And it's November.

 I look forward to making some kind of effigy of 2022 and setting it on fire on December 31. 

Things have steadified, to coin a term. My son's truck was stolen last month and then recovered, largely intact.

So, crime is at the top of my ballot next Tuesday, and my redistricted neighborhood is surprisingly competitive for once. Though, truth to tell, I rather liked Andy Levin, who was an old-school labor Democrat, albeit one who had to mouth the identitarian pieties which have consumed his party.

Anyhoo, that's obscenely-wealthy Oakland County's loss now. As for the GOP, it has not missed the chance to miss the chance to select good candidates for the local ballot--one or maybe two exceptions aside.

I'll try to avoid making honking noises at the ballot station.

We are trying to stay ahead of inflation, which is 1B on my ballot. That's becoming tougher, though we soldier through. I hope and pray the Russo-Ukrainian War does not go global, though I have little confidence in the nuclear-armed leadership on either side of the fight. Putin is atrocious, but history teaches that the Russians can and will find someone worse in the aftermath of a military catastrophe.

Spiritually, I find myself (unofficially) in the Melkite camp. The late Bishop Elias Zoghby asserted that the papacy of the first millennium--and not an iota more--was something both Catholics and Orthodox could buy into. More Catholics than Orthodox did, but such are the times.

The Vatican I papacy, as codified in the 1917 and 1983 Codes of Canon Law, is the platonic ideal of overreach. "Hypertrophy," to borrow the exercise term. Or "single point of failure," to use an engineering phrase. In any event, magisterial statements like this are, flatly, bonkers:

It follows from this that the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification.

How about no? As in "No, the Faith is not the wet clay of the reigning pontiff?"

But canon law and the popes themselves say otherwise, so here we are.

And it won't be fixed by a better guy as pope--not that such would be difficult, of course. 

By now it should be clear that the problem is larger than a manifestly-unfit CEO. Rather, it resides in an autocratic system that requires saintly self-abnegation to work--making it not a good system. In human terms, what your powers allow you to do will, in the absence of countervailing forces, inevitably trump what custom says you should do. Yes, it is making me take a hard look at Orthodoxy--or at least the less-caesaropapist versions.

Anyway, I hope you and yours have safe and blessed holiday seasons. Prayers, please, for dear friends who have a loved one who has been arrested for murder. I remember the young man as a boy, and this is beyond a nightmare.

A rough stretch.

 

Forgive the vagueness and ambiguity, but I am going through a tough patch at the moment. July was full-stop awful, and August, while better, is well short of good.

I've never been a fan of publicly discussing personal difficulties, and will continue that here. I will simply say we have taken heavy body blows as a family in the past and gotten back up from them, and look to do so in this case, too.

It has sapped my urge to bloviate on major matters of public import. 

Everything's going straight to hell anyway, so further emphasis from me on that obvious point can wait.

 

But at least my bleak sense of humor is intact, so that's nice.

In the meantime, prayers are welcome and I can recommend the Stoics, starting with good ol' Epictetus.

And my son is an apprentice wizard with woodworking, helping me convert a snowmobile trailer into something more suited to hauling the cargo associated with a larger family. He calls it the "S.S. Father & Son," which is as flattering a name as I can imagine. We have since added some coats of "International Harvester Red" to help it last.

 

Anyway, the bottom line remains the same, as Dan Abnett repeatedly writes:

 

For the first time since the Wall fell, nuclear horror is weighing on my mind.

I have no idea how many read this or know who I am, but for the uninformed: I grew up during the latter days of the Cold War.

Part of my mental architecture from those years are these pop culture markers: 

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Gamma World, World War III (the NBC miniseries), The Day After, Threads, Hackett's Third World War, Alas Babylon, On The Beach, The Last Ship, 99 Luftballons, The Horseclans, Snowbrother, Down to a Sunless Sea (very underrated), Testament, The Pelbar Cycle, The Survivalist, Miracle Mile, This Is The Way The World Ends...

[References to the above can be found on this solid list here.]

