More Than Many Sparrows

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommas, especially my fellow new moms!

It's my first as a for-really-real mom, though last year, big and pregnant, I got this Mother's Day card from Lee:




If you're reading that and saying, "Hm, what does that remind me of?", it's this icanhascheeseburger.com image that had us cracking up last year:


I love that funny hubsband of mine!

This year, I received a gift certificate to my favorite nail salon, which I think I will use next weekend, and a lovely card that Penelope made at Baby School:


You can also see more of her art on the fridge behind us. She's very prolific.

We went to lunch at a steakhouse in town I've been wanting to try, but it was kind of disappointing. We were expecting a restaurant where you go in and sit down and look at the menu and order a steak. Instead, it was like a cross between Ryan's Steakhouse and Morrison's Cafeteria: you stand in line and get a tray and silverware, and you order your steak, and you go through and get your drink, dessert, and side from the ladies behind the sneeze glass, and when you get to the end, your steak is ready. There's also a salad bar. My whole lunch was $8.99! So, yeah. Not really what we expected. But my steak was decent, and I got to be with my husband and baby, and that's what counts.

Also for Mother's Day, Lee bought us a new DVD player since the DVD/VCR combo we had stopped functioning. We only had that thing for a year or so--stupid, expensive piece of junk! We decided to go for cheap this time. If the silly device is going to be disposable no matter what, then why spend any money? Penelope helped him set it up.



Then we watched Look Who's Talking.

My wee little child has become a jaded photography subject. She hams it up sometimes, but nowadays, having her picture taken is old hat. She'd just as soon you get it done with. I coaxed some smiles out of her today by singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" from behind the camera, but I can tell I'm going to have to come up with some new tricks, because that got me only so far.

Penelope waves bye-bye now, and it's so super-cute. She doesn't wave to me, though! She'll wave to Daddy and to the kitties when we leave in the morning, and she'll wave to her teachers when we leave Baby School, and I'm told she waves at each of her classmates as they depart at the end of the day. But when I leave Baby School after dropping her off, she just stands there at her toy box and smiles at me.

She loves music. Blair gave us the Ella Elephant Scats Like That edition of the Baby Loves Jazz series, and we just popped the CD into the CD player for the first time last weekend. Penny was instantly enthralled! She stood up next to the CD player and shook her butt and grinned and grabbed at the knobs. A girl after her daddy's own heart.





We danced, too. She loves to dance. I can't wait to take her to swing night some day!

Penelope loves my keys. She holds them for me when we go out to the car. I always say, "Thank you for carrying my keys, Penelope. You are such a help to your mommy; I don't know what I did without you all those years!" Just liky my daddy used to say to me.

My wee little baby turned ten months old on Sunday. She is getting so big! I can't believe she will be one year old in less than two months.

I feel very stuck right now.

Thursday, Ascension Day, was an HDO, and I skipped it. It would have been tremendously inconvenient to try to go, and I really didn't want to, and I sort of hoped it would become impossible. I tried to drag my feet after getting off work to buy cheese and Nilla Wafers for Penelope, hoping I'd run out of time before 6:30 Mass, but it turns out that stopping in at Walgreens to pick up those items took only a few minutes. Then I got home and gave Penelope some boob and some cheese and carrots, and by then it was still only 6:10 or so, and I could have made it to Mass, but then I wanted to eat, and I just did not want to go. So I didn't. I stayed home, at my dinner, watched Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, and went to bed.

I thought about how resentful I felt that it was an HDO. I thought, "If this were a feast we were celebrating, but Mass attendance was not compulsory, I would be much more interested in attending." Naturally, I thought of my friends, the Piskies.

Saturday, I went to Christen's baby shower, and leaving, she and I said, "See you Sunday!" So Sunday, I went to St. Margaret's.

It was First Communion Sunday for the children, and all these kids were dressed up in their white dresses with veils, and suits. I came in just as they were processing in.   A very nice lady who has always been very friendly to Penelope and who calls her "Snuggies" remarked to my baby, "Look at all the children in white!  One day it'll be you up there in your white, and we'll all say, 'yeah!'"

