Whether you’re single or not, I have a proposal for Valentine’s Day to make it better. This Valentine’s Day has been nice because it’s on a Saturday. I can actually spend time with my wife. If I were single, I would also have the day off to enjoy whatever I’d like to enjoy as a single. So why set this holiday, mainly for selling greeting cards (see the quote at the end), on a fixed date that can sometimes land on a Wednesday night? Where’s the romance or even use in that? I hereby propose that Valentine’s Day be set to the second Friday in February, giving romantically involved couples or singles the chance to enjoy a long weekend, starting off with a date of choice on Friday PM. Come on, this would be good for couples, singles, AND the economy. Instead, in two years I’ll be back to celebrating V-Day on some stupid school night where I’ll either have class or work in the morning. Bah. Related, one of my favorite remarks about Valentine’s Day comes from Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In it, he says….

Random thoughts for Valentine’s day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.

Background: We bought our cat, Chester, because of a response we got from a Craigslist want ad we put out. Rosanna requested a male orange tabby cat because they are known for their affection and easy-going nature. We got a response from someone saying they just had a litter with a cat fitting our description. We went up and fell in love. As you can see, I couldn’t imagine saying no to that kind of happiness in my wife! So we took him back home at the start of July. It always puzzled me that Chester was pretty much content to do his own thing and wasn’t the most affectionate cat I’d ever come across. I figured he just needed to have some certain biological symbols of aggression removed and he’d mellow out. We finally got around to the action steps a few weeks ago. He was getting to be about 8 months old by this point, and we figured it was past time to follow Bob Barker’s advice and help control the pet population by having our pet spayed or neutered. So Rosanna found a great clinic that would do the neuter for about $60. Score. Spaying was twice as much, and boy were we glad we had a boy! Enter today. We take Chester, complaining with agonizing meows the whole way, to the clinic. The vet took him into a room to examine him, and we started filling out paperwork. She came out with him and asked us, rather abruptly, “Where did you get this cat?” We explained his history briefly, and she said, “We can’t neuter this cat; I can’t find anything to remove. She needs to be spayed.” She?!?! That’s right. Turns out, even after we did some research on how to tell the difference between boy cats and girl cats, our research failed us and we have, beyond all doubt, a female cat on our hands. She’s currently in recovery. But even though she’s had a bad day, we’re probably in bigger shock over what has just happened. It’s hilarious, and we see no reason to be angry. I suppose we could have it out with the people we bought her from, but we’ll send them a belated Christmas card celebrating the name change modification we decide on. We do love her, it’s just about the most bizarre thing in the world to me to use feminine personal pronouns when talking about her. It’s like the boy version died and we have a slightly different cat. She’s the same, but she’s not. See that? That’s weird. I feel odd typing girl pronouns. Well, now the main question is: what do we do with her name? She responds to Chester, so we don’t want to change it. We thought about “Chester Sue,” as a nod to Johnny Cash’s song about a boy with an identity crisis revolving his feminine name. Not to mention, this will always be a great story in the future. We’ve also considered Chelsea, since it’s kind of close to Chester. Chess is on the list, too (since we call him – err, her that a lot), or Chessie. But dang it. I always loved calling her “Chesterton.” It was just so much fun to say. As well as “Little Guy!” And “Buddy.” Well, shoot. Any suggestions are welcomed. :o) Meanwhile, she seems to be doing fine and has no confusion as to who she is.

In two weeks, John Piper will give the inaugurating message for The Bethlehem College & Seminary. Apparently, INSIGHT will eventually become a B.A. program, and starting next fall, TBI will welcome its first class of MDiv students, God-willing. Somehow, they’re going to fold past TBI students in so we can get our MDiv as well, which will probably require another year or two of study, if we’re so inclined. Here’s hoping it’s only one. Studies are getting very difficult. Okay, Intermediate Greek is difficult. My class on worship is a blast, the missions class is fascinating, the practical theology class is probably my favorite, and I wouldn’t trade my mentored ministry for anything. We also do this thing called Table Talk, where during our Thursday lunch hour all of the TBI students get to have lunch with a church leader, usually Piper, and we get to pepper him with questions, like how you can survive intermediate Greek. :o) Rosanna has a blog now, BTW. You can, and should, find it here: My Semi-Charmed Life: Happy Living in a Broken World She updates more than I do. That’s not saying much, because she really does update frequently enough to be worth reading. I’ll try to follow in her footsteps now.

