Future Spouse and I, not happy enough with round one of the torture, oh I meant pre-cana, decided (were forced) to head back to Rounds 2 and 3 for more fun!
Round 2 of pre-cana can be summed up in one phrase: Sex the Catholic way!
Yes, that's right boys and girls, nothing says fun like listening to a Deacon say the words "my wife and I use Natural Family Planning and becuase of that I know, down to the minute, what time each of my children was conceived." I also enjoyed the tirade against birth control that included the phrase "it has been proven that birth control is bad for women's health." Really? Tell me how please! We just laughed our way through this until they put a video on to tell us about Natural Family Planning and how its the best birth control on the market. The video used words like "cervical" and "mucus." I thought I was going to vomit or laugh too hard, so I just stared at the floor. I looked up at one point and realized that the video was made in the late sixties and about threw up from trying not to laugh. We ran from there as fast as we could and came home laughing so hard. What else can you do?
Round Three looked promising from the start. This week we were going to discuss Finances! With the recession in full swing and unemployment hovering around 10% in the country, I figured this would be a great chat. Instead, we a got a sheet of paper with financial planning information on it that was so outdated we just, once again, started laughing. I guess if you live in the middle of nowhere you can get by on a house for $150,000, but we live in a metro area....$150,000 is a downpayment on a condo! Then we got a 20 minute lecture on joint checking accounts and how each of us should know where every single penny goes. Future Spouse goes "I don't care if you spend $10 for lunch...geeze...this is old school stuff." Yes, yes it is. Are you surprised? So the class ended and we went to leave. I walked up to the deacon and stuck out my hand to shake his. He looked at me, turned around and waited til Future Spouse walked up, shook his hand, and then came back to me. Ugh. I forgot, I m supposed to be standing behind my man, not in front of him...god forbid the deacon shake my hand first. What matters, I guess, is that we got our piece of paper saying we can get married. I came home and promptly threw out every handout the Deacon had given us and put the magic paper in a safe place.
Lessons Learned from Pre-Cana Rounds 2 and 3:
1. Don't have sex. Its just easier this way to not have to worry about it.
2. People in religious occupations should never, ever, ever, discuss their sex lives out loud.
3. A joint checking account is the only way to go. "Honey, I spent a quarter at a parking meter today. Put it in the book."
4. A house should only cost $150,000.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
The Fantasticness of PreCana
So the soon to be husband and I are getting married in August, and, as with anything in church, it has to be a little bit hard or its not worthwhile. So this week we started our precana classes. The following is a quick recap of Precana, class one:
As soon as you arrive, you are herded into the third grade CCD room. I said a quick little prayer for the fact that there were real chairs, although they were folding and pretty uncomfortable. On the walls there are cute colorings of Jesus and some kids or Jesus coming out of the clouds to talk to a crowd of people. You can tell which drawings are by the good children: they are the ones that color within the lines and write their names in nice block letters. The bad children draw all over the pictures, scribble their names in detailed scrawl, and draw pictures of themselves on the backs of the coloring pages. I'm sure our children will be classified as "bad" by they time they get to CCD.
The class is led by a Deacon from Delaware. He introduced himself and told us all about what he does (I think he is a teacher) and a little bit about why we need precana (to keep us in line!). He then asked us to go around the group and introduce our future spouses. I was a wreck because these things make me so nervous, so I was pretty much shaking at the thought of introducing my future spouse. Of course, I looked up at the Deacon as he said this, so I got to go first. I stumbled over future spouse's introduction and accidently told people he was in the wrong profession. I started to correct myself and then said "Oh nevermind." and stopped talking. Future Spouse's introduction of me was better because he got my occupation correct and even said my last name. Then the Deacon turned to the couple to our right.
Now, this couple looked like fun, because, as they pulled up in their farm truck, she got out and promoptly spit all over the sidewalk. Guess you gotta get rid of that smokeless tobacco somehow. They also couldn't find the church and walked around in circles for a few minutes. I guess if you don't go to church, its hard to envision what one would look like. I'm going to refer to her as The Spitter. She did something and he was an electrician or something like that. I'm not sure, because I was staring at the Jesus colorings.
The the last couple was approached. She was very prepared and had her notebook, bible, marriage prep book (we lost ours, think its packed somewhere), and pens. He had a Coke and gave the sign of the cross backwards. I'm not sure what either one of them do becuase I kind of got swept away by looking at the Jesus pictures on the wall while they were talking.
Anyway, awkward introductions aside, Future Spouse and I looked around and realize that we are the oldest people there and, um, by a big gap. I'm at least six or seven years older than the other girls and Future Spouse has the guys by about 15 years. This was pointed out by the clever Deacon who informed us that "you all are ancient!" Thanks Dude. We're already unhappy to be here, now we're old and unhappy.
Then he began an introduction into the precana program. "Well, this is great, you are in the second month of your 12 month marriage preparation classes with the church." Future Spouse and I looked at each other. "Second month? Twelve month prep?" We saw the other couples looking around and counting on their fingers and finally Prepared with Books Girl goes "um, actually we are only 9 months from our wedding," and we go "yeah, we're just over seven." The Deacon seems confused by this then goes "oh well." Great. Then he tells us that this is just part two of our overall marriage prep with the dicoese. Part Three is meeting with a married couple from the church once a week for four months. Future Spouse and I, once again, stare at each other and mentally tell each other to stop talking becuase the priest told us we weren't doing that or any of the other stuff because we live far away and because we don't need it. Apparently being ancient means you don't have to deal with the awkward "let's hang out with happy catholics and talk about marriage" chats. The Spitter couple also loked somewhat confused and said "we haven't talked to the priest about that." Apparently many parishes skip this becuase they don't have the people to do it.
