WEBSITE REVIEW: 59 Beads.com

Meelyn, Aisling and I went to the public library yesterday so that Mee could do a little research for the fine arts project she's doing for the 4-H Fair in July. While she busied herself, Aisling and I logged onto computer terminals, thinking that we could have some fun visiting one another's Webkinz houses, but the library's servers were being very touchy and we couldn't get it to work.

So I was browsing around on the internet and, having forty minutes of time online at my disposal, thought how nice it would be to Google some different sites for praying the rosary online.

There are many places to pray the rosary online, but the one that caught my eye was one called 59 Beads.com. I clicked on the link and found that it's a new site being promoted by Phatmass, a site I enjoy visiting for the daily Mass readings, the Pope's monthly prayer intentions and the like.

59 Beads is still under construction, so the only Mysteries available so far are the Joyful ones, which I prayed there at the library computer. They're really well done with gorgeous artwork, scripture verses that correspond with the event being meditated upon, and a virtual rosary that you click on to move to the next "bead."

It will be a fantastic prayer tool when the whole thing is up and running, but for now, I hope you'll enjoy those Joyful Mysteries.

I'd like a BIG bowl of that, please

Tonight, because it is so stinking cold, we are having Grade School Chili for dinner. I was just putting the ground beef on the stove when a sudden thought of a couple my husband and I used to be friends with years ago came into my head.

This was back before we had children, so the female half of the couple, a woman I'll call Mandy, and I were both off work for the afternoon, me from the school where I was teaching, she from a local bank where she worked as the teller supervisor. Our husbands worked at the same place, so they were due at our house at 7:00. It was a Friday and my husband and I had invited them over for chili and a rousing evening of euchre.

"Oh, that sounds like fun!" Mandy had exclaimed when I'd called her on Tuesday with the invite. "We love chili!"

But three days later, Mandy was sitting at my kitchen table with a Diet Coke while I threw the chili together, and as I began my preparations, she kept breaking in with little worried comments.

On seeing me take out an onion for chopping: "Oh, dear...would you mind not putting onion in it? Troy won't eat anything with onions in it. He's such a picky eater."

On seeing me opening a tin of chili powder: "Oh, goodness...Troy just doesn't like spicy food at all. Do you have to use any of that? "

On seeing me open a can of chili beans: "Oh, no! I'm so sorry, but Troy just can't eat beans. He says they give him awful stomach cramps."

By this time, I was heartily wishing that maybe I could give the disagreeable, dyspeptic Troy a bowl of arsenic and put him out of our collective misery, him and his finicky ways. It's bad enough trying to deal with a pre-schooler who inisists on surviving on a diet made up solely of chicken nuggets and red Jello without having to deal with such vagaries in a grown man.

I got a box of elbow macaroni out of the cupboard and she jumped in quickly with, "Oh, gosh! Troy doesn't like pasta in his chili. Would you mind...." She broke off as she saw the expression on my face.

Working to keep my voice even, I replied, "I thought you said you liked chili?"

"We do! We really do! We have it several times a month!"

"But Mandy, what you're having isn't chili -- it's tomato soup with hamburger floating in it!"

"That's how Troy likes it, though," she said meekly.

"Well, I think that sounds really gross," I said with a wry smile, taking pity on her. I'd heard some stories from my husband about Troy at work and he was just as annoying there as he apparently was at his own hearth. "Listen, let me make it my way, okay? I'll use onion powder instead of an onion and I can puree the chili beans in the blender. My husband can eat chili without macaroni in it for once, and I won't add as much chili powder. And I'll make some peanut butter sandwiches, and if he doesn't like my chili, he can just eat those."

A pained look passed over her face. "He, ummmm....welll...."

I sighed. "He doesn't like peanut butter sandwiches either, does he?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"Well, I have some potato chips and dip for later and some cut up celery and carrots. Or some, I don't know...Raisin Bran. Or something."

The men arrived a short time later and I dished up the soup, unrecognizable from the way I usually made it, bringing it to the table with a fanfare of shredded colby-jack cheese and some minced green onions, along with the standard Hoosier addition of saltine crackers. We all fell to.

After a few moments of happy munching, Troy put down his spoon, wiped his lips with his napkin and said, "Shelley, this is the best chili I've ever had. When Mandy makes chili, it's always so bland."

