bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Decluttering.

    So we had this pantry shelf that was totally occupied by partly-empty liquor bottles.  

    A couple of them I remember buying for one recipe or another (blackberry liqueur goes in my waffle topping, for instance).   Most of them dated from the Clinton administration.  I am pretty sure that some of them had been at the open bar at our wedding.  At least one was a bottle of ouzo that Mark's college roommate brought him back from an archaeological dig in Greece.  

    It's not that we don't like a drink now and then.  It's just that we seem to have been running with a bad crowd ever since we moved to Minnesota.  

    Anyway, Mark decided he was tired of looking at them, so he made a New Year's resolution to drink them all up.

    "When we finish one of these full-size bottles," he said, "I will replace it with a half-size bottle.  That will take up less space."

    Also we can buy better stuff then, I thought, eyeing the big plastic bottle of "Karkov" brand vodka.

    "And if we finish the half-bottle fast enough," he continued, "that proves that we actually drink the stuff, and I can then replace it with a full-size bottle."

    So we got down to business.  The Maker's Mark bourbon, arguably some of the better stuff we had, went first, mostly over ice, in just a couple of weeks.   "What's next, the Jim Beam?" I asked.

    "Um.  I don't think that's all Jim Beam anymore," he admitted.  "I have a memory of consolidating a few bottles of whiskey at one point."  

    Of course, when we got to the vodka we started to run into problems.  Who wants to drink plain Karkov vodka?  Not me.  Since it's the middle of winter, we always have  grapefruit around, and so we started making salty dogs.  With fresh-squeezed ruby red Texas grapefruit, they're quite nice.  However, we should have known that the moment we began twirling the rim of a glass in a dish of coarse salt, we were headed down the road of trouble.

    "Hey, what do you need to make kamikazes?  Aren't those vodka and lime?"

    "Let's ask Steve Jobs." [iPhone interval] "Yeah, but you also need triple sec.  Do we have any of that?"

    "We have peach schnapps."

    "Um, no."

    "Blackberry liqueur?"

    "Definitely not."

    The next day a brown paper bag mysteriously appeared on the counter.  It contained (besides a chunk of fancy cheese) a bottle of DeKuyper triple sec.  Kamikazes!

    "You know what else you can make with triple sec?  Margaritas."

    A few days later a new brown paper bag appeared, containing a bottle of tequila.   Also some limeade concentrate, which is close enough.  I had one on the rocks while soaking in a hot bath.  Life was good.

    * * *

    One thing leads to another.  In other words:  If you give a mom a tequila, she's going to want some orange juice and grenadine to go with it.

    And once you've got the grenadine, the floodgates are open.

    … she's going to start coming down the stairs first thing in the morning saying, "You know what we need next?  Kahlua.  With Kahlua we can make white Russians."

    Even Mark has been getting more creative at the bar at his business trips.  He came home from his last one and confessed, "I tried to get the bartender to make me something interesting, and I wound up with a Blue Hawaiian."

    Which made me run to the internets for this clip:

    (There's no recipe for a chocolate choo choo online that I could find.)

    * * *

    Anyway, I can't help but noticing that we set out, ostensibly, to get rid of all the old bottles taking up space in the pantry.   To simplify, you might say.  

    And now we have more bottles of stuff than we had before.  Grenadine.  Bitters.  Triple sec.  TEQUILA!!!!

    There's a lesson to be had here, but I'm not sure what it is.  All I know is that we have this bottle of rum, and maybe after years and years of bragging that I never kept the stuff in the house, I'm now starting to wonder if I could make some room for a case of Coke.

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  • New USDA recommendations… not new enough.

    A brief link here to some criticism of the newest USDA guidelines.  I want to highlight two quotes in particular.  First:

    Although the new guidelines appropriately decrease the emphasis on percentage of calories from fat, they still set 35 percent as the upper limit—a problem, especially given the way that the guidelines are used to set standards for schools and other federal food programs. The cap on fat can distort menus, since it means that a large intake of refined grains is still allowed. And often this cap on fat is wrongly applied to individual foods or meals, so that broccoli with olive oil would be seen as too high in fat, whereas mashed potato with butter would not.

