FULLY INVOLVED

Pop quiz.  What is the Bad Vestments rule about flames and directionality?

GIANT DEAD SPIDER

I guess you could call this the ultimate bad vestment.  But it seems that the former cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan(AKA Far And Away The Ugliest Church Building In The Entire History Of Christianity From The Ascension Of Christ Into Heaven Until The Present Day) has been memorialized in a book.

NOSTALGIA

Gas being as expensive as it is and my truck being on its last legs, I haven't been able to take one of these in a very long time.  But my all-time favorite vacation used to be a drive through the American Southwest.

I always drove, I never flew.  I am by birth and temperament a Westerner so I had to see the land, not fly over it in a hurry to get someplace else.  And I had to see all of the land and I had to take as much time as I possibly could doing it.

I needed Kansas and eastern Colorado to appreciate the Rockies and the Rockies to appreciate Kansas and eastern Colorado.  I needed southern Utah to appreciate northern Arizona and northern New Mexico and I needed all of them to appreciate north Texas.

I took one of these trips with my dad once(really not a smart move as Pop was never the easiest guy in the world to travel with) but I drove the rest of them alone.  And that was another thing I loved about those roadies.

You can think uninterrupted out there all by yourself.  You can pray or just be still and know that He is God.  When you're not doing that, you can listen to KTNN, 660 AM on your radio dial, the Voice of the Navajo Nation. 

KTNN's music is country and most of the talking's actually in Navajo.  And believe me, there is nothing better in the world to listen to when you're driving through the desert.

The souvenir places are all pretty much the same, as Southwest as all get out, but I love them anyway.  Indian jewelry.  "Indian" or "Mexican" blankets that were probably made in China.

On one trip, I actually bought one of those blankets.  I don't remember what I paid for it but it wasn't much.  And it's currently decorating a chair here in the Bad Vestments office as I write this.

I have absolutely no idea why I thought of all that just now.

JOHNSON GIFT ADVICE

I'm not Catholic and I don't mean to go all sectarian or anything but if I wanted to give a favorite priest a gift to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, a bottle of really good Bushmill's, the kind you nurse for six months, would probably be my first choice.  But that's just me.

BISHOPS FROM THE PLANET XARCHON

Take your pick.

(1) They gave him this miter because his theology's, like, out there, man.

(2) Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the Anglican Primate of Mars.

THE GRIM BISHOP

Bishop Lawrence?  I don't know, maybe I'm being overly sensitive or something, but you MIGHT want to seriously rethink that crozier.  It has certain...associations.  And as my beloved mother used to regularly tell me, you could put somebody's eye out with that thing.

AWN-SAHM-BLEH

Remember those really tacky matching sweaters your mom forced you and your siblings to wear for the family Christmas card photo that one year?  Well, they called just now and they wanted you to know how sorry they are.