Stew

Random stuff, all of it bouncing 'round my dome:

• I'm not Catholic, but having lived with a Catholic woman for a couple of decades, I've sort of adopted a few traditions. Easily, the most-repeated tradition would be the calling on the Patron Saint of Lost Things. Okay kids, say it with me: Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please look around, something's lost that needs to be found!* Today, while searching for info on Fat Tuesday, I found myself at the American Catholic website, where they have their own search engine--powered by Guess Who. Cute.
• My differences with Catholicism*** are legion, but at least they aren't trying to foist their religion into science classes. If the leader of the largest sect of the largest religion in the world doesn't see the study of evolution as a conflict with the worship of God, why are a bunch of cementheads in Utah still trying to get the ironically named Intelligent Design pseudoscience into the scientific curriculum? My favorite quote in the story is from the state senator who got the bill passed in the senate, only to see the House niggle it to death: "I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape."**** Of course, in his case, it's because the ape disowned him.
• The other day I went from reading one blogger--a Californian just back from vacationing in New Hampshire-- to another blogger, a New Hampshirian***** just back from vacationing in Florida. And as is the case in this world where a body can travel from subtropical to subpolar regions in less than a day, both commented on the aforementioned phenomenon, with the Yankee loving the snow, and the Californian grateful for the lack. I've lived on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, and I gotta side with the New Englander in this instance. I'd rather have a moderate summer and a cold and snowy winter than a moderate winter and a hundred-and-something summer. Here's why

1. Christmas decorations look better with snow on them
2. When you come inside out of the snow, you make hot cocoa and snuggle up with a blanket and/or a loved one, and feel cozy. When you come inside out of a heat wave, you collapse and feel sticky.******
3. The thicker the clothing, the better I look.
4. Watching the world thaw and bloom into spring is worth the snow.
5. If I'm still cold, I can put on another sweater. If I'm still hot, I have to start taking off clothes. What happens when I'm down to my boxers and still sweating? Yeah. Not pretty.
   

• Wayne's World was made in 1992. This means that there's a good chance that next year, a digitally-remastered director's cut with never-berfore-seen footage and will be released to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary. Of Wayne's World.
  

Party on.

Yeharr

*Over the years, I shortened that phrase to Yo! Tony! A little help?**
**Since I call on him so much, I've given a bit of thought to what St. A is like. In my heaven, he's in the celestial version of the downstairs den, trying to read his newspaper, eternally calling out, in a mildly exasperated tone: 'It's right where you dropped it--next to the couch!' 'You left it in the car!' 'It got dropped in the toilet, and I ain't getting it!' et c.
***As well as just about every other organized religion.
****Since that's an unbelievably ancient and incredibly stupid mischaractarization of what evolution really teaches, I find myself forced to agree with ol' butterball. Like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
*****Is that correct? I know it's New Yorker, Pennsylvanian, Mainer...and what are you called when you're from Connecticut?
******And that's assuming you have A/C. If you're without it, it really doesn't matter where you are--you're gonna be miserable for the duration.