A day of remembrance

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. In the last few years I have gotten to know many women that have experiences with this type of devastation and grief. So many more than I ever thought I would. But I have also seen God touching those families in amazing ways and His ability to use any situation to show his love and compassion. Please take a moment to pray for everyone who has dealt with losing a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, or loss of a newborn.

Let Rush Buy the Rams

As you might guess, I've been following the "controversy" over Rush Limbaugh trying to buy a piece of the St. Louis Rams. And as you might subsequently guess, I think the opposition to his potential ownership is ridiculous and borderline slanderous. A litany of liberal sports columnists have said the NFL should reject him, which won't be necessary because the team he was going to bid with dropped him from their group. This opposition is based on some very dubious arguments:

• Rush is racist. This argument is commonly made, despite the fact that there is no legitimate reason to believe it. Fabricated quotes have been an important part of the case these columnists have attempted to make that this is so. It is a demonstration of the state of modern media that these sourceless quotes, which are internet rumors, have received wide media play despite no proof they were ever uttered. These columnists clearly are making this accusation based on third-hand knowledge of Rush, probably from what they heard in the media. This is where the borderline slander is occurring.

• The NFL doesn't want controversy. This is the league that let Michael Vick back in, and includes a number of players with felony records. If the NFL is an OK place for felons, but not conservatives, we have a problem. The league also has a group of owners that includes Jerry Jones and Al Davis. I'm sure I could dig for a few minutes and find plenty of dirt on some other owners in the league that is worse than some "controversial statements."

• NFL players won't stand for Rush being an owner. If there is a substantial number of NFL players that are that concerned about and opposed to Rush (and I'm skeptical), I still doubt they would refuse to play in St. Louis for that reason. Professional athletes are whores; they would play for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's team, if he had one (and assuming they know who he is). What else are they going to do, find a different career, that pays far, far less?
  

I doubt that Rush being an owner would hurt the NFL in any significant way. And if Michael Moore or Keith Olbermann wanted to buy a team (not that I put these guys on Rush's level), I would not be opposed. I might not cheer for their teams, though, unless they bought the Vikings, and then I'd have to suck it up. But to say that Rush should somehow be disqualified from owning a piece of an NFL team is baseless, hypocritical, and just plain wrong.

Happy Birthday Craig!

Dear Craig,

You know that I have a really bad cold right now (and yes, I will continue to call it a bad cold and not the flu because that is the type of eternal optimist I am) so instead of coming home tonight to any fun birthday celebrations, you will come to a house filled with cough drop wrapper, popsicle sticks, and saltine crumbs and a wife that smells a lot like Vicks Vaporub.

But if what you always say is true and "It's the thought that counts" then you should know that I had thought you up a great birthday, with a nice homemade meal complete with a new chocolate cake recipe I was just sure you would love and some great presents. And even though I will not be able to actually put any of that together, you should know that I really wanted to because another year of your life is something to celebrate. And I'm so excited about getting to spend the next year by your side, I know it is going to be filled with lots more good memories. Just maybe not this first day or two, apparently that is going to be filled with lots of phlegm. But once we get past that, it's going to be good. I love you!

Renaissance Festival Observations

This weekend, we headed out to experience that mandatory fall activity, the Renaissance Festival. We went to the Texas version of this great tradition. Here are some photos and thoughts.

• Renaissance Festival doesn't seem like the right term. Considering that many people come to these events dressed like executioners, knights, or William Wallace, I think Medieval Festival might be a better term. While there are some Renaissance-era themes at the event, like Shakespeare shows and printing press demonstrations, a lot of what happens at the festival comes from an earlier time period, like this skeleton ventriloquist:

• Anachronisms. While some looseness of historical eras is acceptable, I'm not sure if Native Americans or this guy belong at the Ren Fest:

I suppose that Native Americans were around at the same time as your typical Ren Fest characters, they were on a different continent. I think Ren Fest is exclusively a European event. And while the Nazis were in Europe, the 20th century has no place at Ren Fest (well, except for credit cards and Miller Lite).

• Why were there so many people wearing tails at this thing?

• Buxom wenches. I suspect that one did not see so much gratuitous cleavage during the Renaissance era.

• Jousting. I guess they're not going to have real, full-on jousting at these events, but what we saw was really fake, kind of like minor-league pro wrestling. I was disappointed.
  

Do you have any Ren Fest observations or experiences you'd like to share?

Another reading list update

Mrs. Fyton's Country Life. Mavis Cheek. Starts off yucky, only gets worse. The story of a lady who find herself 20 years into marriage when her husband up and leaves her for a younger woman. So she leaves her selfish teenagers with him, his new wife and baby and heads to the country to start a new life. It's a bit depressing but at least you think you know where this book is going and how she is going to get her happy ending. Then you think, well maybe the author is going to go in this other direction that is a little on the morally sketchy side but might possible work, but then no, she goes in an even worse direction and you want to chuck the book out the window. Plus, the side characters are a bit confusing and she's a little too subtle in her implications sometimes which meant poor naive me was completely confused and feeling like she didn't get the inside joke at times. Don't read this.