    I already complain about fat's bad rap, but this is another point that is worth noting:  A high-fat diet might mean that someone is eating a lot of bread and butter or a lot of fast-food cheeseburgers and fries…. but it also might mean that someone is eating a lot of vegetables made flavorful with dressings and oils.  This is the easiest way to dump empty calories and eat more nutrient-rich veggies that I know of: swap some of your helpings of grains and starches for an extra helping of veggies, and then give yourself back some calories and flavor in the form of fat on the veggies.  

    Rediscover buttered steamed carrots, folks.  Second:

    So what about red meat? Processed meat is clearly unhealthy. The harm caused by processed meat is basically clouding the signal about just how much red meat is optimal. Too many studies have looked at harm from meat without breaking it down enough between processed and unprocessed meat. 

    A good point — it has never occurred to me that "processed" and "red" might be confounding variables.  Maybe all of the evidence that pork and beef are worse for you than chicken, can be entirely blamed on hot dogs, bacon, and bologna.

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  • My quote of the day.

    From norabmore:

    "I wonder if a priest can tell if perfectly nice little girls have older brothers by the little sisters’ first confessions."

    Ha ha.  Our 7-y-o boy just made his first confession this past weekend, so timely…

     

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    1 comment on My quote of the day.

  • Gluttony: Drawing the line.

    So, I said a few posts ago that I would try to write some ideas about what is, and what isn't, gluttony.  This is one of those posts where I become an armchair theologian.  I might be on to something, or I might be completely wrong.  Take it with a grain of salt!

    Aquinas's definition of gluttony seems to have one glaring problem:  it lacks a bright-line rule.  "Gluttony means inordinate appetite in eating," he tells us, and we rightly ask:  What do you mean, "inordinate?"  Out of accord with the natural order of things, one supposes.  He clarifies:  

    Now in eating there are two things to consider, the food that is eaten, and the eating thereof. And consequently there may be a twofold inordinateness of appetite: one in respect of the food itself that is taken; and thus in respect of the substance or species of the food one seeks dishes that are expensive; in respect of the quality one seeks dishes too elaborately prepared, that is, daintily; in respect of quantity one exceeds in eating too much. The other inordinateness is in the taking of the food, either by anticipating the due time of eating, which is too soon; or by not observing due mode and manner in eating, which is too eagerly.

    We've been over this before:   we can be a glutton by eating too expensively, too daintily ("pickily"), too much, too soon, or too eagerly.  This is a nice categorization because it expands the usual definition of gluttony, but it still leaves us asking:  But Thomas, what do you mean by "too" anything?  If one can eat "too" expensively, then surely one can eat "just expensively enough," and so forth.  Where is the line?  How do we know when we've crossed over from eating promptly, to eating "too soon?"  Eating with relish, and eating "too eagerly?"   Selecting good food and being a glutton of pickiness?

    I think the answer is that gluttony, like most concupiscence, abhors restraint; what makes gluttony different from other vices, such as sloth or lust is that the restraints it abhors all have to do with food.  Different people live under different sets of restraints, some more stringent than others; and different times call for different restraints; so the boundaries of gluttony cannot be defined clearly as a set of rules that are appropriate for everyone.   And so eating quite a lot of food, or eating expensive food, or eating at odd times, isn't inherently gluttonous; what makes it gluttonous is if the eater is supposed to be exercising restraint, but isn't.

    What kinds of restraints might we live under?  Well, here are some:

    The restraint of charity.  We should be gracious guests;  we shouldn't make onerous demands on the people who prepare and serve our food; we shouldn't demand the most or the best, always leaving lesser portions for others.  We shouldn't make messes that others have to clean up.  

    The restraint of obedience.  Men and women in religious life observe a rule of set mealtimes.  Children must obey their parents who tell them, "Don't spoil your dinner."  Employees might be enjoined to refrain from eating and drinking during working hours or in work areas.    A husband and wife might agree to save money by curtailing impulse food purchases or restaurant meals.

    The restraint of resources or money.  Each person has only so much money to spend on luxuries, and the luxuries we enjoy shouldn't cut into our budget for necessaries.

    The restraint of physical health.  We have a responsibility to guard the health of our bodies, and to do this we must keep our diets within a certain range, one which varies from person to person.  Certain illnesses (diabetes, food intolerances) might restrict us further.  And many of us have experienced the immediate uncomfortable effects of too much of the wrong food (or drink) in too short a time.

