The fear of mixed metaphor

I am bewitched.

Clear bubbles with a dark veil, he wrote, in so many words.

After this morning's perusal, I'm avoiding the news. I had read about drought, California's drought, the worst in 500 years, they said. Plant a garden, they warned. Grow your own food. I read about wicked suburban moms in Boston and unconscious coupling and nodded off while doing so almost impaling myself on the scythe in my hand. That's what boredom does to you. I read about the obduracy of Catholics, their continued subterfuge. I ranted about the inadequacies of Catholic education to my son. He attends a Catholic school. It's killing your soul, I responded to a multiple choice test. You're learning to regurgitate and nothing else! He argued with me. I said Well then, just do it. Annotate the goddamn Hemingway. Grab the bull by his horn, wave your red flag or be gored. Catholic education: rigorous, structured, devoid of inspiration except for the nod to tradition and beautiful rituals, consigned to monks in robes and pointy hats, their heads bowed, their long tapered fingers running down an illuminated manuscript and a boy's spine.

I fear the mixed metaphor.

I told my friend that we should be heedless of the dire.

Week-end wrap-up

It was a busy one. The boys and I went to a beautiful bar mitzvah at an amazing restored temple here in Los Angeles. That's a photo of the ceiling which seemed like a portal to the heavens. I've only been to three bar mitzvahs and am always struck by the gorgeous traditions that the Jewish faith keeps. Maybe it's because they're foreign to me, but when I sit and listen to the ancient language and the sonorous voice of the cantor, I can't help but feel emotional in a way I never do when I attend services in the faith in which I've been brought up. As I scanned the English translations of some of the prayers, I wondered why this is so -- whether the day in and day out of ritual, say, in the Catholic tradition, coupled with the very real horrible things outside of its traditions effectively destroyed that religion for me. I figured that this ambiguity probably exists for some Jews, too, and that their mysterious and rich traditions, steeped in suffering, aren't always mysterious at all. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just stubborn.

I frosted nearly one hundred cupcakes yesterday. There were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and some with vanilla. There were vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and some with chocolate. There were chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and a dab of strawberry jam. What did I miss? Oh, there were coconut cupcakes and a chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream.

I felt almost sick watching nearly five pounds of sugar, two dozen eggs and five pounds of butter disappear. Yikes. I'm not doing much to help efforts in clean living am I?