods – scattered with snow or not — just shouts with memories from the past.

And another: We went to the Star Spangled Banner exhibit at the US History museum.  Just wow.  I had a good patriotic upbringing.  It was like going to shrine.  Well, not like.  It is.  A shrine to something very, very good.

But, funny thing: Riding home, it was good to reach that special place in NC where it was warm enough to thaw the  windshield wiper fluid so I could finally see out the front window without a haze of salt-spray.  And then coming west on I-20, the vast expanses of pine trees through the sand hills — exactly the opposite of those Virginia hardwoods — and let me clarify right now that Carolina pine barrens *do not* possess the austere beauty of, say, the desert Southwest.  Just no.

But, weirdly, I felt welcomed home.  As we entered the infernal city on I-20, shoulder-to-shoulder with drivers doing their best via crowding and incompetence to make up for what we lack in population density, I could finally relax.  Driving on the Beltway feels like being in one of those car-race video games to me.  Infernal traffic is just as dangerous, but its my traffic, so nothing to worry about, right?

We crossed over a river and my daughter asked, “Is that the Congaree?”

I chuckled.  “No, darling.  That’s the Broad.”  Everyone knows it doesn’t become the Congaree until it joins the Saluda, downtown.

She laughed at her error.  Of course.  Everyone knows that.

Yes, we are marching tomorrow.

My Gospel Reflection at CatholicMom.com

We’ll see if WP lets this one through . . .

If you missed it, here’s my Gospel reflection for the 16th of January at CatholicMom.com. I’ve got the 16th of the month slot, and Feb – June are written and just waiting for me to get the lined up in the dashboard.  Very good for the soul, making yourself sit down and not just think about the Gospel, but put together thoughts on paper. 

WordPress keeps eating my posts.

The title publishes, but the text disappears.  Sorry guys.  We’re around.  I’ll see if I can figure it out.

Quick Notes – Homeschooling at our house, kitten-watch, and Pray for the McNichols

Up at CatholicMom.com: Things I’m changing at our homeschool for the new year.

We did Day 1 of this today.  It was successful.  That means nothing.  But it’s always fun enjoying the first day.

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In Kitten Watch 2014: The cat is waddling around looking very pregnant.  It was quiet for a while this afternoon — cat now has a shiny collar with a bell on it, so if she’s nosing around, you know — and I walk back to the bedroom and our closet door is open.  And I’m thinking to myself: You’d better not be giving birth in my closet.

Just so you know, that goes for everybody, not just cats.  No giving birth in my closet.  Just no.

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BTW if you missed it, please pray for the McNichol family.