Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Are You Talking About Me?

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I`ve been tagged for the About Me Meme by Sanctus Belle who blogs beautifully at Our Lady's Tears and here goes. I'll get back at her later.

1. Male or Female: Male

2. Married or Single or Religious: Single

3. Dream vacation: A Personally guided tour by the directors of all the Vatican Museums of their facilities, concentrating on the best, and the "secret" exhibits.

4. Birthplace: Duluth, Minnesota, Zenith City of the Unsalted Sea (Lake Superior)

5. Area I live in currently: Minneapolis, Minnesota, Erstwhile Flour Milling Capital of the World. Regularly, I wonder at how much power could have come from the puny St Anthony Falls in Minneapolis. The real marvel must have been the inventions and innovations of the engineers and builders. But I suspect so much power could only have come from positioning the mills in a line along the banks of the river and re-using water. The invention of the electric motor was what sounded the death knell for "The Mill City."

6. Someone you wish you could meet: Leonardo da Vinci. But I'm not sure what I would have to contribute to the conversation.

7. Biggest "pet-peeve": Have you got an hour or two? Let's start with "priests who experiment" with the celebration of Holy Mass.

8. Favorite Religious devotion: The Chaplet of Divine Mercy

9. Favorite Saint: St Faustina Kowalska, the Apostle of Divine Mercy

10. Favorite sport that you play: Golf (not so much any more)

11. Favorite food: Any "hot dish"; the things you can't find on restaurant menus that Mom loved to cook.

12. Tridentine or Novus Ordo: A good Novus Ordo (with the corrected English translations desired by Pope Benedict) with Latin Gregorian Chant would suit me just fine. I'd even sing along.

13. Would you (or are you) home schooling or public school: Twelve years of a fine Catholic education received from the Sisters of St Benedict. It wasn't their fault that I dropped out for a while. But I dropped out because of spiritual laziness, not because I thought the Church was wrong. I knew I was wrong. But like all young people, I felt I was "immortal." Fortunately, I was somewhat right about that.

14. How many kids do you have: None

15. Ever been in an auto accident: Three. Two of them my fault in the early 70s when I had been drinking heavily. I thank God regularly that no one was harmed, including me. There were plenty of others times that I used to drive while impaired by alcohol and fortunately did not have an accident. I am grateful to god for that also. The third time I was stopped properly at a traffic light and someone hit me trying to make a left turn and drove right into me.

16. Ever seen a Pope in person: No. My Mom and Sister went up to Winnipeg when he visited there and I never thought to go with them. When they told of their trip, I had the impression that they never got close to him, but I just found a year or two ago that he drove within fifty feet of them or so in the Pope Mobile. I really regret not going now.

17. Languages that you know fluently: I can read German passably and was trained to be a Farsi (Persian) linguist in the Army but never used it so most of that is gone. And I can still remember the Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris Hostia hymns from all the Benedictions I attended when in grade school. Of course, I never did know what the words meant.

18. Last movie you saw in theatres: Into Great Silence, the four hour movie about life in a French Carthusian monastery which was such a popular hit in Europe but which seems to have sunk into a deep abyss in this country.

19. Favorite Blog: Is it possible to plead the "Fifth Amendment" on this question? I have some very good blogging pals who would be aghast to find out that I can't start each day without reading Doonesbury. They all think that I have them at the top of my "must read" list.

20. Your thoughts on Barney, the Easter bunny, and Santa Claus: I must admit that I have logged an hour or so of "Barney time", being both fascinated and yet repelled. Something evil within us must find him attractive. I pretty much gave up on the Easter Bunny at a young age after I ate an entire chocolate bunny in one sitting and got quite sick. Santa is a wonderful custom. It makes one wonder, though, about families whose kids get to age ten or twelve or so and still "believe." In what other ways are those families unique?


I will tag Georgette of Hyderabad, occasional blogger these days, Terry-of-the-many-blogs and Adoro of the incomparable Adoro-Te-Devote blog with the About Me Meme!

10 comments:

Cathy_of_Alex said...

Re: #19. I'm aghast and dismayed. :-)

Terry Nelson said...

I did the meme at Abbey1 - I think you will like it.

Terry Nelson said...

As for #19 - I know you are embarrassed to admit you check out my blog first. That's okay Ray.

(Who is Cathy of Alex? Is it a blog?) Laughs insanely.

Unknown said...

Actually, I finally thought of an excuse to justify not reading local bloggers first thing each morning.

Since Father Z is about six hours ahead of us (and the storks in Poland are 7 hours ahead of us), it is critically important for me to check to see if the M.P. has been released or if if any of those four eggs have hatched yet?

Unknown said...

What? You don't know about the Stork-Cam in Poland?

Sound and Live Video, four eggs being incubated by Mama, Papa doing the Stork thing, probably flying away to deliver babies.

