Among other things, I have been teaching girlchec how to tell time. I think she knows, but just likes the extra attention. Not having many analog clocks in the house is a major bummer - but the ones we do have are near a digital clock so she and younger boychec can see what the time looks like in either type of display.

Go read this, it's awesome:http://wordincarnate.blogspot.com/2007/02/surpassing-worth.html

Also I have been: figuring out a schedule to teach Pysanky workshops here during Lent; supervising and advising older boychec on his first-ever real research paper; refereeing all sorts of sibling wars; attending basketball practice and games, yada yada.

Younger boychec's team finished first in their division - YAY!!!
Girlchec was a cheerleader (her team didn't do so well....the only game they won was when they played a team of girls)
Older boychec's team made it to the semifinals in the championships, and lost 35-24 to a team of all 4th-graders from a local private school (his team was 3rd and 4th graders together, but this school fields two teams in the division, one of 3rd graders, and one of 4th graders).

Some thoughts of my own on Lent, this my first one in the Byzantine tradition, (hopefully) later...

Oh yes, we've had another crab demise. We're down to 3 now and I think we will keep it that way at least until we get a bigger aquarium.

Last week we (or rather I) bought hermit crab #4....it came home with us an a little shell painted with a cute flower....then over the weekend we gave them a bath (never a dull moment around here) and within 24 hours it had moved into the American-flag-painted shell, that crab had moved into a previously unoccupied shell, and the green medium-sized one had evicted the large one from its gray shell and forced it to move into a shell WAY too small, but without taking over the gray shell. Also the large crab lost its antennae and a leg. we have nursed it back into its original shell and are watching it carefully to see whether or not it will survive. So you see they trade around freely, and you could decorate the shells, but if you have crabs of about the same size and temperament, they could trade and you would be calling them by the wrong name (not that they come when you call them but you get the idea). Absent some way of decorating the crabs themselves, we have un-named them and now just call them by the description of their shell and their size.

I have come to the conclusion that it is pointless to name hermit crabs. They end up in each others' shells and they are pretty much the same color, so it has the potential to be very confusing.

While I wait for my mom to call and let me know whether she's coming for dinner or not, here's an update on the crabs -

All three are buried in the Forest Bedding....a new stuff we put in the crabitat that retains humidity better than sand....it's also lighter. Drawbacks are, you can't scoop leftover food out of it as easily as you can sand, and the moisture condenses on the walls of the crabarium and makes it hard to see the little boogers (which I guess doesn't matter much if they are buried, right?)

And a limerick I composed:

I don't think that girls should be priests,
Which is fine with the folks of the East!
So I've gone Byzantine -
Who on Pentecost, wear Green...
(And I love the abundance of feasts!)

It's true....the Byzantine Rite has umpty-billion feasts, one for every day of the year. And lots and lots of them are 'solemn' feasts, meaning that there is probably Divine Liturgy in honor of the saint in question. Today, f'r instance, is the feast of St. Spiridon, Bishop and Wonderworker in addition to being the feast of OL of Guadalupe - so says my Byzantine wall calendar, courtesy of my parish, which you can visit HERE. (I hope did that right - if the link doesn't work let me know, OK?)

Hermit crab update - none of them are AWOL now; I found the 'missing' crab last night while straightening up their crabitat. I have film in the camera now so I will post pics when available. I realized if I'm going to talk about them on this blog, they should really have names, so...

small crab in American flag painted shell: George

medium crab in green striped shell: Teresa

large crab in gray/brown striped shell: Patrick

One of the other things that happened at that Holy Day Mass I mentioned in a previous post was that at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, the celebrant said: .....Benedict, the Bishop of Rome,...
I am currently trying to find out what's up with this, and if it's permitted to say that, rather than ...Benedict our Pope.... will let you know when I know.