You know, as long as we are resurrecting secular practices which were specific to a place, time, and social class and declaring that they are the Catholic Way Forever...

Yes. Well, as long as we are doing THAT, I want to submit a few of my own Medieval Catholic traditions. These were long-standing facets of eminently Catholic societies for many centuries! To do otherwise now is unthinkable. Let's start with:

The Stew:

Yes, I believe everyone would be happier and better off if we took more communal baths with servants bringing us food! Fun for the whole family. This woodcut via A Feast For the Eyes.

The Alewife:

The art of brewing was passed on from mother to daughter, and women brewed most of the ale consumed in the 14th and 15th centuries. Sometimes this was just a cottage industry; sometimes women went on to become large-scale commercial brewers. Anyway, I think that it's time we take down the male-dominated microbreweries. Alewyfes, away!

Castrati:

Beginning at around the 16th century, boys of exceptional singing talent were, um, curtailed at a young age, often for Church choir purposes. A Papal Bull by Pope Sixtus V even authorized the recruitment of castrati for the choir of St. Peter. Let's bring them back for the greater glory of traditional Church music!

And so on, and so forth. What traditions do you want to resurrect? My dad, having seven daughters (and three sons), believes that the practice of the bride price should be reinstituted.

This asshat has an online personal!

What a way with the ladies! When some gal on the online singles site shuts him down, he writes a blog post on the "close minded fury of a modern woman." He also wants a dowry. And why not? Such a catch he is. As self centered as Caligula, and probably much less fun at parties.

The only comforting thing is that the traditionalcatholicsingles.com site has about twice as many men as women listed thereon. Phew. At least they aren't going to out-breed us any time soon, as many modern women of fury prefer the men who aren't asshats.

Props to John Baby for pointing out the above linkies.

I think it looks more like a fertility Tamagotchi

I read my youngest brother "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and we discussed it afterwards, especially the bit about cannons to the right of them and cannons to the left of them. He thinks that the Light Brigade should have gone around the cannons instead.

Also, "Kubla Kahn" is about a bear. My youngest brother was tipped off to this by the mention of feeding on honeydew. There is no fooling him.

Hello the internets!

I have been up to all kinds of boring things recently. Boring boring boring. John Baby's apartment is nearing completion. All the standard furniture things are in it now. Getting it to this stage involved a truly traumatic encounter with a creepy mattress salesman, though. Salesmen in general skeeve us out. It's much more fun buying stuff on Clement Street. Clement Street is a primarily Asian neighboorhood in San Francisco, the awesomeness of which is as 1/x where x approaches 0 (that is to say, very awesome). Certainly, the shopkeeps make the attempt to sell you things. But there is a certain charm in statements like "No full extra long! You buy queen! I tell many people you buy queen! Works great!" (this was in reference to John Baby's attempt at purchasing some sheets)

Great things about Clement Street:

The super cheap, super tasty Vietnamese restaurant, Minh's Garden. Sure, they have a large sign up to the effect that the health department found numerous code violations there on their last inspection, which have since been rectified. But the food is superb! And full of crunchy vegetables! And cheap! Further, the interior decoration consists of several Vietnamese beer ads, and several more pictures of women breastfeeding babies. We took my mom to eat there, and she thought that aspect of it was just fantastic.

The giant Asian supermarkets full of fascinating variants of dried mushrooms and bins of fresh produce, and wizened old people who will mow you down in their attempts to get to the fresh produce.

Super Tokyo, which will sell you twelve packs of Sapporo or Tsing Tao for 8.99. In addition, they will sell you tasty candy with amusing Engrish monikers.

And, of course, there are the small bargain shops which line the street and are filled with articles too strange to imagine anyone having authorized their mass production. See this flickr set for examples.