We had a quite a weekend over here. Several of our friends came to town for the Mass of renewal and first profession of vows for the members of the Apostles of the Interior Life (event blogged here).
Saturday afternoon the women went out brides-maid dress shopping (J-Lu is going to be Monika's maid of honor) while Kevin (Mo's fiance) and I ate pizza and beer, talked about our jobs and watched Season 2 of The Simpsons on DVD (what a great way to pass time!). Later in the evening Julie stopped by after the Mass with some other folk, and then a couple of other people dropped by.... all of a sudden we found ourselves to be hosting a party, complete with one Knight of Columbus still in battle dress (minus hat and sword).
The conversation tended to revolve around things like homeschooling, liturgy and relativism (Hello!), or more specifically - why the first is good, the changes in the second, and why the third is EVIL. As an added bonus, our favorite animal sciences major briefed us all on the methodology of determining the stage of ovulation of pigs (HINT: it involves a very long rubber glove).
It was certainly a fun night: wine was uncorked, all of our Bailey's was polished off, and good Sir Knight's first request upon entry was a good, hard drink, presumably required after a grueling 2 1/2 hours standing guard (Yes, the Mass was that long!) - and so I poured a tall screwdriver. We attempted to watch The Two Towers extended DVD, but this was shortly before our numbers swelled, at which point we abandoned that activity in favor of good old fashioned shootin' the breeze.
It was all well and good until the end of the evening, when I realized how bloody old I've become in a few short months. Everybody was gone by one in the morning; in years gone by (heck, in April) I would have been the last one partying to the bitter end, but on this evening, I was worn out and ready to be put to bed - and I had barely drank (despite a certain coach's quips to the contrary). Gone too were the days when I could dance and otherwise make merriment 'til dawn and still make it up in time to set up for 10:30 Mass (gosh that looks strange in print). Nay, I got seven full hours of sleep, and I could barely peel my headached self out of bed at 8 to get ready for CCD at 10:45. So much for stamina.
Speaking of CCD, our kids had their turn for Confession yesterday. We had only a few moments to prepare, so I found myself in the hallway fielding questions from the ones in line; my favorite: "Is swearing a sin?" I wish you could have seen their winces when I explained it to them. But, confess they did, and since it is not my business to question their sincerity of contrition (but boy do I hope), it's kind of cool to think that I taught a roomful of saints that day. Well, actually, Jenny did all the teaching, as our soiree the previous evening did not give us time to fully prepare and she's much better at ad-libbing.
Anyway, while I was waiting with the kids, I was reading some "peace" posters that the grammar school children had made for class. The vast majority were pretty standard: "Let there be peace on earth," "Peace is flowing like a river," "Lord make me an instrument of Your peace." There was some variety however: one child's prayer for peace was that no one else in his/her family get divorced, complete with pictures of couples dancing and holding each other. It was pretty heartbreaking to know that this poor child has had to be exposed to that, but I also found it somewhat encouraging that he or she understands the importance of peace in the family. Please pray for this young person.
On the opposite side of the pendulum from "heartbreaking" was "disturbing," represented by one child's assertion that "We must sell war to buy peace." The accompanying clipart floored me. It depicted an equation which I do not recall either in Econ or Poli Sci, wherein - I kid you not -
a battleship + a fat wad of cash = a dove with an olive branch in its mouth.
I had to study it for a good couple of minutes to make sure I wasn't missing the joke. I wasn't, that's what the kid meant. I think that one might need a few more prayers than the "divorce" child.
Anyway, to top off the weekend, Jenny's car died and the only set of keys got locked inside while the car was parked on the wrong side of the street. Never have I felt sillier when dealing with a tow-truck driver. Well, actually Jenny was the one dealing with him since we haven't gotten around to consolidating our policies, but I still had to stand there. Fortunately, it turned out just to be a dead battery, which is a lot milder than some of the things I feared it could be.
Anyway, despite the revelation that I've lost my ability to handle the nightlife and despite the car fiasco, it was a nice weekend. We hosted our good friend from Texas, which was a special treat as we don't get to see her nearly enough, and also got to host a somewhat unplanned party. Even better, J-Lu is doing very much better, and was able to enjoy the company of our friends, though she was rather exhausted by the time Sunday evening rolled around.
Oh yeah, and best of all, our houseguest and another friend of ours CLEANED OUR KITCHEN on Sunday while Jenny and I were at Mass! It was an extremely kind thing for the two of them to do, as the kitchen was already in need of a good cleaning before the shindig on Saturday night, wherein we used every glass and about 3/4 of the plates in our cupboard. They even mopped our floor - what a couple of sweethearts!
Thanks to all our friends for brightening up our home with their presence (and their elbow-grease)!
And happy feast day to our nation and our diocese!
