My Brilliant Financial Advice

When I was working in a Canadian government office, lo, twenty years ago, I was given the first piece of serious financial advice that I ever remember receiving. It wasn't very good, as it was merely "Never buy a home because then you'll be trapped!" The giver of this advice was a Scottish immigrant to Canada who very much disliked our job and wanted to quit but could not because of her mortgage.

Personally, I love our mortgage. I was going to say it's a child-substitute, but that would add a note of unintended melancholy. Having run out of Polish graduate students, I have made the vegetables my child-substitute. The mortgage is more of a sport. The object of the sport is to save up as much as much as possible to put down the biggest allowable annual overpayment on the mortgage, thus making monthly mortgage payments smaller. It's like golf--the smaller the number is, the better our game.

One of the reasons that I love the mortgage is that it represents Benedict Ambrose's and my successful, if rather late, rooting in financial reality. Before I returned to full-time employment, we were advised that Benedict Ambrose alone should apply for a mortgage, for as a freelancer I would significantly lower the sum the bank would grant us. This was the principal reason why, after B.A.'s first life-saving operation, I seized upon the first full-time writing job I thought I was at all likely to get. This meant that my salary, too, would be factored in by the banks.

Our principal dread was that we would be thrown out of the Historical House and into the rental market, where B.A. was adamant he did not want us to be. Therefore, we began to save, and kept on saving when I got a job and when B.A. was deathly ill. When his sick pay ran out, I cut my expenses. We continued to put all our savings into a first-time buyers' "Help to Buy" Investment Savings Account (ISA).

This proved to have been the canniest thing we ever did because when we were thrown out of the Historical House, we had enough saved, and we were earning enough, to get the mortgage that enabled us to buy a two bedroom flat in a safe and convenient, if humble, neighbourhood. Needless to say, we do not feel trapped. We feel very fortunate, doubly fortunate that this flat has a private garden instead of the usual shared "[laundry] drying green".

This is not to say I have not cried a tear or two of regret over the many years I did not work full-time and did not save. When I scan past decades, my greatest financial regret is that I did not save 50% of everything I ever earned and put it into some investment vehicle that returned even just 3%. If I had done that, we would not be living in Safebuthumblehood but in Edinburgh's New Town.

I had some inkling of the importance of saving and investing young when I was in my late twenties, but I basically forgot it to pursue my dreamy-dreams. Then, the summer we bought our flat, I came across a book in the Stockbridge Public Library called The Escape Artist. It was a life changer, not  because it explained how someone could retire before 40, but because its principles work for over-40s wanting to retire before 80.

The interesting thing about the concept of the millionaire is that many, many, many employees earn over a million pounds or dollars during their work lives, but they aren't millionaires at the end. They aren't millionaires because, of course, they have spent the money. Much of this spending is absolutely necessary: taxes, shelter, food, heating, electricity, work clothes, medical insurance or fees. However, much of it really isn't. Financial Independence for Early Retirement (FIRE) people are brutal about automobiles, and Mr. Money Mustache, for example, is a great fan of bicycles. My maternal grandfather rode a bicycle to work. B.A.'s maternal grandfather walked to work. FIRE people are also  brutal about restaurants, which are a greater temptation to Mr and Mrs B.A. than cars.

When scanning past decades to see where my earnings disappeared, I inevitably conclude that Life Happens and that the inner flame lit by going out for sushi with my richer classmates after evening theology lectures was worth the money.  All the same, I think the very wisest thing a young person can do, after leaving college or university without debts, is to work as hard and earn as much as possible, living as cheaply as possible, for five years. All savings should be invested as cheaply (look out for bank or brokers' fees) as possible, taking into account your comfort with risk, as obviously some investments are safer bets than others. If the young person was able to save £/$20,000 a year, in five years he or she would have £/$100,000 plus whatever interest they had earned.

To put this into perspective, a full-time Starbucks employee in Canada seems to make about $26,000 a year. The lowest annual wage I've seen for a farm hand in Vermont is over $27,000. I am deliberately choosing low-paying jobs here. Have a look for likely salaries for American college graduates here.

Ideally, my hard-working young person gets along well enough with his or her parent/s to continue living with them as he or she grows his or her £/$100,000+ nest egg. If the parent/s wants a financial contribution to household bills, etc., then better the money goes to family than a stranger. Richer parents may just be impressed by their offspring's canny financial goal and cheer him or her on.

