Saturday

Here's how my day went.

9:00 Roused into consciousness from a creepy dream involving my youngest boy, tempestuous ocean waves, and Harvard's Langdell Hall.

10:45 Dropped oldest boy off at Mountain View Park to referee three soccer games.

11:15 Sorted laundry, watered the new rye grass and fruit trees, and added water to the pool.

12:00 Made lunch for myself-- rice, chopped red cabbage, and tuna.

1:00 Picked up two gallons of fat-free milk from Albertsons. Returned them thirty minutes later for two percent. While driving to Albertsons on Indian Bend, I saw a collision-- a Buick driven by an elderly man at seventy miles per hour broad-sided a turning red Sentra that then hit a traffic light, causing the light to collapse and all lights at the intersection to shut down. The man sat stunned in his car while gasoline leaked over the road.

3:00 My 13 year old bought a T-Mobile cell phone with his referee earnings. He has wanted this for some time. The plan costs $50 a month, and he will pay for everything. Yet another introduction to the karma of effort. Study hard, get good grades. Work hard, and get things things you want. Certis paribus of course,

5:00 Watched C-SPAN for a hour. Interesting debate "Is Christianity the Problem?" from The King's College in New York, with Dinesh D'Souza, author of "What's So Great About Christianity," and Christopher Hitchens, author of "God Is Not Great," moderated by Mavin Olasky, provost of King's. I had seen Dinesh a few times before on Fox, and was never impressed by his predictable right-wing platitudes perhaps due to the kind of questions and format that Fox has. I had also heard Hitchens before as well on various cable shows, and I also was never impressed with his visceral hatred of Christianity and militant anti-theism. Although the audience applauded D'Souza more frequently that Hitchens, I felt Hitchens had the better arguments. The claim that the West's ethics derive from Jesus Christ, that Hitlerism is agnostic, and that proof for a divine law giver lies in the fine-tuned laws of the universe were just a few of the D'Souza's assertions that struck me as dubious. I was also dubious about Hitchens' claim regarding the theistic predicates to Marxist-Leninism. For fanatics on either side, Christianity is the either the source of all evil or the source of all good. There is a middle ground in there some where.

6:00 Took my youngest boy to Nothing But Noodles where I had wavy egg noodles sautéed with tender beef and mushrooms, tossed in a Stroganoff sauce. He had alfredo-- curly pasta tossed with a freshly made Parmesan cream sauce, topped with Parmesan and Romano cheeses. On Saturday and Sunday, his dinner was free. A good meal, but the restaurant was deserted. I'm not sure why. Drove back home into a spectacular goldenrod sunset.

7:00 My wife and I went to the Harkins Shea 14 to see new Steve Carrell movie "Dan In Real life." We enjoy seeing "The Office" each week, so we were curious about his latest movie release-- and we weren't disappointed. It was a feel-good comedy that captured the poignancy of trying to kindle the spark of love in the middle of one's life and also the tension between what one proclaims and what one lives. The setting-- a family reunion in Rhode Island-- also reminded me of our family reunions as well in Door County and also our summer trips to New Hampshire when I was a kid. I recommend it.