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If They Knew What I Know

The Computer Guy has been job hunting. Honest to goodness call the headhunters, prepare the cover letters, looking for employment. After 14 years of working for his present employer, he's had enough and is looking anywhere and everywhere for someone who needs an exceptionally brilliant (and dead sexy) computer geek.

He has been sending in resumes and getting very little response. I know that this is normal. The HR departments get 100-500 resumes for every opening, I'm told. How can one or two people sift through all that and hope to find the best candidate? I must admit that it seems daunting to me and I don't even have to attempt it.

Is it childish of me to be slightly offended when he gets a "Thanks, but no thanks" letter? I just want to drive to their offices and shake them. Are they crazy? Did I mention the brilliance? The sexiness? Perhaps that's it...they're intimidated...

Do you think it would help to direct a documentary starring the 5 Little Kids all about why their dad would be the ideal candidate for any job? Do you think they would go for "We want to live closer to Grandma"? I have 5 artists at the ready who are prepared to add color enhancements to any resume that leaves his desk. Are there extra points for creativity? My 8 year old could win that hands down. I want to do everything we can to help, but how do you sell the greatest guy on earth without sounding like it's just a line?

So, please pray for my dear, sweet, genius Computer Guy. He needs a job....and a Valium for his white-knuckled wife who can't stand the suspense any longer. Do you think I could take that with a large martini? Oy vey...my nerves are shot.


Please God, give me patience, and be quick about it!

P.S. Need a computer guy? Send me your email address, and I'll send you his resume. I offer a loaf of my world famous (alright..famous among my friends) warm and soft oatmeal bread if you give him a job.

Reason to Homeschool #9,000,345,001

What does abortion have to do with a child's education, particularly late-term abortion? Is it a fundamental plank in the government-run schools in America? The National Educator's Association seems to think so. Why else would they invite Dr. George Tiller, aka Tiller the Killer, to speak in their building for the Feminist Majority Foundation's leadership conference.

The NEA has endorsed abortion "rights" before, in fact their liberal bias is nothing new. They are openly in favor of promoting abortion, GLBT lifestyles to children, fighting hard against the mention of the word "God" within public schoolc, and yet We the People still tolerate the running of our schools by this gang. Why the citizens of the United States have not thrown them out is beyond me, but I digress. We were talking about Tiller.

They let a murderer into their building to stand up on a podium and speak. This vile man who is facing 19 criminal charges for illegal late abortions was invited to speak in a room..in a building which is owned and controlled by the very people who want to control the education of your children.

Most disturbing of all was the slide show he prepared for his audience. He actually brought pictures of the mutilated bodies of the infants he had killed, and they applauded him. These women, these "Leaders of Tomorrow", actually got to their feet and offered him a standing ovation as photographs of dismembered bodies flashed by on the screen.

The NEA defends itself of course by wrapping up in platitudes about freedom of speech..blah, blah, blah. These are the people who are teaching your children and they think that the mutilated bodies of murdered babies is freedom of speech.

No sir, not my children. I'll keep them safely at my kitchen table learning their Algebra and World History instead of sending them off to be taught by someone who thinks that a standing ovation for the self-confessed slaughterer of innocents is a laudable action.

The Banker and the Farmer

There was a farmer who stepped onto a train at North Station in Boston, headed back to his home in Quechee, Vermont. Pretty soon, a well-dressed Boston banker sat next to him. A few minutes later the banker said, “You look like an intelligent sort. I’ll tell you what. Since we have to spend some time together, let’s play a game.”

The farmer replied, “What kind of game do you have in mind?”

“Well,” said the banker, “one of us will ask the other a question. If the other fella can’t answer it, then he pays a dollar.”

The farmer thought for a minute and then replied, “That doesn’t sound fair to me. You are college-educated and live in Boston. I only attended grammar school and live on a small dairy farm. If I ask you a question and you can’t answer, you pay me a dollar. If you ask me a question and I come up short, I’ll pay you 50 cents.”

The banker agreed and asked the farmer to pose a question.