This initial $/£100,000 is a form of financial insurance against life's little difficulties. Even in a so-called "high-interest" savings account, it will grow all by itself over time. As traditional Catholics very often marry young, I suppose they would gladly spend it on real estate. However, I initially formulated this plan for young men hoping to become diocesan priests.

As a journalist, I keep coming across stories about young priests who are abused in a myriad of ways by bad or badly advised bishops. One of the problems is that bishops have enormous power over their priests, including financial. Another problem is that bishops die, and the good bishop who is a loving father to his young priests may be replaced by a serial sex pest or anti-trad ideologue. No matter how much money the priest has invested, he will still have a lot of sorrow, but at least he will not be completely financially dependent on his bishop.

Fictional example

Young Stan Kowalski is a whizz with computers but suspects he has a vocation to the priesthood. His parents, though devout, beg him to go to college and maybe work a few years before going to seminary. So Stan puts his head down, gets a degree in computer science by age 21, continues living with his parents and saves most of his $60,000/a salary. The day he has $100,000 nicely invested in something safe but steady, he calls Bishop Saintly's vocation director. He is now 23.

Young Stan goes to the diocesan seminary and is ordained to the diaconate at age 29 and then to the priesthood. He loves good Bishop Saintly and his parishioners, and his bishop and parishioners love him. Sometimes Fr. Stan feels uneasy that he has this great sum in index funds, snowballing away at 7%, but his parents have assured him that they will kill him if he tries to give it away to the poor. So instead Fr. Stan gives the poor almost all of his salary, saving only $100 a month to give to his mother. His mother promptly puts it into his index funds.

Then disaster. Bishop Saintly, whose traditionalism has put him into no little conflict with people who wish to sing a new church into being, has a heart attack and dies. Fr Stan, now 39, says a Traditional Latin Requiem Mass for his beloved ghostly father within the hour and weeps at the official funeral.

Then second disaster. Bishop Eric McTed is appointed to the diocese. Whereas Fr Stan is now too old to be of particular interest to the notorious "Uncle" McTed, the new bishop is keen to sing a new church into being. And just as you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you can't establish the New Pentecost without throwing an orthodox priest or two into the diocesan funny farm.  And balding Fr. Stan, who is known to say the TLM for a stable group, to serve a flourishing society of rigidly orthodox young people, and to lead rosaries outside the local PP, looks just like the egg that has to be broke.

A faithful priest, even one with no political talents, can be hard to crack, though. Indeed, it is two more years before Fr. Stan comes to the attention of a Marxist identitarian group, and one more before their campaign against him leads to what the parish still calls The Homily That Did For Him. It gets 50,000 hits on YouTube.

"But I don't want to go to St Dymphna's," says Fr. Stan to Bishop McTed over the phone. "I'm not unhappy. I'm not sick. I didn't say anything that was uncharitable. I didn't say anything that was untrue."

"I want you out in six hours," says Bishop McTed, scratching his pointed tail.

"He wants me out in six hours," Fr. Stan tells his aged parents over Skype.

"What a lucky thing you have $265, 919.21 in your index fund," says his mother.

"If you live frugally, you'll be able to live on the interest alone for the rest of your life," says his father.

"But what about my ministry?" wails Fr. Stan.

"Well, I guess you follow the canonical procedures," says his mother. "Meanwhile, your Auntie Mary says Bishop Goodman over in Wisconsin is a saint."

By the way, if you think you recognise Fr. Stan, you are wrong; his woes are a composite of the kind of woes traditional young priests risk these days. When I was a child, I never dreamed men like a certain former archbishop of Washington (or another of Milwaukee) existed, let alone could ever become priests. I wish there was something more I could do about it.

I May Have to Return to Writing for Singles

People. I'm supposed to be working, but I got led down a Twitter rabbit hole.

People.

People, people, people. By whom I mean Trads. Men Trads.

This is not how you write personal ads.

YARG! If you are looking for a wife on a site called Traditional [or Traditional Catholic] Singles, you do NOT have to spell out that your future wife is not going to use birth control. What you DO have to spell out, at once, is what you do for a living.

Let's think "traditional" here. Traditionally (and also on Traditional Catholic Singles), men look for pretty, good-tempered, charming women to make their domestic lives nice, have their children, and be a good companion on the weekends they're not out with the boys. Traditionally, women look for men who can pay for all that. 

So the first thing I want to see after "Hi, I'm Bill, 31, from St. Ouain-Ouain, Quebec" is "I'm a software engineer/forest ranger/managerial trainee/firefighter/dentistry student/market gardener."