    The restraint of religious or ethical duties.  These are culturally specific:   Some people keep kosher.  Some people swear off factory farming.  Some people don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent.

    The restraint of manners.  Also culturally specific, but significant:  We don't start eating until the blessing is said, or we have courses in a certain order, or we eat with utensils and not our fingers, or we don't ask for refreshments until they are offered, or we graciously try some of everything served to us — whatever the standard of polite behavior regarding food may be, wherever we are.

    + + + 

    My point here is that I can't draw a bright line such as "Eating 15 minutes before a meal is to be served, is an example of Aquinas's 'eating too soon' and is therefore gluttony."  That's because some of us live under circumstances where snacking fifteen minutes before dinner is doctor's orders, some of us live under circumstances where snacking fifteen minutes before dinner causes no problem to anyone at all, and some of us live under circumstances where snacking fifteen minutes before dinner would be a serious violation of a duty to obedience.

    But  all of us live under some duties of gastronomical restraint.   Sometimes the restraint is imposed from outside, for instance by medical advice, common manners, appropriate authorities, or monetary limits.  Other times the restraint is entirely of our own making:  we may set a goal to cut out sweets, reduce our carbon footprint, lose weight, or eat more vegetables.  Or the restraint may follow naturally from trying to live out our convictions, as in being a gracious dinner guest, or making sure that others have enough before taking seconds.

    Whatever the restraint we live under may be, I think gluttony is the inability or unwillingness to bear the restraint.  To the extent that it's an inability we are talking about a weakness, a vice or a character fault; to the extent that it's an unwillingness we are talking about incidences of sin.   The weakness and the sin happen to share the same name, but I think it is not too difficult to tell the difference.

    If I can't or won't set limits for myself, or if I constantly promise myself to set a limit and then break the promise, this is a symptom of gluttony.  It's not a sin to eat a sweet.  It's not a sin to promise myself I won't eat any more sweets tonight, and then give in and have just one more before I go to bed.  But if it's a pattern that I promise myself every night I won't eat sweets, and then every night I eat sweets anyway, then there's good reason to suspect I have a problem with the sin of gluttony — because I have the habit of giving in, of detesting even this small self-imposed  restraint.    And of course, if I suffer from this weakness, it's so much more likely that I will fall into the sin.

    [Editing note.  Years and years later, I wish I’d done a better job distinguishing gluttony from other problems with food, like clinical eating disorders and other kinds of compulsiveness.  This is one of the posts where I did a better job trying to make the distinction.

    I want to emphasize that, whereas I identified some behaviors in myself that probably qualified as self-centered gluttony in the technical sense, I am not and never have been qualified to make that distinction for anyone else.

    I hope to add some commentary to all the posts that have this problem as I find the time to review them.  Here’s a more recent post where I acknowledge some of the problematic material I wrote and set new ground rules for myself going forward.]

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  • “Make me, I pray you, sweet to my friends and sour to my foes, to these a man reverend to behold, to those a man terrible.”

    Solon, among a selection of passages from Greek authors at Laudator Temporis Acti on the subject of loving one's friends and hating one's enemies.

    The reason for the highlight is, of course, the Sermon on the Mount, which we've been getting in installments in our Sunday readings.  It's hard to keep the Sermon in context, isn't it?  After two thousand years of repeating things like "Pray for those who persecute you," such uterances start to sound like they make sense.   It's really only familiarity that makes us say "Oh, yes, that's nice."    

    But it doesn't make sense in any human, natural way, and we all know this.  Check any newspaper for examples of Christians eager for revenge of one kind or another (sure, it may go by the names of "closure" or "justice" or "teach him a lesson.")  Jesus was a man who said a lot of extremely surprising things, and this is one of them.  

    Actually, surprising perhaps puts it too mildly.  "Pray for those who persecute you" is downright offensive.   Traumatic.  Triggering, even.  

    The Greeks were wise in the ways of man, if not of God.  Here's an interesting tidbit:

    Polybius 1.14.4-5 (tr. W. R. Paton) allows an exception to the rule only in the person of the historian who is bound to be impartial:

    "…a good man should love his friends and his country, he should share the hatreds and attachments of his friends; but he who assumes the character of a historian must ignore everything of the sort, and often, if their actions demand this, speak good of his enemies and honour them with the highest praises while criticizing and even reproaching roundly his closest friends, should the errors of their conduct impose this duty on him."

