Friday, December 02, 2011

7 quick takes

one
Baby took a step one day this week. And then the next day took another step. And then we panicked and stopped coaxing her.
two
As a result of doing a tiny bit of Christmas shopping online, I have been followed around by the things I was looking at on every single other website I normally attend to. Well, I was until yesterday when I deliberately went to a series of websites I like very much but from which I have no intention of ever buying anything. Now I see all their nice things all over instead of the weird stuff I had to look at for Christmas. Take that Google.
three
Alouicious and I are trying to learn this song. We have it half done and we're pretty good. I like how testy he (the Jesuit, not Alouicious, that I wouldn't abide) is, and irritable.

four
We finished all of Alice in Wonderland and in the Looking Glass on Tuesday. On Wednesday we started another book and Alouicious looked up and said, "What? Why aren't we reading Alice?"
"We finished it," I said.
"What? All of it? Every single page there is?"
As if I would have taken pages away and hidden them or something.
five
Carrol's attitude towards poetry is so brilliant. First of all, its everywhere. You can't read more than three pages without reading some kind of poem. Second, its so tiresome. The deep resignation of Alice every time she's about to be subjected to some excessively long poem is my own every day as Elphine accosts me, "Want to hear a poem?"
"Do I have to?"
six
It's time for my annual reading of The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass. Have most of it memorized but read it carefully and devotedly anyway...every year...and its still desperately funny.
seven
We've got to decorate for Christmas. And all I can say about that is...ugh.
Here's where Matt starts wildly dispensing eggnog to children and listening to Il Divo's Christmas album and I start yelling at everyone because of the wretched mess. It will be such a glorious relief in January to pack it all away and sit in that first profound moment of clean, calm quiet when the house is its usual plain rational self. And I will thank my providential God that we only have to celebrate his birthday once a year. In the meantime, I will just try to remember that the glory of the cross would not have been revealed had he not actually been born and a little tinsel and pine needles is a small price to pay for celebrating the salvation of all the world. But honestly, wouldn't it be great if he came back in the single moment before I cracked open that first Christmas bin?

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

9 comments:

lissla lissar said...

"Mrs. Flushpool looks like a collection of black plastic bags half-filled with water".

I love The Sacred Diary.

Maptocostal Angloholics comes up fairly often in our house. I guess it's what we'd be if we hadn't become Catholic.



Do we have to decorate for Christmas? I had friends who left up a paper skeleton and added seasonally appropriate decorations so it covered all the basics. I could probably manage that.

Polly said...

I can't find Adrian Plass in the U.S. It makes me sad.

Polly said...

Oh, I just did an Amazon search and found him! Hooray!

Anne said...

Feel led to do more amazon searches.

R said...

Brahawhahahaha! Love the comment. I was so excited to meet a lovely Catholic filipino lady down the street who HAS AN ADVENT WREATH. It was so nice to see, as when I was frantically searching for candles last year everyone looked at me as if I had two heads ('you want what?') and tried to sell me a single 25-day Christmas candle encrusted with glitter.

Btw, do you want a Christmas card? It's a detail of 'Adoration of the Magi' Gentile da Fabriano, but the gold foil is rather badly done. Of course you could have a kitten in a santa hat if you prefer, or none at all. I'm easy.

~R

Anonymous said...

1) I love the new header.
2) My chyildren have been asking every five minutes since we got home from Thanksgiving when we're going to decorate. If I were a drinker, it would drive me to drink.
3) I seriously thought YOU had put the little red electronic bubble is testiness in there until I saw the green informational bubble. Ha!
4) I think I'll have to find this Adrian Plass book if he has someone in it names Mrs. Flushpool.
5) We were reading today about the religious wars in the Netherlands (in FLushing, specifically) and one of the children asked if that was where the toilet was invented.
6) What was Romulus doing yesterday? Did he cut down your cherry tree?
7)I loved that on Thanksgiving, rather than feed your children a bunch of crap while they waited for the real food to come, you took their pictures. Repeatedly. Thanks for posting-- I love this blog.

Anne said...

R: I'd LOVE a Christmas card! I got my candles from Polsbough WA. It was worth all the shipping.
Polly: Have you read The Theatrical Tapes?
MOMCO3: I can't imagine life without Adrian Plass. I know its good to read lots of books, but I could survive on him only (I mean, other than the Bible, naturally). Also, I'm pretty sure that the flushed lou was brought to perfection in England and can be read about in a book called Flushed With Pride of which I once had a copy and am looking for again. As for thanksgiving, we offered them little olives and fancy cheese before dinner and they were too philistine to try them.

eulogos said...

Now, I love getting out my Christmas ornaments, and put off taking down the tree as long as I can.

This year, not sure where I can put a tree because we are not living downstairs because of the flood. And some of my favorite ornaments were wrecked in the flood.

I like Christmas so much that I even buy ornaments when it is not the Christmas season. I would have two trees if I could. I would be one of those people whose yards are full of lighted decorations (but not the ugly blow up ones) if I only had time to do all of that.

This weekend! I am getting a tree, if I have to hang it in a stairwell or put it in the construction site!

Susan

lissla lissar said...

"The card I found for Anne had a cow looking over its shoulder, and said, "I love you.... from the heart of my bottom.""

We have done Epic Fail at Advent decoration, but we might be able to get the tree up this weekend. Sigh.