Brian has a girlfriend

She's twelve too.

They met because they were both in a recent children's theatre program. She was a juggler and he was a mime in Robin Hood's band of merry out-of-work-performers. A group comes into town every year.

At first he was sad because he did not get her phone number. Then we told him that her last name is fairly uncommon, and he called her. She is home schooled. Brian considers himself homeschooled these days, even though he is only half-way there.

Anyway, she invited him to her youth group tonight.

Her mother asks lots of questions about us. She told us about how G-d just prompted them to give up their jobs and move to this small town with no idea of what they were going to do, but that G-d has blessed them greatly. They are involved in a new church start-up. It is a scary fundamentalist denomination. The youth group though is at an established Baptist church.

She wanted to know if we had a church home. I told her we went into The City. I gave her the name very clearly so that she could check us out. "Is that the church that doesn't use any instruments?" "Oh no," I assured her. "We have a great organist and a wonderful bell choir. We have lots of good music." I did want to say, "It's the church with all the homos" but I was nice and didn't.

Hubby took Brian to the youth group.

Hubby came back and was very gentle with me. He said that Brian had a really good time, and that it was good to see him interacting with a group. He needs to develop more social skills, and make more friends. Hubby thinks we should let him go.

Have you ever had a set of instructions start with, "First, DON'T PANIC"?

"It's really conservative, isn't it?"

"Well, they're really into memorizing Bible verses. And they all have uniforms. Brian wants a one."

A bunch of small town kids in uniforms memorizing Bible verses. It does not sound good to me.

Why can't Brian have a crush on a nice liberal girl?