Leave It To The Bieber

Cathy LaGrow 3 Comments

Recently, I sent out a Facebook message: Did anyone have any suggestions for a great, gritty movie that the hubs and I could watch after we put the boys to bed? Hubby had had a rough week, you see, and sometimes we like to relieve stress by watching other people blow things up.

Several people recommended Inglorious Basterds, but when I went to Redbox that night, they didn’t have the Basterds movie. So, casting about for something similar, I selected Never Say Never, the Justin Bieber bio-pic.

Turns out, it isn’t similar at all. But I enjoyed it very much.

The next morning, while putting on makeup, I started wondering, because my brain will not stop jabbering for even a nanosecond: All this attention and adulation and hype – is The Bieber really so superior to me? I mean, how would we stack up, in a head to head contest?

So I started making a list…

(Today I am guest-posting over at The Five Stages – where I plan to indulge my fascination with pop-culture from time to time. Click here to read the rest of the story and to see my glamour pic, because when you visit Jenny’s site, you have to bring the glam.)

The Writer – ATCL

Cathy LaGrow Leave a comment

Last month, I got to spend a few hours with one of my writing mentors, an author whose work I love.

Since then, she’s continued publishing her usual truthful, pointed, eloquent posts and commentaries. She caught a lot of heat over one in particular, an article for CNN which garnered her over 5000 mostly-nasty messages.

Just another day at the office, for her.

This post was originally published on All The Church Ladies, a website which has closed. I am in the process of moving all my ATCL posts back over here.

Awesometown!

Cathy LaGrow 8 Comments

Clearly, my PR people deserve a raise.

A while back, I stumbled upon a blog created by a fantastic guy named Knox McCoy (he swears that’s his actual name, although I still have my doubts, because nobody’s parents are that cool.)

The blog is great: funny, clever, interesting. Knox marries pop-culture and Christianity better than anyone I’ve read. Plus, he’s smart.

You know how I feel about that.

Anyway, I made a comment on one of Knox’s posts, and one thing led to another, and Knox offered to interview me for his series “Residents of Awesometown.”

Those of you who know me in real life, stop snickering.

Today Knox published that interview, and it’s a hoot. The questions alone are worth the price of admission. (We talk about Scooby-Doo, time travel, Mythbusters, science, the King of Horror…) Head over to Awesometown and check it out – and take a look around his blog, while you’re there.

You can thank me later.

A Magnificent Mind

Cathy LaGrow 26 Comments

It would have been so, so easy to dismiss him as useless. And many did, at first.

His father died when the boy was still in the womb, and his grieving mother gave birth to him early. He was a runty little thing whom nobody expected to survive.

He lived, but when he was three his mother remarried and trotted off to start a new family, leaving the toddler in the care of his grandmother for years.

The boy wasn’t a good student, and when he was a teenager, he was sent to work in the fields of the family farm, where he nearly drove everyone mad with his ineptness.  There were whispers that he was not quite right in the head. Unable to concentrate on the simplest tasks, he would wander the fields, staring at nothing, or fiddle with piles of rocks, allowing the sheep he was tending to escape.

It’s safe to say, in other words, that no one would have guessed that 350 years later, the brightest scientists in the world would still be referring to the boy’s mental gifts as “divine.”

*******

I’ll be honest. I tend to swoon a little, when it comes to smart-ies. Continue reading →

When Dreams Don’t Come True

Cathy LaGrow Leave a comment

Presenting…my first-ever cameo guest post!

A few months ago, wanting to reference Sally Ride in a post I was writing, I Googled “first female U.S. astronaut” – only to discover that Sally Ride does not hold that distinction. And I stumbled upon a wonderful, heartbreaking story that I knew I wanted to write about.

My friend Tony Alicea has been running a series on his blog, called Awaken the Dreamers. When I approached him about writing a guest post for the series, featuring my newly-found story, Tony said, “Absolutely!”

Writing this post kicked me squarely out of my comfort zone. I do not usually write “devotional” posts, but I am so happy to be doing my first one for Tony. Please read it by clicking here.

I hope you like it.