The Fluffbucket Diaries

Joining a parish with periodic tamale sales after all Masses is one of the best spiritual decisions I’ve ever made.

Wordle 281 4/6

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Refreshed after a daylong silent retreat at my parish on the Passion. After a rough week of frustration and extended family drama, I’m deeply grateful for this jumpstart of my Lenten season.

Wordle 280 3/6

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Despite the joy of a twofer kind of cool day—my kid’s birthday and the Feast of the Annunciation—I continue to be stuck in the middle of a painful dispute that heated up this week and involves people dear to me. If you’re one to do such things, please pray for me. Thanks.

I’ve been trying to go to weekday Mass at least once a week, usually on Fridays, during Lent. I usually go to the parish down the street, which – like the others in our town – is a bit more casual and less observant than the parish where we’re registered. (This is the same parish that emptied halfway through an Ash Wednesday service we attended once people got their ashes and bailed.)

After Wednesday Mass at St. Casual, I was able to attend the 7:30 a.m. liturgy yesterday and today at our usual parish. It felt good to be “home” – where I can receive the Eucharist kneeling and on the tongue and not draw weird looks when I linger to pray after the service is over, and where the lights aren’t shut off 5 minutes after the end of Mass – especially when we were able to pray the pope’s prayer consecrating Ukraine and Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. (Honestly, I didn’t feel confident that the parish down the street would even bother with that.)

I figure on continuing to attend periodic weekday Mass at St. Casual as long as I’m able. It’s all the same Jesus, no matter which Roman Catholic parish is offering the Eucharist. Maybe being reverent amid the lax culture there is an opportunity to be an example, I don’t know. At the very least, maybe it’s an opportunity for mortification, or a chance – another chance, because I’ve had plenty lately in my personal life – to be charitable where it might be extremely challenging.

The creator of Wordle says his success story was counterintuitive, with unorthodox choices like once-a-day play, having it be web-only with a hard-to-remember URL, and no monetization. Then The New York Times came calling when he was feeling “immense pressure” about managing the game:

I made this game, but I had no interest in running a game business. Basically, I think of myself as an artist, I really enjoy creating things. Running a gaming business is not interesting to me. And I think I think that for some people, it [would have been] different. But for me, this was really clear.

(More on Josh Wardle’s recent speech to game developers here. Also, he says the earliest version of Wordle had a tougher word list back in 2013.)

Population drops in California’s urban centers: “We are in this new demographic era for California of very slow or maybe even negative growth,” a demographer tells the Los Angeles Times.

The New York Times discovers commonplace books!

Always interesting to look at the young teenager’s alternative public Instagram account for her artwork (which I don’t follow out of respect for her privacy, but still monitor for safety’s sake) and see just how much of a pottymouth she actually has.

Way behind on Franniepalooza preparations for F’s 14th birthday today. Grateful for a work-from-home job that (a) has flexibility, and (b) things have been slow at the office.

Wordle 279 4/6

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It’s Mom’s birthday today. She would have been 91. Had some lumpia – albeit frozen from Seafood City, not homemade – to remember her by. It was, of course, not nearly as good as hers.

Happy birthday, Mom. Wish you were here.

#baseball

Wordle 278 4/6

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Almost forgot to do this today.

Wordle 277 3/6

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Wordle is a gateway drug to the Spelling Bee game on The New York Times crossword app.

C and I play it over breakfast or after dinner. We’re on a streak at the moment.

Sigh.

What a dumb word for this game.

Wordle 276 4/6

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Obviously I’ve grown sporadic with not only posts but also actual weighing. My last weight loss post was two months ago.

So, it’s time for an update. Just under 6 pounds left till my initial 80-pound goal. The doctor said a few weeks ago that more activity would jumpstart my slower progress. But at least I’m not gaining anything back.

Saturday’s game is lost to the ether; I never even texted C about it. (I think I got it in four or five tries.)

So, here’s yesterday’s game …

Wordle 274 5/6

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… and today’s.

Wordle 275 4/6

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F and I made cinnamon mini-muffins for tomorrow’s St. Joseph’s table at our parish. I also took a stab at making ube coconut pastillas (a Filipino milk candy) for the occasion. Chris ate two of the pastillas, and they didn’t kill him, so that’s a good sign.

Took care of a quick work-related task, so now my weekend can begin in earnest.

I had a replay of yesterday’s Mariners-Padres game on in the background, which soothed my soul after some minor upheaval this morning. I hope there’s baseball in heaven.

Weird how Lent coincides with so many noteworthy occasions: the start of baseball season, March Madness, my birthday, my kid’s birthday. After so many years of trying to observe Lent in a properly penitential manner – especially through restraining my Internet and social media activity – I still haven’t quite figured out how to have my cake and mortification, too.

🎬📽🍿Watched “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” last night. This is the second straight week of seeing a movie with a nerd girl protagonist (with an extra layer of weird-dysfunctional-but-loving-family issues). I am nothing if not an enabler of my daughter’s creative geek inclinations.

And incidentally, the movie was fantastic. We all loved it. I might venture to say that I liked this film’s approach to technology more than that of “Belle” (even though I loved that movie, too).