Steve Carell, Astro Wives, and random thoughts

one last note on the Foxcatcher critiques... I couldn't help but notice in the movie how a big part of Carell's character is having a warped sense of others' regard for him.  How someone is insulting and ignoring his presence (which is arguably inappropriate, among other things) and he is completely oblivious to it.  Remind you of another character he's done?  I'll give you a hint ;)

Anyway, onto The Astronaut Wives Club.  As I wrote earlier, I was curious how it was going to be an entire show with multiple seasons, but I think they did realize it and the "season finale" perfectly wrapped up all of the characters' developments.  All of the stories were closed on the characters (although they could have mentioned John Glenn's 2nd orbit of the earth in 1998 - I remember watching it in school).  But I'm still a little confused as to why it was called the "season finale" and not the "series finale" though...

Also, the thing that bugs me is the emphasis on birth control and that the contraceptive devices developed in the '60s were such wonderful things.  Like, no one notices the fact that Irene touts the diaphragm in her news anchor bit, as she's in the middle of what looks to be a painful separation from her husband?  But there couldn't possibly be a connection, right?

I went to Jazzercise this morning and was a little saddened by some of the comments made by other women about their husbands and about children.  It was very cliche - women making comments about their silly husbands, and I get it, sometimes I tease Kamil (and he properly teases me back ;) ).  But it seems strange to do it in a public venue with women you don't really know.  I suppose I still have some rose colored glasses since we're just now approaching our 1-year anniversary (one week!!). 

But another interesting remark was that the Jazzercise instructor (who is in her early 50s) recently had a stomach bug and she told us how a coworker joked she might be pregnant.  Her response was complete disgust and a view that it would be the end of her life.  I'm probably a little melodramatic in my interpretation, but as someone who would very much like to be pregnant now (and again and again!), it's a little hurtful to hear someone else's guffaw at such an idea.  But as I'm younger than most of the jazzerciser's by at least 15 years, I suppose it's only natural to feel a little out of the group.

At least it was some social interaction.  I always thought I was more of an introvert, and I still think I am pretty content in my solitude.  But I couldn't help but notice a few weeks ago when I made a quick stop in a Starbucks and sat enjoying my chai tea latte in a chair, that I was thriving a bit off of the energy of having other people around me.  That I need to force myself to be a little more social to fuel myself for the long hours of quiet alone at the apartment.

I guess that's enough rambling for today.  Ooh, but before I go!  I did manage to get a bunch of photos off of my phone so here's some to share:

an adorable Hannah in her glasses from my trip to Illinois a few weeks ago. can you STAND the cuteness???

all of the cousins on my Dad's side (and some cousins' kids too!) with Grandma for her 85th birthday

beautiful St. Isidore in Riverhead, right in the middle of a Polish community. Mass is offered in Polish so I'm curious to try it out!

Off to occupy myself for another 4 hours while Kamil sleeps off his night shift :P

Loves,

LL

another book/movie review, and some honesty

So, to start with my follow-up to my last post, I read and watched the book and movie Foxcatcher, regarding the interesting story of John Du Pont and the Schultz brothers.

The book was a good read and held my interest, although it was difficult with some of the descriptions given of the various wrestling matches.  I'm not really familiar at all with the sport, and still have no idea how the points are given, so those parts of the book were glossed over.  I'm definitely more of a visual learner in that respect.

Another thing is that the author, Mark Schultz, writes from a perspective that I find a little unusual.  His is not the story of an underdog overcoming odds and seeking the thrill of victory in his olympic medals.  I found some of his commentary frustrating, and maybe if he had written it differently I could understand his story better.  But, for an example, his explanation of losing in the 1988 Olympics sounds a little whiny - that he could have won, but just decided not to because it would have made John Du Pont happy.  It seemed a little sad to me that he wouldn't seek victory for the sake of having it for himself.  But maybe that's just me.

