A New Machine (Part 1)

Pink Floyd, A Momentary Lapse of Reason 1987

Officially, every person in our household now has a computer.  Manoj happened across a small computer for free and he is rebuilding it over the weekend for Anjali.  Yes, we are Those People whose kids learn how to type their names before they can write them.  Judge amongst yourselves.

In other news, my Kindle hath taketh over.  Since Valentine's Day, I have read nearly 8 books, one of which was a heavy book made from heavy paper and oh my god, it was HEAVY.  And it took me forever to read that book because I actually had to carry it.  Did I mention the "heavy" part"?  Cramped hands.....paper cuts..... tragic

Furthermore, I am officially afflicted with KISS - Kindle Impulse Spending Syndrome.  There is no known cure other than a firm predilection for self-denial.  Ah, KISS!  Hop on over to the Kindle Store.  Find a book.  Click once and that book is Whisper-netted right to your device within seconds. Que magnifique!  Oh sure, this is Awesome when you are looking for something specific.  However, this is Not So Awesome when you are bored on a Friday night while enjoying a glass of wine (or two) (Stop with the judging.)  (I can HEAR  you.)

Additionally, KISS has a grave complication whereby the Kindle inexplicably allows you to read faster. I am reading even more books than before.   I have yet to solve this conundrum - does the Kindle transport me into some alternate reading universe where time wrinkles faster than my grandma??  Anyway, this time warp has gotten Tony Soprano Serious because effectively, it means I NEED MORE BOOKS. Now!  Before my Kindle gets all Marine Corp over my reading ass. Hurry! Hurry! Those books won't Whisper-net themselves, you idiot.

None of this was helped by the fact that I found a new author obsession on Saturday.  I read Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island over the weekend and am now on Mystic Island.  He also has a PI series that looks intriguing.  When I fire up the Kindle Store now, my modem yawns and says "You?  Again?"

In conclusion: I have officially Whisper-netted myself into what will surely be an interesting conversation with my husband when the next credit card statement arrives.

The Trial

Pink Floyd, The Wall 1979

I have always had a nagging sensation that  I was not quite good enough as a mother.  Something was lacking, but I could not put my finger on it. Something....something....something.... What could it be, I always wondered?  I mean,  I know I can do better but how?

Well, thanks to Amy Chua, I now know that a Chinese mother is superior.  And last I checked, I am most certainly not Chinese. Way to take the pressure off, right?  Thanks, Amy!

Cue the Greek chorus, folks.

Despite my maternal deficiency that resides in my white skin and mid-western breeding, I do have a significant trick up my sleeve. That is, when I am not busy driving my kids to harmonica lessons, arranging playdates for them, or playing Super Mario Bros with them.

However.   Lest you think that I am rending my garments and bemoaning my mid-western culture, 'tis not a problem, Gentle Reader. Ah yes, while I am most certainly a lost cause, there just might still be hope left for my own precious progeny.  Perhaps.

You see, I have a Cobra Daddy.

Cobra Daddy?  What's that, you say?  Well, they come in an assortment of flavors and colors! They generally hail from the sub-continent of Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and in a pinch, Sri Lanka).  For myself,  I chose a delightful varietal from Kerala, India, in a lovely sepia tone with smoky hints of mocha that resulted in some pretty darned cute kids.  I also went "Catholic with an Anglo last name", which downplayed a chasm of cultural issues for us.  Try it, you might like it!

So, what makes a Cobra Daddy special?  Oh trust me, Gentle Reader.  When your Cobra Lover morphs into a Daddy, the transformation is spectacular!  Don't forget your sunglasses.  Our house is now like a constant rave around here sans glowsticks and the goddamed disco ball. Which leaves Guess! Who! to fill the role that can only be referred to as the Enforcer (hint: Me!)  But that's okay, because as long as the kids don't cry, then we are totally cool.

You see, that is the #1 Article of Faith by which a Cobra Daddy lives:

Children shalt not cry.  Ever.  

Want to sleep in your parents' cozy bed, little fella?  Just cry and your Cobra Daddy will whisk you out of that crib faster than you can shoot that pacifier outta your mouth.  Speaking of pacifier, what the hell, woman? Give me the real stuff, you lactating loser.  Cobra Daddy to the rescue!  By the way, little fella, you look a little cramped. Perhaps, Cobra Daddy should move to the other room.