    The historian's duty is to truth, and truth requires impartiality.   People naturally seek comradeship and deal out retribution, but accuracy — truth —  is something different and yet worth seeking, and it's simply common sense that, to find it, the historian must squelch his unhelpful (if natural, universal, understandable, and ordinarily even desirable) favoritism.  Everybody knows that, right?  Today we would mention other professions bound by this standard:  reporters, research scientists, judges, and teachers.  The Greeks knew, as we naturally know, that truth is a good that supersedes natural human desires to divide the world into "us" and "them."  Still, the Greeks indulged those desires in everyday life, and most of the time, so do we.  If it's not our job to be impartial, we don't expect it of ourselves.

    The really radical aspect of the Sermon on the Mount isn't so much the call for impartiality:  "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust."  As Polybius wrote, as we know, there are purposes and duties that call for impartiality — that's obvious!  

    The radical part is the suggestion that all times and all purposes call for "serving Truth."

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  • Withholding the truth.

    Nice review of the basics on lying and telling the truth at Riparians at the Gate.  Specifically, how to graciously withhold the truth from someone who has no right to know it.

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  • Is foodie-ism a form of gluttony?

    It can be, for sure.  Check out the article by B. R. Myers in the newest issue of The Atlantic, and discuss.

    I admit that my shift away from foodie-ism has largely been out of necessity, as family pressures give me less time to indulge cooking-as-a-hobby.  Or maybe it's really a transformation:  you can be a foodie who exults variety and exotic ingredients and expensiveness, or you can be a foodie who works on the perfect homey comfort food, the best of all possible meatloaf and mashed potatoes.   I am ever in search of that elusive dish that everyone in the family raves about, after all. 

    But, on the other hand, although I can do it less and less these days, I look forward to the occasional trip to the new fancy restaurant that's getting all the rave reviews.  I have some discretionary income; why not spend some of our entertainment dollars on foodie entertainment?  If I'd rather have sushi than a movie, well, what's wrong with that?

    I assert:  Obsessiveness with locavore-ism or with only eating "sustainably" or with consuming only organic food or with only eating interesting food even, that sort of thing is, indeed, a form of gluttony.  Eating local, or sustainably, or organic, are preferences, just like a taste for pizza or meat or a sweet tooth, and there's nothing wrong with seeking out one's taste preferences, but it can go too far: demanding that those preferences be fulfilled at all times, or spending way too much money on them, or (here's the rub for the foodie writers) encouraging other people to be dissatisfied and unhappy with what they have — those are real faults.  Sins even.  And gluttony is what it falls under.  Remember, it's not just "eating too much."  

    Where do we draw the line?  How do we draw the line?  

    I have some thoughts about this, but I would like to get a few comments first.  So check out the article, and tell me if you agree or disagree with the author.

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    6 comments on Is foodie-ism a form of gluttony?

  • Rice cooker jambalaya.

    The low-carb visitors will really be disappointed in me on this one.  

    Here's a new rice-cooker dinner I tried today.   In general, when I say "rice-cooker dinner," I'm not always looking for meals where you throw everything in the pot and turn it on and that's it.  I'm looking for meals that finish cooking in the rice cooker, and then stay warm in there indefinitely, so they are perfect for Monday night swimming lessons where we get home at 5:45 p.m. I don't mind doing some prep beforehand, as long as I can hit "COOK" right before I run out the door and have dinner ready when I get home.

    If you're using white rice, apparently you can toss the raw rice and liquid and other stuff right into your rice cooker and have it all turn out okay.  Brown rice, which is the only kind I buy, is a bit more finicky.  I usually cook the brown rice first and then add other stuff and hit "COOK" a second time in order to have it done enough.

