How colour-fast are sharpies? I have white towels I'd like to label somehow--I don't mind if the writing fades over time, but it's only a viable idea as long as the colour doesn't come off on skin or noticably onto other stuff in the wash.

They sell special laundry markers -- called Rub-A-Dub or something silly like that -- for exactly that purpose. You ought to be able to find them everywhere this time of year, since kids going to camp need everything labelled.

Happy Birthday Cass!

Birthday Happies for Sue!!!

Is it Sue's birthday as well as Cass' ?

Kat, I am sorry the doctors' are all being House like. That must be frustrating as hell.

Last night, Perkins the cat had access to my bedroom for the first time in almost a year. He felt the need to play I'm king of the sleeping human every half hour or so to celebrate.

I second the rub-a-dub. If you can't find them in a regular store (I can't in upstate ny) you can order them from Staples.

Re the communion discussion: do Protestants have communion?

I ask because I was discussing about how Catholics need to not eat an hour before church (if they are going to take communion), and was wondering if Protestants were the same. I was, however, working under the assumption that they didn't actually have communion, hence the lack of the brief fasting.

Speaking as a former Protestant, they don't do Communion.

I never even heard of it until I met a Catholic girl when I was fifteen, but I lived in a very, uhm, what's the word for a place full of ignorant closed-minded hypocrites?

Frank, yes, but no idea about the fasting thing -- given how much different denominations vary on just about everything, I'd guess some fast, some don't.

Some Protestant denominations have communion. I know that Episcopals and Mormons and at least some Lutherans do.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Communion: [link]

IIRC, ELCA, UMC, the Episcopal Church, and some others all have an open communion procession, similar to the Catholic closed communion, except you don't have to be a formal member of the church to participate.

Baptist's call it the Lord's Supper and it's usually done once a month. There's no fasting involved and no wine either -- it's grape juice and some kind of wafery thing that you eat. The bread and wine are passed to the congregation at their seats and then you either eat it as you take it or wait and eat as a group, it just depends on how the church does it. There's no common chalice, the grape juice is served in what looks like shot glasses. Also Baptists don't believe in transubstantiation and it's all symbolic.

The Presbyterian church I've gone to off and on does this once a month but they vary how they do it. Sometimes it follows the more Baptist way of doing things but other times they've had processions up to the altar or to other parts of the church with leavened bread dipped into a common cup.

edited -and when I went to Episcopal school we had Communion every Wednesday and that included going up to the altar, kneeling, and then taking the wafer and wine from the priest.