I saw in the leaflet that half the stuff was printed in Spanish, and I groaned softly, wondering if this whole thing was going to last forever as bilingual-special-occasion Masses often do.

Father Malave was characteristically random and pointless in his homily. He started out in the pulpit, speaking each sentence twice: once in English and once in Spanish. Is he going to do this the whole time, I wondered? 

Just a minute in, however, he stopped and descended from the pulpit and began speaking directly to the children, all of whom were taking up the first three rows of pews.  As he was not miked, it was nearly impossible to hear most of what he was saying.  

Penelope was fussing and squirming, so I took the opportunity to walk her around in the back.  I heard snippets of the good father's words of wisdom:

"And any time you go somewhere, always be sure to tell your mom and your dad where you are going.  Can you imagine if you were gone and they didn't know where?  They would go crazy!" 

"It's very important to know two languages.  You might go apply for a job at a place where all they speak is English, and then you won't get it!  So always be sure you know two languages."

What does this have to do with First Holy Communion? I wondered.  I texted Jason to that affect.

The Mass finally ended with a flurry of picture-taking.  If a recessional was planned, I didn't stay for it.

I don't know why I do this.  Going to this church is in no way at all fulfilling.  I feel obligated--by the church, by our friends who also go there (but weren't there on Sunday!), by my past (didn't I already agonize about this, about coming back?), even by Lee (who thinks I should find a church and stick with it)... but nothing about this is what I want.  

In fact, however, I know I've actually invented some of the outside pressure I perceive.  For instance, Christen and Josh don't care where I go to church.  And I'm not forsaking some kind of awesome discussions or something by not going--we never talk about it.  And Lee would be just as happy if I never went to church again.  Happier, probably!  It's true that the pressure from the church itself, while not direct to me, exists, but I definitely have made up the influence of our local friends.

What do they call people who continually do things they don't want to do?

All this is doing is making me angry. 

My claims program, the one and only program without which I cannot do a single scrap of my job, is down right now. Aren't they supposed to send us home in this event?

I got new glasses today! I've been having eye issues for ages, but I didn't want to go to the doctor during my pregnancy, because pregnancy does stuff to your eyes. Then I didn't know how long to wait. Then it seemed I'd waited long enough, but I was too busy. Then I decided to make time, but we found out our eye insurance was inexplicably canceled--which we would never have requested since Lee wears glasses. We got that straightened out, and at last I went to my appointment. It's been almost five years since I did that. The last time, I got these very light prescription glasses for reading, which I stopped wearing because I'm a dumbass.

This time, the doctor told me my eyes were still 20/20, but I could choose to get some mild correction if I wanted it for distance. I decided to go for it, because even though the difference seemed slight, it did still make a difference, and my vision HAD been bugging.

The difference is amazing! Yes, it's very slight, but it's still significant. I can see it looking at things that are even just across the room. I had gotten used to it, except when I actually tried to look at things at a distance, and those things looked a little fuzzy. But now! Now I can really see everything more clearly!

I don't really understand why my vision is still 20/20 in that event, but whatevs.

Looks like my claims are back up. Le sigh.

We had some excitement this morning around 4 a.m. The security alarm went off! I woke up all confused, because it sounded just the way it sounds when you set it at the end of the night or when you leave, so I thought at first that Lee was setting it and coming to bed or something. I lifted my head and tried to see him next to me, and all I saw was a pile of pillows and blankets. I muttered something probably incomprehensible, but along the lines of, "What's going on?"

Lee's the smart one who figured it out: "It's the alarm!" By this point, the mundane beeping was replaced by a loud, high-pitched siren. He got out of bed, grabbed his baseball bat, and went down to investigate.

As an aside: this is the same baseball bat he brought with him to protect me back in 1999 or early 2000 one night. Blythe and Erica and, I believe, their boyfriends went on a trip to Atlanta, and I got to cat-sit at Erica's apartment. In the middle of the night, these dudes came knocking, and in my sleepiness, I thought it must be my friends returning, so I went to the door and almost opened it and told them the resident wasn't home and that I was alone (dumb girl!). Then I got spooked and called Lee, who had been at a gig and was actually just on his way home from leaving a flower on my car as a surprise. He turned around and came back with his baseball bat and stayed with me the rest of the night.

