I woke myself up coughing! Because I'm an idiot who neglected to take any medicine before going to bed.

Nothing too dire happened in my absense, that I can tell. Waiting for things to crawl out from uder rocks.

Last evening's BBC news did a report on two women who'd traveled to the Vatican to present a petition related to their abuse (when children) by a priest.

Yep. I saw it, too. It was so frustrating to see those women who seemed to be saying, "Look, this awful thing happened to us. Can you just freakin' acknowledge it?"

And, re: JZ's post about the former priest--I hate the idea of someone good at a useful job (while I'm not Catholic I can certainly see the good in what many Catholic priests do), being driven out through an organization's wrongheadedness over those actively not doing good.

To interrupt this priestly talk with ...Monkeys! Monkeys with accents: [link]

Marking Sue's posts as I am on conference call right now. MONKEYS!!!

I do NOT, however, love Shrift's job.

You shouldn't love it. It's an abusive boyfriend who never calls unless he needs something, tells you that you're fat and stupid and incompetent, and then punches you in the face when you don't bring him his beer fast enough.

not to speak out of turn, but I am pretty sure there are safe houses all over the country (maybe world) where you could go stay until you found a new and nicer boyfriend.

Break the cycle.

I'm with msbelle. Get out now!

I think Brenda makes a good point about some people (especially in earlier generations) entering the priesthood not because of a real calling, but in order to try to avoid their own sexuality issues.

Yup. I agree with it.

And Cindy brought up the term I couldn't remember--ephebophile, which is equally icky in my book and more specific when describing teenage victims.

To interrupt this priestly talk with ...Monkeys! Monkeys with accents: [link]

Owen's new favorite word. But I suspect that's because his father does the monkey dance and makes monkey sounds when he says it.

I got a flyer from Aaron's Rent to Own yesterday and, wow, what a racket. Just because I happen to know computers pretty well, I check out their "deal". There was a Dell computer valued at $800 that was only $99 dollars a month to own in 12 months (but oddly came up to a total financing chart of $500 so there must be a down payment or something). So right off the bat you've got 63% APR right there. Just popping over to Dell website you can get a better computer/monitor combo for $600 so there's at least a $200 markup in addition to the 63% APR. I'd have to guess they must sell to people who are either very uninformed or have absolutely horrible credit.

Today I'm finding e-mails from people who are screaming because I haven't sent them the files they requested. Via e-mail.

You need a snooty boilerplate response that subtly insults their intelligence and ability to do their job. I could look through old e-mails from Portland Man.