Dude, where's my church?

This is the title of the endlessly mulled over internal rant I have about the modern Catholic church... of course there were always darkened incense filled corners, stuffed with statues and unquestioning obedience to the Magisterium - but I was lucky to grow up in one of the sunlit uplands of the Church where we were ecumenical, open and questioning - and more interested in the spirit of the Gospels than the 1,000 years or so of intellectual plaque that had built up on the Church's gnashers... I knew gay priests, ex-nuns, ex-priests, discalced Carmelites, theologians and all sorts of people - and no one ever mentioned the Magisterium....

If I were in the mood I could write a Joni-Mitchell parody about the glories of the post-Vatican 2 church... but it's too much like hard work - I met a very nice priest on my way back from the retreat - and of course there's the famous Marcus - who I haven't met, but basically - apart from the retreat - I haven't found my recent brushes with the church especially edifying.  I should ask Russell about this... perhaps Our Lady of Peace was too extreme and wild - Woodard used to get tsk-tsk'd at by other priest - but it always seemed to me the right sort of Catholicism... I don't remember getting much of the "we are special because we're Catholics" sort of talk that I've heard in the last year.  I think one or two of the nuns at school might have tried it on, and been slapped on the wrists - after all, not everyone was Catholic.

I don't think it's my imagination - the Morgans agree about this, and John, the irritating school governor, used to say that the liberals had left, and all that remained were the nutters...(and the simple faithful I suppose).  Much as I love Strat, I can't help wondering whether converts were slightly to do with this - there was a wave of high-profile converts in the 80s & 90s, and I wonder if there were larger numbers of low-profile converts as well - who all "went over to Rome" with great zeal to adopt it at all its most ludicrous levels.  What I think was happening at my church in the 60's and 70's and 80's was an attempt to live a gospel-based version of Catholicism - and strip away a great many of the extraneous ritual bits - now it seems that people just want to wrap themselves in the rituals and snuggle up in them.  I liked this quote by a guy called Roberto Riciardelli:

The practical function of religion is to tell us how to transform our mind and align it with God. Outside of this, religion profits little.

I can't help feeling that the Catholic church goes beyond this. It's funny because although I used to love the idea of Latin masses, now I find them rather grotesque - they are detached from the people, it becomes about the style not the content - you don't hear the words in the same way... depressing, even for someone who does understand the Latin.  I guess I've always been a more questioning person than was comfortable for the Church or myself - most people who ask too many questions usually end up reversing out quietly... or not so quietly.

Eating memories

Just read some interesting research in Scientific American 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eat-less-by-altering-your-food-memories&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20130130
 about how people feel about what they have eaten.  Basically it showed that after a meal you felt sated, or otherwise, in a realistic way - however, when you began to feel hungry your hunger was proportional to how large the portion you thought you'd had (there was some interesting work with trick soup bowls to make people feel they were eating less/more than they actually were to achieve this).  So, in short, if you feel you had a slightly inadequate meal earlier, you feel "hungrier" later.   It was suggested that if you took a picture of what you'd eaten this might help you feel you actually had had enough and didn't eat more, since a memory of one's last meal seemed to discourage "hunger".

I'm putting hunger in quotation marks, because it's clearly something more complex than the simple physical hunger i.e. "I'm running low on inputs" - but is to do with all sorts of complex psychological things - including, I suspect, entitlement (this wasn't in the article) because I think a lot of those of us who diet have issues about when and whether we are allowed to eat, and seek justification for it "well it is supper time/I haven't had anything for 6 hours/I only had 3 canapes at lunch time/I've been out all day and missed lunch...." etc. etc.

I've noticed since doing the WW thing that if I haven't had many points in a day I tend to feel hungrier, I am ravenous as I write this, but I know I had a perfectly adquate supper (lots of cabbage AND spinach) and felt very full afterwards.  I must try to think hard about that vast pile of vegetables... and fish (God, I don't believe there's anything you can do to make pollack really nice that doesn't involve a lot of fats and calories... However, as I lost 5.5lbs in the last fortnight (the Christmas weight), and look set to achieve my modest birthday goal, I think for the first time I might actually go beyond the usual system of losing 2 stone, then losing interest, then putting it on again.  .

At the moment, I feel quite happy about my level of weight loss - and feel much more sorted about my eating habits than I have in the past - as long as I am not lured out of them with a gin at 6.30pm.

Drink taken

I feel rather good about today - I edited a lot, I had a little snooze, then I edited a bit more.  I looked at the plot, there seemed to be "plot points" at all the right places, if we are working on the 3-act structure (which I think seems a bit stupid for a literary novel).  I had lunch and then beavered away, and then we had tea, watched the Simpsons and made supper.

