one thing today

  ... is a very Southern Gothic little girls name. Very To Kill a Mockingbird.  She was an only child in our neighborhood growing up - which was like being a rainbow colored, three legged, joke telling  unicorn. All the kids knew she always only drank ginger ale because she was deathly allergic to milk and had a mouthful of tiny, rotten teeth to prove it. If even the tiniest drop of milk ever touched her thin, pale lips she'd collapse right there on the spot, never to breathe another breath. All the mothers worried because she was always "as white as a sheet" and as thin as Popeyes girlfriend. Her always worried, overly  protective mother walked her to the school bus and picked her up for lunch and returned her to school and picked her up again at the end of the day.  My close friend Kit lived right across the street from her and whenever she hung out at Patty's house, she'd always have to untie her blond pigtails because otherwise Pattys older than the other da...

...  is  the Roman Catholic doctrine that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist (Holy Communion) miraculously change into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, while retaining their external appearance, taste and smell .   I knew what the word meant in the third grade and even though from the get go I thought it was a crock, I went on to my shortly thereafter career as a cathedral parish altar boy who mastered Latin and getting out of class to serve at funerals.  et plebs tua laetabitur in te   tran sub stan ti a tion noun tran·​sub·​stan·​ti·​a·​tion   ˌtran(t)-səb-ˌstan(t)-shē-ˈā-shən  the miraculous change by which according to Roman Catholic dogma the eucharistic elements at their consecration become the body and blood of Christ while keeping only the appearances of bread and wine.      I knew this word and understood  what it meant in the third grade. and instead of introducing me to the belief I nee...