Sunday with Colin

I spent my entire Sunday other than my hour at Mass, slaving away to complete my second task for the Everything Austen Challenge. I watched the entire six part mini-series from A&E of Pride and Prejudice. The one with Colin Firth. (Just for the record, if I had any technological skills, I would insert my own head into that photo with Colin Firth, but, alas, I have none.) So here's how my day went - I'd watch a 50 minute episode, then, while it was rewinding, I would go to the bathroom, get a snack, check Facebook, and then return to my bed for the next 50 minute episode. Repeat for a total of six episodes and you have my Sunday. I tell you....the things I do for these challenges! And if I didn't have to work today, I'd be ready to do the whole day over again!

When I borrowed the set of VHS tapes from my friend Mary Poppins, she told me that she watched them when her daughter was a baby. She said she would watch them every night over and over again - when she finished one, she'd start the next and then when the series was over, she'd just start it right up again from the beginning. Hmmm, I thought, she may only be "practically perfect" but she is totally crazy. But now I know, if my children instead of being mobile, articulate, demanding pre-teens and teens were instead infants who I could cradle in my arms on the couch all night while I watched Colin Firth, I would do it too. It was so fun to see the story brought to life with such detail and elegance. The words that I confess sometimes seemed awkward to read seemed just right as the characters interacted with each other. The mother and silly sisters were so embarrassing they made me cringe, Jane was so serene, I finally understood how Mr. Darcy could not have truly judged her affections for his friend, everything was magical!

I watched this series as part of the Everything Austen Challenge hosted by Stephanie at Stephanie's Written Word. Next comes the new version movie - the one with Keira Knightley. I hate to be pessimistic but I can't imagine that it could possibly live up to this.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

This work is Lewis' defense of Christianity. He strives to be non-denominational and simply to address the idea of Christianity. I have not yet read about CS Lewis as a person but I gather he was at one point an atheist and before this work converted to Christianity. His initial argument (probably really poorly paraphrased) is that each person has an ideal of behavior that they consider "good" and by which they judge themselves and others. Few, if any, are able to obtain this ideal behavior and yet we know of it. He thinks that in order for this ideal to exist, the understanding of something better had to come to us from something outside of ourselves (God!). He also defends the creation of the universe by God with the same kind of thought line - an architect could not create a house that he was a part of - he must be removed, a distinct separate piece in order to create. And so, God is separate from us in order to be able to create us and to form this ideal that we all intrinsically understand.

I like the section I read where CS Lewis asserts that we will be judged in the end not by how close we are to ideal but by how much progress we made with what we have been given. He acknowledges that some people are born bad tempered, impatient, sarcastic, (all those characteristics that I have and must constantly strive to overcome). So the person who started in the world with a naturally sweet disposition wouldn’t necessarily come out "ahead" of their foul mannered neighbor if the neighbor was actually working harder to overcome his temperament than the sweet one was working to use his temperament for good. So, all the goody-two-shoe's of the world take note, I may yet get to heaven and won't you be surprised to see me there!

He compares people again later in the book when he talks about how what we see as terrible sins - sins of a sexual nature - are not always the worst in God's eyes. Because our culture puts such an emphasis on sexuality these sins have taken on a heightened importance in our minds. But Lewis claims that for all we know, the prostitute may actually be closer to God than the church going man who puts his position or his wealth ahead of his love of the Lord. Lewis cites as an example people paying to see strip teases, looking at girlie pictures and reading or viewing pornography. Then he compares that to another natural drive, our drive to eat, and says we don't do this with food. we don't devote hours of time to it watching shows and reading about it. I immediately wondered if CS Lewis were alive today what would he think of the Food Network and the proliferation of magazines and cookbooks. I fantasize and almost drool as I pore over the recipes in my Southern Living magazine - is this my porn? And I love watching Unwrapped on the Food Channel - I am a sinner!

My practically perfect friend, Mary Poppins, recommended I read this and my mother is also a huge CS Lewis fan. The version I read was borrowed from my mother it was maybe the third edition and it was published in the early 1950's! Mary Poppins says she has read it again and again and I can see that. There is so much to take in that you just skim the surface with the first reading. He is such a persuasive writer with such easily understood examples hat I found myself just reading an nodding flowing like a river through the words. I know my experience would be different if I read the book as part of a discussion group and took the time to reflect and debate some of the points he makes.

Overall, excellent book, throughly enjoyed it and will definitely read it again.


This is one of the books on my list for the Spring Reading Thing 2009. Click on the logo to see the rest of my list.

How do we tell if it's clean?

In the course of my government slavery, I went into a house the other day that was home to a few kids and a set of parents and a small pack of assorted dogs. The house was dirty: piles of things on the floor, dishes unwashed, trash overflowing, and most unappealing - a pile of dog poo on the stairs. The stairs inside the house. The stairs that people would traverse from the first floor to the second floor - eww! So I am telling my friend, Mary Poppins (who really is practically perfect in every way) about this and saying, "How would you not know your dog had pooped in the house?" And there was this pause and she was like, "Well..." and then came the story about the time her dog had pooped in the house and how she was totally unaware but only figured it out later when he was cavorting with a piece of rock hard dried poo. So then she had to search every nook and cranny until she found the poop stash. And just in case you are wondering, Mary Poppins' house is immaculate - except for that one pile of dog poo.

So then of course I started thinking about my own pet poop story. Our cat lives in Bookworm's room. Sometimes the cat roams about the house just to nap in a new spot the way cats like to do and then gets shut out when Bookworm shuts the door and takes off for school or wherever. Shut out from her usual napping spots and from her litter box. Well the way our house is laid out all my places - my bedroom, my den, the kitchen, the laundry room are all at one end of the house. Bookworm is on the other end past the formal living room that gets absolutely no use. So one day there is a knock on the front door - no one uses our front door! I go to "the other side" to let in a dad that is dropping off Youngest. As we're standing there hanging out in the formal unused living room, I'm thinking, "Something (or someone) doesn't smell right." But we make our small talk, thanks for the car pool, see you soon, goodbye. I turn around and there right smack dab in the middle of the center cushion of my lovely leather couch is a pile of cat poop. That's what didn't smell right. And in case you are wondering, although my house isn't immaculate, I do have a housekeeper that comes once a week so it's pretty clean - except for that one pile pf cat poo.

So all of this just begs the question - if the presence or absence of a pile of pet poop in a home can no longer be a benchmark for cleanliness, what are we left with? How do we tell if it's clean?

I contemplated Googling "pictures of poo" to add a graphic but thought better of it...aren't you glad?