Now, I was looking forward to the movie.  I enjoy some of those dark indie films, and was interested in the movie before I knew there was a book.  But the movie also left me wanting.  It didn't seem to rely much at all on the story given in the book, yet made assumptions that its viewers had read the book to understand some of the more subtle moments.  It suggested that Dave and Mark were both working on Du Pont's property at the same time, and also completely ignored the angle that Mark was initially brought into Du Pont's world under the impression that he would work at Villanova for an up and coming wrestling team.  So, the movie was a bit of a disappointment for me.


On a less "academic" note, I need to get a few things off of my chest.  I suppose that's what a blog is for, right?  So here goes...

The last two months have been hard.  They have been a continued test of my patience, and a practice in better understanding myself.  I think what God is trying to tell me through all of this is, "Wait.  And please keep waiting."

Case in point:  I am desperately trying to find a good parish where I can get involved and make good Catholic friends.  I previously wrote about the various churches and their quirks, and we still haven't found a place to truly call home.  We even thought we had, but I guess it's not our time yet.  I seriously ache for the churches of Arlington.  I feel like I'm going crazy in seeking out a parish that upholds the Catholic Church which is why I'm taking a step back.

We joined a parish and registered and everything.  I then went to Sunday Mass on my own and was brokenhearted after the priest's homily.  He saw fit to use the Bread of Life discourse as a jumping off point to discuss the current debate over divorced Catholics.  Yet no where in his homily did the term "annulment" get mentioned.  Instead, he proceeded to make off hand comments like, "I don't really care about Canon Law" and "It's funny these men are making decisions about divorce when they'll never get married."  What's worse, the congregation ate it up, erupting in applause for him.  I barely made it through the rest of the Mass.

So I'm back at square one in the church search, and I think I'll just take some more time to figure this out.  I just wish I knew where else I might meet people to make some friends here.

I'd appreciate some prayers...

Love,

LL

Book & Movie Review: Wild

sigh, I guess I should try to get in a better, more regular habit of writing.  Instead of writing, I've been reading more lately, and it's been really great. Hands-on, holding a big ol' book in my hands, staying up late to "just finish this one chapter" and remembering how much I love a good escape.

Last Friday I took the train to Manhattan and was sad to leave my book behind when it would have been great for the hour-plus ride to the city.  But I was in the middle of Killing Kennedy (and I giggle every time I think/say/write that phrase) and it's a hefty book that I didn't feel like toting around the city while I explored Chelsea.  Plus I had a bit of trepidation of how New Yorkers would respond to seeing Bill O'Reilly's name in my hands :P  Instead I was forced to read off of my phone, while trying to keep the battery above 50%.  #firstworldproblems?

Anyway, now I'm diving feet first into Wild by Cheryl Stayed.  This is probably the closest I've come to a "trendy" read of something that was published in the last five years and already enjoyed by book clubs, etc. And I committed the Number One sin by - gasp! - watching the movie before checking out the book.  But this is one of those rare cases where I think the movie helped me with visualizing the scenery of the book, and I'm glad I saw it first.  Plus, I highly doubt I would have given the book a second glance if I hadn't seen the movie beforehand.

Now, as to my "review".  The movie has Reese Witherspoon, one of my favorite actresses.  I loved her in Walk the Line, and even appreciated Four Christmases.  Recently Kamil and I literally LOL'd at Hot Pursuit in theaters, which was a rare occasion of me watching a comedy on the big screen.

However, from what I could tell about Wild, it seemed very serious and Sundance-film-festival-esque and not something I would normally go to.  It was something I picked up to watch during Kamil's night rotation a few weeks back.  And my overall impression? INTENSE. Like, I had to stay up another hour and a half watching replays of "America's Got Talent" to get it out of my system.  Because some of the more graphic sex & drug scenes were a bit much. (and side note, do any of you wonder about these celebrities' kids? like, how do they explain to their children the kind of roles they take on?)

