Today with the home schoolers

We had an excellent afternoon's visit with our every-second-Tuesday Catholic home schoolers today. The mothers' table was, as usual, a-buzz with talk, some of it serious, most of it strange, which led to much side-splitting laughter and children at other tables frowning at us and going, "Ssshhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

We talked about YouTube videos, which it turns out we're all rather fond of.

Catherine told us about the following video titled "David After Dentist," which was first brought to her attention by her daughter, Catrina. In this video, little David looks to be about six years old and is with his dad in the car following some kind of dental surgery. In thinking of my nephews, I could only imagine that this took place as the equal reaction to the action of David trying to jump his bike over the picnic table and crashing his face onto the cement driveway: that seems highly possible, considering the things boys are capable of.

My favorite parts are when young David, who is having his first experience with anesthesia, says, with saucer-like eyes, "Is this real life?" and then says to his dad wonderingly, "You have FOUR EYES."




I told the ladies about this video titled "Angry Catholic Mother," and I warn you before you watch it that this lady's vocabulary could peel paint off a battleship. Her son, Michael, who was apparently recently confirmed, has decided that he's an atheist. She is really upset about this and one of the first things she says is, "That's just *bleep*ing great, Michael. Okay, that's it! We are going to start going to church EVERY WEEK."

Uh, Mom? There could be some good reasons why your teenaged son is not all that well grounded in his Christian beliefs. I hate to spoil a good rant, but sheeeeeesh. If you wanted him to be a good Catholic, one way you could have worked to help him along was by being a good Catholic. You can't just grace us with your presence at Mass whenever you happen to feel like it and then be totally ticked off because your kid's religious beliefs are as deep as a raindrop. Although I do give you credit for being concerned about his lying to the bishop. And God.

Michael's mom harangues him about lying to the bishop (and, let me think? Maybe, I don't know....God?) and then tells him that there are going to be NO CHRISTMAS PRESENTS, MICHAEL, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT -- JESUS CHRIST.

I know this is hard to believe, but Michael suddenly has an amazing conversion, a real road-to-Damascus kind of thing, where he weighs his deeply felt beliefs about spirituality and religion against the idea of getting zip-zero-nada Christmas presents and hey! All of a sudden, Christianity is looking pretty good!

"All RIGHT!" he huffs angrily.

Good choice, Mike. I'm sure you have made the Baby Jesus very happy!

Watch YouTube video of "Angry Catholic Mother"


Julie P. was there so I was able to tell her how much we enjoyed her chicken and rice casserole, and she also alerted me to a new name for breast milk: boob juice. That made everyone giggle.