Friday quick takes: Blogger Colleagues Edition

Click on the post-it to head over to Conversion Diary's quick-takes gathering place.

1. Gotta love Enbrethiliel. Like me, she can't just blog one way. She's the hostess of Sancta Sanctis, a great Catholic blog, but adds the personality-filled Shredded Cheddar to boot. She may just be serious about her tag-line: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." (My own quirky side is on display at In Dwelling.)
   
   
2. Another fun dual-personality is TSO. You must know him from his unspellable Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor, the only blog I know where the title is longer than the URL. It's also the home of "Spanning the Globe", in which every Catholic blogger worth his salt strives to earn a mention. TSO lets his ya-yas out over at Parody is Therapy. (I'm not letting cats out of bags, am I sir?
   
   
3. For a good time, go over to Karen Edmisten and do a search for posts with the label Ramona. Ramona is her 7-year-old daughter with an amazing talent for coming out with quotable nuggets that are both profound and hysterical. An example:

   Me: Hey, Ramona -- you played a lot in your room earlier today. Are we going to be able to find your bed when it's bedtime?
   
   Ramona: Ummmm ... maybe not. I can guarantee you my room is not in tip-top shape.
   
   Me: Well, let's take a look.
   
   After surveying the bountiful clothing coverage -- both dress-up and the real stuff -- in her room, Ramona observed,
   
   Ramona: All it really needs is some hamperage.

4. I very much enjoy reading whatever Mr. and Mrs. Darwin write over at Darwin Catholic, but I am especially charmed by the comments Mrs. Darwin makes on blogs here and there. I wish she'd collect and catalog them.
   
   
5. Genevieve Kineke blogs at Feminine Genius (which I absolutely must remember to get up on the sidebar blogroll). However, she is also the author of The Authentic Catholic Woman (on my Wish List) and articles, including this one entitled "Choices Last".
   
   It was good timing for me to read the article because I've just been finishing the classic Kristin Lavransdatter, a superb portrayal of one young woman's journey of finding out exactly what the long-term consequences are of some key choices. Great juxtaposition.


6. The American Papist is a good source of Catholic news and commentary. He has the ability to be witty without being "snarky", a rare talent. Here's an example from a recent post:

   Someone should tell the folks writing NARAL's petitions that marijuana isn't legal (yet). They actually have posted a petition - and almost 32,000 people have signed it - which reads in part:
   
   "Anti-choice extremists at the Family Research Council are launching an outrageous media and lobbying campaign claiming that Congress' health-care reform bills will deny seniors the medical care they need in order to pay for abortion."
   
   Yes, you read that correctly - NARAL is worried that seniors might lose their medical coverage for abortion.

   [Ed. note: Perhaps this offers evidence, at least in the case of NARAL members, the sex education of their day may well have been inadequate.]


7. Finally, you've heard me talk about "Two Ways of Renouncing the Devil" before. As I said in a comment there, she has knack for wondering about things that would never have crossed my mind. So cruise on over there if you've every wondered about the Ethics of Gift Cards. And just in time for the holiday giving season, too.

Quick takes for no particular reason

I'm usually really busy on Thursdays, so I keep missing the "Friday Quick Takes" tradition that got started over on Conversion Diary. It's been so long since I posted that I'm going to just break into your day with bits of whatever has been striking my fancy lately. It's mostly practical stuff, but we'll lead off with a quotation from the esteemed Cardinal George on the American Catholic Church.

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"Liberals are critical of [authority], although they’ll use it when they’re in power. Conservatives would tend to be less critical, but equally dependent upon it. Consequently, when you get into the church, you get the conservatives unhappy because bishops aren’t using power the way they’re supposed to, the way they want them to. You get liberals who are unhappy because [the bishops] have any power at all. Both of them are defining themselves vis-à-vis the bishops rather than vis-à-vis Christ, who uses the bishops to govern the church. It’s not a Christ-centered church, as it’s supposed to be, it’s a bishop-centered church."

Francis Cardinal George

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It's my belief that one of the most significant spiritual gifts is a profound love for children. My husband has it. I don't, although I have always deeply loved my own children and grandchildren. There are many kids of whom I am quite fond when I've gotten to know them, but love for Children as a genre is foreign to me. For Henry, it's another matter entirely. Put a couple of babies in the pew in front of us, and he's hard pressed to tear himself from charming them enough to pay attention to the homily.

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If you haven't yet gotten turned on to Paperback Swap, hie thee hence immediately. You offer the books (both paper and hardbound) that you no longer want and earn credits that you can use for requesting books that others have offered. (After you post your first 10 books, you get two credits as a "welcome" gift to get you started.) I have a wonderful stack of books waiting for me right now. There is no richer feeling. Plus, I've greatly enhanced my professional library with books that, I suspect, were required reading in college courses somewhere but which will actually now do somebody some good.

Hint: We had a stash of Christian romance novels we acquired as left-behinds from formerly-teenaged daughters. (In family parlance, we refer to them as "Christian bodice-rippers", but don't tell anyone.) They were wildly popular on the swap market. Some of our more staid books haven't moved quite as quickly, but you never know. But now I know what to look for next time I go to one of those "buck-a-box" book sales in the basement of the library.

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Have I mentioned before my deep and abiding affection for my Tivo? Just saying. It protects my priorities -- I never am tempted to run home from somewhere to catch the opening scenes of Lie to Me.

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Have I mentioned before my deep and abiding affection for Facebook? It's easy as pie to have casual conversations with kids and friends and keep reasonably up to date with "what's up" with them. It's now the standard place to find pictures of my granddaughters. And I'm reconnecting with old friends from years back I never would have found otherwise. Yes, it can be a time sink, so be warned.

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Another "have you discovered?" item: If you have an Amazon wish list, you may not be aware that you can add a button to your browser that will add any item from any site, anywhere, to your wish list at Amazon. This way, you can keep all the things you have your eye on in one place. I wish this had been in place when I was getting married and setting up a bridal registry.

I can imagine it would have other private uses, too, such as keeping track of cars you're considering purchasing and the like. I suppose Delicious and other bookmarking sites are better for this sort of thing, though.

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As you may be able to tell, I'm crazy for online productivity tools. Happy to share what I know with anyone. Any time. Anywhere. Feel free to ask me to stop.

POSTSCRIPT The Biebl Ave Maria I talked about in the last post? The choir sang it yesterday as a meditation at the end of communion. Henry, I and our sore throats were in the congregation. It was -- wow. That's all I can say. It was "anointed" as they say in charismatic circles. And I was speechless, which doesn't happen often.

A refreshing musical break

Here's a beautiful rendition of the newly-popular Ave Maria by Biebl. Our parish choir is singing a version for mixed choir later this month. I can't wait.