Yet something about the story encouraged me to not completely reject Cheryl Stayed.  Because, in a less destructive way, I can relate to the desire to escape and get within oneself.  I did a long road trip on my own in the summer of 2009 while I was in grad school and experienced a bit of that similar longing to be alone and discover the world as a single young woman.  And right now, with all the transitions happening this summer, a part of me longs for that time.  Which I think is something a lot of folks can also appreciate.

Stayed also reminds me of the book Blue Highways, by William Least Heat Moon.  I was assigned a portion of the book in an awesome 20th century history class in grad school, and soon read the whole book on my own.  It too follows a young American's unconventional journey around the country seeking to learn more about himself.  And I'm sure there are other books in this trend (On the Road comes to mind, though I haven't read that one), and it seems to be its own kind of genre.  This longing to get out and do something, and since doing something seems to be impossible to understand, many take to travel as a means to feel a pull towards a greater action.

This is getting long so I'm trying to wrap things up.  I'm halfway through the book Wild and it's an enjoyable read.  It's heartbreaking, and I'm grateful for my life a little more (which makes me sound like a huge snob and whatnot), and I appreciate Stayed's candor and honesty.  I like the balance of the stories of life on the trail versus her life before the trail, and all she learns in between.  And now I'm wanting to see parts of the Pacific Crest Trail the next time I get to California ;)

So, here's hoping y'all find it or a similar treasure to read as July wraps up!

Loves,

LL

Chora

Polish lesson for the day:

Chora: hor - ahh
the feminine version of the Polish word for sick

As in, how I feel :P

Yes, I managed to catch Kamil's illness from his insane cardiatric rotation.  Poor guy had lost his voice by the end of dinner Sunday evening, and finally was able to convince the senior cardiac resident that he should take a day off.  So Monday morning we woke up and I realized that the sore throat I had been writing off as some weird summer allergies was also, in fact, the cold. :(

The meal of the day.

I think we got through eight episodes of the new pack of Law & Order: SVU DVDs I gave Kamil Saturday for his name day (St. Camillius, patron saint of physicians - appropriate, no?).

I finally got around to uploading some photos, so let's focus on the better, healthier parts of the last week:

here's a little friend who said hello to me last weekend during my night alone while Kamil was on a night shift.  I love feeling like we live out in the country here!  Although, I could do without killing a bug every day :P

Kamil's parents' pool is more or less finished, except for some additional landscaping.  We had fun last Sunday swimming in the cool water, and hopefully once we're all healthy it'll be a great reprieve from the heat wave that started this week.

beautiful sunset by the water!

last Tuesday I enjoyed a wonderful evening with Ann and Bob in Port Jefferson.  Kamil and I had looked at some of the apartments in that area, but they weren't what we were looking for.  This is such a pretty little port town where the ferry to Connecticut leaves, so I look forward to many more trips down to the water front. :)

off to watch TV and drink more fluids :P

Loves,

LL

Hot in the Hamptons

I still have yet to explore the southeastern part of the island, but maybe that'll happen this week.  We're certainly close enough to Riverhead to see what's in that part of the island.

The weather has been really crazy this week.  It got chilly enough one night that I sat on the back porch in sweatpants and a sweatshirt drinking hot tea while I read my book.  Then today I sweated just sitting out there, and discovered that my citronelle candles had melted in the heat! We'll see what the rest of the summer has in store.  I can't believe we're halfway through July!

It was actually a really rough week for me.  Suffice it to say, I'm lonely and bored, and desperately trying not to eat all of the goodies I've been baking for lack of other projects to do.  And Kamil's been on a tough cardiatric rotation that - no surprise - got him sick.  So even when he's home I'm keeping my distance for fearing of catching the bronchitis he's picked up.  Not that I'd have to worry about missing anything if I did get sick... :/

I think it's pretty crummy that he can't take any kind of sick leave.  Doesn't help that the stupid health insurance doesn't kick in yet.  Big shocker that he got sick on a rotation that requires he get up at 5:30am and stay until after 7pm!

