The Family Letter

At the very tail end of week three (it will be four weeks tomorrow), the form has been fixed.

I cannot say for sure, but I'll bet my call to our diocesan treasurer, who knows folks at the CPG, did the trick.

Alaska and Hawaii, you are now part of the United States and the Church Pension Group once again.

Having posted two comments electronically and made one phone call, you'd think the Church Pension Group would have caught on by now. But either they're ignoring me completely or it just takes a committee to fix a simple thing like two missing states on a form.

This is week three people. I'm starting to feel a bit like you don't care about me because I'm not attached to your landmass… Hello? *taps on glass* Anyone in there?

The Episcopal Church wants feedback on their website. If you haven't seen it lately, it has improved. I'd say more, but I don't want to bias your opinion. So go check out the site, then take the survey.

Hey, he's even in the church calendar! Let's hear it for Patrick!

You're 20% Irish

You're not Irish. Not even a wee bit. Not even on St. Patrick's Day!

No surprise there.

Today we had some ladies from Sea Life Park come to the preschool to do a presentation on, well, sea life. They did an excellent job, with a puppet presentation, songs, and more.

Part of the presentation was about sea stars and their cousins. I learned lots:

• Sea stars and their cousins all have spines and come in five segments.
• Sea stars can turn their stomachs inside out to exude them and wrap them around food. (Neat but gross.)
• "Sea stars" is a better name than "star fish," because they have little in common with fish. (Check. We will begin hunting down the heathens who dare use the wrong name. I've already found one. Burnings will commence next week sometime.)
• Sea stars and their cousins can re-grow limbs, even all of them if necessary. Just don't go pulling the arms off of sea stars, please! It still hurts and takes a long time to come back, and while they're waiting they don't move as fast.

There were two precious moments in all this. First, one four-year-old raised her hand and solemnly asked: "How do sea stars make babies?"

That was an excellent question, but it stopped the presenter for a few moments. Then she did something wonderful: She explained it. They're asexual, and mommy and daddy sea stars exude stuff into the sea. When the stuff mixes, you get babies! Very nicely handled.

Of course adults say the darndest things, too. To demonstrate the sea star eating (stomach out), she held up a photo. "See, here's the sea star, and this is the stomach. See, it is eating… It is eating… Um… Well, looks like it is eating another sea star. They, um, do that. Right, did I mention they regenerate!"

Rule #23: Always look at the pictures before you show the group.