"What are you rebelling against?" "What d'ya got?" - M. Brando in the "Wild One"

Hey, at least its good to know that the Snakes aren't in hiding (see every prominent position in Washington D.C. -- and the Vatican!) I smell a Rat(zinger) in the house! What's that saying, "the only good Pope is a dead Pope?!?"

I was conversing with a fellow Catholic (she is the practicing kind, I'm not) and she said to me, "I hate to think that your Catholic upbringing ruined you." My response: "I don't think of myself as ruined, it just gave me something to rebel against." She replied, "No I don't mean ruined you as a person, but ruined your relationship with God."

Hah, double hah-hah. This really cracked me up. No, I thought (this part of the conversation was only in my head) my relationship with The Great Belly Laugh (there is no belly, no laugher) is just fine. I can hear the echoes of laughter in everything I do, think, see, and feel ("Tommy can you hear me?").

It's a planet-cracking laughter, the best kind. Not in derision, not in sarcasm, laughter from a place deep inside. The kind that emanates from the knowledge that it's a crazy, wonderful, silly, profoundly confounding life we live!