BeLinda Mathie

Anyway, that was (mumble) years ago. The pastor from when I volunteered has long since retired. I don’t know if First Presbyterian still runs a soup kitchen. (It looks like they still host a weekly food pantry, though.) It totally checks out that the current pastor engages in ICE protests.

The pastor offered the soup kitchen volunteers a tour one time. It’s a lovely historic structure. But the bullet holes in the stained glass were a bit depressing.

4th Pres is the fancy church on Michigan Ave. 1st Church is in now-gentrifying Woodlawn. Suburban churches donated and prepared the food; First Pres re-heated and served it. The pastor started every meal with Grace & a heartfelt invitation to Sunday services (“you don’t need nice clothes or $”).

I volunteered at First Presbyterian’s weekly soup kitchen when I was in law school. Can confirm it is an actual church. At the time, it ran a community garden & provided many other services (winter coats, professional clothes for job interviews, SCHIP enrollment info).

The congregation at an average Mass has families with 1-3 kids. Maybe 4 kids if there’s a set of twins. Only the most conservative Catholic churches have multiple families with 5+ kids. The Church teaches Natural Family Planning at Pre-Cana, but vanishingly few American Catholics use it.

Gilgamesh to the printing press?

I wish someone would ask what he means by “war zone.” Because I live in Chicago, and the worst thing that happened to me this morning was having to wait a while for my coffee because there was only one employee working at the shop.

The appointment system stinks. The advice to keep trying is correct, annoying as it is. I never saw appointments at the downtown site (2 blocks from my office), but after logging in at 6:30 am on two different days, I finally got an appointment at the Chinatown location.

Ralph Williams, a beloved University of Michigan professor, got around this by using “next day.” The next time this class meets, whenever that is.

I’m glad that worked out for you.

Out for almost 11 years now. Was fascinating to talk with former colleagues when I was leaving. People literally said things like “Escaaaape!” and “There is life after BigLaw.”

I spent 12 years in Chicago BigLaw. It’s kind of hard to explain. 2k was “making hours” but 2100/2200 was partner track. BigLaw salaries are one of the few ways to afford student loans. There’s a harsh up or out model, but if you make partner, you can make $1 million+. Client expectations are high.

That things were not perfect in 2016 does not mean that real progress hadn’t been made, or that we didn’t have a lot to loose. There was more work to be done, of course, but now we’re fighting not to lose what we had.

The owner of the sushi place we order from knows my favorite roll and sometimes gives my husband a discount on it even when it isn’t the roll of the month. (We call directly for carry out.) I’d much rather give him our money than a third-party service.

Wheels are one of humanity’s greatest inventions.

I haven’t listed to the audiobooks, but my friends who recommended the series absolutely agree with you. They really enjoy listening to them.

Dungeon Crawler Carl. The first book is somewhat derivative, but the writing improves and the series checks all the boxes on funny, fast-paced, grabby. Read them a few months ago when I wanted a distraction from ~waves hands.~ Great literature? No. Excellent escapism? Yes.

I remain astonished at how many people who have done extraordinarily well under the current system have convinced themselves that Those People are keeping them from doing even better, and the solution is to burn it all down.

Once sent a department-wide email asking if anyone had certain expertise. My favorite response was: “Nice semicolon.”

A video clip that has stuck with me is a real estate agent asking his viewers how people can afford all the nice cars you see on the road, and then exclaiming, “They can’t! I see their financials when they apply for mortgages, and they are in debt up to their eyeballs!”

Last week, my supervisor left early on Thursday and was out Friday to drive his kid to an out of state tournament. Was supposed to be back for work on Monday. But his kid’s team won. So out Monday too. Then they won again. Out Tuesday. So glamorous!

I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church that taught Rapture theology. Imagine my surprise when a law school classmate who is a member of the Conservative Movement (Judaism and American politics) told me PMDD is just something liberals made up to slander Christians.

This happened to us
too! Went on vacation with husband’s fellow ER residents. One observed, “Wow, you guys bring a book to the beach every day! I haven’t read a book cover-to-cover since high school!” We were flummoxed. Not a single book? Of any kind?

Happy birthday! Celebrity karaoke has become one of my favorite @jococruise.bsky.social events.

About 2 blocks away from my office in Chicago’s Loop, from the looks of it.

My late mother needed 2 rotator cuff surgeries after 19 years of working in hospital housekeeping and kitchens. People who fetishize physical labor have never had a repetitive motion injury and it shows.

None of the people romanticizing physical labor have ever worked a double.

This was basically my review of Redshirts. Main text: delightful silly Scalzi romp! Epilogues: why am I crying? Damn you, @scalzi.com

With regret, I can confirm that unsalted matzo was the communion wafer at the Baptist church I attended as a child. (Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the 80s.) First time I ever saw a Manischewitz label was on a box in a cabinet at the church office.

Non-parent and yes. (Sadly, a case occurred in my neighborhood when I was an elementary school kid in the early 1980s. Also covered in Red Cross babysitting course in late 80s.)