Nunc!

From Poppy by Cynthia Stockley:

Clem was Catholic and Bill Protestant, and the result was a strange medley of prayers for Cinthie.

The kid has just gabbled her way through some Protestant children's evening prayer, the Our Father, and a few intercessions, ending up with "Amen -- now I must say my Latins."

She kneeled up, crossed herself solemnly in Latin, and began to chant the lovely words of the Angelical Salutation: "Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus tecum; benedicta tua in mulieribus, et benedictus fructis ventris tui Jesus. Sancta Maria! Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."

Afterwards she fell into a peal of laughing.

"Why do you laugh, darling?" Poppy gravely asked, and the answer was: "Oh, Poppy! Wouldn't Nunc be a funny name for a dog!"

 I don't know what religion Cynthia Stockley was (there's a family myth that she was married to my great-grand uncle, but that's illogistical -- also, he's not mentioned in any of her online bios). I'd guess her for a Protestant with Catholic leanings -- this passage shows much more respect for Catholicism, but a Catholic would've called the "Angelical Salutation" just the "Hail Mary".


Anyway, let perpetual light shine upon her.

 

Mr. Moore at the Olympics

Another quasi-infringement brought to you by Dover Publications and myself.

"There haven’t been any reported illnesses . . .

 . . . at Lac Ste-Anne, where this year's pilgrimage coincided with a toxic algae warning . . .

 and, as happens every year, there were canes and braces left behind Thursday morning by pilgrims who sought healing during the three-day event.

Toxic algae is no match for Grandma's remedies.

Today's quasi-infringement of the Olympic monopoly on certain words

brought to you by Dover.

Blotted out

"I refuse to say his name. In my house we're just going to call him Suspect A." 

-- John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado

Not anything he called himself, not anything he would call himself. So it's taking power away from him, in a way -- or is it giving him at least a little, by acknowledging the impact of what he did?

Father and Father

Until I read that these two were Episcopalian converts, both married, I was saying to myself, "There'll never be another Father Chuck Hough."

Anyway, blessings and congratulations to them.

What I've been doing instead of posting

• Having a horrible time on the job -- never knowing if my edits were going to stay edited, or be dropped by the broken server, having published posts disappear the next time I looked at the site, hitting control+refresh over and over and expecting it to do something different
• Reflecting that, even though my natal country's foreign service outposts have idiotic security procedures, at least they're not -- as far as I know -- spying on me, or trying to recruit me to undermine the country where I now live
• Planning grandiosely to write about Zerubabbel, and Esther, a Real Housewife of the Old Testament
• Accidentally standing under the drip in the front room ceiling
• Tracking down a relative who's living alone on a  boat. Just to make sure, you know
• Going to bed early before anything else can happen