A dating profile is an ADVERTISEMENT. The whole point of advertising is to SELL something, and in this case you are selling the idea that you are a good catch. What would make you a good catch to a 50 year old millionairess is not what would make you a good catch to a 20-something traditional girl who wants a home, garden, children and flock of hens.

Men who want "traditional Catholic" women had better prove up front that they are "traditional Catholic" men. Unless the Traditional Catholic Single Man is a university professor,  Traditional Catholic Single Woman doesn't want to read all about his theological interests--at least, not yet.  Theological interests don't get Suzie Catholic her home, garden, children or chickens. I have an M.Div., so I know what I'm talking about.

Traditionally Catholic men wanting to get married generally left theology to their priest pals and got on with work.

Incidentally, anyone who thinks women should wear skirts 24/7 (I'm including nightgowns) and then has a seizure because such women prefer men who make enough money to support a large family is a fool not a good catch.

In short, if you want to have a really catchy personal ad, make sure you say up front and fast what you do for a living and what you will be able to offer the woman who consents to be your wife.

Example

Mike, 30,  from Craighart, Scotland. Hello, I'm a research chemist for one of the UK's largest pharmaceutical firms.  I'm the second of five siblings. I hope some day to have children myself, but I'm open to whatever number God sends--one, five, ten, whatever. I'm renting a flat with some pals while I save up enough for a deposit on a house. My dream is to live in a big farmhouse in the countryside one day with my wife and children. My interests are metal-detecting, archaeology and football. My pals and I play five-a-side every few weeks.   

Unfortunately I don't trust the local Catholic school system, so I'm looking for a university-educated woman who will homeschool our future children. If my wife wants to work once the kids have graduated, that's cool with me. My feeling is that my wife shouldn't HAVE to work, but if she wants to when the children grow up, that's fine.  I'm not open to adopting/fostering, just so that's out there. I go to the local SSPX chapel for Mass, and I help serve Mass and set up for retreats, so that's also a non-negotiable. That said, I'm interested in meeting girls who currently go to other Latin Masses, too! 

End of. Going on about headship and skirts and age difference and all that stuff is just dumb. When you apply for jobs, you don't tell the company what it can do for you but what you can do for the company. I strongly suggest the same here.

Update: I added the "bad news" in the second paragraph--no adoption--because it's need-to-know but also off-putting to some girls. Maybe many girls, although women under 30 won't be too worried about that yet. But don't put any hint at a possible heartache in the first paragraph.

Update 2: Healthy traditionally masculine interests and friendships are attractive and suggest you are "normal", so into the first paragraph they go.

The Swans

B.A. and I are lucky enough to live across the street from wooded riverbanks. On the other side of the river is a Victorian factory that has been converted into offices. It has a working clock tower. Thus, we have a flat with a lovely view.

Yesterday I took a break from worrying about Covid-19 to hang up a load of laundry in our dining-room/office/guest-room, and while draping clothes over the radiator, I looked through the window and saw two swans in the river, nibbling at the opposite bank.

I had never seen swans so far up the river, so I called out to B.A. to have a look.

It was a lovely moment, really.

Yesterday we also went for a country walk, the country being a 15 minute walk from our door, and after lunch we spent hours in the garden. In the midst of a health pandemic, the question uppermost in my mind is, "If you have to stay away from people for two weeks, what would you like to do?"

Fortunately for the family finances, I work from home all the time, so there's no change there. And it's spring, so working in the garden is not only pleasant but necessary. Our nearest neighbours, whose gardens are in much better shape, came outside to cheer on our efforts. Going for country walks is one of our favourite shared activities. Because of all the pilgrimages I've been on in the past few years, I now associate long walks with the rosary, so we get in some prayer together, too.

I like talking to my parents on Skype, so I've been doing more of that.

I don't like washing my hands to song anymore, alas, as I have developed what looks like contact dermatitis on the backs of my hands. They itch. Even when they are not red they itch. Naturally I am not keen to go to the local medical clinic, so I'm self-medicating with Vaseline Intensive Care lotion and diaper rash cream. At some point I will consult with Dr. Sister-in-Law. Ma Belle Soeur is not keen on B.A. and I taking public transit, by the way. We are going to reduce our public transit time as much as we can.

