Happy belated birthday to Doug and Leenie and Jeff.

My life these days is dedicated to the packing of boxes. Here is a synopsis of the last week:

The Good

The Bad

The Liposuction of Bears
My hands get really yucky and dry during the winter. Right now, they’re cracking and it’s not exactly fun. The problem is that with flu season, I have to wash them and Purell them frequently (as they think I’m allergic to the flu shot) to keep from getting the flu and it dries out my hands pretty well. My mother-in-law advised me to either slaughter a bear and use the grease from it or to just suck it up and use Vaseline jelly. (Vaseline grosses me out royally, so my vote is naturally for the bear grease.) Any suggestions that don’t involve either of them?

As my life is highly chaotic now, I’m not going to be posting a lot. I have a house to pack up, an ordination to help with, moving vans to arrange… As I’m feeling frenzied right now, I thought I’d list the good things that have happed to me and in the world lately as a reminder that there is good in everything.

In My Life

In the world

Question: Why hasn’t Jen updated much this week?

Moving
We move to Minnesota in 3 weeks. We accepted a call (which will be announced here when all the papers are officially signed). We don’t have too much stuff so we really don’t have all that much to pack but… it’s still been stressful. My in-laws were paranoid about Jon and I doing the move and the driving ourselves, especially since I have no license yet. (I take the test on Tuesday at 10:15. I’ll post news if I pass.) As a result, my brother is going to fly out and help us.

If you have any advice on moving, leave me a comment here or at Domesticated.

Call Papers
The church we wanted voted 61-2 in favor of calling us. We should hopefully have the call papers in the next couple days. *crosses fingers and toes* I have a journal set up for my pastor’s wife adventures. If you want the location, e-mail me and I’ll tell you if I know you.

The other church would only let us keep 2 of our cats and that’s fine for them — it’s their parsonage and therefore their decision. I’ve refrained from screaming at the various people from my current church whose response to the situation has been “WELL IT SERVES YOU RIGHT FOR GETTING TWO MORE CATS!!! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?” Everything worked out, we can keep our girls, and those people have no leg to stand on.

Panthers
Edda had a parasite which was causing her bowels to be a little on the loose side. After spending 3 hours cleaning carpets before putting her under suite arrest and layering the floor of her suite with garbage bags, we took her to the vet and they dewormed her (basically some meds to kill any possible worms) and put her on some antibiotics. Our vet was not the sharpest crayon in the box and gave us a syringe of meds that was bigger than Edda, telling us to just depress it a little each time. Uh yeah… that’s really going to make medicating my cat easier, I ended up calling the vet after trying it and telling them to just give me the pills so I could split and dissolve them. (They ended up disolving the meds and giving me a small syringe and dropper… which is how it should have been done the FIRST time.) She’s doing much better though she hates her meds (which is just tough because she has a week left on them).

I have been quiet about the Senate talkathon because there have been other things on my mind lately. However… MeanDean decided to reference me in his cache on the sitch, which is a sign that I should probably be itchin’for a fight. So… LIVE FROM THE PUNDIT SECTION OF JEN’S PSYCHE,HEEEEEEEEEEERE’S JEN’S TAKE!!!!!

[MANAGEMENT DISCLAIMER: These views are Jen’s and may not necessarily be the views of whatever site links to them, especially if it’s a link being fisked. We welcome constructive criticism as long as it is civilly put. Any hatemail can be sent here. Threats against me, my husband, my cats, or my firstborn child will cause some heavy I.P. banning and your email address being given to the nice folks at Spamorama.Com. That is all.]

I think that the Republicans need to stop their whining and accept that the government is working the way it should. Our three branches of government operate on a system of checks and balances which keep one branch from having too much authority. This is why the Senate confirms nominees, the President has veto power on what is passed in the Senate, and the Supreme Court can strike down laws it finds to be unconstitutional. To answer the accusations that it’s bad politics, I’d like to remind the Republicans that they are calling the kettle black. They did this to quite a few of Clinton’s nominees. As for the ludicrous assertions that this shows the Democrats to be anti-women and anti-minority, many of the Clinton nominees shot down by the Republicans were also women and minorities.

I will also OPENLY and HONESTLY admit that I have been part of the effort to keep these people from being nominated. I have emailed/faxed my senators (who, in my not-so-humble opinion, should not be re-elected and have heaped much shame upon themselves for supporting these nominees) and the Senate judiciary committee to not confirm these nominees. Why am I so against these nominees? Well…

Miguel Estrada: His judicial integrity was compromised in my eyes by his failure to answer questions on how he views civil rights, abortion rights, and women’s rights. How can people honestly expect to get a fair trial from someone who hides the basis for their decisions??? I was really disappointed because I’d love to see more minorities on the bench.

The others are all anti-abortion and I feel that they were nominated simply for that reason. Bush has LONG been trying to overturn Roe v. Wade and he actually re-nominated some of these people when their nominations were overturned. THAT is dirty politics. It’s an attitude of “I-will-get-my-way-no-matter-what” and even Clinton didn’t resort to that.I am fine with them having their convictions — I just do not think that they can divorce their convictions from their judicial duties and that prevents the judicial ideal: “justice for all”. If anyone can show me differently with those people, go right ahead and send me your source. (Mine are TrueMajority and Million4Roe.)