In two weeks, John Piper will give the inaugurating message for The Bethlehem College & Seminary. Apparently, INSIGHT will eventually become a B.A. program, and starting next fall, TBI will welcome its first class of MDiv students, God-willing. Somehow, they’re going to fold past TBI students in so we can get our MDiv as well, which will probably require another year or two of study, if we’re so inclined. Here’s hoping it’s only one. Studies are getting very difficult. Okay, Intermediate Greek is difficult. My class on worship is a blast, the missions class is fascinating, the practical theology class is probably my favorite, and I wouldn’t trade my mentored ministry for anything. We also do this thing called Table Talk, where during our Thursday lunch hour all of the TBI students get to have lunch with a church leader, usually Piper, and we get to pepper him with questions, like how you can survive intermediate Greek. :o) Rosanna has a blog now, BTW. You can, and should, find it here: My Semi-Charmed Life: Happy Living in a Broken World She updates more than I do. That’s not saying much, because she really does update frequently enough to be worth reading. I’ll try to follow in her footsteps now.

I’ll continue with the Edwards sermon soon. I read this a few moments ago and laughed to myself.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, rejected lifting the drilling moratorium that has been supported by a succession of presidents for nearly two decades. Bush to Congress: Embrace energy exploration now Let’s see… it was 1994, I believe, when this moratorium was decided upon. The president then was Bill Clinton. The only other president we’ve had has been George W. Bush. And he is now removing his support for the moratorium. It just made me chuckle that the article makes it sound like a “succession of presidents for nearly two decades” is any more than one president who resolutely supported it. Anyway. On to bigger and more important things.

Last night, Rosanna and I went on a date consisting of us walking to our new little village (take a little stroll if you wish, though the Google guys didn’t go through it. Shame). We had Pei Wei on the mind, but decided to look around at all the cool little places there. It rocks. Guys, we’ve got a Pei Wei, Chipotle, Cold Stone, Cabina Italian Kitchen (basically the Italian version of Pei Wei), Caribou, clinics, GameStop, Wal-Mart, Cub Foods (big 24 hour grocery store for you non-Minnesotans), USBank, Culvers, Wendy’s, Subway, TiresPlus, a dentist office, and more… all within easy walking distance of where we are. Unbelievable. Wait, did I say GameStop? Yes, yes I did. I told Rosanna before we went to dinner that I wanted to drop in and see what the current state of Wii supplies were. I’d been trying to get one since Christmas time with my birthday and Christmas moneys for sometime, growing weary of the “Do you have any Wiis today? No? Okay. Thanks.” side of the conversation I’d been having for six months or so. I figured it’d behoove me to get to know some of the managers at such a convenient GameStop and see if I could get a head’s up as to when a shipment was coming in. It’s not what you know, really. It’s who you know. Anyway. In we go, and the only people there is an assistant manager and an employee. Rosanna likes to make fun of the classic gamer type, y’know, the kind of person who lives vicariously through a video game character because he can’t be successful in any other part of his life? I didn’t ask her about it, but these guys impressed me as having a good head on their shoulders. At least the assistant store manager did, but that’s probably because he’s the kind of person that would make it to assistant store manager. “Hey, guys. What can we do for you?” came the inquiry. Bracing myself for the I-hate-answering-this-question-500-times-a-day attitude I’d been accustomed to receiving, I ventured another question. “How’s the Wii demand these days? Are they still selling out as soon as they cross the door?” Imagine my surprise when the manager said, “They’re still selling out quickly. But I think we’ve got one in the back.” IT’S MY LUCKY DAY!!! “Bring that puppy out here,” says I, and they do. A brand new Apple-inspired box of Nintendo’s latest goodness. “Oh, and we just got a used Mario Kart in the store, if you’re interested.” Now, this game just came out, and to get my hands on a used one was pretty cool. Save some money, get a game that you can play with other people? I think so. Bottom line, we ended up with a) a Wii, b) Wii Play (with an extra Wiimote), c) an extra nun-chuck, d) Mario Kart Wii. Quite a start. Rosanna wants this horse game, My Horse and Me, and I’m gonna admit that I really don’t care about the game, but I’m glad that Rosanna is finding an interest in such things. Thanks, Nintendo, for a game system that my wife and I can have fun with together! We’re also interested in Wii Fit. Big time. So yeah. If you’ve got a Wii and you want to befriend us, or if you’re up for some Mario Kart, please let us know. We’ll be looking forward to leaving you in our dust trails soon. And I enjoy playing games more now because I have time for them because I’m getting things done. w00t!