Leaving On A Jet Plane
So Mom flew home this morning. A short and sweet visit. But she'll be back in a few months.

I worked yesterday at Harry & David. It was so quiet, I spent the whole shift just checking the expiration dates on everything in preparation for inventory day. I gather from the staff I should consider myself lucky to not work inventory day. It's not supposed to be much fun. Well, anyway the money I earned paid for my birthday dinner at Old Chicago. Oh, I want to go back. Everything on the menu looked awesome. I had the deep dish Meat Me pizza. Not a "real" deep dish pizza (so says Geoff who's been to Chicago), but I loved it. Mom & Geoff also had pizza. (Chris, Geoff did not join the beer tour, but maybe next time he will. He says he doesn't want to drink crappy beers. I think he can just put those off until the end. But they do offer the beer he had in Glasgow, so I thought that might entice him.)

Wednesday we had quite the snow storm hit here. It thankfully had stopped snowing by the time I had to leave for work, so the walk to the bus stop wasn't so bad. And Mom said the sun came out that afternoon. I figure another few days the snow will be gone. The roads are in pretty good shape today. But it would not have been a good day to fly out yesterday. It took Geoff an hour to drive to work.

This weekend we have dinner plans at Mark & Shannon's, and lamaze class. Geoff bought me Return Of The King Extended Edition for my birthday, so I want to watch that. I'm very excited to see the new scenes. That may have to be on Sunday night. I don't have to go into the museum on Monday (holiday), but Mary and I will get together for coffee. Jeff is going to Egypt, so I told Rich if he needs me at the museum while Jeff is away to just let me know. Rich has classes on Mondays this semester, so I don't know if I'll be seeing him much.

Caught a bit of The Factor last night. We don't always watch it regularly, but sometimes we'll make a point of trying to remember it's on. Anyways, he had on Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, authors of the Left Behind series. Bill was complaining about Christianity not being inclusive of "good people", and how in Catholicism they have "baptism by desire". Which I think meant you don't have to be a Catholic, but if you are a good person, you can get baptized and saved. (I may not have that right, I'm going off my memory.) And the authors were saying there is no biblical basis for that, that the Bible is very clear that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus. And Bill was saying, so if a baby dies it goes to hell, because it didn't acknowledge Jesus? He said he can't believe that a merciful God would do that. That babies and "good people" should get to go to Heaven. And they said babies are washed clean by Jesus' blood, that God doesn't turn away those who have not had the opportunity to know Him. Which reminds me of one of my favorite verses, Romans 10:14, How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? They said in effect that if you know the law (what God asks of you) and you choose not to abide it, you will be judged by the law. But if you don't know the law (or know Christ) you won't be judged the way those people are. But there will be a judgment for all. It was pretty meaty for The Factor, and Bill was standing by his Catholic faith. (Did you know Michael Moore is Catholic too?) I'm not coming down on Catholicism, I'm just saying there are some Catholics who are very confused. Heck, there are some Christians who are very confused.

Alright, I better sign off before I get someone all worked up. I'll close with a quote from That 70s Show.

Leo: I met God one time on a bus. He told me the meaning of life and gave me a pretzel.
Hyde: So, what's the meaning of life?
Leo: ...I don't remember... but it was a pretty good pretzel.