The CatholiCity Message

Volume VI, Number 2 – January 24, 2001

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

Got lotsa stuff for ya today. We're in a kidding mood, as you'll soon experience. Let's start with a quote:

"We are encouraged to sing enthusiastically during Mass. It's good to keep in mind that it was God who gave you your voice, and if you haven't been blessed with a particularly good one, singing at Mass is a good way to get even."
G.K. MacBrien

1. OKAY, SO WE HAD OUR OWN ZIP CODE
We've lost over eighty pounds on the Atkins Diet. A buddy–a famous Catholic wiseman–told us he wanted "to see less of" us, and we took it completely out of context.

2. NO MAKING FUN OF CALIFORNIA By the time most of you are reading this, we'll be on my third trip this month, this time to Thomas Aquinas College just north of Los Angeles to attend their second annual Catholic Writers Conference. Seminars, talks, aspiring and working Catholic writers, with lots of booze and puppies. Okay, no booze and puppies.

3. KISS FROM HEAVEN
Loving Mother Angelica is part of being a Catholic nowadays, isn't it? We owe so much to her. We recently posted a news report on our homepage with details of how she has left the intensive care unit, but still has a long way to go. Let's all 70,000 of us say a little prayer to the Archangel Raphael, the Divine Physician, to procure the graces needed to help Mother get better:

"Dear Saint Raphael, you are known from the Scriptures as a healer, and we ask you to visit Mother Angelica, who took the name of the angels, and give her a superabundance of the graces and consolations she needs to make a rapid, full, and even miraculous recovery, if not for her sake, then as a sign for all of us who love her and are thankful for her efforts to bring the Gospel to all nations through radio and television. Kiss her forehead for us, conveying all the affection we feel for her. Do not delay, O mighty Archangel of God! We ask all this in the name above all names, the Holy Name of Jesus, Amen."

We just know Mother is going to feel a jolt, and that several of you know her personally, and will make sure that she knows the Citizens of CatholiCity are with her in her sufferings.

4. STRANGE BUT NORMAL
Being strange and all, we've found it perfectly normal to make up our own car games for children during long car rides. Here are a few we conjured up which (some) kids actually enjoy more than Gameboy (sometimes):

FOR KIDS WHO CAN'T READ
It's called Count the Signs. It involves spotting picture-only signs up to a certain number. There are various arrow shapes, cow signs, deer crossing signs, kids at play signs, firetruck signs. They should be actual road signs, but store signs can count if there are no words and they stand alone. (On sheer principle, we don't count those annoying signs of big-butt ladies bent over in the garden.) We've spied up to 40 different unique signs on one trip. To "count" the sign, the child has to spot a new sign and a sibling or adult has to "confirm" the sign, and that it hasn't been spotted earlier, and add it to the total. There can be no written words on the sign. When you reach the goal number, we usually like to celebrate by praising the kid as if he just climbed Mount Everest with no oxygen, almost losing control of the car in the mayhem, which boys seem to enjoy, but you can give your kid a treat or a pat on the head like a normal parent, if you wish.

FOR KIDS WHO CAN THINK
This one is called, cleverly, The Synonyms Game, and we made it up during lunch in 1983 at the University of Notre Dame, not that it matters, except this game is now 19 years old, and therefore time tested, like Monopoly. Start with a solid, everyday noun like "house." The next person, within a time limit (usually 30 seconds), has to come up with a synonym like "domicile" or "Victorian" or "residence" or "wigwam." No word can be used more than once or the player is eliminated. If they don't come up with a synonym within the time limit, they're out. Each word has to be a loose synonym of the original word "house." Slang is great: "pad" would count. Appoint an impartial judge or vote on "grey area" words. You go until one person is left. Again, to honor the winner, we like to rev the engine right to the red line while checking to see if the anti-lock brakes are still working, but you could just give the winner the Supersize Option at the fast food joint or just stew in silent jealous rage because you didn't win, even though you are writer with a huge vocabulary.

BET THE MILEAGE, BET THE TIME
Actually, we're sure it's not unique to us, but in our family as kids, all gazillion of us kids got a chance to bet what the exact mileage and/or exact time would be when we arrived at our destination. Dad always won, and it took us until high school to figure out that he was adjusting his speed and route to win. In short, teaching us the fine skill of cheating without getting caught. We were a competitive family. Either way, it was always fun. When we were twelve, we lost $10,000 in a bet with Dad by one stinking mile. We're still paying it off, but it helped put one of our younger sisters through college. Only kidding. Dad would celebrate his win by gloating over it on the next trip. "You'll never beat me," he'd assure us with loving paternal affection. Now we do it with our children, as a kind of family tradition. Cheat, that is. Only kidding. We often celebrate by unbuckling our seat belts for long stretches of highway while exceeding the speed limit with reckless abandon, thumbing our collective noses at Big Brother, and taking the infant out of the childseat. (Do we really have to say "Only Kidding" here?) You could do something normal like make the winner unload all the luggage to discourage them from embarrassing dad again. Golly, these kids are smart.

Thanks for reading the message this week. Only kidding. No, we're not kidding. Thanks. Confused? Join the club. In the next Message, we promise you this: Jimmy Duffy Stories. True stories. See you then, if not in California.

And now we're not kidding in the least bit: we remain yours...

Yours in Christ,

Your Friends at CatholiCity