Beware the Intimate Internet

(This is about how cybering can destroy marriages)

Beware the intimate Internet!
Beware the chatrooms with closed doors
Where naked names cruise midnight shores
And fall in love before they've met.
Beware, O wives and husbands real,
The lonely rivals virtual
Whose words, or chaste or sexual,
May from your beds affections steal.
Beware the posh imagination,
More vivid far than earthly flesh.
Beware the way two dreams can mesh
In ecstasy beyond sensation.
Beware the fantasy that speaks,
The vague ideal that springs a soul.
No marriage can avoid the shoal
That lies beneath such sun-drenched peaks.
No love but may retreat to stone
As sirens sad the heart entice.
Two names entwine in paradise
While here two lovers lie alone.

Father's First Moment

(I stumbled upon this one while hunting for a poem for my friend, a soon to be new dad!)

Fantasies, like words, await what's real,
Anchored only when attached to things.
The dream of fatherhood, that long-sought dawn,
Has now become the light of early morn,
Exact and merciless in what it brings:
Riches to which one can only kneel.
'Mid all the truths the package will reveal,
Sensing well the wonder as it sings,
Drawing well the world to which it's drawn,
A love beyond all words will give you wings,
Yielding joys beyond what you can feel.

Happy Father's Day To One Not Yet

(This one was given to me decades ago, and I have kept it all these years! Please feel free to share it with your husbands, brothers, sons, dads, and granddads.)


Happy Father's Day to one not yet
A father, but with well-honed hopes to be!
Praised be those who put aside regret,
Pursuing with fresh joy the sails they see.
Years of grace lie in wait for all,
Failing ever to live up to dreams,
Awash in beauty, clear beyond recall,
The gift that is more certain than it seems.
Happiness comes solely from within,
Exacting reimbursement for its cost,
Resuming where one always may begin:
'Twixt what one hopes and what one well has lost.
So may you soon a joyful father prove,
Destined for that crucible of love;
And may you there be hammered into gold,
Your heart yet burning as your years grow old.

For Tristan


Neither mourn nor celebrate
This day that fathers should be kings,
But let it be appropriate
To sing of sunlight sorrow brings.

This day that fathers should be kings
Our child's death has all undone.
To sing of sunlight sorrow brings
Brings back in tears our dearest one.

Our child's death has all undone
Our joy in life, and yet our pain
Brings back in tears our dearest one
That we might hold him once again.

All joy in life must end in pain,
So let it be appropriate
That we might hold him once again
And neither mourn nor celebrate.

Rain... (republished from my journal)

There is something to be said for the beauty of rain. Well, at least I'm pretty sure it's already been said before!

I am a fan of rain and storms. I find them comforting and yet powerful. It's a part of nature that can bring new spring life, or death and destruction in the form of storms and floods. Some see the dark clouds as an omen, and they take cover. Others throw off their shoes and dance in the fresh puddles. People have dedicated their lives to careers involving weather. It sparks legends. It is, on whole, beneficial to the planet.

How we see rain can almost be an allegory about how we see our own faith. Are we similar those who dance in the puddles like small children, refreshed by the feeling? Or, do we take cover... doom and gloom... as thunder crashes around us? Do we make a career out of our profession of faith? Can we appreciate the wonder of new life... while cursing the loss of life God sometimes removes?
As for me, I will rejoice in the freshness of rain... and in the Glory that is God's. I have spent most of my day relaxing, due to those hives, and it has rained just about all day. The road looks sleek and shiny. The grass (still green) is no longer thirsty. Hey, even my car is clean, now! Yes, tonight, a huge storm may rip up the road and shatter my windshield, but that is how things are. So, too, with God. He blessed me today with rain.

God is not to blame for poor weather... God created weather, and only man is foolish enough to not respect it. When weather happens, it happens as it's supposed to happen! How we approach the lesson determines how we will benefit from it.

The Burglar

Late one night, a burglar broke into a house he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say: "Jesus is watching you!"

Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. "Jesus is watching you," the voice boomed again.

The burglar stopped dead again. He was frightened. Frantically, he looked all around. In a dark corner, he spotted a bird cage and in the cage was a parrot. He asked the bird, "Was that you who said Jesus is watching me?"

"Yes," said the parrot.

The burglar breathed a sign of relief and asked the parrot: "What's your name?"

"Clarence," said the bird.

"That's a dumb name for a parrot," sneered the burglar. "What idiot named you Clarence?"

The parrot replied, "The same idiot who named the Doberman Jesus."



- from Rochelle, via email.

All kidding aside...

Many of you have followed this blog since the early days of Draigon Dregs (which, by the way, is going on its final odyssey in 2 days... I hate paying for things when I can get them free elsewhere - such as Blog Hosting!!!) I wanted to say 'thanks' to those who stuck through, thick and thin. Well, you know my feeling on the thick... no fat chicks. (Just kidding to the loveable patrons of Jenny Craig, who’s kind, if not voluminous, embrace can asphyxiate in record time.)

