The other day I logged into my MySpace account to find yet another long lost memory from my best friend Jennifer, who also recently, you may remember, brought me that other reminder of my star-studded, high-fashion teenage years. I can't believe I haven't talked more about my CCD experience yet on this blog (for you non-catholics out there, that's Sunday School). Because, honestly, it was a pretty amazing experience. And I don't mean it was amazing in the way the nuns and Sunday School teachers wanted it to be amazing for us. Like, as in, I got very into the Virgin Mary and whispered prayers to her in times of trouble. I played the Virgin Mary in one of our CCD Christmas productions, and if you don't think I got hell from my friends for that, well, you're wrong.

Those Christmas pageants, by the way, were truly outstanding, if by "outstanding" you understand "excruciating." We'd practice for maybe about 20 minutes the week prior to performing. Needless to say, our parents LOVED it. I can't quite remember the choice words my father used explain just how much he did not want to attend those Christmas pageants but he may have said something like, "Oh JESUS Christ, not another Christmas pageant," and then gone to "park the car" for a really, really long time while my mother was forced to enter the auditorium alone and wait (this, "parking the car," by the way, was a method my father used to get out of going to mass, too - he'd say something along the lines of, "Kathy, kids, go ahead in and get a seat - you know how hard it is to park on Sunday mornings around here..." and then he'd never show up, and after communion we'd find him sitting outside the church in his car listening to classical music, or maybe smoking a cigar or something).

The only redeeming thing about my CCD experience - besides the entertainment factor - was that Jennifer had to go, too, and that made it a lot more fun.

I can't quite remember the nun's name, which is funny, because she certainly was around an awful lot. She treated us CCD kids worse than the kids who were actually enrolled in Catholic school, disgusted, I suppose, that our parents had not opted for the full immersion experience, although she looks pretty pleased in the above picture. Maybe because she was getting rid of us. It must have been taken, I'm guessing, towards the end of our Sunday School experience. Once you were confirmed, and your soul safely dedicated to Christ, I guess our parents figured we didn't really need the continued education. Also, by that age, we were obviously getting so hot that no one could really concentrate on praying anymore, so it was clearly time to move on.