The State of the Union Drinking Game
Number of hard ciders I would have had to down during Bush’s speech (with 10 tics counting as a full bottle): 17
Number of hard ciders I would have had to down during the Democratic rebuttal: 1.5
Want my thoughts on the SOTU? Click “more”. Realize though that if you click on the “more…”, you are choosing to read what I’ve written and knowing that I am not a fan of Bush, you are willingly choosing to read something criticizing our president.
Kerry took Iowa.
Duuuuuuuuuude…
Life is kind of strange right now. I just set up my new laptop (which was bought with Christmas and birthday money from the last year) and my settings aren’t transferred over yet. My laptop refuses to recognize my desktop (which is making the transfer of my Outlook Express a royal pain) and my techie and I spent an hour playing with things before they worked yesterday. Right now, I’m putting my MP3 collection on CD’s. I’m on disc 6 of the “Doxa!” series and the next one will probably be my oldies ones.
Church was lovely this morning. Doing the Confirmation material has put me more on speaking terms with the Almighty and I actually wanted to get up at dark-thirty on a morning when the temperature was a balmy -35F with wind chill to go worship. (The cold was worth about 7 expletives.) The service at Church #1 was short because of the annual meeting; but I sang my heart out (and probably was the reason some people got one of the hymns — it’s Danish, which means that the tune is bizarre). At Church #2, they let me sing with Holy Commotion (the worship team) and I had a blast. I’ve been missing church choir and I relished the opportunity to sing and worship with a group like them. I also got compliments from parents on my Confirmation lesson last week, which was an ego boosting for me.
We take Sable (our happening ’84 Volvo) in for fuel pump replacements tomorrow. (I am so tempted to fry our Newark mechanic on the MechanX Files on Car Talk’s website because he misinstalled the rear fuel pump and didn’t use Volvo parts. If he’d used Volvo parts, they would be under warranty right now. Grrrrr.) We also have a copy machine tech coming by because we fried a fuse in it while copying annual reports. On Wednesday, I have two Confirmation classes and there are various other things going on. I’ll be blogging but perhaps not as vocally as usual.
Oh yes… I do have opinions on the Democratic primaries that are happening. (Unless there is a shot that Dubya won’t get re-nominated, I’m ignoring the Republican ones. The Republicans are also on the state sh*tlist around here as well because they’ve cut a lot of really essential services and have done things to irritate the farmers.) I’m torn between Dean and Clark. Dean’s claim of religion irritates me (it’s scary that someone could butcher the Christian faith worse than Dubya’s random allusions to verses and hymns with no context) but I don’t know if Clark will get the nomination. I also like Kerry, so I’m kind of split three ways. Once Iowa is over (since it’s being talked up here), I might blog about my thoughts on each of the candidates.
1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?
There are a couple:
-“The 10 Commandments are not multiple choice.”
-“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it, but
because by it I see everything else.” (C.S. Lewis)
-“Do I have to have a reason to be neurotic?” (If you know me in real life, you shouldn’t have to ask about this one.)
2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven’t graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?
I think mine was thanking all my friends and God for my life or something like that.
3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?
Mine would say “LEPICAT”.
4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?
I don’t think I have anything engraved. *tries to think if there are any knickknacks or something*
5. What would you like your epitaph to be?
“A grace-filled life”
I just incurred the wrath of my 2nd year Confirmation class by telling them that they had to pass a Confirmation test to be confirmed. They get a re-take if they don’t pass it the first time and I promised that it wasn’t going to be wicked hard. I want to basically know that they learned something in Confirmation and have the information to make the choice about whether or not they want to be confirmed.
I told them what a third of the points are going to be: the Lord’s Prayer, the 10 Commandments, the Apostle’s Creed, and “who is Jesus/why is He important?” (If they can’t answer those questions, I cannot confirm them with a clear conscience. Those are, like, the BARE ESSENTIALS of Lutheranism.) The rest will be short ID’s on people (Noah, Mary, Abraham, Adam, Eve, Paul…), terms (baptism, confirmation, Holy Spirit, Trinity…), and Holy Days (Easter, Pentecost, Good Friday…). There will also be questions like “how are we saved” (by grace through faith) and stuff on things they should know as Christians.
Anything else I should ask? 🙂
Finian instructing Edda in the faith as they curl up in one of the windows of the Confirmation room in our basement.
Bene Diction posted some thoughts on dealing with cold weather. As I sit here listening to Car Talk and drinking chai, I thought I’d list Bene’s ways and add my comments to them.
1.) We know not to touch metal like a car door handle with bare hands. (Darn straight. Owwwwww…)
2.) We breathe through wool or fur, so we don’t damage our lungs. Woven wool is amazing stuff. The wetter it gets, the warmer it gets next to your nose and mouth. (I heart my wool scarves. My polar fleece one isn’t too bad either though wool is definitely the best.)
3.) We learn to keep kleenex in our pockets. Stepping from that kind of cold to warm starts major sniffles and nasal drip. (You just have a perpetual case of the sniffles. Then you go into a house and all that snot dries in your nose. It’s ummmm… interesting.)
4.) We layer. (You just don’t go out without wearing thermal underwear under your clothes. Otherwise, the cold literally does chill you to the bone. I also found that Jon’s long black raincoat [for his suit] is a lovely thing — it seals in the warmth and makes me look either really Gothic or really British.)
5.) We learn that all the neat gadgets we’ve developed don’t always work. If you plugged in the car, and it isn’t starting, and it gets towed to the garage to get thawed out, c’est la vie. (Block heaters are wonderful things, but you pretty much have to count on starting your car at least 5-10 minutes before you go anywhere when it’s -25F.)
6.) We watch the weather channel. A lot. We have weather channel groupies. (Dude… the Weather Channel is my friend. I watch it if there’s nothing else on.)
7.) We go to Tim Hortons with our friends and complain and commiserate. Loudly and raucously. We openly envy our ‘snowbird’ buddies. We have immediate friends in total strangers. “Cold eh?” starts great conversations. (In Minnesota, everyone is nice and everyone loves to talk about the weather. Everyone loves to drink coffee too. If only we had a Timmies in my town.)
8.) We sleep a lot. Like any extreme cold saps your strength. Winter sun doesn’t give the vital nutrients our bodies need. It wouldn’t anyway, we are too bundled up against the wind. Seasonal affective disorder is real. (So it’s actually normal that I can’t get myself up willingly before 10? Cool! This should save me money on seretonin and anti-depressants.)
9.) We help each other out. This is a vast country with vast arctic air cold systems. We don’t conquer nature. All it takes is living outside an urban area for awhile to appreciate our inter-dependency. (If you stop by anyone’s house to drop something off, you always stay for a cup of coffee. If they like you, they’ll give you more.)
Some things that Bene didn’t mention:
It’s actually 30F today — 55 degrees warmer than Monday. Maybe I’ll go frolic outside and revel in my ability to just walk around in shirt sleeves.