Outrage!

This is almost certainly only a gigantic inside joke (sorry!), but yesterday we had delightful brunch to send Fr. OP off on his first assignment as a priest. This story came up ("Rescued Elephant Herds Inexplicably Gather to Mourn South Africa's Elephant Whisperer"):

“A good man died suddenly,” says Rabbi Leila Gal Berner, Ph.D., “and from miles and miles away, two herds of elephants, sensing that they had lost a beloved human friend, moved in a solemn, almost ‘funereal’ procession to make a call on the bereaved family at the deceased man’s home.”

“If there ever were a time, when we can truly sense the wondrous ‘interconnectedness of all beings,’ it is when we reflect on the elephants of Thula Thula. A man’s heart’s stops, and hundreds of elephants’ hearts are grieving. This man’s oh-so-abundantly loving heart offered healing to these elephants, and now, they came to pay loving homage to their friend.”

It turns out that Little Giddingites really enjoy making fun of their guests, especially to their face. As you may imagine, we made a good bit of fun of that story, among other things.

Fr. OP graced us with "My Old Kentucky Home" on the guitar (since we were almost half Kentuckians) and with his valiant efforts at learning to play the flute. We learned a bit about horse racing, and commemorated the first anniversary of the Royal Wedding. And ate Stearns' strata, one of my favorite foods. I taught everyone about the problems with windmills, of which there are many, and I learned a bit from the others about outer space (it's a vacuum! How does that even work?!). Then we took a while and expressed our outrage at all of the things that bother us. How wonderful it is to just fuss about all of the random things that bother you! Sort of like blogging.

So I'll add another one here (HT: Francisco): The crunchy con who made a big deal out of moving to Louisiana so he could sit on the front porch is now moving to France. I have no problem with moving to France, only with doing it after talking about how crunchy you are for moving to Louisiana. This is, once again, why I love Wendell Berry--he really sticks.