An accomplished women. Jude Morgan. I loved the characters in this book. I also loved how I didn't really know how this book was going to end until the last chapter. But, unlike the book above, I was okay with that because I had faith in Morgan. She would not end the story with the heroine main character being the weekend mistress to her ex-husband while his new wife pretends to ignore the situation because she doesn't want to be a single mother. (Oops, I guess I revealed the ending :-) well, if you even felt remotely curious to read it, I hope you don't now.)

And only to deceive. Tasha Alexander. Found through Amazon's "Customer's who bought this also bought..." when looking at the Deanne Raybourn books I mentioned last time. I've had those things recommend some really odd products to me in the past but this time it actually made sense since this is another victorian mystery with a bit of romance. It has all the great characters and mystery elements of the Lady Julia Grey Series without the few things that bothered me about those books so of course, I really enjoyed it. If I had to choose, my first allegiance would still be to Julia over Emily but luckily, I don't have to choose between them and can love them all.

A Poisoned Season. Tasha Alexander. The sequel to the above. I'm still a fan and I'm excited to read more of those but I have to wait as they are all currently check out.

Summertime. Raffaella Barker. A British woman struggles to keep her life and children under control when her live-in boyfriend who has been managing everything moves to the amazon. This was amusing but weird. I enjoyed reading it but I'm not really sure why. I think I might have liked it even more if I had first hand experience with out of control but lovable children and the general struggles of motherhood but maybe not. Do mothers like to escape real life by reading books about other mother's crazy lives? I don't know.

1000 days in Venice. Marlene de Blasi. Autobiography of de Blasi's whirlwind romance and marriage to a Venician she met on her travels. (Is that really not how you spell Venician, Blogger is telling me I'm wrong but it is not offering any good alternatives so I think I'll ignore it.) In theory, I don't believe in love at first site and think moving across the world to marry an almost complete stranger is a bad idea but in practice, I knew I was going to marry Craig the second day I knew him. We still did things the old fashioned way (i.e. dating, engagement and wedding occurring over a span of time) and I'm glad we did but part of me likes reading about someone who took the risk. Perhaps that is because I know it's her real life story so she did get as much of the happily ever after that anyone ever does, but perhaps it is because I know I would have done the same if I had to in order to keep him. Plus, she is a chef so she talks a lot about food. I love books that talk about food.

Murder on Astor place. Victoria Thompson. I'm on a bit of a historical murder mystery kick if you haven't noticed. This one was average. Not the best but I'll probably try the next in the series anyway. The heroine is a intelligent and brazen midwife. I love intelligent and brazen mystery solvers and midwives so how can I not appreciate that combination?

Friendship Cake. Lynn Hinton. A lesbian, an african american women and a female minister walk into a church basement. No, it's not a joke but the actually storyline of a women's church club trying to stay afloat by putting together a cookbook. I could tell it really wanted to be a charming sweet story of friendship in the South filled with loveable characters (i.e. the Mitford Series). Instead it was cliche filled and confusing because she switched from around from 5 different first person viewpoints without really explaining who was talking ( I figured out later is was whoever wrote the recipes preceding the chapter but it was not obvious). Then I got to the second half of the book and she switched to third person and I just gave up which was probable a good thing since when I looked it up on amazon.com to find the author (I had already taken it back to the library) the reviews said it was good to start out with but ended badly. Since I didn't think it started well, I don't even want to imagine the ending.

Inkheart. Cornelius Funke. I saw a preview for this movie and thought it looked interesting and then when perusing Karen's book reviews I remember being intrigued so I actually put effort into getting it. I agree that is interesting. It was almost really good, it just needed something but I'm not sure what. How is that for an insightful review? I actually just now saw that it is part of a trilogy, maybe that makes me feel better about the ending less than perfectly wrapped up which is almost always how I want my books to end. It also made we wish I remembered more of what I was supposed to learn in those years and years of German so I could read it in the original language.

Don't Throw It Out. Lori Baird. Non-fiction about reusing and repairing things you own. It had a surprising amount of new information but was geared more towards people who own their own home and all the appliances that come with it which alas, is not us. But it did tell me how to unwarp my rotary cutting mat. I'll be trying it out and if it works, I bet you'll be seeing it in an upcoming WFMW.

How the pro-choice movement saved America: freedom politics, and the war on sex. Cristina Page. This book that was "supposed to be" about abortion but was really about birth control got its own post.