The other night, I was lying awake in the dark, drowsily contemplating something or other, and aaaalmost asleep. Faint cries came from somewhere outside, and suddenly I was listening intently. There’s something about the sound of a human distress call in the night that acts like a cattle prod – I was up and and listening at the window within a second or two. I could hear a woman’s voice, either angry or fearful or both, calling out from somewhere down the street. We live in a quiet, boring suburb. There’s usually no noise to speak of at night, other…

Brother Roger, founder of the ecumenical Taize’ community, was murdered Tuesday during a vespers service by a woman who is probably mentally disturbed. There’s not a lot of information, but it was a shocking, tragic end to a life of prayer and meditation and peace. This is a terrible loss to Christians everywhere, as Brother Roger was working to reconcile different streams of Christianity and lend support to the disenfranchised. The Taize’ community, founded in 1940 by Brother Roger when he was 25, became a safe haven for political refugees and people of all faiths, among them Jews fleeing the…

Priest’s Pooch Welcomes N.D. Parishioners – Yahoo! News AAAAAH! I’ve been talking about starting a dogwalking club at Holy Moly. These guys get national PRESS because their priest brings his dog to Mass. Oh, man. We gotta get us some Episcopawlians.

Seen on my way in to work the other day: a woman not just putting on makeup while waiting at a red light, but using an eyelash curler. If you’ve never seen or used one, it’s an instrument of torture marketed as a beauty aid. It has a scissors-like thing that squeezes two pads together; you position your lashes between the pads, give a squeeze, and presto! Curly eyelashes. We had one for years in the downstairs bathroom at my mom’s house; I fooled around with it a few times but concluded that it made my already fairly curly but…

This image was sent from Flickr as a blog entry, email or cameraphone image. Via: Flickr Title: Bus crack By: GinnyRED57 Moblog: a dry crack is a happy crack! Originally uploaded: 13 Aug ’05, 12.18am PST

USATODAY.com – Milder skin cancers becoming more common among young Years ago we saw a Second City Comedy performance that included a musical sketch where the chorus went “It’s…the…CANCER. ItstheCANCER.” It was performed by people made up to be stereotypical “Chicago old people” of various backgrounds… but everybody had a comic Yiddish accent. It seemed darkly funny then – even after David’s mom’s diagnosis of breast cancer and her complete recovery, 5 years on. Then Peter Jennings died of lung cancer. And the other day, Christopher Reeve’s wife announced she has lung cancer. A few months back, my priest got…

Katie the Wonder Dog came for a visit last weekend – actually, we had her for 3 nights starting on Thursday. She took quite a liking to the soft velour cushions on the leather sofa. Yes, we’re quite the indulgent dogsitters when it comes to Katie’s comfort. She just looked so cute curled up into as small a ball as possible, so that she could fit on top of one cushion. We took a lot of pictures, with and without tripods and external flash and photographic whatnottery. The last night, people in the neighborhood were shooting off fireworks, so she…

It’s a state of mind and a state of being. I’m always a little (or more than a little) behind. Would that I had one too, but alas. There’s a lot going on – new great-niece in the family, more family doings coming up in August and September, meetings and more meetings, and it’s all starting to crowd up on the calendar. Yikes! Can I take a vacation from all this?

A while back, everybody was talking about Flickr, this great new photo sharing and social networking site. Well, it takes me a while to get around to doing what everybody else is doing, because I want to see first if it’s indespensable or not. Turns out it’s not only indespensable, it’s like a virus – and I’ve got the bug bad. It’s fun to play with, easy to use, and very cool when you stumble onto an interesting group of photos and realize “Hey, I took a picture that would look good here. So far, I’ve joined a few groups…

Why do the ball caps on these armed British police look so oddly menacing? Is it because in the movies the cops with ball caps tend to be the bad-ass sniper guys? But that’s not a sniper rifle, so I don’t know. Still, now I may have to check out a “McFlurry” sometime soon. Via: Flickr By: tonypreece Who added: After today’s events in Leeds, and especially following two houses being raided just a couple of hundred yards from my home in Holbeck, I decided a night out was in order. So I met my mate Mel on Leeds station,…