My personal opinion on what the Catholic bishops should do for the next few months is what the Polish bishops have done: dispense the elderly, the ill, the children, children's caregivers (I'd add, the caregivers of the elderly), and the merely frightened from their Sunday obligation to assist at Mass while at the same time having more Masses, in part to have smaller congregation, and in part to obtain the grace of more Masses. This is a good opportunity for Catholics, especially Catholic clergy, to be true witnesses to our faith in Christ and hope for heaven, while at the same time not risking sending the vulnerable there before time.  It's also a great time for bearing our discomforts cheerfully, as the superior form of penance, so I will try to think of my itchy hands as a good thing.

I do think, however, that the elderly should be ordered by the bishops to STAY HOME. I suppose the suspension of Sunday Masses by various dioceses (including the Archdiocese of Toronto) may be inspired by a fear that the elderly will keep on going to Mass, and keep on putting themselves and each other in danger of an untimely death, if there is still a Mass to go to. This reminds me that this would also be a good time for Christians to show who we supposed to be by checking in with our elderly neighbours, friends, and family to make sure they have enough food, are staying safe, and are not going squirrelly of boredom and loneliness.

More Cheerful about Chartres

A doctor has poked my tick bite and made a cheerful prognosis, so I will not worry for now and meanwhile just put her prescribed cream on my rashy ankles. This means I am mentally free to write my LSN article about the actual Chartres Pilgrimage, not about the tick.

However, I will leave some extra baggage here because one of the best things I did for myself three years ago was write a blogpost of advice for people going on future Chartres Pilgrimages.

My caveat is that les Etrangers (foreigners) are NOT supposed to bring personal tents anymore. There is simply not enough space in the foreigners' section for those who rebel against sleeping in the communal tents, packed like pickled onions. If you cannot steel yourself to sleeping 2 inches away from people you've just met (women with women, men with men), then the Chartres Pilgrimage is not currently for you. (Perhaps in future there will be more space in the communal tents.)

Three Years On: Additional Advice 

1. There are ticks. Bring and apply insect repellant as soon as you reach the first park on the outskirts of Paris. Pack a super-light groundsheet as well as your sit-upon and shake it before putting it back on your bag. Every night take 5 minutes before you go to sleep every night of the pilgrimage to examine your body thoroughly with a flashlight. Bring tweezers as well as antiseptic wipes.

2. You have no time in the morning for coffee, so prepare.  Happily, I knew this and so made instant coffee-laced breakfast bars on Friday morning. Yes, I planned to literally rub coffee into my gums. I ate these coffee bars during the beginning of each day's march (6 AM) and at about coffee time (4 PM). No caffeine withdrawal: it was awesome.

3. There is bottled water at every campsite. I mention this because on Saturday, I carried a litre of water all afternoon so I was assured of cooling my feet in the evening. This was stupid, but for some reason I could not let go of that heavy bottle. When you are walking 20+ miles, every ounce of weight drags you down. On Sunday I did not make this mistake.

4. You can buy collapsible washtubs. Because large suitcases are really horrible to drag through Paris, Chartres and the campsites, I took a backpack this time. My ordinary washtub didn't fit, so I found a collapsible one online. It is totally worth the money and any trouble.

5. Assume that anything that can leak will leak. When I arrived at my Paris hotel room shortly before 11 PM (flight delayed 1.5 hours, couchemar), I discovered that my little bottle of liquid soap had emptied over everything in my first aid kit bag. I also discovered that my talcum powder had similarly opened itself in the side pocket of my backpack. After rinsing and drying everything of soap (I didn't mind the talcum powder that leaked onto my tent bag), I took the two flat packets of liquid soap conveniently offered by the hotel. I used these to wash my feet on Saturday and Sunday. I dealt with the rest of me with biodegradable wipes from the privacy of my clandestine tent. (I didn't discover it was banned until Saturday.)  Therefore:

6. Save and bring 2 hotel liquid soap sachets for your collapsible washtub.

7. Really, really ponder if you should bring a computer. I meant to write about the Pilgrimage on Tuesday morning, which was overly optimistic. You will be too tired on Tuesday to use your brain for anything much. You get max 6 hours of sleep a night every night of the Pilgrimage, and even if you get 8 or 9 on Monday night, you still will not be fully functioning. Therefore, it is best not to bring the computer, and to inform your workplace that you will not be checking in until Wednesday.

(My computer, by the way, was kindly driven to Chartres by a very busy French official, whom I wasted a great deal of time trying to find in Chartres, and who finally left it at my hotel.)

8. Never assume anyone French, even a young person, speaks English. As a matter of fact, I did not do so badly with my French, even though really it is appalling for a Canadian and someone who has five family members who are completely fluent in la belle langue. Were I to go on the Chartres Pentecost Pilgrimage again (which is not certain, as there is the 'communal tents only' issue), I would not only start practising walking long distances sometime during Lent, I would start doing some French review.  

