And So This is Easter

And so this is Easter, huh?

Best Easter Bunny EVER courtesy
Awkward Family Photos

Really, the only point for us is a candy bar and an excuse to eat ham.  Except we don't have any ham.  We have a spare turkey hanging around in the freezer downstairs, but I think I'd rather have hot pastrami with melted provolone.  That's like ham, right?

Ish?

Came across an amazing advert in my old local rag yesterday--a breathtakingly gaudy thing, calling folks to Easter Services at the "Old Catholic Church."  The building used to be Emmanuel Baptist--I remember that because the old joke always was, "Who is Emmanuel Baptist and why does he have a church?"  I visited the website, and find they refer to themselves as an "American Catholic Church."  A little more digging?

The Pastor/Reverend (not priest) is a gay  man who is married to his partner of 30 years.  A gay man who always, since childhood, wanted to be a priest.  A Catholic priest.

See, I copied their advert because the picture is so garish and the image of Christ so . . . I don't know, oddly expectant, with a strange bit of shyness or embarrassment?  Oh, and he looks like he's got a lip full of chaw.  Like a vaguely ashamed Buddy Christ with a tobacco problem, you know?  I was going to make fun of the picture, and, in fact, I AM doing that, but I'm also impressed that this gay preacher from Texas had the stones to found a "Catholic" church in the heart of Mormonville.  You know me, I don't think ANYPLACE needs MORE religion, but in a place already swimming in it, I do think it's nice to see something different, something a little more kind and accepting, move in.

Oh, here's the poster:

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So, I wound up part of some Facebook group dedicated to my graduating class.  Had to go down my block list and remove half a dozen people I really think are crusty wounds just to make sense of the conversations.  There's one skeezy creature I WILL not unblock because she is incapable of being around anyone who doesn't share her teabagger ideas without sliding in with as many digs and dull-witted insults as she can.  Because she was very popular in school, she actually still has little groupies who follow her around and soak up her every bigoted word (and yes, she is astoundingly bigoted--of the "papers please/build a wall/armed civilian patrols/blame the Mexicans/our President is a MUSLIM/why should homosexuals get to be married when their leaders SUPPORT MURDERING BABIES" variety), meeting each sick political spray with sycophantic cries of "YEAH!" and "OH, MY GOD, I'LL PRAY FOR AMERICA!"  It makes me want to scream.

But instead, I keep her blocked.  She was the one that really broke me on the "give folks a chance--just because they were scuzzy morons in high school doesn't mean they haven't changed for the better" thing.  Turns out most of them are just the same as they ever were--like high school ended and they decided that was it, that was the end of learning, growing, developing, changing, etc.  The majority of people I went to high school with still write like . . . well, like below-average high school students.  A lot of their/there/they're mistakes, almost universal pluralization vs possessive issues, and a near-uniform inability to look at anything from a logical or scientific viewpoint.  A lot of woo and "natural news" and "water has memory" and "share this idiot meme and good things will happen, don't and your heart will be broken" sort of crap.  

It's depressing.  Even more depressing is the number of these people I thought were smart back in high school.  I thought they were a lot smarter than me.  Some, in fact, WERE, and some of those STILL ARE, but the majority?  Not really.  So either I was wrong about them then or they've all suffered serious brain injuries over the intervening years.  And before you get on me about the brain injury crack, I am the product of a wowser brain injury thanks to having my car wrapped around a tree at 60+ mph.  So blah.

I don't know how long I'll make it in that group.  Maybe I'll just hide notifications and pretend I'm there.

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Speaking of that group, have you ever been momentarily stunned by a  name on your computer screen?  I was last night.  There's not a thing I can do about it, but I'm shaken just the same.

You see, back in junior high, there was a vicious rape.  It happened down in the girl's bathroom near the gym.  Three boys followed a girl into the bathroom and raped her.  I know about this because I was in the nurse's office, trying to nap off a migraine, when they brought the girl in.  I heard everything, the cops talking, the cops questioning the victim, the nurse and the cops discussing it, the principal weighing in.  I didn't know the girl, but I knew the boys.  All three of them.

They were tried as juveniles, did their juvenile stint, and by high school they were back among us.  Something that always left me nervous.  They were, after all, rapists. 

Well, one of them is in the above-mentioned group.  I saw his name and felt that immediate jolt.  I took a look at his profile page, and it's all "Jesus" this and "God" that.  And hey, maybe that keeps him in line.  But I sure am glad that group is virtual and not real.  

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We went for a drive last night--looking at a house I'd found a lovely story about online.  Had you asked me to describe my dream house, it probably wouldn't be this, and yet you know what?  It's my dream house, absolutely.  Here's a real estate listing for it, and here are some photos I took.

 There were more--pictures of the horses, pictures of the stable, pictures of the solar panels, etc.

Yeah, solar panels.  This place is totally off the grid.  There's a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, eight stall stable with interior corridor, guest house, barn, run in shed, tenant house, etc.  Radiant heat, heated floors, lovely gardens, and over 17 acres with streams, bridges, beautiful trees, and varied wildlife.


And the asking price?  Around two-and-a-half mil.

That actually makes it markedly cheaper than some of the gigantic places around there.

I know, barring a lotto win (hard to do when you don't play the lotto), nothing like this is ever going to come our way.  But wow.  What a lovely place.  Not too palatial, not too grand, not snobby and grotesque in its opulence.  But real.  Seems a like a place real people could live real lives.

It didn't occur until late last night that we had just gone traipsing all over these people's property.  No, we didn't get out of the car and snoop about, but we did traverse little side roads and check out the stables, barn, guest house, etc.  In our 2009 Sonata, I'm sure no one mistook us for potential buyers, A gentleman who clearly works there did come over on his four-runner and ask if we needed help, and we blithely smiled, said we were good, and thanked him.  He nodded and moved on.  That was when I had the first, "Um,  maybe that was code for 'get lost?'" thought, but it wasn't until we got home that I really realized that we were being rather . . . oogy.  Ill-mannered.  To my credit, I'm pretty sure the home is unoccupied, and we did just follow the Sotheby's signs to the site.

I swear, I used to be classier.

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The arm is still unhappy when I use it or twist it, and it still looks like it's going to be a pretty solidly disfiguring scar--all pulled and puckered.  Not at all what I was expecting, but certainly too late to do anything about it now.  I've got a gang of pictures, but I'll wait until the stitches come out to post a series.  No pictures of the actual cutting--I didn't think anyone would appreciate that.

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So, Happy Easter--or if, like me, you don't list that way, Happy Rene Descartes' Birthday!  And if that doesn't do it for you?  Happy Passover!  And if THAT's not your gig, either?  Well, just have a beautiful day, huh?  Be happy, it's spring!

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