Don't want to pick up your toys?  Just cry and your Cobra Daddy will tell your mama what a relentless nag she is.

You want to wear the sparkly, satin party dress in 15 degree weather, baby girl?  Just cry quietly and before you know it, your Cobra Daddy will be fumbling with the sash.

You want ice cream at night, just before bed?  You want a West Highland Terrier instead of a Labrador Retriever? You want 10 packets of raw sugar, just before dinner?  You want to watch Shaun the Sheep for the 5th time in a row? You want Ovaltine in your milk?  Just CRY, goddammit.  CRY.  Cobra Daddy has your back.  No worries, dude.

Chore charts?  Cobra Daddy rolls his eyes.

Acting classes? Cobra Daddy cackles.

Soccer?  Cobra Daddy snorts.

Dance?  Cobra Daddy shrugs.

Art classes?  Are you fucking kidding the Cobra Daddy?

I wonder what would happen in a Parental Thunderdome between a Tiger Mother and Cobra Daddy?

I'd pay good money to see that show.

Atom Heart Mother

Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother 1970

A post that banishes me to the dungeons of mommyblogdom.  A post....about......my children. With opinions, scanned artwork, sugary snaps and cute stories.  In vernacular.

Commence screams of horror.

At least I do not include Tales of Bodily Function.  I do have standards, as low as they may be, they do exist.

PERFORMANCE ART
ANJALI'S STORY OF CHRISTMAS
Anjali: Joseph and Mary walked to Bethlehem.  And baby Jesus knocked and knocked and KNOCKED.  The innkeeper opened the door and said "all the rooms are TOOKEN!"  And he SHUT THE DOOR!  Then, Joseph and Mary walked back to NazeraHAM.

ARUN'S EXPLANATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Arun: All the good guys in my mouth kick the germs OUT of my mouth and into OTHER people's mouths and that's how they get sick.  Right, mama?

Obviously, my comparison of anti-bodies to ninjas was not such a stellar idea.

ANJALI FLIRTS WITH DANGER
Scene: I spy Anjali hanging by her feet and hands off the banister at the TOP of the stairs.

Me: Anjali, don't hang on the banister like that. It's dangerous.  You could fall down the entire flight!
Anjali: MAMA. I'm just being a KOALA.
Me: Fine, be a koala, just do it at the BOTTOM of the stairs.
Anjali: MAMA.  Koalas hang HIGH on the branches.  Not LOW.

Obviously, I am no fun and have the imagination of a gnat.

OPINIONS, I HAS THEM

TOILET "TRAINING"
I only write this for that one mother out there who is at her wit's end with toilet training.  Fear not, I am not going to offer any details other than this:

It is okay to wait until your child is actually ready.

Long ago, a friend told me "Kelli, you can't make a kid eat, sleep or poop."  Words to parent by.

With both kids, I conferred with the director of their school and with both kids, the director was adamant that most toilet training involves training the parent as much as the child (constant reminders, having to do everything from undressing to placement on the toilet to wiping)  She is a huge believer in waiting until the child is independent enough to do most of the activities on the toilet alone.  She also advocates waiting until spring time, if possible, since it is easier for the kid to deal with less layers of clothing.  I am so grateful that she and I were on board with this topic - I cannot imagine how stressful it would have been had she pushed the early toilet-training.

Don't get me wrong - I have witnessed, with my own eyes, a kid begin to use the toilet at 18 months with little intervention by her mother.  That little girl was ready and she wanted to use the toilet.  However, far more often, I have seen parents determine that a 2 year old MUST use the toilet and then I watch them struggle and battle it out for the next year.

With both of our kids, we bought them underpants at the age of 2 and began the Potty Talk and videos and books.  Then, we simply waited until they were able to do most of it by themselves.  With both kids, they were not ready until they were nearly 3.5 years old. However, with both kids, toilet "training", per se, took a maximum of 3 weeks, with a minimum of accidents (Arun was good to go after 2 weeks, actually.)

I cannot lie - it totally sucks having people exclaim incredulously "your 3.5 year old isn't potty-trained yet?" as if they are "late" on some incredibly important milestone that might delay their entrance into Harvard. However, I sucked it up and carried forward.  I have no regrets and if we were to have a 3rd kid (we are NOT), I would do nothing different.  I would simply wait, all over again.