9. If you decide to go last minute to the Chartres Pilgrimage, you will suffer more than if you decide in advance. "Only Christians would deliberately make themselves suffer," I thought in a somewhat exasperated fashion. "This is not a yoga retreat." If you'd rather suffer less than more, you need to prepare well in advance: practice walking long distances well in advance so you do less damage to yourself. The Knights of Malta first aiders (bless them!) refuse to treat blisters because EVERYBODY gets blisters. Another problem with signing up at the last minute is that there might not be enough room for your foreign self in the communal tent assigned to your chapter. The president of the Pilgrimage said, I think on Sunday before Mass, that the Pilgrimage was more and more difficult to plan every year, in part because of the huge increase in foreign pilgrims. Your humble correspondent won smiles from other women in our Chapter when I gave up my space in the communal tent, erected my illegal 2-man shelter, and said, "Good news, girls, you're getting a tent mate who is a lot thinner than me!"

This was a beautifully elegant Australian who decided to come almost at the last minute and walked for two days in flat leather sandals, a straight knee-length skirt and a very French-looking scarf around her head. On the third day I noticed she had trainers (runners) instead, and no wonder. At any rate, I admired her ability to look so amazing for two days of the Chartres Pilgrimage and I was proud to give her my place in the communal tent. That said, on Sunday night there was no longer any room in the communal tent, and she had to go and sleep in one of the North American tents.

10. When your feet are wet, contemplate the feet of the others around you. My interior life was not fabulous for the first two days of the Pilgrimage, but I made a breakthrough on Whitmonday. Part of this was meditating on the feet of those around me. Because I thought about how wet and painful their feet were, my feet bore me more easily. Also pain, like hunger, comes in waves when you are on a forced march. You just walk through it.

11. Always carry dry socks in your day bag. Not doing so is quite the rookie error.

12. Do not put your cute Chartres dinner outfit in your computer bag, if you bring your computer and a French official drives it to Chartres for you. Because my computer bag and I were not reunited until after 11 PM,  I went to dinner in the black long-sleeved T-shirt I used as my inner pyjamas and my now very dirty Indestructible Blue Denim Maxi-skirt of Feminine Traddery. I wished very much that I had just squished it into my main backpack, which was driven to campsite to campsite and then to Chartres by truck and left in a specific place.

13. 60€-70€ is about right for carrying-around money. I brought 50€. I left a 10€ tip at each hotel (Paris and Chartres) and spent 30€ on Monday supper. However, I did need a little extra for Tuesday, and so had to walk a bit to find a bank machine. A simple breakfast at Le Serpente (coffee, juice, croissant, bread, butter, jam) costs 9 €.

14. Don't let your sunglasses fall out of your pocket and pile your baggage/sleep on top of them or they will break.

15. The Pilgrimage now provides hand sanitiser, but either make sure you use one that does not dry out your cuticles, or put balm on them at night. My fingers are still sore, alas, and it seemed like an age before I could get home to my friendly bathroom jar of coconut oil. 

16. If you have a clandestine tent, make sure you dry it ASAP, which might be overnight in your Chartres hotel room (if you remember), but will probably be the night of your return home.

Now to write my piece for LSN.

Helping Girls Become Happy Women

When I first began to blog twelve years ago, my primary concern was finding meaning and happiness in  life as a Catholic Single woman. I was in my mid-thirties, and I thought my marriage chances were poor. The fault, I believed, lay with the Sexual Revolution and also with my younger self by having a lousy attitude towards boys and men.

(It is a myth, by the way, that men don't like "smart women." Most men like smart women. Most men just don't like women who tell them they're stupid.)

Feeling oppressed by crushes on boys that verged on OCD, I would tell my fellow high school students that the Amazons had the right idea. It took me a very long time to develop the insight that women who want to marry and have babies shouldn't sound like Lesbian Separatists. The reality, of course, is that I was frightened of boys.

When I began to blog, I was less frightened of being Single than I was of others marrying the wrong person, which I thought was hell on earth. At some point I had the insight that it is equally problematic to BE the wrong person. I was the wrong woman for anyone until I was in my thirties, which was good (when he came along I was free to marry Benedict Ambrose) and bad (no children).

