Steph! You did say, and I forgot to acknowledge because date! I hope you both liked it! Cookies yum!

I think I need to be put down for a nap.

For those interested in how he went from priest to atheist, the short answer was: There are good people in it, but the Church is corrupt.

This may be a good moment to link to this article from the Economist, about the Catholic Church's finances: [link]

They also have an article about some of the medical implications from the fact that cells in the human body are only about 10% human: [link]

Yay for a good date, Zenkitty!

Yay for a good date, Zenkitty!

Suzi, do you mind going back and editing your post if you get the chance? TCG would prefer to keep his name off the Internet.

Zenkitty,

see, he was intimidated by your awesomeness. Not surprised.

(not commenting on asshooks. not commenting on asshooks. not commenting on asshooks)

(not commenting on asshooks. not commenting on asshooks. not commenting on asshooks)

That's really more of a second-date thing.

I didn't! I was very non-threatening! I didn't even bring the cleavage!

Dude, always bring the cleavage. Threatening does not mean what you think it means.

BT's link made me think about my SiL, who is a VERY devout catholic and teaches in a Catholic school. She has cut our whole family out of her life. after being with my Bro for 25 years. I know she is concerned that my family is a. not Catholic and B. Liberal and this has become worse over the last few years. She hasn't seen my mom, who lives an hour away, in 8 months, not even when mom was hospitalized with pneumonia a few weeks back. When my mom and other brother called to wish SiL a happy birthday a few months back, she refused to get on the phone.

My brother, after saying everything was fine for months, finally said that they have "issues" but they are still living together and doing stuff together and that he was not going to talk about it. My mom thought it was something personal about her, but recently my cousin (to whom she always seemed pretty close) wrote SiL a letter, saying she had been having marriage issues herself and was there for her if she ever wanted to talk. She never got an answer.

My suspicion is that she is getting even more involved in church stuff--she has friends in Opus Dei and seems like she would be a good candidate. I can tell my brother is unhappy, but he also won't say anything about it to me or anyone, so there's nothing to be done.

Yay, Zenkitty! That sounds like a decent first date to me. Even without the asshooks.

If they would just stick it out for a week, they'd learn it's not that scary.

Make a deal with them.

"Stick with me for a week and I'll give you M&Ms.

Two weeks, and we'll talk about s'mores.

Three weeks, and you owe me a Dove bar."

I would LOVE that!! Ha!

But isn't it an elective?

Yes and no. We lost a lot of electives in the budget cuts a couple of years ago. As a result, there are very few the kids actually get to choose and those are all year-long electives (Spanish, choir, band, orchestra). All the semester long electives (there are only 4: general music, art, first aid/nutrition, and drama) are just in a pot and kids get put whereever their schedule allows. They don't get a choice.

ugh Scrappy, that sounds so hard.