I finally got to confession yesterday so this post isn't really helping my fresh state of grace.  It was a bizarre experience with the priest reclining in his chair and me having to basically run the show...

Sigh.  My list of pro's and con's for the churches (names removed to protect the sacred :/) I've thus far visited, not including the two parishes close to Kamil's family:

Church A:

Pro's - close to apartment, good homilies
Con's - ugly church with weird design of congregation, poor music quality

Church B:

Pro's - good music, lots of parish activities
Con's - no kneelers anywhere, little far

Church C:

Pro's - lively parish community, pretty-ish church, cute neighborhood, not far
Con's - priest and deacon take some liberties with liturgy, homilies a little "fluffy", unimpressive music

Church D:

Pro's - very pretty church, good cantor (the one I saw)
Con's - terrible parking situation, little far, fluffy homilies

See? It's tough to know where to commit myself! :(  Arlington really spoiled me with the beautiful options there.  And I will take back EVER criticizing the churches there for being "ugly" because the ones here win that category By Far.

I also met a couple this week who are active in another church that sounds promising, but Google Maps says it's 24 minutes away, which is a little far.  So I don't know what to do :(

My one success of the week was that I obtained a library card and already completed a book.  And they have a pretty decent DVD collection so I'm enjoying some new movies and expanding my culture that way.  I just wish I had more people to talk to throughout the day.  Last night we celebrated Kamil's Name Day at his parents' house and I think I surprised his mom with how much I jabbered on because it had been so long since I'd had decent human contact.  Who knew I'm not as much of an introvert as I thought ;)

That's it for now.  Please take a moment to comment if you can...

Loves,

LL

Free Surplee

I'm reminding myself that I forgot to try to get a free Slurpee today for 7-11, although I'm not even sure they honor that kind of thing here (maybe it's regional?).  I also haven't been able to get to the fourth church I planned to check out since my last post.  So you could say this week has not gone as planned.

However, all is not lost and I am happy to report on a few accomplishments as of late: 1) purchased curtains once and for all for the bedroom; 2) had Tata install said curtains, and Kamil is napping as I type to prepare for tonight's first night rotation; 3) hung up several other items to make our apartment home and give me some more peace of mind.

Kamil's family came over today so it was our first! time! hosting! people!  I actually broke out the vacuum for the occasion and it feels all homey and such so that gave my hosting bug a nice fix.  Yes I'm an introvert who loves to entertain.  Just call me Martha ;)

all grown up with comforter and curtains!

Can I just say how much I love LOVE our bedroom here?  King-size bed with huge walk-in closet and now curtains to darken the room more!  Woot, woot :)  Nevermind the impromptu night stand in the corner... 

Hmm, what else?  I had my first (that I can remember) visit in a Pier 1 this week and I swooned over the decor, and then had my dreams smashed by the price tags.  Ah well.  I thought I conquered some kind of deal by purchasing these gems hoping to appease the smell that meets us when we first walk in the front door, but so far, no luck. 

$3 each and all

I was hoping to have something that could work in the absence of outlets down by the front door, and didn't want to go the diffuser route for fear of knocking the oil over.  I suppose they're probably better in a smaller and more confined space like a bathroom or shoebox, but I'm still a little disappointed.

What else? Oh, to follow up on a previous post, I have been a loyal watcher of The Astronaut Wives Club but was not impressed with the most recent episode.  Aside from the super inappropriate story line for a show airing at a "family friendly" time, the obsession with Marge and Deke has me yawning a bit.  I'm still curious how they plan to make an entire series out of a show when they've basically covered the whole history of the Mercury Seven already in four episodes.  But maybe the idea is to run with all of the astronaut families, i.e. Mercury, Gemini, & Apollo?  Thoughts?

Well I guess that's all for now.  Kamil leaves shortly and then I have my first night alone in the apartment.  I see Tex Mex on the menu and maybe a beer to go with a Law & Order: SVU marathon.

