dorei

Because of Galaxy42, I am reminded of my past life in Ohio. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, known as the early 1990's, I lived in Cincinnati with my then husband, Bill. Cincinnati is an interesting place. If people asked where you lived, you told them what parish you lived in, whether you were catholic, or not. Now, my ex, Bill, he was what you'd call a "recovering catholic," that is, he had been raised catholic, but hadn't been near the inside of a church except for family weddings since he graduated high school. Me, now, I wasn't catholic ever, and my lack of catholicocity could be best described by me interrupting a wedding at the ripe old age of seven by asking, "what's a pope?" But anyway, I still also would tell people where I lived by what parish I lived in, because well, that's what you did. (It was St. Dominic's, by the way, and in fact, we lived right down the street from it.) When we first moved there, I was employed, but Bill was not, so he spent his days fixin up the house while I was earnin the bacon. A few days after we moved in, the local "welcome wagon" came to call. Per Bill, this is the conversation that took place:

WW: Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood! Will you be going to St. Dominic's down the street?
Bill: Well, I'm catholic*, but my wife isn't.
(WW's smile freezes on her face.)
WW: Oh. Well ... I'm sure she's still very nice!

Of course, later, they all determined we must be satanists, because when we'd throw a party, we'd put tiki torches out on the lawn.

*once a catholic, always a catholic, I guess, but Bill wasn't a good catholic, because during the lenten season one year, the church had up on its board "pray for the souls in purgatory," and I said to him, "gee, I didn't know catholics still believed in purgatory!" and Bill said, "neither did I!" But you can bet we used that sign in our descriptions of directions to the house for those aforementioned satanic rituals ... er ... parties. Yeah. Parties.