Again, if you were an early potty-trainer, that is fine.  I am writing this for that one mother out there who truly does not believe her kid is ready and would prefer to wait until her kid is mostly independent with it.

CO-SLEEPING IS SHORT FOR "COOPERATIVE SLEEPING"
We still co-sleep.  I have written some about this in the past, I am not going to revisit why we do it.  Again, if you are a crib-sleeper, more power to you.  This bit is for that mother who doesn't want to do cribs.

Co-sleeping absolutely was the way to go for us.  I really regret wasting all that money on a stupid, over-priced clothes hamper crib.  Manoj claims that he is done with sleeping with Arun, but when Arun slept in his own room for awhile, Manoj admitted missing him.  Heh.  Anjali is not moving out any time soon, with which we are completely fine.  I know generations after generations of co-sleepers who managed to move into adulthood just fine (my own dad, my sister Jill, and my own husband were all co-sleepers.)

One word of caution, though.  There is a brand new hazard to co-sleeping and it is absolutely imperative I warn you of it:

Pillow pets

These days, I sleep with a dolphin.

PRINCESS PUKE
God, I am SO tired of "princess this, princess that".  GAG ME WITH A TIARA.  The other night, Anjali declared she was going to be a princess when she grows up.  Arun informed her "Anju, princesses are only on TV and in games."  Let us leave the cautionary tale that is Lady Diana Spencer for a later day, right?  After learning that Princesses are not a real career option, Anju declared that she wanted to be a girl pirate.  I told her she'd need to relocate to Somalia for that, but let me tell you, twisted humor is lost on the pre-schooler set.

DRESS ME UP, DRESS ME DOWN
Next to princesses, I am tired of DRESSES.  Last spring, via clearance and garage sales, I carefully put together Anjali's wardrobe for this winter, only to witness her summarily reject the majority of it because it involves SHIRTS (Gasp!) and PANTS (Gasp!) , which are apparently only for lowly commoners, not she of the Princess and Pirate caste.  Double pox on you if the colors involved are not a delicate shade of pink or purple.  Red is allowed on occasion, if the mood strikes (and only if it strikes, just so.)  Blue?  What the hell, woman?

Frankly, I am not convinced in her ability to choose her own outfits.

THE END IS NIGH

For I am now uploading scannage of my kid's crappy artwork.  Gentle Reader, I suggest you unsubscribe while you still have your faculties about you.

MICHELARUNGELO

A. George
Mario Fights the Piranha Plants, 2010
Ballpoint on spiral notebook paper

Housed in the collection of Mrs. Kelli Courtney Oliver George

Lucifer Sam

Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1967

Thanksgiving!  Probably my 2nd favorite holiday after Halloween.  Delicious  food that involves gravy and cranberries.  And, of course,  a wee bit of family sans all of the consumerist commercialism huffing and puffing at our doors, waiting with bated breath for Black Friday.  My family manages to dial back the Crazy for an entire day.  We have so many members now, we cannot all fit into a house, so for Thanksgiving, we rent a community hall.  There will be about 40 or so of us.  It will be loud.  It will be fun.  I simply adore my family and it also helps that I feel refreshingly normal after a day with them.  All the while knowing they probably feel the same after spending some time with me.  Touché.

Anyway, that giant sucking sound you will be hearing on Thanksgiving will be me, hunched over my Great Aunt Joan's Weird Whipped Cream Cranberry salad.

*******

In other news, we recently went to another reptile show.  I have posted about these reptile shows and truly, if you have a kid who is crazy about lizards and amphibians, you would do well to go to one.  They are incredibly cheap and require a minimal commitment of time.  We are usually done in about an hour.

This last reptile show was a special - we were on a hunt for a crested gecko and a new tarantula.

Gentle Reader, I present for you, Gordon...the Gecko

Because if you have a gecko, he simply must be named Gordon.

Arun is over the moon since he has been asking for a lizard for a year and half now.  I have been spending that time doing research.  Also, waiting to see if it was a phase that might pass.  It did not.

A crested gecko fit our needs - he can be easily handled, has a diet that includes baby food and a minimum of crickets.  It also helps that he is simply adorable.

Arun paid for Gordon with his own money.  Dollar bills that he has been carefully hoarding in a plastic bucket.  It was simply precious watching him hand over that wad of bills.  It cracked my heart a bit watching him so carefully pet Gordon and coo sweet words to him.  However, it nearly cracked my brain when I discovered that Arun was giving Gordon "airplane" rides in one of his jets.  Sigh.  Arun still has much to learn when it comes to gecko husbandry, but I think he is up to the task.

