"The tow truck will arrive within 45 minutes. The driver is just finishing up a remedial class because of a recent accident."

Long pause.
"Unless you'd rather I call another tow truck company?"
The company you called yesterday never showed up.

How many tow truck companies operate in Western Monmouth County?

---

The "remediated" driver was nice enough.

I made sure he was aware that "Newman Springs Rd." is also County Route 520. Even though he lives in S.I., he assured me that he knows NJ. He found my house, didn't he? That's more than yesterday's crew could manage. Neither could they apparently navigate a telephone keypad since they never called for directions.

I suppose I'd have received a better response around Exit 9 of the Turnpike. Being "safe at home" with a disabled car lacks damsel-in-distress drama that towers thrive on.

But looks are deceptive because there's plenty of drama: price of a new transmission. On a 3 1/2 year old car. With 66,000 miles. Right.

I remember the ETS malfunction on the wagon. Repair cost $800, mostly for downloading software to the boards. A year later, the manufacturer refunded the repair costs because they identified a production defect. The problem became a recall or something. I'd have to believe that this problem is in the same category.

But it isn't reasonable to hope for a refund. I mean, such a hope can't factor into the decision-making process. Thankfully, it's Jeff's decision, not mine, as one-sided as it appears.

Me, I'd just do it because I don't see any other option. As the spending budget for Jeff's home office furniture gets smaller and smaller ...

I hope the pope has better luck with his wheels ...

tags technorati : volvo xc90 2004 transmission

I watched Evan Almighty just recently. I wasn't expecting much. Just some goofy Steve Carell, I guess. Some good Morgan Freeman as God, maybe. 'Though I was pretty sure Alanis Morissette had the God-act down long before him.

The Buffalo gags take on another dimension to a native son daughter. And, like Bruce Almighty, homage was again paid to Capra, this time, in the form of allusions to his Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: the dirty land deals around the dam and lots of shots of the Lincoln Memorial. Jeff thinks the birds, the pigeons, are a stretch. You know, that Smith brings pigeons to D.C. But then, Smith knows those bird calls as well. He's a real nature lover, that Boy Ranger. Evan starts out not especially liking animals at all. He also starts out fainting, just like Smith.

The Gen. 6:14 gag was overused. I expected the alarm to sound in the dresser drawer as the beeper did in the street.

Jeff saw the part when Evan receives his new license plates. Jeff asked, "Genesee County?" An inside joke because about fifteen years ago, most plates in that county started with "GEN" followed by three digits.

There was a plug for evolution, I thought, when Evan shares a drink with some baboons or something. Or maybe it was simply a statement about Carell's personal affinity. Or the fact that Evan likes animals now.

Bruce Almighty was funnier, I think. Carrey plays haughty better than humble and Carell is the opposite. So, neither of them nailed the full range of getting right with God.

---

Previous posts on Capra's Mr. Smith worth reading (seriously):

March 2006
February 2006

tags technorati : evan almighty

I think about him often ... as he was ...

"A Visit with Avery Dulles" - Commonweal blog

Fr. Imbelli writes:

He can no longer speak, and the muscles of his arms are also impaired. Yet his mind is lucid, he continues to read and work, and communicates slowly by touching the letters of his computer keyboard. In our “conversation” he was always one step ahead of me.

...

These days, when I pray in the “Preface” to the Eucharistic Prayer that we might “always and everywhere give thanks,” the witness of Avery Dulles is in my heart.

I'm afraid I knew it ...

"Smoldering cigarette blamed for fire fatal to Batavia teen" - The Buffalo News, 5/31/08:

BATAVIA -- A smoldering cigarette has been called the probable cause of a fire early Friday that killed a 17-year-old high school student.

Genesee County Emergency Management Services coordinator Timothy J. Yaeger said the victim's mother, Judy Clark, 41, had been smoking in an enclosed porch about half an hour before the fire broke out about 2 a.m. A smoke detector and barking dog awakened Clark and she and another son, 15-year-old Michael Mooney, escaped with minor injuries.

Erik Mooney was found in the house and pronounced dead of smoke inhalation an hour later at United Memorial Medical Center.

The brothers were students at Oakfield-Alabama Central School. Their stepfather, Scott Clark, 47, is a truck driver and was not home at the time.

Nobody dare smoke indoors these days. Or use an ashtray, those filthy things.

At the Thursday evening christology study, we've had reason to discuss local church news, especially as regards any effort, however informal, to shift public liturgy away from the vernacular.

So, during break last Thursday, Leslie, 45, mentioned the liturgical recitation of two prayers in Latin during daily mass in her Manalapan parish. She couldn't tell us which prayers. She did not recognize the prayers. She admitted to being completely lost and confused during the Latin prayers.

Mary Margaret, 65, and I, 40, chuckled a little at Leslie's bewilderment as we both speculated simultaneously that one of the prayers was probably the Agnus Dei. We couldn't agree on the other, with Mary Margaret leaning towards the Gloria and me, the Pater noster.

Leslie wasn't interested in appreciating which prayers these were. She just wants the Latin prayers to stop! Mary Margaret suggested asking the priest for an explanation ... or at least an understanding of when these prayers were first introduced.

Me, I found myself encouraging Leslie to just learn the Latin prayers! I heard myself saying, "Agnus Dei is very easy ... you can learn it in a few days."

"But I don't want to learn them, " Leslie replied with frustrated defiance. I caught a glimpse of how her teenage daughter who's stopped attending mass because she gets nothing out of it might sound.

It wasn't as if I was suggesting she learn witchcraft. Can't she at least look at it as knowledge for its own sake? That's how I justify it.

---

Knowledge for the Sake of Knowledge" - First Things, 1/2002 - quotes one of my favorite books.

Jeff got one of those flip video cameras last week.


He posted a video of Ella at flickr.



Her new word is "crack," short for "cracker" and means, not just that she'd like a cracker but that she'd like to eat.

She uses the word in this video because she is expecting breakfast.

tags technorati : flip

Had tidied up the car last week for its service appointment and consequently couldn't find my missal or his envelopes this morning.

I keep a spare missal ... that's right, a spare Sunday missal ... in the passenger seat pocket. It's arranged differently from my regular one: order of liturgy up front, followed by all cycle A readings, all cycle B readings, etc. The other one is slightly more comfortable to use because the order of liturgy is smack-dab in the middle, for better balance, and cycle A, B and C are arranged together by Sunday.

The ribbons didn't mark the correct Sunday because I hadn't used this missal in months. All I knew was that it was ordinary time again. I didn't know which Sunday. It isn't my custom to take a bulletin on the way in but at least glancing at it would have helped.

The Sunday after Corpus Christi in my missals is the 10th. I didn't even say, "Yeah, but Easter was soo early this year." I went with it, but the Opening Prayer didn't match up. Then I, like, forgot what cycle we're in ... Isn't it B?!

The first reading from Deuteronomy sounded familiar, but from another place.

I was able to find Deuteronomy in the Scripture index in the back, flip to the page number indicated and get on track. Yeah, obviously, the missal's calendar expired years ago and I didn't feel like extrapolating the years forward ... 'though I have done that before and can do that. If the first reading wasn't as familiar, I would have had no other choice.