Seven Quick Takes

1.

Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Which reminds me of how grateful I am for some great Jesuit priests who have been major influences on me and my family, especially: Fr. Fessio, Fr. Geary, Fr. Steckler and Fr. Healy.

2.

It's been an interesting week at our parish. Last Sunday our pastor invited anyone who was interested to join him for the Liturgy of the Hours each weekday morning. The turnout has been great and some of us (at least) made it several days this week. This morning we had a full contingent, including John. It's been lovely to pray morning prayer and then have some time to hang out with the kids at the playground before heading back into Church for Mass.

We now know that it's not worth trying to bring the littlest out so early when we've also been out late dancing the night before! (Thank goodness for a certain teenage brother who is willing to stay home with the littles and get some extra sleep too!)

3.

What is it with the power of anger that makes me lose my marbles on occasion? Earlier this week one of my middle daughters managed to spill bleach over a tub of clean laundry. Somehow the more hot-headed part of my brain seems to think that if I can somehow discover WHY she was messing around with the bleach, that will somehow fix the problem. Or perhaps it was just particularly frustrating that she had no special reason that she was using the bleach, but had just decided to show the bleach to her younger sister. Sigh.

4.

In trying to cut corners in our budget, we canceled our Netflix account a few months ago. The loss to our educational plans and habits, and the fact that the Netflix charges weren't really enough to make-or-break the budget, caused us to reinstate our account this week. I'm happy we did. Ria has a project she's working on which will be greatly assisted by the rental of numerous titles not readily available from the local libraries. And because I'm exercising in front of movies, I've been enjoying a few new/old titles myself.

I finally saw On the Waterfront (Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, 1954) and it was every bit as good as I've heard. Definitely too heavy for the younger set. It's gripping drama about corrupt unions controlling work at the docks in New Jersey.

Last night Ria, Terri and I got wrapped up in Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, 1942). It's a well-written and very engaging movie, but I forgot how heavy handed it got in places. And so while it presents a lovely and engaging picture of British life and challenges at that time, I couldn't help but notice the parts that are designed to tweak the emotions to get people to support the war. The church scene at the end, in particular, was a bit over the top.

As a family, we also enjoyed From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, despite the fact that it deviated from the book in numerous ways.

5.

It seems to be a summer of lots of hellos and goodbyes. Two families from our local group are moving away and one family who lived nearby many years ago (the mom is a TAC grad and the dad is a U.D. grad) are moving into the area - and will be our house guests soon (Please say a prayer that they're house purchase goes through smoothly.)! We're looking forward to that, but not to saying goodbye to my nephew Charlie who's heading off to Christendom in just a few more weeks.

6.

This week I read the first two volumes in a Catholic fantasy/adventure series by T.J. Smith. The titles are A World Away and The Harrowing Escape. My daughter laughed at me when I described them as both gripping and tedious. They're pretty well-written on the whole except that the author goes into excruciating detail at times about insignificant things and doesn't seem to use quite enough adjectives.

It may be the influence of Lissa's posts about ComicCon or following fellow TAC Alum Matt Lickon's intriguing Alphonse project, (and it's definitely, in part, because the author loves a good cliffhanger) but I think these would make a fantastic Catholic comics series.

In any case, I'm looking forward to reading subsequent volumes. By the way, they're a bit harrowing and violent in places. Probably best for older teens and adults.

7.

And, especially for Margaret, here's a photo of the gang I had following me through the grocery store on the way to a costume dance this week (I wish, I wish, I wish I had taken the camera into the store)...


That would be, from left-to-right, my son the mad scientist, my niece wearing my dress from college days, my nephew doing an Old West/modern tennis shoes mix, my daughter as a very cute old-fashioned teacher/librarian, a friend doing something Jane Austenish, her sister doing something Renaissanceish and my daughter as Luthien from Lord of the Rings. It's a good thing that the Civil War era costume theme wasn't strictly enforced. :)