Anyway, back to 4:00 a.m. Lee went down with the bat, and I picked up Penelope and went to sit by the phone. Pretty quickly, he figured out that the basement door to the kitchen hadn't been latched, and it had come open (probably thanks to our ridiculous cat who can't stay out of the basement--Harriet!) and set off the sensor. He turned off the alarm, then ADT called and we told them everything was fine (at least we know the system works!). Then we RE-set the alarm and went back to bed.

Penelope, who had remained asleep on my shoulder as I scooped her up and took her with me to the study, woke up then and was ready to play. We all lay back down again and tried to settle, and I attempted to nurse P back to sleep. Riled up and not interested in drifting back off, she bit me twice (OUCH!). We gave her toys to play with in the dark for a while until she finally did get tired again, and then she nursed back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Good times.

Picture time!

( Click for pics--some safe for work, and others not quite. )

OH, and by the way: mama is part of the Penelope lexicon now. Hooray! Does it mean Mama? Who knows. But she still says it!

Today is one of those days when I want to go around with an absurdly large pair of scissors and cut everybody's driver's license in half, and banish all drivers to their homes or deport them for being stupid and making my life difficult.

Already! At 9:29 a.m., on a Friday of all days!

At least it's spring. It's still cold at night, but the days are turning out to be really pretty. The grass suddenly turned green, and some of the trees are getting little buds. I'm still somewhat fascinated by spring here, existing as a season of its own rather than just a brief interlude before summer. I suppose I will miss that when we move. This place has a lot of nice scenery to experience, and I will miss that, too.

Please keep fingers crossed for Lee today as he pursues a promising-sounding opportunity...

My little bub is a full-on crawler now, and she can pull up to standing when she is holding onto something. The first time we saw her do this, she grabbed Lee's feet and just stood! She hasn't bonked her face on the coffee table or whatever else she's gripping in a long time, so something must have clicked.

This is yesterday while I was putting groceries away:


Her favorite toys are aluminum cans and electrical wires. It's a good thing we're moving; we can set up our next abode with an eye toward babyproofing.

I think Penelope is also saying two words: daddy and kitty. Daddy comes out "da da" or "da da da," naturally. Kitty sounds like "te te," and she often whispers it, as if she's trying to feel the word out in her mouth. So cute. It could be these are just random sounds, but I decided yesterday that I think she's really attaching meaning to them when she said "te te" herself when the cats showed up. Same with "da da."

No mama yet--boo!

Yesterday, we drove to Fulton Park in Waterbury because the weather was so nice. Penelope got to swing on the baby swings for the first time--and she LOVED it! There was shrieking and laughing and cackling and much merriment. I posted a zillion pictures on Flickr, but here are some of the highlights (about a half zillion):

( Click for pics )

Two nights ago, I dreamed that we decided to do a paternity test on Penelope, just to have it on record or something, for some reason. We weren't questioning her paternity, but this was just a standard procedure or something. But when the test came back, I was horrified to see it showed that Lee was not the father!

I hid the results from Lee until I could figure this out. I knew there was no way anybody else was Penelope's father, because I hadn't cheated on Lee--but then suddenly I remembered that I'd had sex with my cousin! That happened in a dream I had last August, and somehow it infiltrated my dream two nights ago.  I spent the rest of the night feeling horrified that Penelope would turn out stupid or crazy because she was the product of two cousins, and feeling disgusting and guilty for cheating on Lee with my cousin.  It was the kind of guilt that stuck with me even after I woke up.  I hate that!

Also in this dream, I began to  notice a pattern that I had not previously noticed (apart from the having babies with my cousin theme): I very often have Liza Minelli as a room mate in my dreams.

This sign has been like this for far too long. We crack up every time we drive by.

