I had a crazy craving for sloppy joes last night at like, midnight. So tonight, I'm forcing S to eat sloppy joe. He doesn't mind, only because I cater to his particular needs. If you make sloppy joe at all, you know that most recipes call for some combination of onion, celery and green pepper. I hate green pepper in my sloppy joes, so that's no problem. But I rather like having celery and onion in it, at the very least to taste. S, of course, can think of nothing more distasteful than crunching into a piece of celery when eating something tasty like sloppy joe (or anything that might be cooked like this, in fact. Name a recipe involving meat in a skillet, and I inevitably have to change it.), so I've come up with a compromise. I cut all vegetables into large pieces, so that he can easily avoid them. And if I happen to want a bit of that particular vegetable, I'll cut it up after S serves himself, and add it to my own food. It sucks, in a way, but it's better than never eating these foods.
In non-sloppy joe news, there's a new Pope. (I almost typed Poop. Freudian slip or honest mistake?) I'm not particularly thrilled with the choice, being that he is super-conservative. He was JP II's right-hand man, for goodness sake. But I did happen upon the whole thing, from the white smoke to the announcement, to Pope Benedict XVI's address of the crowd. (I do have to say that I approve of the name. While I'm not so great with papal history--I did have to buy a book called about the papacy for one of my classes in college. I think that Benedict is a fine name, and far less boring than some of the other choices.) I found it interesting to watch, but also, of course, bittersweet, as is any TV coverage that is in the city of Rome. I also, for the first time ever, had no desire to be in Rome at this minute, as it is sure to be a crazy, crazy place. With no hotel rooms.
This Pope, I'm pleased to say, has been judged a muffin, by me. I may not like his view of the church, but I sure do think he's a cute old man. It's interesting, too, to me, that he is German. Only because the history of the German people is so blighted. Ratzinger, as Wolf Blitzer was only too happy to point out, was a strict anti-Nazi, and even deserted from the German army when he was drafted into it during WWII. One of the other commentators said that it's clear that Ratzinger's family is free from the stain of Nazi-ism, but how do we know that? What if some distant cousin wasn't free of that taint? Not that it matters, really. I don't care if Ratzinger's relatives drink like madmen on Sundays and eat more sausage than God. The man is obviously well-liked in the church, and he's the Pope, for better or worse. I only hope that he can tame his more conservative tendancies.
(Interesting too that during Vatican II, Ratzinger was among the more progressive of the delegates to the council. Or was he advising a delegate the council? I can't remember. I only wonder how he came to be one of the most conservative cardinals in the college, from being a progressive member of the church.)
Anyway, I'm not a Catholic, so I don't really care anyway, except that so many Third World countries are filled with Catholics. And AIDS--and this Pope is almost sure to condemn condom usage as much as JP II did. That's bad, from where I'm sitting.
And the Catholic church will continue to go down and more people will have AIDs, including Preists and nuns.
Posted by: C | April 19, 2005 at 03:35 PM