And they have remained there, despite receding quite a bit in the wind of change. 

But now those old feelings are back. I'm not sure what the strategy is behind this sort of tough-guy posturing, especially with the repeated hints regarding the grim change in Putin's headspace. The latter of which seems to be borne out by his speeches and forced resettlement of Ukrainians. 

But sure, why not?  

In the meantime, I've carefully avoided any use of the N[uclear]-word around the children. The pandemic already left enough to deal with. 

And yet, I'm going to have to address it sooner or later. What a time to be alive.

A very, very minor First World holiday observation.

I am happy to report that our Michigan chain grocery store had no shortage of turkeys per se. And on sale for $0.33 per pound.

But it was a bugger to find anything between 15 and 20 pounds. My youngest son and I moved the parakeets and ostriches about for ten minutes, and finally found something suitable for our oven and baking pan.

Even if we hadn't, we are still blessed beyond words. I hope your week is blessed also.

Posting will continue, but a bit sporadically.

Went up north for the early family Christmas.

My parents wisely flee northern Michigan before too much snow flies--and some did fly while we were up there, coating the ground and trees.

A great four days of family togetherness before they go. Alas, the schedules for my brother's family and mine did not work out, so we went up later. Hopefully, next year will be better that way. But still a great time.

Apparently, I was better than I thought, getting a recent biography of Saint Francis and a Gladiator grav tank for my Ultramarines. 

The duality of man, right there. 

Weirdly, my spiritual compass points more toward the Franciscans than any other order. A story for another time, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

Also, Dad gifted me with an eight-foot long flatbed steel trailer. Very nice, and my middle son and I will be modifying it into a cargo-hauler with a frame of two-by-fours bolted onto it. Ratchet straps only do so much to secure luggage, but they worked this time. Next time, we'll have fewer to worry about. 

Especially since ratchet straps seem to be some cunning IQ test that I almost invariably fail. 

 

Yes, a bit out of sorts.

As you may have noticed, my mood is...not chipper, he says, trying to keep the expletives down.

I had to restructure family travel and gathering plans, drop out of my first chance to be in a play since the corona deluge and otherwise scramble to accommodate a high-pressure schedule.

Until yesterday, when the person in charge of the high-pressure event arbitrarily kicked the schedule back 90 days.

So, no:

A sense of Providence.

 

As I have more than occasionally griped in these precincts, the family motor vehicle situation is a source of recurring drama.

The second most recent example was the SUV getting t-boned by a car while in a small town near Michigan's thumb. Everyone's fine, which is the most important part. But the insurance totaled out the vehicle rather than repairing it. Repairs would have cost more than the SUV is worth.

Still driveable, but...yeah. I'm ready for a bit part in a Mad Max reboot/sequel. And in this market, we're going to still be driving it for a while.

The most recent example is related to the second. In the process of trying to get the "Totaled" payment out of the insurer, I had to drive the Impala a bit, roughly 390 miles round trip, for some essential paperwork. The left side of the car was thumping like there was an unbalanced tire or something--not so bad at highway speeds, but obnoxious otherwise. And hey, there were two tornado warnings in the destination county while I was there. One which caused the brief closure of the institution I was visiting as I was there.

 

The transaction was completed, I made it back, and decided to finally take it into the mechanic. 

The left side tie-rod was almost broken. So "almost" that he said "I'm glad you brought it in."

While he was at it, he replaced the right side one and said that the gents who replaced the transmission had not put the cotter pins back in the tie rods--not that that was the problem, but a bit of a problematic oversight. Also, the transmission's whine sounds off to him. Too high pitched.

Argh moments, but nothing compared to the sense of relieved what-if at the timely fixing of the problem.

I have been in a car where a tie-rod gave out--at that point, it ceases to be a vehicle and becomes a primitive surface to surface missile. Blessedly, I was in a parking garage on that occasion, and the 10mph missile glided safely into a parking spot. 

And blessedly, on this occasion, it did not give out at all. Because there was no shortage of opportunities for it to have ended horribly. And for that I have to thank God.

Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved.