I stole a glance at her as I thanked him through stiff lips; she was giving him a look worthy of Medusa, sans the writhing hair.

I've often wondered about the fight they had on the way home that evening, but I never heard mention of it, because we didn't invite them over for dinner again. Some couples, it's just best to meet them at the movie theater.

Sweetest Poppy

My parents took me, Meelyn and Aisling to the Olive Garden yesterday for lunch, which was just very, very nice. We all know that the food would not be recognizably Italian to a native of that country, but who cares when somebody else cooks it, serves it and cleans it up afterward? Plus, it's yummy and they put as much grated Parmesan as you'd care to eat on your salad.

We always want a lot, stopping just short of the server's developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

I had grilled chicken and gnocchi in creamy Parmesan-ricotta sauce and Aisling, who was sitting beside me, had chicken parmegiana. I can't remember what anyone else had because it all passed in a blur of breadsticks.

Just as we were finishing, a crowd of five city police officers came in and were seated beside us. They all seemed like very pleasant people, courteously giving their drink orders to the server and then talking quietly among themselves about what was best to eat. Mom, Poppy, the girls and I got up to put on our coats, nodding hello to them and smiling as we left the dining room. Poppy, who is always a gentleman, stood aside to let all the ladies pass and then followed me out to the restaurant's entryway.

Only when we got there, he wasn't behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw him coming down the hallway from the dining room with his wallet in his hand.

"What were you doing? Did you drop your wallet or something?" I asked him as he opened the door for me.

"No, I was talking to those police officers," he said, tucking his wallet into his jacket's inner pocket.

A sudden thought came to me. "Did you pay for their lunch?" I asked fondly.

"Yes. And I told them, 'If you're ever in New Castle and you see me speeding, please don't arrest me," he joked.

Lovely Poppy, what a generous man he is.

Grumble, grumble

Aisling feels, perhaps justly, that she spends a lot of her time being bossed around by somebody or other. Mostly by me and her dad, of course, but all too often by her older sister, whom, she bitterly claims, "acts like some SECOND MOM or something."

Today, the girls and I were sitting at the dining room table enjoying a game of Pounce and Aisling was being her ownself, laughing boisterously in a shrieky, high-pitched manner, singing obnoxious snatches of made-up songs, laughing at her own jokes.There's only so much my nerves can stand in the late afternoon, so I was making some sharp remarks along the lines of "Please hush!" and "Aisling, use your INSIDE VOICE!" and "Would you please stop being SO LOUD?!?"

After all my remarks, Meelyn would add, "Yeah!"

Aisling finally looked at the pair of us and said in a resigned and dreary voice, "You know, I guess I am just going to have to get used to the fact that, in this house, I am the walking path and you two are the hikers."

I thought that was pretty funny. But I still made her hush her noisy mouth.

RECIPE: Egg Salad

One of our favorite lunches on Fridays during Lent is egg salad. This is one of those beloved comfort foods, for me dating back to my college days at Ball State. My friend Jennifer and I would lug all our books down to the Dugout, a little cafe in the basement of Studebaker Hall where she lived and sit in a booth and study, eating egg salad sandwiches on white bread with glasses of the coldest milk ever. Dee-licious! Those were happy days, fondly remembered. Jen, who was worried back then that she'd fail out of the BSN program for lack of being able to administer an injection into an orange, is now a nurse at a big hospital in Indianapolis. And I am, well, me.

I don't really have a recipe for this, so all amounts are approximate. If it isn't creamy enough for your liking, add another dollop of mayonnaise. If you prefer it less tart, cut back on the mustard. That's one of the great beauties of egg salad -- you can adjust the ingredients in various ways and still have a tasty final product. We've found that the only thing you can really add too much or too little of is salt.

Egg Salad

6 eggs, hard cooked and de-shellified

3/4 c. mayonnaise

2 T mustard + a couple of extra squirts

1/4 tsp celery seed (can substitute one stalk of diced celery)

1/2 tsp dried dill weed, crushed

salt to taste (eggs need a lot of salt, so add, stir and taste until you have it as you like it. Ha! I threw some Shakespeare in there!)

Optional ingredient: stir in about ten sliced green pimiento olives. Make sure to cut down on the salt you add if you choose this option


In a medium-sized mixing bowl, smoosh eggs with a fork. Or if you have one of those fancy chopper doo-dads like my mom does, use that instead. Add remaining ingredients, except for salt. Add salt in 1/8 teaspoon increments and stir, tasting after each addition.

