Hot, Hot, Hot

Originally published September 3, 2008

If I can't sit outside for my entire afternoon break reading, it's hot. Granted, I'm always hot inside, but outside I can usually deal.

Currently I'm reading Boom! by Tom Brokaw, which I got free in a mixup with a book club, but which I'm enjoying. I like biographies and quasi-biographies, because they just tell what happened; they don't need to service any convoluted plot. (Why I also like European/art films, when they're just slices of life, not plot-driven exercises.)

The plum cake turned out more like plum cobbler, but it was good and enjoyed by my coworkers, unless they lied. :) The plums were a bit tart but everything else was quite sweet, so it evened out, I thought.

I'm in a quandary about something with my parish. I agreed to be on a committee, but I'm thinking there's too much freeform chatting/socializing required for members of that committee. I can chat your ear off if a) I know you well and/or b) we're someplace together doing something else. But just standing around at coffee hour (and HOW I WISH we didn't have coffee hour after every Mass!), I feel like a wallflower at an eighth-grade dance. So I'm thinking of resigning, but I don't know whether that's being true to myself or just being a wimp.

Hmm.

My parish has some Jesuits who regularly preach there, and last week we had one of my very favorites. If I could just bottle his intellect and enthusiasm and take it around with me, I think I'd be OK!

I suspect he might find that an odd request...