And yes, that foliage is what you think it is.  How could I resist that when I saw it in the pet store marked 50%?? No, Nancy Botwin, I am not.  Still, I did snicker when the college kid who sold me the plastic ganja asked how I knew what it was.  Dude, pass the blunt and stop talking.

Oh.  And we also got another tarantula - another Pink Toe (aka avicularia avicularia)

His name is Daniel.

He is not as pretty as Sofia. But do not tell him that. Shhh!

There is a body in Bartlesville, Oklahoma spinning in its grave.  That would be my great-grandmother.  After I uploaded these snaps, it occurred to me that she might not be so appreciative of Daniel's attempts at tickling the ivories of her beloved Steinway.

That second giant sucking sound you hear?  Is the sound of my soul.  It is most assuredly hellbound now.

Us and Them

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon 1973

After yesterday's theme of Totally Serious, I need to lighten things up.  What better way than discussing the festival of lights, Diwali?  .

Awhile back, a fellow blogger who also shares the love for Men of the Foreign Extraction (Gori Girl, perhaps?  Indian Ties?) and is also in an Indian/American marriage linked to a group site/bloggie thingie whereby all of us gals who had legally hitched up to the Masala Marriage wagon train could post our blog links.  I thought about it, but hesitated.  I do not post much about my own little Masala Marriage, mostly because there is not much to report.  As I have written about in the past, this is complicated by the fact that Manoj comes from the relatively teensy Syrian Christian ethnic group and as such, came into my life already Christmas and Easter Trained. Sure, we had some details to hammer out (Santa, Rudolph, Peeps), but overall, we are the most boring of the most plebeian of Masala Marriages.  I would feel like a fraud purporting this blog reports on such fascinating things as "diversity" or "culture".  Except in the kitchen.  Folks, we like it hot n' spicy in the kitchen.  Although, I probably did not need an Indian husband for that. 

Ahem.

Are you still left wondering why I do not plumb the murky depths of my multi-cultural marriage for interesting blog fodder?  Really?

Gentle Reader, perhaps, the following exchange will convince you otherwise
:
Scene: An average suburban home in Olathe KS.  A man enters his home and addresses his wife.

Husband, in a Lovely Hue of "Sepia": Um, when is Diwali?
Wife, in a Rich Hue of "Vampire": You realize *I* am the White person in this relationship, right?
Mocha Brown Husband: Ha Ha.  No, really.  When is Diwali?
Pasty White Wife: *Blink * Blink*

Action: While Wife resists the gluttonous temptation to openly mock her husband, said Husband looks the information up on Google and finds out that Diwali is the next day.
 
Mocha Brown Husband: It's tomorrow.

Wife waits for some enlightenment as to the reason for this entire exchange.  After all, Gentle Reader, in the entire 10 years together, this couple has never celebrated Diwali, much less discussed it at any sort of length, so why does he care so much now?  Christ on toast!  He consulted Google, so it must be important.   


The ZhuZhu hamsters in the Wife's brain begin powering up.  Creak....creak....creak....

???????????

Eureka!!!

Pasty White Wife:  Um, I am going to take a wild guess and say that someone at work asked you about Diwali and as the Token Indian, you feel compelled to offer up the appropriate information, huh?  Even though you are a Catholic from Kerala who really did not celebrate Diwali much back home, much less here.

Husband hangs head.

Mocha Brown Husband: Yes.
Pasty White Wife: Dude!  This was totally your chance to demonstrate the rich diversity that is India. The fact that India is an amazing tapestry of religions and culture interwoven through the centuries!  Fail!

In conclusion, my Very Special Indian and I celebrated the festival of lights by drinking cheap wine, eating take-out pizza (with pepperoni, no less) and settling on the couch in front of Real Time with Bill Maher.  I did light up a Yankee candle.

Does that count?

Can this soul be saved?

Part 4 of a 4 part series where I examine the current status of my Eternal Soul. (Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 here and Part 3 here)

For sure, this Church Experiment has shown how quickly something can become a habit. I didn't go last week while in San Francisco, then Thanksgiving threw me off - Friday and Saturday left me thinking that I needed to go to church. I really need to start a Gym Experiment next!