I had one of those intense, cinematic dreams last night. I was David Sedaris (!?), and I was on a mission to prevent one of my friends from being hanged. The friend was another This American Life contributor, as I recall, but I don't remember which one. He was slated for death by hanging, but every time they'd go to hang him, I'd be in the shadows with a BB gun (!?), and I'd shoot the rope as soon as the trap door gave, saving my friend from strangulation. As a result of my sniping, I, too, was wanted by the town sheriff in kind of a 3:10 to Yuma sort of way.

Things got serious, and the big day came where, once and for all, the sheriff was determined to hang my friend. I showed up at the bar where this was to take place and hunkered down at a table, shrouded in a high-collared overcoat. This was to be my most impressive rescue as I planned to emerge from the shadows and effect my attack in a big, impressive show, then dart off again to safety. But it didn't quite work out that way.

The noose was attached, the trapdoor gave, and I threw away my coat and strode into the middle of the room. I was keenly aware that I was exposed before everyone, and I raised my gun and began firing. But I kept missing the rope! I realized several shots in that I was aiming for the wooden beam instead of the actual rope--stupid! I then tried to get the rope, but I was so confused and distracted and foggy. I ran out of BBs. The sheriff was coming at me. I had to get out.

I ran for it. Nicole Lee was there, and she was supposed to be driving my getaway car, but she wasn't ready yet. As I ran, I motioned for her to get the car going, but it became evident that I couldn't rely on her. Somehow, I escaped by darting into a closet and a train car and a house and another house and another until it was dark and I was far from the smoke and shouting and shooting.

Then I was on foot, trying to get as far away as possible without knowing where exactly I was going. I found family (David Sedaris's family), and I found Ira Glass. Ira took me into a large paddle boat, where I told him what had happened. It was then that I realized that my friend I had wanted to save must be dead since I had failed at shooting the rope away.

I noticed a couple looking over at me, and I realized I must be talking too loudly. But I thought surely they would be on my side--anyone would. The couple eventually entered the conversation and told me they could take me somewhere where people could help me. When the boat docked, Ira and I followed these people on foot.

But as we began descending a muddy hill with snow on the ground on either side of the road, I recognized the scenery. We were in Waterbury, back where we had started! "Wait," I said to the party ahead of me. "You're not trying to help me--you're going to turn me in!" They told me I was being silly, and just to follow them, but I didn't. I stopped, watching them move ahead, and wondered what to do next.

And then I woke up.

Themes in this dream that seem to be common in my dream life: being pursued and running away (though it's usually much more relentless and stressful--this time, once I escaped, I was able to relax a little), exploring abandoned houses, and to a lesser extent, trying to save people.

I don't really have any analysis of this dream except to say that two days before, I read an article about David Sedaris, and just before bed, I had been chatting about religion. However, I don't feel an immediate connection between the dream and my current religious ponderings, at least not the way I have with past dreams. So while this was a very intense, very movie-like dream, it may not have any significance outside of itself.

Sure was crazy, though!

Ten years ago, Holy Saturday was April 11, and on that date, I was formally received into the Catholic Church.

There I am on the left:


I remember how long the Easter Vigil service was, and how I tried very hard to absorb as much as possible. It definitely kept my attention. I think I was also vaguely concerned that my friends who came in my honor would be shocked at the length of the ceremony, but I was also committed to not worrying about it too much. After all, this was the Easter Vigil--and my confirmation!


For the most part, these people don't look too concerned.

I also remember that Fr. Perez included the traditional smacking of the confirmands' cheeks as he ushered each of us into the fold, and one of my friends told me later she was so shocked and amused to see it happening live and in person.

Ah, yes, almost-eighteen-year-old me, with Jason, my sponsor. Wearing a sleeveless cotton dress with shoulder pads, and a cardigan I borrowed from Jason's mom, which also had shoulder pads. And a doily on my head.

Those were different times.

