Manualia

Hello Everyone,

In her inimitable fashion, Anne has asked yet another good question: What (or who??) is this Manualia that you do?

First, Manualia is not a small Hispanic child. Manualia does not come to our house to do dishes, clean in the corners, or set mouse traps. How sad, how sad.

Manualia is a Latin word for "Physical Labor." Physical. Labor. Ryan. Hard to imagine.

My "Saturday morning manualia" involves being the librarian. I work with books. Of course I'm building my arm muscles by lifting huge tomes and moving them from shelf to shelf. But for those of you with over-active imaginations, just imagine me standing shirtless in the midst of a field, the morning sun reflecting off of my rippling muscles, so shiny as to demand sunglasses. I lean on my pitchfork and call off to Pa to bring some slop for the hogs....Yeah, this is a really hard image to maintain.

So that's manualia. Some guys vacuum, some clean cars, Ryan organizes books.

As for my evening tonight: Mass, a social hour, and then dinner of six-bean casserole (meaning in special Ryan code: Pizza and beer right after dinner), and then I'm going to edit Brian Lehane's thesis. He's written a very interesting paper on the pedagogical method for teaching Just War Theory. I have a Master's in Religion, folks, I may as well use it.

Okay, fun puzzle -- Name this sound: Schlliiiiiiick, splat, Argh!!

Any guesses?

Answer: Ryan running out of the shower to turn off his alarm after he failed to realize he'd hit the snooze button rather than turning it off. Not wanting to wake the damned house, he charged out of the shower, and with the grace of Bob Duns on Ice, slid across the floor and fell on his soapy rear. My pride is still wounded, but little else.

Cheers,

Ryan