    So, tonight I adapted a fakey-jambalaya recipe as follows:

    • Cooked a cup of brown rice in three cups of chicken stock with a little salt, in the rice cooker.  (If you use white rice instead of brown, two cups of stock will do, and you probably don't have to pre-cook it)
    • Chopped up two green bell peppers and a medium onion.
    • Sauteed the green pepper and onion in 4 tablespoons butter till soft and a little brown.
    • Mixed in 2 teaspoons "cajun" seasoning (not the kind with salt added; from the bulk spices section of the grocery store).
    • Added this to the rice cooker, butter and all.
    • Also added to the rice cooker one can of blackeyed peas, drained, and one can of Ro-Tel brand tomatoes with green chilies, not drained.
    • Sliced up a 14-ounce ring-shaped smoked sausage.  Browned that in another 2 tablespoons butter.  Dumped that into the rice cooker too.
    • Deglazed the pan with another cup of stock and added that to the rice cooker.  Mixed it all up.
    • Closed it and hit "COOK" for the second time.  Left for the Y.
    • Came back and made a fruit salad to go with.  Also some okra.

    Very well received by 4/6 of my family.  The rest had peanut butter sandwiches.  

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  • “Dysphoric milk ejection reflex.”

    In this blog post at Babble, Katie Allison Granju tells about a tentatively-identified disorder called "Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex:"

     One of the things I mentioned…was how bizarrely agitated and unhappy I felt every time I used a breastpump. I described the feeling as being close to a low grade panic attack.

    One of the commenters on that post left a link to a website about something called “Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex” or “D-MER.” I’d never heard of this, so I went and checked the site out, and what I found is truly fascinating, and has the potential to help a whole lot of women.

    The site was started by a mother who found herself experiencing sudden and painful  feelings of sadness and disappointment every time she started to nurse her baby. She made the connection between her milk letdown (ejection reflex) and the onset of these feelings, and started trying to track down information and resources about this condition, which obviously has the potential to make it very hard for a woman to breastfeed her baby, and could also lead to more serious problems, like depression.

    … I have personally known several mothers over the years who have described what I now believe to have been D-MER to me with regard to their personal breastfeeding experiences. These women recounted that they began to feel inexplicably empty and hopeless whenever they breastfed their babies; one friend told me that she had a sudden and powerful pang of what felt like homesickness when the baby would begin to nurse. Another explained that nursing her baby made her feel very anxious and agitated, like she was going to jump out of her own skin.

    Check it out, and especially read some of the comments.   I didn't think I've ever experienced it, but some of the comments remind me eerily of the horrible feelings I got every time I tried to nurse the baby and the toddler at the same time (like, literally simultaneously, one on each breast).  I think I only ever attempted that about three times before I swore I would never, ever, ever do that again.

    There's some more detail in Katie's post about the specific hormonal mechanisms that are implicated, and of course you can follow the link in the quote to the DMER website.

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  • Taking a step back.

    I can't for the life of me remember what temporary insanity induced me to get on a pair of downhill skis for the first time.  It was sixteen years ago.  I must have been bored.   I was in college, working an internship in Kentucky of all places, and some of the other interns and I went to General Butler State Park, which at the time had a ski hill with a whole 600-foot vertical drop and three or four lifts.  (It closed permanently a couple of years later.)  

    I don't remember learning to ski there.  I don't remember learning how to get on and off the lifts.  I certainly didn't have a lesson.  Maybe one of the other interns gave me a few pointers.  At any rate, by the end of that first trip, I was managing to make it down the hill on the rental skis.  That's all I remember.

    Mark skied for the first time sometime after I did — he went with his brother somewhere.  Later the two of us went to an eastern resort and took a couple of lessons.  Over the next few years both of us improved, him much faster than me due to a general willingness to hurl himself over precipices, one that I have never shared.  But I did get to the point where I could make it down most any intermediate run without panicking.  He goes skiing about six times as often as I do, but we still take family trips every once in a while, and occasionally trot out to the local hill (yes, we do have them in Minnesota) so the kids and I can practice a bit.

    We just got back from a trip to Colorado, the first trip since I started exercising and lost all that weight.  I think I learned something.

     Even though I've been skiing for sixteen years, and even though I have been able to ski intermediate runs for a long time, and even though I'm fitter and stronger than any other time I've ever been skiing, I spent all my snow time this trip on easy "green" runs.  It is about time I took a step back.  For a long time I have been trying to ski stuff that is really too hard for me.  Sure, I can "make it down," the intermediate runs don't frighten me, but my form is terrible and always has been.  Maybe I was trying too hard to keep up with my daredevil husband so that we could sort of ski together once in a while.  