Makes six nice sandwiches. Serve on toasted bread or on plain, soft white Wonder Bread. In the summer, however, this is also really good on a quartered ripe tomato.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: Mr. Holland's Opus

"Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I can't teach you that other stuff."

As a former public high school teacher, I like movies about other high school teachers, particularly the ones about the other high school teachers who don't go to their jobs in order to change the world. They go there more to earn some money and just get through the day -- and somehow end up changing the world in the process.

Mr. Holland's Opus is about a musician named Glenn Holland, played by Richard Dreyfuss. Glenn Holland's real job -- and his life's goal -- is to compose a symphony, one that will take the world of music by storm, one that will feed body, mind and soul. But everyone knows that artists were born to starve in garrets, huddled over the pianoforte and warming their hands over a candle while feverishly scribbling notes on staff paper, so Glenn takes a job as a high school music teacher. [The only task in a school that I think could possibly be more thankless than that of a band director is that of an English teacher (I might possibly be biased) because everyone has to take English, while band is an elective and the students presumably want to be there.]

Glenn Holland encounters varying degrees of talent in his students as his fake career as a teacher continues on over the years. His real career as a composer is sidetracked by teaching and family responsibilities -- he marries his sweetheart, Iris, and they have a son, Cole (named for jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane). The turning point in the movie comes when Glenn and Iris realize that their tiny baby is deaf.

Glenn struggles to come to terms with the fact that his son will never be able to hear music and as the years wear on, taking us through Kennedy's assassination, the VietNam war, the drug culture of the 1970s and on into the program-slashing, down-sizing 1980s, Mr. Holland grows up as he helps his students through the same thing. Along the way, with life's big disappointments and tiny victories, he finally realizes that his entire life has been a symphony of sorts, the music sometimes moody, sometimes despairing, but ultimately bursting forth in triumph, just as bright and beautiful as any of your Mozarts or Vivaldis.

The end of this movie is very beautiful and happy, but the moment that really shines is when Glenn, tormented by his son's disability, sings John Lennon's lovely tribute, "Beautiful Boy", to Cole. Very moving, it is.

Recommended for everybody, not just former band geeks.

Give mom a hand

At Mass this morning, we sat behind a family of four: Dad, Mom, a boy who looked to be about eleven and a little girl of four.

At first glance, the little girl didn't appear to be the spawn of hell. She had brown hair that was arranged in a short bob with bangs, a cute little outfit and pink boots. Her tongue was not forked and she didn't have a pointy tail protruding from the seat of her pants. The pink boots were made to fit normal human feet, not cloven hooves. But all normalcy ended right there. Because from the opening bar of the processional hymn, this kid acted like a goblin. Or maybe like her oatmeal had been sprinkled with crack.

The things she did were too numerous to mention, but two stood out in my mind in particular. The first was the way she snaked her skinny little arm behind her mother's back while we were standing to say the Nicene Creed. The child reached over and grabbed a bit of skin on her brother's side and pinched the living snot out of him, causing him to writhe in surprise and pain.

"OUCH!" he hissed indignantly, casting a Death Glare on his sister and appealing to his mother for justice. "She PINCHED me! Really HARD!" The girl smirked at him.

The mother, harrassed beyond all knowing, grabbed her little hellspawn by the upper arm and plonked her down on the seat and threateningly whispered, "You had better STOPPIT and I mean RIGHT NOW."

The child shrugged, completely indifferent to her mother's command, and sat there biding her time through the Mass until we stood to say the Prayer of the Faithful a few moments later. When her mom got to her feet, the little girl formed her hand into the "blade" shape favored by cheerleaders and abruptly shoved it nearly wrist deep up into her mother's butt crack. And I'm not talking about the upper butt crack, either. I'm talking about the nether region -- right there by the exit ramp, if I can be so delicate.

The mother, to her credit, did not yelp wildly and project herself onto a light fixture. Oh, she jumped, all right. She jumped good and proper. And she may have gasped, but I didn't hear it if she did because I was too busy trying to stifle the sudden urge to erupt in peals of helpless, horrifed giggles. I did not want that poor mother to hear me, adding to her possible embarrassment. But the sight of a little girl plunging her hand into her mother's rear is not something you expect to see happening right before your eyes on any given day.