My sense of faith is undoubtedly complicated, subjective, ranges all over the emotional map and can be difficult to express. But the sense of God sometimes imposes itself in dramatic fashion. And here He did so again, in the report of a not-quite-broken tie-rod.

In a sky filled to the far horizon with scudding gray clouds, the ragged rays of Providence still shear through.

 

 

 

And so it begins.

At long last, I realize I have too many books, and of uneven quality. I have also come to the painful realization that my children have little to no interest in reading them, despite what I regard as a wide range of topics. 

As I have told others, "children aren't their parents' clones."

They will follow their own paths, despite your experience-tested guidance.

At least they are not clones yet, but God and ferociously-pagan global Caesars only know what is being cooked up in government/corporate labs as I type this.

This sense of disappointment has also prompted the realization that I'm not really preserving or saving anything for future generations, despite my hopeful delusions to the contrary.

So, with the sense of mortality gradually becoming more acute and the desire to be merciful to the poor sod(s) who will have to deal with the bound tonnage after I am gone, I have begun a purge. A bit tentative at the moment, but I have already pulled about twenty volumes off the shelves. 

I have also become aware that I'm going to have to put a pillow over my sentimentalism. But as with most things, I suspect that will become easier with time.

Whip[ped by] Inflation Now.

 

So my Much Better Half let me know we were running out of printer paper as I ran the youngest out to his weekly Young Marines meeting.

No worries: there's an Office Max a mile and a half away from his meeting locale.

So, I stride boldly up to the store, walk up to the printer paper display, goggle briefly and mentally retort:

USE A GUN NEXT TIME--IT'S MORE HONEST.

Actually, there was something of a sale going on: 2 reams of paper for $12.  One thousand sheets, a dozen dollars. A cent a page.

As with everything, the cost has gone up due to "supply chain issues."

In the back of the store, I found a slightly better deal via buying in bulk, grabbing a banker's box. The recent work with free weights seems to be paying off, so that's nice. And while it cost even more, who knows how much paper will cost after the schools gear up and they add their massive weight to demand.

And what next?

I mean, besides being unable to find a replacement for our t-boned Expedition because the used car market is officially insane and the insurance company won't authorize repair because it costs more than the KBB value of the vehicle.

Might as well get used to it.

Behold my 2021 anthem, an underrated classic from 1982.

 

 

 

 

Been under the weather for a week plus.

Cold symptoms. 

Mild, but persistent.

No fever or nagging coughs, thankfully. Really, apart from frequent-ish nose-blowing, it's been a very light malady.

I received the Pfizer shots back in April, so I am among the Fully Vaccinated.

In any year not ending in -20 or -21 I would wave it away as a very mild summer cold. And it still probably is? And yet, one of my middle son's Little League teammates came down with a mild case of corona two weeks ago.

In any event, I seem to be coming out from under it today, so good. 

The Old Guy Abides.

A little on the lean side of posting of late, but what can you do?

My late Uncle, God rest his soul, demonstrated why everybody needs a simple will. I'm not going into details, but yeesh.

Intestate succession laws help, but you'll be happier if you draft up something and register it. Vaguely discussing the matter with loved ones over the years, not putting that into writing and not letting the beneficiary about a significant (if understandable) designation on retirement funds until they stumble across the paperwork a few weeks postmortem is *not* recommended.

Anyway, things seem to be calming down, and if I don't have to drop any more money into a 12 year old car for a few months, that would be great.

Sorry--work intervened. Massively.

Posting will still be light over the next week plus, but some small stuff will get posted.

Enjoy some sardines, or something. My youngest two thought the tinned fish was palatable enough last week.

 

I have an item which is supposed to be mailed from Portland.

Yes, the Oregon one.

Hasn't arrived at the post office yet, and that facility wasn't a happy place before the riots.

And then there's the matter of the Bolsheviks having their nightly Fort Sumter re-enactments.

Probably shouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

On the bright side.

Behold the latest Pricemobile!

It's a 2004 Buick Rendesvous, back from the long-vanished era when Tiger Woods was still a viable commercial pitchman.  