My concern now is how women can become "the right woman" for anyone before their fertility dies and also how men can become "the right man" before all the fertile women are 15 years younger than they are. It's the rare 40 year old man who looks all that attractive to a 25 year old girl.

I think the biggest block to happiness for women is not understanding where happiness resides. As girls my generation of women didn't know where happiness resided because we were lied to. We were told that it was boring, wrong, laughable and dangerous to get married young and have babies.

Cool girls did not want to get married young and have babies. Cool girls wanted to beat boys at their own game, man, and become the first woman CEO of BigCo/Premier of Ontario. At the very least, cool girls got Careers--or became poets and moved downtown. When I found out a classmate was getting married the summer after high school to a dentist, I was horrified.

Housewives were unhappy, I believed. Even if a woman was lucky enough to find true love with a prince of a fellow with a good job, she would be stuck at home being stupefied with boredom, wasting her brain, wasting her life. Yada yada.

It did not occur to me to investigate these claims or ponder why it was that people despised housewives so much or find out why not all housewives threw off their shackles. Having known some  horrible boys (and read some very horrible things), I believed almost everything I read about the so-called Patriarchy, and thought it was responsible for just about everything bad. If it weren't for being a Catholic, I might have become a Lesbian Separatist after all. Being a Catholic, I was perturbed by the overt anti-Catholicism of the feminist movement and, of course, its obsession with abortion.

The embarrassing truth about women is that we want to be whatever society tells us "good women" are. And society jerks us around by changing its mind. Currently we're asked to be "badly-behaved", as in "Well-behaved women seldom make history." It's a con, though. It's saying that good behaviour is bad behaviour, and bad behaviour is good behaviour. What?

When I was going slowly mad at Boston College, I had a fit when someone whined about Catholicism being too obsessed with sin.

"We're all obsessed with sin," I snarled. "Only what we now think are sins aren't sins. People think smoking and belonging to the Republican Party are sins."

There was dead silence, either because the seminar group strongly believed that smoking and belonging to the GOP were very serious sins indeed or that it was obvious I was slowly going crazy.

I'll tell you something: most women, like most men, don't make history (whatever that is). We're lucky if, after sacrificing our marriage capital and fertility, we even have careers instead of a succession of dull jobs in unhealthy buildings with grey wall-to-wall carpets.

It's time to forget about "making history" and focusing on making happiness. In general, people make women happy: fond parents, thoughtful siblings, bright children, loyal women, decent men, supportive colleagues. Therefore, girls should be taught how to be fond, thoughtful, bright, loyal, and decent themselves, how to recognise these qualities in others, and how to help them develop.

Naturally, this is easier said than done, and there's a lot to sort out. But I think one thing that is absolutely crucial is to prevent boys and girls from growing up resenting each other.

Marriage Prospects

Once upon a time, any young woman who did not have to work for her living was kept on a relatively tight leash until she was married (or went into a convent, I suppose). If she married a nice man, she could then breathe a sigh of relief and take advantage of whatever freedom her position in society afforded.

The logic behind this was to foster the young lady's marriage prospects, since it was believed that the the surest route to happiness and fulfilment for a woman was marriage, children and grandchildren.  Anything that messed up a woman's chances of making a "good marriage" was seen as catastrophic.

As a matter of fact, marriage, children and grandchildren is still an excellent (if not foolproof, obviously) path, and that followed by the richest in society, you may have noticed. Poor people tend not to marry anymore. Rich people still do. People in the middle waver. There aren't a lot of supports for marriage, and divorces can be financially ruinous. If I were a young man looking for a wife, my question wouldn't be "Has this pretty 26 year old been chaste her whole life?" My questions would be "Would this pretty 26 year old divorce me when life got tough, poison my children against me, and take me to the cleaners?"

By the way, we are probably living in the first time in history when young men were so sexually jaded, they were unmarriageable. Thanks to the  internet, an unprecedented number of men are now regular consumers of porn, and thus more men than ever "have sex with themselves" as a matter of recreational course. It's incredibly sad, and not only does it eventually render men uninterested in "real" women,  it is a major factor in contemporary divorce.  So really, I suggest parents should now be as careful for their sons' chastity as most parents used to be for their daughters'.

But let us posit that there are millions of eligible young men out there who have not been psychologically castrated by their electronic devices, hundreds of thousands of them Nice Catholic Boys who want to find a Nice Catholic Girl, get married, have some kids, and come home to the same  sofa every night.

