Poncho Sunday roundup

  • It’s an over­cast Sun­day, Greg is upstairs tak­ing a Sun­day nap and so, for some rea­son, the mys­te­ri­ous lit­tle voices in my head told me … it’s time for the pon­cho!

    me-n-poncho.jpg This would be the gen­uine Styl­ish Reversible Celtic Pon­cho that I pur­chased so proudly a cou­ple years ago, only to find that Greg has to be either absent or uncon­scious before I get to wear it.

    I’m not sure what the prob­lem is, exactly. I think it has some­thing to do with a pon­cho being a ’60s thing. Greg was born in ’65, and tends to regard the entire decade as an end­less con­cate­na­tion of bad and really bad ideas. He has some points there, and it’s true that this par­tic­u­lar pon­cho does have fringe, which was one of the really bad ideas that was also really popular.

    But still, that’s no rea­son to look at me like I’m turn­ing into Nancy Sina­tra* every time I pop it over my head.

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    You wouldn’t think I could tie all this into the Obama inau­gu­ra­tion, but just watch me.

    Greg asked me if I was going to watch the inau­gu­ra­tion, and I think I will. And I’ll try not to be a poop about it. I’m try­ing to get in the spirit of things. I didn’t vote for the guy, but what the hay. After all, Obama hasn’t really done any­thing wrong yet. He hasn’t done much of any­thing yet, but then, I didn’t expect him to. He’s not pres­i­dent until after Tues­day, and even after he’s sworn in, it’s not like the job comes with a magic wand (even though some peo­ple seem to think it does). So I’m going to try not to make faces or do sock-puppet imi­ta­tions when he talks.

    At this stage of things, it’s not going to be Obama that gives me the hard­est time — it’s going to be his fans. It’s like they think that as soon as Obama takes office, it’ll be the dawn­ing of the Age of Aquar­ius*.
    Har­mony and under­stand­ing
    Sym­pa­thy and trust abound­ing
    No more false­hoods or deri­sions
    Golden liv­ing dreams of visions
    Mys­tic crys­tal rev­e­la­tion
    And the mind’s true liberation.

    Do we really have to go through this again? It turns out that the only thing worse than a pes­simist is a dis­ap­pointed opti­mist. I feel like a lot of Boomers have been drag­ging every­one through the dol­drums that set in when they found out that they were going to have to live in the same world as their par­ents and grand­par­ents. Do we really have to watch another gen­er­a­tion do this? Maybe we do.

    In other inau­gural news, Orthodixie men­tions that Epis­co­pal gay bishop Gene Robin­son will be doing a prayer as well, no doubt bal­anc­ing out the dan­ger­ous het­ero­sex­u­al­ity of Rick War­ren. And Robin­son is going to make sure that he gets it right:

    Robin­son said he doesn’t yet know what he’ll say, but he knows he won’t use a Bible.

    “While that is a holy and sacred text to me, it is not for many Amer­i­cans,” Robin­son said. “I will be care­ful not to be espe­cially Chris­t­ian in my prayer. This is a prayer for the whole nation.”

    Robin­son said his prayer will be reflec­tive of the times.

    Sad to say, I’m sure it will be.

    Finally, this is also the time when the coun­try says good­bye to George W. Bush’s pres­i­dency. Some will be unable to refrain from slam­ming the door behind him, no doubt, but as so often hap­pens, we may not really appre­ci­ate some­thing until it’s gone. As Touch­stone notes HERE in one way that mat­ters, we will miss what he brought to the White House.


    Related posts:

    1. Decem­ber 27
    2. “I didn’t get there by just eat­ing mooseburgers…”
    3. Sun­day after­noon and a feast about a robe
    4. Pres­i­den­tial wanna-be’s and the great national debate
    5. The Onion reports on obses­sive Obama supporters

    January 18th, 2009 | Grace | 6 Comments |

6 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 01.18.2009

    I’m not a huge pon­cho per­son (but not opposed either) but my good­ness, that is gor­geous! I love it! And, I’m laugh­ing at Greg’s response, there was a Christ­mas orna­ment once that we had that I adored and Dh hated, hated, hated. I think he jumped with glee when it broke.

    And, I laughed at your com­ment on my blog! Con­grat­u­la­tions on reach­ing your goal!

  • Anam Cara

    In a report from a friend who attended the con­cert: VGR got up to pray, but some­one for­got to turn on the mic and so the crowd only heard the end — some­thing about .…integrity, pros­per­ity, and peace. Amen. Then the crowd roared with approval and the music began.

  • Grace

    Mimi:
    Yep, these are just the com­pro­mises we have to make. To be fair, he’s got some favorite shirts that I want to set fire to. It all evens out.

  • Grace

    Anam Cara:
    Well, that’s one way to keep him from annoy­ing every­one too much, I suppose.

    But I think a sup­pos­edly Chris­t­ian bishop who is espous­ing active homo­sex­u­al­ity and doesn’t want to use the Bible for the text of a prayer needs to explain how he can preach “integrity” to any­one. Integrity to what, pre­cisely? Cer­tainly not to ortho­dox Christianity.

    Oh well. Try­ing not to be a hater and all that.

  • Anam Cara

    Found the text of VGR’s prayer on line. It begins: “O God of our many understandings”

    He said he wouldn’t pray a prayer that was Chris­t­ian as we have so many reli­gions here. He found a way to do it! No wor­ries for him about pos­si­ble martyrdom.

    We need to pray for our pres­i­dent, his admin­is­tra­tion, and also VGR! And I don’t mean “need” because I think Obama is evil or some­thing. We need to do it if only because we are com­manded to do it by God. And I think more than the few lines in each Divine Liturgy are in order.….

  • Grace

    By the way, I’m adding in a belated com­ment. Greg thought my lit­tle aster­isk link was too sub­tle for the big Nancy Sina­tra hit. So H-E-R-E is the link if you want to buy one of the great Guilty Plea­sure songs for 99 cents. C’mon, you know you want to.

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