So now we have two motor vehicles that fall within the lifespans of our beloved children. My next new car will be my first...I'm thinking sometime after I retire, maybe.

But this is a nice replacement for the 2000 Regal, which was always a mechanical warrior, doing everything a powertrain should do. That strongly influenced me toward another Buick.

That, and of course, my middle-agedness.

It had 115,900 miles, but was well-cared for by one owner. It seems immensely practical (a third row seat means I can tote seven, including myself, or fold that row down for a trip to Costco) and has a peppy 185 hp V6. It's also a CXL version, which means it has a lot of bells and whistles to make me happy--moonroof, premium sound, heated front seats, premium wheels. Heather's all right with it, but cars don't thrill her much, one way or the other. She develops an appreciation for them over time, but that's it.

Yes, it's basically the bastard child of an SUV and a station wagon, and I'm fine with that.

I appear to have disappeared for two months.

Yeah.

Sorry 'bout that.

The Christmas season intervened, and work intervened, and collapsed galvanized drainage pipes intervened...

On the bright side, the pipes are fixed. Unfortunately, our basement library's floor had to be jackhammered out, which proved fascinating to the kids--Louis especially. 

Our budding paleontologist/martial artist happily exclaimed that our basement "looks like a dinosaur dig!"

30 foot of pipe had to be replaced, at the cost of $175 per foot. That's mostly labor--and back-breaking at that. Fortunately, homeowner's insurance covers it. After they first tried to deny coverage, of course.

Isn't that frustrating?

After my plumber called the adjuster up and re-acquainted him with reality, all became well. The cement has been poured and we should have a working semblance of a library shortly. Though we have to have it professionally cleaned and get replacement tile in. Whee. 

On the bright side, I did need to rearrange the library anyway--the Late Unpleasantness material was all over the place, and now I'll be able to organize it properly.

However...

...if you are interested in matters Catholic, I strongly recommend my friend Steve Skojec's One Peter Five website and blog, along with the fine gents at The American Catholic. Negative? Well, yes. I'm a man of Stygian gloom much of the time.

If you'd like something more conventionally journalistic, there's the estimable John Allen (even though I think he's lost some velocity off his fastball in the last few years).

Steve was interviewed in the Washington Post recently re: the pontificate, but I can't find the farging link. Anyway, he did a fine job. [Update: here's the WaPo interview with Steve--thanks, Michelle!]

For Steve.

And, to clarify a bit from below: it was the religion/politics environment at FB that turned into a daily dose of plutonium. The stuff about kids, events, cat pictures--I miss that a bit. But Catholic matters? I only miss that in the sense of "but my aim is improving." Too many discussions ended with me trying to correct that hour's Ron Burgundy.

Or at least wanting to. And there isn't enough time in a day for that.

So, here I am, yapping into the void. Not so bad, really.

The last post on Catholicism.

From me, for the foreseeable future.

I'm tired. Really, really tired. Tired of arguing, tired of getting invocations of authority, tired of the lack of basic Christian brotherhood (mea maxima culpa from me, so please accept my apologies), tired of sounding and feeling like this guy.

The literal Hell of it, of course, is that I might be wrong. If so, it won't be the last time. In this case, though, the stakes are so astronomically-high.

What my essential problem with this papacy is the repeated message I'm receiving, which is:

"You overdid. Yes, it says that on paper, but..."

Most recently:

"All of this depends on how Humanae Vitae is interpreted. Paul VI himself, at the end, recommended to confessors much mercy, and attention to concrete situations. But his genius was prophetic, he had the courage to place himself against the majority, defending the moral discipline, exercising a culture brake, opposing present and future neo-Malthusianism. The question is not that of changing the doctrine but of going deeper and making pastoral (ministry) take into account the situations and that which it is possible for people to do. Also of this we will speak in the path of the synod.”

Wore the ol' tux to a beach party, eh?

