Saints, Books and Fake News. What more could a girl want? I am sorry for my lack of blogging these past few days – not only was it a busy weekend (more on that in a couple of days) but my computer hard drive crashed at the office, so I’ve been busy reloading stuff (make sure your backup is saving hidden files. And, apparently, Microsoft Outlook files are hidden. Don’t ask me how I know that) Anyway, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been tagged with two Memes, one about Saints and one about Books.

Saints – Deb tagged me with this lovely Saint Meme. It took me so long to finish, that David Bryan and Hilarius also both tagged me.

1) Sts. Cyril and Methodius. I've written about them before and their Saint Day is this week, so it seems appropriate to have them at the top of my list.

2) St. Sava. The very first Orthodox Hagiography I read was St. Nicholai Velimirovich’s “The Life of St. Sava”. He remains one of my favorite saints. I also get to visit a Serbian Church near my parents’ house when I’m in Northern California who calls upon as their heavenly patron Saint Sava (as do most Serbian parishes, I’ve noticed) and I enjoy the iconography of the church very much.

3) St. Elizabeth the New Martyr. A convert to Orthodoxy (like me) who was martyred in the 20th Century and of Royal background. And yet, she gave up all the opulence to serve her adopted Russian people. I am blessed to be able to venerate her relics in my parish, and visit a church under her patronage with good friends now and then.

4) Sts. Boris and Gleb. Another pair of Saints that I have written about before.

5) The Holy Archangel Michael, my patron saint. I’ve written about my perplexity that a little pacifist like me ended up under the protection of the leader of the Bodiless Hosts, but I am truly blessed to be there.

As to who I'd like to see Glorified - I am pretty happy to not be involved in this process, and like to wait until Glorification has occured, but I am sure that I am not the only one who thinks that the writings of Father Alexander Schmemann have been profitable to my soul.

Books – Another Deb, the lovely Ukok, tagged me for the Book Meme :

Name up to three characters . . .
1) . . . you wish were real so you could meet them.
Codi in Animal Dreams (Barbara Kingsolver)
Despereaux in the Tale of Despereaux (Kate DiCamillo)
Doc in Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)

2) ...you wish you could be
Nancy Drew (Carolyn Keene)
Heidi (Johanna Spyri)
And, like March Hare, Thursday Next (Jasper Fforde)

3)....that scare you
I'm not one to read books that scare me, but
Hannibal Lector(I’ve actually never read any of these books, the first movie was enough) (Thomas Harris)
Miss Rottenmeier (guess what I just re-read. Although she wasn’t evil, just very rule oriented)
Arnie after Christine possessed him. (Stephen King)

And, lastly – Fake News. This story had me rolling on the ground: Chris Berman’s Nicknames Becoming More Obscure After Taking Night Course in Russian Literature.
I’ll leave with a quote:

Tonight we've got a veritable Cherry Orchard of highlights to pick from as we Chekhov our top plays," Berman said during Tuesday night's broadcast of SportsCenter in a display of tortured literary puns and obscure references the likes of which viewers have come to dread. "We'll check in on the fading fortunes of Uncle I-Vanya Rodriguez, the tragic circumstances that brought pitcher Dennis Dove-stoyevsky into the big leagues, and find out if the tempestuous relationship between Kurt and Kyle Busch make them the new Brothers NASCAR-amazov, so stay tuned."