Swine Flu Hits The Catholics

ManLosch and I went to Mass this morning (natch). We sat, did our initial prayers, and waited for Mass to begin. Well, the priest, Father Al, had a few morning announcements. Due to the increasing swine flu epidemic/pandemic/paranoiademic, a few changes would be happening in the church. So ManLosch and I silent the voices in our heads (okay, only I silent the voices in my head) to listen.

Father Al reminds us of all the Purell stations around the sanctuary. Then he said "I'm sure you all noticed that when you walked in, there was no holy water. The Archdiocese has made the recommendation to remove all holy water stations until further notice." YOU SERIOUS?! REALLY? Then he says "If you need holy water for your home, please see me and we can make arrangements." I looked at ManLosch and was like "Is this for real??"

Then he continues. He says "During Communion, there will only be the host. The Archdiocese has also recommended that we do not offer the wine. We will continue to take the wine when blessing the host. Also, if you can try to refrain from taking the host directly on the tongue, that would help." I was alright with that. Even though the wine DOES help wash down my tasteless Jeezit, I figured I'd survive. I mean, if Jesus survived in the desert for 40 days, I think I can survive eating a cracker that's supposed to be him without the grape juice follow up (Belmont is a dry town people).

THEN IT GETS BETTER. Father Al continues. He says "Last, The Archdiocese has also recommended that we do not offer each other a sign of peace. Where normally we would turn to our brothers and sisters in the congregation to shake hands and offer a friendly hello, you will only respond with 'And also with you' after I say 'May Peace Be With You Always.' After that, we will go straight into Communion." WHHHHAAAAT?! If you read my blog then you KNOW how much I abhor the "Peace Be With You" part of Mass. So when he said this, ManLosch looked at me and laughed because I nearly jumped out of the pew in excitement.

So during Mass, ManLosch and I kept making jokes like "Oh, please don't touch the songbook. See that spot? That's swine flu" or "Please don't pray out loud because if you open your mouth, you might spread swine flu." He even said, "Next week, they'll instruct us to NOT come to church, but watch the webcast of Mass and then we can lick the screen when they hold the host up to the camera." I'm surprised that it took this long for the Catholics to get all paranoid about the flu. Wasn't Catholicism around during all the plagues? Were they not sharing wine and bread and handshakes then too? I mean, I'm not complaining about the "Peace Be With You" part, but don't you think ALL of this is a little excessive? Wait, don't tell me out loud. You might spread swine flu.

GoodBye October, Hello NaBloPoMo

It's 11:45pm on Halloween. I'm getting ready for the month of November, which for me is NaBloPoMo. One blog post a day for the entire month. So am I glad October is almost over? Yea kinda.
So what do YOU have to look forward to by reading my blog everyday for a month? Well let's just say there will be prizes and giveaways people. And I'm super super duper serious about that. I'm going to try to turn a normally dull month into something fun. So stay tuned for all the good times.

Bring it on NaBloPoMo!!

Srsly

Man, I hate serious blogs. So I'm going to just mix this one up.
First, thank you all SO SO MUCH for all of your kind words and prayers for my dad. It's definitely helping all of us get through this a little bit easier. Right before I left for yoga, my longtime friend Zoe called me and we talked a little, and that phone call really almost made me cry. So thanks Zoe, I miss you and I love you. And many thanks to my new friend DiDi, who is helping me keep my mind off all the seriousness by inviting me to a concert next week. :) All the words and encouragement are so appreciated, I'm not sure I can put it into anymore words.

On another note, I also wanted everyone to check out the little badge on the sidebar. I joined this site called NaBloPoMo, and it stands for National Blog Posting Month. So for the month of November, I will be posting everyday. So I hope you'll keep following and remain interested, because November will be a fun month, despite all of the serious going on around me! I'm doing this with a fellow blogger, Steph from Canada (her blog is Life's Surprises if you're interested) so we're going to motivate each other.

Okay, back to harassing the hospital... :-)

I Don't Like Somber Blogs

I was so hyped to write about the Boston Bookfest that I attended this past Saturday. I was going to go on and on about the sessions I attended and the literary journals and books I bought (for under $20 mind you).

And then my dad had a heart attack. Yeaaaaaaaaa.

So I don't really do somber blogs or anything. That's not really me. But he's doing better. It doesn't help that my relationship with him has been somewhat strained. And when I say "somewhat" I mean "really" and when I say "strained" I mean awful and atrocious. So when he left me a voicemail, all I thought was "Oh here we go again." I was having a great Sunday brunch with the ManLosch, and getting ready to go see a movie, so I said "Eh, it can wait." Well, uh.....right. Either way, my brain has been going a mile a minute since Sunday night. I went to visit him yesterday; we drove from Boston at 4am to Brooklyn and back in the same day. We did alot of talking and I did alot of being mean to the nurses and doctors because they were slightly confused. And when I say "slightly" I mean completely and when I say "confused" I mean incompetent. I spoke to him tonight and he's doing alright, except for the fact that he's not in his own room anymore. He's apparently making a large to do about wanting to go back to the CCU so he can have his own room again. I yelled at him and told him to please stop annoying the nurses.

Anyway, if you're reading this and knew, thanks for being there for me and my family during this. He doesn't really get along with most of the family anymore, so I think it was nice that he's been in everyone's prayers lately. And all I can really do right now is take this day by day.