I would be lying if I didn't admit that 1) Yes, it has been nice to go to church. I get a fuzzy feeling after I go and 2) Yes, I still find church rather boring. I still have one more month to figure out where church belongs in my life. Why bother, you might ask? Or rather, that would be ME doing the asking. Do I think Church has the bases covered on Moral and Ethics? Do I think I will find eternal salvation by going? No. Really, no. I've always questioned the validity of much that has been preached - it's the details that bother me. The Bible seems to be fully of pretty, pretty stories, but logically, it never made much sense to me. I've also always questioned the logic of "Jesus dying for my sins". I've never understood THAT and still don't. But still.....Jesus seems like he was a pretty good dude. Fairly friendly, pretty giving with all those miracles.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if I continue to go. And I only just realized that today. As usual, I put off going to church until 5:00 pm Mass and I didn't take Arun with me because it is a pain taking him. And honestly, I wasn't looking forward to going. But, shockingly,when I got there and sat down, I realized that I was glad to be there AND I wished I had brought Arun with me. It was weird to NOT be there with him. The majority of my religious and church experiences have been without my parents. I have spent a lifetime fumbling around on my own and I really don't want that for my kid. Sure, he may turn his back on it. And good grief, I hope he questions what he learns in Church. As a general rule, I never, EVER want my children to take ANYTHING on blind faith. I hope I raise them to always question and ponder.

I'll never forget when I heard someone speak of their conversion from Religion A to Religion B. This person was speaking of it and said "Religion A was not my belief, it was pushed on me by my parents. It was THEIR belief". This person has two children, who she is raising in Religion B, of course. It occurred to me that her own children could very well grow up someday and say those very things about HER. Of course, I don't think what she is doing is wrong, I just appreciated the irony of her actions compared to her statement. Because, of course, that's what EVERY parent does - show your children the way that makes most sense to you, right? And in the end, that's how it should be - give your child some sort of foundation and then hope for the best. That's really all you can do.

So, yeah. I might start going to Church regularly. It's not all bad.

In other news, the flossing is going GREAT. I've been flossing nearly every day and can't imagine NOT doing so now. Also, I missed that while in San Francisco.

What would Jesus do?

Part 3 of a 4 part series where I examine the current status of my Eternal Soul. (Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 can be found here and Part 4 here.)

Psst! I have a confession. The main reason I don't go to Church very often is that I think it is boring.

One conclusion I have come to so far in this Soul Searching is that I have been incredibly lucky. Overall, my experiences with various religions and churches have been positive ones - I've never had truly horrific experiences, just occasional irritating experiences with individuals, but hell's bells that can easily happen outside of church, too. However, unfortunately, my experiences with church haven't been particularly fascinating, exciting, interesting, or thrilling. I also found Bible studies to be boring. I never understood the picking apart of text that had been transliterated AND translated several times over. I'd rather read a children's bible, quite frankly. At least they have pictures. Sadly, I even find the music these days to be uninspiring despite the best efforts of many churches to try appealing to the masses (Masses? GET IT? I'm too funny. Ha.) by offering up "contemporary" music. I'd rather have a good old-fashioned organ with hymns, thankyouverymuch. One Easter service a few years back they even served up what amounted to a New Orleans style jazz band which really turned me off. Bah.

So, there you have it. I primarily don't go to Church simply because it is boring. What a revelation, eh?

What if God was one of us?

Part 2 of a 4 part series where I examine the current status of my Eternal Soul. (Part 1 can be found here.  Part 3 here and Part 4 here.)

Over the years, I've seen various people in my life turn to religion, then relinquish control over their own lives saying that "God will provide". Indeed, contrary to most new zealots claiming that "God made them stronger" what I saw made them weaker and in some cases, they lost the desire to fight because "God was in charge". It's these sorts of actions that have made me cringe and resist organized religion - meaning, I believe in God, just maybe not some of the details that organized religion tries to impart on the masses. I've always maintained that what God really wants is for us to just get off our lazy asses and help ourselves. I've never believed that God is Upstairs taking notes on who wants to pass which test. Never. I've always used my prayer time to thank Him for things or maybe ask for strength when facing difficult situations, but I don't ask for specific things like good grades, jobs, new cars or hell, even ANSWERS. I'm a huge believer in that little concept known as "free will".