I see in that picture that I'm wearing the cross that my mom made for me for my Episcopal confirmation, which was about four years earlier and which I had gone through seriously enough but without much regard for choosing my denomination. I was raised Episcopalian, and while my family wasn't very religious, I understood from going to church that you could get confirmed when you were 14-ish, so I went to classes and got confirmed. My Catholic confirmation was a much more deliberate choice. Still, even then, when I was much more traditional and conservative, I didn't want to abandon my religious roots altogether. I insisted to Jason that he was not my godfather but instead my confirmation sponsor, and I wore my confirmation cross, even though I was redoing my confirmation.

I remember also being plagued with scruples in the days that followed my Catholic confirmation. I wasn't sure I had "meant it" enough, the words I said, the vows I made. Could you have an invalid confirmation, I asked my confessor later? I wasn't sure I hadn't just phoned it in.

And here we are, ten years later. I feel so removed from that doily-headed girl, in a lot of ways, but maybe I'm too quick to regard her only superficially. I'm having trouble spelling out just how, though. I think that girl had a lot of aspirations that on paper look completely different from what, on paper, I've made of myself, both religiously and otherwise. And she has less cynicism, has not experienced the troubled waters yet. But I think that maybe she'd be willing to try to understand how ten years' time could lead a person here. Maybe I judge her too harshly. I think that then, maybe I said things, or allowed myself to think things, that I wouldn't want to say or think now, because then I was tasting them. A doily on your head is just a doily on your head; it doesn't change who you are fundamentally.

I think that the confirmation cross demonstrates that. Sometimes I consider the person I was building myself to be ten years ago and feel a shudder of horror at what I might have become if I'd kept myself in that crowd of people I was content to blend with. I think of how lucky I am that I escaped myself, or the person I tried to be. But maybe it wasn't luck; maybe it was inevitable, because I didn't stop being something. In fact, I had never stopped being who I was to start with, even when I put on the doily.

And, come on. Deep down, I always knew how stupid the doily looked anyway.

So, Rome, here's to an important ten years. Let's see what the next ten years bring.

I keep thinking of things I want to say in my next Penelope update, but then I keep not having time to get to said updates. My computer has been making this dead-waking racket that seems to be somehow related to gunk built up on the fan, but I don't have time to go buy a can of compressed air to try to clear it out. Or time to catch my breath, most days, for that matter.

I had to work last Saturday, which is a drag, but claims volume was blessedly light, and so I got a lot of my work caught up. I felt so proud--and then this week, everything is piling up again. I'm crossing my fingers that it won't get too bad again, but by hook or by crook I'm taking Friday off, and I'm going to get a pedicure and feel relaxed for half an hour, at least.

What are the Penelope updates? Oh, yes. She can sit up on her very own--all the way up, from lying flat! I'm so impressed. Now, at last, Penelope is totally emancipated from the terror that is tummy time. She can roll away and lift herself from the floor completely! Crawling hasn't happened yet, but she can do the hands-and-knees rock, so it can't be far away. She can't pull up to her feet yet, either, but she is relentless in her mission to pull to her knees, which almost always ends badly when she loses her balance and faceplants into whatever object she has attempted to pull up to--coffee table, toy bin, what have you. I arrived at Baby School today to find her in the arms of Miss Carolyn, sucking on a frozen teething ring and recovering from a bloodied lip. Still, I am impressed by my daughter's fearlessness. Multiple bumps have not deterred her from continually trying for it. She'll get there soon.

Last week, Penelope had the flu! She was lethargic and cranky and then developed a fever. Lee stayed home with her Friday (Baby School was closed for Good Friday) and Saturday while I worked, and I got him to take her to the doctor on Saturday. They did a nose swab (no fun) and found that it was, indeed, influenza. I wonder how they decide to do that; they never did it when I brought her in any of those other times. By Sunday morning, Easter, the fever was gone, but she was still plenty cranky, and I decided she must be teething. She seemed to have a swollen bump on her top gum next to her brand new top two teeth, and she howled in protest any time my fingers found that bump. The last few days have been very focused on Tylenol, Oragel, and teething tablets, and I think we are over the hump. The spot on the top gum doesn't seem any different, but I think I spotted a little cutter on the bottom, so maybe that's where the tooth was coming in. It's hard to tell. We may be on the end of a growth spurt, physical or developmental, too--or just at the beginning of one. There are so many!

