F won a glow-in-the-dark rosary for correctly answering a quiz question at church today. She’s having a good day.

Tough one.

Wordle 225 5/6

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This op-ed in the Chicago Tribune speaks well for those of us who lament the loss of the Traditional Latin Mass in our archdiocese: “My concern with Cupich’s policy is that it punishes the sane majority of traditional Catholics for a minority who howl on the internet. My concern is that it mistakes an unreal commentariat for real, orthodox Catholics.”

The Marcos legacy that keeps on giving

I remember Mom packing lots of towels and T-shirts in balikbayan boxes. And cans of Vienna sausage and corned beef and Spam. Lots and lots of Spam.

Sara Tardiff writes in The Atlantic that Ferdinand Marcos, of all people, seeded this tradition of Filipino immigrants sending giant boxes of stuff back to the homeland. And it keeps going today.

“‘Often when I think of a balikbayan box, I think about when the family receiving it gathers to open it,’ Clarissa Aljentera, a Filipino American writer from Fremont, California, told me via email. ‘And if you aren’t there, someone will put the item aside and make sure you receive a piece … of the U.S.” They’re a reminder to many that they aren’t alone and haven’t been forgotten.'”

Took a while between lines two and three.

Wordle 224 3/6

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Started to worry during the third guess.

Wordle 223 4/6

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Idly watching college basketball: my alma mater, Cal State Fullerton, versus the UC Davis Fighting Veterinarians, or whatever they’re called. This is why I have ESPN+. 😐

The losing battle, Week … oh, never mind

Been a while since I’ve posted a weight loss update. (The last one was back in August.) I actually weighed myself Tuesday, but didn’t think to post until now. Nearly 70 pounds gone since I started all this.

I don’t have much to add, except that I marked the 1-year anniversary of this low-carb lifestyle thing earlier this month. Never mind that I’m still 10.6 pounds from my initial weight loss goal. I’m going to keep going, even if I’m doing so with slightly less zeal than I had at the start.

Wordle 222 4/6

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Too sleepy for further comment. Back to bed.

Here’s how to guarantee that I will absolutely block you on Twitter (thus avoiding your horrific content in retweets on my lists): Have “MAGA” in your handle or bio. Or both.

Charlie Warzel: “Wordle’s public reception fascinates and unnerves me because it’s an example of how the internet flattens things—in this case, the stakes of this particular, Twitter-bound discourse.”

In other words, this is why we can’t have nice things on the internet.

Woke up way too early. Apparently I guess really well first thing in the morning.

Wordle 221 2/6

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Had hoped for 3/6 today. Felt so close.

Wordle 220 4/6

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Spent way too much time futzing with yet another Micro.blog theme change for this site. Now using the Tufte theme, which I like much more than my recent design experimentations.

But Micro.blog itself feels sluggish, with changes to individual posts taking a lot of time to show up on the site. This seems typical of late, and cries for help on the timeline seem ignored (or at least unanswered). I’d consider moving on to another blogging platform, but it’s too easy to post here, and I’m too lazy to start over.

I think I’m done with those on social media who fancy themselves cultural critics and religious authorities.

Yair Rosenberg, in a wonderfully fortuitous piece in his Atlantic newsletter, verbalizes my thoughts far more eloquently than I; granted, he’s talking about people who are critics for a living, but the sentiments can be applied to the self-styled critics among the unwashed digital masses:

“The problem with being a professional critic is that you end up consuming so much culture that you stop processing it like a normal person. …

“I know that my own preferences here are not the norm. But when critics lose sight of why most people consume culture, they start missing what makes most things popular. In their search for significance, they forget about the fun.”

Today’s Wordle …

… and yesterday’s.

Going forward, I’ll stick to posting here first. Apparently there’s some killjoy Twitter bot afoot trying to spoil the party.

It seemed like we were the last people to find out our kid made the honor roll. Until we told her.

Also, forgot to post yesterday’s results on this site.

🎬📽🍿 Our Studio Ghibli binge continued tonight with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). That’s Ghibli film No. 9 since Christmas.

That HBO Max subscription we gifted ourselves last month has paid off rather nicely.

“John Cage said that fear in life is the fear of change. If I may add to that: nothing can avoid changing. It’s the only thing you can count on. Because life doesn’t have any other possibility, everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.” (Robert Rauschenberg)

In my agonizing over an extended family situation, my phone scrolling compulsion yields the fact that there is a patron saint of dysfunctional families: St. Eugene de Mazenod.

Don’t ever tell me God doesn’t speak to us through whatever means He pleases. St. Eugene, pray for us.

Parent of local NPR station acquires Chicago Sun-Times. Per the newspaper: “Under the deal, the Sun-Times would become an independent operation of WBEZ’s owner, Chicago Public Media, and convert from for-profit to nonprofit status."