While I am not 100% sold on going to back Church come 2007, I will admit that it has been nice to take time out on Sundays to just be thankful. However, I haven't asked him for anything specific because he already gave me the tools in which to obtain what I want. It's up to me to get off my lazy ass and get to work. Although, I'll admit that might be considered a miracle in and of itself because my ass these days? Is DRAGGING.

Are you there God? It's me, Cagey.

Part 1 of a 4 part series where I examine the current status of my Eternal Soul. (Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.)

Awhile back I decided to go to church every Sunday through New Year's Day, a Mass I've always loved because it's a nice way to start the year. It's more of a social experiment with myself, than anything else. I've been having a maj0r crisis of faith - not in God, but more in organized religion. I believe in God, I am just not sure about the nitty gritty details. By making a commitment to go to church for the next few months, I am hoping to see if it makes a difference. Maybe I will end up enjoying it? Maybe not? Maybe I won't see ANY differences. I also made a commitment to floss my teeth everyday. Not related, but in the same vein.

My relationship with God and religion has taken a path akin to a spider web. An OLD, abandoned spider web, the sort you find in the autumn where it's apparent the spider has crawled off to die. The paths tend to go a in a circle, tracing the same paths, ending up nowhere in some cases. Over the years, I have attended a variety of religious services for a myriad of reasons with friends and family - Methodist, Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witness, Lutheran, Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Assembly of God and so many evangelical, "free-for-all" churches than I can't even count. And then in my undergrad years, there was what I call my Islam Epoch.

I am now Catholic. I "signed up" in my late 20s before I had even met X. Then, when I met X, a nice born n' bred Catholic boy from India, everything fell into place. Decidedly, we are Catholic and I doubt we would ever join another type of church.

My own family is a mix - we have no particular religion. My father's dad was Jehovah's Witness (recent generations) and my father's mom was Baptist (recent generations). I am not sure what my mom's family was. So, for me, religion has always been a blank slate.

I learned about God from a babysitter at the age of 5. My mom is not religious and my dad was going through a major crisis himself with God after having gotten back from the Vietnam war. In 1st grade, I desperately wanted to go to church with my friends. My mom had to talk my dad into it, but she did. My friends would pick me up and take me with them - I don't remember the demonination of the church, oddly enough. In 2nd and 3rd grade, we lived in town and then I would walk to church by myself .

In 4th grade, my dad started to go through some major soul-searching and began attending the Episcopal church. He started taking my sister and I to church with him on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes, my mom would come with us, but she wasn't really enamoured of the whole thing. By 6th grade, my parents were divorcing and my dad continued going to church. We would attend with him on "his weekends". He continued going to the Episcopal church, but also started attending an evangelical church. A grass-roots church that began in Lawrence as a group of students getting together as a bible study. Like many born-again Christians, my dad became very zealous about religion. He has mellowed out now, but there was a period where he "lived and breathed" All Things Christ. I also went through a period in high school where I really "got into" church.

Then, I went to college. Where things got radical. In my freshman year, I started dating a Pakistani. A Pakistani who had had a pretty western upbringing, had not grown up in Pakistan and was not religious. I, however, became very interested in his religion and absorbed everything I could that was Islam for the next 4 years. I can see now, that from a cultural perspective, it was fun meeting people from all the world and as a bonus, I loved learning the classical Arabic for prayers. However, now it is hard for me to write about this period of my life. Most kids explore a bit when they go to college, just not like this. It's not something I regret and if anything, it kept me out of trouble. Most muslims are just honest, God-fearing people trying to take care of their families. Furthermore, considering the climate we live in today, I am grateful for my in-depth, hands-on knowledge that I have of muslims and of Islam. For sure, I have a unique perspective when attempting to sift through all the ignorant crap out there that the media tries to shove in our faces. However, for many reasons that I am not going to get into here, I chose to turn away from Islam in my mid 20s. And then, I went exploring again.

I had always felt comfortable in the Episcopal and Catholic churches. In my late 20s, after careful deliberation between the two and conversations with my dad, I decided to convert to Catholicism and went through the Adult Rites of Initiation. One thing I find most interesting is that when I became a Catholic, Olathe Grandma started passing along family heirlooms that were Catholic. It turns out, long, long ago, some of our family was originally Catholic, but was sorta kept a secret for reasons I can only fathom.

So, that's where I am today. I have more about this, but will use the rest of the Sundays in November to ponder.