Believe me, I understand people who struggle with it. I'm one of them, every month. But you can drive a pastoral truck through that paper, can't you? Older brother-ish? Yeah, probably. But is the teaching morally-obligatory or just morally-praiseworthy? It's still there on paper, but..."that train left the station long ago," as Bishop Lynch shrugs?

Ditto the proposals to offer communion to the civilly-remarried...which are more than a mere discipline to be dispensed at will, as another smart man has noted. The possibilities from such a change are boundless, as some not-so-faithful have noted. If the Church can soft-pedal the words of Christ, especially as consistently understood by the Fathers, then "all things are lawful." At some point, lax discipline hollows-out doctrine, and no invocations of authority can patch that over.

If the sacramental teaching is correct, the discipline follows. If the discipline doesn't follow, what does that say about the correctness of the teaching?

Anyway, I'm arguing again and I'm tired of arguing. Spiritually-dessicated tired.

Despair-tired.

The nicest thing anyone did recently was offer to pray for me and have a mass said. She doesn't agree with my concerns, but that was actually the great part about it.

So, that's it. I have a wife and kids to love and provide for, an honorable job to do and a septillion books to read and almost as many board games to play. I'm even teaching the older three D&D.

Your prayers would be more than welcome.

Dad Brag Time!

Because this isn't All Francis--All the Time!

If you are in the Metro Detroit area during the weekend of December 6-8, please come on down to the Warren Civic Theatre to see the troupe's presentation of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Based on the novel by Barbara Robinson, which features a family of juvenile delinquents barging into the local church's Christmas pageant audition, getting all the starring roles, and--mirabile dictu--eventually getting into the spirit of the season, the story is a hoot. We read it to our children every year.

My older three children auditioned, and all three have lines. Maddie is...drumroll please...the lead character, Beth Bradley, who essentially frames and narrates the story! Rachel is Gladys Herdman, the youngest of the delinquents, and the Angel of the Lord character featured on the cover. The trick will be for Rachel to become intimidating ("Gladys is fast--and she bites!"), but we're reminding her of how much her big brother annoys her, giving her motivation to "mean up." 

Oh, and Dale III also has a speaking role, with a amusing zinger about his double-jointed little brother. Not too shabby for a competitive casting audition!

See you there!

After trying to sever my finger the day after my birthday...

...I've found it awkward to type.

You see, it's my left middle finger (a/k/a "the auxilliary talking finger," "I-think-you're-#1-and-I-really-want-you-to-see-it finger," "the tall finger of fellowship"). What letter does that finger access most often?

The "E."

Oy.

So, yeah, typing.

I had something of a mishap with my electric hedge trimmers, he says with English understatement. Fortunately, I still have the entire digit, but it's broken and has 2-4 more weeks before it heals entirely. More fortunately, none of my children saw it happen, nor did they see me bleed like a killing floor. I remained fairly stoic, or at least did so in my mind. It could have been much, much worse.

Before that, I had the Annual Kids Activities Schedule Blitz, which turns May into a disorienting swirl of travel, recrimination and shared misery. So, of course, we'll do the same thing next year. But that puts the kibosh on writing and pontificating (but I repeat myself).

Heather's fine, the kids are fine (even if Kamikaze Louis is shaving hours off my lifespan every day), and even my 10% pay cut (speaking of "shared misery") hasn't been as gruesome as feared.

Not sure what I can promise, posting-wise, but at least I'm still alive-ish and largely unmaimed, which allows for the possibility. Random short reviews from the library has a certain manageable appeal.

Thanks.

I appreciate the kind words and commentary on the post immediately to the south. And, yes, love you too, brother.

I'll have more to say when I have time and energy. We just found out our ATM number was swiped. No money was lost, thank God, but it's still a pain in the tuchus for such things as, say, auto-debiting. Also, we have friends in need of prayer for a child (I need to be vague), so storm heaven or keep them in your thoughts, as is your wont.

For the curious, and a happier bit of news, I've broken 1000 entries on LibraryThing. A neat feature is the Legacy Library function, which shows which books you share with famous people. Walker Percy and I get along reasonably well, sharing even very obscure titles.