Check it out here:

http://bocian.polska.pl/transmisja2.htm

Click on: transmisja na żywo

Cathy_of_Alex said...

Terry: Whatever. Ray's probably embarassed to admit he reads your blog so cut him some slack ok? ;-)

Ray: I meant to say this yesterday but spaced. I'm glad you don't have those problems with the demon liquor anymore. His Mercy is indeed great.

swissmiss said...

I have to admit I have been reading your blog for some time and have finally, just today, started one of my own. Hopefully, I can keep up with the other great Twin City bloggers! My blog is at st-monicas-kneeler.blogspot.com/
Please say a little prayer that I will have the patience and perserverance to do the blog justice. Regarding #16, my parents too, went to Winnipeg to see the pope. They stayed in a hotel across the street from where the Pope was staying or something like that. They got to see him without all the crowds. Wish I had been there.

Laura The Crazy Mama said...

DOONESBURY? DOONESBURY?
TSK TSK TSK!
Don't worry, those others won't feel bad if you just go ahead and tell them the truth, they are good, humble, Catholic folk and I know they can take it when you tell them I'm your favorite!
I would LOVE to serve you a great big helping of hot dish...but I never have any leftovers in this house, these people eat like HORSES!

Anonymous said...

Great answers, Ray. I stole some of them for my own, hope youy don't mind! ;-)

I thank ye for the tag, Mr Ray, and for the sake of saving time (I dont' know if I remember how to blog!!),I include my answers here:

1. Male or Female: Female. Hear me roar. ;-D

2. Married or Single or Religious: Married Cat'lick mama


3. Dream vacation: I LOVE Ray's answer!!! I will only add to it: And a personal audience with the Pope: "A Personally guided tour by the directors of all the Vatican Museums of their facilities, concentrating on the best, and the 'secret' exhibits."

4. Birthplace: Mais, NOLA, cher!

5. Area I live in currently: Inja

6. Someone you wish you could meet: As long as we are including the dearly departed, I'd love to meet Mother Teresa and JPII. I have already had the privilege of meeting Mother Angelica!

7. Biggest "pet-peeve": Sex ed in the schools. And the whole sex-saturated culture destroying souls and families. God have mercy on our children.

8. Favorite Religious devotion: The Holy Rosary

9. Favorite Saint: The Blessed Mother

10. Favorite sport that you play: Not a sportsman at all....but I swim, sorta.

11. Favorite food: Some real good authentic Louisiana Seafood Gumbo with a side of potato salad like Mama used to make, and like my brothers and my eldest sister in law know how to make!
12. Tridentine or Novus Ordo: Ditto what Ray said: A good Novus Ordo (with the corrected English translations desired by Pope Benedict) with Latin Gregorian Chant would suit me just fine. I'd even sing along.

13. Would you (or are you) home schooling or public school: I was in Catholic school--got the whole rainbows-and-butterflies-and-baloons-collages thing for religion class (in the midst of Vat II). For my own child, I homeschooled her till the middle of fourth grade when we put her in an all girls Catholic English-medium school in India.


14. How many kids do you have: One precious gift from heaven!
15. Ever been in an auto accident: Thank God, nothing other than a fender bender here and there, in parking lots, sorta thing.

16. Ever seen a Pope in person: No. Been to the Vatican a number of times, but Pappa was always out of town.

17. Languages that you know fluently: English. I think I have a mental block about learning them. I have STUDIED French, Italian, and Hindi-Urdu in college, however. I also picked up a few words from my Latino friends in college -- which means I can order beer in Spanish. Oh, and I can sing a song in Tagalog.

18. Last movie you saw in theatres: We saw a bunch of new movies on the plane, so that was cool. Loved "Eragon". But you want theatres....um, we saw a 3-d movie about underwater life at the Imax not long ago? Can't even remember the title, but it was narrated by Johnny Depp and that actress from "Titanic".



19. Favorite Blog: I love Elena Maria Vidal's "Tea at Trianon"--I always learn something new there. She links to some really cool ones, too, such as "Taki's Top Drawer." And of course, Stella Borealis and the blogs associated with it--mostly because they are written by people of Faith, and more importantly, understanding of true Christian charity, which all too often gets forgotten in the Catholic blogosphere!!

20. Your thoughts on Barney, the Easter bunny, and Santa Claus: I love Barney, even though our daughter is a teenager and hates him now. Lots of fond memories with the ol' purple big guy. I also love the Easter Bunny and Santa. As long as we focus on the reasons for Easter and Christmas, and we give our children a proper catechism in the Faith, I think we can be secure in the fact that these fun characters won't have any adverse affects on them! I see no harm in a little bit of added wonder. And, besides, Santa Claus is a real person. I taught our daughter early on that he is St Nicholas and if you say it fast you can even hear it is the same name: Saint Nic'las...becomes San'ni Clas...which becomes Santa Claus!

Anonymous said...

Ahh...a glimpse into the world of Ray. Great job!