Tonight has been very peaceful. Penelope fell asleep in my lap, just reclining. That's something else new. During the days of flu and Teething Purgatory, she would let us hold her and just rest on our shoulders. Her normal M.O. is to either go for the boob or else face out to the world and check everything out. The increased snuggliness was a bit of a red flag, but maybe it's just a new, totally lovable expression, because today, when she was definitely not sick and in a much better mood all around, she let me cuddle her, and she even cuddled back. And at the end of the evening, she just leaned back on my lap and watched her daddy make faces at her for a few minutes before drifting off. And even though she woke up when I lifted her to take her to bed, she went right back to sleep in her crib.

She's such a good, sweet baby. It's hard to believe she won't be a baby forever. Whenever I try to picture her as a child, finger painting and saying hilarious things, I imagine her little baby head atop a child's body. We've still got a few months, but the transition from infant to toddler seems to be an almost overnight event. Blair's daughter Nora was just a wee baby one day, and the next day, her mother was posting pictures of a small child! I try to enjoy Penelope as much as I can. One day she will be big and self sufficient, and I will say to her, "Can you believe you were ever my little baby, falling asleep in my arms?" But I bet I will also say, "You will always be my little baby!"

Ah, sentimentality. In my recent immersions in country music, I've heard that Martina McBride song "In My Daughter's Eyes," and so help me, I teared up. Oh my gosh, I'm tearing up now just thinking of it!

( Let's move on to pictures. )

Anybody want to buy a Ghetto Mansion?

So I'm taking a statement from a Portuguese speaker this morning. This required the aid of an interpreter, and there are long chunks of the conversation that are meaningless to me while the two of them talk to each other.

During that time, I occupy myself by browsing houses in East Hill.

Drool.

What I really need is the win the lottery. But WTF; I entered the office Powerball pool last week, and we lost!

Gillian (our realtor) came over tonight to get paperwork signed, to measure our rooms, and to take pictures. I had emailed her after pictures from Clean Sweep 2008, but she advised they weren't really suitable for showing because they show trash cans (not aesthetically pleasing) and baby stuff (too tempting for pervs). So we shuffled all that stuff out of the way so our rooms could pose for new photos.

She left a lock box on the fence. We'll be listed tomorrow and online in a few days!

I'm all tingly with excitement and--I'll admit it--nervousness. I think I am very lucky I have Lee as my right-hand man. If it were all left up to me, I'd probably vacillate about big decisions like this forever (look at me and my never-ending religious woes). He's able to get me going once we've determined the hard facts of a given situation. While I feel nothing but glee as I imagine going back home, I also feel a thrill of fear when I imagine my Ghetto Mansion being listed on the MLS, and people coming to look at it and--we hope--make offers. Be still, my heart!

Can I tell you a secret?

It's not really a secret anymore since my boss knows. The big reason I've been keeping mum has been Lee's job, but it seem highly unlikely anyone from there would see this entry.

We want to move back to Pensacola. We hope to. We are "planning" to.

Planning inasmuch as I've contacted the Pensacola branch of my company and asked if they have any openings (they don't) and if they will keep me in mind if any openings come up (they will).

Planning inasmuch as we met with a realtor last week and anticipate listing the Ghetto Mansion on Easter Monday.

Planning inasmuch as I asked my dad if we can stay with him when we get there while we look for our own place.

This is an uncertain but exciting time for me. There is an element of limbo here: who knows where we'll be in six months? We could be on our way to sunny Florida, or we could be there already. Or we could be hunkering down for another New England winter, wondering if the house will ever sell, continuing to make improvements in hopes that someone will want to buy. But unlike the period of uncertainty in 2005, this isn't trepidatious and anxiety-ridden. I'm totally tickled. This feels so right!

I might be totally insane; we might end up selling the house and moving down south, only to be utterly unable to find jobs. Because what happens if the house sells before we find employment? Right now, the house seems like the biggest obstacle, with the housing market being all scary--if someone offers us enough money, we should take it and run!

