"We came to play!"

A little boy's love of arcade games leads him to -- build his own low-tech, hand-powered arcade out of cardboard.

Kind of thing I used to think of but never see through when I was a girl.

Found serendipitously while searching for intelligent comment on the death of Thomas Kinkade.

Things Unseen

These poor people actually believe in the existence of the 1956 L.L. Bean catalog -- with such pathetically touching fervor that they've created a live re-enactment of its cover and put it on the latest catalog.

Every modern thinking -- uh, person knows that the 1956 L.L. Bean catalog never existed. Oh, there was a cover for it, and the cover was what convinced those naive Fifties types that there was an actual catalog inside. But they were too intimidated by the authorities of the time to open it and see for themselves. What if it was Red propaganda? They could get hauled in front of Senator McCarthy just for looking at it! The look on the woman's face, as if she were on the verge of complaining to her husband, would also have frightened and repelled them with its radical defiance of the social order, not to mention the implication a girl child had been taken on a fishing trip.

Finally, in three minutes of intensive research I was unable to find a single 1956 L.L. Bean catalog for sale on eBay.

Yet, somehow, belief persists.

Tale of two panicky days

Yesterday reminded me of another day, long ago, which I also spent scrambling to fix something I hadn't broken, begging favors of people who had no reason to want to help me.

For what I did yesterday, I've been given a word of praise; back then, my only reward was the probability that the boss would, someday, stop being mad at me for something that was someone else's fault. (Well, there was also the moment when a certain VIP relented and gave me the signature I needed, saying that now I knew more than my boss . . . "No  comment, sir," I said cheerfully.)

Being appreciated for something besides your handiness as an object of blame can happen at any stage of your life or career -- but when it does happen, that's when you've arrived.

A large helping of calm, please

One or the other I could handle on my own. But when

1. there's no time to waste, and
2. I realize I've been inadvertently doing just that --

I need a large helping of calm. Like this song, which has that effect for some reason. 

("And Holy is His Name" is a setting of the Magnificat to this tune. I played it once to some small children who asked me, in all seriousness, if that was the BVM herself singing on the CD. Anyway, if I 'm ever taken hostage by terrorists, this is something I'll probably sing to myself to try to stay sane.)

(Cheerful thoughts for Holy Week!)

"Displays of extreme physical suffering won’t impress God"

This from the Filipino bishops, who see a touch of Spanish excess sometimes in Holy Week. Like "self-flagellation and crucifixion". 

On the other hand, they also say that visiting seven to 14 different churches on Holy Thursday can sometimes be too much fun. (What's a barkada? Never mind, there are any number of people I can ask.)

No, displays won't impress Someone who can see everything. But in the West, we go too far in the other direction. "God doesn't care if I give up my afternoon snack in Lent. What difference does it make?" Sometimes it seems as if there's no reason to deny yourself anything -- and then you're about to break the First Commandment.

Real Housewives of the Old Testament

I've never understood how the "strange" woman in Proverbs 7:14 -- 15 was reasoning:

I vowed victims for prosperity, this day I have paid my vows.  [15] Therefore I am come out to meet thee, desirous to see thee, and I have found thee.

"Thee" being a man she invites to spend the night while her husband's away with a bag of money. So -- she promised to sacrifice X number of goats if the husband's business did well; she did that today and now figures she can do whatever she wants, at least for a while? Or does she think the sacrifice somehow induced God to help her meet the man on the side? That "therefore" seems to join it all together. But why is she even mentioning religious practices to him? It hardly sets the tone; she might as well proposition him by saying "Let's go break the sixth commandment".

Is this meant to show how irrational her thinking has become? That if you keep deceiving someone else, you'll start deceiving yourself?

She is, I suppose, the Non-Valiant Woman.

Settling the side bets

Still trying to draw some lessons from this . . . Don't use up all your energy at the beginning? Don't pick a fight with someone taller than you? (And if you do, charge admission.) Just "a bet is a bet"? Or that it's time to chop off some of my own hair and donate it. (I don't see any mention of Brazeau planning to do that.)