The Quarantine Bible - Mother Superior's Log - Day 22

Well, yes, this did start, what, 21 days ago, we thinks?  Not sure, exactly, but really in our case it doesn't matter much being somewhat out of reach on our little hill overlooking the smog that has magically disappeared now that there is very little morning traffic and the lot of you are forced to, yes, experience life as if you were really living in a cloistered order.  That's sequestered nuns to you.  While this order is not cloistered, I have been there with the best of them and learned a lot that I shall try to impart on Day 22 of our ongoing, endless log of daily life sans trips to Costco.

Living a cloistered life is surely not for the emotionally frail nor those who don't like to get their hands dirty, because with all this time on one's hands and regular trips to the market not really an option, you need to get down and dirty into the soil and plant and harvest your own crops.  And, I don't mean, cannnibi, canna, cannibis, but more like a literal can of worms (who do the work of Mother Nature tilling the soil) and plant vegetables and herbs and the like. And while we would love to just leave all the work to the worms, who can't really do it all, a rotating list of us penguins would take a turn at the hoe.  For turn, turn, turn to everything there is a season (apologies to Ecclesiastes 3 and The Byrds) and a time for planting. And hoping they'll sprout faster, you have Sister Margaret of the Thornbirds (don't ask) deciding a little rain dance to the gods wouldn't hurt.  So she whooped and chanted and danced around the garden as we lit tiki torches and beat on a drum and banged wooden spoons on pots and pans.  And eventually it did rain and the crops sprung up, climbed trellises and trailed along the ground and bore fruit and vegetables, and all that water also sprouted a little "weed" or two (we were bored and Sister Ignatius needed something for her arthritis).  And all it took on top of that work was a little patience with a capital "P" on our part.

And that's what I propose for the lot of you misguided "we read the Bible so think we're God" sign carrying fanatics wanting to end the Safer At Home orders.  My dears, pandemics like nuns who have had too much to drink require isolation for an extended period of time.  And a virus would like nothing better than to hop from one to the next and infect each and every one of you thereby proving Darwin's theory.  So take a page from our book - stay home, turn over the soil in your backyard and plant a garden or if in an apartment then in a planter box.  So much healthier for you than boo-hoo-hooing that you can't go to the ballpark, although being beaned in the head by a baseball might actually help knock some sense into you.  So, perhaps toss a ball to your socially distanced neighbor and ask them to throw it at you.  Ten points and a roll of toilet paper if they hit you in the crown.   

Well, that's enough preaching for a Sunday.  It's time to go into afternoon vespers (i.e., a nap) before getting up to go for a walk six feet apart looking like a black and white wing span walking down the road.  Then popping the cork on a good vintage bottle of wine from the cellar (Jesus's gift) and settling down to dinner, and a socially distanced game of cards.

Cheers, good ones, and please read a book, oh misguided ones.  Imagine that, a book.  Might help. 

Alas, I've Been Away Far Too Long

It's so hard to update a blog when one can't log into the damn thing.  But finally I found my very old password and voila - success!  I've been doing so much since my last post, including encouraging every nunnery I can think of to invest in reliable income.  While we are far off from becoming legal dispensaries or "pot shops" as it is more colloquially known - well, amongst the elders anyway - we can still forge ahead with what Trappist monks and nunneries have succeeded in doing in Europe for so long - operating breweries. 

Hence, I am please to announce that a judge has ruled Nuns and Priests can build a school, brewery and winery in McHenry Country, Illinois - as reported by the Chicago Tribune.  The Fraternite order will be the ones at the helm.  And to this I say bravo - for after running a school all day one does need something a bit stronger than the beads on their rosaries and long hours of prayer.  What better than a good bottle of homemade suds and a nice red, preferably Pinot Noir or a good Cabernet to watch the sun go down.  It sounds like so much fun, I may fly over there myself and start hoeing the land.  

Cheers good sisters!  Let's embrace the nectar of the gods!

Maybe I'll go Dressed as a Lay Person This Halloween...

Well, it's that time of year again when the lot of humanity decides to make fun of the sisters by dressing up as a nun for Halloween.  Oh  I can hear the exclamations of your friends now,
"Oh! You're a Nun!  How funny!!"  "You're a pregnant nun!"  "I love your S&M Nun costume!"  The list goes on.   Why even dogs and children are morphed into nuns for Hallow's Eve.

This year instead of posting the latest and lamest in the Nun Costume Category,  I decided to post a few scary Nun-related items.   Their titles alone are enough to make some of us stay cloistered.

Stay safe and sane and don't take candy from strangers!