The farmer started right out, “What has three legs and can fly?”

The banker looked a bit surprised, thought for a minute, scratched his head, and said, “I have no idea. Here’s your dollar.”

The farmer then said, “OK, now it’s your turn.”

The banker looked straight at the farmer and asked, “Well, what is it that has three legs and can fly?”

The farmer shot back, “Damned if I know. Here’s your 50 cents!”

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Merry Christmas!

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, the conception of Jesus. Today is the day we celebrate the true miracle of Christmas, the Incarnation.

When God sent His Son to be our Redeemer, he did not send a man fully grown. He did not send a chubby toddler, a la Clark Kent, to grow to manhood in an adopted family. Instead, He came as the most vulnerable and defenseless of human beings. He started, just like the rest of us, at conception. One little cell floating around in His Blessed Mother's womb looking for a place to implant and grow.

We know from biology class that He floated around, a bubbly group of cells bent upon dividing and growing, for at least two weeks. Yet in this frothy state, He was already the Savior of us all. From the moment of conception, He was the salvation of all the world. He was, even as one single cell, fully human and fully divine. His dual nature began at the same moment that He did.

I have often thought about the joy Mary must have known to have the Savior inside of her. Full of Grace indeed! How miraculous and wonderful to know that you have God truly physically inside of you. Then I laughed out loud at myself. I know her joy. I know that feeling. I know how it feels to carry the body of Christ around inside of me every time that I go to Communion. In the Eucharist, I receive the True Presence...the real and true body and blood of Christ. Like Mary for a moment, I carry his body and his blood mixes with mine and flows through me. Oh, happy moment, when I know the joy and peace of Mary. If that is the way she felt for the whole nine months of her pregnancy, then she truly was and is blessed indeed.

So, Merry Christmas, everyone. Go and spread a little Christmas cheer today. The world is aching for it.

The Shyness Project

Life is very rough when you're three years old, very cute, and also very, very shy. This is the life of our sweet #4. The other children don't seem to understand the concept of the word stranger as they've never met one in their lives. #4 is different. The whole world is full of strangers, and as much as she wishes to be ignored by them all, she's too cute to be invisible.

On Easter morning, she asked not to wear her new Easter dress or the darling hair bow that matched it because when "I am cute the people talk to me." We made a deal, she wore the dress and I ran interference all day long. It worked for Sunday, but the truth is that people try and talk to her and touch her everywhere we go. They especially like to stroke her soft, shiny brown hair. These are probably the same people who rub the pregnant bellies of strangers, ask if I'm breastfeeding, question whether or not we're planning on having more children....a friend of mine calls it the talk show phenomenon. People just don't have any concept of boundaries anymore. They think that they have a fundamental right to satisfy their own curiosity, and the feelings of others be damned.

But what do you do when you're three, and really tiny, and cry and shake whenever someone tries to tell you how cute you are? They are probably very nice people, but they are much bigger, and you don't know them, and they are very scary. I have thought about this a lot.

So, we made a button today. A shiny pink button that goes right in the middle of her shirt and has sparkly pink butterflies on it. It says "I'm very shy. PLEASE don't talk to me." I hope it works. I pray that the strangers we meet will honor her silent request instead of finding it to be an irresistible conversation starter.

If you see us in the store, one half-crazed mom and my 5 little guys, please talk to me, or strike up a conversation with the other four. They will be delighted to talk to you...not a stranger, but a potential friend. But please, honor a three year old's honest request and pretend that you don't see her. Please give her the gift and the comfort of letting her be invisible.

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Lent...or lack thereof

Here we are, almost at the end of Lent. It has gone by so quickly, and yet it never really seemed to get going at all. I missed going to church on Ash Wednesday because of sick children. After developing a wheat allergy with the birth of #5 last year, there wasn't much I could give up that seemed like a sacrifice. Giving up all things wheat is tough, chocolate is easy by comparison.