The was it was… Dregs, the leftovers of stale coffee. It started as a forum to post my asinine ideas (usually after working two double shifts, and then coming home to function as the only adult in the house.) Who the hell reads this stuff anyway?!

Soon I had a following… which really creped me out! (Don’t you people have anything better to do?)

From there, I learned that people don’t mind the occasional sarcastic kick in the teeth (you certainly have proven to be S&M junkies!)

Then, one day, the known universe ended and I found myself with too little time on my hands and not enough of a job to keep myself amused. I made the mistake of getting philosophical, and I quickly found that philosophy mixed with cynicism was something most people could appreciate. I began to poke fun of the very thing that kept me sane… my own faith (well, the followers of my faith. I don’t poke fun of God.)

And, seriously, I don’t have a problem with the weight challenged!

Things began to catch on, and I learned that members of my own community (real life, you know? That thing you don’t have because you’re too addicted to chat and blogs to bother with a daily shower and getting out in the world)… where the hell was I? Oh… I learned that members of my own community had put aside their pitchforks and torches and decided I should help share info about God. Well, most of them didn’t have the pitchforks and torches to begin with. They had no idea I had a twisted side (oh, the upstanding member of the community that I am!) In real life, I am a very quiet person. Honest to God. You won’t hear puns come out of my mouth. Nope. I’m the one that sits in the back of the room and occasionally raises a question or point if I feel it’s quiet enough for me to be heard.

To make a long story short… as I’m sure you have better things to do in life… those of you who have lives…

Some members of the community approached me and asked if I use some of my talents (what talent? I’m serious. Anyone can do this!) to help people understand God better. My online blog began to mirror my articles… and I began to delve into the “why is that’s” on a regular basis. Draigon Dregs became Catholic Connection, the Sublime Substance (1997). But, the hosting platform was clunky and outdated, and I ended up doing test runs using my AOL profile journal (1998-2004). That, of course, never really caught on. It’s AOL… rhymes with Go To Hell, which is what their customer service dept tells me on a regular basis. I stumbled upon blogger.com (2005), and am going to give it a go. Only time will tell, as they say.

For those of you who are new: welcome. For those of you who have been there since Moses… welcome back. Keep in mind that I prefer not to use the common rules of grammar and the English language. I keep things simple, and speak simply. Anyone can utilize a copious vocabulary in order to convey his or her observations on a subject matter… but just speaking from the heart has its merits, too.

Yes… I AM THE ELIPSE KING!

Mt. St. Caffiena

In 1995 Fr. Thane was sent as a superior general to support and oversee the foundation of the Motherhouse of the Caffiena Sisters of Sveglio in Pittsburgh, PA, which was to take charge of the ministries for Caffeine Supplementation, located in a small brick building just shy of the Carnegie Museum.

Negotiations are in progress for affiliation with the sisters of Grains de Café in France. In consequence there had been for some time a tendency to abandon certain customs observed there, because these changes were required by the French superiors; for example, the sisters in charge of brewing and grinding were everywhere to be withdrawn. The measure threatened, at that period, the very existence of the Caffeine Supplementation. Prior to the correspondence that ensued between Archbishop Sommeil and Monsignor Thane, the director of the sisterhood, in relation to these matters, Sommeil decreed a notification that all the sisters were to be reassigned in August of the same year, thereby halting the entire coffee allocation process. Monsignor Thane's efforts, and other circumstances, proved to Sommeil the necessity to supply the needs of the diocese. In 2002, therefore, a proposition to that effect was made to the Sveglio sisters, and the matter was amicably arranged, with the retraction of Archbishop Sommeil?s statement of "J'ai besoin de 8 heures de sommeil." (trans: I need eight hours of sleep!.) Those who wished to continue in Pittsburgh were dispensed from the vow of obedience to their former superiors, and reassigned permanently to Mt. St. Caffiena.

Some idea of the growth in numbers of this community and of the importance of its present activities may be learned from the following statistics for 2004. It counts about 22 members who conduct missions in the Caffeina Archdioceses of Pittsburgh. These establishments comprise 3 coffee shops; 1 parochial school with about 12 pupils; 50 asylums with 1800 orphans; 11 hospitals in which 12,000 caffeine-starved patients were treated during the year; an industrial brewing asylum, and a retreat for the insane with 30 patients.

The superior general is Monsignor Thane, and the community is governed by a council consisting of the mother superior (Mother Frappachino) and her three assistants. These sisters retain the black cap and religious dress. They follow the Rule of the Daughters of Coffee of St. Laté Mocha, with some slight modifications. On 20 June, 2005, the Holy See laughed at the entire concept, and refused to extend to them any actual the privileges, Indulgences, or other spiritual graces already granted to a community of actual nuns.

(ps - it's a spoof, folks!)