Among the other reasons I don’t want these people on federal benches:

Janice Rogers Brown: She would protect racist and sexist speech in the work place under the First Amendment. Sorry… calling someone a “nigger”, “wetback”, “b*tch*”, or making racist or sexist statements is not something that should be tolerated. Sexual harassment is a reality and I’m not protecting a crime by declaring it to be free speech.

Carolyn Kuhl: She supported tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University, who should not be tax-exempt. They aren’t a non-profit organization or a ministry — they make money. I admit that I’m not an expert on tax laws for private schools, but I don’t think Bojo deserves special treatment. They don’t admit everyone who applies regardless of race, religion, gender, or orientation by choice and they can support themselves with money from like-minded people and pay taxes on said money.

Priscilla Owen: She is considered one of the most pro-business/anti-worker judges on the Texas Supreme Court. Do I really want her trying a dispute between me and my company when my company is doing me wrong? (This would be stuff like unlawful termination, denying me benefits for no legit reason, illegal practices on the part of the company that cause me to lose my pension…)

Charles Pickering: He attempted to reduce the sentence of a convicted cross burner. Do I really want a judge who is pro-racist? I think not! He is opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment, which means that I am not an equal citizen in his eyes because I’m female.

William Pryor: He is a leading figure in the “states’ rights” movement which advocates protecting states from claims of discrimination. States do not have a right to discriminate against minorities. Again, this means that “justice for all” is not going to happen.

I would also like to remind people that of the 172 nominees brought before the Senate, 168 (97.7%) of them have been confirmed. The Republicans are nitpicking over 4 people (2.3%). This doesn’t look like dirty politics to me. This looks like people voting their conscience and trying to keep the
courts free of people with extreme views. I’m not against people being anti-abortion — I just want them to enforce the laws of the land and not try to promote their agendas. Attorney General Ashcroft is very anti-abortion but he has (excluding the stupidity in Detroit in December 2001 regarding the Patriot Act) kept his promise to uphold the existing laws regardless of how he feels.

Some may say that I’m anti-Republican because I’m criticizing them. Uh yeah… I vote for both Democrats AND Republicans so that charge is baseless. Some would say that I’m criticizing this because I hate Bush. I do hate Bush but I am also perfectly willing to call a spade a spade regardless of who the guilty party is. I’m criticizing this because I think that the talkathon was dirty politics on the part of the Republicans and I think that we need to look at the reason WHY the nominees aren’t being confirmed. If Bush wants to send some nominees with normal politics, I’ll support that. I will not, however, support the court-stacking in which he is engaging. It undermines the system of checks and balances in place and makes a mockery of the government our forefathers intended us to have.

Question: What has my week involved?

Lutheranism: The Call Process
One church votes on us tomorrow and also whether or not to make the parsonage pet-OK. (They know about two of our cats and that we’re not giving them up.) Another votes next week, has a cat-friendly parsonage, knows about the additions to our herd, and is also OK with me going to seminary. Please pray for both votes and please pray for our nerves. We’re both petrified that we won’t get either call. In all honesty, we’d really like the second one more but the first one would be wonderful if we could keep our cats.

As for where my faith is, it’s in existence and I know that we will be where the Lord wants us to be. However… our finances are going to be scary if we don’t get a call soon. I know God will provide and I know I shouldn’t be scared of all of this. I’m just a J and I need things to be laid out neatly. If only ministry weren’t such a P profession!

Gremlin-Keeping
Edda has given herself house privileges and she is getting along very well with Cullen. (They will touch noses and Cullen allowed her to curl up 2 inches from him under the bed today.) Finian is furious and growls/spits/hisses at the kittens. Freya… well… she’s still a little gremlin. (Because of her ears, her coloring, and her size, we call her the gremlin. She looks like Gizmo and is a little warrior princess.) She decided to roll around in her litterbox yesterday (WHY DO MY CATS INSIST ON DOING THIS?!??!?!?! EWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!) and take a nap in there, so she was treated to a rinse-off with warm water. She howled during it and slept wrapped in a hand towel (which covered her as a regular towel would cover the other three cats) as I dried to rub her dry in a way that simulated licking. (She wasn’t fostered around other cats — she was fostered with rotweilers.) Today, she decided that pouncing on my face was the appropriate way to show her affection after I brought her into the bedroom. (Edda was very insistent about running free through the house this morning. We worked on table manners today — she got squirted every time she jumped on the table.) Believe me… there is nothing that jolts you up faster than opening your eyes and seeing a face with fangs about to strike. I have a small bruise on my eye lid from her trying to nurse on it. (That got old after about 2 seconds.) She spent most of the day in her suite so that Jon and I could get yardwork done and Cullen/Edda could have a break from babysitting. (She terrorizes Cullen. She will go up to him and bat him. He won’t touch her because he knows that we’ll be mad. I wish he would bat back once just to show her that he has limits. CATS!!!!)

When we went to pick Freya up at the vet this morning, there was a 4 month old black female kitten up for adoption as well. This one stole Jon’s heart, so we took her as well.

Edda living up to her name (a type of Icelandic literature)

Freya (the warrior princess)