Loves,

LL

Maria Goretti and other musings

I thank y'all for your patience as I try to hone my "blogger voice."  I promise to get away from the minute-by-minute recaps that have been my entire blog up until now.  My two readers will appreciate, I'm sure ;)  also, I'm breaking my promise of photos, since I'm still experimenting with the phone-to-computer transfers.

Today's the feast of St. Maria Goretti, which I was informed of this morning at daily Mass.  She's always been one of my faves, so it was a nice surprise to find out today's her feast day.  I'm trying to find us a parish and the "church shopping" is already wearing on me.  I knew when I was in Arlington and in the Cathedral Choir that we did have something special, and I hope it was clear that I didn't take that for granted.

But.

The parishes here have been okay, so far.  I knew a while ago that I didn't want to join Kamil's parents' church, which is far enough away that we have that excuse anyway.  But the modernistic uber-white decor + tone deaf children's choir (ranging in ages 6 to 16) was another deciding factor.  And I definitely appreciate that so far none of the parishes out here seem to encompass a Kumbayah, social justice obsessed (ignoring the HUGE social justice destruction in the womb...), "greet your neighbor" kind of thing, but I'm still searching.  And I didn't think I'd be searching so long.

When I moved to Arlington, I went to the Cathedral for Sunday Mass exactly once before I decided it could be home.  Here, so far?  I've attended two daily Masses and one Sunday Mass at the closest church, have attempted two daily Masses at another, and just came from a third parish.  Tomorrow has number four on the list... it's St. Anthony's... ironic, no? (Lord, help me find one!)

The parish near us is cute and nice, but it's also suggesting that at one time it was a beautiful simple country parish that was tragically gutted in the aftermath of Vatican II.  No organ or piano, no stained glass, no icons larger than 8 x 10.  And the strangest thing?  It's a capital "L" shape, with one part of the L used for daily Mass, and the other side more popular for Sunday Mass.  So. Weird!

The second parish is St. Margaret of Scotland which I thought could be cool since it's my patron saint.  But I have now tried TWICE to get to a daily Mass service, only to find that this parish thinks it's hip and cool to vary the times of Mass every day.  And the whole no-daily-Mass-on-Thursdays-in-July-and-August-thing seems weird and frustrating.  Priests have to celebrate Mass every day, no?  I see no legitimate excuse for skipping this.  It's a 30-minute service at most.

So of course one of my attempts was last Thursday and then today I get up early after a long LONG weekend at the ER and hospital (don't ask) to make it for the 8am service.... to find out it's at 9am on MWF.  It's only at 8 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and, as we remember, NO services on Thursdays at all for two months for some reason.  I took today's experience as a sign to give up on this parish for now.  We'll see if I'm up for the challenge later of checking and re-checking Mass times before making the trek out again.

Since 8am Mass this morning was a bust, I decided to check out a third parish for their 9am service.  It's been my favorite so far, since there was lots of a capella singing for a daily Mass which I am all over (although, awkward when the lady leading the four of us in singing Gift of Finest Wheat for communion went horribly out of key...).  However...no kneelers.  All chairs without little kneelers in both the side chapel and main church.  I'm sorry but I cannot get over no kneelers.  When our Lord is making Himself present in the Eucharist right in front of us, I want to be able to prostrate in worship without feeling like some overzealous minority.

Wow, this is a long post just on parishes...

So, now what?  Now I'll try that fourth parish tomorrow and I guess we'll see how it goes.  It's also hard being summertime and not being able to get a good sense of how the parish life is since most parish activities peace out more or less once school's out of session.  And I'm not sure how to go about introducing myself to cantor.  I guess I hope that I'll sound good enough at a Mass that people will just tell me I should join or something.  I know, I should make more effort, etc. etc.

Anyway, that's the big thing facing me right now.  Time to try to finally balance our checkbook once and for all and get things more organized around here.  And our ice maker is on the fritz so I get to have some human interaction today. ;)

Loves,

LL