Cheers,
A Nun

Song of Bernadette actress Jennifer Jones ... R.I.P

Nominated for an Oscar five times and won it for her portrayal of "a saintly nun" in Song of Bernadette.

We Give Thanks, Because We're Nuns.

"'Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier and More Meaningful Lives,' by David Snowdon shows the power attitudes have in the life of each individual. A group of nuns, ranging in age from 75 to 104, allowed themselves to undergo testing. The nuns with a positive perspective experienced a longer and more content life." -- (excerpted from the article "The Importance of Gratitude" from The Huntsville Item).

Well our order is no exception. We were very thankful that Sister Fry Cook was able to whip up a great Thanksgiiving dinner, sans turkey. Yes, I said, without the bird. We had one all ready to go, but it looked at us, we looked at it and well, let's say that idea flew the coop. So, we have one new member to our flock, who has gone from being simply referred to as "the turkey" to Sister Many Feathers. She's a lovely bird and we feel much prettier alive.

We did have many wonderful side dishes and took a "stab" at tofurkey. Not bad actually. And since we did away with a real turkey, and not being ones to suffer too much, we delved into more of the "spirits," shall we say. It seemed the much more holier way to go, if I do say so myself. Nectar of the gods, indeed!

This Year's Nun Costumes...or What Nuns Dress Up As For Halloween

This year is certainly ripe with controversy over the lot of you and your fetish for not just nun costumes, but pregnant nun costumes. A certain, shall we say, overweight mom who was in the news earlier this year has also stirred up the pot donning a pregnant nun costume and dressing her "many" children as devils (see link).

Also in the news is Spencer's Gifts under the headline of "...markets vulgar Catholic Halloween costumes." One of their top sellers is the "Priest with an Erection" and "Pregnant Nun" costume, often sold as a pair. Well, I suppose in "layman" terms it makes sense.

So, this brings to mind what many of you ask, when, of course, you're not bothering us about doomsday predictions - what do nuns dress up as for Halloween? Well, here at Worldwide Nun Central we have been busy all week sewing away and finally caught a smoke break from the Singers'. Yes, we do wear costumes. Some sisters prefer to don a halo over their habit, which is a mere headpiece. Sister Fry Cook is dressing up as Emeril (don't ask). Mother Superior is dressing up as Friar Tuck. This required a bald rubber head piece (again, don't ask). Two of the sisters who are as thick as thieves dressed up as Cagney & Lacey. Hmm. And then there's always the very easy costume of donning a beak to look like a Penguin. One of our retro favorites is to dress up like The Penguin from the old Batman TV series. Or a couple of cut out milk cartons do well in making the wings on top of our habit heads to look like the Flying Nun. Films are a good source of inspiration. As you'll see from one of the photos I have here, Sister Smiles Too Much watched Wizard of Oz and got a couple of schoolchildren to dress up as elves. And as we're American nuns, sometimes it's just easier to dress up as a group of Trappist Brewery Nuns, such as you would find in Germany. So, this requires a trip to our local liquor store to order a keg of beer. (Mind you we tell them it's for charity, so we get a good rate on the tap.) After a few slogs of the brew we pretty much have convinced ourselves that we indeed brewed it ourselves. And then inevitably one of the sisters who has decided to be the Flying Nun makes an attempt at becoming airborne off the backyard picnic table.

So, enough for now, as I do have to return to the Singer sewing machine to finish my Freddie Krueger costume. Until next time, stay safe and I'd like to say don't take candy from strangers, but then that would ruin the whole holiday wouldn't it?

Mayans Insist the World Won't End in 2012.

As a nun we are often stopped in the street, at church during vespers, in the grocery store or receive phone calls at the convent, emails and letters from those worried about the various doomsday predictions. Lord knows how many we've had to endure. How would you like it if when Sister Fry Cook has just prepared her delicious souffle and we're about to dip our forks into it, but the phone rings or someone bangs on the door, wanting reassurance that we're not all going to float away (read: die) because of some Nostradamus prediction. (What was up with that guy? I assume his wife probably wasn't a very good cook and he got gas or heartburn a considerable amount of time, so took to his desk to predict many disasters, as he no doubt probably wished he'd just die already.)

That said, the latest prediction is the Mayan calendar running out on 12/12/2012, which has spawned numerous websites and a now, of course, a movie. (And how scary can it be, truly, if John Cusack's the star?) The Mayans have finally spoken out, that it is not the end of the world and they're more concerned with getting some rain soon (and don't bother them about that being a sign - just bring them some water).

So, as the cartoon shows, and I have long said, the reason their calendar runs out on said doomsday date is they probably ... just got tired of counting.

Now, if we can just have one dinner where we reach dessert, in peace...please.