A minor

Uh-oh...Again

Ethan perked right up after he began taking the antibiotics. I kept him home from VBS for a few days until his contagiousness passed. I really hated for him to miss the fun but also didn't want to pass any germs around to the rest of the kids. After a week of caring for a crying, feverish child, I was looking forward to a nice, leisurely weekend. That, however, was not to be. Levi has now started showing signs of illness. I am praying that he doesn't have strep too. We'll find out on Monday after (another) trip to the doctor's office. Oh, and I just read that kids with strep generally feel better within 24 hours of taking the antibiotic but may have "crankiness for up to 6 weeks". Yikes.

Ekklesia: To the Roots of Biblical Church Life

I'd really like a copy of this book, which is news to me. I'm sure I'll disagree with it on numerous points, especially if it's anything like its precursor (online in full here). By the same token, though, if it's anything like its precursor, I will find much of it to be enjoyable and provocative. In any case, I definitely dig the new title.

Catechism 101

Today I asked Ethan, "Who made you?" He replied, matter-of-factly, "Mawmaw." (Mawmaw is his great grandmother.) I gently corrected him and said the answer was "God." He shook his head with great indignation and said "Mawmaw" again. Looks like we have a candidate for remedial catechism.

Uh-oh

Ethan has had a puzzling rash for the last few days. He has also been running a fever off and on. So, yesterday, we took him to the clinic to get some answers. Turns out the little guy has strep. It's pretty sad but, as Ethan has found out, it has its perks. He gets to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed (yes, all 4 of us in there!), watch movies, eat candy and popsicles, and wear Spiderman bandaids (Ethan's "into" bandaids right now). Let's just hope the rest of us don't catch it...though that laying around and eating candy part doesn't sound so bad. And who wouldn't like a Spidey bandaid?

First Day of VBS

Question: What do you get with a group of three-year-olds playing 'Duck, duck, goose'?

Answer: Chaos.

This is going to be one of those entries. I haven't blogged much lately (obviously) because I haven't had much to blog. To me, blogging and journal-keeping are two very different disciplines. On the one hand, I can't always blog, even though blogging isn't known for its difficulty. On the other hand, I can always write journal entries, although I never do so with any regularity.

'Been working a lot lately. Our new curate, Andy Powell, arrived at Grace last week. Currently a deacon who just graduated from Nashotah House (after working on Capitol Hill for several years as a congressional aid), his ordination to the sacred order of priests will take place a week from today, Monday, June 28 at 7pm. I've had the privilege of preparing his ordination service booklets. Apparently, Episcopalians like to go all out on ordinations, including having their special programs (read: 20-or-so-page booklets) professionally printed. If, like me, you're a local who's never been to an Anglican ordination before, come join us. It promises to be one to remember. Bishop MacPherson is doing the ordination on behalf of Bishop Ackerman of Quincy, IL. I've been told that the future of orthodox Anglicanism in America largely lies with two men: Bishop Ackerman and Bishop Iker of Ft Worth. (I was told this by an Anglo-Catholic; other bishops to watch of course are Bishop Howe of Central Florida and Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh.)

So I've spent a lot of time lately on this ordination booklet. I hope to have it out of my hands and into the printers' tomorrow or the next day. I've also worked a few extra hours at Kinko's, filling in for vacations and such. And, of course, all work and no sleep makes Jon a sick boy. I've had a relapse of fever combined with symptoms of facial/oral allergic reaction or infection. This time, though, I think I've finally figured it out: I'm almost positive I'm allergic to Aleve. That's right, the fever reducer makes me have fever. Go figure.

Movies: Hollie and the boys gave me the Lost in Translation DVD for Father's Day. We also finally got around to watching Secondhand Lions. And Shrek 2 was a lot of fun, though I still like the first better.

Hollie and I went out for drinks at the Brandy House and dinner at Geno's for our fourth anniversary, thanks to kind gifts from our family. I'm sure Geno's is where real Italians eat when they visit to Monroe; it's the kind of quaint, hole-in-the-wall place you see throughout the movies, whether in The Godfather or the chick flick, Return to Me. We went there on our first date and on the night we got engaged. Their food is good, but there's something about the place that makes it perfect.

Saturday night, Patrick was in town, and he and Matt and I went to Enoch's. It felt like old times and was good to hang out, catch up, etc. After Enoch's, Matt and I both needed to pick up a couple things at Wal-Mart and both had a craving for IHOP, so we went despite the fact that it was way too late...all the more like old times.

Monroe Poverty Rate

In our last mayoral election, one of the candidates gave an astounding figure. He said that Monroe had the highest poverty rate of any city of its size in the U.S. I need to contact him and ask for the source of this stat. I've gone through tons of Census 2000 data online but haven't found the right section. I found the Poverty page, which contains, for instance, "How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty," and other interesting information, but I can't find any charts of cities by size and poverty rate. Surely they exist, though.

In my searching, I did find some evidence that the candidate's stat was/is in the right ballpark, at the very least: Edward J. O'Boyle, "Poverty in Monroe, LA: Data From the 1990 Decennial Census" (Revised, 1997). Dr O'Boyle's paper uses older census data, but it nonetheless states that, "Among cities with populations of 50,000 or more, Monroe has the third highest rate of poverty in the entire United States. Only two cities in Texas -- Brownsville (43.9 percent) and College Station (38.0 percent) -- have higher rates of poverty than does Monroe."

Now when we look up Brownsville on epodunk.com, we see that it still has the highest poverty rate in its population bracket; however, its population has apparently risen such that it's in the "cities of 100,000 or more" bracket.

So it's highly likely that Monroe does in fact have the highest poverty rate among U.S. cities with populations of 50,000 or more. But I still wish I could nail down that stat.