I gave up clutter. I took a bag of stuff either to the trash or to Goodwill every day that we were home. It never got hard to fill those bags. How is it a sacrifice if I can do it quickly and miss nothing? I thought it would start off easy and get progressively harder. Nope. I guess we just had that much stuff. I tried to challenge myself, but I feel as if the effort fell flat. It's depressing. Lent is my favorite time of year because I like the challenge of it all. Without the challenge, it has just seemed to be more Ordinary Time.

I want a do-over. Does it work that way? Can I make a sacrifice for the 40 days after Easter? Somehow that seems wrong, too. The time after Easter is supposed to be spent in rejoicing over the Resurrection. It is a feast time. Would it be wrong for me to be penitential in a time of rejoicing?

I need to talk with my priest about these things and ask his opinion. He already laughs at me and thinks I'm a bit strange. This will just confirm it in his mind. I am the crazy Catholic revert that they warned him about in the seminary, I guess.

I feel cheated of my Lenten experience, does that lessen the joy of Easter? I certainly hope not. Next year, I'm giving up something hard like chocolate, long, hot baths, or new shoes. I don't know though. It all seems a bit easy compared to His sacrifice. I'm not ready for self-flagellation just yet, but somewhere between that and chocolate would be just about right.

On Race in America

I watched the Obama speech yesterday and hoped to hear something new. I wanted him to explain how he could spend 20 years in a church which appears to be at least partly based upon hating white people. I wanted him to explain it in a way that made sense.

What he said was the same old tired excuse I've heard given for every racist to whom I've ever been subjected to listening. "He grew up in a different time. He's speaking his anger at his own experience as a _____ man in America." You can fill in the blank with any race or ethnicity you choose. The excuse is the same, the hatred is the same. It does not matter who the racist happens to be; it should never be acceptable. The level of hatred spewing forth from Rev. Wright is identical to the hatred I hear in the speeches of the skinheads I see on the news.

Mr. Obama compared the rhetoric of his preacher to the comment by his elderly white grandmother that sometimes when she walks by black men on the street she's afraid. Guess what? So am I. I don't think that fear makes us racist; I think it makes us human and female. First of all, Barack seems to misunderstand what is a fact for every woman in America namely that the biggest threat we face is from men. It's a statistical fact, look it up. I am not always afraid of black men, and am rarely afraid of other ethnic groups, not because of the color of my skin but because of the hatred, animosity and contempt that is evident in the way I am glared at and the threatening motions they make towards myself and my children. While his grandmother may be a racist, I've never met her so I don't know, she may also just be a frightened old lady who her grandson has just defamed on national television for his own political gains. Nice.

As a 30-something year old white woman, I am tired of this dialogue on race. We are told that racism is still a reality and that we need to talk this out, but my apathy and boredom have long since overtaken my interest in the subject. I get it already. Those of us with white skin are the bad guys and everyone else wins. Can we move on already? You get to be proud of who you are and I don't. You get a month devoted to studying your cultural heritage and my children don't. You get to call me ethnic slurs, physically threaten myself and my children, laugh at my fear, and I am not allowed to respond. If I do speak up, you get to call me racist, and I'm supposed to shut up right then and hang my head in shame and apologize. I get it. You win. Happy now?

Those of us in our 20s and 30s in white America have been beat to death with the specter of the "Evil White Man." We were raised on the notions of ethnic and racial equality and whole-heartedly embrace the notion that people are people and skin color, or eye shape, or the shape of your nose, etc. have no bearing on who you are We agree with you. We would gladly tar and feather anyone we heard promoting these ideas in our own communities. Have you ever watched a modern day Klan rally? Ever notice how most of the white folks there are yelling AT the Klan instead of with it? Anything we say on the subject of our country's racial history is taken as further proof of our perfidy. I heard a girl in college explaining in a Minority Studies class about how her family had run two stops on the Underground Railroad. She offered this up as proof that while there were indeed slave owners in this country, there were also good white people working and risking their lives to bring an end to this horrible institution. The professor listened to the whole thing, nodded his head sagely, and then asked her, "And how many people did they own before that?" She couldn't win. She was white and therefore by definition a descendant of slave owners, she was part of "the Man" bent on keeping black people down.

