I'm Gonna Bet You...

Finished my Christology paper with about a half hour to go before class. Writing it became much easier when I remembered I'm taking these classes for fun. One of the side benefits of taking classes for fun is that you can end a paper for a Christology class with a quote like this, which I found on the blog meam commemorationem:
"Of necessity, theological language teeters permanently on the brink of nonsense."
Today at work this fella with an incredible mane of hair and only two front teeth came into the office looking for info on soup kitchens and shelters in the area. As I was printing out the info he wanted, he asked us office denizens, "Do you like mysteries?"
"Depends on the mystery," I said.
"What month were you born in?"
"August," I said.
"So you're a Leo? Okay, here's what I'm gonna do for you" --and he smiled to show off his missing teeth. "I'm going to bet you one dollar that I can describe you exactly right." He made the same offer to V., one of my co-workers. We both declined, but he proceeded to give me an analysis of my personality anyhow. The only thing I remember now was something like "Leos only get in trouble over love affairs."
"Is that so?" I said.
He smiled again and chuckled. "You tell me!"
The staff and kitchen workers had their "Christmas party" today (we've been busy, all right?). There were, I think, thirteen of us that went out to a buffet for lunch. Some betting was going on there, too--one of our guys bet another fifty pushups he wouldn't finish everything on his plate. But when the plate was well and truly cleared off, the one who owed the pushups wouldn't do them. He said he'd eaten so much, his stomach would hit the floor first, and then he'd just bounce.

Snow Day

I don't remember "clearing the snow off someone else's car" being on any list of corporal works of mercy, but it sure should be. Thanks again, Steve.
We got a lot of snow yesterday. It started falling thick and fast around one in the afternoon, at which point Mary Beth told us office denizens to go home. That's exactly how she said it, too: "Go home." Up until then I'd been engaged in what one of my old bosses at P&G calls a "project of guaranteed success." I was making copies for a mailing that'll be going out. It was a project of guaranteed success because the goal was to take one piece of paper and turn it into 3276 pieces of paper. You can really feel like you've accomplished something when you're surrounded by boxes and boxes of paper at the end of the day.
Even though I got to go home early, Our Daily Bread stayed open late again. Another soup kitchen opens its doors today at 4:30, so at least our folks will have some place to go.
When I got home yesterday afternoon I took a nap and then worked on the project whose success is not guaranteed--a paper for my Christology class. I have used every possible means of avoiding work on this paper, including writing a paper for my Church History class. But that happy period of procrastination could not last forever. Luckily existentialist mentor* gave me some information for the paper that I think will prove useful.
I didn't go in to work right away because traffic.com showed a "Jam Factor" of 8.2 or above (on a scale of 0 to 10) on any roads I could take. I waited until the Jam Factor was down around 7 and then ventured out. Driving would have been much easier had my windshield wipers worked properly. But I made it.

*Footnote: I was assigned a mentor for the program I'm in at school. At our first meeting we talked about our backgrounds, and she mentioned she majored in philosophy during the sixties. I asked her what her specialty was, and she answered casually, "Existentialism." She's not actually an existentialist. I just call her my existentialist mentor because it's fun to say, and one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Mafia priests

I'm taking classes at The Athenaeum of Ohio on Wednesday and Thursday nights this quarter. My Church History prof is a great storyteller. We got on the subject of people who are not given a funeral Mass--for instance, Mafia dons--because it would be scandalous. So then he told us about a priest who was in an area with a large Mafia population. This priest went on vacation and told his replacement "If someone dies, no matter who it is, bury him." It seems that he had recently refused to say a funeral Mass. Shortly afterward, he'd heard a noise at his front door, went to see what it was and saw someone had left the tabernacle and the statue of Mary from church on his front porch. Then the church blew up. "They have great faith," our prof said, then skipped a beat. "They need to work on their love, but they have great faith."
There was another priest he knew, a Jesuit (our prof is a Jesuit; for some reason most of the protagonists in his stories are Jesuits as well) who was known as "the Mafia priest." He would get a call: "Meet us at the corner of 6th and Market", he'd go, a car would drive by and toss out someone half-dead to whom he would then give last rites. Or this priest would be picked up and hear the confession of the fellow in the back seat who was about to be fitted for cement shoes. "And that's if they liked the guy they were gonna off," our prof said. "If they didn't like him, they'd wait until he had an adulterous night with his girlfriend and then kill him so he'd go straight to hell."