Acting with admirable self-restraint, the woman reached behind her and removed her offspring's hand from between her clenched buttocks while simultaneously fixing the child with a look that would have melted the hair off any normal four-year-old. The kid, impervious, smiled smugly. The mother, in that manner parents have of communicating with their spouses using on the eyes, looked over at her husband and silently conveyed the fact that she was mere seconds from homocide. The father took his daughter by her (other) hand and led her out, presumably to hold her by the ankles and dip her into a holy water font like a big tea bag.

I hope he doesn't turn his back on her, I thought. And had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from exploding.

Dreamgirl

For the past month, I've been doing some substitute teaching at one of our local Catholic schools, the one which is conveniently just seven blocks from my house. This proximity makes it possible for me to wake up at 6:2o to shower, dress, do my hair and makeup, pack a lunch and then screech into the school's parking lot by 7:29 a.m., while sucking the remains of half a peanut butter sandwich from my teeth and washing them down with a swig of milk. You've gotta love those short commutes.

On Friday, I subbed for the first grade teacher, who was felled by the flu on Thursday afternoon. Since my degree is in secondary ed, spending the day with the little ones is always entertaining; they do things a lot differently in the Land of Knee-High Desks.

There were fourteen children in the class, ten of whom were of Hispanic descent. Now, truly, there isn't an ugly six-year-old in the world, but show me an adorable little bundle named Rosaria or a compact, tough little Jorge, and I'll show you a really cute kid, all big brown eyes and latte-colored skin, sometimes plastered with cartoon character bandages and often missing both front teeth.

A couple of the kids had very endearing Mexican accents, but the most endearing one of all was a dark-eyed Romeo who beckoned his little fingers to me as he was sitting on his knees with his classmates, waiting for our morning restroom-and-drink break to be over (the girls were being very poky.)

I went over to him and said, "Yes, Luis?"

He reached up and took both of my hands as I leaned down in order to hear him better.

"Meeses MeeKeenee," he said softly, "You have a very beeg stowmack, but you are very, very beeyooteeful."

They say drunkards and children always tell the truth. It was 10:30 in the morning in a Catholic elementary school, so I am completely certain that no drink had been taken. And Luis was, after all, only as tall as my waist and missing one front tooth. He definitely qualified for the latter item on that very short list of truth-telling individuals. So I reveled in that hilarious comment all day long, treasuring the moment when I could get home and tell my husband that he had a possible rival for my affections.

Later that afternoon, in front of the mirror in my room, I glanced at my expansive, middle-aged profile, winked at my reflection, and said, "Meeses MeeKeenee, you've still got it, chica."

Rowr.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: Pride & Prejudice (2005)

"Mrs. Darcy...Mrs. Darcy...Mrs. Darcy..."

This version of Pride & Prejudice is the one that stars Keira Knightly (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) as Elizabeth Bennet. I am listing it because it is a movie, whereas the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice, the one that stars Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth and the unbelievably drrrrrrrrrreamy Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, is actually a many-hours-long miniseries. But really, I think both versions are very good. It all depends, as so many things in life do, on how much time you have.

One of the reasons why I like this movie so much is because actually reading Jane Austen drives me batty -- I'm not one who has much appreciation for that verbose Regency style of writing, no matter how much you may be sniggering in disbelief if you're a frequent reader of this (long-winded) blog.

But ol' Jane sure can write a good tale. In terms of following her plot, the BBC version is much better; in interests of forcing her storyline into a two hour screenplay, screenwriter Deborah Moggach had to do a lot of cutting. When I took Meelyn and Aisling to see the cinema version, I had to do some 'splaining so that they'd understand what was going on with Elizabeth's sister. That's one drawback of the shorter version.

It's still a wicked funny and beautifully romantic movie, though. I really love pretty Kiera Knight as the spunky Elizabeth. And Donald Sutherland is a hoot as the much-tried Mr. Bennet and gets to utter one of the best dryly humorous lines ever written for page or screen: When the enervating Mrs. Bennet wails, "Oh, Mr. Bennet! Have you no consideration for my poor nerves?", he replies with mild acidity, "You mistake me, my dear. I have the utmost respect for your nerves. They've been my constant companion these twenty years."