So, Mr. Obama, let me tell you what those of us in middle class white America see as the racial situation in our country. We live in neighborhoods with black neighbors, we work in jobs with people of every nationality, when we get together with our friends from college it looks like a mini-meeting of the United Nations. We have friends who celebrate Kwanzaa and Ramadan and Passover as well as Chinese New Year and any other ethnic celebration you can name and we are delighted when we get invited to the parties. We would never think of using the N- word, but understand that it's okay for you to do so. We get it. All the things that Dr. King dreamed about in his famous speech, we dream about, too. We all know at least one person who lost out on a job, a scholarship, a promotion because of the fairness of their skin, and while we resent like hell this legalized discrimination against us, we simply resolve to work harder and be the better candidate next time and pray for a day when Affirmative Action is no longer necessary. And so, we are shocked and hurt to hear you defend this man who impugns our character, to lift up a man who delights in smearing our collective good name. All through the beginning of your campaign, I listened to people say that you seemed condescending to white voters, and I hoped that they were wrong. It would seem that they were not. Unfortunately for you, a good test of a man's character is to look at the company he keeps. You, Mr. Obama, hang out with racists. I don't know if you are one, but you certainly appear to be tolerant of them, which my political correctness training tells me is the same thing.

So, this November, I will be voting for the white guy. It has nothing to do with the fact that we have the same color skin, but that you and I don't and that I fear that that is a big deal to YOU.

My Own Little Pot of Gold

Just in time for St Patrick's Day, I get my own mini-windfall. My beloved husband, the Computer Guy, checked the unclaimed property division of out State Treasurer, and I had "lost" money. I have no idea how much, just that it's over $100. Now, isn't that a nice surprise on this cloudy rainy day? A little gold in my pocket. I don't know how much yet, but I'll let you know when I get the check in 4-6 weeks. Woo-hoo.

I'd dance a little jig for you, but really, no one needs to see that.

And Now It's Time for HAIKU FRIDAY!!!!!

Allergies have I
stopped up nose and hacking cough
I just want to breathe

Oh Oklahoma
cottonwood trees and ragweed
Spring's overrated

I want to go back
to the South Texas sunshine
where I could breathe free

The Sin of Adam

I've been reading the Bible again. Every now and again I decide to try and read the whole thing not just my favorite parts. I always pick up on new things when I do this, sometimes strange new ideas and other times, they force me to take a good hard look at myself.

This time through it, I keep noticing references to the Fall of Man, Adam's Sin, and that all evil entered the world through Adam. The post-feminist era woman in me wants to give credit where it is due. Wasn't it Eve who talked to the snake? Wasn't it Eve who ate the proverbial apple? Wasn't it Eve who tempted her husband into doing the same? And yet again and again the sin is given to Adam.

It seems strange to me, a child of the 70s, that he would be held accountable for her actions, and yet he was. His sin was the greater because he did all she did and he failed to protect her. God gave Adam the ultimate responsibility for Eve, and Adam failed.

How shocking this seems to modern sensibilities that a husband could be damned for the actions of his wife. I had never before grasped what it truly meant for a husband to be the head of his wife.

My own dear husband assumed the mantle of responsibility for me when we took our marriage vows. He vowed to love, honor and protect me. I guess that I had always assumed that he would protect me from some mysterious outsiders. Ride in like Zorro and save the day if it was ever required. It is really much more simple than that. His job is to protect me from myself and my own human and sinful nature. It is his job to help me to be a better person, a better Christian, a saint. This is the calling of a husband, to help his wife to find her path to sainthood.

So, I have reexamined my life yet again, this time with a new perspective. How do my thoughts and actions affect my dear loved one's chances of Eternity? Am being the kind of person he could be proud of having been responsible for, or will I be his shame and damnation? These are the questions that I am asking myself, and making changes where necessary. I can live with the notion of failing on my own, but I'm not taking him with me.

Am I the Only One?