Afterwards the deacon asks us why we are getting married. The answers range from "I love him" to "commitment, spirituality, its a sacrament, we want a family etc." Then Spitter Girl bursts out with "Because my family wants us to." Hmmm...that pretty much silenced the room.
After that awkward intermssion, we took a nice quiz. Basically the quiz is ten things people fight about in marriages. Future Spouse and I figure we did ok on the quiz becuase we can't remember what we did last weekend, let alone what our first fight was about. We also both like to read and watch sports.
After that the Decon basically droned on for roughly another hour about how women were considered unclean in the past, and how living together is bad, especially if you do it for the money (oops). I forget what else he said. Oh yeah, we should pray together for the spouses of our future children. After a while my head started to hurt. He promised us that next week we would have worksheets and it would be more fun!
We ran out of there in time to watch the Superbowl.
Lessons Learned from Precana class one: don't tell the deacon you are living in sin, we are old, some people get married because their family want them to.
As soon as you arrive, you are herded into the third grade CCD room. I said a quick little prayer for the fact that there were real chairs, although they were folding and pretty uncomfortable. On the walls there are cute colorings of Jesus and some kids or Jesus coming out of the clouds to talk to a crowd of people. You can tell which drawings are by the good children: they are the ones that color within the lines and write their names in nice block letters. The bad children draw all over the pictures, scribble their names in detailed scrawl, and draw pictures of themselves on the backs of the coloring pages. I'm sure our children will be classified as "bad" by they time they get to CCD.
The class is led by a Deacon from Delaware. He introduced himself and told us all about what he does (I think he is a teacher) and a little bit about why we need precana (to keep us in line!). He then asked us to go around the group and introduce our future spouses. I was a wreck because these things make me so nervous, so I was pretty much shaking at the thought of introducing my future spouse. Of course, I looked up at the Deacon as he said this, so I got to go first. I stumbled over future spouse's introduction and accidently told people he was in the wrong profession. I started to correct myself and then said "Oh nevermind." and stopped talking. Future Spouse's introduction of me was better because he got my occupation correct and even said my last name. Then the Deacon turned to the couple to our right.
Now, this couple looked like fun, because, as they pulled up in their farm truck, she got out and promoptly spit all over the sidewalk. Guess you gotta get rid of that smokeless tobacco somehow. They also couldn't find the church and walked around in circles for a few minutes. I guess if you don't go to church, its hard to envision what one would look like. I'm going to refer to her as The Spitter. She did something and he was an electrician or something like that. I'm not sure, because I was staring at the Jesus colorings.
The the last couple was approached. She was very prepared and had her notebook, bible, marriage prep book (we lost ours, think its packed somewhere), and pens. He had a Coke and gave the sign of the cross backwards. I'm not sure what either one of them do becuase I kind of got swept away by looking at the Jesus pictures on the wall while they were talking.
Anyway, awkward introductions aside, Future Spouse and I looked around and realize that we are the oldest people there and, um, by a big gap. I'm at least six or seven years older than the other girls and Future Spouse has the guys by about 15 years. This was pointed out by the clever Deacon who informed us that "you all are ancient!" Thanks Dude. We're already unhappy to be here, now we're old and unhappy.
Then he began an introduction into the precana program. "Well, this is great, you are in the second month of your 12 month marriage preparation classes with the church." Future Spouse and I looked at each other. "Second month? Twelve month prep?" We saw the other couples looking around and counting on their fingers and finally Prepared with Books Girl goes "um, actually we are only 9 months from our wedding," and we go "yeah, we're just over seven." The Deacon seems confused by this then goes "oh well." Great. Then he tells us that this is just part two of our overall marriage prep with the dicoese. Part Three is meeting with a married couple from the church once a week for four months. Future Spouse and I, once again, stare at each other and mentally tell each other to stop talking becuase the priest told us we weren't doing that or any of the other stuff because we live far away and because we don't need it. Apparently being ancient means you don't have to deal with the awkward "let's hang out with happy catholics and talk about marriage" chats. The Spitter couple also loked somewhat confused and said "we haven't talked to the priest about that." Apparently many parishes skip this becuase they don't have the people to do it.
Afterwards the deacon asks us why we are getting married. The answers range from "I love him" to "commitment, spirituality, its a sacrament, we want a family etc." Then Spitter Girl bursts out with "Because my family wants us to." Hmmm...that pretty much silenced the room.
After that awkward intermssion, we took a nice quiz. Basically the quiz is ten things people fight about in marriages. Future Spouse and I figure we did ok on the quiz becuase we can't remember what we did last weekend, let alone what our first fight was about. We also both like to read and watch sports.
After that the Decon basically droned on for roughly another hour about how women were considered unclean in the past, and how living together is bad, especially if you do it for the money (oops). I forget what else he said. Oh yeah, we should pray together for the spouses of our future children. After a while my head started to hurt. He promised us that next week we would have worksheets and it would be more fun!
We ran out of there in time to watch the Superbowl.
Lessons Learned from Precana class one: don't tell the deacon you are living in sin, we are old, some people get married because their family want them to.
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