    At any rate, maybe because of what I've learned from swimming and running over the past two years, I realized that what I really need to do is stop trying to pretend that I'm a good enough skier to ski intermediate runs.  Merely being unafraid of them is not enough for me.  So, I took a refresher lesson on my first day, and then I spent the rest of my snow time working doggedly on the fundamentals of carving turns, on easy terrain:  back and forth across the cruiser hill, not even attempting pole plants, doing nothing but concentrating on the pressure of the edges in the snow.

    It sounds maybe kind of boring?  Actually, the time went by very fast.  The truth is I like the challenge now, of trying to learn how to do something physical, how to improve.  Maybe if I was already a good skier, I would be having fun just, er, having fun, going fast and feeling the wind and challenging myself on tricky terrain.  But as I am — reasonably confident but aware of how much work I have to do — going back to the easy terrain and struggling to carve turns gracefully and efficiently, turn after turn, occupied all my attention and challenged me from head to toe.   By the end of my few hours on the slope each day, when I went back to fetch the baby, I was sure I was just on the cusp of "getting it."  And of course on the last day when I popped off the rental skis for the last time, I thought:  Darn it, I almost had it. 

    Given how rarely I get to get on skis, I honestly don't know when I will ever make it back off the easy green cruisers.  Maybe after a while, I'll be longing for the days when I thought I was improving just because I was tackling harder terrain.  But I'm determined to fix my bad form, and if that means sticking to the easy stuff for a while, so be it.  Baby steps!

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  • Erin Manning on headcoverings for Mass.

    I pretty much agree with Erin Manning's take on chapel veils/mantillas/headscarves and the like at Mass.

    To begin with, though, let's look at this recent comment from Father Z.'s poll/post:

    "Why does the head covering always have to be a 19th-century mediterranean mantilla – or whatever it is? You might as well wear an ancient Athenian helmet. What’s the idea here? Cover the hair? Cover the top of the head? Look almost like a (habited) nun while retaining enough distinction to show you’re not? Would a zaccheto do? Would a chador be too much?

    "Which of the Easter bonnets in the movie Easter Parade would suffice?" 

    I have often wondered about that, too…

    A traditionalist website to which I will not link (a policy of mine) asserts that Christian women have practiced "veiling" for two thousand years; this "veiling" took place when women entered a church or were in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I tend to smile, a little, at such statements–because there is such a false impression given by them. We see, in our mind's eye, a simple European peasant girl, passing by a church on a weekday; she pauses, makes the sign of the cross, carefully drapes a large and elegant lace veil over her head, and enters to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament…

    But a quick visit to the paintings of someone like Jean Francois Millet shows us what that peasant girl would more likely be wearing–a simple twist of some rough fabric, which she wore all the time to cover her head, not just when she happened to pass a church. Some nicer fabric, or an actual hat, might repose in her closet for Sunday; but lace, in the days before machine-made lace, was impossibly expensive and not likely to belong to most Catholic women.

    In fact, a single lace mantilla in Madrid in the year 1830 could cost today's American equivalent of six hundred to two thousand dollars. Middle-class women scrimped and saved to afford mantillas with lace borders, while poorer women made do with fabric mantillas in the best fabric they could afford.

    Did they do this to honor the Lord? Well, according to a book written in that time, in Madrid in 1830 women in the middle and lower classes still wore their mantillas as their "everyday" head coverings. Only the wealthiest women–the ones with the fanciest veils–started saving their mantillas for church and wearing the newer (and even more costly!) European hats to the theater and other social venues.

    How it is that the mantilla, a particularly Spanish form of head covering, became the preferred head covering of traditional women in America in the twenty-first century is truly puzzling. 

    By all means, cover your hair if you want to, or don't if you don't want to.  There are good arguments both for and against.  But I'm with the other Erin in wondering — why mantillas?  I mean, they are beautiful, but really, a bandanna would also do the trick, and if I decided to cover my hair for Mass, that's probably the route I'd take.   Or some kind of wicking performance fabric, more likely.

    And then, the judgment I'd probably receive would be "Huh, guess she didn't have time to wash her hair this morning." 

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  • Home!

    Back from vacation!  I'll post about something or other later on, between Mass and laundry.

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