I am up in the middle of the night for one of my all out cleaning frenzies. Does anyone else do this? Do other people wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly realize the best way to arrange furniture in the computer room and get up at 4AM to do it? Do other families wake up to find a tired yet satisfied mother who has polished and scrubbed to her heart's content? Or are my children the only ones to be so blessed?

Do you ever have half-crazed moments and wonder if you're all alone in your insanity or if there are other freaks out there just like you who think that one of their finest moments was when they got the stain off of the kitchen floor while the rest of the world slept?

She'll Make a Great Mom

As Murphy's Law should have warned us, our children got sick on our first vacation in three years. Of. course. they. did. But we still got to go to the beach on Wednesday.

It was the warmest day of the week, and everyone was feeling better on Tuesday night. The Computer Guy told our five Little Guys that if everyone felt better in the morning we would go to the beach.

It was a warmish day, and while a bit too cool for swimming (in my humble opinion) the kids could run around and build sandcastles and look for shells. Everyone was feeling better, so we packed the car with all the gear that it takes to transport five children to the beach for a couple hours of play time.

It was 75 degrees outside, so of course the first thing that the big kids did was run into the water. They stayed there all afternoon, cold but happy. #5 happily crawled on the sand and tried to single-handedly eat the entire beach.

#4 sat in a beach chair wrapped in a towel and shivering because she was cold. She is our dramatic child if you remember. She complained all afternoon about the wind and the sun and that her feet were dirty. Couldn't she just go sit in the car and wait? Couldn't I wait with her?

I plopped myself down into the beach chair next to her and thought I would just enjoy being at the beach. Wrong! She looked up at me from her terry-cloth cocoon and said, " Cough. Cough. Mom you said that if we were sick, then we weren't going to the beach. Well, I'm sick. So, why are we here?"

Ahhh...the student surpasses the master, and at such a tender age. She'll make a great mom. She has that Catholic mom guilt stuff down cold.

Mexican Food

We are safely home from our Corpus Christi excursion, and I have lots to blog about in the upcoming days. Permit me for one brief moment to wax rhapsodic about the indispensable part of any trip south of Austin, Texas...the food. Once you start going north of Austin, the food gets Anglicized. It starts to lose some of the Mex in the Tex-Mex. In my humble opinion, Mexican food should never be snooty, should never cost more than $8 a plate and should always be made by hand. If you can hear the music from the kitchen and see someone's abuela (grandmother) doing the cooking, then you've found the spot.

Our favorite in Corpus is Taqueria Jalisco. (For those of you from north of the Red River, that's pronounced Tock-a-ree-a Ha-lees-co.) The Computer Guy and I went there for dinner on Thursday night without the children, thanks to my mother-in-law for watching the five.

We tried so hard to eat slowly. We wanted to savor every bite, taste every mouthful. We sucked it down before the waitress could even come back and check on us. We couldn't help it. It was like a man who's crawled across the desert and found water at last. It was heavenly. What I wouldn't give for two stomachs to have been able to eat twice as much.

The tamales were made the traditional way from the head of the pig (don't turn up your noses, you eat weird stuff too), the tortillas on the enchiladas were made by hand, and the refried beans...oh, the beans. I don't think I have words to do justice to the beauty of refried beans when they're made right. Not the glop from a can, but real true beans that were simmered all day yesterday, and then fried today with a bit of onion and garlic and I don't know what else. They are slap-your-mama good. People in the Land of the White Man don't make beans like that. They don't even know enough about it to dream of making beans like that, but they should. That cook is getting into Heaven on the merit of her beans alone.

When we finished this gargantuan meal in less than the time it normally takes me to put the napkin in my lap, I almost cried. It was over already? I actually sucked the traces of perfection off of my fork and leaned over to my husband who was wearing a smile of supreme satisfaction and said, "Would it be a bad thing if I leaned over right now and licked my plate?"

"I think that's the sexiest thing I've ever heard." He replied. "Only if I can watch."

Oh. my. goodness. Is it any wonder I love that man?