It all went horribly wrong before supper.   M offered me a drink, in my inner theory we don't have pre-dinner drinks except at the weekend - and we only drink wine at supper during the week if there's a bottle already open, or we have visitors.  HOWEVER, I had a gin, and another - and then some really delicious Gaillac (where did we get it?) and some more Gaillac - followed by a drunken ramble across the pages of Fb and Twitter -  it's pleasant, but I know I will feel lethargic tomorrow, and that's annoying.  I don't want to feel lethargic, I want to be fit and bouncy again.  Grrrr.

Liking weekends

I had a long phase of bad weekends, but now I am liking them again.  This weekend was great, because instead of being imprisoned indoors by poverty, we went out.  We had lunch in the Caboose - and saw the Hilliers (Jim's project is to re-read Lenin this year - like the catechism? Or the Bible?) and Tony Roche, who is always nice to talk to - then went to the pop up shop and watched some friends buy things... lovely velvet coats mostly - had chat about the care and control of adolescent boys with a fellow mother, and the gallery owner Mike - ex-army, artist, interesting perspectives, then met the other Kate H in Waitrose.  

We went to Quartet with Sheree- it was predictably heart-warming, lovely music - setting - acting, but the writing was a bit thin I thought, and a bit complacent.  The plot was lacking - it could have been made much more emotional and thrilling by a couple of small changes... there was a very touching moment when the characters hold hands - his hands have that old man sausagey look - but very consoling to think love can survive several decades of insult.  I didn't think much of the script - there were good jokes, but it was thin, and with a bit of tugging could have had more emotional impact.  But maybe it was deliberately left "realistic" maybe the things I was thinking of would have made it over the top...

The great thing about the weekends is that feeling that one doesn't have to ring clients, HMRC etc, and one can get up late.  Today finally washed hair, then fiddled around on internet for a while - researching a restaurant for my birthday... I half thought of having people over, but I knew that half way through cooking I would be saying to myself - "Why am I cooking for all these people - I should be being given treats"  what a lovely unselfish person I am!

Last year on my birthday we went and got fish and chips and opened a bottle of good wine - Sancerre is really nice with fish and chips - tho' I'd prefer a Rully or a Batard-Montrachet if I could get one... because a lot of cheaper Sancerre is a bit too flinty.  However, this year, we are wavering between eating in the local Russian/Estonian/Byelorussian restaurant...cheapish, and does pancakes (v. important for the boys) and splashing out and going to Eddie Gilberts which has become good again (not so good for boys, as mostly fish) or driving down the mirky lanes of the marshlands to find the Red Lion again.... dunno.  Does it matter?
Actually it does, I would like to have a lovely evening - and not feel (a) we wasted a lot of money (b) the food was terrible.... we'll see.  Perhaps there will be another option, as we eat out so seldom now, I guess it seems more important that it is really nice.

Maybe we could have fish and chips and Sancerre again - it's so long since we had a takeaway that even that would seem a considerable treat.  Maybe we could (M & I) go out for lunch somewhere good - and do something more fundamental in the evening... or enough already!

Finally planted about half the bulbs, the garden is disgustingly muddy and a bit grim, still have about 30 tulips and daffs to put in.  It's a bit like being a squirrel, you bury bulbs, then you put more in on top because you've forgotten where you put the first lot... This year I will launch a snailicide policy early - last year too many daffs had their faces eaten off them before their buds had opened, and some irises and alliums never got to flower at all.

It was nice to be out in the garden - there were elwesii snowdrops, hellbores, clematis iberica and lonicera fragrantissima in flower.... and vinca alba and symphytum ibericum.  The lonicera tartarica has put out a flower - about 2 months early, but has thought better of it.

Sunshine!

At last, proper sunshine - and we are going out to downtown Ramsgate - have a drink at the Harbour Bra(sserie) and see Suzy's pop-up shop.  We have enough money for a drink or two - maybe a sandwich, and a trip to the cinema to see Quartet tonight.  What's not to like?  Local life at its best - and it's only January.  I might even plant a few bulbs before I go!

Only, I was stopped in my tracks by the fact that I hadn't washed my hair - but I want to get out and go and suddenly the thought that I had 3 alternatives (out, bulbs, hairwash) made me go all peculiar - couldn't decide which to do, so sat down and blogged.  Oh God!  How useless is that?  I'll get up now and have another go - hair can wait till we return - and bulbs can be tommorrow (there will be more sun!).  Phew!  Pleasure scheme revised, all is well, and should distract me from errant thoughts of forbidden subjects.

Getting better...

