Saturday, November 18, 2006

Seen and noted (with cats)

Once in a while I have time for idle pursuits, such as looking up my own blog in places like Technorati. Of course, a search on "paternoster" turns up the predictable "junk" blogs (which are basically just a string of unrelated words) and nonsense posts with headings like, um, the names of certain heavily advertised medications. Then there are a few rants on the "evils" of the Inquisition (or of Christianity in general), as well as rather more neutral references to fishing lures, elevators (see A Paternoster by any other name...) and places or people named Paternoster.

On the positive side, I find I'm classed as a "Rational Religious Blog" (one of only two!) by EnglishEclectic, for instance, and I'm also on the links list of a number of other blogs of people I've never met. (Admittedly, while some are my friends, a liking for paternoster beads is probably the only thing I have in common with a few of the others!)

My posts also occasionally get picked up by historical blog "carnivals" -- a Blog Carnival being a listing of other blogs' recent articles of interest on a particular topic. This rosary is shot, for instance, is noted in Carnivalesque XX. (Irrelevant note: the names of the other participating blogs in such carnivals are an additional source of amusement.)

Speaking of amusement, my current favorite discovery -- and this is related to rosaries, however vaguely, I promise! -- is one of the comments to this post, which mentions both my sites favorably. Now, you may not think that rosaries have anything to do with cats... but if you are owned by a cat (as I am), you will quickly be reminded that cats are interested in everything!

The comments, unfortunately, don't have e-mail links, so I couldn't ask permission to re-post this.

"Kasia" writes:

Furthermore, I have two sweet but mischievous cats who are very enthusiastic about 'helping' me pray the Rosary! ("Ooo, look what you have! That looks like a GREAT toy!" *bat* *bat* *bite* etc.) Praying [the rosary] in front of the computer does lose something of the beauty and meditative quality of using the beads, but it's better than (a) not saying it at all, and (b) fending off the 'helpers'. It's far more meditative for me to pray in front of a screen than to be continually shoving a 20-lb cat out of the room:

"Hail Mary, full of - Hey, cut that out! - grace, the Lord is - Cat, would you please stop trying to eat the crucifix? - with Thee, blesse - Blessed Heaven, would you stop...OW! No claws! NO CLAWS!...where's the spritz bottle?..."