The oil spill

This makes me so sad.

On a "warmer" note... 72 degrees!

It's a Minnesota miracle! Or so they tell us. This was the first March on record without snow here in the now un-frozen tundra. And with the early thaw came all sorts of things I didn't expect, including a return of many residents of our herb garden. We've taken advantage of the gorgeous weather to get started on our cleaning, weeding and planting. We're trying some new things this year and learning as we go.

The golden raspberry bush, coming back to life, bringing forth lots of little babies.

Basil & cilantro in pots, because although it's been warm and although I've only lived in Minnesota a year and a half, I'm no dummy. I can bring them in if we get a cold spell. Also in the pots are arugula and swiss card seeds. In the coconut grass planter, I've transplanted some chocolate mint -- hoping it catches and does well in the hanging planter. Chocolate mint mojitos anyone?

The herb garden is reborn! The oregano, chives, sage & thyme are all doing well. And there's still hope for a curly parsley plant. To the left I've planted some lettuce beds -- Forrellenschluss and two musclun mixes.
Here's our new cherry tree. The cherries will be tart, not sweet, so with any luck, there will be lots of cherry pies, crisps, tarts and jams in the Tomback house this July. We're hoping to add a couple of plum trees in the next few weeks.

And here's the zucchini that came as a total surprise. This is exactly where it was last year, so apparently a seed from a hunk of vegetable that got left in the ground all winter decided to make a come back. Yay!

This little hard-to-see baby is one of our two new blueberry bushes. They have both been ravaged by some little fucker -- probably a rabbit. They're still alive, so I'm hoping they can rally and make it through. I've watered them like crazy and covered them with netting to prevent any further mutilation. I've also sprinkled the area liberally with fox urine pellets. Fingers crossed!

And these are my gorgeous seedlings chillin' in under the flourescent light in the workroom. I actually have two trays, and they are full of 4 varieties of tomatoes, 5 varieties of peppers, 2 kinds of eggplant and okra. Now I know what all of you are thinking -- especially the NYC crowd: Mary, are you crazy trying to grow Okra in Zone 4? Well, yes, this is perhaps a fruitless endeavor (pun completely intended). But this variety is more cold-hardy than others, and you only live once, right? So why not just throw caution to the wind and try to grow okra! This is the first year starting my own seeds, and so far, so good. With any luck at this point, I'll even have some extra plants to pass along for my neighbors' gardens.

And finally, Noah, Luke & our neighbor Symone making a frickin' disaster at the sand/water table. Totally worth the mess.

No, no, no!!

I came across this today on Facebook. Right now, I really should be in my garage, pricing things and setting up for my garage sale tomorrow. But I can't. I'm going to write this instead.

A large part of the reason I practice my faith these days at an Episcopal congregation is because I don't agree with the Vatican on much of anything. I want to be a devout Catholic -- really, I do. But I love receiving communion during Mass from a female priest. God Bless You, Rev. Nancy! I love that everyone at Mass is invited to partake in communion. I love that I am not banished to confession if I miss services on any given week. I love that my priest would not send me marching off to confession upon learning that (back in our fertile days), my husband and I were pretty attached to our birth control. I love that I am great friends with the WIFE of our priest, i.e., I love that our priest gets to have a WIFE. I love that the diocese of Minnesota nominated a lesbian priest to be its new bishop, because Episcopalians, as a denomination, have nothing against homosexuals. And I love that I can go to services and experience the same rituals and traditions that I treasure about having grown up Catholic.

And I have tried to refrain from too much judgment against the MODERN Catholic church in the wake of the most recent news of priest sex scandals. Initially, I did not blame the church for the fact that some of its priests molested young children. I ABSOLUTELY point my finger directly and solely at the church for those times when priests molested children AGAIN -- those times when the accused were quietly shuffled to a new congregation. But as to Pope Benedict and the current Vatican, I didn't necessarily hold too large a grudge because much of what was coming to light now were atrocities that occurred in the past. And I frankly wasn't paying too much attention to Cardinal Ratzinger's role in any of the previous cover-ups, simply because I didn't care enough.

But now I care. Because when the Pope's #2 says publicly that "he's been told" there is "a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia," I want to scream. Sure there is, in that some pedophiles are homosexuals. And other pedophiles are heterosexuals. But that's not what he was insinuating, and the world knows it.

This comment was apparently made amidst the debate about the forced celibacy of priests, the idea being, that if priests were allowed to be married, perhaps they wouldn't have such sexual hang-ups and issues that may play a part in the pathology leading them to pedophilia. Sure -- I buy that.

But I think the conversation needs to go one step further. Specifically, the Catholic church (and every other religion that condemns homosexuals) needs to recognize that homosexuality is not a sickness. It's not a crime. It's not a sin. It's not something to be scared of, shunned and hidden. Let's consider all of the sick bastards during the 50s, 60s, 70s, who were molesting young boys: first of all, I don't believe all of them were homosexuals. Priests' access to kids back in the day was most often with boys, because only boys were allowed to be altar servers. So I'm sure some of them were actually fucked up heterosexuals who were choosing their victims based on access and availability, more than sexual orientation. But with respect to those who would have considered themselves homosexuals, I believe very strongly that many of them entered the priesthood as an escape. It was not okay for them to be gay -- not in their families, their communities, or their churches. They felt they had no choice but to repress this identity. They were taught homosexuality was a curse, a disgusting, sinful curse that would land them straight in hell. So their call to the priesthood, as genuine as it may have been, was a perfectly acceptable escape. Priests weren't sexual beings, after all, so it didn't matter if they felt sexual feelings for men, rather than women, because they couldn't act on them anyway. BUT, they nevertheless had to hide this part of their identities in every aspect of their lives. Moreover, they had to preach to their congregants the evils of homosexuality. How on earth could this not have fucked them up even more?

Is all of this an excuse for pedophilia in the church? Absolutely not. But isn't it reasonable to consider it a factor in the discussion of the guilty priests? It speaks nothing to the other criminal behavior at work -- the persistent cover-up by the church -- but if we're going to talk about why this can happen in the church at all, I think this topic is relevant.

Thank you, New York!

So, someone or something during our travels last week gave me a cold. Yuck. I'm just now feeling semi-normal again. So forgive my belated note/blog of thanks -- we had such a wonderful time! And we absolutely LOVED seeing each and every one of you. It was the perfect way to spend Sweetie's birthday! Some pictures -- the second one is Noah's butt in front of the T-rex at the museum. He insisted on that one. The last one of is Noah riding his bike without training wheels for the first time.