Em oi! #397: It also Means “of the Greatest Importance.”

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Here is something interesting I found out about cardinals: If you are a priest who is ministering somewhere that it might potentially be dangerous for you to be made a cardinal, the pope can make you a cardinal in pectore, which means he makes the appointment but keeps it secret (from everyone, including the apointee). Later on, he can reveal the appointment. But if he dies (or retires from the papacy, I guess?) before it is revealed, the appointment expires and the cardinal goes back to being a priest (or bishop). This kind of blows my mind, but I guess it is related to how the college of cardinals functions–not surprisingly, for a group that is full of old dudes, seniority is important.

Our yard might look like this picture if any of our trees (save the evergreens) had any leaves on them yet. Also we sold the swing set, it is not there anymore. And Edgar has dragged about a dozen sticks (many of them as big around as my forearm and longer than he is) out of the woods and piled them up in the middle of the lawn. He seems quite pleased with himself. If they start building ramparts, I’m going to get worried.

We’ll file this under ND1329.3.C37 L86 2014 for Painting–Special subjects of painting–Portraits. Group portraits. Self-portraits–Special subjects, A-Z–Cardinals. No, I am not sure why this is a call number.

Happy Pesach everyone! I hope you had a good seder (or seders if you are more ambitious than I am) and that you are having a good week of not eating bread. I have not had any bread in several days now, yes indeed! Although I must admit I have eaten some tortillas. A line has to be drawn somewhere I guess.

(Ok, actually the rabbis drew it on the side of don’t eat things with flour in them other than matzos during Passover. But they never had to go out to dinner in a non-Jewish city during Pesach.)

I guess this comic is somehow timely because Easter is coming up this Sunday. Happy Easter to all my priest relatives (and priest-to-be somehow-related-by-marriage people)! Actually, this is not a joke, I have one relative who is a priest, and also two of B’s relatives are priests-in-training. That’s a lot of priests for a Jew to be related to. It seems unusual. I also have a relative who studies the medieval Church although she isn’t herself Catholic. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I can get questions of dogma answered all over the place.

After Easter though, comes the holiday we’ve all been waiting for: Cadbury-Creme-Eggs-Go-on-Sale-Monday.

You were waiting for that too, right? (Cough) I just started training for a triathlon, so I’m trying to stop buying junk food. I’m trying to eat less sugar. I’ll let you know how that works out. Right now I am very hungry and have been eating like it was my job. Probably because I can’t fill up on bread all the time.

It’s, um, Wednesday. Pesach ends Monday at sundown, I think. Be strong.

Em oi! #396: Airplane Hell

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This was on a flight from Salt Lake City to Denver. Let me just say that I am super paranoid about my headphones–not only do I worry about disturbing others, I worry about damaging my hearing, so I keep music/podcasts turned down REALLY low. Evidently this guy didn’t give a fuck if everyone could hear his music or not. He’ll probably go deaf, serves him right I guess. Or that’s about what I was thinking. But at the end, when we got up to get our luggage, I started to lean over the seat to vent spleen on the guy. As I did so, I saw some of the stuff he was texting to a friend on his phone (well, we were on the ground, I guess). Essentially he was in his 30s or 40s, on his way to visit a woman his family disapproved of (they believed he was a sinner because he was going to see her, and she had posted some “mildly sexy” photos of herself on the internet), his family also disapproved of his lack of religiosity… I just lost steam. Poor guy was old enough that he should have a life for himself, but he was so totally caught up in his family’s feelings.

It would have been easier if he was just the stupid teenager I’d assumed he was. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a terrible person. But I didn’t yell at him; his life seemed rough enough already.

Anyway. We’ll file this under BJ2139.L86 2014, for Social usages. Etiquette–Etiquette of travel–Special topics–Airplane travel.

I went out to Black Earth to run the Black Earth 10 Mile Race today. It was quite entertaining–I knew about a third of the field, it felt like, or they were friends of friends. It was especially funny to hear people say “Here come the fast people” as I approached with my friend R. Not sure how long I’ve counted as a fast person. We kept a pretty steady 8:00-8:30 pace for the first 9 miles–it was an out and back course, very flat, so it was relatively easy to keep pace, and I knew when we hit the turnaround that I was in 9th place, so it was easy to drive just a little bit harder on the second half to move up a few spots to 7th. Just shy of the 9 mile marker, two people we’d passed earlier (a man and a woman) came up behind us looking to make a move. I dropped the hammer and took off. For a while, I was running about a 6:40. It was amazing, I was flying.

My hands started to tingle. I realized that I could only hold that pace for a limited amount of time, and the clock was running down. I was very shortly going to have make a choice between passing out and slowing down.

I finished, I believe, in 8th place. I didn’t win the free shoes gift certificate. But I learned something new about how fast I can really push myself to–maybe if I start doing intervals once a week (my PT suggested this), I will actually be able to hold a 6:40 pace for a little while longer.

That’s enough of that. Here are some pictures of dogs and other animals I took.

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Macalester, or Mac for short.
Macalester, or Mac for short.
Edgar is happy when Bear is around.
Edgar is happy when Bear is around.

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Bear, who stayed with us for a week while his person traveled.
Bear, who stayed with us for a week while his person traveled.
Kali and Bear go on adventures.
Kali and Bear go on adventures.
Kali.
Kali.

 

 

Bear, lying down.
Bear, lying down.

 

 

 

 

 

Smile nice for the camera, guys.
Smile nice for the camera, guys.
Smile, I said.
Smile, I said.
Guys, come on.
Guys, come on.

Anyway I think my SAD is over so I will try to post more frequently now. I still have a couple of reviews in queue and a few more to write, plus I’ve recently fallen down a post-colonial studies rabbit hole and I’m excited to talk about that (everyone in real life is tired of listening to me talk about it, actually).