My ideal Pride & Prejudice would be one with Kiera as Elizabeth and Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but since he's old enough to be her father (being several years older than I am, and since I graduated from Cretaceous High, that may give you some idea of how old Colin and I are.) At any rate, both are very good movies with brilliant costumes and hairstyles and sumptuous manor houses and wide views of windswept moors. If you dig that kind of thing, rent this movie before Jane gets any older.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: Jerry Maguire

"Have you ever gotten the feeling that you aren't completely embarassed yet, but you glimpse tomorrow's embarrassment?


Considering my feelings for Tom Cruise, which are of the eye-rolling and chuh!-noise-making variety, it's strange to me that one of my favorite movies of all time is Jerry Maguire. But who could resist this happy-ending movie with all its funny one liners and uplifting theme of nice guys finishing first and getting the girl and the enormous contract for his football player?

One of the best moments of the movie is, oddly enough, when his football playing client (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) takes a smashing hit from a linebacker and is lying on the field, unconscious. The player's wife is watching the game on television with a bunch of other football wives and when she sees her husband, she hysterically dials Jerry's cell phone to find out what has happened. "This family means everything to me, Jerry," she says tearfully, trying to contain her fear, "and it doesn't work without him."

And that's what it's all about. Families with their loyalty and trust and committment to one another, whether the family in question is a husband and wife with their children, or two sisters making a household with one another, or whether it's in the relationship Jerry wants to forge with his clients -- he's a sports agent with a difference.

This movie, of course, is also famous for Jerry's "You complete me" speech to his wife/business associate Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), as is her following line, "Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at hello."

There is just no maintaining composure during this happy moment. My husband has even been known to clear his throat loudly a time or two. It's just that kind of movie. If you don't come away from it loving Jerry, you're eating the wrong brand of popcorn or something.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: The Full Monty

"Dancin'? I dunno, really... Let's see, there's the, uh... The boomp, the stomp, the boos stop... Me breakdancin' days are probably over, but there's always the foonky chicken."

I heard things about The Full Monty for about two years before I saw it, things that I simply couldn't grasp (no pun intended.) I didn't see how a movie about a group of desperately broke, unemployed steel workers in Yorkshire and their decision to raise some cash by performing a striptease at Ladies' Night at a nightclub could possibly be funny, sweet or heartwarming.

So when we finally rented it -- on one of those snowy, grey weekends when everybody goes to Blockbuster as soon as they get off work on Friday, leaving latecomers with unappealing choices like Jaws II and The Neverending Story -- I felt we were lucky to get it, even though I was pretty sure it was going to be a stinker.

Several hours later, after having laughed until I had a stitch in my side, after wiping happy tears off my face onto my sleeve, I said to my husband, "I have to own that movie. I have to. It will be wonderful to watch it when I feel blue. It's sure to cheer me right up."

So he bought me the DVD and I loved it so much, I memorized long swatches of dialogue, which I would repeat softly to myself in times of stress, to make myself laugh. I've never been able to get that thick-as-suet accent down right, but oh, well. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen, and if you've never perceived Donna Summer's disco smash-hit song "Hot Stuff" as a sentimental tear-jerker before, here's your chance.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: The Wedding Planner

"You smell like sweet red plums and grilled cheese sandwiches."

That's the moment Mary, the wedding planner, knew it was for real, the minute that Steve tackled her to save her and her Gucci slingback from being plowed over by a runaway dumpster. The only problem is that Steve (Mr. Sweet-plums-and-grilled-cheese) is the fiance of Mary's biggest client, the one who's going to insure that she's made a partner in the business.

But she doesn't find that out until later, since grooms, as she puts it, are "N.I.D.s" -- Not Interested in Details. When she does find out, it explodes her orderly world of Scrabble, alphabetized lists and handy belt of bottled Evian water, tranquilizers, sewing implements and breath mints she conceals beneath the pastel suits she wears to each wedding she plans.

Mary and Steve keep getting thrown together because of the wedding plans in progress. The bride, Fran, makes them dance the tango together. They accidentally rip the willy right off a statue and engage in a mad scramble to reattach the limestone member. They visits various wedding venues together. Gradually, it comes out that Fran has a major case of cold feet, and one crazy motorbike ride later, right before Mary says "I do" to the man her traditional Italian papa fixes her up with, things all come together, as you imagine they might.

This is pure escapist fluff, witty and sweet and fun to watch. Especially because the delightfully handsome Matthew McConaughey plays Steve. And because just about every movie is better if Jennifer Lopez is in it.