Good Hair

I saw the documentary "Good Hair" a few hours ago (which by the way, is only playing in like 3 theatres around Boston, and when I say around Boston, I mean like 45 minutes outside of downtown). If you ever had any questions about black hair and/or black women and their hair, you should definitely go see it. It's a good mix of fact, opinion, and humor (Chris Rock.....so c'mon).

It's sad though, when you see 4 year old girls getting their hair permed and saying that all girls should get their hair permed because "everyone does it" or "because it's the right thing to do." I mean, WHAT? One part of the documentary also showed Chris Rock trying to sell black hair to shops instead of the human Indian hair most women wear. He asked one guy what was wrong with it and said "What? Are you afraid that if someone buys and wears this black hair, they'll get sickle cell anemia?" AND THE GUY SAID YES!!!! I won't spoil anymore of it if you plan to go see it.

I also suggest that you read some of the reviews of it. Very mixed and uh....let's just say discussion starters.

Sue Sylvester, Let's Be Friends

Sue Sylvester is my idol. Why you ask? Because she says and does the most inappropriate things. Don't get my wrong, I like the entire show "Glee." If you still haven't caught on and watched an episode, you need to get out of my face and go do it. Because any show that suggests "The Thong Song" as a first dance for a wedding is AMAZING. Any show that can discuss minorities with jokes ("Asian! Wheels! Shaft!....) and get away with it gets my approval (and that was totally a Sue quote).

So anyway, my most favorite part of "Glee" is Sue Sylvester. She is a package of awesome that was delivered to my Wednesday nights. And if you haven't seen last night's episode, let me just share a little bit of Sue wisdom with you:

"If that set list is 1 minute late, I will buy you a kitty cat, I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat, and then on a cold dark night, I will steal away into your house, and punch you in the face."


Total Gleek.

That's What Happens

We had our normal Team Leader meeting this morning at work to just find out what's going on for the day for all our services. My punch-a-pony loving friend J was sitting next to me (who was going on a business trip in a few hours). He kept kicking my chair. I finally turned to him and said "You need to stop kicking my chair before I cut you." He laughed.

As we were getting up to walk out of the meeting, I turned to him and said "You know what? I hope that when you walk onto that plane today, there is a cranky little child sitting behing you, kicking your seat for the ENTIRE flight." He laughed again and we discussed how awful kids can be on flights sometimes.

At about 11am this morning, I get a call at work. It's J. He said "Hey do you want SkyMall?" (Natch.) I said "Yea of course." He said, "Oh and by the way, your wish came true. But there's TWO kids sitting behind me!" I laughed out loud and said "SEE!! That's what you get!!"

Moral of the story: Don't piss me off unless you want cranky kids kicking YOUR chair the whole flight. Mwahahahaha......

Where The Wild Things Aren't

Did you see "Where The Wild Things Are?" Because I did with ManLosch Saturday evening. And let me tell you. That movie bordered inappropriate for kids halfway through the movie and then moved right on into inappropriate before the movie was over. As we were walking out, some kid turned to his grandparents and said "That wasn't exciting at all. Where were all the exciting parts?" That's right kid. THERE WEREN'T ANY. Unless you want to be scarred for life by watching monsters who threaten to eat kids and then become friends with them, and then try to eat them again and then say you're sorry. What IS this, Bobby and Whitney's relationship??? No thank you. "Where The Bipolar Things Happen To Reside" should have been more like it. And the kid?? Listen up MAX, you need therapy. A few years of it. No kid's imagination is THAT effed. I'm serious.

I can tell you where the wild things WERE though. At flippin' Mass this morning. ManLosch and I sat through 45 minutes of watching these two sisters beat the shit out of each other, while the mother tried to separate the two. Her first attempt included a shove to the blonde one, and then a threat to the husky brunette one. Then they tried to step on each other. Then they tried to smack each other behind the mother's back. And to top it off, during the recessional hymn, an old man in the front pew gave the crucifix at the altar a big thumbs up. Yes. The man gave Jesus a thumbs up. First he did the sign of the cross, and then gave an approving thumbs up. My eyes widened and I looked at ManLosch, poked him, and he was already smiling, so he saw it too. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

I think I saw more exciting things at church than the movie. I'm just sayin'.

To Whom It May Concern

10/15/2009

To: Ms. Mother Nature
From: Lexi Losch

Re: Today's Weather

Dear Ms. Nature,

I am writing in a complaint about today's weather. At 6:45am, I was instructed to look out of my bathroom window. I was told that the precipitation falling out of the sky was white and of the flaky substance, also known as "snow." I was under the impression that it was still only October, and that we were just getting used to the drop in temperature and watching the leaves change beautiful colors of orange and red. I was not prepared for snow. In October (just like I wasn't prepared to see a tape of a mom freak out on GMA this morning when her baby in the stroller rolled right off a train platform, onto the tracks, and the train ran over the stroller with said infant in it; the baby was ok though, if you were wondering...considering this is neither here NOR there and not your department).

I just wanted to ensure that there were no computer malfunctions this morning. I was thinking maybe your servers went down and it caused a glitch in your nature system. Maybe the timestamp on your system is incorrect, and it says December or January. I was hoping that this was just a tiny error and that you and your staff will be working diligently to correct this problem.

Please let me know if you need any other information supporting this complaint. I hope to see this resolved within the next 24 hours.

Thank you for your time,
Lexi Losch