These Nice Catholic Boys might not write out long lists of essential features they hope for in Nice Catholic Girls, but they generally do not want a girl who has serious problems with men as the Future Mrs Them.  Therefore, if you are a Single Catholic Woman who has serious problems with men--you hate your bullying father, for example---the best thing you can do for your marriage prospects is to wrestle with those problems in private.

Fortunately for Your Humble Scribe, I got over my adolescent resentment of men by the time I started blogging. Obviously I am alarmed by male violence and exploitation like everybody else, and I wish fewer men lied about what they have read. (SO annoying.) I also wish working-class Scottish boys did not enjoy driving their Ford Fiestas up behind middle-aged women walking along thinking deep thoughts and shrieking "YEEEAAAAAA" in our right ears as they pass. But apart from that, men are quite obviously a Good Thing, and if you want to get married, you have to communicate subtly that you know this.

It is therefore incredibly irresponsible of Catholic older women mentors to encourage their Catholic unmarried former students to publish passionate diatribes expressing their hatred for their fathers and of the "non-physical" violence meted out on the family by their fathers, and of the wonders of feminism, witchcraft and whatnot. Writing this stuff out for an hour a day every day on a cheap notepad and then setting the paper on cathartic fire would be excellent and therapeutic. But publishing it can be murder on your marriage prospects.

Trim the Hearth and Set the Table!

After Mass today a parishioner mentioned that I had written many articles for LSN this week, which surprised him. He thought that perhaps we would slow down towards Christmas. Ho, ho, ho, as Santa Claus would say.

I don't remember what I wrote earlier this week, but I turned in three stories on Thursday and two stories on Friday, and then I danced a little Friday-at-7:15-PM jig and rushed off to the kitchen to make 3 dozen pierogi.

It is the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and your humble correspondent has been preparing for Christmas as much as I can, given my full-time job. I turned to Facebook to ask job-working mothers how on earth they do it, and they said (in sum) that they do what they can when they can do it. One suggested prioritising, e.g. writing Christmas cards instead of vacuuming.

I didn't feel I could give up vacuuming, and I prioritised pierogi over getting to the post office, so the Christmas cards didn't go out until yesterday. However (and more importantly), the big parcel of presents for my family in Canada has arrived intact. That was at the very top of my To-Do list, once B.A. and I discovered we wouldn't be going to Canada for Christmas ourselves.

We are going to our friends' place in the countryside of Fife for Christmas Lunch. But tomorrow we are having a Polish Wigilia (Christmas Vigil) supper, and I have enjoyed myself immensely making as many Wigilia dishes as I can ahead of time.

No matter which region in Poland you are from (and as PPS's Pretend Mother, I culturally appropriate from  Lwów), pierogis are crucial at Christmas time. They are tricky to make. Because I haven't made them in awhile, I asked my Polish tutor to come over and give me a refresher course. Frankly, the best advice I can give any non-Pole about pierogi making is to get a nice Polish woman to come over and make them for you. Even if she is only 20, she will have had 15 years experience in making pierogis with her grandmother aka My Babcia.

"This reminds me of making pierogi with My Babcia," enthused 20-something Anna on Thursday morning at 9:45ish, and then I thought about my own Scottish-Canadian grandmother off and on all day, even though I strongly doubt she ever ate a pieróg in her life, much less made one.

I was going to write a step-by-step guide to making pierogi, but I am too sleepy. Instead I recommend that you find a good tutorial on YouTube. Anna's favourite recipe is here, and it is a good one. (Paste it into Google Translate.)  It made the easiest-to-handle pierogi dough I've ever met.  Meanwhile, I will pass along some of Anna's tips, which were:

1. Don't put too much filling in the middle.
2. Wet the edges of every pieróg circle with warm water, using your finger.
3. Mash down the edges with a fork, and then flip over and mash the edges down with a fork again.

As a result of Anna's recipe and good advice, none of my uszki (soup pierogi) and only two of my pierogi leaked in the boiling water. I have made pierogi with cheese and potatoes and pierogi with mushroom and cabbage. They are now in the freezer. In addition to these, I have made kompot (stewed fruit) and kompot (juice from the stewed fruit) and kutia, which is a poppyseed pudding eaten from Warsaw to Moscow, I imagine, and in the households of those who were booted out of Eastern Poland when the borders changed in 1945.  I have also made two sweet little jam jars of herring salads, and at a certain point I realised that even though I promised B.A. I would not make the traditional twelve dishes for Wigilia, I am probably going to do it by accident.

So I confessed to B.A. and he said he didn't mind if I made all 12 as long as I didn't make myself miserable. And I won't be miserable, especially as he is going to make the salmon dish.