Or what happens if an opening becomes available in the Pensacola office before the house sells? Do I try to put them off? Do I go ahead and take it and move with Penelope, leaving Lee behind to try to sell the Ghetto Mansion? Just after I finished my maternity leave, this guy from Arizona came to my office here in Connecticut, and he'd left his wife and kids behind to sell their house. He moved because the opportunity might not have lasted much longer, and he figured surely the house would sell soon enough. It didn't. He had to move back. That sounds like a nightmare!

Lee probably won't find a job making what he's making now, but that seems to be true whether we move or stay, and besides, he recently was put from salary to hourly and can't possibly make the same money without working mad overtime. That's another reason to move: it's one way to get him out of that job.

Our cost of living should be less. The property taxes are much lower; there's no state income tax; stuff in general seems to be less expensive.

Blah, blah, blah, these are all details--insignificant, uninteresting details! The exciting part of this message is that I'm going home, baby! I'm going back to the land of sunshine and cockroaches and family and friends and hurricanes and street preachers and good food and heat and wonderfulness!

I hope so, anyway.

In anticipation of this move, I've been listening to the country music station a lot.

Tonight we had our annual Lenten viewing of Jesus Christ Superstar. I've always loved that musical. When I was, like, 14, I would put on the soundtrack and listen in agonized adolescent wonder while playing Super Nintendo. When I met Blair, we found that we had our adoration for the JCSS soundtrack in common, but she had the movie version and I had the Broadway version. We argued over which was better.

I saw the movie long after I fell in love with the soundtrack, and while it never had the same impact on me that listening to the soundtrack had, it's still my favorite depiction of the Passion. My contemporaries watch the Mel Gibson flick, but give me Andrew Lloyd Webber!

So, Lent. I gave up chocolate, and I've stayed true to my sacrifice with only a couple minor slip ups. But it hasn't been much of a deprivation, because I wind up seeking out non-chocolate desserts anyway. Still, I think of Jesus as I pass up the sweets I'd rather have!

Also this Lent, I have subscribed to a Lenten email devotional put out by the United Church of Christ, and most days, I read it. It's usually at least mildly interesting, and it's been nice to have something direct my thoughts heavenward each day.

And finally, I've actually spent most Sundays this Lent with the Piskies. It's been nice. Even with the huggy-bear-kissy-face leanings and the half-hour kiss of peace. Most weeks, I've found the service engaging and the sermon thought-provoking; I've even found myself considering the sermons again mid-week. That's very nice, and something I find sorely lacking with the Catholics, no matter where I go. Maybe it's them; maybe it's me.

But then we met with Josh and Christen last Sunday for lunch. I asked them where they go to church, because I remembered they'd been going to some other Episcopal one for a while a few months ago, and I was going to see if they wanted to all go together for Easter.

Turns out they've been going to St. Margaret's, my Catholic parish, where Penelope was baptized! For whatever reason, they are returning to their own Catholic roots now that they are expecting their own first child. Part of the reason I was attracted to the Episcopalians this time around was that I knew Josh and Christen were foraying with them, and I thought we could have conversations. And part of the reason I was feeling less than attracted to my Catholic parish was that I had nobody to talk with about it. But now Josh and Christen are going to my Catholic parish!

Oy. So it seemed now was the time to go back again. I went to confession yesterday at Immaculate Conception and admitted the serious sin of going to some other church where the liturgy is almost identical but where I actually feel spiritually nourished. The priest told me not to get caught up in feelings and emotions; church isn't about those things. It's about obeying God's word.

So Penelope and I went to St. Margie's this morning and met Josh and Christen on our way in. Penelope's favorite part was the palms; tasty!



I couldn't tell you what the sermon was about, though, so I doubt I'll have any conversations with anybody about it.

At this point, for reasons I will explain in another entry at some point in the future, all of this is shrouded in feelings of impermanence anyway. It doesn't matter if I go to St Margaret's or St John's. With any luck, in six months I won't be going to either.