21 October 2008

Fr. Philip Neri's Top Five of Just About Everything!

As is abundantly evident from my recent posts and comments, I have been in something of a funk lately. I have a Roman cold. I'm not sleeping well (again!). And this $%#@ election is driving me nuts.

BUT none of these is reason enough to stay cranky. So, I've decided to lighten the mood a bit by posting on some of my favorite things. My challenge to bloggers: you do it too!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Fr. Philip Neri's Top Five of Just About Everything!

Top Five Weird Food Combos:

1. blackeyes & mayo on cornbread
2. peanut butter & banana on Ritzs
3. roasted chicken with yogurt & peanuts
4. apple/celery soup with pesto
5. vanilla ice cream with peanut butter and balsamic vinegar

Top Five Fav Halloween Costumes He Has Worn:

1. creepy surgeon with bloody knife
2. albino vampire with handcuffs
3. High Goth magician complete with goatee and earring!
4. Spartacus with sword (my mom's icing spatula)
5. ghost of a gorilla killed by poachers

Top Five Fav Christmas Gifts:

1. a doctor's home visit kit (three years in a row! yes!)
2. a LED digital watch in 1979. . .only kid in school with one of those
3. a tuition check from my parents in 1986
4. Santa's Magical $50 that appears in my stocking annually (yes, I have stocking!)
5. a stereo system with my first ever cassette: Huey Lewis and the News

Top Five Fashion Statements I Wish I Had Never Made:

1. getting my ear pierced in 1990 (ugh)
2. wearing a paisley shirt with poofy sleeves and an antique broach in 1985 (ugh-ugh)
3. letting my hair grow down to my shoulders a la George Michael ca. 1989
4. daily wear of all black--jeans, turtle-neck, boots, overcoat, glasses
5. plaid golf pants, burgundy IZOD shirt, pink IZOD sweater, loafers w/the penny ca. 1982

Top Five Dumb Things I Have Done That I Can Admit to in Public:

1. Frequently going out of town to parties with a drunk friend driving (stupid, stupid)
2. Moving into a large antebellum home with colleagues from my department who eschewed cleanliness and domestic responsibility like a rabid squirrel on crack
3. Agreeing to purchase a package of three-year magazine subscriptions that cost $600 (yea, I got out of it)
4. locking myself out of my apartment minutes after my roommate drives off for the weekend and then breaking the small window on the kitchen door only to realize that the small window is in fact not just a piece of the door but the entire window: $80 for replacement.
5. Helping some friends "clear out" their liquor cabinet before a move (shudder)

Top Five Dumbest Things I Have Ever Said:

1. 1986: the women's bathroom in the lobby of our dorm had no interior door. I was the RA on desk duty during fall sign-in for the freshmen. A mom comes in and asks for the bathroom. I directed her. Not wanting anyone to walk in on her unexpectedly, I offered: "Would like for me to watch?"
2. 1991: I was giving a literature exam, sitting at the desk in front of the class. After about fifteen minutes of quiet, for no apparent reason, I barked out: "KNIFE!"
3. I was at home one Christmas and my mom asked to me mix up some walnut brownies. I read the directions on the box and proceeded to mix. My mom comes into the kitchen and watches me mix the batter with my hand. My defense? "The directions say 'mix by hand'"!
4. To a psychotic patient on the adult unit of a psych hospital: "Are you going to throw that at me or come with us to time out?"
5. To my future housemate wanted to confess something to me before I allowed him to move in. We sat down, and he very solemnly declared, "I'm a Wiccan." I said, "Oh, I thought you were gay."

Top Five Books I Wish I Had Never Read:

1. Creative Visualization
2. Jonathan Livingston Seagull
3. It
4. The Book of Mormon
5. Handbook of Witchcraft

Top Five Things I Would Change in My History:

1. Go to grad school in psychology rather than English
2. Go to teach English in China ten years later than I did
3. Work for several years btw undergrad/grad school
4. Play sports/habituate myself to the gym in high school
5. Never start drinking

Top Five Religious Names that I Rejected in Favor of Philip Neri:

1. Br. Michael Mary of the Five Wounds of Jesus, not including the One on His Shoulder
2. Br. Philippe-Marie of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary
3. Br. Dominic of the Most Holy Face and Most of the Neck
4. Br. Angelo of the Litany to Baby Jesus, Son of Mama Mary
5. Br. Aldred of the Stocial Countenance, Brick of Westhamptonshire.

Title of my autobiography (to be published posthumously): Sittin' in the Shade With the Fat Kids Reading: The Life and Most of the Good Times of Philip Powell

11 comments:

  1. Are those names for real or are you just making them up.

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  2. Anonymous8:02 AM

    LOL!
    Weirdest food combination for me
    (excluding pregnancy times) would be toasted bread with peanut butter, mustard and marshmellows.

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  3. Anonymous12:45 PM

    Are you sure the High Goth Magician was just a costume? ;)

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  4. Smiley, yes I made them up...a little too much caffeine in my coffee this morning...

    Flambeaux, well, maybe...you will have to read my autobiography to find out!

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  5. Great names!! Very funny. I might suggest one or two of them to my confirmandi as good confirmation names - wouldn't that make the bishop stutter!

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  6. Anonymous6:05 AM

    Just out of curiosity, what did the psychotic patient of the "4th Dumbest Thing You've Ever Said" do once you said it?

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  7. David, he threw the chair at me, climbed on a dividing wall, teetered on the wall between the common room and the seclusion space, and then decided to fall on me. I managed to move just in time, but the nurse with the shot of Haldol didn't. Oops.

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  8. Ftaher, I didn't know you had been in China, I did too back in december 1999 (it was the loneliest christmas ever). What a place to be for catholics, right? Among a crowd of atheists who open wide their jaws when you tell them you believe in God. Some walk away with you and others think that you can worship Buddha as easily as Christ (they invited me to do it one time) They couldn't understand why God would not allow me to light a candel to Buddha and reverence him. I wsih like you, I had gone to China ten years after I did. I made two mystakes there that I could have made better If I had gone ten years later. I could have been a better witness of the Gospel now than ten years ago, but only God knows why and when things happen, right?
    What can you comment on your stay in China?

    Blessings in St Dominic

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  9. Anonymous10:51 PM

    hmm I dont ever recall seeing a piercing in your ear

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  10. MM, I let it close up years ago...but the mark is still there...

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  11. Anonymous10:14 PM

    you are a mess!
    i had a pair of paisley pants...i stll have them, i can only get them up to my knees now.

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