heh heh heh Hee Hee Hee JAWHOOOOOOOAAAAAHHHH! (Pronounce that "J" in proper Hochdeutsch, there, Infidel!

We were driving from San Luis Obispo to Oakland, making a miniature Mission tour along the way. San Luis Obispo, San Miguel, and then the nearly 50 mile detour off the main road to see San Antonio de Padua (a first for both of us). All very lovely, and I will report on them later, if I feel like it (but honestly, just take my word for it, come out and see them for yourself, particularly in the spring when the wildflowers are in bloom).

Anyway, it was somewhere on one side of San Miguel or another that we heard the news. White smoke. Cardinal Ratzinger. Yipeeee!

At the same time the Jesuits just had a collective pants crapping. Pity.

I really did not think that Ratzinger had a chance. German. Seen as hardline. But not only did he get elected, but right away. Wow!

Anyway, the Lepanto League had an impromtu party for the new pontiff, so we went straight from the road to the party location, stopping only briefly to pick up a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a case of Spaten. I can think of no more appropriate time to drink a Pabst or three, than on the election of a German to the office of, well, Pabst. Of course one good Pabst deserves a couple of Spaten (und nicht so Spaet, bitte), and then one is wondering why one is feeling a little bit, well, over. And then one remembers the toasts with sparkling wine, and thinks, "ach, I forgot about those. Should have avoided that French stuff altogether!"

So then one rants while drinking pints of water.

Water.

You know what fish do in it?

Anyway, it is the penance for calculating your drinks and forgetting that bit in the middle when you switched streams only to go back again. If you switch streams, don't go back!

So, pardon my absence here, but I was in San Luis Obispo, which is, I think, in California, but surely not my part of California. Tomorrow I might have something to post on something or other, but surely by Thursday, I have a double barreled whamo to some 19 year old girl (I hope she is not older than that, as I try not to pick on special needs folks) who has mistakenly wandered into the land of Eriksrant, pulling the "ohmigod, it's like, so, ohmigod" tolerance routine. Hee hee hee.

Pope Benedict XVI!!! Hebemus Papam (oder haben wir Pabst!).

Jiiiiiiiiiiiii---HAAAAAAAAW!