I have already made the cake to go into my British-Canadian trifle... and this is where I realise I probably sound a bit mad. But you have to understand that my mother makes hundreds of cookies of a dozen different kinds every Christmas before she makes all our traditional Christmas Day foodstuffs. Both my mother and I (and probably my youngest sister) both really enjoy Christmas baking, and it was a moment of great disappointment when I realised I just do not have the time to bake any more cookies before Christmas Day. Weep, weep.

As for the tree... Every year we put off getting the tree until the 23rd or so because, traditionalists to the bone, we don't like decorating for Christmas before Christmas Eve. Because Scots start buying their trees on December 1, there has always been a risk that B.A. and I wouldn't be able to find a tree on the 23rd. Today was that day. However, I said a prayer and lo: there were two small trees-in-pots in Aldi for £4.99. So now we have a small tree-in-pot, and apparently B.A. is going to decorate it tomorrow.

I will now respond to a few comments. Work has been so busy, I really haven't had the time to read comments, let alone write on the blog.

Runner's Knee & the Potential of Youth

This features much later in the post.

How can this happen ALREADY? Wah! After Wednesday's run my knees ached all day, and they began to ache again yesterday on a walk to the Historical House to pack a few more boxes.

I looked up "Why do my knees hurt when I run?" on the internet and discovered this horrible malady called "Runner's Knee." Tomorrow on my way to Michaelmas Mass I will stop in at the fancy running shoe shop and have a serious conversation with complete strangers about my pronated feet and their evil influence on my knees.

Enjoy being young, kids!

That is actually a better topic for my blog than aching knees, which are of interest only to me, B.A. and perhaps my mother. My hypothesis that the human body starts to break down from the ridiculously early age of 35 or so should be of interest to any human in danger of turning 35 one day.

G.I. Jane was probably not a great film, but I found it very inspiring, having begun to get in shape for the first time in my life. And for almost ten years I was in great shape and regretted only that I had not been more athletic as a teenager. Although not overweight, I had disliked corporal existence and felt that my body was something heavy and smelly that I had to drag around. A daily two-mile run somewhere pretty, followed by a dumb-bell session, and (probably above all) fasting from sugar would have made me less depressed.

A fun, enjoyable and healthy goal for a teenager or twenty-year old might be to become as strong, fast and fit as possible by 30. You can maintain the strength of your 30 year old self for twenty years, apparently. Oh, this is where my brother Quadrophonic would like me to warn you that I am not a doctor and you should not take any of this as a substitute for medical advice. Consider it philosophy.

For a young, healthy body to mooch around a shopping mall or sit in a chair with the internet all day is simply a waste of a young, healthy body. We all know what young, healthy human bodies are capable of from watching the Olympics or just an important race. Whereas I do not think Olympic training is necessarily good for bodies--the training goal is not the fitness of the body but the victory--it at least shows us what the human body can do.

Actually, that would be a fun experiment even for a middle-aged person: what can MY middle-aged, seemingly falling apart body do? However, even if I could run the Edinburgh marathon one day, it would not be as impressive as what a thirty year old, after twenty or even ten years of training, would be capable of.

So if you are under 30, I highly recommend that you see a doctor to ask for advice and permission to develop your fitness to the highest level you are capable of. And, again, this does not mean winning competitions but seeking the maximum health of your body.  For example, boxing training is fantastic for your body until you step into the ring and someone punches you in the face. I am grateful for my boxing years as they made me a stronger, healthier and braver woman,  but I hope I quit before my chances of developing Parkinson's skyrocketed.

The other unsolicited advice I have for the young is for those with dry, curly, bushy, thick hair. I wish I had known this at ten, let alone thirteen. Had I known this from a child, I would have been bullied less and felt a lot happier about my appearance. Dear heavens, the freedom of not having to think about one's appearance.

Anyway, it is this: never brush your hair, stop using shampoo, scrub your scalp with a bit of conditioner after working it through your wet hair from the ends, use a detangler on your conditioned-up hair, rinse, squish the water out with a towel, apply a tablespoon of coconut oil to your hair, comb it through with the detangler, and then loosely braid your hair for a few  hours, unbraiding it later long enough for it to dry, and then braiding it up again. Since I discovered coconut oil, I have been able to grow my hair as long as my smooth-haired mother can for the first time in my life.

And now I shall find some advice about fitness goals for the over-40 set, listen to some Polish, and learn some more about the anarchist objections to the minimal state.