This has been a week or so of crisis - chiefly financial.  The short-term issues (not enough money until next payment - due end of February - if M finishes the b*&^(dy report.) were resolved by cash from my father and sister C, and a cheque from sister P.  This means I can buy mince and catfood without panicking unduly.  The boys don't seem to mind the regime of beans, corncakes and endless pasta... well, Ned's not crazy about beans - but he can cope... it is amazing how far the contents of the freezer will go - although I did succumb last week and bought some frozen chicken breast and this week I bought some mince (2 meals) and a chicken (I need the bones for stock - we are living off soup just now).   Actually, I made a great discovery - chicken livers, a small amount, finely-chopped, make a good addition to meatballs - Finn had a yearning for spagh and meatballs, so I made some for tomorrow - used the rest of the mince for bolognese - to be frozen for 1 lasagne and 1 spag bol.

My anxieties about money have been relieved in many ways - some things have come as an answer to prayer - like a rush job for Mark which will cover the cost of the tax bill... But it is appalling how paralysed one becomes with anxiety.  When there's a crisis, I am of course, superbly calm and rational and plan furiously what to do - and do it.  But I don't seem to be able to cope with the permacrisis/omnishambles that our life has been in the last 2 years.  I'm sure it has roots that go beyond that - I probably started taking my eye off the domestic ball once I started writing all the time.  I've spent nearly 4 years in a fuge state that I find it hard to leave.  Is it the hypnotic effect of the screen - or the completely unintellectual drift of my brain as it delves into intuitive/creative bits - making actually, dreary old frontal brain thinking seem rather boring.  All the time I find myself thinking how I've limited myself in my writing, how I could write so much more, open up more, look at things I don't want to look at, be so much more extraordinary.  But I am plugged into my relatively "ordinary" novels - and maybe that's where I'll do best.  If I wrote something strange and extraordinary, it might never get published (although, to date, the ordinary ones haven't either).   I really must start sending out  TRF again - when Tara has finished mulling it over!

Snowed in/toed in/family time

Of course we're not snowed in - 10-15 cm snow doesn't do that - but our road is a small one and no one brings salt and grit down here, so we tend to find it difficult/dangerous to move our cars.

It has been snowing all day - i.e. since I woke at 8.00 when it had already begun to settle, until about an hour or so ago.  Finn is very much hoping not to go to school tomorrow.  Our house, being old and not endowed with really hot central heating or double glazing, tends to be cold.  This morning I spent a happy time on a symptoms website - I looked through about 20 different possible explanations for my toe pain and boiled it down to 3: osteoarthritis, peripheral neuropathy and matatarsalgia (this is a funny one - it means: metatarsal pain - I suppose it's one of those catch-all things GPs can tell you - and it means very little, but sounds serious).  GP's hate patients who have Latin & Greek degrees I imagine.   Anyway, since it isn't red, warm and swollen, I can dismiss gout as a possibility, which is a relief.  My foot was numb and hurting a lot, a combination I never understand - how can it be numb and painful?  Surely the lack of sensation ought to block the pain - this simply indicates how little I can understand the nervous system.   I thought this would stop my walking about, in fact, I think it helped.

I spent a long time in the kitchen (bread, soup, triple-cooked chips, sponge pudding).  I also spent an hour or so painting the anaglypta wallpaper on the stairs, I painted it yellow up to the first floor and then I painted the white undercoat onto it as I reached the purple anaglypta.  Mark painted the purple ceiling.  It all looks so much brighter now, even though it's far from finished.    Then we had tea, a fire and watched Blandings which is a slightly silly tv adaptation of PG Wodehouse - with some very good actors, and then into the kitchen for steak, triple cooked chips and sponge pudding.  The chips were amazing - not perfect, but really wonderful.  We had pre-dinner drinks and crisps and generally had a nice Sunday evening.  Boys are now washing up - and then we are going to watch Finn's DVD of Up.  I think this idea of making Sunday evening a particularly special family time is a good one.

There is something good about this weather: the warmest place is under the duvet, so we've been under the duvets and watching films.  Last night we watched Good Night & Good Luck, a wonderful George Clooney film which I cannot imagine ever being made without him - Syd Field would not doubt have had something to say about the story arc!  But it was real life - so no one bothered about a story arc!   This was followed by Les Liaisons Dangereuses:  cinephiles will be horrified that I have never seen this film (the Malkovich/Close version) but I have read the book and seen the Christopher Hampton theatre adaptation twice so I didn't feel a pressing need to see it, especially when I don't think Malkovich is my idea of Valmont - or Glenn Close my idea of Mme La Marquise either... whereas Alan Rickman...and Lesley Duncan were superb.  But it was a good enough second feature - and I especially enjoyed Peter Capaldi as Valmon't valet.

So today I missed the beauties of Rammers in the snow - but I did some useful and home oriented things - must be Mars in the 4th house!